all posts post new thread

Kettlebell Iron Cardio

Or see if there's a larger sample space, i.e. are there students who are big endurance fanatics who could stand to benefit as well?
I'm just a sample size of one and I only did IC for about a month. But four weeks ago I knocked off one of my bucket list hikes of going from the desert floor to the top of our local mountain that dominates our skyline. It was 14 miles and 7000 feet of uphill climbing and took about 8 hours to do. To prepare I did my usual hiking on the weekends, rucking during the week and I did IC twice a week.

A session looked like this - 30 minutes of IC, some loaded carries, loaded step ups or step downs on a box and a few extra finishers. In all each workout was about 60-75 minutes long. Then a 20 minute recovery walk with my dog.

At the end of the hike I felt pretty solid and I recovered within a day or so. Ended up being the strongest hiker in our group, I just flew up the steep stuff.
 
Maybe have one of my students who is a cycling enthusiast spend a season on IC and we track the results

Or see if there's a larger sample space, i.e. are there students who are big endurance fanatics who could stand to benefit as well?
Well… I am also very intrigued about this. I’ve played around a bit with IC and I like it, and can certainly see its potential. My dilemma and I think you might find this in many locomotive endurance specialists… is that they (we) log a lot of hours in our chosen activities.

Do we add additional work with IC or do we replace some of our existing load with IC? Many of us are loathe to do either.

Some activities are seasonal of course (sometimes weather dependent for folks), so I can see slotting in IC in the off-season. Others of us don’t really have (or choose to have) an off season.

Thoughts?
 
I think that the main reason why I might hesitate to ruck right before IC is that I would not want to impair my IC session with prior fatigue (says the guy who will get home from a bicycle commute, chill for 15 minutes, and dive in with the weights). I dunno; might be okay. I might not know if I never try.

What I like about my weekend ruck is that (at my level of 20 lbs, at least) I can roll out of bed, limber up and pretty much get to the ruck. Over the years, I've learned that my back doesn't tolerate other types of first-thing resistance training well. It's nice to put on the pack, and just go for a walk until I feel like I've had enough.

On the other hand, last weekend, I got up, went for a regular walk to loosen up, did IC, and went right out on my ruck. Felt pretty good. The ruck was more challenging following the IC, but the rucking isn't my highest priority, either. So, I'm okay with that. Maybe I could try to focus on keeping the AM ruck easy, chill a bit, then get on with the KBs.

I can also get rather obsessive with scheduling things. I like symmetry; to paraphrase what Pavel wrote in Q&D on the topic of scheduling, "the vase must be exactly in the center of the table!" Of course, that type of scheduling gets tricky with martial arts classes and other obligations. It's not unusual for my two weekly IC sessions to be separated by only one day off. Is that a problem? I'm still making progress, so I guess not!

Either way, I'm interested in how this experiment and conversation progresses.
 
I would hit an IC session and then ruck (or cycle) but experimenting with the order will allow you to find the right mix.
In my own case it's logistics. Having a very energetic dog and living in a state with fairly high heat and humidity supports walking the dog (with me wearing a 20# weight vest) first since he can't thermoregulate like I can due to lack of sweat glands then doing Iron Cardio.
 
how long blocks are you going to do? 2 weeks?
2 or 3 weeks, not entirely sure.
To be clear, I want to alternate more intuitive training with more structured training.

Block A)
2x per week KBSF LCCJ, programmed more like IC (with weight and rep ladders, and focusing on longer sessions, rather than on density)
1-2x per week IC, mostly single bell, sometimes with doubles

Block B)
3x per week KBSF Swings
3x per week double KB military presses for hypertrophy (instead of KBSF TGUs)

Given the overlap of both blocks, I think I will try 3-week blocks.
 
Hi Team, here's a progress report:

As I've mentioned, I've been focusing on double KBs for my IC lately. This was motivated by a reduction in pressing strength triggered by an injury I sustained in a different activity. Since I couldn't press as much per arm, it seemed opportune to see how my body responded to doubles with a total load about a third heavier than I had been working on with one KB.

Immediately after the hurt, I could barely press my 8kg. I did a lot of walking and calisthenics, and worked on my TGU for a bit. When I could press the 16kg sufficiently well, I resumed IC with that weight and shortly started working with double 16s to increase the systemic load. Since, I've been working in and transitioning to mainly working with a pair of 20s. In addition to a handful of other activities, I generally do these sessions twice a week, but that's flexible. IC is my primary resistance training, outside of some low-resistance calisthenics.

I've also been starting to put more focus on shoring up my press foundation by tensing my quads and glutes. I know this is a fundamental part of the technique, but I lost focus on it recently. It always surprises me how important this step is for keeping my back happy, too. It also reminds me how much of a full-body lift the press really is.

With all that in mind yesterday, I decided to test my single press on the recovering-from-injury side. With good tension in my quads and glutes, I got a solid 5 reps. I wasn't 100% sure I could get the 6th rep, but I went for it anyway. Shoring up the foundation did its work; the rep went up.

This doesn't change my overall plan much. I'll probably continue with the doubles, but I might mix it up a bit more. I am starting to miss the more "continuous" work I get with a single KB. But, I also like the higher total load with doubles. Both seem good.

As well, I've landed on a progression plan that I like, for now, with my doubles practice. In any case, it's encouraging to see my ongoing improvement and restoration of strength. In a way, this injury set me down a path to re-examine some technical details of these three primary moves, but especially my press. This continues to be a fruitful journey.
 
After my stretch with double KBs I decided to do a session with a single, for comparison. I matched number of presses per arm. So, last time, I did 30 sets with 20+20; this time I did 60 sets with 20.

Generally, the singles session felt more energetically challenging. I pushed myself to match the press volume. Rest felt much more compressed. Obviously, I did twice as many total reps per lift, even if the presses were split between arms. Time also went from 31:00 for the doubles to 34:12 for the single. The time increase was a bit of a surprise. I recently started using an HR monitor to record my sessions and review after the fact. HR was consistently higher for the single session. Felt like it, too.

Overall, I felt like I had less time to rest and that I had to keep pushing to do this session at this pace. Interesting stuff. As I posited in my last post, I definitely see how singles push more continuous work and doubles push more intense sets. I still think both are good.

I'm not sure which I prefer. But I think it's fine, because of the flexibility of this system. I don't have to do the same thing all the time. That said, I think I might spend a little more time with the singles. That was harder than I expected; seems like I might benefit from spending some time on this aspect.
 
After my stretch with double KBs I decided to do a session with a single, for comparison. I matched number of presses per arm. So, last time, I did 30 sets with 20+20; this time I did 60 sets with 20.

Generally, the singles session felt more energetically challenging. I pushed myself to match the press volume. Rest felt much more compressed. Obviously, I did twice as many total reps per lift, even if the presses were split between arms. Time also went from 31:00 for the doubles to 34:12 for the single. The time increase was a bit of a surprise. I recently started using an HR monitor to record my sessions and review after the fact. HR was consistently higher for the single session. Felt like it, too.

Overall, I felt like I had less time to rest and that I had to keep pushing to do this session at this pace. Interesting stuff. As I posited in my last post, I definitely see how singles push more continuous work and doubles push more intense sets. I still think both are good.

I'm not sure which I prefer. But I think it's fine, because of the flexibility of this system. I don't have to do the same thing all the time. That said, I think I might spend a little more time with the singles. That was harder than I expected; seems like I might benefit from spending some time on this aspect.

Seems like a good way to wave the load and volume by adjusting the weights and single or double.
 
Worthy of note: My overall progress on Iron Cardio is approximately flat. And I think I know why.

The blue line is the raw Sets / Minute score for all sessions
The Red line is where I try to account for additional reps and load in Traveling 2s, Alternating weights, Etc.
IC Sets per minute.png

I've been looking through my log and I pulled this chart illustrating the session-to-session Set / Minute Density of each Iron Cardio Session.

In general - I think that I've been detracting from progressing in IC with a lot of my parallel training.
I've been including GPP, and or Carries. And, lately, I've been trying my hand at a Hypertrophy protocol.
MWF: Iron Cardio
TTh: Additional Training
It's my estimation that I think that a reduction in frequency may be in order, to allow for better recovery and adaptation.
Maybe i should just take a walk or stretch.

There's a lot of waviness and a relatively flat load line across about 50 sessions across about 16 weeks.
 
Last edited:
Worthy of note: My overall progress on Iron Cardio is approximately flat. And I think I know why.

The blue line is the raw Sets / Minute score for all sessions
The Red line is where I try to account for additional reps and load in Traveling 2s, Alternating weights, Etc.
View attachment 21704

I've been looking through my log and I pulled this chart illustrating the session-to-session Set / Minute Density of each Iron Cardio Session.

In general - I think that I've been detracting from progressing in IC with a lot of my parallel training.
I've been including GPP, and or Carries. And, lately, I've been trying my hand at a Hypertrophy protocol.
MWF: Iron Cardio
TTh: Something else
It's my estimation that I think that a reduction in frequency may be in order, to allow for better recovery and adaptation.
Maybe i should just take a walk or stretch.

There's a lot of waviness and a relatively flat load line across about 50 sessions across about 16 weeks.
Apologies if I'm missing something, but I wouldn't rush to characterise your progress as flat. Over the last 16 weeks have you increased the number of sets? Or have you increased the weight maybe? What's your rate of sets/min at 10,20,30 sets?

Of course, if you ramped up some other form of training, while maintaining everything else the same with IC, that's also noteworthy.
 
Apologies if I'm missing something, but I wouldn't rush to characterise your progress as flat. Over the last 16 weeks have you increased the number of sets? Or have you increased the weight maybe? What's your rate of sets/min at 10,20,30 sets?

Of course, if you ramped up some other form of training, while maintaining everything else the same with IC, that's also noteworthy.
If nothing else, I appreciate the vote of confidence.

1686792601811.png
This is the raw number of sets per session.

1686792910727.png
This is the sessions load normalized to account for additional weight or reps per set.
...

I have been having some sessions adding the 40kg bell, and adding reps in traveling 2s or press focused training.

I am experiencing some positive results, like being able to strict press the 40kg bell 20 times within a session. I haven't tested my max press but I imagine it might be a little more than 2L/3R if I can press it 20 times in a session.

Also, I'm currently working on a Strong Endurance hypertrophy plan. So that definitely means that I have a certain situation going on for now.

Iron Cardio is very good stuff. But when I first started I was on Monday Wednesday Friday only. And I started adding Tuesday Thursday items.

I've said this about my experience with Iron Cardio. I get the itch to workout more on my day off. I think it's a credit to the iron Cardio program that I feel like I have so much extra energy that I have to work out more. And then I did. And, I've been keeping on with it. After I follow through on my current plan, I intend to leave more rests in the music. At least for a while.
 
@Adachi
I think you are looking at the wrong set of metrics mate. Well maybe not wrong…. But have you charted things like training heart rate, and resting heart rate?
It‘s in the name after all… Cardio.
 
It does sound like the extra work is putting a stress on the recovery.

Put IC into "maintenance" mode—ballpark 30 sets for single bell, 15-20 sets for doubles (vary IC version, load etc.) and see if that gets you feeling better recovered.
 
Back
Top Bottom