Double Trouble

Everybody who works out with us knows how incredible the kettlebell is as a training modality.. Is it the be all, end all? Of course not, and anybody who tells you it is is full of shit. Actually, anybody who tells you that their system is the be all, end all of physical conditioning is full of shit.. Simply because when it comes to functional conditioning there are tons of ways to get great workouts. Bodyweight, kettlebells, ropes, rings, balls, sandbags.. The list is long. But I will tell you, that in my experience you get the most bang for your buck with the kettlebell. There is really nothing else that I've trained with that works every muscle in your body so hard in such a short period of time. And if you want to make it even more effective, do double kettlebell work.

Today for the Spartan workout at the gym I gave everybody a double kettlebell workout. When you add a second kettlebell to an exercise there is the obvious increase in weight. Secondly, you now have an added weight swinging around that you need to both generate the power to move and recruit the extra muscles to stabilize. With one kettlebell, much of the body can assist in the stabilization of the swinging weight, with the second kettlebell there is a second kinetic chain activated which increases the difficulty and intensity of the exercise by an order of magnitude. 

For my workout today I took a different approach to the day's Spartan workout. The Spartan workout was 5 rounds in a 30:30 format with 1:00 rest between rounds of:

double swings

front squat

double push press

renegade row

double high pull

This is a phenomenal max strength building type of workout where you would choose fairly heavy weights with lower reps for 30 seconds at a time followed by a 30 second rest. I decided to change it up a little and go with lower weights and longer work periods for muscular endurance since this better complements my cycling training. So I did the 5 exercises for one minute at a time with no rest in between using double 16kgs. 5:00 minutes of intense work, 1:00 minute of rest. This also makes a perfect workout for my MMA fighters that I train. MMA fighters train in 3 x 5:00 rounds with 1 minute rest. So this format really does a great job simulating the effort required in an MMA fight. By doing the double kettlebell swings first for a full minute, you immediately crank your heart rate through the roof. Then you have to rack the weights for the next two minutes while you perform a minute of squats followed by a minute of push press. With your heart pounding out of your chest it feels like an elephant standing on your chest with the kettlebells in the rack position. Very difficult to breathe. After that you go right into the renegade rows for a super core exercise that really works every muscle in your body to maintain stabilization through the midsection. At this point it's been 4:00, my heart is cranked to about 95% max, and my body is starting to really fatigue. I went directly into double snatch which is the ultimate in generating full body ballistic power. This is a great finisher to a set like this because in a fight you need to be able to crank it up for max power while you're fatigued. Doing double snatches for the last minute of a 5:00 minute set is a sure way to make sure you have the gas in the tank required at the end of a round in a fight. Limiting your rest between rounds to only 1:00 minute ensures that by the time you get a little bit into round 2 you're really tapping into your mental toughness to gut it out and continue. Round 3 is sheer guts and determination. 5 stars for this one..

Here's a video of round 2 of 3.. 

Train hard,

kevin