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Ode To The Kettlebell
I spent most of the winter on barbell lifting, with mild success, I was happy with how finally running Super Squats consistently went. But in the process, I bulked up a little bit. So to switch things up in the spring, I'm back to the kettlebells. (@PracticalRomantic will kill me for this) What I love about Kettlebell work is that it has all the things I love in any workout, the explosiveness and the challenge and the feeling of athleticism and the standards to measure my quantifiable numbers by; while encouraging me to work in ways that other weight workouts don't tend to. High reps, conditioning are things I normally prefer to skip.
-- Kettlebells encourage you to own the weight before you move on, for the simple reason that they're really expensive and go in big jumps anyway, so I tend to get them one pair at a time and only buy a new pair after I've totally run out of things to do with the old pair. My 50lbers lasted me six years before I bought the 62lbers, and those went through thousands upon thousands of reps before I impulse bought a single 36kg. Where with the barbell I am constantly trying to add weight, constantly trying to squeeze another 5lbs out of my muscles, with kettlebells I'm using the same weight in the same exercises for years at a time. This encourages me to really get my technique grooved, rather than to try to cheat up a weight bigger than I can actually use.
-- Kettlebells are great because they sit around my house, and it is easy to just grab them and pop out a few exercises. I can do at least a light set with any of my kettlebells with no warmup, maybe not a max set, but even with the 36kg I can pop out some swings or a few long cycle presses on a whim. I realize this is controversial among bro-scientists, but I do believe that it is possible to train the ability to have "on tap" strength as opposed to "warm up" strength. While I have a kind of respect for those who have consistent forty minute warm up routines before they start lifting, similar to the respect I have for champion bass fishermen, if all your strength is only accessible to you under ideal circumstances do you really own it?
-- Kettlebells stand for the idea of being "strong enough" conceptually, of seeking a balance between strength and endurance. Where the barbell urges you to bigger and bigger weights, forever and ever, until you hit the world record or, more likely, pull something. The classic kettlebell workout path for a man is work your way up the 24kg or the 32kg bells, then try to hit crazy reps with those. When I first got started the gold standard was 100 reps of the kettlebell snatch in 10 minutes to pass some mythical secret service test, nowadays it inflated to 100 reps in 5 minutes to make the grade as a Strongfirst instructor and on to absurd numbers for Kettlebell Sport. For the most part, if you can snatch a 24kg kettlebell and clean press two 24kg kettlebells, for reps, you're probably a pretty strong guy. I've never met anyone who could hit the old 100 snatches in ten minutes standard who wasn't in great all around shape.
-- On the other hand, as those rep standards at set weights have gotten higher and higher, we now have a new kettlebell sport even craze, the pentathlon! Where the Snatch/Jerk/Long cycle bi/triathlon have gotten crazier and crazier, the pentathlon goes the opposite way: five different 6 minute events with max rep numbers and the score is worth more per rep the higher the weight you use. Get to a good weight, then worry about reps. Then get to a max number of reps, and try to increase the weight. You always have something to pursue, but not too much of either, bring a balance to it.
Last year I tried to hit a 10m Biathlon with my 28kgs, and got up to a 131 at 190# bodyweight, which I was happy with, then I (finally) got Covid for the first time and that kind of blew up my cardio for a month which sucked. I decided to get back at it, and I'm eyeing up training the Pentathlon for a month to get back into it, then going back to trying to hit a cool number on the biathlon. I really want to hit CMS and get 160 total points on the Biathlon.
Side note: The one criticism of Crossfit I think is 100% valid is that the "American Swing" is the dumbest fucking thing in the world of fitness. Just learn the snatch you ingrates. Although every Easter I wonder if this is the year that some Crossfit gym will put together a "Stations of the Cross" WoD for Good Friday. Extra points for the Cross-Shaped improvised loaded carry implement.
First casual 5am attempt at a "full"ish pentathlon. I used the 28kg for all exercises, I foresee modifying that as I progress to maximize reps/points, but I wanted to keep it simple to start.
I reversed the set and rep times, so rather than 6 work/5 rest I did 5 work/6 rest. Technically one could achieve this within standard timing by simply resigning one minute early, so I still count it. I wanted to keep my aims conservative to start to avoid injury. Scores:
Clean: 70 reps
Clean and press: 40 reps
Jerk: 60 reps
Half Snatch: 40 reps
Push Press: 60 reps
Score @28kg: 945
I was hoping to break 1000, but where I thought the Snatch would be one of my best events the fatigue lead me to cut it off early, not worth risking an injury that will fuck up my whole weekend.
On balance I think I was overly conservative on the clean and the jerk events, could definitely push those higher, or maybe even use my 36kg to get higher scores from every rep. Snatch I might sub the 16kg in so I can power through 108 like they're nothing, rest extra, and push the push press at the end for points? Pace is going to be a bigger problem than fitness on the clean and press, I just can't hit that many that fast, but it's one spot I'll definitely keep the 28kg.
Did a full Pentathlon today with the 16kg kettlebell. Got near full scores, but missed on the half-snatch. I suspect that this event is going to be the most difficult for me. Pacing just wasn't there. This showed me I really will need to get pacing right with the heavier bells, and work on technique. Every rep needs to be perfect to maximize speed.
Clean: 120 reps
Clean and press: 70 reps (Forgot to stop at 60, only counts as 60 anyway)
Jerk: 120 reps
Half Snatch: 94 reps
Push Press: 120 reps
Score @16kg: 1,028
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