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Kettlebell VWC questions

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OK I gave the VWC a try...

I did 13 minutes of (8 snatch R, 15 sec rest, 8 snatch L, 15 sec rest) for a total of 208 snatches... add about 42 for warm-up, and 250 is about all I wanted to do with hardly any snatching lately, thought I felt like I could have kept going 10 minutes more if I had to.

I'll let you guys tell me if I'm doing it right before I comment on it.

The video is from about 5-8 minutes. I did work up a bit more of a sweat starting around 10 minutes.



upload_2018-8-31_11-32-59.png
 
@Bret S. and the truth is I don't have a program and don't need one. All I need for my personal programming are some practical guidelines I can put into practice and play my version of this to interweave them. What I "need" is a pull and a press, a grind and ballistic and some easy breathing steady locomotion work. More specifically the snatch, bent press, deadlift, row, run. with the lifts I have my goldilocks I can build up some serious volume, with the locomotion work I know my heart rates and exertion I can also build up some volume. It is all fairly boring basic stuff and I am dumb enough to stick with things...

Ha, yeah dumb like a fox I'm afraid :)

I like the minimalist philosophy.. Kinda goes along with the 'same but different' thing, with A+A as a template it seems easy to fill in the blanks with a few different moves as you have.

Personally I know my body loves to pull, OH pressing for me is like rowing against the current and I'm tired of fighting it so no more for awhile.
Snatch, getup, windmill, SLDL, pull-up, squat, cleans, swings, ring push-up is pretty much what I do these days.
I'm thinking of designing and building a gadget to hold multiple bells for deadlifting as I have no bar setup, I have a few ideas rolling around in my melon. I have doubles from 12k to 48k so if my bar can lift 4 kb's I'll have 184K tops which is more than enough for my needs.
Wednesday I went to the lake for a walk with my daughter and wore some new shoes, they were too tight with socks so I didn't wear any and about 2 miles in I knew I had a problem. My skin started to get into blister range so I stopped and took them off. To give a break I went barefoot for a short while and burned the bottom of my feet on the hot asphalt until I found plastic dog poop bags to wear with the shoes. Unbelievable stupidity as I didn't heed the voice in my head telling me to carry flip flops just in case. Now I have blisters on my feet. Without the plastic bags I would have been screwed.
To be honest I can hardly wait to get to boring :cool:
 
I realize you are not really comparing yourself to Harald but don't. There are cats like him that are just freaks. I wonder what he'll do when they no longer make KB's big enough for him. Then I remember that he makes his own.

Oh, and Harald would you please change that avatar pic where you look like a professor. It doesn't work anymore, most of us have figured you out. : )

I'm not comparing but rather contrasting his style with my own:
Harald = Turtle (calm, cool, peaceful confidence)
Me = Hare (chicken with no head)
:cool:
 
OK I gave the VWC a try...

I did 13 minutes of (8 snatch R, 15 sec rest, 8 snatch L, 15 sec rest) for a total of 208 snatches... add about 42 for warm-up, and 250 is about all I wanted to do with hardly any snatching lately, thought I felt like I could have kept going 10 minutes more if I had to.

I'll let you guys tell me if I'm doing it right before I comment on it.

The video is from about 5-8 minutes. I did work up a bit more of a sweat starting around 10 minutes.



View attachment 6206


Looks good Anna, the lockout looks more complete on the left side (could be the camera angle), pace and overall looks good.
I'm curious to see where you would land in the test for bell size and cadence as you're very strong.

If you feel up to it a good taste of VWC is 40 sets, that should give more a feel for the program and it's effects. If you get two sessions in at 40 sets 3-4 days apart I'll bet you see a big difference in the charts, it's crazy as the changes were notable for me. The mechanism behind the improvements is a mystery to me, the human body is amazing in it's adaptability.
 
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Looks good Anna, the lockout looks more complete on the left side, pace and overall looks good.
I'm curious to see where you would land in the test for bell size and cadence as you're very strong.

If you feel up to it a good taste of VWC is 40 sets, that should give more a feel for the program and it's effects. If you get two sessions in at 40 sets 3-4 days apart I'll bet you see a big difference in the charts, it's crazy as the changes were notable for me. The mechanism behind the improvements is a mystery to me, the human body is amazing in it's adaptability.

OK, glad to know that the right idea. YES, good catch on that right side lockout, always my nemesis... I swear it feels vertical but clearly it's not. It gets worse with high cadence.

I feel pretty sure that's the right size bell if 8-9 is the sweet spot. Can't snatch the 16kg quite that fast, and 8kg wouldn't do enough.

Here are my thoughts...

I can see why it's a V02 max protocol. It's definitely glycolytic. Not like muscle burning, but overall systemic high effort just like a 5-min snatch test or slightly under.

For comparison, this was my HR for my last 5-min snatch (122 reps in 5 min w/ 16kg)

upload_2018-8-31_14-39-28.png

So there is some recovery, as evidenced by the little dips between sets in the VWC track in my post above, but not much.

So the VWC is more "interval-ish", but very short intervals. The working pace is faster than one could sustain continuously, therefore seems like it pushes the breathing and overall effort higher when working than a continuous effort, yet the HR is not quite as high.

Here's an A+A session:
upload_2018-8-31_14-46-42.png

That was 5 snatches per repeat with 20kg, so just over one minute per repeat. HR stays much lower.

So it's really interesting how the same exercise, kettlebell snatch, with weights of 12, 16, and 20kg, put together in such different ways, can be very different experiences for the body.

Just some random Q&A to myself:
  • Are there different adaptations? I think so.
  • Do they overlap? Of course.
  • Do all make you more resilient, strong, better at snatching? Yes.
  • Will all have some effects on the cardiovascular system? Certainly.
  • Will all put demands on the energy systems? Absolutely. And I'm sure they all use the alactic (PCr), glycolytic, and aerobic.
  • Does the demands (and therefore adaptations) on energy systems differ? I think they are quite different, yes.
  • Do they all have some "side effects" (undesirable effects)? Hmm.. don't know.
  • Is one more sustainable? Yes I think A+A is.
  • Will one give quicker results? Yes I think VWC would.
  • Will one have more carryover to other things? I think A+A would have more carryover to strength and power activities, and VWC would have more carryover to endurance activities. (my opinion).
I put a post on Facebook about VWC and got a great suggestion from @Shawn Reed to do SF Plan 060 instead. It's basically snatching the VWC-sized bell (12kg for me) 5 times every 30 sec, up to 40 min. It goes into other phases and has some more guidance, but that's the gist of it. I'm going to give that a try twice per week along with barbell training.
 
I recently listened to an interview that Kenneth Jay did on a podcast. Probably some of the people on this forum have heard it. One of the things that I found interesting is that I didn't hear him mention kettlebells once. Perhaps he did and I missed it. If he did then someone can correct me on that.
What I did hear him talking about was rowing. It looks like he is not as big a fan of kettlebells for cardiovascular conditioning as he was when he wrote Viking Warrior Challange. I didn't read his latest book Cardio Code because I couldn't find it in any of the sources I use. I saw some chatting on some old forums about the topic and it looks like he now thinks the VWC protocol is about 60% as effective as things like running, bicycling and rowing for cardiovascular development. If there are some other details the rest of this group is familiar with it might be beneficial to share them.
Anyways, I was sidelined from my kettlebell work by a nerve impingement. I might have overdone it on the swings, getups, and snatches. The impingement caused me to lose strength in my left arm. It was a bummer because I had built up to where I could do all my swings with the 48kg.
I started using an exercise bike to keep my conditioning up. When my arm started getting stronger I got a Concept 2 rower and have been using it for 4 weeks. Also, I got a Schwinn Airdyne this week and had a practice ride on it. It looks like the rower and Airdyne will be my primary aerobic conditioning tools in the future. They just work so well for that kind of thing.
Anyways, I kind of went off topic a little. It does seem that if a person is looking for general aerobic conditioning there are better ways to do it than kettlebells. Don't get me wrong, I still plan to use the kettlebells in the future but I have to think about why I am using them. The kettlebells certainly take up less space than the rower and Airdyne.
 
I'll let you guys tell me if I'm doing it right
Yes, definitely to get a feel for it.

One thing I would do a little differently is make sure to be in my setup position before the timer beeps. I used getting my reps in the allotted time as a gauge of when I was done for the day. So I needed a consistent starting point for each set and a consistent definition of when the last rep was complete. I've used the lockout of the last rep, the catch at the bottom of the last rep, and parked on the floor as reference points at various times, but was consistent within a given session.

If I had a lazy set and didn't complete the last rep before the beep, I would consciously focus on being faster the next set (without cutting my lockout short). If I still missed the beep, I was done for the day.
 
OK, glad to know that the right idea. YES, good catch on that right side lockout, always my nemesis... I swear it feels vertical but clearly it's not. It gets worse with high cadence.

I feel pretty sure that's the right size bell if 8-9 is the sweet spot. Can't snatch the 16kg quite that fast, and 8kg wouldn't do enough.

Here are my thoughts...

I can see why it's a V02 max protocol. It's definitely glycolytic. Not like muscle burning, but overall systemic high effort just like a 5-min snatch test or slightly under.

For comparison, this was my HR for my last 5-min snatch (122 reps in 5 min w/ 16kg)

View attachment 6207

So there is some recovery, as evidenced by the little dips between sets in the VWC track in my post above, but not much.

So the VWC is more "interval-ish", but very short intervals. The working pace is faster than one could sustain continuously, therefore seems like it pushes the breathing and overall effort higher when working than a continuous effort, yet the HR is not quite as high.

Here's an A+A session:
View attachment 6208

That was 5 snatches per repeat with 20kg, so just over one minute per repeat. HR stays much lower.

So it's really interesting how the same exercise, kettlebell snatch, with weights of 12, 16, and 20kg, put together in such different ways, can be very different experiences for the body.

Just some random Q&A to myself:
  • Are there different adaptations? I think so.
  • Do they overlap? Of course.
  • Do all make you more resilient, strong, better at snatching? Yes.
  • Will all have some effects on the cardiovascular system? Certainly.
  • Will all put demands on the energy systems? Absolutely. And I'm sure they all use the alactic (PCr), glycolytic, and aerobic.
  • Does the demands (and therefore adaptations) on energy systems differ? I think they are quite different, yes.
  • Do they all have some "side effects" (undesirable effects)? Hmm.. don't know.
  • Is one more sustainable? Yes I think A+A is.
  • Will one give quicker results? Yes I think VWC would.
  • Will one have more carryover to other things? I think A+A would have more carryover to strength and power activities, and VWC would have more carryover to endurance activities. (my opinion).
I put a post on Facebook about VWC and got a great suggestion from @Shawn Reed to do SF Plan 060 instead. It's basically snatching the VWC-sized bell (12kg for me) 5 times every 30 sec, up to 40 min. It goes into other phases and has some more guidance, but that's the gist of it. I'm going to give that a try twice per week along with barbell training.
That's great Anna, I like your list and agree with everything you said in it, as far as A+A and VWC carryover for power I don't have enough experience with A+A to know anything, but on the VWC side there are many unexpected full body strength WTH effects I didn't expect both in limit strength and strength endurance. It seems counter intuitive but it's real. In your 5 min snatch test you lifted 4303 lbs in 5 mins, so about 860 lbs/min (impressive), in VWC you lifted (not including warmups) 5500 lbs in approx 13 mins, or 423 lbs/min. so around half the load/min of the snatch test.

It's interesting to look at loads/min and the effects on HR and overall. VWC using 16k @ 16r/min equates to 564lbs/min. for up to 40 mins. No wonder I see some WTH effects going on.
 
@Robert Noftz
Robert sorry to hear of your problem, hope it goes well and you get back to full power soon.
I'm not sure if you read this whole thread but the gist of it for me is using VWC as a stepping stone to A+A. Any CVS benefits are secondary to my main goal of strength endurance and improved elasticity in my shoulders. That said the cardiac benefits are real and there is good carryover to many things. VWC is a win/win in that regard and it's turning me into a snatching machine. (y)
 
Thanks guys, good inputs as always.

@Robert Noftz sorry to hear of the nerve impingement. You certainly were making good progress. But, looks like you're finding another way, just like the book "The Obstacle is The Way" describes. I think the outcome will be good.
 
Thanks guys, good inputs as always.

@Robert Noftz sorry to hear of the nerve impingement. You certainly were making good progress. But, looks like you're finding another way, just like the book "The Obstacle is The Way" describes. I think the outcome will be good.
I haven't read that book. I will have to take a look at it.
I did start applying some of the things I learned from using S&S and Strong Endurance to other training tools. Tonight I applied the alactic and aerobic approach to the Airdyne. Using intense 10 second bursts of activity with slow peddling for recovery gave me a great workout. It is amazing how high the heart rate can get with an all out burst of activity on the airbike. The slow peddling for recovery kept me moving in the aerobic zone.
 
OK, glad to know that the right idea. YES, good catch on that right side lockout, always my nemesis... I swear it feels vertical but clearly it's not. It gets worse with high cadence.

I feel pretty sure that's the right size bell if 8-9 is the sweet spot. Can't snatch the 16kg quite that fast, and 8kg wouldn't do enough.

Here are my thoughts...

I can see why it's a V02 max protocol. It's definitely glycolytic. Not like muscle burning, but overall systemic high effort just like a 5-min snatch test or slightly under.

For comparison, this was my HR for my last 5-min snatch (122 reps in 5 min w/ 16kg)

View attachment 6207

So there is some recovery, as evidenced by the little dips between sets in the VWC track in my post above, but not much.

So the VWC is more "interval-ish", but very short intervals. The working pace is faster than one could sustain continuously, therefore seems like it pushes the breathing and overall effort higher when working than a continuous effort, yet the HR is not quite as high.

Here's an A+A session:
View attachment 6208

That was 5 snatches per repeat with 20kg, so just over one minute per repeat. HR stays much lower.

Anna,

Listen to Peter Park's Podcast and the praise he has for Pavel's Strong Endurance work, the results he has achieved as well as his very high level clients. SF 060 is a great compliment to what you are doing and is the base that allows a much greater peak. All the best to you!
Shawn


So it's really interesting how the same exercise, kettlebell snatch, with weights of 12, 16, and 20kg, put together in such different ways, can be very different experiences for the body.

Just some random Q&A to myself:
  • Are there different adaptations? I think so.
  • Do they overlap? Of course.
  • Do all make you more resilient, strong, better at snatching? Yes.
  • Will all have some effects on the cardiovascular system? Certainly.
  • Will all put demands on the energy systems? Absolutely. And I'm sure they all use the alactic (PCr), glycolytic, and aerobic.
  • Does the demands (and therefore adaptations) on energy systems differ? I think they are quite different, yes.
  • Do they all have some "side effects" (undesirable effects)? Hmm.. don't know.
  • Is one more sustainable? Yes I think A+A is.
  • Will one give quicker results? Yes I think VWC would.
  • Will one have more carryover to other things? I think A+A would have more carryover to strength and power activities, and VWC would have more carryover to endurance activities. (my opinion).
I put a post on Facebook about VWC and got a great suggestion from @Shawn Reed to do SF Plan 060 instead. It's basically snatching the VWC-sized bell (12kg for me) 5 times every 30 sec, up to 40 min. It goes into other phases and has some more guidance, but that's the gist of it. I'm going to give that a try twice per week along with barbell training.
 
All I need for my personal programming are some practical guidelines I can put into practice and play my version of this to interweave them.

Few, very few individuals understand this.

  • Are there different adaptations? I think so.
  • Do they overlap? Of course.
  • Do all make you more resilient, strong, better at snatching? Yes.
  • Will all have some effects on the cardiovascular system? Certainly.
  • Will all put demands on the energy systems? Absolutely. And I'm sure they all use the alactic (PCr), glycolytic, and aerobic.
  • Does the demands (and therefore adaptations) on energy systems differ? I think they are quite different, yes.
  • Do they all have some "side effects" (undesirable effects)? Hmm.. don't know.
  • Is one more sustainable? Yes I think A+A is.
  • Will one give quicker results? Yes I think VWC would.
  • Will one have more carryover to other things? I think A+A would have more carryover to strength and power activities, and VWC would have more carryover to endurance activities. (my opinion).

I'm confused... so, you lift weights and you get stronger? And you do it more than once makes you better able to do it more than once? ;]
 
I haven't read that book. I will have to take a look at it.
I did start applying some of the things I learned from using S&S and Strong Endurance to other training tools. Tonight I applied the alactic and aerobic approach to the Airdyne. Using intense 10 second bursts of activity with slow peddling for recovery gave me a great workout. It is amazing how high the heart rate can get with an all out burst of activity on the airbike. The slow peddling for recovery kept me moving in the aerobic zone.

This sounds very much like traditional HIIT protocol...
 
This sounds very much like traditional HIIT protocol...

It does, I agree. And since I had some HR captures and discussions above, I'll add this one. This was a HIIT session on the Airdyne. 5 intervals of 20 seconds all out effort followed by 1 min 40 sec recovery. My HR doesn't even come CLOSE to recovering between these intervals, even though it's a relatively long recovery period between the intervals -- longer for example than A+A rest between repeats.

I guess this is why I get confused when people talk about HIIT with kettlebells or barbells. I've never been able to do anything with those exercises that remotely comes close to the full-body intensity of the Airdyne all-out effort.

And yeah, the super interesting thing with HIIT is how the HR stays high long after you're done. 4 min after the last effort there where HR peaked at 168, my HR is still around 120, and I've noticed it stays 10-20 bpm higher than normal for up to an hour afterwards. In comparison, after the VWC yesterday, it came right down from 169 to 113 in 2 minutes following the last effort, and back down well below 80 a few minutes after that.

upload_2018-9-1_11-52-35.png
 
It does, I agree. And since I had some HR captures and discussions above, I'll add this one. This was a HIIT session on the Airdyne. 5 intervals of 20 seconds all out effort followed by 1 min 40 sec recovery. My HR doesn't even come CLOSE to recovering between these intervals, even though it's a relatively long recovery period between the intervals -- longer for example than A+A rest between repeats.

I guess this is why I get confused when people talk about HIIT with kettlebells or barbells. I've never been able to do anything with those exercises that remotely comes close to the full-body intensity of the Airdyne all-out effort.

And yeah, the super interesting thing with HIIT is how the HR stays high long after you're done. 4 min after the last effort there where HR peaked at 168, my HR is still around 120, and I've noticed it stays 10-20 bpm higher than normal for up to an hour afterwards. In comparison, after the VWC yesterday, it came right down from 169 to 113 in 2 minutes following the last effort, and back down well below 80 a few minutes after that.

View attachment 6212

That really gets the heart going pretty well, I think you'll find the HR stays elevated longer after a 60 or 80 set session of VWC.. This has been my experience with it anyway and I've noticed the difference.

It would be good to try your method above but with longer rests to recover HR to some sort of baseline
 
It does, I agree. And since I had some HR captures and discussions above, I'll add this one. This was a HIIT session on the Airdyne. 5 intervals of 20 seconds all out effort followed by 1 min 40 sec recovery. My HR doesn't even come CLOSE to recovering between these intervals, even though it's a relatively long recovery period between the intervals -- longer for example than A+A rest between repeats.

I guess this is why I get confused when people talk about HIIT with kettlebells or barbells. I've never been able to do anything with those exercises that remotely comes close to the full-body intensity of the Airdyne all-out effort.

And yeah, the super interesting thing with HIIT is how the HR stays high long after you're done. 4 min after the last effort there where HR peaked at 168, my HR is still around 120, and I've noticed it stays 10-20 bpm higher than normal for up to an hour afterwards. In comparison, after the VWC yesterday, it came right down from 169 to 113 in 2 minutes following the last effort, and back down well below 80 a few minutes after that.

View attachment 6212
I always wondered how Anna got those polar charts loaded on this page. I finally decided to try it. I'm glad I saw you using the data on the charts Anna, the heart rate monitor has been a very useful tool. I might have to try more of a Tabata type of interval at some point in the future.

I tried a longer session on the Airdyne. I warmed up for the first few minutes and then started hitting the high intensity intervals of approximately 10 seconds. I did a total of ten high intensity bursts, then I went for about 15 minutes of lower intensity training in the aerobic zone. Perhaps the first two intervals weren't that intense I was just getting used to the feel of the machine. After doing a high intensity burst I would recover with slow peddling until my heart rate got to 115 bpm and then start the next interval. At my age 115 is about 67% of my max heart rate using the 220 minus your age approach. I went for a total of 45 minutes.
This was the first session in which I tried to do some high intensity intervals.
One of the things I quickly noticed was that it took longer and longer to get down to 115 as the session went on. Also I noticed what felt like a little burst of adrenaline right before I started each interval. I almost felt a little boost right now when I thought about it. Those bursts of activity are really intense.

upload_2018-9-1_17-16-36.png
 
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