For
the longest time I’ve wanted to make more workout videos and finally got around
to it last Friday. Today I’m sharing
what I hope to be one of many to follow this year. This workout uses my favorite exercise
implement, the kettlebell (KB) of the 24kg load variety. Of course, if you decide to take this workout
for a test drive, size it as to duration and load according to your current
abilities.
This
is something that doesn’t always come easy for me. For example, when viewing various workouts posted
on fitness-related websites and YouTube, it seems that so many of them are intended
for the younger fitness enthusiast in mind.
We “older folks” - the middle-aged men fitness enthusiast around the
world - can easily be lured into believing that we should also be able to do
these workouts with the same loads and in the same time as that younger
whippersnapper demonstrating it in “dog and pony show” fashion during classroom
show and tell time.
In my gracefully-aging journey, I confess that I’m at a different chapter in my fitness life. It’s, therefore, essential to scale my workouts according to my current abilities. Yet, they need to be challenging and requiring me to reach for the stars in my pursuit of middle-aged man fitness excellence. I’m sure you’re no different.
Blah, blah, blah, blah! Let’s get down to business with today’s workout that I’ve named the Pierini Fitness kettlebell (KB) carries complex. It consists of three single-arm KB carries, each performed with your right arm first, and then left arm. Each carry is held for one minute. You have 15 seconds to change sides and carries. When performed as prescribed, it’ll takes 7:30 to complete one round. If you perform this workout for the first time, you may find, as I did, that one round is enough.
Eventually, I advanced to two rounds and that’s what I did the day I filmed this video, but only the first round is included in the video you’re about to view.
I gave myself 2:30 of recovery after the first round before beginning the second round. Soon I’ll be ready to tackle three rounds but need to attempt this on a day when that’s all I do. When filming this video last Friday, I had already completed a 25-minute “grease the groove” workout of alternating pull-ups and chin-ups. I need to be 100 percent fresh to attempt three rounds of this KB carries complex.
So,
when completed as prescribed, here’s what a timeline of one round looks
like:
KB carry
|
Time
|
Cumulative time
|
Waiter carry R
|
1:00
|
1:00
|
Transition
|
0:15
|
1:15
|
Waiter carry L
|
1:00
|
2:15
|
Transition
|
0:15
|
2:30
|
Rack carry R
|
1:00
|
3:30
|
Transition
|
0:15
|
3:45
|
Rack carry L
|
1:00
|
4:45
|
Transition
|
0:15
|
5:00
|
Suitcase carry R
|
1:00
|
6:00
|
Transition
|
0:15
|
6:15
|
Suitcase carry L
|
1:00
|
7:15
|
Done!
|
0:15
|
7:30
|
Here’s
a video demonstration of me performing one round last Friday.
With
the current KB weight, the time under tension of this workout will make your shoulders
and entire core musculature feel that they’ve been worked hard.
This
workout will also give you a decent serving of cardiovascular training, like it
did for me, as indicated in the snapshot image below of heart rate statistics reported
by my Garmin Forerunner 35:
My
average heart rate (MHR) during this workout was 146 beats per minute. Since I’ve self-assessed my MHR at 180 beats
per minute, this means that I worked at 81 percent of my MHR during this
workout.
My
highest heart rate during this workout was 163 beats per minute, or 91 percent
of my MHR.
Make
no doubts about it, this KB carries complex is a bona-fide cardiovascular conditioning
workout.
Take
it for a test drive the next time you’re up for something different and then
let me know what you think about my Pierini Fitness KB carries complex.
Pax Domini sit
semper vobiscum
