After “Brutal” Monday, I felt like Tuesday’s workout was a breeze.  And it was, kind of.  At least there isn’t too much thinking involved, just lots of swings and lots of sweat.  With this workout, my grip goes before I’m ready to stop, but this time I managed to get around that.

Elise calls this one Kettlebell Cardio, which is a pretty fitting name.  It looks like this:  10 2 Hand Swings, 10 Single Hand Swings (5R, 5L) 10 2 Hand Swings,  10 Swing/Cleans (5R, 5L).  Rest and Repeat.

Last time I did this one I did 6 rounds.  Tuesday I did 9 rounds.  I did alter the plan slightly on the last 3 rounds because my grip was deteriorating.  Instead of doing 10 Swing/Cleans,  I did 10 Single Hand Swings (5R, 5L) followed by 10 Cleans (5R, 5L).  I think the tradeoff was worth it since I got so many more total rounds in the workout.

No fun add ons.  After the 9th round of Kettlebell Cardio, I was cooked.   Oh yeah, and the hands.  Blisters + kettlebell snatches = not a good combination.

Wednesday my kettlebell practice was Turkish Get Ups (1-3 each side) and Swings (25 2 Hand).  I like this one a lot because it is so simple.  Today I used a 10kg kettlebell for the TGUs and 16kg for the swings.  This was the first time trying a TGU with a bell heavier than 8kg.  I wasn’t sure I could even do one, but things went pretty well.  I can tell I’m getting stronger and better at the whole TGU thing.  However, they did look sloppy several times today as I had to work harder with the heavier bell.  It will be a while before I go up in weight again.

I had to scale back on the reps of the TGUs but I still managed to do 5 rounds.  I wanted more swing time after that so I did another 100 swings for fun, in this format:  25 swings/:30 rest.  No snatches today either.  : (

I’m still planning on doing some HIIT this week.  While Fred’s suggestions are quite intriguing, I have my heart set on running stairs somewhere.  I just have to figure out where I can do that.  Maybe that will be a Saturday thing.

Yesterday I felt like dirt.  Sometimes you don’t realize how bad you feel until you feel better and think back.  Today I can think back.  At least it’s over.  I slept late this morning because I felt so bad last night.  Maybe that’s what I needed.  My workout today was mid morning, and I had tons of energy.

To start off, I did Elise’s cardio workout.  It’s the one that is mostly swings, with a few cleans thrown in at the end of each round.  Since I got my heart rate monitor, I’ve been keeping track of which of these workouts burns the most calories.  The lower body work out wins, but I believe this one comes in second.  It’s just a piece of information, though.

Last time I did six rounds of this workout. Today I finished 7 rounds without any difficulty.  My grip was wearing out by the end of the cleans, but otherwise I still felt good.

Despite the tired hands, I picked up the 8kg bell and decided to really work at this kettlebell snatch situation.  (Mind you, I learned this move 2 days ago.  8kg is a lot today.)  I also chose to wear my wristbands just because I knew that if I didn’t, this wouldn’t last long.

It was ugly, and then – it got OK.  One time I tried snapping my hips crazy hard and success!  Soft landing with the bell.  Ah hah!  I had another breakthrough when I tried snatching continuously, rather than doing a swing-snatch-swing-snatch thing.  (Don’t know why I was doing that anyway.)  Wow!  So I kept going.  I did a bunch of them.  Over and over.  I lost count.  I rested a little here and there, and I think I finally stopped about 15 minutes later.  Probably not too wise to do that many.  My elbows are feeling strange at this point.  Not injured, but confused.  Hopefully tomorrow I won’t be crying.  And hopefully I’ll remember how to find the groove I somehow managed to stumble into today.