There are so many functional, fun exercises you can do with kettlebells that it can be easy to forget the wonderfulness of the classic two-handed swing. Lately, I've been concentrating on doing lots of swings, specifically 300 per workout, nearly every day.
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| Can you see why swings are so effective? |
I start my workout with five minutes of meditation, followed by some joint mobility work and the Eischens yoga beginner's sequence. Then it's on to swings. I use a 24 kg kettlebell, and alternate between sets of 15 and 35 swings. (Hat tip to Dan John for the rep scheme.) Rest periods between sets us about 30 seconds to a minute. Once I hit 300 swings, I'm done, though I sometimes do a few sets of slow pull-ups if I'm up to it.
Why 300 swings? It seems like a nice, golden mean sort of number. I've done 200 swings in a workout many times before, and wanted something more difficult. On the other hand, going the 500 swings route popularized in various 10,000 swing challenges strikes me as a bit too exhausting, especially since I want to have enough energy to to other activities such as swimming, running, and martial arts.
I've been doing the 300 swings workout pretty much every day this week before heading to work and I feel great. My entire posterior chain feels activated. I'll probably continue doing this for a few weeks and see how it pans out.
