Month: March 2024

3/31/24
I don’t recall when I typed it up.
Saw it today while video editing between sets of 34kg buc&p.

And I’d have seen it tomorrow anyway.
On the digital sticky notes I’d written on the digital calendar for the 1st ;

“start dribbling soccer ball as a new skill in addition to kb training”

It’s Easter Sunday, some stores are closed, some aren’t.

I wasn’t even sure if I had a soccer ball.
I went looking. Found two ie had them already.

Made my selection, and pumped it up.

My internet speeds at home are mad slow.
While videos upload I do other things.

So it was outside an hour after the kettlebell, playing around with a soccer ball for the first time in nearly a decade I’d say.

Immediately I felt small muscles firing, and understood (again) the need for agility.

I’m going to practice dribbling a soccer ball every day in april, alongside my daily overhead pressing (which is really kettlebell at this point) of course.

Tried handstands the other day, they’re rusty and that wasn’t even a thing I was great at.

I’ve been moving away from quote unquote “normal” lifting.

The kettlebell is plenty of real world strength, the main variant – bottoms up clean and press, the total body tension is nuts.

Ab and/or oblique soreness has been the usual lately, then it’s anybody’s guess as to where, if anywhere else, I may feel soreness.

My quad at the kneecap, one side, the other, or both – I’ve felt it there.

An odd observation has been that my free hand on buc&p – that side of the upper back is what’s sore later.

Frankly 1950s bodybuilding was big on the concept of rib cage expansion…I dare you to make a heavy and high rep buc&p your main lift for a time, then come back and tell me the concept isn’t truth.

Kettlebell one arm stuff, mace, and the panting of anything really (burpees, sprints, jump rope)… it’s real.

Sternum cramps…a few periods over the years I’ve felt them, and they’ve always meant muscular growth.

Wherever I may be in life, here’s one big positive I’m conscious of…

The kettlebell training, how good I’m getting at bottoms up work/play/stuff…it has me giddy.

Giddy is the only word.

A moment of buc&p each day, covers everything, and now I’ve started a playful physical skill.

Dribbling the soccer ball.

Why that?
Cause it’s wholly new to me, and can be done anywhere.

Three tennis balls could work for juggling.
Heck it could’ve been handstands…maybe that’ll be brought further soon…

What I know is, it’d behoove me to continue kettlebell training, have my playful skill…and then go for brief runs cause I keep saying I’m going to make a run for a ≤6:00 mile (& 20+ pullups (which could fall to the wayside of kettlebell)) these warm seasons.

A shift in my training…
Back to well rounded athleticism.

Persistence & Tenacity

At 20/21 years old I went from about 235lbs to around 200lbs, in probably four months of a six month lease.

Mostly I did pushups.

I did some deep knee bends, some deadlift and one arm row simulating isometrics, some wrestler’s bridging with a 20lb kettlebell as added resistance, did a little bit of kettlebell swings with the same, usually doing the 20:10 protocols of extended tabata, some manual resistance wrist levering, holding side kicks as a flex/isometric, and…

A good deal of jump rope with some of the pushups in a mental/nuts superset of 10×100 each.

Now those pushups were exceedingly short range of motion.

I have a big chest.

I doubt more than a handful are doing hundreds and hundreds of pushups on a daily basis and actually using full range.

Dude, you’re not in the military – no one cares. You’re free to use the worst form you wish.

I got real fit with that superset.

Got me to where I played an hour or more of full court pickup basketball, generally the first or so up and down the court – another guy commenting that “you’re only okay skill wise, though you caught us all by shooting 3s – I don’t get it, you’re the heaviest here, probably the fastest here, and definitely have the best cardio – how is this how you play pickup basketball – do you never play, but if so how do you have the cardio”…

It was a funny moment ; “dude I just went six months away from the gym, but did a lot of pushups and jump rope supersets at my apartments pool”.

Basketball courts attached to a gym are always cool – nothing like being tired from the weights and playing some pickup anyway, making you dig deep.

…..

Lately I’ve been increasing my reps per set in the nightly pushups.

2×50 a normal night, but every few nights making one of those sets 100.

Minutes ago it was 200+ in a set, probably ¼ rom, though I varied it throughout the set – an INSANE rep count for a little shy of a minute.

Calling All Form Police!
Calling All Form Police!
My range of motion is very little.

It’s okay. It works.
At any time I can have my buddy stand on my upper back and I’ll get some full range weighted pushups.

Weighted pushups are more fun than unweighted to actually do the full range.

I do the vanilla reps, turned them into “woody woodpeckers” as my old lifting partner nicknamed them, and made it into an anaerobic feat with the serious chest development of high volume pumps on a regular basis year upon year upon year.

…..

Did you know typing as your phone is plugged into the wall is a way to be productive as your phone charges?

I tend to charge my phone during a decent amount of my video editing and typing.

67% and increasing.

…..

I get crazy pumps out of pushing the pace on one arm swings with the light 16kg bell.

I’d get conditioning from that mixed with the pushups, reps high and aiming higher, superset as described above with the pushups and jump rope of yesteryear.

…..

I say it time and again – good pumps for me = increasing max strength.

The kettlebell is a great thing.
Glorious glute pumps from swinging the light bell, then diesel entire body, heavily muscled, bodybuilding but with other than competitive bodybuilding proportion, development…from all the kettlebell press variety, volume, and frequency.

Girevoy may tend to develop, long and lean, lanky, wiry strength.

I’m getting pretty stocky from my waying my way along (like sinatra) with a more hardstyle, essentially randomized, high frequency method.

…..

And doing way more short range of motion pushups each day.

Cause if I’m not running, everything that hits “conditioning” is base building for that ≤6:00 mile I keep talking about hitting while yet to even jog a step.

Be strong.
Be fit.
Eat well.
Upload videos daily.

-J
Persistence & Tenacity

I’d argue that a larger hurdle for the beginner to the gym is not confusion as to what to do, but that a lack of enjoyment causes the actual discipline involved of getting to the gym to be a struggle.

Bypassing that is as simple as making it so that no matter what you’re training either immediately upon waking or immediately after work.

Simple.
One or the other.

And always daily builds habit faster than it does when you have off days/rest days.

…..

I understand. It can be disheartening to be in a gym and be weak.

For whatever reason the ego causes one to compare themselves to others, and many never get good as their struggles at the start seem hopeless in comparison to someone at an advanced level.

Dudes no warm up benching your deadlift, pressing your front squat – that shit lol…

Biting the ground during pushups, meditating preworkout on things far rougher than you have it, and no option to train anywhere else…these set a good foundation.

…..

You gotta get a beginner doing productive stuff, but you might have to trick them to get to the gym with fun stuff (done additionally to the more quantifiable productive basics – I have a serious internal argument going about how life would be different had I started with kettlebells vs pushups, then barbell).

Throw around a medicine ball for a time, tends to be fun for most, and it’s building work capacity.

Make it a game, try to throw from as far as possible or as quickly as possible – make it into a competition, maybe you’re trying to go the entire time without dropping it, or maybe you’re trying to get your training partner to drop it.

The concept of “I’m in this with you” can get many to do more than they’d otherwise.

Set an interval timer, then you’re both dropping to the floor for pushups or burpees or whatever at the same intervals, but maybe the reps are scaled.

(isn’t this what group fitness class instructors are doing…with a zillion burpees, bw squats, lunges, pushups…a personal trainer could have the side effect of their client’s sessions be an awesome base of their own daily gpp)

One training partner took a selfie, texted his girl “look how sweaty this made me”, and thanked me for getting him to do the burpees.

He just matched my reps, the interval timer on my phone dictating when we did a few, when we rested.

(a few random people have joined me on burpees like that – my mentality being “you want in, sure, the more the merrier – let’s get it”)

Another training partner – I was proud of him for this one, took me talking him through it towards the end, but he completed it.

We’d been doing pullups, he asked me “if we were to do pushups – how many would you consider a lot”.

“Me personally? Essentially infinity. All of them. Us doing a workout together? 400 total, 20×20 – I’ll complete it, you’ll complete it.”

He expressed doubt, but I knew he’d get through it digging deep and with me alongside him the entire time, talking him through the end if necessary.

…..

There’s definite value to a training partner or a trainer being in the thing with you.

“Hey we’re in the suck together.”
(though that frame of mind makes it like the gym hobby is some actually difficult thing…it’s not tough…we in the first world exercise as a hobby)

Still, gotta get the crowd into it.

So :
•be alongside them
•positive external talk
•do fun stuff

The training partner(s) or client(s) is the only one in your world while you’re training with them.

Nothing else exists.
They are the only external in your universe at that moment.

-J

By definition the kettlebell community generally means when they say “press” pressing away off of one shouldering of the bell, one press to many presses.

By definition the kettlebell community generally means when they say “clean & press” to mean clean, press, clean, press, clean, press, etc as the way the set is conducted.

Bottoms up is bottoms up work.

A bottoms up press is anywhere from one press to many presses using the above definitions.

A bottoms up clean is just cleaning in the bottoms up position.

Bottoms up clean and bottoms up press is long winded and using the above definition of clean and press.

I’d shorten it to bottoms up clean and press, then acronym it down to “buc&p”.

That’s been my main movement for the past week or so, the buc&p.

It’s like I bastardized long cycle from girevoy down to the most hardstyle overhead variant, but in more of a girevoy style of exercise and then again ; yet with one bell.

Made it my own. 😁

L
O
L

…..

Mostly I’ve done the buc&p with the 16kg bell, matching reps each side from left to right.

Already I’m making PRs with the right hand and the 32kg bell.

I’m convinced that the way you’d maximize a light bell is to get REALLY GOOD at the buc&p, taking the reps to the stratosphere, then just doing some other kb movements on occasion (up to tons of front squats, some turkish get ups, which could be bu tgu (that being what I’ve found to be the hardest bottoms up movement)).

…..

This is about my 5th time writing this now.

Following the paragraph preceding the page break dots, I too am convinced that if one started at a bell, a really light bell even, kettlebell training mostly high rep buc&p, the buc&p the main movement…

(some other heavier stuff allowed on occasion but light buc&p the main movement and large bulk of training/practice)

Given a long, slow progression within +/- 10 years anyone could be easily bottoms up pressing a 48kg.

Imagine taking a young man at age 12 or so, maybe even as young as 7yo, giving him a 4kg bell (lighter if necessary), expecting 25-100 reps/side buc&p daily, never straining, then YEARLY just upped it 4kg – a half bell jump.

Year 1 : 4kg
Year 2 : 8kg
Year 3 : 12kg
Year 4 : 16kg
Year 5 : 20kg
Year 6 : 24kg
Year 7 : 28kg
Year 8 : 32kg
Year 9 : 36kg
Year 10 : 40kg
Year 11 : 44kg
Year 12 : 48kg

This entire time never straining, never failing a rep, but developing a crazy gas tank from millions of reps of c&p, insane upper back, shoulder, and forearm development (not to mention serious glute and hamstring development) and entering that kid off to college or the military himself already a unit…

I’m under the impression this sort of thing was how the orphan became the circus strongman in a different day and age.

…..

As said above mostly, and done off camera, I’ve just been doing lots of buc&p reps at 16kg.

The above progression (on a sped up time frame assuming bell purchases I’ve yet to make) in mind.

I’m already using barely moderate effort for (8rm was most recent PR – blinded by the wind and sun to boot) 32kg right, but most sessions are feel good sessions, matching reps each side with the 16kg bell.

I’ve already seen some leanness and shoulder gains from this (100+ total reps/side one day was a nice MINISESSION), and in general feel pretty solid.

Partly too I’m doing this having seen an increase in forearm size, this an idea to increase that moreso.

In a few weeks maybe it’ll be with the 20kg, then maybe I’ll put the $$$ into a 24kg & 28kg.

Maybe I’ll train left to 32kg for reps and 32kg right for reps into the stratosphere, or maybe I’ll go all in, just purchase the 36kg, 44kg, and 48kg (in addition to the 24kg and 28kg) and have one bells from 16 to 48 by the 4kg jumps.

Allowing upward movement as fast as possible!

There’s no doubt in my mind as to my being within spitting distance of a 48kg bottoms up press, which I’m under the impression would be a big deal to the kettlebell community.

And the thing is…right now I’m fat, “weak”, and worst of all…out of shape.

I read somewhere that someone said “the kettlebell has a tendency of right sizing you”.

I’m banking on that 😁

Persistence & Tenacity

I don’t grasp the concept of having a weak midsection.

Training was always compound lifts, never once putting on a belt, doing partials, calisthenics alongside the entire time.

I wonder if I can dragon flag, about a decade ago at 235lbs I shocked a training partner by doing one.

I’ve actually done a human flag before, that was about four years back, off of the ability to do 6 handstand pushups against a wall, and 8 or so pullups at a bodyweight of probably 260lbs.

…..

Everything one bell with the kettlebell is core work.

I actually find the one arm swing harder than the snatch – you have to keep the bell centerline, and hit the brakes at eye level, back down, repeat.

On a snatch the brakes are when you punch through/punch under, you’re hitting the gas through a longer range of motion that a one arm swing.

To me it’s just easier.

Presently I don’t think you need to go too heavy on your bell selection.

I’d like to have a bell of ~50kg and one of ~60kg, just to see if I can snatch them, and how long it would take to strict press the 60kg bell.

With the kettlebell these are the parameters I’m thinking of.

I really have it in mind to eventually have a much better selection, and to be regularly pressing 175ish lbs.

lol “ish”

A shower thought was a cool workout idea “mile ish + 100 ish burpees”.

Cool Workout Idea – “Mile ish & 100 ish Burpees” :

Set cones ~50yds apart.
If you jog/run down and back it’s 5 burpees at one end.
If you hit burpees on both ends it’s 3 burpees at a pop.

Run 16x/32x lengths, you’re around 1600m, and with the 16x & 5s you’re at a mile with 80 burpees, with the 32x & 3s you’re at a mile with 96 burpees.

Not an exact mile?
Not exactly 100 burpees?

Who cares.
Strength involved conditioning is life.

Maybe park a bell on one side or both sides of the run/jog – burpees and/or kettlebell.
Fun fun.

It’s another option.

…..

They say with high frequency training to back off by the time/if/when your strength dips down 20%.

The left shoulder irks me. Even the 32kg oap feels relatively heavy.
Heck, a 95lb barbell oap was danged near a max lift…

But right arm. Right arm I may be able to c&p a 60kg kettlebell should I have access.

It’s weird, having the “dark times” on the left pressing, but be in PR territory every time right hand.

I continue to press.
I press on.
The dark times will go away eventually.

I’m committed to daily overhead pressing, and really wanting access to the full line of at least one bells.

Really run the c&p to old time strongman status.

Lately I’ve been feeling that performing strongman ala old time strongman is at least in my vicinity of present ability if not already there.

…..

Fixing The Kink In A New Jump Rope :

It’s long annoyed me that when you buy a jump rope, the plastic that is the rope portion has many kinks from being folded up about eight times to fit in a little box.

You want at most one, this perfectly centered at the center of the rope, that which hits the ground.

For days now I’ve had this new, $5 impulse purchase born in the opposite of weakness hanging perfectly balanced and centered off a hanger.

A hook too would work.

Now the rope ain’t all kinky.
It’s ready for use, a few less catches on you going to happen.

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It might be time for “Egg Power Diet” again, that this time around being full freedom to eat whatever again so long as each day contains one dozen eggs and one pound of beef.

Seriously, my only dietary guideline at present is “have some meat every day”, and beef just feels more robust than most other choices.

…..