01/23/2021 - The Outpost - Enter the Kettlebell
AO: The Outpost
When: 01/23/2021
PAX:
Number of Pax: 18
Pax Names: Appletini, Boston Butt, Bozo, Elmer Fudd, Goldberg, Half Price, Lewinsky, Motown, Nacho Libre, Ozark, RoachCoach, Snorkle, Thumb Drive, Toadstool, Trickle, Uncle Rico, Vitamix, Zima,
DR Names:
Number of FNGS: 0
FNG Names:
QIC: Ozark
Introduction
From the Pre-blast: The OG OP will be rocking lumps of iron with handles this Saturday. Don’t have one of your own you say? Come anyway and a brother can probably hook you up. Is it cardio? Is it strength? It’s both and you may be left wondering what just hit you (hopefully not literally though–remember quick feet are happy feet).
The Scene: Pre-dawn, single digit temp, but thankfully no wind. YHC ran out to the fields to see what the snow conditions were like and check on footing in the grass, and mosey’d back to the flags to unload some extra fun.
Pax rolled up, some OYO burpees and SSH were performed to keeep/get warm, spare kettlebells were dolled out to the kettlebell-less pax, and we kicked things off.
Warm-O-Rama
- Startered off with some SSH to get the blood pumping, shake the kings out, and hopefully stave off the single-digit temps.
- Next up, “Cossack Squats” – and with this the mumblechatter started warming up until,
- Inch worms with an up-dog where the mumble chatter and curious groaning of Roach Coach and Appletini filled the gloom with sound…. yeah….
With the core and legs feeling warm time to turn to the shoulders with some:
- Arm circles, and
- kettlebell Halos ~15 IC
Finished off with some Abe Vigoda that took us right into some Kettlebell Windmills.
The Thang
Figuring that dropped and slammed bells were a real possibility, we moved things to the grass. And since we had to move location anyway I unloaded every heavy object I could find in my car so we would all have enough in our hands to make the trot over to the grass worthwhile (apparently my car generally has an ~80# sandbag 70#/32Kg kettlebell a 53# kettlebell a few ruck plates and… yeah you get the idea). Note to self: if you give the pax extra coupons to carry, don’t be surprised when they leave the 70# KB for you….
Once we made it to a good patch of grass it was time for….
THANG 1
EMOM (well kinda emom-forgot my good interval timer-and phone proved far too unreliable just started going with a 10 count when most pax had finished reps) 3 rounds
- 6 Plank Rows each arm
- 6 kneeling press each arm
- 6 reverse lunge each leg half
- 6 clean (and thruster) each arm half
- 6 2 count mountain climber burpees
This one was in here to introduce some kettlebells moves other than swings, and to take advantage of some unilateral loading to hit the core a little bit. Next time I do EMOM like this we’re going to do some Rocky Balboa or SSH between reps to keep the energizer bunnys from grumbling (looking at you Uncle Rico and ‘Tini)… oh and I’ll actually bring my timer.
THANG 2
In case anyone was under the impression that they weren’t going to get their heart rates up this morning, next up was a ladder of swings and goblet squats (1 each, 2 each, 3 each… etc.). Not that I made it very clear, but the general idea was to get up to as many reps as possible (we shot for 15) with as few breaks as possible. Once this had silenced most mumble chatter and the gloom was filled with sounds of sweet sweet suffering…. we did a few more until it was time for…
TURKISH-GET-UPS!
You can’t have an inaugural kettlebell beatdown without some get-ups! Pax were challenged to get through 10 get-ups with each arm up or as many as possible for Mary. If nothing else these were why we were on the grass. Asphalt and knees do not go together well.
MARY
Somewhere between the thangs I called an audible and pulled the hand-to-hand swings in since if anything was going to send KBs flying this would be it. We did about a minute and a half of unbroken hand-to-hand KB swings to work some anti-rotational strength, oh and hamstrings/glutes lots of that too.
Kettlebells are great for Mary! Here’s the selection we checked out:
- “Flat back” KB pull overs. on your six, come up into a crunch, hold that tight with your back flat on the ground. Reach over your head, grab your KB and pull it over to your stomach. place back above your head and repeat without releasing the crunch.
- “Newton’s Cradle” because I was pretty sure I’d die if we had just gone straight to…
- IRON Hammer’s: American Hammer but with a KB in your hands. For extra fun you can press it out and away from yourself on each side
- Finished off with BBSU with a KB OHP at the top
Circle of Trust
My M asked me how I got into this KB thing (something about two pallets of kettlebells in the driveway may have tipped her off that I was up to something). I realized that after Toady posted about his idea and the conversations he’d had with pax about doing some kettlebell workouts, I had just kept taking what seemed to be the best next little step until we ended up putting nearly a ton of cast iron in the hands of the pax and here we are this morning doing what we do: DOING THE WORK.
I’m grateful for the men who came out to join me this morning because together we make each other stronger to take that best next step to get better as men, to do better for our families, to make our communities better, which makes this a better world for us all.
Great work gentleman and thank you.
Naked Man Moleskin
I’ve done a fair bit of getting up and directing things, and while I’m not as good at it as I should be, I don’t get that nervous about it anymore. I was nervous about this Q though. I couldn’t have asked for a better bunch of pax though. We got through technical difficulty, my inability to remember much more than my own name (if that) in the morning, and we got some work done.
I’ll definitely have to bring back those inch-worm-2-up-dogs if only to hear the exotic mating calls it elicited…
Thanks to Thumb-drive for helping me bring that 70#er back for Mary (especially since it was the principle reason for stopping at the first patch of grass instead of the second on the way out).
Looking forward to seeing who will step up next and challenge this Kettlebell crew.