A couple times of the year, an advanced client or two and I will decide to see where we’re at in terms of cardiovascular performance. “Performance” is judged on perceived level of exertion, whether or how much we need to walk at off, how fast we recover, how long we can go non-stop, how long it takes total time (when we even think to time it), etc. Not terribly scientific metrics, but it works for us. Yesterday was the day for this sort of thing. We met up at the track in Baldwin Park – south Orlando based HKC, Jeremy Neufeld got brave and decided to join us as well. He’s a Primal Move instructor candidate who attended the Ocala workshop recently too. He’d never really played with the maces we use in class sometimes, so he was in for a “treat.” Each person got a kettlebell and a mace – we were going “on the light side” since this is more of an endurance thing than normal. Here’s three examples:
- 12kg kettlebell and 10lb Onnit Mace (they sell out of these all the time, but restock quickly)
- 14kg kettlebell and 10lb Onnit Mace
- 16kg Kettlebell and 14lb (loaded up as such) Stronger Grip loadable Mace aka Core Club
- Basic formula: RKC Snatch test weight kettlebell + 10-20lb Mace
The approach is very simple, it’s essentially just a modification of the infamous “D.O.E.* Manmaker” workout – where you do a zillion kettlebell snatches then run around a track for a lap as your “active rest” repeat until you cough up a lung. Something that I found to be amusing was I had a much easier time doing the snatches than the running. As a totally unapologetic hater of running and all things cardio-endurance, this should come as no surprise, I’ll also blame the SAID (specific adaptation of imposed demand) principle. I noticed that my HR actually dropped some (observational) when I started back up with kettlebell snatches — also was keeping a pretty decent pace on the track. Last time we did this we were winded much earlier. Last night was with a wicked pace – and its disappointing that yet again, we didn’t time it. Oh well. We warmed up with some basic joint mobility exercises and drills then….
- 40 kettlebell snatches
- 10 mace swings (360s or 10-2s 5 in each direction
- Lap around the track
- 30 kettlebell snatches
- 10 mace swings (360s or 10-2s 5 in each direction
- Lap around the track
- 20 kettlebell snatches
- 10 mace swings (360s or 10-2s 5 in each direction
- Lap around the track
- 10 kettlebell snatches
- 10 mace swings (360s or 10-2s 5 in each direction
- Lap around the track
Following that, we performed the post-high-heart-rate-stuff version of the Primal Move cooldown “PFE” which is to perform it backwards… then because the grass was nice and free of ants some advanced moves and backward rolls just HAD to happen. The madness continued with flag practice even though we only found some square poles… so there was more talk of theory and some bruise-getting. Though judging from some pix I just saw on Instagram the talk musta helped… 🙂 As I posted earlier today on Facebook, my favorite printed resource for flag training progressions (clutch and press flag aka “human flag”) is Convict Conditioning Vol. 2 which is just great to have anyway – the “Trifecta” along with essential but simple grip training methods are included that will help you bust through strength/skill bottlenecks. So many people are limited by their ability to “hang on” to a bar and/or pole and CC2 has some excellent strategies for getting past that with some very effective grip strength training programs using things you already own.
Since we’re on the subject of such things, I should point out that Andrew Read’s new book just came out today in eBook format! Get it now — on sale for a short introductory time period! What are the secrets so many people have used to conquer the Beast Challenge AND the Iron Maiden Challenge? The answers and plans are all here. I know because I read a review edition 🙂 If you’ve got your sights set on either the Beast or Iron Maiden then this book is a must have.
*D.O.E. as in Department of Energy, not as in female deer, but I wanted to make that silly graphic to be witty or goofy or whatever. It was fun, and hope you chuckled.
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