Happy Thursday to you,
So how has your kettlebell training been going this week?
In the last couple of weeks I’ve been really enjoying the slingshot and halo exercises.
These two kettlebell exercises are great for warming up the shoulders, upper back, upper arms and forearms.
For beginners the slingshot is a great exercise to help acclimatise you to the kettlebell weight and improve your grip strength.
Try 20 slingshots clockwise and 20 slingshots anti-clockwise every morning for 30 days and just see how much stronger and more confident you feel handling the kettlebell.
Follow these slingshots with 10 halos in each direction.
When you can perform a total of 100 slingshots non-stop then increase the kettlebell weight.
More than anything else the slingshot exercise really feels like a pleasure to perform!
Exercise efficiency vs non-efficiency
If your goals are fat loss or improving your cardio then exercise efficiency is your worst enemy.
To demonstrate this lets take a look at the 2 variations of the kettlebell clean, the swing clean and the dead clean.
Below I’m performing the dead clean which takes the kettlebell from a ‘dead’ position at the bottom straight up the body and into the racked position.
The swing clean is different, the kettlebell is swung gentle back between the legs, like a mini kettlebell swing, and then taken up into the racked position.
Which variation do you think is most efficient?
The swing clean is most efficient.
In fact, when you perform the swing clean there is hardly any knee bend and very little energy is used at all.
Compare this to the dead clean where the knees bend and the hips, hamstrings and buttocks have to work hard to drive the kettlebell up the body from the bottom ‘dead’ position.
Guess which variation I teach and use in all my workouts?
Yes, the dead clean.
I don’t want you to be efficient and use less energy when performing the clean, I want you to use as much energy as possible.
The more energy you use, the more calories you burn, the more demanding the cardio and the more your muscles have to adapt and develop.
The swing clean is perfect for kettlebell sport competitions where you are trying to conserve energy.
The contrast between efficiency and inefficiency is everywhere in sports if you look closely.
Sports men and women ultimately want to be as efficient as possible with efficient movements and optimised clothing and equipment.
In the fat loss / muscle developing world looking for ways to become inefficient is the goal for better results. eg. slowing down movements, adding instability, reducing momentum, creating additional resistance etc.
Next time you exercise have a think about your exercise movements.
Are you being efficient or inefficient?
Here’s an advanced workout from my 12 Week Women’s Kettlebell Program:
- Two Handed Swing – 60 seconds
- Lunge with Rotation – 60 seconds
- Squat and Press – 60 seconds
- Slow Mountain Climbers – 60 seconds
- Rest 60 seconds
There is no doubt about it, this is a challenging full body 4 minute workout.
For the lunges and slow mountain climber exercises you change sides after each rep.
With the squat and press exercise you change sides after 30 seconds.
Can you complete 3 rounds of this workout?
Click to download this workout
This weeks question:
Q. “Is it better to perform an exercise for reps or for time?”
A. For beginners I believe that exercising for time is much better.
Beginners have varying strengths and weaknesses and so exercising for time allows them to acclimatise to an exercise at their own pace.
Over time the beginner can perform more and more reps within the timeframe without the pressure of having to reach a certain number.
Personally, I like to introduce beginners to the fundamental movement patterns using short 30 second exercises. Over time these increase to 45 and 60 seconds.
As the trainee becomes more proficient at the various exercises then familiar patterns and rep numbers arise. Gradually an intermediate lifter will know the number or reps and weight that will challenge them and numbers can be adjusted accordingly.
I hope this helps.
Take care,
Greg