2013-04-19 Fitness Log: Mobility, Kettlebells, Rotational Stability

Another session today with the mobility/kettlebell trainer.  The theme for today was Rotational Stability which meant a lot of one arm kettlebell work.  We reviewed one arm kettlebell swings.  My main issue here was not keeping the upperbody square forward which was fixed by swinging the free arm in sync with the kettlebell arm.

We also did some nifty single leg kettlebell deadlifts.  These involve doing a typical deadlift movement with the kettlebell while lifting one leg back.  The effects of this exercise on balance and stability were immediately obvious to me and this is something I’m going to include in future warm-ups and mobility work.  This is a great video that I just randomly found on YouTube that talks about it:

My trainer gave me two birthday “treats” in the form of the following two workouts.  I don’t recall the exact weights I used for these.  I went light and they were still brutal.

10-Down One Arm Swing Work

• 10 two hand swings / 0 right hand swings / 0 left hand swings
• 9 two hand / 1 right / 1 left
• 8 two hand / 2 right / 2 left
• 7 / 3 / 3
• 6 / 4 / 4
• 5 / 5 / 5
• 4 / 6 / 6
• 3 / 7 / 7
• 2 / 8 / 8
• 1 / 9 / 9
• 0 / 10 / 10

Deep Six Variation

One round of Deep Six looks like this (do not put bell down during each single hand portion of round):

• 5 right arm swings
•  5 right arm snatches
• 5 right arm clean and presses
• 5 front squats (kb in right rack position)
• 1 Turkish Get Down (initiate with press to lockout from rack position)
• 1 Turkish Get Up
• Repeat with left arm

Traditional Deep Six is done for 5 rounds of 5 reps per movement (TGD/TGU is always 1 per round).  We did an easier version of 5 rounds or 5,4,3,2,1 reps.  Awesome workout!  Going through all of the primary kettlebell movements accomplishes both a full body workout while also getting in a ton of practice on all of these movements.  The Turkish Get Up work at the end is incredibly effective given that it starts from the top down and in a fatigued state.  This really emphasizes the importance of proper positioning.