30 Day Challenges

Just starting week 5, the last week of the 10,000 kettlebell swing challenge. A few observations, waist line has really tightened up, lost 8 pounds in 4 weeks, but legs and upper back muscles have also grown noticeably, so probably fat loss even greater than 8 pounds.

After week 2, body adapted quite well. Time to complete each day (500 swings with other strength exercises) decreased from 46 minutes to 26 minutes. Grip strength improved substantially, but is still the limiting factor. Can't believe how well my body has adapted. This has become less about strength and endurance, and just a straight cardio workout now.

For anyone that has been doing kettlebell swings for a while, I would definitely recommend giving this a try.

After this last week is done, I'm going to keep doing 100 swings every other day on top of my regular workouts.

yes, helps with the tough, steep sections when your on your saddle.

thanx starting tonite with the planking and stretching

Just starting week 5, the last week of the 10,000 kettlebell swing challenge. A few observations, waist line has really tightened up, lost 8 pounds in 4 weeks, but legs and upper back muscles have also grown noticeably, so probably fat loss even greater than 8 pounds.

After week 2, body adapted quite well. Time to complete each day (500 swings with other strength exercises) decreased from 46 minutes to 26 minutes. Grip strength improved substantially, but is still the limiting factor. Can't believe how well my body has adapted. This has become less about strength and endurance, and just a straight cardio workout now.

For anyone that has been doing kettlebell swings for a while, I would definitely recommend giving this a try.

After this last week is done, I'm going to keep doing 100 swings every other day on top of my regular workouts.

picked up some 20lb and 35lb kettlebells this weekend gonna get loosened this week with stretching and some planking and such and next week start the swinging LOL

How did 135s go? Did the "want" factor increase?

Well my original plan was to stay with 120s until the 7th, but last night I felt good so I went for 135s. The last 30s felt like someone or some people were shit kicking my core.

I have plateaued at 200-230 seconds , hard to control the shakes .
Seems long enough to benifit now with doing every second day for as long as I can (3 minutes+)

been doing various workouts that last few weeks
i try to do 5 days of stretching per week and pre/post stretching when i ride , also doing planking on the days i stretch and have also added some kettlebell swings 3 to 4 days a week . i have not been riding as much due too work and the weather but the days i do get out i can feel a difference in conditioning in a positive way so it,s an improvement .

To all of those that tried the 10000 kettlebell swings, or any experienced with kettlebells, would doing plate swings work? My gym doesnt have kettlebells, but replacing for a 20kg disk (it has 3 holes in it where i could grab), seems reasonable. Any input?

According to some, plates work better than kettlebells: http://www.t-nation.com/training/plates-work-better-than-kettlebells
I notice I avoid the "squat" in the end of the movement exactly as in the video

Edit: 1st workout, 500 swings of the 20kg plate. I only managed to do 50 reps non-stop on the first series. The 2nd series of 50 was the worst, after that the body was either more used to it, or i was doing it at a steadier pace. My hands were the limiting factor most of the time, but after 25 reps it was a struggle, i could feel all muscles doing work. I feel some discomfort on the lower back, probably due to not being used to activate the muscles in this way. I can easily tell this will provide a boost on the power cleans when I am done with the 10k swings

To all of those that tried the 10000 kettlebell swings, or any experienced with kettlebells, would doing plate swings work? My gym doesnt have kettlebells, but replacing for a 20kg disk (it has 3 holes in it where i could grab), seems reasonable. Any input?

According to some, plates work better than kettlebells: http://www.t-nation.com/training/plates-work-better-than-kettlebells
I notice I avoid the "squat" in the end of the movement exactly as in the video

Edit: 1st workout, 500 swings of the 20kg plate. I only managed to do 50 reps non-stop on the first series. The 2nd series of 50 was the worst, after that the body was either more used to it, or i was doing it at a steadier pace. My hands were the limiting factor most of the time, but after 25 reps it was a struggle, i could feel all muscles doing work. I feel some discomfort on the lower back, probably due to not being used to activate the muscles in this way. I can easily tell this will provide a boost on the power cleans when I am done with the 10k swings

focus on maintaining your form over getting all your reps contiguous for the first while. after day two I didn't know if I would be able to do the ten thousand. but I kept at it and week two was a huge improvement as the body adapted. first day time was forty six minutes. last day was twenty six. the hands were always the limiting factor. make sure you're taking the full rest time for the first few workouts for your hands to recover then slowly decrease the rests.

I couldn't believe how easy my forty kilo bell was at the end of this challenge.

Day 2, easier than day 2 tbh. My hands are the limiting factor, mostly the sweat that makes me lose my grip. After 5 reps, I can feel the sweat and the slipping. I am doing this with a friend (he is using a 15kg plate) and he has no concerns with the grip. I am using regular chalk, and after the 50 reps it is a huge mess. After like 20 reps the chalk is now a paste in my hands… Any input? Anyone used magnesium for climbing with good results? Liquid chalk?
When riding bikes i always use gloves due to sweat; when lifting, the gloves get sweaty and end up causing way more blisters than chalk… Advice is welcomed

I used bike gloves for the first week as my hands really sweat as well, and took the gloves off between sets. second week and the rest I went no gloves, developed some interesting calluses and just wiped hands off between sets on a towel, seemed to work.

My hands said no more today, and with the back still aching, I decided to forego this training. I decided to read a bit more on what I was doing wrong to suffer from back soreness when it wasn't supposed to happen with kettlebell swings.

After all, it seems my whole approach was wrong, not only to swings but also to deadlifting. Thank god my grip strength never allowed me to deadlift big loads. I am by no means a very experienced lifter, and while for some time I had coaching (it was one coach for 1h a week for 12 players on the rugby team, so it was pretty limited). I have read Mark Rippentoes Starting Strength, and that was the base plan I followed when I began. That was the way I was trying to perform the exercises.
Fast forward to today; and a re-read of Rippentoe's book and some additional research. I am not squatting the way he shows, I am using a high bar squat. That means I am not driving my butt backwards that much nor using hip drive. Somehow, my deadlift never managed to surpass my squat. Now I can see why, I never pushed my butt backwards, never used hip drive. My deadlifts were quad based, but somehow limited by grip. If I switched to alternate grip, my back wouldn't be able to hold the weight and thankfully I would stop to prevent injury.
The kettlebell swings were a crossbreed of a squat and a proper swing, it would also be a slowish movement. The high volume of the challenge led to a improper form (or to say it correctly, even worse) and therefore back pain.

At the very least I now know what I was doing wrong. Despite the back pain, mimicking the swing movement without weight but incorporating hip drive shows that the hamstrings get a lot of tension, the gluts get tight, and I can explode a lot more.

Is there any reading material you can recommend? Either for high bar squats (I feel very uncomfortable in the low bar position, the bar seems to get no support). It is possible a lack of flexibility led me to start with the bar in the high position and now it seems hard to change to the lower one. Reading material for deadlifts would also be welcome, as well as kettlebell swings.

I guess the first step to correct things is realizing I was wrong and be willing to change, so I got that going for me, any help is welcome

Andy Bolton's, "Deadlift Dynamite".

Best single-compendium on how to deadlift I've ever come across. Includes squatting and bench pressing and general mobility topics too.

Planking is my kinda workout :)

I started the planking challenge at 90s today although I was starting to quiver halfway through, it didn't seem that hard to keep going for longer though?

Should my first week still go 90-90-120-120-150 and so-on according to the chart that CraigH posted?

Planking is my kinda workout :)

I started the planking challenge at 90s today although I was starting to quiver halfway through, it didn't seem that hard to keep going for longer though?

Should my first week still go 90-90-120-120-150 and so-on according to the chart that CraigH posted?

My wife and I tried the first chart but couldn't do it, the time ramped up faster than our muscles could accomidate. In the end we changed to the second plank chart.