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Kettlebell Geoff Neupert "THE GIANT" ??

Just started 2.0 today.

I started with the heaviest day first, as I always do Tuesday as my heavy.

May not have been smart, as the last rung was rough....

I'm starting to realize Geoff's programs are much more lifting programs, as compared to the "cardio without dishonor" motif in Pavel's works. ;)
 
watchnerd said:
I'm starting to realize Geoff's programs are much more lifting programs, as compared to the "cardio without dishonor" motif in Pavel's works. ;)
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Maybe, but depending where you are in your "block", and in your week, they can turn into "cardio without dishonor" for sure (or have for me, anyway). The light (and to some degree, even the medium) days of 3.0 and 1.0 got......gassy for sure later in the blocks for me. 1.1, not so quite as much, but still a bit; HR was not completely recovering towards the end of light day.

That's one of the real "beauties" of this, for me. Some of the sessions are total grinds (I did my first day of 3.0 yesterday, and it was definitely THAT), and some leave me gasping on the edge of the cliffs of insanity........
 
Reardon55 said:
Dropping low enough to pass talk test before delts were ready to go again. HR stayed in 85-95 percent of max range for last 15m of session. Maybe 20.
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Huh, interesting.

My experience is very different.

Maybe like 115-120 BPM, momentarily, after I finish a ladder, which, if those charts are accurate, should be about 70% for my age.

My steady state during the session clocks in at about 80-90 BPM, which should be about 50% MHR.

So far, with the Giant series, I'm much more gated by localized fatigue as opposed to systemic.
 
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watchnerd said:
So far, with the Giant series, I'm much more gated by localized fatigue as opposed to systemic.
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Me too, except on light days towards the end of block. As an oly lifter, it may be that your “system” is very “strong “, relative to your pressing strength. I would say mine was too (I hadnt done regular overhead strength work in years), but after several months of this, my pressing strength has caught up a bit (i couldnt get a 3rd with 32s in Oct, and now im doing 5 with 40s). Sets of 2-cleans were not a problem yesterday. Sets of 8 with a bit less weight last week, though...., i was really gasping.
 
Reardon55 said:
Me too, except on light days towards the end of block. As an oly lifter, it may be that your “system” is very “strong “, relative to your pressing strength. I would say mine was too (I hadnt done regular overhead strength work in years), but after several months of this, my pressing strength has caught up a bit (i couldnt get a 3rd with 32s in Oct, and now im doing 5 with 40s). Sets of 2-cleans were not a problem yesterday. Sets of 8 with a bit less weight last week, though...., i was really gasping.
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That would be one guess: since I'm used to doing a lot of heavy BB squats, for example, maybe the systemic load of even double KBs is much less than I'm adapted to.

But it could also be training style.

Rests in O-lifting can be pretty long, 3-5 min between sets.

My rest periods with the Giant have been, I dunno...90 seconds to 2 min or so.

And, personally, I get catabolic if I start to do a lot of glycolitic training. So I try not to go there.

I'm not doing any EMOMs with Giant, although I am with Swing Hard.
 
Just had a bad day with the Giant.

Week 3, day 2 of Giant 3.0. Hit 10 triples last week, Monday was great (20 doubles, previous high 15) was hoping for 12 or thirteen triples.

After the third set, I couldn't get more than two. Kept increasing the rest, hoping to hit some more triples, but couldn't get there, just not very strong today.

I understand that the great thing about autoregulation is that it allows for a 48yo like me to have a bad day. My question is: how do you handle it?

- call it a day after failing to hit the number of reps three times?
- drop down to a lower rep goal?
- keep trying and extending the rest, even after you recognize that you don't have what it takes today?

I'm not at all discouraged, the program is working -- I just want to make sure that I'm handling the occasional off day in the most sensible way.
 
Eric Wilson said:
Just had a bad day with the Giant.

Week 3, day 2 of Giant 3.0. Hit 10 triples last week, Monday was great (20 doubles, previous high 15) was hoping for 12 or thirteen triples.

After the third set, I couldn't get more than two. Kept increasing the rest, hoping to hit some more triples, but couldn't get there, just not very strong today.

I understand that the great thing about autoregulation is that it allows for a 48yo like me to have a bad day. My question is: how do you handle it?

- call it a day after failing to hit the number of reps three times?
- drop down to a lower rep goal?
- keep trying and extending the rest, even after you recognize that you don't have what it takes today?

I'm not at all discouraged, the program is working -- I just want to make sure that I'm handling the occasional off day in the most sensible way.
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Had one of those on Monday myself. Some weeks/days it just happens. Best advice from a personal standpoint, extend the rest periods and just chalk it up to one of those days.
 
@Reardon55 and @watchnerd I just look at it like this....I can't overthink it....I just show up and:

It has helped me to keep my weight down and/or manageable which for me is a difficulty,
it has lowered my resting pulse big time, my weight is only up about 4 pounds since October yet just as someone else posted recently clothes are fitting much better,
my strength and strength endurance has increased significantly without beating myself up with super heavy singles
 
Eric Wilson said:
Just had a bad day with the Giant.

Week 3, day 2 of Giant 3.0. Hit 10 triples last week, Monday was great (20 doubles, previous high 15) was hoping for 12 or thirteen triples.

After the third set, I couldn't get more than two. Kept increasing the rest, hoping to hit some more triples, but couldn't get there, just not very strong today.

I understand that the great thing about autoregulation is that it allows for a 48yo like me to have a bad day. My question is: how do you handle it?

- call it a day after failing to hit the number of reps three times?
- drop down to a lower rep goal?
- keep trying and extending the rest, even after you recognize that you don't have what it takes today?

I'm not at all discouraged, the program is working -- I just want to make sure that I'm handling the occasional off day in the most sensible way.
Click to expand...

If my reps stop being snappy / start getting ugly, I'm done with the set.

If it happens on the next set, after extra rest, I'm done with that weight for the day.

If I'm mostly also done with the time limit, I call it a day.

If this happens with significant time left (like 5-10 min left), I drop down a bell size and continue to put in the work at a lighter weight.
 
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q.Hung said:
Well Pavel looks quite "lean and mean" and Geoff looks more like a typical muscle head.
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Well, I don't know if I completely agree. Muscle heads in my mind are the dudes from the 80s who read those corny muscle mags who really can't do anything athletic. If you remember they wore those cut away sweat shirts and gorilla gear.

I have seen videos of Geoff doing power snatches with some decent weight on a barbell which I'm willing to bet many of those muscle bound fellas probably couldn't do.....just saying ?.
 
Eric Wilson said:
Just had a bad day with the Giant.

Week 3, day 2 of Giant 3.0. Hit 10 triples last week, Monday was great (20 doubles, previous high 15) was hoping for 12 or thirteen triples.

After the third set, I couldn't get more than two. Kept increasing the rest, hoping to hit some more triples, but couldn't get there, just not very strong today.

I understand that the great thing about autoregulation is that it allows for a 48yo like me to have a bad day. My question is: how do you handle it?

- call it a day after failing to hit the number of reps three times?
- drop down to a lower rep goal?
- keep trying and extending the rest, even after you recognize that you don't have what it takes today?

I'm not at all discouraged, the program is working -- I just want to make sure that I'm handling the occasional off day in the most sensible way.
Click to expand...
This is my general approach, very similar to what @watchnerd described:
1. Reps lose their pop, stop the set. Increase rest between that set and the next one.
2. If this is the same in the next set, stop the training session (or that movement and move to the next).
3. If this repeats 2-3 sessions, time to take a break, start looking at what's different - am I sleeping less, did I add 20 min snatches 3x a week that weren't originally called for, am I not eating enough, etc.

Basically, this allows for 1-2 "bad" training sessions, but if I hit 2-3 "bad" training sessions in a row it usually means I need to take a step back and look at stuff - for me The Big Three are usually sleep (clocking in less than 7-8 hrs), eating too little, and doing too much (adding those snatches as extra work).

I also have found that I work in 3-4 week cycles. Week 3 is usually my worst week, or at least my hardest. So it doesn't surprise me when I start having off days then.
 
q.Hung said:
Well Pavel looks quite "lean and mean" and Geoff looks more like a typical muscle head.
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I think Geoff referred to him as 'the skinny Russian guy' in one of the podcasts. ;)

But I don't think Geoff looks like a muscle head to me. More like a wrestler (which he was) or mid-weight O-lifter (which he also was).

He's not football player or bodybuilder big.
 
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watchnerd said:
I think Geoff referred to him as 'the skinny Russian guy' in one of the podcasts. ;)

But I don't think Geoff looks like a muscle head to me. More like a wrestler (which he was) or mid-weight O-lifter (which he also ways).

He's not football player or bodybuilder big.
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@watchnerd, not directed to you in particular but to the conversation in general:

The "skinny Russian guy" has helped more than one SHW (super heavy weight) world champion powerlifter. Geoff has fat-burning, muscle-building, and strength-increasing programs.

I'm a music teacher - you can rest assured that I don't play or practice all the kinds of music some of my students like. I've also gotten to the point where, even in a room full of fellow musicians, sometimes people ask what my "main" instrument is because they assume everyone has a singular focus. (I'm sort of "entry level professional" at several of them, good enough to get paid and good enough to teach, but a long way away from world-class.)

It's kind of fun for me in the world of training/strength/conditioning because no one looks at me and thinks I look like a powerlifter, let alone one who holds some records for his age and weight. People watch me stretch and ask me if I do yoga, or they look at my build and assume I'm a runner. The best one was when someone watched me doing some hip mobility circles, which look sort of like belly dancing, and asked me if I was a dancer - my wife started laughing when she heard that someone might think I could dance.

Book, cover, don't judge. :)

-S-
 
John Grahill said:
@Reardon55 and @watchnerd I just look at it like this....I can't overthink it....I just show up and:

It has helped me to keep my weight down and/or manageable which for me is a difficulty,
it has lowered my resting pulse big time, my weight is only up about 4 pounds since October yet just as someone else posted recently clothes are fitting much better,
my strength and strength endurance has increased significantly without beating myself up with super heavy singles
Click to expand...
My approach to each session is similar..... show up, and do as many sets as I can. I just notice that, depending on the weight and the rep pattern for that day, that can lead to wildly different looking sessions. I think I did doubles significantly faster than EMOM in 4th week of 3.0 last time. I think I was doing sets of 8 every 5 minutes in the first week of 1.1.

I can't say my weight / body-composition is going quite so well, though that may be more to do with my 17 year old daughter's recent obsession with perfecting her macaroon recipe.........for disaster!

Dan John talks about how much of all of this fitness stuff happens in the kitchen....., doesn't work so well in a kitchen nearly constantly full of homemade macaroons!!!
 
Steve Freides said:
@watchnerd, not directed to you in particular but to the conversation in general:

The "skinny Russian guy" has helped more than one SHW (super heavy weight) world champion powerlifter. Geoff has fat-burning, muscle-building, and strength-increasing programs.

I'm a music teacher - you can rest assured that I don't play or practice all the kinds of music some of my students like. I've also gotten to the point where, even in a room full of fellow musicians, sometimes people ask what my "main" instrument is because they assume everyone has a singular focus. (I'm sort of "entry level professional" at several of them, good enough to get paid and good enough to teach, but a long way away from world-class.)

It's kind of fun for me in the world of training/strength/conditioning because no one looks at me and thinks I look like a powerlifter, let alone one who holds some records for his age and weight. People watch me stretch and ask me if I do yoga, or they look at my build and assume I'm a runner. The best one was when someone watched me doing some hip mobility circles, which look sort of like belly dancing, and asked me if I was a dancer - my wife started laughing when she heard that someone might think I could dance.

Book, cover, don't judge. :)

-S-
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From what I’ve been reading – if you complete the Giant Series you might be able to dance!
 
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