Until now, only a few people know that some of my better small group workouts begin as ideas scrawled on the back of coffee shop receipts in a post-espresso maniacal blur. Most of these ideas are legible only to other people who have terrible handwriting like me, and when I go back to review and refine them, it’s not without some degree of amusement. By the look of my terrible handwriting, I should have gone to med school. The small group version of this particular workout was a little on the experimental side and uses a drill which I’m not comfortable sharing here yet (it’s best described in person and is from a yet-to-be-published source). I was afraid that the original receipt (on the other side is evidence of a triple espresso and a pint of local kombucha) had been lost. On a recent trip to NYC for Al Kavadlo’s Raising the Bar book signing party, I’d found this particular receipt in my backpack and “put it somewhere safe”. Which was apparently also “safe” from me too. Thankfully while reading a book I’d taken on the trip, I got to a certain page and it came fluttering out. HURRAH!!! Here’s the “public” version, which is still a lot of fun:
We started with a Primal Move warm up of course!
Then we grabbed 2 kettlebells – one light (8kg, 12kg) and one moderate (16kg, 20kg) for
Four rounds of:
- Light kettlebell halos 15 seconds right, 15 seconds left
- 15 seconds to safely switch to the moderate kettlebell
- “Round the world” aka “Slingshot” 15 seconds right, 15 seconds left
- Figure-8 15 seconds right, 15 seconds left
- 2 hand kettlebell swings
Ideally, it’s cool to perform each round only putting the kettlebell down to switch from light to moderate at that short rest.
Next an interlude:
Three rounds of:
- Renegade rows aka “man makers” aka “plank rows” (five right, five left, five push ups on the handles)
- Alternating floor presses (a total of 10 per side)
Another interlude which everyone did on their own time:
Five rounds of:
- 10 heavy* kettlebell swings
- 5 moderate* kettlebell snatches per side
*Example combos – 16kg kettlebell for swings and 8kg for snatches, 24kg for swings, 12kg for snatches, 32kg for swings, 14kg or 16kg for snatches. Big guys might want to use this as an excuse to bring out the 48kg “Beast” for swings and use their testing snatch kettlebell or one size larger. At some point I’m going to try this with Beast swings and at least a 16kg for snatching – actually I might have to do that today for fun…. hmmmmmm
Finally, ending the theme we did some interesting walks for distance. Kettlebell sizes were carefully chosen in the moderate range, each person used just one kettlebell for these walks so that they could work on keeping their bodies aligned.
- Kettlebell locked out overhead and careful mindful walk for the marked distance, then switch hands for the return.
- Waiters walks to the marked distance, then switching hands for the walk back
- Single kettlebell farmer’s walk to the marked distance, then suitcase deadlift to switch hands.
Finally we ended the session with a Primal Move cooldown. If you haven’t yet tried the Primal Move evaluation backwards, it’s fun and an interesting brain teaser too!
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