“There’s a pattern to it of course, ” I said when talking about what we would be doing. Last week I realized that I’ve somehow reverted to childhood activities with a few of my own workouts with friends. While most of my motivation is internally generated, lately I’ve been having a whole lot of fun inviting fit friends to “come over and play”. Sometimes I’m testing out workouts or approaches, and sometimes its just for fun that happens to also be a fairly serious workout. How does this relate to childhood? Well, basically being outside, climbing on stuff, and making up “games”–in this case the “games” tend to be challenging but scaleable strength/power circuits.
So what are these patterns? One of the biggest patterns is explicitly stated in Max Shank’s book, Master the Kettlebell. Which if you are into kettlebells, and really want to dial in, then check it out–it’s a nice, concentrated reference! But, one of the things Max discusses and gives examples for is the push-pull workout pattern, and I love that. It’s easily seen in groupings like pushups of some variety and rows of some variety, or overhead presses paired with pull-ups. Good stuff indeed.
You can also see a similar pattern within the creative, balanced workouts from Zach Even-Esh’s Encyclopedia of Underground Strength and Conditioning. Which is another book I keep handy for making up my “fun game circuits”. If you’ve ever wondered how to work unusual training implements (like big rocks and tree trunks) into your training, get that book now!
Ok so here’s a fun little timelapse video of the first round we did. Below the video is the circuit (and some mods) to hopefully give you some ideas. The short mace and half tire are the new ones from StrongerGrip.com, so I was eager to bring them to the park. For the first two rounds we used the half tire as an “odd object” to carry. You can’t see it, but there’s a 14kg kettlebell inside the tire. We placed it upside down on a picnic table for easy pick up and dropoff. This can also be picked up and put down on the ground if your mobility allows. I’ll be doing that next time, but didn’t want to put my friend on the spot that day.
Here’s the circuit.. 4 rounds of….
- Two modified rope climbs up and down
- 15 heavy or heavy-ish kettlebell swings*
- Mace swings (we did ’10 and 2s’)
- Odd object carry! Stronger Grip Half Tire with a 14kg kettlebell in it
We mixed it up for one of the rounds by doing a kettlebell rack carry while the other person hammered the half tire using the Mace as a sledgehammer. Good times!!!
*I opted for 32kg kettlebell swings, I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with the 32kg these days… even doing single rep cleans with it for fun–which looks hilarious because it is actually bigger than my head.
Don’t miss this very important stuff:
- Inteview with Chris Quesada, HKC who beat cancer and rebuilt his body with kettlebells
- More insanely wonderful, simple and EFFECTIVE workouts from Master RKC Dan John! (You only need one kettlebell for these!)
If you are curious about some of my non-fitness related activities, check out this quick chat about 3d printing! 🙂
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