Basic Kettlebell Strength Workout

Here’s an interesting story (that I’ve gotten permission to share) about a client who recently started my kettlebell boot camp. It does a great job of illustrating why you need to include some heavy/strength – oriented lifting in your kettlebell workout programming:

This client – we’ll call her Sally for the sake of the story – thought she was in pretty good shape coming into my kettlebell boot camp class. She had been running consistently a couple of times per week, in addition to attending a boot camp that relied almost exclusively on bodyweight exercises …

At her first kettlebell class, I could see that she had a great base of conditioning to start. But when it came to any kind of heavy lifting, it was game over. Her ‘strength base’, as they say, was nearly non-existent.

After about two months of integrating some heavier lifting into her workouts, she’s not only gotten stronger, but improved her conditioning-based body weight exercises as well – she can do almost twice as many push-ups, can hold her planks much longer, and can do some impressive lower body plyometric moves that were previously impossible.

This is a great story to illustrate the importance of heavy training in your workout program. You can’t rely on only doing conditioning workouts if you’re after balanced development. And building that strength base will have positive carry-over to all other aspects of your training program.

* Remember … heavy is a relative term. Meaning heavy for you is likely much different than heavy for the next guy/gal. The main point is that you’ll need to pick a weight that’s challenging for the prescribed set and rep range.

Heavy press – barbell bench press, barbell military press, double kettlebell press, etc. – 5 reps

Heavy squat – barbell back squat, double kettlebell front squat, etc. – 5 reps

Heavy pull – weighted pull up, double kettlebell swing, etc. – 5 reps

Perform exercises as a circuit, but rest 30 to 90 seconds between each exercise; rest 60 seconds and repeat sequence total of five times.

This basic kettlebell strength workout is great if you’re trying to ‘cover all your bases’ and mix some needed heavy lifting into your existing program. Performing this workout even once or twice a week will make a big difference in boosting strength levels and improving your overall fitness level. Train hard and talk soon -

Forest

P.S. Forest Vance is a Sacramento, CA based Kettlebell Enthusiast, to learn more about his Kettlebell gym and other training programs, visit http://forestvance.com