That was unexpected....

[digitaldiscipline]

A) My boss is letting me leave an hour early, because I worked a full day XMS eve, and both the day after XMS and will be here the day after New Year's. Naturally, I'm going in for some serious self-abuse at the gym with the spare hour.

B) My brother-in-law just emailed me asking for Kettlebell pointers to help with his intention to get into Kayaking and Wakeboarding.
Inexpensive KBs can be had at muscledriverusa.com - even with shipping, they're about $1.50 per pound; I don't know what sort of sporting goods stores you have up that way, but at Play It Again Sports down here, they're about $2/lb, plus tax. When I started working with them (July '07), I got a pair of 36# (1 pood) ones; I've since added a single 54# (1 1/2 pood) one. I'd say a pair of 24's or 36's should be plenty to play with for a while.

Dragondoor.com - Pavel Tsatsouline's site - has a ton of good info. His book, Enter the Kettlebell, while a little spendy, really covers the basics excellently. There are a lot of KB demonstration videos on YouTube, too, so you can see what stuff looks like.

A basic routine, to get a feel for them:

* 2-handed swing
* 1-handed swing
* Goblet Squat
* Clean / Clean & Press
* Around the Waist (sometimes called "RTW")
* Figure 8's
* Push Press (also called a Thruster - it's a Goblet squat where you push the weight overhead once you've stood up)
* Weighted Sit-Up
* Bent-Over Row

You can do these in sets of X reps, just like regular gym work, or for endurance (one minute on, one minute rest, etc)

Once you've got those moves down, and a good strength base established, you can add a couple more challenging moves (in order of increasing difficulty):

* Snatch
* Military Press
* Halo (same as around the world, but it's around your head)
* Side Raise
* Walking Lunge
* Turkish Get-Up
* Two Hands Anyhow

I tend to do some/most of the stuff from the first batch almost every day I work out, and some of the stuff from the second.

Comments

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

I tend to do some/most of the stuff from the first batch almost every day I work out, and some of the stuff from the second.

Is that "as the workout" or "preliminary to the workout"?

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Usually "as about half of my workout." I almost always do a couple sets of pull-ups, maybe go for a run (I need to get more dedicated about that if I don't want to be an embarassment to myself when I do the 15k at the end of February), and some "heavy lifting" (bench, deadlift, clean, snatch, etc)

For instance, I'll do 1-3 sets of cleans, clean & press, snatch, goblet squat/thrusters, & bent-over rows pretty much every day. [Further specifics under the fitness filter, post to follow.]