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Kettlebell Iron Cardio

Quick question for clarification. On page 14, @Brett Jones says to use a “5-6RM Military Press kettlebell” as the main training weight. Is that a RM based on one clean followed by all the presses, or a clean between each press?

I think it’s the former because that seems to be how “military press” is used on the forums and in articles (vice “clean and press”), but wanted to be certain.
 
Speaking of the RM range.
I have done 30 sequences of C-P-SQ (l+r) - 2 chinups. It took me 50 min with a kettlebell heavier than 5-6 RM. The clean form and press form was ugly, and there was no condition component involved at all.
5-6RM is just right
 
Just want to sing some praise to the concept of IC. At home for a while and concocted a body weight + sandbag "IC":ish session, lacking KB's at home:
  • 1 single-legged Romanian deadlift with a 25kg sandbag on the left leg
  • 1 pistol squat on the left leg
  • 1 OAPU with left arm
  • Shook it off. Repeated on the right side
  • 1 bent-over row with 50kg sandbag to stay within the 5 rep range per sequence.
  • Repeat
  • Duration 20 minutes
It felt great, a nice variation with the horizontal pushing and a chance to dust the rust off the pistol and OAPU. Brett has done a marvelous job here.
 
Sorry I didn't explain it well.

I am doing singles.

1 dip
1 chin
1 DBL clean
1 DBL front squat.

Rest

Repeat

However I found my kinda 5 rep maximum weight/intensity wise for the dip, chin & squat & am using those in the workout.

Dice roll for time 10, 20, 30 mins options though I have biased the dice to 20 mins.
For example only a dice roll of 1 would have me doing 10 mins. 2,3,4 dice rolls are 20 mins.
5,6 dice roll are 30 mins.

I like this, might do it tomorrow, I'll use a weight vest for dips and chins and go for 15-20min
 
My Iron Cardio experience so far--

Short version: I like it a lot.

Details:

I (49M; priorities are health & longevity) started in October 2022. Other than a 7-day period (due to COVID) where I couldn't train at all, I've been doing it more-or-less continuously. (I have the PDF, not the video.)

What I like:
1. The IC sessions themselves have enough variety to prevent boredom. Yes, I've read all that stuff about how discipline is not boring, or how your muscles don't care if you're bored. But I got really bored on S&S, DFW, etc. For some reason, IC is different--even though it's the exact same 4 exercises (C,P,SQ,SN) each time! I think it's because of the variables (weight, time, rep schemes, etc.). Also, this sounds funny but for anything other than the basic 1 rep of each, there is a mental challenge--with traveling 2's or moving ladders you really have to concentrate so as not to lose your place. (Tip: Before each set, I say aloud what makes that set distinctive. E.g., "Two squats!" Then C,P,SQx2,SN.)

2. It plays well with other stuff. IC is deliberately not intended to be "do this and only this, and on exactly these days." The PDF discusses how to combine it with barbell, bodyweight, S&S, etc. I took some liberties here and extended this principle a bit. I do mainly IC, around 3-4 days a week. But I combine it with other stuff, based on my time available, how I'm feeling, etc. (See below for more on this.)

3. Because it's a fairly flexible/loose template, it's not really a huge problem to miss a day, or shorten a session compared to what you might have originally planned for that day, or lengthen one. I've found some other programs where you need to do exactly x, y, and z on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to be too inflexible to deal with the vagaries of my life.

How I've done it

Warm-ups:
I'm 49 with a desk job, I train in the early morning, and my lower back is creaky when I first wake up, so I do a long warmup. Typically I do some mobility stuff on a yoga mat; then {30s of jumping jacks, 30s of hip hinges, 30s of air squats, 30s of standing T-spine rotations} x2, then 10min medium-pace on the rowing ergometer; then some light swings, cleans, presses, and rows with a 16kg.

The program:
When I'm doing IC, I try to do it as closely as possible to as described in the PDF. I vary all the parameters based on time available (e.g. a time crunch on a weekday morning may make a 20min session more likely than 40min), heart rate variability, soreness, etc. I've found moving ladders can be mentally hard to keep track of, and I know I've messed up the count on them several times, but in the end, does it really matter? I use Brett's advice that when you get 2 sets per minute, it's time to upgrade to a more challenging version.

On non-IC days, I rotate around the following:
a. About once every two weeks (never more than once per week), when I'm feeling awesome, I do an "intensity day" (insanity day?) where I do some weird challenge or timed AMRAP or HIIT or Tabata or something (with or without KBs) that's designed to leave me gasping and sweating. I think it's good to occasionally hit those high heart rates, and it satisfies any "itch" to be able to occasionally try something totally different.
b. Brett says in the book "this is not jogging." So I thought, what if I made something that was effectively the kb equivalent of jogging? So maybe once every two weeks, I'll use the heart rate monitor to do what I call "KB jogging" -- semi-random kb stuff for a block of time with the goal of keeping my HR continuously in the 125-135 range (Maffetone zone for me). This could include stretches of the IC moves, but not in the IC protocol, sometimes with a lighter weight so as to keep it continuous. I just constantly titrate to keep my HR in the zone.
c. Usually 1-2 days per week, I'll just walk on the treadmill in my basement (while watching TV). Depending on how I'm feeling, that could mean either in the Maffetone zone (with a steep incline), or lower but still doing some aerobic work (e.g. HR ~ 105-110), or when something is really off, just very low-key (3.0 mph, 0% incline) for pure recovery.
d. ~1 day/week, I do a slow-strength day. This could include TGUs, windmills, etc. I also use some machines at the gym these days to work muscles & angles I don't usually hit.
e. Some days, I can't make it to the gym, so I use my basement. I have an acceptable kb collection, but the ceiling is low so I can neither press nor snatch. So on those days, I replace the press with pushups (off the kbs), and eliminate the snatch. (I consider this a modified IC.)

E.g., over a 2-week span, I might do 6d Iron Cardio, 3d treadmill, 2d slow-strength, 1d "KB jogging," 1d intensity, and 1 just plain "off" day.

Finishers:
Most weekdays, I don't have time to do anything after the IC session. If it was a 20-min session, sometimes I'll do the IC swings finisher that Brett prescribes. On weekends, lately I've been trying the "Snatch Walking Protocol for Ultra-Athletes" as a finisher. I just take a ridiculously light kb to the indoor track at my gym and snatch-walk while people look at me funny.

How I've tracked progress:

Since my personal goal here is health & longevity (and the program is "Iron *Cardio*") I decided to use morning resting heart rate as my metric. As it happens, for some time I've been tracking my morning resting heart rate nearly every day, so I have data going back quite a while. On the day I bought the program (10/8/22), my RHR was 54. Today (1/10/23), it was 48. My lowest was 43 on 11/29/22. And remember, this is without any running or high-impact work.

So you can see that the conditioning is my primary focus and the strength is secondary. Someone else might do it exactly opposite. I know Mark Rippetoe says "A resting heart rate of 48 BPM is very cool, but it's not nearly as useful as a 405-pound deadlift," but I've got some family history with heart disease so my calculus is different. It's not that I don't want to be "strong first" so much as the muscle that I'm interested in training the most right now is my heart, and I'm content to let my clean, press, squat, and snatch improve at a slow pace as a secondary aspect of that work. It's quite possible I'm not using the program as Brett intended but this seems to be working well for me.

I don't think this would be a great program to build max/1RM strength & I don't think Brett markets it as such. I think my strength-endurance has improved somewhat -- I haven't tested this, but I suspect that, with the main weight I started off based on my 6RM, I could now get a lot more than 6. (I should probably test that - may do so later this week.) I also haven't done a before/after test of some performance-based conditioning measure (e.g. time for 1-mile run) but I've got to believe that the lower RHR pays off aerobically on stuff like that.

Conclusion:
I've run this now for 3 full months and it's the longest I've ever stuck to one program without getting bored. That's partly because it's not a "monogamous" program -- it encourages you to do other stuff on non-Iron Cardio days -- but also because it has enough variability within the IC template itself. On the key parameter I decided to track from the outset, RHR, I've seen an 11% improvement in 3 months, putting me in a range usually associated with joggers, cyclists, etc. It's enjoyable, produces measurable cardio benefits without joint impact, probably improves strength, and is compatible with doing a few days here and there of other things (be they other types of cardio, or more strength-focused). Endorse!
I actually “cheat” when doing traveling 2’s. I put the sets into excel and print that off and cross off as I go. My memory is lousy.
 
Im sure its been mentioned...buut

How do you know when to increase the weight, obviously when it feels too easy but is there a recommendation for a certain amount of reps in a certain amount of time?

I just done 36 reps each in 22min
Clean press squat chinups
 
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Im sure its been mentioned...buut

How do you know when to increase the weight, obviously when it feels too easy but is there a recommendation for a certain amount of reps in a certain amount of time?

I just done 36 reps each in 22min
C-P-SQ, 72 rounds in 22 mins. ?
 
Im sure its been mentioned...buut

How do you know when to increase the weight, obviously when it feels too easy but is there a recommendation for a certain amount of reps in a certain amount of time?

I just done 36 reps each in 22min
Clean press squat chinups
Gary,

one of my metrics is if you can double the time in sets (40 sets in 20 min or under for example) then it is time to choose a more challenging variation (heavier, traveling 2s, +snatch, etc.).

And I do count each arm as a set so 40 total sets = 20 per arm.
 
A question about optional finishers, as described in the book: Occasional swings are recommended with the training weight; I presume this is for simplicity. Would it be okay to go to a lighter KB and practice snatches in an A+A manner at the end of an IC session?
 
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A question about optional finishers, as described in the book: Occasional swings are recommended with the training weight; I presume this is for simplicity. Would it be okay to go to a lighter KB and practice snatches in an A+A manner at the end of an IC session?
Erik,

absolutely
 
Brett, why do you count left and right side separate? Why don't you always count the sequence?
Also, for antyglicolitic training, is it important that we load the same muscle groups? Like, for example, TASW, 5 reps OTM? Or, 3-5 reps O30S, all passing the talk test? Or is it about just doing some work in a repetitive fashion?
 
Why count each arm? I like big numbers ;-]

Each arm is doing work and every rep counts so I count each side.

RE: AGT
The repetitive nature is important and the short work time frame.
 
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