KETTLEBELL CONDITIONING

Five ways to maximise your training

Change your programming

If you don’t have a big range of kettlebell weights, change the programme to become more challenging. That means longer sets and shorter rests.

Learn new movements

If you’ve mastered the basic kettlebell swings and lifts, work on more complicated exercises by adding in other movements. Overhead squats, forward lunge snatches and windmills are good places to start.

Create complexes

Don’t just hit straight kettlebell sets. Kettlebell swings followed by squat jumps, press-ups, then thrusters is a great complex. Try 10 reps of each for as many rounds as you can in five minutes.

Integrate other kit

Throw in some Bulgarian split squats with a kettlebell racked in one arm, or turn that into a thruster: where you use the lunge to press overhead. Or try a TRX single-arm hold while you do a renegade row with the kettlebell. Have fun, create new challenges, get new results.

Try kettlebell sport lifting

There are two options. The first is a jerk, where you press one or two kettlebells from the chest (rack) to overhead. Or there’s the snatch, where one kettlebell is swung in one motion from between the legs to overhead. Perform as many reps as you can in ten minutes. There’s just one catch: you can’t set the kettlebell down in those ten minutes or the set is over.