Long ago in a somewhat miserable galaxy far far away, I was shown the original Whitley “Furnace” workout in a questionable corner of a questionable playground in a questionable condo complex. Questionable because well…not everyone was as careful with their dog droppings as we would have hoped. Fortunately this didn’t become an issue. What WAS an issue was my feelings about the get up. The Furnace workout fixed those issues promptly – just by breaking it down into bitesize pieces. These days, when I teach the get up – we break it down, waaaay down – sometimes learning parts of it one lesson and then the next parts the next time. When I first “learned” the get up from books and DVDs (granted even GOOD books and DVDs… and I’m reasonably smart) I was all mixed up – sure I was able to “get up” with the kettlebell, but for whatever reason I’d end up facing the other direction, or somehow scooting around to odd angles, I remember the first time Tim saw me do one of these weird “get ups” I was doing and he was fairly perplexed. Recently I’ve tried to even figure out what I was doing – because the directional change thing might be fun as part of a complex, but I’ve simply not been able to figure out what I was doing. Who knows! Anyway – the day Tim showed me the Furnace workout something clicked and from then on, the get up was a lot easier… I even started to (gasp) LIKE doing get ups… which had not been the case before.
But, inspired by some unusual programming patterns lately I decided to try and one-up the Furnace by creating the Combustion Chamber. We don’t use furnaces here in Florida much, but we do know rockets and jets… hot burning fast things with engines containing those magical spaces known as combustion chambers. With that in mind, I started scribbling out the particulars, and Sunday tried the workout with one of my most advanced kettlebell small group members:
We started with a much needed Primal Move warm up, and a review of double kettlebell snatching (snatch them up, bring them down like a clean and press). Since we were testing it out, we opted on the light side – and well that wasn’t a mistake. For instance I used a pair of 12kg kettlebells for the snatching and then a 14kg kettlebell for the “Get up” portions. Please note that the get up portions have been changed as well – there’s more opportunity for pressing. All is done with best form, the kettlebell is locked out overhead for the get up portions. Don’t get sloppy, fewer reps are better than a bunch of crummy reps. Besides, this is a great learning and practicing time. Here’s what we did:
- 45 seconds: Right side, floor press to get up elbow to get up hand (and back down and up)
- 15 seconds: rest/transition
- 45 seconds: left side, floor press to get up elbow to get up hand
- 15 seconds: rest/transition
- 45 seconds: double kettlebell snatch
- 15 seconds: rest/transition
- 45 seconds: right side, get up high bridges (up and down)
- 15 seconds: rest/transition
- 45 seconds: left side, get up high bridges (up and down)
- 15 seconds: rest/transition
- 45 seconds: double kettlebell snatch
- 15 seconds: rest/transition
- 45 seconds: right side overhead lunge – at the top of each lunge, 1 press
- 15 seconds: rest/transition
- 45 seconds: left side overhead lunge – at the top of each lunge, 1 press
- 15 seconds rest/transition
- 45 seconds: double kettlebell snatch
- 15 seconds: rest/transition
- 45 seconds: right side full get up
- 15 seconds: rest/transition
- 45 seconds: left side full get up
- 15 seconds: rest/transition
- 45 seconds: double kettlebell snatch
We took a brief break and then had fun with 5 rounds (it would have been 4 but the interval timer got goofy and I forgot how to count) of the following:
- 20 seconds RKC Plank
- 10 seconds rest/transition
- 20 seconds tuck ups
- 10 seconds rest/transition
We finally finished up with more Primal Move. So far so good – but definitely not for beginners.
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