Yesterday, I got an email from an EFI reader that thought I had a second family in Toronto with five kids. Sorry, that is not my family. That is Chris Lopez’s family. Today I got a workout for you from Chris. It’s the 10-Minute Kettlebell Density Workout.
Enjoy.
~ Rick
We will talk about Kettlebell workouts and how efficient you can be with just using 2 Foundational Kettlebell Exercises.
Benefits of the 2 Foundational Kettlebell Exercises
I will show you today. I think the perfect workout or training session may be because it covers every possible movement.
And you see in the movements I am doing in the exercises I am doing for the workout how we pretty much cover everything.
This workout has:
- shoulder stability
- lots of core stability
- single-leg movement
- bilateral leg power movement
- hip hinging
- knee hinging
- squat pattern involved
So there’s a lot involved and benefits in these two exercises.
We are going to perform this workout in a density fashion. What we are going to do is we will do one get the upper side. And then, we are going to perform ten powerful hard stall kettlebell swings.
What you are going to do for this workout is you are going to set your timer for 10 minutes. And that’s all that you are going to do. You will alternate sides for the outfit, and then you will do your kettlebell swings. You will do ten kettlebell swings and continue that for the remainder of the 10 minutes until the 10 minutes are up. Then you record your results, and you rest when you need to. And then you continue with that trying to improve your results. As the weeks go by and you perform this workout.
1a. Get Up
Quickly, let’s go to the GetUp. I may have shown this to you before when you and I were at a conference together. And I will show you exactly how to do it, the outfit I love for shoulder stability.
So let’s go through the GetUp.
The kettlebell is on the ground, and I will reach the fetal position. And Rick, you know I am on a dirty concrete floor. And I am getting on the ground for you, so I love you, man (Thank you, Chris). I am going to take this kettlebell. We will grab it in a fetal position, and this is a 24kg kettlebell. From this position here, I am going to floor-press it up. And by floor pressing it up, I stabilize. Or I automatically fire my back and lat, two very important stabilizers when holding something above your head.
From here, I am going to brace my abs nice and tight. I am going to keep my arm vertical, and I am going to go up onto my elbow. And from here, we will go up onto our hands and notice how I am staying nice and tall; I always want to keep that bell nice and vertical. Then from here, we used to do a high bridge where we lift our buttocks nice and high, but we don’t do that anymore for StrongFirst.
We are going to go right into a sweep, so we are going to lift, create space, and then pull back. And if you notice where I am right now, I’ve got a straight line from my hand to my left knee and my left ankle and that’s the type of alignment you want to maintain. From here, I am squeezing my shoulder blades, I am still in that vertical position, and then I am going to stand up. I swivel my knee out, I am on a half lunge or a lunge position, and I am going to stand up – and there’s your Get up.
1b. Get Down
Now we’ve got to do the Get Down.
I am going to step back and be able to align my spine. I will windshield wiper my left leg and get that straight line as I pull my hand down. So I am in perfect alignment. That means I am angling or flexing through my hip and not my spine. I will sweep my leg through, chest up, shoulders back to the elbow, and then to the back. I will bring my two hands over, bring them down to support, and put the bell on the ground.
And that’s the GetUp, one of the best exercises you can do with the kettlebell. After that, you will do that on the left side, so I just did that with my right.
2. Powerful Kettlebell Swings
Immediately after that, we are going to do 10 Powerful Kettlebell Swings. With the hardstyle kettlebell swings, we must remember that it’s a hip-hinging exercise, not a squatting exercise.
It resembles more of the deadlift than it does the squat. And what you want to think about when you are doing that is getting your butt back. You are almost on a vertical shin angle, so your shins will not cross over your toes when you are swinging. And then you will get nice and deep, maintaining a good back arch.
The one we talk about when swinging the kettlebell is projecting the energy towards the horizon. And when projecting energy towards the horizon, you will notice that the bell will give us feedback. Then you will either flip up or out towards the horizon.
If you notice that the bell is drooping down, giving you feedback, again, that means that you might have a squat swing because you are coming from down low to this position as opposed to that hinge position where it’s back. So that’s the one main thing that you want to remember.
So when I am setting up for my kettlebell swing, I am about maybe a foot or foot and a half away from it, and I am going to brace my abs, hinge my hips, draw my shoulders down and back, look forward, and I am going to like pass it through my knees and extend.
From a relative standpoint, that’s pretty light; that’s a 24kg kettlebell for me. You notice that I am a little bit out of breath because I can get out of that exercise as much as I want from it.
So at the movement’s peak, I am squeezing my glutes, bracing my abs, power breathing, and my quads are nice and tight, so I am a statue at this position. If you try to push me, the likelihood is that I wouldn’t move because I am so rooted into the ground; that’s called your root position. You get a lot of energy, and your brace is just from that root position.
After that, I am actively firing my lats, throwing the kettlebell down, so I am using my lats to get that kettlebell through, which creates almost a slingshot effect on my hamstrings. Then it gives me a little power to pop the ball up and float it for the next rep; that’s why we only do ten reps.
Summary of the 10-Minute Density Workout
That’s your density kettlebell workout, you are going to start with the outfit, and you are going to do one on each side.
And then immediately after that, you are going to do ten swings. Then you rest for however long you need to because you want to focus on practicing and perfecting your form while you are doing this, and then you continue with get upright, get up left, and then ten swings for the remainder of that 10-minute density period. That’s a great workout; I gave it to my wife yesterday, and she loves it.
If you would like to check out a kettlebell program, you can check out 10 Compound Kettlebell Exercises for Increased Strength:
Chris Lopez is a Strength Coach and StrongFirst Girya Level 2 Instructor (SFGII). He is the author of the TT Kettlebell Evolution Advanced Fat Loss Program and Editor of www.KettlebellWorkouts.com. Chris lives with his wife and their five children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
