Make it a double....

I typically don't know exactly what I'm going to do for a workout until I'm about halfway through my warmup.. My warmup usually consists of some skipping rope and joint mobility exercises to get the heart pumping and the joints all lubed up and then I hit the workout. My workouts will usually have most of the following categories covered: push, pull, jump, squat, something ballistic, and something that really works the entire body hard. Sometimes each exercise will have a combination of those. The other day I decided to go with a double kettlebell workout with a 60sec/30sec work to rest ratio.. To me, working with double kettlebells is the best way to improve strength and explosive power. Each exercise calls every muscle in your body into play. Plus, you're working so hard for the interval that you really increase your anaerobic threshold which gives you the ability to work harder, longer which is a real benefit to endurance athletes as well. 

For this workout, since I was doing 60 seconds of work intervals I didn't want to go too heavy since it's important to be able to keep as good a form as possible for the entire interval, so I went with double 16kg kettlebells. For the exercises I chose the following (reps per 60 seconds in parentheses):

push: Military Press (15)

pull: renegade row (11 or 12 each side)

squat: front squats (15-17)

ballistic: double KB swings (30-32)

full body: Double Getup (6)

Doing double kettlebell swings is an unbelievable exercise. You're typically working with heavy weights (in this case about 70 pounds) since you have two kettlebells and you also can't control the speed of the exercise.. With most exercises there is an option to rest for a second or two between repetitions as you get tired. With the swings you are at the complete mercy of the kettlebells since they are always moving.. In 60 seconds, I was doing about 30 kettlebell swings with 32kg.. The last 5 were really difficult to keep getting the weight up to shoulder level and required a lot of determination and focus to continue to recruit every muscle in my body to raise the weights. By the end of 60 seconds my heart rate was way, way up and my body was completely pumped. Excellent exercise!

The double getup is an exercise that Steve Maxwell had me doing when I was training with him down in Philadelphia. This is a fantastic full body exercise that resembles the double KB Turkish Getup except without the weights overhead. Here's a video of one minute of the double getup. 

Give this workout a try and let me know what you think. Make variations as needed. You can do it with one kettlebell (except for the renegade rows, those need two).. Or you can adjust the work:rest ratios and times as well..

All the best,

Kevin