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Kettlebell A+A Workout Duration Importance

Brak

Brak

Level 2 Valued Member
I've been doing A+A / AGT this year, and much of the good advice is to take whatever rest is required between sets to fully recover before the next effort. At the same time, I stubbornly can't shake some old habits like timing the workout, for seemingly good reason.
The idea is that as we add weight or reps and include a time component, if we can do more work in the same time, we have increased some measure of fitness, strength, endurance, etc. In A+A terms it would be an increase in work capacity or aerobic fitness allowing the rest period to remain the same while volume is increasing. At the opposite end of this same line of thinking; if it takes longer to do the same work, we have lost fitness.
The other perspective - Pavel's Grease the Groove, which really doesn't have a time element at all; just do more stuff throughout the day or week and you'll get stronger...the concept of getting a certain amount done in a certain time is not part of it.

So I feel like many who have embraced A+A just take whatever time is needed and don't stress about it. And it seems normal that if I am going to do more reps, I may need a little more time? But how much extra time before I am on the wrong side of that curve, fooling myself into thinking I am making improvements just because I am doing more, but it is taking longer, so...maybe not really improving anything? Since I can't be sure - I time it - and try to finish in a certain time frame, which of course leads to looking at the clock as I close in on my target sets and potentially rush my rests as I try to finish "on-time". It doesn't feel right.

Am I way overthinking this or is the duration of a workout worth paying attention to?
 
I think it is worth noting that, while there is a school of A+A thought as you describe on this forum, many of Pavel's A+A programs are timed. Duration, based on Pavel's work and answers to some article questions, would seem to be based on one's goals, noting that Russian endurance athletes do such training for 2.5 hours and such.
 
There appears to be two ways of doing this (currently) both under the A+A banner. The way Pavel organizes his plans is to time the rest, and when you can't pass the talk test when it's time for your next set you are done for the day. You should see the number of set increase before you hit the wall and that will show you if you are improving.

The second method is more as you described, which is to take the time you need to recover enough to perform the work, which is untimed.

GTG is pure strength, no conditioning element to it at all and doesn't follow the A+A methodology.
 
I think for strength, rest til ready, for more conditioning based results, time/monitor/adjust rest times.

I’m currently doing KB strong. I don’t time rest at all, just do the next set when I’m ready. You do naturally end up needing less, but I don’t stress too much.

I also do EMOM swings ( swing hard 3.0 ) in between the 2 Strong days and find so far that this has some carryover to reducing rest times when doing Strong.
 
I think there is a difference in "timing the workout" and "start the next set at X time"
@BJJ Shawn noted that as sessions continue, more sets in the same time/able to do more sets passing the talk test starts to occur, just note progress won't happen linearly
 
Ahhh, @wespom9 , you are correct, and that difference is the problem. I think I inadvertently mixed the two different but equally valid approaches here, which has me stressing out, looking at the clock near the end of the workout.

I was originally doing the timed sets - Armor Building Complex EMOMs and other timed set stuff. But I was unhappy with the way that in the first half of the workout, the rests seemed too long, it was too easy (didn't even get anywhere near the Aerobic zone). And near the end of the workout, the rests were too short, so the workout would stop before I'd completed it (I know this is as Pavel planned it, but it felt strange to just stop, especially when the majority of the workout never got up the Aerobic zone).

So I decided the obvious remedy is what others pointed out, to just rest to recovery. This works great in that the rest is very short for the first few sets getting you into the A training zone quickly, and then as the workout progresses the rest can be as long as needed to stay in the target zone. Perfect right, this is the second method, no timed sets, nothing timed?
Not so fast, I had to overthink it: I thought to myself that this optimization meant that an EMOM with 30 target sets (30 minutes) would/should also be able to more efficiently be completed as 30 target sets with variable rest (shorter at the beginning, longer at the end) in the same 30 minutes and this additional level of control over total time of workout would allow for that extra control that feels like it is missing from the strangely unstructured (uncontrolled from a progress eval standpoint) "just take as long as it takes" method.
 
Brak said:
Am I way overthinking this or is the duration of a workout worth paying attention to?
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I think that the largest effect I can find in training variables is the overall Volume per calendar month.

I think that when I get to higher intensities - I'll find the fork in the road where I'll have to choose one direction which lends itself to Hypertrophy, or strength, or speed, or power.

But, Since I'm still young in training, right now high enough loads across a month or cycle just helps everything improve.

To rephrase: whatever rest periods allow for more sets, whatever length of sessions allow for more sessions. those can be good to find. now, that said...
Rest is not one thing. there is a lot of tuning that can be done with Rest Periods. but, I find those to be a matter of fine tuning.
overall, volume reigns supreme in my results. everything else has its effect, it's just not surpassing the effect of changes in volume.
 
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Brak said:
So I feel like many who have embraced A+A just take whatever time is needed and don't stress about it. And it seems normal that if I am going to do more reps, I may need a little more time? But how much extra time before I am on the wrong side of that curve, fooling myself into thinking I am making improvements just because I am doing more, but it is taking longer, so...maybe not really improving anything? Since I can't be sure - I time it - and try to finish in a certain time frame, which of course leads to looking at the clock as I close in on my target sets and potentially rush my rests as I try to finish "on-time". It doesn't feel right.

Am I way overthinking this or is the duration of a workout worth paying attention to?
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You are overthinking it and using too much of a short term time frame.

Focus on the process -- punch the clock and put in the time and reps. Let the accumulated time and volume do the work.

Along the way, you will have ups and downs, good days and bad day, and spend a lot of time on plateaus where it may seem like not much is happening.

Keep pounding the rock. "Pound the rock" is a motto adopted by Gregg Popovich, the legendary coach of the NBA's San Antonio Spurs, based on the "Stonecutter's Credo":
When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before. — Jacob Riis
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Keep pounding the rock and over time the biggest measures of improvement will be your level of effort to do the same work, and then being able to move up in bell size. Compressing session length or rest intervals may occur to an extent, but IMO shouldn't be a focus.

Brak said:
I was originally doing the timed sets - Armor Building Complex EMOMs and other timed set stuff. But I was unhappy with the way that in the first half of the workout, the rests seemed too long, it was too easy (didn't even get anywhere near the Aerobic zone). And near the end of the workout, the rests were too short, so the workout would stop before I'd completed it
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I've done a lot of what I think of as "classic" A+A, inspired by Al Ciampa (heavy sets of 5, generous rest, longer session duration), and I've done a lot of it by feel and a lot by the clock. If I am going by the clock, I set a very generous rest interval that seems way too long at the beginning of a session, so it will still be reasonably generous at the end of a long session. If your timed interval was too short at the end of a session, then it just wasn't long enough in the first place. Don't worry about being in any "zone." The idea is not to stay in a particular heartrate range, but to do a high volume of high-power work. The aerobic part is the recovery that gets you ready for the next repeat, not the work that elevates your heartrate.
 
@Steve W. - That's some good stuff - I like the Stonecutter's Credo. I was under the impression that to train (and see improvement) in recovery, i.e. aerobic capacity, I'd need to spend a significant amount of time in the aerobic zone - and the more the better. But if the A in A+A isn't necessarily meant to drive that behavior but rather to simply say, don't be glycolytic, then ok. What you say sounds much more reasonable and sustainable. And less stress is really what drew me to AGT and by extension A+A. So thanks.
 
@Brak, maybe in your case HR might be a good guideline for A+A, similar to what @Harald Motz has described quite a few times. For example, wait until your HR has return to 90-100 BPM before you start your next set. If you are impatient, you need to find ways to speed up recovery... SecondWind breathing exercises, fast-and-loose, conscious relaxation, etc.

Stop your session when power drops, your hands have had enough, or RPE exceeds an 8.
 
Brak said:
@Steve W. - That's some good stuff - I like the Stonecutter's Credo. I was under the impression that to train (and see improvement) in recovery, i.e. aerobic capacity, I'd need to spend a significant amount of time in the aerobic zone - and the more the better. But if the A in A+A isn't necessarily meant to drive that behavior but rather to simply say, don't be glycolytic, then ok. What you say sounds much more reasonable and sustainable. And less stress is really what drew me to AGT and by extension A+A. So thanks.
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To echo @Bauer's post, @Harald Motz, who is very experienced and accomplished with A+A training, does recommend using an HR monitor for A+A. But to ensure sufficient recovery, not to ensure that the HR is elevated into a certain zone by the work. I've never used an HR monitor for this, but here's his recommendation from a recent post. Note that the target baseline HR should be low.

Harald Motz said:
I like to recommend for A+A training the use of a hr monitor. Starting the next repeat at a (low) baseline. It is foolproof. And as you say you literally 'see' the rising of a baseline with hr charts over time. Therefore the hr monitor is very usefull for A+A work. Surely rest between repeats can be guided by calmness/urgency to breath without a monitor - but with hr graphs development becomes pretty obvious.
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Brak said:
... if we can do more work in the same time, we have increased some measure of fitness, strength, endurance, etc.
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No, not necessarily. You may have increased your tolerance for misery. Maybe you also did something good, maybe not. When you "can do more work in the same time" without additional suffering, perhaps then. But even then, not all training strives to increase "etc," by which I mean increasing strength is a different goal than increasing endurance. Your goal should determine what attribute(s) you are training to improve. If you don't care about the nature of the improvements, and you don't care about the level of suffering and possible damage you're doing to your body as you suffer, there are plenty of programs and gyms out there happy to accommodate you.

Adachi said:
the largest effect I can find in training variables is the overall Volume per calendar month.
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I think this is particularly true for A + A work. If the program is "hard work, brief effort, easy recovery" then doing more work in the same time, unless your recovery ability has demonstrably improved, might be considered counter-productive. Increasing volume -> improved recovery -> maybe reduced recovery time but likely better just do more work at the same pace.

-S-
 
This mirrors insights from endurance sport training (tris, ocr, ultramarathons, adventure races, etc), the greatest determinant of adaptions is the volume of training. Other specifics such as tempo runs, hill sprints, LT runs, are all just secondary to changes in volume over time. I’d guess that this is a general principle sport/physical training. Different adaptions call for different training methods, but volume is the rate limiter.
 
Bauer said:
If you are impatient, you need to find ways to speed up recovery... SecondWind breathing exercises, fast-and-loose, conscious relaxation, etc.
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@Bauer Looking into SecondWind now, I am quite impatient, just want to get my workouts over with - this sounds like just what I need (in addition to simply enjoying my time in my gym). THX
Steve W. said:
recommend using an HR monitor for A+A. But to ensure sufficient recovery, not to ensure that the HR is elevated into a certain zone by the work.
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@Steve W. - Sounds good, thanks, I do use an HRM and need to focus more on getting the heart rate lower, being less impatient, etc.
Steve Freides said:
doing more work in the same time, unless your recovery ability has demonstrably improved, might be considered counter-productive
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@Steve Freides - lots of good points about the many variables that poke holes in the simple logic of time-defined fitness improvements... I'm definitely not looking to increase suffering or fool myself by manning-up during workouts.

Thanks for mentioning the bit about trying to hit a specific time goal while increasing volume being potentially "counter-productive". This is how a part of me was feeling when I'd force the last few sets before full recovery - the stress came from trying to hit two opposing goals - 1. The (now realizing flawed) goal of finishing "on-time" being an important metric, and 2. The goal of not going glycolytic / passsing talk test / controlling HR, etc. I'd tell myself that just a few minutes glycolytic at the end of a workout was no biggie, because as long as I'm finishing on time, I'm hitting my other goals. This thread is clearly providing feedback that I had it backwards.
 
I've been playing with 1 rep per 15 secs total time.

Last three A+A snatching sessions were 5 reps every 75 secs, starting with 18 repeats, next time 24 repeats, and lastly 30 repeats. This was with a 20k bell.

This morning used the 24k bell and went with 30 repeats of 2 reps every 30 secs. I like the timed sets to be honest. And the 15 secs of overall time per snatch allows to build in varied repeats. Going to play around with delta change in reps per repeat, but keep the overall repeats at 30, then bump up to 40 repeats.

Admittedly I've only stretched A+A sessions to 40 repeats, typically waving up/down between 18-40 repeats. My hands usually tell me when the session is done.
 
mar2safety said:
I've 1HS with sock sleeves, but not snatched. Good idea. I'm assuming you go down a bell?
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I don't draw a distinction between with sock sleeves or not. just that my callouses get punished without it.

Honestly, after my first serious week of snatching - I Put on the sock sleeves, and I've never noticed a problem across several cycles of Q&D with 24kg . as long as my finger grip strength is up to snuff I haven't noticed a problem with traction. I guess if Q&D 044 gave me trouble, and maybe it did at one point - but I don't remember - straight 10x10 every 3 minutes was something that I did do with snatches and it worked swimmingly for intra-session recovery.

for reference, I suppose the nearest benchmark of grip capacity is that I have gotten past Simple toward Solid in swing strength. and grip is not the limiting factor in those cases.
 
Georgiaoutdoors said:
This mirrors insights from endurance sport training (tris, ocr, ultramarathons, adventure races, etc), the greatest determinant of adaptions is the volume of training. Other specifics such as tempo runs, hill sprints, LT runs, are all just secondary to changes in volume over time. I’d guess that this is a general principle sport/physical training. Different adaptions call for different training methods, but volume is the rate limiter.
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This might be true in many cases, but not all. I'll give a personal example - when I was a runner, I did my mileage at various paces, most of which I had no clue about. When I read a book, Running Formula by Dr. Jack Daniels, it was the addition of very specific things like tempo runs and adjusting the pace of my easy runs that caused me to improve without any change in overall volume.

Often the right answer is, "It depends." You did say "the greatest" determinant, and not the only, so I'll give you that. :)

-S-
 
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