A Lonely Kettlebell
Intro
In this snippet we will discuss workouts based around a single kettlebell, these can be really valuable both for home use and gym use.
What?
5 Rounds For Quality
20 Goblet Squats
10 Bent Over Row (Each Arm)
10 KB Clean (Each Arm)
10 Shoulder To Overhead (Each Arm)
Why?
As we went through the benefits of single item workouts in depth in our last blog post, we will quickly go over it today. If you want to see the full depth breakdown please see the blog A Lonely Dumbbell.
A single item workout can be beneficial to home gym users, open gym users and gym owners/coaches.
The advantages of being able to do single dumbbell workouts as a home gym user is it requires a super minimal amount of space, and once you get a few movements in your arsenal, it is simple to program a HIIT workout for yourself.
As a gym user, the advantages are similar to the home user as single dumbbell workouts can be simple and easy to program once you know some movements, just grab a dumbbell and string some movements together.
As a coach or a gym owner a simple single dumbbell workout can provide a great bit of variety for class members but also for the busier times or special occasions single dumbbell workouts can provide a simple and compact workout to minimise class space
Now let's get some tips and helpers for this workout and how to approach it, see if we can get the best performance and stimulus out of it for you.
Think about the movements you have to do and how they are going to stress your body. Are you using the same muscles for each movement or different muscles? Also, are you able to do all the reps unbroken (without resting)? Based on how you feel on these you could potentially look at where you are going to rest, or where you are going to work harder or push yourself.
5 Rounds For Quality
20 Goblet Squats
10 Bent Over Row (Each Arm)
10 KB Clean (Each Arm)
5 Shoulder To Overhead (Each Arm)
First thing to note would be the 5 rounds for quality, when a workout is ‘rounds for quality’ this means it is not a race and you should choose a weight and a speed that challenges you but you can keep good and proper form throughout giving a quality workout. In this format you can rest as needed between movements and rounds
If we look in depth at the movements we can see that if you were to try and continuously do this workout the muscles that are likely to fatigue the fastest will be your forearms and therefore your grip strength, this is because of the accumulation of time that you are holding the kettlebell.
Pacing a ‘for quality’ workout is fairly straightforward, you want to go at a pace that is challenging but does not compromise your movement form. For rests and break points in this workout, you want to aim to only break between movements and between rounds to get the most out of it, but again, if you need to break to keep good form then this is better than fighting through and executing with poor form and technique.
Good luck and let us know how you get on!
