Back to Kettlebells

I am back to doing a series of Kettlebell workouts.  I don’t really see the value of them for less than 16kg (35lbs) for that you can do all the same swings and such just fine with an adjustable dumbbell.  The real advantage is that you can is that you can really swing them arround for explosive movements.  For me I cannot pull a reasonable ammount of weight close to my body with dumbbells.  I can with a barbell, but then it is much trickier to work in a small space or do swinging movements.  The downside to Kettlebells is they are not adjustable.  I have 8kg (18lbs) differences between each of my weights.  This means you progress by doing more in less time aka doing more reps in a fixed amount of time (EDT style).

If what you want is bulk or raw strength I don’t think anything beats progressive increasing of load (expect perhaps some periodized wave loading).  But if you want to work muscular endurance/stamina (as opposed to aerobic endurance), work capacity, or power working on a fixed load can be quite productive.

I started with a pair of 24KG bells.  Reccomended for a strong/trained man.  Some of the proponents of these exercise tools include Pavel Tsatsouline (the guy for KB in America), Mike Mahler, and Jeff Martone (great videos at crossfit).

My current theory is to do 1 month of exercises to build myself up to doing exercises with my new 32KG (70.5lbs).  The ability to be able to explosive movements with that much weight is actually one of those quality of life things.  “Power” movements are considered one of these quality of life measures. because being able to pick up heavy things fast is just convenient.   I will see how this progression works.  It is very rapid, I am curious to see what happens to total work capacity over this time as I push the load way up.

My last set of exercises:

20.09.2009

10×10 72KG BB Bench Press (10-10-10-10-10-8-9-9-8-8)
SuperSet-1: 4x
12 bw Inverted Rows
7 48KG KB Clean + Jerk
3×10 52 KG Bulgarian Split Squat (per leg)
SuperSet-2: 3x
6x hand-stand Push-Ups
10 bw+10kg Pull-Ups (incomplete reps)

22.09.2009

5×5 59.5KG BB Clean Jerk
SuperSet-1: 4x
12 BW Dips
12 BW Inverted Rows
3×10 59.5 KG BB RDL 1-leg
SuperSet-2: 4x
10 24KG KB Jerks (1-arm)
11 Chn-Up
4×8 24 KG KB 1-arm Snatch

24.09.2009

10×10 72KG BB Bench Press (10-10-10-10-10-8-8-9-9-9)
SuperSet-1: 4x
10 24KG KB Renegade Rows
10 12.5KG DB 1-arm Lunges (L-R-L-R per leg alternating)
5×5 52 KG BB Thruster
SuperSet-2: 2x
15 Pull-Up
7 Hand Stand Push-Up

27.09.2009

5×5 64.5 KG BB Clean + Jerk
SuperSet-1: 4x
8 10KG Pull-Up
8 17.5 DB 1-side Lunges (L-R-L-R)
SuperSet-2: 3x
10 24 KG KB Renegade Rows
15 10 KG Vest  Elevated KB Push-Ups
4×8 59.5 KG BB Bulgarian Split Squats

29.09.2009 (the beginning of the Kettlebell Conditioning Program)

2 minutes work, 1 minute rest
32KG KB Clean & Jerk [19,18,15]
SuperSet-1:
16 KG Chest Press (per arm weight) [25,25,24]
32 KG KB Pin-Rows [21,21,23]
32 KG KB (double-hand) swing [53,49,51]
SuperSet-2:
16KG KB Halo [15,17,17]
bw Pull-Ups [17,16,15]

Need a New Workout Plan – Running

So I have agreed to join a 5x5k relay race with some co-workers here in Berlin on June 11th.

This is my first running race and I need a new training plan to get there.  My current training while good for muscle and fat loss is not going to get me faster for the race.  I would ideally like to be able to do my leg in 25 minutes.  I don’t know how realistic that is.  Currently I am lucky to do a 5:30 km (but generally for 8km)

I have looked at a few training plans.   The basics I see are ramp up distance and/or intesity until 2 week before then cut down.  Keep the kilometers per week up, and mix in some speed/strength work.

Intervals are bit hard for me to do as I am more of a mixed terrain street runner, Fartlek makes more sense for me.

It seems that I need more than 3 days per week to really improve, but I probably only need 30 minute runs on the additonal days.

Some thoughts I have.

Sunday: Long Run (60 + minutes)
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Weights + Basic-Run (30 + 30 minutes)
Wednesday: Fartlek/Interval Set (30 minutes)
Thursday: Weights + Basic-Run (30 + 30 minutes)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Speed/Strength Work of some kind (30-60 minutes)

This plan is 5 days per week.  The biggest problem I see is Wedneday.  Especially if it is my historic measurement day.  Maybe I switch to Friday Measurement day.

Even with this plan I run into a problem with how do I actually progress.  I should be able to do 5k in under 30 minutes already.

The question is how do increase the intensity of the Wed and Sat workouts to actually push improvement?

Tabata Intervals – Or the Shortest Workout You Should Do!

4 minutes composed of:
8 x 20 seconds as hard-as-you can + 10 seconds of rest.

This is a Tabata Interval training set, named after Dr. Izumi Tabata of National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan.

Does it work?  The research and the experts says it does.

The research was done on both athletes AND ordinary people.  Both groups saw serious results in 6 weeks of 5 days per week of Tabata Intervals.

VO2 MAX (Aerobic Capacity): Improved 20%!
Anaerobic Strength (Muscle Strength): Improved
Metabolism over 24hrs: Increased (if you are interested in weight loss this is helpful)

The point of the intensity is to go 70% harder than you can sustain (170% VO2 Max) for those 20 seconds.  The 10 seconds lets the the oxegen back into your blood.  By the end of the set your muscles should be sore from both acid and exertion as you build up an O2 deficit over time working at this intensity.

So don’t skip you work-out when the weather sucks or you cannot make it to the gym.  Do at least one Tabata Interval!

I generally am on recovery during weekends, but today I did burpees for my exercise.  Yeah I was heaving by the end of 4 minutes and my arms and legs were sore.  I would say realistically, 10 minutes is the time cost of doing a Tabata set, get sittuated, stretch, do the set, recover breath and get on with life.

So that is the basic to keep up your efforts.

Diet – Calorie Counting + high-protein

People ask me what system I am on all the time.

Short answer “Calorie Counting” + high-protein

Basic concept: Consume fewer calories than you use every single day.

Where does high-protein come in?

The goal is to lose fat NOT weight.  It is really hard to add on muscle weight and it is healthy for you.  You don’t want to lose it.

If you don’t want to lose it, it means two things.

1. You must do resistance exercise (weight-lifting, body-weight, something that is intense enough to make your muscles sore) to stimulate muscle growth.
2. You must have enough protein to be able to repair your tissues.

What are the minimums?

The minimum amount of fat recommended for proper nutritional uptake of other substances is 30 grams (270Kcal) per day.

The minimum recommended Carbohydrate to avoid Ketosis (This is apposite of what the Atkins diet wants you to do because it induces ketosis) is 50-100 grams (200-400Kcal) per day.

Assuming you are actually getting some serious physical exercise in you need 1.3-1.5grams per KG of body-weight of protein to maintain nitrogen levels.  My 90kg (198lbs) man needs 126g (504Kcal) of protein per day.

So my minimum diet becomes.  1174 (Kcal).  Of that diet 43% of the calories are comming from protein!  That is not very many calories for 90kg man, this would be a diet that only provided basic nutrition but not enough for normal daily activity.   A more normal number would be 2400 (then only 21% of calories must come from protein) and you the USDA guideline actually make sense.

That is my fundamental argument:

• If you are under calorific restriction (eating fewer than you consume)
• Protein is nutrient with the highest minimum value (1.4g per-day per kg-of-bodyweight)
• you attempt to meet all your minimum-dietary requirements
• Conclusion: Your diet will become high-protein

There are people who say that there are issues with hormone levels, that there is a metabolic advantage to certain diets.

But the most basic thing is true:  If you eat less than you expend you will lose weight.

No way around it.  There may be ways where you can eat slightly more and lose slightly more fat, but nobody has actually proven what those methods are.  The burning of fat is complicated, but your body will absolutely do it if it does not have a choice.

With that in mind there is the issue of muscle preservation.

• muscles that have been worked with grow given adequate nutrition
• muscle grows demands nitrogen which is consumable from protein
• muscle that is growing will not be losing weight
• Conclusion: do vigorous exercise and consume enough protein to provide for muscle growth

Add the two concepts together and you have my diet system.  Not new, not clever, not easy.

The basic concepts for dietary restriction are as follows:

• 1g of fat = 9Kcal of Energy
• 1g of carbohydrate = 4Kcal of Energy
• 1g of Protein = 4Kcal of Energy

This implies that .5Kg (1.1 lbs) = 4,500Kcal

If you want to lose .5KG of fat in a week, you need to expend 4,500Kcal of energy more than you consume to lose that FAT.

You can change that balance 3 ways.

1. Maintain Energy Expenditures at the same level + reduce dietary calories consumed by 643Kcal per day
2. Increase Energy Expenditure by 643Kcal per day + maintain dietary calories consumed at the same level
3. Increase Energy Expenditure + reduce dietary calories for a total of 643Kcal per day

I highly recommend #3.

#1 problem: If you just restrict calories their is no guarantee you will lose fat, you may depending on your hormonal balance and activities just as easily lose muscle.  Not making you healthier, more fit, or changing your body-shape in a desirable way.

#2 problem: 643Kcal per day is over 1hr of lifting weights 7 times per week for our 90Kg man.  Their are carry-over effects from 1hr of training where you will burn slightly more calories for the rest of the day.  But that is a very large time commitment, dietary restriction is simply easier.

#3 solution: If you activate muscle growth with adequate nutrients (protein) you will not lose muscle, so your body will have to lose fat as it deacreases weight.  You keep your strength, you get healthier, and you get the desired body changes.

So you cam across this and were convinced this makes sense, how do you do it?

Fortunately there are lots of tools to help.

1. Calculate your protein need: Body_weight_in_Kg * 1.4 = grams_per_day_protein
2. Use a dietary calculator to get your basic needs:  http://www.dietitian.com/calcbody.php
   play with the settings to make sure it recommends your computed protein need.  I recommend starting with a 30/30/40 ratio for Fat/Protein/Carbohydrates
3. Use a calorie counting tool to track your consumption and exta energy expenditure.  I recommend the free service from http://www.my-calorie-counter.com
4. Find a fitness excercise program that fits your space, time, and interest.  Basic bodyweight exercises are definately the place to start.  Push-up, Pull-up, squat, crunch.  Jogging & jump-rope should also be considered, but space, equipment, and injury risk are all greater.  There are millions of variations and adding weights definetly helps with improvement and maintaining intensity.

Bodyweight or Calisthenic Improvement Systems

A friend of mine in Pittsburgh is loth to buy a weight set.  He had a bowflex something or other when he was in California and never really got around to using it that much and it took up space.  So he has been looking at more bodyweight exercises.  He had a background in runnning training and weight-lifting but wasn’t sure how he was suppose to procede with fixed resistance exercises.

The basic to muscle growth is progressive overload (without failure).  True failure tends to seriously injure muscles and prevent rapid recovery.

The traditonal weight lifting mentality of this is is more reps or more resistance (weight) each time.

But what muslces really do is work (Force over distance).  Muscle capacity is actually directly related to work capacity which really is Power (Work over time).  So an alternative way to do this is do more work in less time!

So you come up with whatever your workout is, wall-push-ups, pistol-squats, and you start working against a fixed amount of time, aiming for more repetitions.

I nice pre-built system for this with bodyweight excercises can be found at simplefit.org which has several levels to choose from.  Ross Enamait also has a circuit for this style of training.

Charles Staley has created a system called EDT (Escelating Density Training) to get you even further down the path.  His system as described in the unnatural athlete (also available as a free e-book if you sign up for his newsletter) is actually described for resistance exercises, but it works very well for bodyweight.

1. Have a fixed time period (Mr. Staley reccomends 15minutes)
2. Do a good number of reps (50% of your maxium)
3. Rest for a short fixed period of time (10-30 seconds)
4. repeat

The total number of reps = your performance number.  How much space there was between them doesn’t matter.

The next time you do it the goal is beat your performance number.  If you really are falling apart durning the cycle increase the rest period.  (again start with a 10second one, once you cannot do that anymore  then switch to a longer one).  But the goal is to make your muscles do more work in the same ammount of time every time you train.  Fewer breaks, more speed, doesn’t really matter.  If you are doing more work, you will be improving.  If you are doing resistance the reccomendation is do not switch up to more resistance until you have done at least a 20% improvement, then you can increase resistance by 5%.  The problem is that if you increase your weight too fast you will actually be producing less power.  Because many fewer repetitions with a heavier weight is less power.

Summary: with fixed-resistance &  fixed-time, increase reps to increase muscle & power.