Workout 11-3

As much as I like working out with the kettlebells, sometimes it's necessary for me to just leave them alone for a little while and go back to bodyweight workouts. And when you have a strained forearm muscle that requires a "shutdown" period if it's ever going to get better, it's important to be able to still get kickass workouts in while you're shutting down that particular muscle. Using nothing but your bodyweight really allows you to do this. I strained the muscle about 8 months ago and have been reluctant to stop over-stressing it.. I continually perform heavy KB snatches, cleans, and swings and the muscle continues to give me trouble. Just last week on a day that I was determined to go easy I PR'd my Turkish Getup with 2 reps at 36kg (53% of my bodyweight). I admittedly have a lot of trouble "going easy".. So I'm going to spend the next two weeks without picking up a kettlebell and I'm going to go to a strict regimen of ass-kicking bodyweight workouts.. Today's workout was a 30 minute session to see how many rounds I could get in of the following:

100 Hindu Squats

20 Hindu Pushups

20 Jackknifes

I typically like to do longer sets of hindu squats but for today i really wanted to push the number of rounds and get a good number of pushups and jacknifes in as well.. When you're doing long sets of hindu squats, the lactic acid starts to build up in the quads at about the 40 second mark.. Being able to continue pushing through the burn requires a great deal of mental strength as well as physical endurance. It's similar to the feeling you get when time trialing on a bike or climbing hills. There's no recovery and you have to be able to push through the pain as your quads start to feel like they'll explode.. Of course, at sets of 100 squats, you're only going for a couple minutes, but when your quads are burning up it sure feels like a lot longer than that. 

As the timer went off at 30 minutes I was completing the 20th rep of the jacknife of my 7th set.. I don't know what was burning more, my quads or my lungs.. Great cardio workout, and an awesome full body burn. Huge energy level at the end of the workout! 

Totals for the workout:

700 Hindu Squats

140 Hindu Pushups

140 Jacknifes

30:00 minutes

But I sure miss the kettlebells :(

I put Michele and Marc (Official DSC Gym Rat) through a killer kettlebell workout at lunch that I wish I could have joined in.. They did the following:

100 1 arm swing

100 1 arm snatch

100 see saw press (alternating 1 arm military press)

50 KB thrusters

Michele was using 12kgs on the 1 arm swing and snatch and double 8kgs on the see saw press and thrusters.. She finished in 18:49! It was a stunning effort. Marc also came in under 20 minutes using the 16kgs.. Great job to both of you.

All the best,

kevin