Keep your workouts simple




Workouts do not need to be complicated.

If you watch YouTube, you will find YouTubers performing 8, 10 or even more different exercises in follow-along videos. Some will indicate "not repeats".

They are doing this to keep you entertained. Nobody wants to watch someone doing a 25 minute video in which sets of only 1 or 2 moves are repeated over and over again.
 
Here is a workout that I did today with only 2 exercises - kettlebell swings and snatches:

20 x double handed swings (24 kg)
15 x right side snatches (16 kg)
15 x left side snatches (16 kg)

Repeat as per your fitness goals.

I completed 10 rounds(500 repetitions) in 60 minutes.

These two exercises help build cardiorespiratory fitness, endurance, power, balance, joint stability and grip strength over your whole body. The snatch is an advanced kettlebell exercise, so if you are new to kettlebells, seek advice before embarking on this exercise. 

Swings are less demanding than snatches and mixing in sets of swings between sets of snatches allow you to rest the muscles of your upper back and shoulders while keeping the rest of your body moving. 

Both exercises are however vigorous and monitoring your heart rate, to ensure that you stay in a healthy heart rate range is important. If necessary, consult your medical professional to determine a safe heart rate range. 

This is the first time that I have attempted 300 snatches in a session. The need to rest and keep my heart rate in a sensible range required frequent short rest periods.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lifting above the shoulders

Image
Exercises which involve lifting weights above your shoulders present a risk to your shoulder joint. Injuries can be acute, such as a tear or dislocation or chronic such as a rotator cuff injury or frozen shoulder. But lifting objects above your shoulders is requirement of daily living. We need shoulder strength and mobility to stay functional and active. Strong muscles supporting the shoulder joint can also protect the ligaments and bones of the upper body. Exercise selection and progression are important. For seniors, unsupervised use of overhead pressing with barbells may present a higher risk. Alternatives are dumbbells, shoulder press machines, medicine balls, sandbags and kettlebells. All of these exercise tools help keep your shoulder joint aligned in the neutral position to reduce the risk of injury due to repetitive overloaded inflammation of your shoulder joint. I prefer kettlebell presses as the lift starts from the centre line and the movement is vertical. This is a safer op
Read more

Workout: Swings, snatches and double long cycles

Image
Once again, I only had 30 minutes to exercise (plus 15 minutes to warm up). After that it was back to work. So I had to make the workout count. Here is the workout (using 16 kg kettlebells): Round Alternating swings Right hand snatches Left hand snatches Double long cycles 1 30 20 20 5 clean presses 2 30 20 20 6 clean push presses 3 30 20 20 7 clean jerks Note how I changed both the number and style of the overhead press. Such variations can reduce the tedium of exercising. I intended to increase the number of long cycle repeats to 10, but unfortunately ran out of time. 
Read more

(Tabata) timers and note taking apps to enhance resistance training

Image
  Strength/resistance training is essential for good health and longevity. A loss of skeletal muscle mass leads to immobility and loss of independence and is linked to a decline in our immuno-resiliance, increased susceptibility to infections and chronic inflammatory diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancers. Two key concepts in strength training are intensity and recovery. One consequence of an intense workout is delirium. Delirium is a disturbance in our mental abilities.  Intensity Intensity is a measure of how hard we work during an exercise. Intensity is a function of the load, the number of repetitions and the length of the workout. As we age, we may have difficulty increasing the load, but we can still continue to maintain and develop strength by increasing the number of repetitions and the length of the workout. Recovery Recovery is the period that our muscles are give to rest in between each set or in between each workout. For this discussion, we foc
Read more