Primal Blueprint Fitness + Kettlebells? page

[JoeJoe97]

I have been eating primally off and on for about 2 years. I am getting more serious as of late and want to add kettlebells. I have been doing the primal blueprint fitness regiment since August. I am somewhat happy with the results but based on reading about kettlebells I want to add them.

The question I have is how to add them. I have been doing primal blueprint fitness (the essential movements) twice a week. I am up to:

Pullup / chinup
knee pushups
squats
hand/knee plank and hand/knee side plank

I picked up a 30 pound kettlebell (the heaviest they had at the store I was at) and a copy of enter the kettlebell. He seems to recommend a swing and getup system for a program minimum.

But the question I have is how someone should blend these. Do I abandon the primal movements and just go to kettlebells? Or should I keep up with both? If so what is my rampup method you would do?

Thanks for the help!

[Annlee]

I like to alternate bodyweight exercises and KBs - odd-numbered days are bodyweight and even-numbered days are KBs. I find the two systems highly complementary.

[TorMag]

I try alternating what I am doing every 12 weeks. I have been doing a lot of body weight stuff and am going back into a kettlebell phase. Starting a 12 week program from Enter the Kettlebell. 4 weeks program minimum and then 8 weeks of Rite of passage. I will still do pushups somewhere in there. Also, the Rite of Passage Program from the book has you doing squats as part of the warm up, and pullups two days out of the week.

[fat belly frog]

I do both BW and KB's normally I mix them together for a full body workout, recently my focus has been more HIT conditioning here a couple of samples of my workouts from my workout log.

Strength based:

A1: a 1 hour walk with the dog along the beach and coastal trails, soft sand a rock hoping

Into the shed for two rounds of, no rest, BW only.
B1: 10 x Hindu pushups
B2: 10 x Tee squats
B3: 10 x windmill right
B4: 10 x windmill left
B5: 10 x dragon lunges alt legs
B6: 10 x scorpions alt sides
B7: 10 x back hypers
B8: 10 x roll ups
B9: 10 x side bridge

Then 3 rounds of
C1: 25 pull ups ( done in sets of 5)
C2: 100 DH KB swings 25 kg bell (done on a 1 to 10 pyramid)
C3: 3 Turkish get ups 16 kg bell, each side


Conditioning based (HIT)
A1: Joint mobility circle work (5 mins)
A2: Quad strech
A3: Glute activation
A4: 12 kg bell halos
A5: 12 kg bell around the world

BW only exercise
B1: 10 x Hindu pushups
B2: 10 x Tee squats
B3: 10 x windmill right
B4: 10 x windmill left
B5: 10 x dragon lunges alt legs
B6: 10 x scorpions alt sides
B7: 10 x back hypers
B8: 10 x roll ups
B9: 10 x side bridge
B10: 20 bird dogs knee to elbow each side
B11: quad and hip stretch


Main conditioning set (5 rounds) for time (13 mins)
C1: 5 x Pull ups
C2: 10 x DH swings 25 kg bell
C3: 10 x Snatch right 16 kg bell
C4: 10 x Snatch left
C5: 10 DHSwings
C5: 20 x hindu squats


Then into the finishing conditioning set of bucking furpees, no rest or in my case catch the breath as required. Based on jump rope and Burpee pyramid ~ 10-mins

D1: 50 jump ropes
D2: 2 Burpees
D3: 50 jump ropes
D4: 4 x Burpees
D5: 50 jump ropes...
Etc building up to 10 Burpees and then back down to 2 so all up 10 rounds of jump rope and 50 Burpees ...

Mix em up keeps the body guessing but it also depends on what your goals are, mine are fat loss and functional fitness, I have plenty of size (6'2" and 110kgs) so dont mind lossing a bit of muscle mass

Cheers

[fat belly frog]

Here is another couple of examples from my workouts a couple of weeks ago

Conditioning - 6 rounds of a 5-10-15-20 set - rest as required

5 x pull ups
10 x Hindu push ups
15 x DH KB swings 25kg bell
20 x Hindu squats

Done in 16 mins, puffed, sweating, knackered... Great workout. Hope to build this to 10 rounds in 25 mins

And a Tabata style combined witha strength workout

Tabatas intervals 20:10 sec work:rest split - 5 rounds of the following with 1 min between rounds


A1: jump rope
A2: sledge hammer swings left
A3: DH kettle bell swings 25kg bell
A4: sledge hammer swings right
A5: DH Kb swings
A6: KB snatch 16kg bell right arm
A7: KB snatch left arm
A8: 25 kg kB goblet squat alternated with Hindu squats every other ground


Drink break then into upper body strength workout
B1: 3x 5 pull ups
B2: 3 x 5 hanging knee ups
B3: 3 x10 laying down tricep extensions 16kg bell
B4: 3 x 10 laying down presses 2x 16kg bells
B5: 3 x 10 double suitcase dead lift to high pull with 16 kg bells
B6: 3 x 10 double overhead press with 16 kg bells

Cheers

[TorMag]

Some great workouts in there Fat Belly. Going to have to try some of them.

[Philosopher Dan]

If you are doing two bw days, I would make a third day a kettle bell day, with a split something like this:

M/W or Th - bw
Sat - KB

I think I have a copy of Enter the Kettlebell somewhere - but I don't know that I would recommend starting with get ups. Get ups are a fairly complex move (I was training for more than a year with a former RKC guy before I started doing them). I would recommend swings, military presses and squats to start. Then add more complicated moves as you progress.

Also, while Pavel is certainly the man, learning kettle bells can be tricky. It would be a really good idea to find someone who really knows their stuff to get some lessons with. The offset weight of the bell can play havoc with supporting muscles.

You can also find lots of video instruction, of course. A good site for that is monkeybargym.com (although they've redone their site, so I can't vouch for how easy it is to get around at the moment).

Good luck!

[TorMag]

No kidding Get ups are complex. Trying just getting up off the floor on you off leg without a kettlebell. For me left sided Get Ups are incredibly difficult.

[fat belly frog]

Good point Dan,

If you can try and get a few sessions one on one with a certified instructor, I had a few sessions and even after watching countless videos and reading books my swing form still need a few tweaks, and he pointed out some improvements on the get ups. Try the get ups with out a KB first, you can even do half getups as well. I suggest you start out slowly if not use to KB' or weights and add in a 1-2 rounds of swings into your current routines as finishers, also add in halos and around the world passes as part of your warm ups, the 16 kg (36lb) bell might be too large for th halos so take it easy at first.

Two really hard workouts I do with KB,s only are:

kB 300:
which is 3 rounds of 100 DH swings followed by 5 TGU each side done for time ( 23 mins for me). So 300 swings

And the Viking warrior condition protocol
Alternating single arme snatch on a 15 sec work 15 sec rest repeat for 40 mins, if you can. When I started I could do 20 mins with a 12 kg bell, I can now do the full 40 with a 16 kg bell

Enjoy the KB's mate they are a good tool to have in the fitness box