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The Turkish get-up torture.

Today I did Turkish get-ups with a 12kg kettlebell. Only I didn’t just do get-ups; I did them in stages just like in this training video. Three reps of each motion, working on getting the form right at each stage. This was an excellent thing to do, because my left-side get-up got better. Also, it was a great workout. TGUs are not easy for me. On the third set of this, my left arm started failed. This, of course, is because bad form exhausts the arm muscles.

It’s also amazing to me how much harder the exercise got when I moved from an 8kg bell to a 12kg bell.

What else? Lots of flexibility work on the TRX and a stepping stool. And a fiendish plank variation that had me moving from elbow to hand with one arm, then with the other, then back down again. That is, start in a standard on-elbows plank, move to a pushup position, then go back down. Ferocious. And in the category of exercise I call “pushup-related program activities”. As were the bench presses. 3 sets of 8 reps at 75#, with strict attention to hand position to make sure I’m working on the muscles that get activated during a proper pushup.

One more fiendish thing today: V-sits combined with bicep curls, with 12.5# dumbbells. Oof. I have observed that my trainer has moved me along to more complicated exercises. I never do plain things any more. Like crunches. I didn’t just do crunches today, oh no. I did crunches with an 8kg kettlebell held overhead.

Death by kettlebell.

Today’s exercises were a variety pack. Kettlebells, TRX for the trendy (yet difficult) stuff. My quadriceps were on fire when I arrived at the gym, thanks to Wednesday’s Crossfit Fran. TRX squats did not help matters. Neither did this kettlebell exercise:

2 snatches
on 2nd snatch, lower bell to rack position
squat
10 reps each arm, repeat for 3 sets.

I did it with a 12kg bell. Feel free to use a heavier bell if you’re beastlier than I am. My shoulder muscles failed on the last few reps of this. Really an awesome, well-rounded exercise. Cardio, abs, legs, shoulders all get engaged.

Also fun today: 40 second planks with a 25# plate resting on my back. Because regular planks are no longer hard enough, or something like that. 3 repetitions of that, alternating with 2 minutes on a treadmill at the steepest setting, and I was definitely wiped.

I’m also working on improving my pushup form by doing deep chest presses on the TRX. Some day I’ll do a good pushup…

Heavy kettlebells.

Today’s theme was “kettlebell exercises I have done before, but heavier this time!”

3 sets of:
15 back extensions
planks, one arm and opposite leg raised, 15 secs each pair
2 minutes on stationary bicycle set to a very high level of resistance

3 sets of:
15 figure 8s, 16kg
30 swings, 24kg

Turkish get-ups with a 16kg bell (One solid get-up on each side, yay!)
clean and press, 20kg then 16kg (20 was too heavy for the press)
snatches with 20kg bell, 4 or 5 each side (ran out of time)

It’s amazing how swinging a heavy kettlebell hits my heartrate. I’m going, going, going, swinging just fine, then wham! Hello max heart rate! I did some figure-8s with a 20kg bell, just to learn what it felt like to handle that weight. Interesting. You really need to use your glutes to fire everything, or the weight just doesn’t move. Big muscles are powering the motions, and big muscles burn lots of oxygen.

Kettlebells!

Today was a core workout day, mostly using kettlebells.

Today’s workout started with a repeat of a kettlebell snatch test. There are lots of variations on the snatch test. The one we use is “how many times can I snatch a 12kg kettlebell in 3 minutes?” I can switch arms and rest at will. The first time I did it, I managed 60 reps exactly. I switched off arms every 10 reps, and was in a rest phase when time ran out. This time I was much more aggressive, and went for 20 reps per arm before swapping. I was at 50 reps when I took a short breather for the first time.

Total: 76 snatches in 3 minutes.

Windmills with bicep curls, which Trainer Jeff thinks will be the next big thing at the gym. Windmills are already nice and hard, and I like the balance shifting complexity added by the curl and press. The video doesn’t show exactly what he had me do, which was to alternate arms: curl to rack and press up with one arm, while the other is lowering the bell all the way.

Also, the infamous Turkish get-up! I did good get-ups on each side at 8kg, so Trainer Jeff decided to make me do 5 more reps on each side at 12kg. Right side good, left side ragged but much better than before.

Lunges. 12kg bell in each hand, swing ‘em up to rack position, then do 16 lunges, alternating legs.

Deep pushups, using two bells as handrests. Kneeling, because I cannot manage any depth at all with my full weight.

I was pretty wiped out by all this. The lunges killed me.

The Turkish get-up revisited.

This morning was a kettlebell-centric workout:

standard swings of a 16kg bell in intervals (20secs on, 10 secs off, repeat for, er, a long time)
swings of a 20kg bell while stepping laterally
figure-8s with a 12kg bell
swing 20kg bell, grip horns, squat, repeat
and the Turkish get-up.

As nobody but me will recall, the last time I did this I had trouble with the weight in my left hand, while my right-hand side getup was becoming smooth. This time we figured out what my left-side problem was, and I finally did a good get up. Well, not good, but significantly better. I still have left-side shoulder weakness.

What was the problem? Hip position on the bridge. Imagine a vector sticking straight out of your belly button. When you lift your body off the floor on right hand & left foot, that vector should be parallel to the floor, not normal to it. In other words, rotate your body so your left hip and left shoulder are aligned and pointing upward, and your right hip is pointing down. Ding! Successful smooth getup. Err. Well. A better getup, anyway.

When I do it right-side, I can hold the position and swing my left leg around all day. Can’t do that left-side yet, because my body is imbalanced. And that’s why the Turkish get-up is an awesome exercise and why you should start doing it.

Stand up on it.

I have a huge lump and bruise on my left shin today. My right shin seems relatively unscathed—just the usual climbing bruising there. One of these days I’ll learn to be less clumsy.

Last night I went climbing with Anil, who was in beginning climbing class with me. We’ve gotten together at the gym to trade belays a couple of times, and I think it might be a regular weekly thing. Which would be great!

Last night I did the 5.7 I’d almost completed last week, then tried a 5.9 on the same wall. And I discovered, to my utter woe, that my climbing shoes are too big. I put my toe on the foothold, felt confident about it, tried to stand up and bam. The sole of the shoe flexed and I popped off every time. Too much sole slopping over beyond my actual toe.

That was fast. I was hoping to get a few months out of these shoes before I had to admit my mistake. Woes.

I didn’t expect to succeed on the 5.9, by the way, nor on the 5.8 I tried later on. I just wanted to learn what I had to learn. And I have learned that I need tight annoying climbing shoes. And that I need to work on stepping up really high, because it makes me nervous even though my legs can do it.

To that end, today’s regular workout was notable for some climbing-focused leg exercises. Lots of one-legged lunges, for instance, in a 3-exercise circuit with stiff-legged deadlifts and another quad exercise. The other quad exercise goes like this:

Sit on the end of a bench with one leg out straight in front of you, foot off the floor.
Stand up on the other leg while keeping your foot up.
Do 15 reps on one leg, then swap.

Most of my stiff-legged deadlifts were done with a 16kg kettlebell in each hand. I did the last set with 24kg bells (aka 106# total), though, because I mouthed off about the 16s (aka 70# total) being too easy. And indeed, I did fine with the higher weight. I imagine I’m going to suffer for that in the future.

Any workout that includes kettlebells is fiendish.

My trainer Jeff is trying to kill me. It’s the only explanation.

1 round per minute, for 10 minutes of:
5 thrusters, 45#
10 kettlebell swings, 16kg
15 lunges (alternate legs each round)

You may call that the Kohler Slaughter Regime.

Also on the menu of suffering today were Turkish get-ups, @ 8kg and 12kg. I finally did one properly, with all the moves flowing together in a single smooth exercise. Right-handed only, though. My left hand is a klutz who can’t quite put it all together yet. The body lift into the bridge to shift the leg is where I have all the trouble.

Here’s a great article on learning the TGU if you’re curious. I find it quite difficult but worth the work.

To conclude, 20 squats followed by 20 lunges (10 per leg), with 7.5# weights in hand. I did the lunges holding the weights above my shoulders. The squats each had a dynamic movement to go along with them: shoulder presses, tricep extensions, shoulder flies, and bicep curls (moved up to 12.5# for those). Then the session ended, which was good because I was about to die. Also, I could not hold my arms up and more than once I was sure I was going to topple over mid-lunge.

Good times, good times. No, seriously. These at-the-edge workouts are good to have every so often. I’m just thinking that tonight’s climbing class is going to be pretty tough.

And I leave you with a video featuring a chest I never get tired of looking at: a guy doing a Turkish get-up with a 48kg kettlebell.