Kettlebell Can’t increase my heavy swings.. advice?

[Opiaswing]

Hi all,

So I have a 64kg kettlebell which I can clean pretty reasonably (see vid) but am predominantly looking to improve my swings with it.

Problem is, I love training and want to train daily as it is a hobby for me, not just ‘working out’. For this reason, I seem to struggle improving my 64kg swing number to the point I have considered selling and buying a 56kg kettlebell as it’s a weight I can still just pick up and swing without having to specifically programme to improve. I just like playing with kettlebells.

I managed to get to 20 swings with it but it seemed without diligent programming and eating a lot for the purpose, I couldn’t maintain it.

Now I hover around 5-12 full force, snappy swings.

Any advice?


Vid:
Aaron on Instagram: “64kg. Greasing the groove. . . #kettlebellworkout #kettlebellswings #kettlebell #kettlebells #strongfirst #onnit #homeworkouts #homeworkout…”

 

[Nacho]

Any advice?

Yes, be careful when you shake someones hand.

 

[Oscar]

I managed to get to 20 swings with it but it seemed without diligent programming and eating a lot for the purpose, I couldn’t maintain it.

Now I hover around 5-12 full force,

Is that 20 swings per set or total volume in a workout?

 

[Anna C]

I would say go the A+A route. Do 3-5 heavy, snappy swings... rest... repeat with the other arm (or just repeat, if you're doing them 2H).... repeat... continue for a longer and longer session.

Building strength and endurance this way will enable you to do more work -- it is how I got to Sinister. You don't have to directly train "condensed" work in order to build the ability to perform "condensed" work.

 

[Hung]

my friend, you are cleaning my bodyweight...

 

[Opiaswing]

Is that 20 swings per set or total volume in a workout?

/set

I would say go the A+A route. Do 3-5 heavy, snappy swings... rest... repeat with the other arm (or just repeat, if you're doing them 2H).... repeat... continue for a longer and longer session.

Building strength and endurance this way will enable you to do more work -- it is how I got to Sinister. You don't have to directly train "condensed" work in order to build the ability to perform "condensed" work.

Could you tell me a bit more about this? So even if I were to do 5 rep sets but plenty of them, I could train more regularly and still gain strength, even if my max rep set is double that? (10-12)

 

[Oscar]

/set

Could you tell me a bit more about this? So even if I were to do 5 rep sets but plenty of them, I could train more regularly and still gain strength, even if my max rep set is double that? (10-12)

20 reps per set is a lot! You can do as Anna suggested.

 

[Anna C]

Could you tell me a bit more about this? So even if I were to do 5 rep sets but plenty of them, I could train more regularly and still gain strength, even if my max rep set is double that? (10-12)

Yes, exactly. Leading up to Sinister (which is 10 x 10 of course), I had done VERY few sets of 10 swings at a time with 32kg. But I had done literally thousands of swings with 32kg in sets of 5 on @Al Ciampa's A+A swing protocols. So while I don't know for sure if it would drive your max reps set higher than the current 10-12, I believe it would, and I feel sure you'd get more training effect (strength, power, muscle development, endurance/stamina, etc.) by doing more swings in total volume. Even if your one and only goal was to drive your max rep set higher, it would be a good training strategy to do the A+A training for a while and then do some peaking for max rep sets for a few weeks. Or even mix in a max rep set day now and then to see how it's going.

Not sure how many swings you usually get in during a typical session... that's a really heavy bell, so I'll guess it's less than 100. Let's say it's 60. To do A+A, you'd do 2-4 sessions per week and do somewhere between maybe 30 and 120 swings total in each session. And you could vary the reps, too... (I'm going outside the normal A+A parameters, but that's done too, and your bell size is not typical)... so you might do 10 repeats of 3 reps for a total of 30 swings one day, and 16 repeats of 4 reps for a total of 64 swings on another day, and 20 repeats of 5 swings for a total of 100 swings on another day... etc. Slowly over the weeks, increase the volume. Take a deload week when you feel you need it (half the volume). Use a HR monitor if you're so inclined, that can be good feedback and good data to see changes over time. As to how long to rest between repeats, you can use the clock (1 min, 1:15, etc... whatever gets you to feeling mostly fully recovered), you can use the HR monitor and wait for HR to get back down to a specific value, or you can just go by breathing and by feel. Err on the side of more rest, not less.

 

[Opiaswing]

Yes, exactly. Leading up to Sinister (which is 10 x 10 of course), I had done VERY few sets of 10 swings at a time with 32kg. But I had done literally thousands of swings with 32kg in sets of 5 on @Al Ciampa's A+A swing protocols. So while I don't know for sure if it would drive your max reps set higher than the current 10-12, I believe it would, and I feel sure you'd get more training effect (strength, power, muscle development, endurance/stamina, etc.) by doing more swings in total volume. Even if your one and only goal was to drive your max rep set higher, it would be a good training strategy to do the A+A training for a while and then do some peaking for max rep sets for a few weeks. Or even mix in a max rep set day now and then to see how it's going.

Not sure how many swings you usually get in during a typical session... that's a really heavy bell, so I'll guess it's less than 100. Let's say it's 60. To do A+A, you'd do 2-4 sessions per week and do somewhere between maybe 30 and 120 swings total in each session. And you could vary the reps, too... (I'm going outside the normal A+A parameters, but that's done too, and your bell size is not typical)... so you might do 10 repeats of 3 reps for a total of 30 swings one day, and 16 repeats of 4 reps for a total of 64 swings on another day, and 20 repeats of 5 swings for a total of 100 swings on another day... etc. Slowly over the weeks, increase the volume. Take a deload week when you feel you need it (half the volume). Use a HR monitor if you're so inclined, that can be good feedback and good data to see changes over time. As to how long to rest between repeats, you can use the clock (1 min, 1:15, etc... whatever gets you to feeling mostly fully recovered), you can use the HR monitor and wait for HR to get back down to a specific value, or you can just go by breathing and by feel. Err on the side of more rest, not less.

This is very helpful. The goal of course is strength and fitness, i guess I was focusing on increased swing reps as this would be a definite gauge of progression in those areas, but if you think sub-maximal sets of increased volume is a way for me to achieve these ends (progression in my performance) then i'll definitely try this.

Thank you.