10,000 swings in 30 days...... Really? Why? This was the reaction I received from some people when I announced I would be doing a 10,000 swing challenge in the month of January. My response was “Give it a try and find out”. Of course I pretty much knew what my results would be from doing 10,000 swings in one month. How does a smaller butt, slimmer hips, a flat stomach, thinner thighs, unreal strength endurance and increased overall strength sound to ya? Did that get your attention? I hope so because this is one of those things that actually delivers the results. Just know going into it that you are going to have to pay a price to get it.During my 30 day journey I took some notes along the way. I’m passing these tips on to you to make your journey a little easier. Let’s call this the 10,000 swing challenge survival guide. There are 8 main points you should know to help you get through this challenge successfully.
First let me start off by saying that this is a difficult challenge both mentally and physically. You will definitely walk away knowing what you are made of, and if done correctly you will reap all the benefits mentioned above as well. It’s worth it. Trust me.
Make a plan: Let’s do the math. 10,000 swings in 30 days is roughly 333 swings every single day. You need to think about how this will fit into your life because quite frankly, in the month of January all I did was think about how I was going to get my swings in for the day. It will consume you. I knew there would be days that my busy schedule with the kids would not allow for a workout. I also knew that if I didn’t take some days off I would be completely over trained in record time and never finish. So my plan was to do about 450-500 swings a day. That way I wouldn’t be faced with double the reps the next day.
Get ready for life to throw a curve ball at you. If you do have to take some extra days off don’t be discourage if you have extra reps to make up. Just add a few extra reps in every workout and get it done. It happened to me a couple of times. Here’s how I handled it mentally. I only focused on my reps 100 at a time. So if I had 6-700 reps to do then I just focused on 100x6. Even though I didn’t do 100 in one working set, it was easier for me to do 100 and then think; now I only have 5 more to go. Break those big numbers into smaller groups and you’ll breeze through it.
I kept an index card on my desk and recorded my swing reps daily. After analyzing it I noticed a pattern. Three days of hard work was good for me then I need a rest day to recover. On my rest day I either did very light swings as active recovery or I took the whole day off. Just listen to your body. If you need a rest day then take it and adjust your numbers accordingly.
Choose the appropriate weight: I find myself talking about this in just about every article I write. To get the most out of this challenge you need to use the appropriate size kettlebell. You need a bell that is challenging but not so heavy that you over train every time you workout. I would call it a medium heavy weight. Of course that will vary for everyone. To give you some reference I’ll explain my kettlebell choice for the challenge.
The bulk of my reps were done with the 16kg/35lb kettlebell. That is 32% of my body weight. 35 pounds felt light to me for sets of 10-20 but it gets challenging for sets of 25-50 reps. On a heavy day I would use the 24kg/53lber or the 20kg/44lber. On a light day or active recovery day I used an 18lber for sets of 200 plus. That means that with the light weight I needed to do at least 200 reps without setting the bell down.The 18lber is so light that it would not be a challenge for me at all to do 10,000 reps with it and I would not have seen the great results I did. I also used the 26lber for one arm swings only on a light day or in between the heavier sets for active recovery during the workout. Please don’t think that if you can’t swing the 35lber for that many reps you won’t see any results. Just use whatever weight is a challenge for you.
Be aware of over training: There is no doubt about it, some time within this challenge will be over trained. Watch for the signs and then adjust your plan appropriately. If you are feeling fatigued, irritable, and/or very sore then you are probably over trained. There were a few times that I would not feel those symptoms but when I picked up the weight to start swinging my body started screaming at me. My central nervous system was burned out and my body just didn’t want to work. Depending on the severity of it I did one of 4 things.
- Worked through it. After a few sets if I felt a little better then I would just push through.
- Backed off completely. After doing a few sets if it made me feel worse then I would
just call it a day and rest. - Lighten the load. After doing a few sets with the heavier weight if I felt irritated and
on edge then I would lighten the load to get through the workout. - Eat more calories. You are burning so many calories with swings that you will probably need
to eat a little more than you think. Definitely don’t restrict calories during this challenge.
Hand care: Like them or not, calluses are your friend. Just be sure to keep them low. They are more likely to become very sore and even rip them off if you have really thick calluses that stick up. I keep a pedicure file in my shower and file the calluses down every few days to keep them low. Cornhuskers lotion works very well also.
Another way to take care of your hands is to change your grip on the bell. Use a forefinger/thumb grip instead of holding the handle with your whole hand. This works just fine with one handed or two handed swings. To relieve some of the stress on the hand, release your grip at the top of the swing. It gives your hand a break.
Protect your joints: 10,000 swings is a lot of pull on your joints especially your shoulder and elbow. You can protect your joints by leaving a slight bend in your elbow when you swing the bell up. Don’t pull the bell with your arms just engage your lats and a slight bend will naturally occur. Once you get into the high reps sets you’ll notice your body will automatically start relaxing to get through the set. Just be sure to keep your weight on your heals for the back swing and even rock back with the weight slightly.
Rep scheme: Do what works best for you. I provide these reps schemes as a guide or just to give you some place to start After only one week into this challenge you will know what works best for you. I personally liked sets of 25, 30 or 50. This made it easy to keep up with all the reps. As I mentioned before, I focused on 100 at a time. While I did my set I wouldn’t count to 25. I counted to 10 two times and then 5. It was easier to get through the sets toward the end if I only had 10 or 5 reps to do at a time, mentally.
Combine one arm and two arm swings in one set. 10/10 x 2= 40 swings then 10 two arm swings as a finisher. You get 50 reps in before you know it.
Swing ladders with multiple size bells are also a great way to get a lot of reps done in one set. For example; 44lb bell x 10, 35lb bell x 15 and a 26lb bell x 25 = 50 reps in one set.
Swing ladder using one size bell. 10, 15, 20, 25 = 70 reps in one set. You do 10 reps with a small break (10-15 seconds), and then do 15 reps with another small break, etc.
Play around with it and come up with some reps schemes of your own. Be sure to share when you come up with something good.
Support: I mention this last but it is definitely not least. Getting through this challenge with a support system is a must. It will also be a lot more fun. When you know somebody is watching or counting on you, you will be more likely to do it even when you don’t want too. It’s a lot easier to blow off when you are the only one who knows you’re doing it. Don’t make that mistake. If you take this challenge then tell everybody. Find a friend either in real life or online to take the challenge with you.
Post your workouts on your Facebook account or on Twitter. We used the hash tag #10kswings on Twitter. There are still people using it for the challenge today and I also check it every day to provide support. You may also want to check out thekettlebellconnection.com forum. It’s a great place to keep your training log and you will also find many people there who did the challenge and will offer you support.
If you take this challenge feel free to email me if you have questions. I’d also love to hear your feedback.
Best of luck on your journey to increased strength, endurance and a better shaped body.
I asked some of the people who took this challenge with me in January to provide some advice or feedback from their perspective. Take a look at what they accomplished:
"In January I took part in a 10,000 Kettlebell swing challenge. I did not know what to expect but it seemed to be a tough one and I did not know if I could make it. I got a late start on the challenge starting on the 4th of January. As I started I could see this was going to be challenging. What really helped was the support I got from the other people who were in the challenge. Each time I posted what I did that day I would get messages from the other participants. They would offer encouragement and would inspire me to keep going. I finally finished on 1/28/10. I was very excited and happy to finish. This challenge taught me that I can do anything I put my mind to and that if you keep up with something worth while you get amazing results. I got stronger as the challenge went on and gaind more muscle and even lost a few pounds. This challenge was alot of fun and I was able also to meet some great people durring it over Twitter."
--Edward Blea
"On the 30th of January, I had 600 swings left in Lisa's 10,000 swing challenge. My hands were blistered underneath layers of thick callus, bleeding through a layer of bandage and athletic tape. It was about 8 p.m. Saturday night and a nasty cold rain/snow mixture was falling outside. I was alone in my studio here in Idaho, and all sensible folks were out enjoying their Saturday evening.
I re-read the quote from Mark Rippetoe I'd written on my dry-erase board:
“Only people willing to work to the point of discomfort on a regular basis using effective means to produce that discomfort will actually look like they have been other-than-comfortable most of the time”
Then, I got to swinging my 70lb kettlebell. Every one of the 600 reps hurt, but every one made me stronger. There is beauty in basics, and there are some lessons only lots of reps can teach.
No matter how many thousands of times I'd told myself to contract the abdominals and glutes, lock the knees and relax the arms, nothing drove those points home more than simply lots of reps under fatigue.
When you do enough swings, with enough weight, you have to do them right.
I could go on about how it has helped my technique, or how one month of nothing but 6 days a week of 400-500 swings has helped my martial art, but none of that will convey the depth of the lesson the past month has.
To see what I mean, pick a month, do 10,000 swings and feel the difference. Enough talk. More swings."
--Jim Beaumont
There are a variety of training tools and modalities. Most can be used successfully and have there place when training athletes. For years, my background and the majority of my training knowledge was centered around Olympic and powerlifting exercises. I still teach those lifts and every student taking my Strength and Conditioning class will learn to perform them with proper technique. While these movements used to comprise about 80% of our program, it is now about 40%. It’s amazing how my training philosophy has changed in the last decade. What you see as you walk into the weight room at Wichita High School North are multiracks lining two walls across from each other, with kettlebells and sandbags at one end and a few machines at the other. Hybrid training has revolutionized the way we train athletes.
Most people are somewhat familiar with barbell and dumbbell training. It’s common place in almost every high school and college weight room. The three areas that make North’s training program unique from many others are how we have implemented kettlebells, sandbags and body weight training progressions into our curriculum. Some plyometrics and speed development are also taught as a part of the program. We don’t put up the same numbers in the Olympic and power lifts that we used to as the training protocol has become more diverse, but I’m convinced that we produce a more well rounded athlete. We have created an environment conducive to training all athletes in the right energy system with a greater degree of specificity. By introducing athletes to different training tools and modalities, we have found that it also intrinsically motivates the athlete. Training becomes more purposeful, meaningful and fun.
In a small weight room with many athletes competing for space, alternative training tools have made it possible to train many athletes at once. Kettlebells and sandbags are portable. This allows teams or groups of athletes to transport them outside the weight room, reducing weight room congestion. Implementing alternative exercises in a superset or circuit format, allow more athletes to train at once. This keeps more kids busy and creates an environment in which twice as much work can be done in the same period of time. We now have 16 – 24 kids working at eight multiracks instead of eight.
Here are some reasons we use alternative training tools:
Kettlebells- Kettlebells are without question, one of the most versatile tools in our training arsenal. They are perfect for athletes who participate in sports that are both aerobically and anaerobically demanding. Even though they look very intimidating, they are incredibly safe. While explosive barbell Olympic lifts like the clean are typically performed for low reps and quite technical from a teaching standpoint, kettlebell ballistics can be performed for high reps, allowing the athlete to train in a different energy system while training explosively. Kettlebells also allow an athlete to train unilaterally. We perform a barbell jerk on one day and a kettlebell jerk on another, for example. In performing both, athletes are exposed to both unilateral and bilateral training, high rep and low rep sets, respectively. We perform unilateral and bilateral variations for all movements.
We spend a lot of time talking about good athletic stance and movement. We believe that the swing is the perfect exercise to groove this hip dominant, athletic movement. Whether it’s a vertical jump, fielding a baseball, a defensive basketball stance, or a 2 point football stance, the kettlebell swing grooves a movement advantageous to all athletes. We almost always end our workouts with timed sets of kettlebell swings, snatches or long cycle. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all,” and kettlebells are the perfect finishing tool to condition athletes to fight past fatigue at the end of a contest.
Sandbags- Sandbags are the newest member to our training arsenal. We’re very pleased with their simplicity and effectiveness so far. The sandbag clean requires very little instruction and helps correct many technique flaws that athletes develop with the barbell Olympic clean. Sandbags make it almost impossible to cheat on the clean, forcing the athlete to explode into a high pull instead of a reverse curl. The athlete is also forced to shoot the elbows to catch the bag. With the sandbag in the Zercher position, we can also add a front squat for a killer conditioning combo. Shouldering is unique to only sandbags. This is like good, old fashioned farm work, and our wrestlers love it.
Body weight training- Take Steve Maxwell’s Body Weight Training course. Enough said. Even though body weight training goes back to the beginning of mankind, it is so easily bypassed for other training tools. Until proper technique is achieved with body weight training, students have no business adding additional weight. You have to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run. By understanding simple teaching progressions and training variations, the gym is always open. Learning these training principles can take your athletes training to a new level. Body weight exercises are also perfect for supersets and circuits or in situations where equipment is at a minimum. Try taking your athletes through a single leg squat / pistol progression and watch this simple, but difficult movement take your athletes unilateral leg strength and balance to a new level. When an athlete sprints, there is never a time that both legs are in contact with the ground at the same time, making it very important to train unilaterally. I’ve been involved in the research, implementation and overseeing of speed development programs for over a decade. The addition of a few kettlebell and body weight movements have improved mobility, unilateral strength and balance, and has been an integral part of improving overall athlete performance.
As strength coaches, we have a responsibility to help our athletes perform at a high level and to take them where they can not take themselves. For those athletes who rely on absolute strength and power to perform at a high level for their sport, a certain amount of training time must be spent pushing or pulling heavy weight. There is no question that they need to be trained in way that’s specific to their needs. We also have a responsibility to educate our students on healthier, effective long term training alternatives. There are better long term ways to train, than to overstress joints and compress the spine as is repeatedly done by performing heavy Olympic and power lifting exercises. So by exposing our athletes to alternative training methods and progressions, we are not only helping them achieve their immediate goals, we are giving them the knowledge they need achieve a healthy lifestyle long after they are done competing.
Below are some training methods we use and how we incorporate kettlebells, sandbags and body weight movements into each method.
Timed sets The best way to become good at performing a skill or to improve technique is to practice. I emphasize to my athletes that we are going to practice perfect technique for a period of time. We may start with periods of only 30 seconds per side and extend the time period as conditioning and technique improves. We use timed sets at the beginning to hone our kettlebell skills and the end of class for a finisher. Even power and strength athletes, such as football players, can benefit from 30second to1 minute sets of double cleans and double jerks. A 1:1 work/rest ratio is ideal for partner work. There is a fourth quarter in every football game and the most well conditioned team will many times prevail.
Circuit training Two of my favorites are the Power Endurance Circuit and the Clean Circuit.With the P.E. circuit, the athlete performs a Clean and Jerk, Clean and Front Squat, Front Squat and Push Press, Clean + Jerk + Front Squat and a Maxwell Kettlebell Burpee, if so desired. Those athletes who tackle this one work at a 1:1 work/rest ratio, 30 seconds of work and rest on week 1, moving to 45 seconds on week 2 and 1 minute on week three. On week 4 we start reducing rest intervals to 45 seconds and 30 seconds on weeks 5 and 6, respectively. The C.C. circuit, simply involves performing cleans with three different training tools. First we perform Olympic hang cleans with the barbell, then sandbag cleans, and finally double kettlebell cleans. This is great for not only power athletes, but for all athletes.We use this at the beginning of many of our workouts.
Complexes We will sometimes combine a series of different exercises, completing an entire set of one movement before moving to another, creating a complex. It’s a great way to practice many kettlebell or sandbag exercises and condition our athletes in a very short period of time.Below are few unique kettlebell complexes. Both are advanced and somewhat grueling. Complexes are great for training wrestlers and any athlete who spends a lot of “time under tension.”
Warrior Walks-This is a “time under tension” complex that will make your body scream. Start with two heavy kettlebells in the overhead position and walk a specified distance, 10-25 meters. Then perform 5 jerks with the kettlebells. When concluding the last rep, hold both bells in the rack position and rack walk back to where you started. Then proceed to complete 5 front squats. Now, making sure your feet are at proper distance apart, unrack both bells, swinging them down safely and now place the bells outside the hips for farmer’s walks. At the conclusion of your farmers walk, complete 5 double cleans and bear crawl the bells back to the starting line where you will finish with 5 renegade rows each arm. It’s no walk in the park.
Blaster- Start by performing 10 double clean and jerks, followed by 10 double front squats, and finally 10 double bent rows. If the athlete hasn’t advanced to double kettlebell work yet, try progressing from one arm clean and jerk to reverse lunges, to a one leg deadlift and finish with bent rows.
Combinations We use combination lifts with just about every tool. Clean and push press or jerk, clean and front squat are a few of our favorites. This gives us “more bang for the buck,” More work is done in the same time frame and it is also a great conditioner. Also, in most athletic competitions, the athlete is not limited to performing one movement at a time. They are required to transition from one movement to the next and to change levels as smoothly as possible. The Power Endurance Circuit is and example of how we combine combination movements in a circuit format.
Tabata sets 20 seconds of intense work doesn’t seem like very long, but 10 seconds of rest is even shorter. We sometimes use a Tabata format for our finisher. Pairing up two to three exercises adds variety and it moves so fast, our athletes are smoked before they know what hit them. Using a variety of training tools make the possibilities endless. Our soccer athletes have utilized tabata sets after unilateral strength work. We also use tabata sets as a finisher with all athletes to add a little variety to the end of the workout.
Supersets We can pair up barbell Olympic jerks with sandbag cleans, barbell back squats with kettlebell single leg deadlifts, and dumbbell bench press with pull ups or body weight rows. These are just a few pairings we may use and an example of how we can run 32 athletes through eight racks in an efficient manner. If the goal is hypertrophy, we’ll pair antagonistic movements, short rest intervals, with a slightly higher rep range. If the goal is strength, we keep the rep range low with longer recovery and pair up unrelated movements, such as a squat with a bent row. Pair up a couple combination exercises, such as sandbag clean and front squat and kettlebell clean and jerk for a killer conditioning combo.Pavel popularized using ladders in a superset format in his “Right of Passage” workout. If you want to move to a heavier bell on your presses and push your pull up numbers through the roof, you should consider this one. The thing that I like most is that it’s extremely simple with a low to high volume progression, allowing the athlete to polish their technique as they get stronger. Our modified version of this workout will also get you ready for the beach.
Competitions Year endcompetitions help the athletes to stay motivated and make training fun. All athletes are required to participate in a power lifting competition, our North Kettlebell Challenge or our Warrior Challenge. The last 8 weeks of the school year are spent preparing for their chosen competition.
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