lais817
Level 7 Valued Member
What about doing TGU weight / rep ladders as your warm up for The Giant? Help to grease the shoulders and get your fix at the same time?
Kettlebell "Giant 1.0"
- Thread starter John Grahill
- Start date
Ben Strong
Level 5 Valued Member
First run through of 1.0 finally completed! I have been struggling with the kiddo bringing home successive bouts of daycare bugs which keep putting us all out of commission. However, the great thing about the Giant is that I feel like I can just pick up right where I left off and it doesn't feel like a chore. I missed a period of about two weeks so I repeated all of week 2 when I picked back up. Went through it with 20 and 16kg offset bells.
I don't have any analytical data to report, just anecdotal evidence. But this program rocks so far. I started on the lower end of the rep ranges than most people report in this thread. Doing about 30-some reps a session and progressed up to doing a max of 60 so I was approximately able to double my work capacity. Also I just feel a lot stronger overall as well as more conditioned. I noticed two unexpected results so far. First, I saw a significant drop in my heart rate when performing my LISS work about 2 weeks into the program. I had to up the resistance on the bike a good bit in order to keep up my target heart rate. Secondly, I picked up my 32kg bell and cleaned and pressed it for one ugly rep. It was a fight but I had never been able to accomplish that before. As far as physical changes go, I have packed on quite a bit of muscle in my shoulders and upper back, my quads, and surprisingly my calves as well. My traps have exploded during this program. I don't usually have a problem growing them but in the past it has required direct isolation work to do so. Got a few comments at work about it
One last note, I went into this program about a year after separating both of my AC joints. I went through PT and have been rehabbing these successfully. Because of the PT work that I've been doing I did not have pain there when I started the program but I was a bit worried all the pressing might agitate it. It didn't at all and my shoulders feel great throughout.
Onward to 1.1! Hopefully with fewer interruptions this time around...
I don't have any analytical data to report, just anecdotal evidence. But this program rocks so far. I started on the lower end of the rep ranges than most people report in this thread. Doing about 30-some reps a session and progressed up to doing a max of 60 so I was approximately able to double my work capacity. Also I just feel a lot stronger overall as well as more conditioned. I noticed two unexpected results so far. First, I saw a significant drop in my heart rate when performing my LISS work about 2 weeks into the program. I had to up the resistance on the bike a good bit in order to keep up my target heart rate. Secondly, I picked up my 32kg bell and cleaned and pressed it for one ugly rep. It was a fight but I had never been able to accomplish that before. As far as physical changes go, I have packed on quite a bit of muscle in my shoulders and upper back, my quads, and surprisingly my calves as well. My traps have exploded during this program. I don't usually have a problem growing them but in the past it has required direct isolation work to do so. Got a few comments at work about it
One last note, I went into this program about a year after separating both of my AC joints. I went through PT and have been rehabbing these successfully. Because of the PT work that I've been doing I did not have pain there when I started the program but I was a bit worried all the pressing might agitate it. It didn't at all and my shoulders feel great throughout.
Onward to 1.1! Hopefully with fewer interruptions this time around...
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If you're going to do an ULTRA program, you could use one of the RMBF (RMF) programs to build on what you've done in X1.
How're your results with 'GIANT X1' so far?
Level 2 Valued Member
Thanks for the recommendation. Will look into it.
Thus far results are strong! As I roll into week 6 I am pleasantly surprised how much easier the larger rep days, in particular, heavy has become.
As a side- For me, the Giant(s) are a Godsend as a business owner who does not have a lot of time for lengthy workouts. I'll be 60 in July & 2 things, my conditioning is out of this world & overall I feel great.
Scrumdog
Level 4 Valued Member
Done a couple days of the sets of 4 on my journey from 3.0 to 1.0 and it's been gruelling, I'm certainly not ready for 5s.
Love this point though when you step the rep count up during the Giant. Feels like you can actually feel it making you stronger during the highest rep day of the week.
JLynch
Level 5 Valued Member
I’m right there with you! Sometimes the mental game is harder than the physical one. Personally I try to shift my focus to perfecting small details of the lift, like squeezing my obliques during the lockout or squeezing my thumb to reinforce the press. It’s OCD but seems to keep me from fixating on the numbers
It varies from person to person.
Usually it's the point where your:
[1] Technique breaks down
[2] You can no longer recover between sessions
Typically, people with a broader GPP base and/or more "slow-twitch dominant" can handle more volume.
If I recall correctly, the Soviets, particular Dr. Roman, found that more than 100 reps per exercise was overkill.
Hrungnir
Level 7 Valued Member
What would you define as junk and overkill?
For a workout that lasts at max 30 minutes three days a week, I think it’s impossible for it to become junk volume or overkill in their traditional definitions.
JLynch
Level 5 Valued Member
Thanks Geoff! I am probably using too light of a load, can run though a 100 in 20min with enough in the tank to do 20min of push-ups and swings afterward. FYSA I only have dbl 24kg and dbl 32kgs, single 40kg, 44kg..
Think I’ll shift gears to 3.0 with the 32kgs ..
JLynch
Level 5 Valued Member
meaning the standard junk definition.. degradation of value added.. think I just need to stop playing around and go heavier
Hrungnir
Level 7 Valued Member
Youre talking about 90 minutes a week, junk volume is talked about in workouts that last 90+ minutes a workout.
I have gotten as high as 124 reps in a Giant workout, no degradation of value as I have still been able to jump weights and there hasn’t been any injuries
I think you have to figure this out for yourself, based on your goals. At a certain point doing more reps doesn't get you closer to whatever goal you're training for, but that might be different for different people.
John Grahill
Level 8 Valued Member
124 reps in a Giant workout!?!? You are far more of a machine than I am! I could never approach that. Not wired that way. In fact, I used the Giant to prep for the 10x10 clean and press challenge, on the day I did it I needed like 5 minutes between sets....took like 59 minutes!
Are you using a true 10RM? There's no way I could do that.
Hrungnir
Level 7 Valued Member
Yeah, that was with 24s. I’m up to 30s now and hitting 90s as my rep threshold. There’s a massive delta between total reps on my lower reps (3-4) and my (8-9)
I think I’m also a bit younger than the median age in here (34) which skews the data differently, but I have done CrossFit for years and have a pretty high work threshold.