As some of you already know, I’m not a huge fan of the sun, but I do love the time near sunset that photographers refer to as the “golden hour”. It is great for photos and videos for sure, but I also like the feel of that time of day, and the lack of burning feeling on my face. In fact, I’m considering a whole series of sunset-related videos for both of these reasons. To see what originally inspired that idea, check out this fun skimboarding video I shot a few weeks ago:
But back to the workout… the weather outside was just too good to ignore, and a trip to a favorite park was in order! A friend and I headed out and set up near the very long set of parallel dip bars (“arm walk bars” as they are described on the placard) which would serve several purposes for us as you’ll see.
We brought a variety of kettlebells with us – 12kg, 14kg, 16kg, 18kg, and a 24kg. We also brought one of those adorable little Onnit Maces (7.5lbs) for some mobility-related swings too. If you don’t have a mace to use for that part of the workout, using a light kettlebell for halos would also be very effective and fun. Here’s what we did:
A joint mobility warm up, and the Convict Condition Trifecta (bridge, l-sit, twist)
Then the first portion was definitely suited for our partner arrangement — three rounds of:
- 20 2-hand kettlebell swings (kettlebell of your choice, which meant we both went for the 24kg! HAHAHA)
- While one person is doing swings, the other is doing alternating mace swings for the same time as the 20 swings, then both partners switch. The time it takes for the swings dictates the time spent doing mace swings (or kettlebell halos)
- A partner version of the “Pass Around” kettlebell ab exercise as demonstrated in the video below (for 10 total passes or more!). Basically we pass the kettlebell around ourselves before handing it to the other person – we have to stay in that lean-back position the whole time! OUUUCCCCHH!!
The “Pass Around” ab exercise demonstated:
After a water break we did four rounds of the following:
- 25 kettlebell swings
- 10 backwards lunges (while holding kettlebell at the chest with both hands)
- 5 kettlebell military presses per side (choose a kb that is challenging but manageable with good form)
- 10 goblet squats
- 5 per side “round the worlds” with a light kettlebell
- 10/side one arm kettlebell swings
We ended with more ab-tacular silliness, 3 rounds of:
- 20 count Russian twist (with kettlebells)
- 16 Knee raises on the dip bars (arms locked out, no swinging!)
We finished up with some Primal Move.
That was a LOT of fun, but definitely enough for one day!
For the curious (I get a lot of questions about what I eat… and while I am not in the position to give out dietary advice at all, I wanted to share yesterday’s macros. This is fairly typical for what I would call a “medium-light” eating day adjusted for activity level) Other than calories (which were calculated automatically) all the other items are measured in grams:
I normally don’t track my food, but from time to time like to check in to make sure that I’m eating enough and staying within where I like to be in terms of low sugar and low-ish carbs. As you can see even by computing “net carbs” I’m not even approaching keto. Everyone’s metabolism is very different and it’s super important to find what works for you, this just happens to be what works for me. I also eat about 90-99% organic – again that might not be appropriate for everyone’s situation, but it works over here–food is also one of my absolute MAIN expenses and might actually be more than rent/utils.
Items eaten yesterday included (NOT IN ORDER):
- Primal pumpkin muffins
- Hardboiled eggs
- Organic baby salad greens
- Nutritional yeast (part of a new salad dressing which will be shared soon)
- Grape tomatoes
- Tahini
- Almonds
- Grassfed ground beef
- Coconut oil
- Yellow summer squash
- Green bell pepper
- Grassfed sharp cheddar cheese
- Onion
- Ham slices
- Brazil nuts
- 73% Dark chocolate with almonds
- Colostrum powder
Today will be different as I’ve got some more vegetables (romanesco, fennel…) to devour. Regardless what the media likes to hype up (or inflict on otherwise sane men and women) this is how I like to eat. And the day before, I might have won a “French lentil eating contest” had there been one…
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