A Big Goal Met For Me

Keeping constantly challenged by having a goal in your training is probably one of the most important lessons anyone can learn. It doesn’t always have to be the same goal, but to truly drive your training you need to have something you’re specifically working toward to keep you on track.

Not having a specific measurable direction in training is one of the biggest mistakes. The, “I’m just gonna go train,” may work a little and there are times when you just need to not worry about keeping track of time, reps and weight. However for the most part you need to have specific goals in every area of training that you’re working toward. This insures constant improvement and progressive overload which insures that you’re actually getting results out of your training.

Having a lot of small measurable ways to know that you’re improving toward your goal is also important. That’s a concept I’m calling, “Constant Victory,” something I’ll be elaborating on much more in the future.

Kettlebell Swings

For a bit over the past year one of the major parts of my training has been a “kettlebell swing odyssey.” When I really got into the kettlebell swing I began to think and think about how far it could be taken and realized that there’s a giant mountain to climb with this exercise. A huge range of physical improvement and constant new goals to be met in sets, reps, time, pace, etc.

I think most people go past the swing too quickly. The other kettlebell exercises: snatch, clean and jerk are also killer and I’ve been doing those, don’t get me wrong, but when you take one thing as far as it can possibly be taken then you know you’ve actually accomplished something.

Let me give you an example of my progress and then I’ll tell you about the goal I actually reached. I first started swinging the kettlebell with an 88lb bell and then later picked up the other weights. I had a good idea of what was going on, but then I attended an RKC and really got the swing right. When I first got serious about the swing my goal was to do 500 reps with the 24kg or 53lb bell. I was making that in a bit under 20 minutes. Then I progressively got faster and started whittling the time down for the same amount of reps. Then I began to use progressive cycles and moved up in reps and weight.

So what was the goal and what’s the improvement?

My goal was originally to do 1,000 reps unbroken (not putting the bell down), with the 53. The first time I did 1,000 reps with the 53 it took me just over 45 minutes and obviously was not an unbroken set. The other night I was able to take the 32kg or 70lb bell and do 1,000 swings completely unbroken, did not put the bell down, in 24 minutes exactly. I then did another 1,000 reps bringing my total up to 2,000 in 59 minutes exactly.

The 1,000 unbroken reps was the big goal and I was very happy to hit it with the heavier bell instead of the 53lb. Coming soon I’ll be sharing a lot of tips on really improving your swing performance. Until then if you want to know how to mix kettlebell training along with barbell, strongman and all the others than make you super-strong then check out Twisted Conditioning 2.

God Bless,
Bud Jeffries