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Kettlebell Geoff Neupert "THE GIANT" ??

John Grahill said:
This program is a homerun!
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Seconded! Though he may have outdone himself; I'm on the Chasing Strength e-mail list, but don't see why I would need to buy anything else for at least a few months.....:)

When I started, the cleans were more like a good opportunity for rest between the presses. Now that my presses are stronger, the cleans are.....just brutal. It feels like the end of a 400m dash....maybe even with the hurdles..... by the end of the later sets. The "overall body" effect of this program is..... (a "trainer" would maybe have a good adjective here; I don't).

And yes, I don't suspect I'll be near-doubling the reps by week 4 (like I was with 3.0) :) . Maybe I'll sandbag a bit on Wednesday and Friday. I'm not sure what I would "call" today, but I can't call it sandbagging.
 
John Grahill said:
@Reardon55 , I hear ya loud n clear! I'm thinking about next week starting the 36s in the 3.0 version and staying with it until they become a "comfortable" 10RM to use for the rest of the Giant series.
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By "staying with it" do you mean that you will go beyond the 4 week time frame and just work the 1-3 rep range with decreasing rest periods until you reach you RM goals with the 36s?

I've thought that the 3.0 can essentially become an anti-glycolytic C&P program within a time frame.
 
John Grahill said:
@Reardon55 , I hear ya loud n clear! I'm thinking about next week starting the 36s in the 3.0 version and staying with it until they become a "comfortable" 10RM to use for the rest of the Giant series.
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That's exactly what I did (minus the confirmation of a "comfortable 10RM part"). I'll say that I was a barely 5RM on the 36s when I started 3.0 and was, by the 3rd week, to the point where my rest periods were squeezed so much that the sessions were not remotely anti-glycolytic. So to @jhpowers point, it may become hard to challenge yourself without going....glycolytic (at least that was my experience).

I don't know if I can do 10 reps with the 36's right now, but I didn't want to sacrifice a training day to find out, so I just went for it; figuring if I couldn't manage sets of 6, I'd do a "0.9" with 2-4 or 3-5. I feel great this morning (I've been doing a lot of shoulder mobility and tension release stuff with lacrosse balls.....) so, so far, very happy with the decision. I even ordered a second 40 in anticipation of more progress....... :cool:,

If you're ripping off sets of 9 with 32's with little trouble, you may be surprised how close to a 10RM you are with the 36's NOW. Good luck!
 
Did my final heavy day (day 3) of phase 1.2 this morning. Hit my target reps in under 20 and quit. What I've found to be an excellent characteristic of this program is that during week 1 of each phase/segment I almost have a feeling of nervousness approaching the heavy day which in a couple of weeks goes away and is replaced with confidence. I am amused at the fact that my "medium day" in this phase was a really tough heavy day like 5 weeks ago!

Just do it as written and walk away and recover!
 
John Grahill said:
Did my final heavy day (day 3) of phase 1.2 this morning. Hit my target reps in under 20 and quit. What I've found to be an excellent characteristic of this program is that during week 1 of each phase/segment I almost have a feeling of nervousness approaching the heavy day which in a couple of weeks goes away and is replaced with confidence. I am amused at the fact that my "medium day" in this phase was a really tough heavy day like 5 weeks ago!

Just do it as written and walk away and recover!
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Hi John, I have purchased all the programs and was wondering if you had a target number of reps for each session where the program called for doing reps for x minutes. Did you try a light , medium, heavy day approach or just listen to your body each day?
I have grown to love the C&P exercise although I am still using single bells.
 
@PaulAllen , Hey Paul, no real method, or at least I don't know if this is a method but just started day one of each phase somewhat at a slower but steady pace and took note of the time and reps and used that as a guage for a lack of a better term. From there I aimed for improvements each week. Then the fourth week was a 20 percent deload of my highest volume for each individual workout wherein I quit when I got the reps for the day. I didn't go crazy and rush crossfit style because I wanted good reps. It gets tougher to add full sets as you progress so as an example I may stay at the same amount of repsas my previous session but maybe shave off a minute and be happy with that. If I just did a set of 8 and the clock shows 28 minutes, I call it quits. I was trying to wait a minute and get say 4 more before the 30 minute mark but I decided to stop that as I was nowhere near recovered enough to maintain form if ya know what I mean.
 
John Grahill said:
@PaulAllen , Hey Paul, no real method, or at least I don't know if this is a method but just started day one of each phase somewhat at a slower but steady pace and took note of the time and reps and used that as a guage for a lack of a better term. From there I aimed for improvements each week. Then the fourth week was a 20 percent deload of my highest volume for each individual workout wherein I quit when I got the reps for the day. I didn't go crazy and rush crossfit style because I wanted good reps. It gets tougher to add full sets as you progress so as an example I may stay at the same amount of repsas my previous session but maybe shave off a minute and be happy with that. If I just did a set of 8 and the clock shows 28 minutes, I call it quits. I was trying to wait a minute and get say 4 more before the 30 minute mark but I decided to stop that as I was nowhere near recovered enough to maintain form if ya know what I mean.
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Thanks John, I really appreciate it! This is the approach I am going to take starting with Giant 3.0.
 
John Grahill said:
@jake54 , I've been having "fun" with it but my only humble advice....when Geoff Neupert says a 10 RM he means ten good reps! It's a density type protocol so when in doubt find a set of bells that leaves a rep ot two in the bank...... I had been doing low rep work (5 or less per set) for so long that finding a 10 RM wasn't as easy as I thought. I did the ladder version first to "ease" into higher rep work and the first week humbled the crap out of me! It has been quite effective though.
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Hi all,

I started the giant yesterday & based off the above comment wanted some advice.

A bit of background info.

I have a KB collection from 7.5kg to 48kg but no two KBs the same weight.
So if I am training doubles I use mismatched bells.

I tested my 10RM with the 20 +16 kg bells & got 10 reps but the last two reps were hard. This was a genuine 10 RM for me.
Ideally I think double 16kg would be perfect for this programme but that isn't an option for me.

I trained yesterday & for my first workout got.
Sets of 5 over 24 mins= 39 reps 8 sets.
I failed on my 4th set & got 4 instead of 5 reps.
I also noted that quite a few sets were 9 to 10 RPE.

I am not looking forward to the next workout of sets of 6 they will be hard.

So I want opinions as I am considering dropping the weight but my options are either a 16 + 12 kg KB which is a 22% decrease in load or a barbell loaded to 35kg or stick with my current 16 + 20kg selection & if I only get 2 or 3 sets don't sweat it.

What's the general consensus?

Thanks
Andy
 
If your form is good, I would stick with 20+16 but increase your rest. As a guide when I start 1.0 I'm looking at around 7-8 set in 30mins, but if less so be it, the volume will build over the whole programme.
 
Very helpful thread. Have bought the programme and look forward to beginning it at the start of February. My press has always lagged far behind the rest of my strength so it will be interesting to see if a novel bit of density & hypertrophy training will break the roadblock. I plan to do 1.0-1.1-1.2-2.0 with 2x16kg, before returning to Q&D / A&A snatches in six week blocks.
 
@Cearball - I think @Stuart Elliott hit it on the money. Rest more. When I am performing something very near my max, I'll bump rest out to around 5 minutes between sets for the first week, I'll add more rest to whatever I'm taking. I took a quick peak at my log, and found this as an example:
Coyotl said:
11.13.20

Double Clean and Press - 5 min warmup with 2x24kgs, 30 min train with 2x28kgs
Warm up: 3, 2, 2, 1
Train: 6 sets of 6
- that was brutal ... Even from set one, that sixth rep was slow and kind of grindy. My goal for the next month isn't to get more reps in 30 min, but to get better reps. I rested ~5 min between sets, and my first 4 reps were powerful, 5th was slow, and 6th meh. Same for all six sets, so adequate rest... just inadequate strength!
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Also, if you start feeling reps slow down, or that last rep gets close to failing, bump rest out further. Here's an example:
Coyotl said:
11.11.20

Double Clean and Press - 5 min warmup with 2x24kgs, 30 min train with 2x28kgs
Warm up: 3, 2, 2, 1
Train: 8 sets of 4
Cool down: 10 x 1:15 stretches

*I was going for sets every 4 min, just to give myself ample time to rest. 6th set started to see that rest needed to increase, so I bumped it to sets on the 4:30 for the last two sets for a total of 8 sets of 4 reps with double 28kgs in 30 min.
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The goal is never fail a rep, so if you hit a set that you barely make, bump that rest out longer so your next one you can. I make a note, and then the next week I'll try and compress the time. In the case of the 6x6, the next week I stayed at 6x6 - which went better - and then the third week I started compressing the times and got 7x6 (and 8x6 in the 4th week).

Also, since you're using mis-matched weights, are you alternating which side is heavy every set, and starting with your strong arm (and not starting with your stronger arm)?
 
Cearball said:
Hi all,

I started the giant yesterday & based off the above comment wanted some advice.

A bit of background info.

I have a KB collection from 7.5kg to 48kg but no two KBs the same weight.
So if I am training doubles I use mismatched bells.

I tested my 10RM with the 20 +16 kg bells & got 10 reps but the last two reps were hard. This was a genuine 10 RM for me.
Ideally I think double 16kg would be perfect for this programme but that isn't an option for me.

I trained yesterday & for my first workout got.
Sets of 5 over 24 mins= 39 reps 8 sets.
I failed on my 4th set & got 4 instead of 5 reps.
I also noted that quite a few sets were 9 to 10 RPE.

I am not looking forward to the next workout of sets of 6 they will be hard.

So I want opinions as I am considering dropping the weight but my options are either a 16 + 12 kg KB which is a 22% decrease in load or a barbell loaded to 35kg or stick with my current 16 + 20kg selection & if I only get 2 or 3 sets don't sweat it.

What's the general consensus?

Thanks
Andy
Click to expand...

The Giant was originally designed as a single bell program but @John Grahill was just really courageous to attempt the plan using doubles. You can run it single bell for the time being until you purchase a second bell where you feel would allow you to confidently press a pair of bells for 10 reps..
 
Coyotl said:
@Cearball - I think @Stuart Elliott hit it on the money. Rest more. When I am performing something very near my max, I'll bump rest out to around 5 minutes between sets for the first week, I'll add more rest to whatever I'm taking. I took a quick peak at my log, and found this as an example:


Also, if you start feeling reps slow down, or that last rep gets close to failing, bump rest out further. Here's an example:

The goal is never fail a rep, so if you hit a set that you barely make, bump that rest out longer so your next one you can. I make a note, and then the next week I'll try and compress the time. In the case of the 6x6, the next week I stayed at 6x6 - which went better - and then the third week I started compressing the times and got 7x6 (and 8x6 in the 4th week).

Also, since you're using mis-matched weights, are you alternating which side is heavy every set, and starting with your strong arm (and not starting with your stronger arm)?
Click to expand...
Yes I alternate sides but don't normally worry about Which side starts with the heavier bell.

The info you shared is useful if I stick with 16+20 I will definitely have to rest more
 
Mark Limbaga said:
The Giant was originally designed as a single bell program but @John Grahill was just really courageous to attempt the plan using doubles. You can run it single bell for the time being until you purchase a second bell where you feel would allow you to confidently press a pair of bells for 10 reps..
Click to expand...
I don't plan on getting matching bells mainly because I don't trust my floors & space saving in general.

Ideally a 16,20 & 24kg would be ideal though
 
Cearball said:
Hi all,

I started the giant yesterday & based off the above comment wanted some advice.

A bit of background info.

I have a KB collection from 7.5kg to 48kg but no two KBs the same weight.
So if I am training doubles I use mismatched bells.

I tested my 10RM with the 20 +16 kg bells & got 10 reps but the last two reps were hard. This was a genuine 10 RM for me.
Ideally I think double 16kg would be perfect for this programme but that isn't an option for me.

I trained yesterday & for my first workout got.
Sets of 5 over 24 mins= 39 reps 8 sets.
I failed on my 4th set & got 4 instead of 5 reps.
I also noted that quite a few sets were 9 to 10 RPE.

I am not looking forward to the next workout of sets of 6 they will be hard.

So I want opinions as I am considering dropping the weight but my options are either a 16 + 12 kg KB which is a 22% decrease in load or a barbell loaded to 35kg or stick with my current 16 + 20kg selection & if I only get 2 or 3 sets don't sweat it.

What's the general consensus?

Thanks
Andy
Click to expand...
@Cearball , I think the resistance you're using is just fine. Frankly I think it will defeat some of the purpose if you go too lightly. What I found was that with each week of the program I was able to make some work improvements, be that either more sets or sane work in less time.

Monday was day 1 of 1.0 with my double 36s. In 28 1/2 minutes I "comfortably " got 8 rounds. The old me would have attempted a 9th set or so upon the clock hitting 29:30 but I knew I wouldn't be recovered enough to do a set safely and with proper form ala @Don Fairbanks and his point of maintaining your form while adding density. Using the heavier bell combo now I chose to end the day's workout. As you get stronger the weight increases become noticeable!
 
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John Grahill said:
@Cearball , I think the resistance you're using is just fine. Frankly I think it will defeat some of the purpose if you go too lightly. What I found was that with each week of the program I was able to make some work improvements, be that either more sets or sane work in less time.

Monday was day 1 of 1.0 with my double 36s. In 28 1/2 minutes I "comfortably " got 8 rounds. The old me would have attempted a 9th set or so upon the clock hitting 29:30 but I knew I wouldn't be recovered enough to do a set safely and with proper form ala @Don Fairbanks and his point of maintaining your form while adding density. Using the heavier bell combo now I chose to end the day's workout. As you get stronger the weight increases become noticeable!
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I agree will all the above.

I did mine with a 24+16 which was a "clean" 8RM for me with a couple of dirty reps on the end, but I just went for it, and made sure to manage my reset well as they mentioned above.
 
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