ultra-short-strong.pdf

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Discover What The Chinese And BulgariansKnow About Russian Kettlebell Training That

You Dont

Learn from the best strength athletes in the world on how to get as

strong as you want using your kettlebells in less time than you

thought possible

From the desk of Geoff NeupertOverlooking Pikes Peak, CO

July 2014.

Dear Kettlebell-Swinging Amigo,

Maybe youre not into this whole fitness and fat loss thing like many other kettlebellusers.

Maybe, like me, youre an old-school iron-addict who has collected injuries over alifetime like some people collect stamps, and you just want to figure out how to regainas much of your lost strength in as many ways as possible and feel strong again.

Or maybe, you have been bitten by the strength-bug later on in life and love the

simplicity of one or two kettlebells and the myriad of lifts you can do from the comfort ofyour basement, back yard, porch, or patio.

I wanted to share with you some secrets that have been working great for me and someof my private clients for gaining strength quickly, without cutting too much into the rest ofour lives.

The Problem With

Traditional Strength

Training

If youre anything like me, you may have spent your fair share of time working out - in agym - or maybe at home. Maybe too much time. It was not uncommon for me when Iwas younger to spend 2 or more hours a day working out. Sure, I got big. I got strong.But when I got married, I also got into a lot of arguments with my wife about spendingso much time working out.

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Part of that was due to the technical nature of my sport - Olympic Weightlifting, and theother part of that was due to the traditional lens through which I structured my workouts.

Most Western influenced strength workouts are 60-90 minutes long with 3 to 5 minute(or more) rest periods, performed 3 to 5 times a week. And it seems that all the scientific

research proves this.

The problem for me and some of my clients is that we just dont have 5 plus hours towork out any more. We have families and other responsibilities like work. And some ofus, just dont want to spend that much time working out anymore, no matter how strongitll make us.

Kettlebell training provided a relatively simple solution because we found we could workaround old injuries, often rehabilitating them in the process, with exercises like Swings,Get Ups, and even Goblet Squats. The problem for many however, is how exactly toprogram the lighter-than-normal kettlebells into traditional strength programming, while

still maintaining all the benefits of resiliency and work capacity that come from kettlebelltraining.

How The Bulgarians

Bested The Best

In Business

I know, I know, I couldnt help the use of alliteration. Have to admit, though - catchy, no?

Anyway, back in the late 1970s the great Soviet Sports Machine ruled the world ofOlympic Weightlifting. That is, until a tiny country, Bulgaria, came from nowhere andstarted beating their weightlifters.

How did this tiny country beat they mighty Soviet Bear?

They simply changed the way they viewed weightlifting.

They discovered that the longer workouts of the day - 2+ hours - depleted theirweightlifters ability to recover. They determined that after 45 minutes, testosteronelevels dropped. Testosterone is an anabolic (growth) hormone responsible for muscular

growth and recovery.

At the time, the Soviets were using one or two training sessions per day that lastedanywhere from 90 minutes to 2.5 hours.

One of the things the Bulgarian coach did was change their workout schedule to shorter30 to 60 minute - workouts.

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Heres what a typical training day looked like:

9-930am: Front Squat

930-10am: Break

10-11am: Snatch

11-1130am: Break1130-1230pm:

Clean and Jerk

1230-1pm: Front Squat

430-530pm: Clean and Jerk

530-6pm: Break

6-7pm: Snatch7-730pm:

Front Squat

730-8pm: Pulls

Yes, youre right - that is A LOT of work. Im in no way suggesting that you and I

need to do multiple 30 to 60 minute training sessions (averaging 45 minutes) perday.

What I am suggesting is that we model these shorter workouts.

I have gone through periods in my training career, including right now, when Iveused these shorter workouts and not only have I never felt better, surprisingly,Ive always made great jumps in strength.

You may be thinking at this point -

How are shorter workouts possible when we still need longer rest periodsbetween sets?

Wont we lose our ability to get strong?

Worse yet, wont we get weak and end up training for endurance?

Au contraire mon frre

What The Best

In The World Do

I have made no bones about the fact the I love Olympic Weightlifting. Much of mykettlebell training methodology is based on my experiences as an Olympic lifter.

Even though the Western strength literature concludes that absolute / maximumstrength is best trained with longer rests, 3 to 5 minutes, others in the world - the

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best in the world - seem to be, at least anecdotally, using much shorter restperiods.

There is no doubt about it, the Chinese are the greatest Olympic lifters in theworld by medal count. Theyve won 255 medals at the world championships, and

154 of them are gold, recently beating the Soviet Union who had 151.

As a result, more and more Olympic lifters and their coaches are looking carefullyat what the Chinese are doing with their training.

Recently, rumors have been circulating that the Chinese use much shorter restperiods than the West says is best.

Yatan Parasher, a Canadian weightlifter, who visited and trained in China, withhis Chinese coach, reported the following in a recent interview at http://www.bethefittest.co.uk/fitness-blog/chinese-weightlifting:

We know the Chinese weightlifters train at high intensity, how long usually are their

rest periods between each lift or pull etc?

Rest periods are surprisingly short between sets and reps. A lot of it is done by athletes feel

so there is no set amount of rest. The girls tend to rest a bit less 1-2 mins and even less on the

warmup sets. Up to 2 mins rest was mostly at 85-90%+ plus. Once again it was all dependent

on the athlete. In general though rest was short

around 60-90 secs, this was much different

than what you might read in western strength books. Personally, my training has improved

vastly with shorter rest periods. A lot of western science says 3-5 min between heavy sets but

that was unheard of in China even with heavy squats or pulls.

Read that again in case you missed it.

These lifters routinely squat 3x their bodyweight and routinely snatch 2x theirbodyweight and clean and jerk 2.5x their bodyweight and they routinely rest60-90 seconds between most lifts, approaching 2 minutes on 85-90%+ lifts.

Hmmm

Might be something we can learn from them.

Some of the best in the world are training and getting stronger in ways that areopposite of whats supposed to be scientifically proven.

Therefore, we cannot discard empirical evidence just because it doesnt fit withwhat we currently think we know. (Refer back to the fat loss report on the fat lossprotocols we used to use based on endurance training.)

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The Chinese are proving that you can get really, really strong - world class strong- using shorter than proven rest periods.

Olympic Weightlifting

v.Kettlebell Lifting

You may be wondering why I refer to Olympic Weightlifting so much. Its because in mybook, its one of the ultimate expressions of strength, power, balance, and coordination -in other words, athleticism. (That plus its my background.)

The problem with Olympic lifting is that its incredibly time-consuming, takes specializedcoaching to really be good at it, and it requires specialized equipment.

Kettlebell lifting on the other hand, is like, as Pavel pointed out in 2001 in The RussianKettlebell Challenge, is like Olympic lifting for regular people. They both share verysimilar lifts - snatches, cleans, and jerks.

I started using kettlebells with my clients in 2002 because I agreed with Pavelsassessment and saw them as a better alternative to dumbbells. Furthermore, I saw thatyou could train the one quality most people needed: Work capacity.

Work capacity is simply the ability to do and recover from work. The higher yourwork capacity, the more work you can do, to the point that you rarely, if ever, gettired.

And kettlebells, in case you didnt know this already, provide a very unique type of workcapacity - strength-endurance and power-endurance, which are what everyday AverageJoes and Janes need: The ability to be strong for long periods of time.

(Case in point: Prof. Stuart McGill, one of the worlds leading spine researchers, hasdetermined that lower back injuries do not come from a lack of lower back strength, butrather, a lack of lower back strength-endurance.)

Kettlebells give you everyday strength.

Everyday Strength is useable strength that allows you to bend, twist, turn,run, and do pretty much anything you want - and not get injured or tired.

Thats something traditional strength programming using traditional strengthtraining tools, like the barbell, just cant give you. (Im assuming you know someof this already.)

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Training For

Everyday Strength

AND

Maximum Strength

This is what makes kettlebell workouts so great - you have the possibility to trainfor both everyday strength AND maximum strength.

In case you were wondering, it doesnt have to be an either/or proposition.Gone are the days when we thought that improving your conditioning wouldaffect your max strength.

You can now do BOTH.

How?

Simple.

Use the Bulgarians short workout templates - 45 minutes or less (I prefer30) and use the Chinese short rest periods - 60 seconds to 2 minutes.

Yeah, but how well will that really work?

The Russian Lions

Strength Prescription

I refer a lot to my experience as an Olympic lifter influencing my kettlebellprogramming and methodology. I fail sometimes to refer to my other influence -wrestling. I wrestled in high school and briefly in college and then went on to be acollege strength and conditioning coach, with one of my teams being theWrestling Team.

Wrestlers have amazing everyday strength.

They have great stamina and great usable real-world strength. They can bend,twist, turn, roll, crash-bang-fall without getting hurt.

So most of my metabolic kettlebell programming reflects how I trained mywrestlers. Interestingly enough, by the time I left Rutgers where I coached, not asingle wrestler ever lost because he lacked conditioning.

One of the greatest wrestlers of all time, and the first heavyweight champion ofthe world, lived at the turn of the 20th Century. He was called the Russian Lionand out of approximately 3000 pro matches, he only lost two - to the same man.

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George Hackenschmidt was a physical specimen. At age 28, in a time beforesupplements his stats were as follows:

Weight - 204 pounds; Height - 5', 9 1/2"; Reach - 75"; Biceps - 19";

Forearm 15 1/2"; Neck - 22"; Chest 52"; Waist - 34"; Thigh 26 3/4";Calf - 18".

He was an author of multiple books, fluent in seven languages, inventor of theHack Squat, and even the President of the United States wanted to be [like]him. Theodore Roosevelt, known for his manly ruggedness and can do attitude,said, If I wasnt president of the United States, I would like to be GeorgeHackenschmidt.

In 1908, Hackenschmidt said this about training:

About thirty minutes are fully sufficient to the acquisition andpreservation of strength and endurance.

30 minutes.

Hardly seems believable.

Sure, maybe for fat loss. All the science proved that.

But maximum strength?

As Tony Robbins said, Success leaves clues.

Let me ask you this:

Do you have similar measurements and athletic pedigree as GeorgeHackenschmidt?

Im guessing the answer is no.

So you have to admit that he might know what hes talking about and combinedwith the Bulgarian and Chinese strength secrets, you might have just found the

proverbial magic bullet.

If youre still not fully convinced, lets take a very practical look at why thesestrategies will work for you.

5 Reasons

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Shorter Is Better

Whether its shorter duration workouts, or shorter rest periods, or both, hereswhy its a better option for most people.

Based on studying what the best do better than me, what I know about humanphysiology, and 20 plus years of training others, Ive come to the conclusion thatshorter workouts are just better for all types of strength - everyday strength,maximum strength, strength-endurance, work capacity, and more

You may or may not think so, but unless youve given them a shot, AND arecurrently exceeding all your training goals, I encourage you to reserve your

judgment until you read the following.

1. Hormones

Hormones. Theyre what makes your body tick. Recall that one of the reasonsthe Bulgarians used shorter workouts was because testosterone, one of thehormones responsible for growth and recovery, is supposed to decreasesignificantly after 45 minutes.

Another hormone, cortisol, which is naturally released from training (as aresponse to stress) and is also responsible energy mobilization, can be over-produced, making recovery next to impossible. Its one of the reasons somepeople get fatter and weaker the more they work out. The key is to manage yourstress (including workouts) and therefore manage your hormones.

2. Focus

We live in an electronic age. I personally used to think that was a good thing untilmy iPhone notifications started going off every couple of minutes. There are somany distractions, its hard to get much done these days. The gap betweenbusy and productive is ever-widening.

Shorter workouts allow you to turn off and tune out the rest of the world for ashort enough period of time to not get anxious about doing so.

3. Effort

One thing many kettlebell users forget is that theres an inverse relationshipbetween the duration of your workout and your effort level.

Consider a 5 or 10-minute snatch test for example. Do one of those, and youredone for the day.

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Shorter workouts allow you to put forth more effort without having to worry aboutburning out due to lack of recovery.

4. Recovery

Speaking of burning out The one thing that 99% of all people fail to take intoconsideration about working out is recovery. You cannot make progress, nomatter how hard you train if you cannot recover. Shorter workouts make recoverynot only possible, but probable.

5. Consistency

Why do most people fail to get results?

Consistency.

For one reason or another, they just cannot keep keeping on. Something alwayscomes up. Especially if you have a longer workout. It becomes hard to justifyspending 3 hours a week working out when the kids have to be at after-schoolactivities, dinner needs to be cooked, and quarterly or monthly reports are due,which means you have to stay up late to do them.

Whos going to do all this stuff if not you?

It becomes easy to put off your workouts if they seem too overwhelming to fit intoyour busy schedule.

However, anybody can find just one hour a week to workout.

Three times per week for 20 minutes will get it done.

The bottom line is this:

Shorter workouts are easier to fit in your life, and therefore youre morelikely to see the results you want by switching from longer to shorterduration strength workouts.

All of this begs a pretty big question that you may have right now

Yeah, But How Do I

USE This Information?

Admittedly, there is a lot of information in this report, yet the concept is relativelysimple:

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Shorter kettlebell workouts, with shorter rest periods will make youplenty strong, increasing both your maximum strength and youreveryday strength giving you the best of all worlds.

Thats the take home point.

Applying it is relatively simple.

There are probably two types of kettlebell strength enthusiasts reading this. Thefirst, is routinely consistent in his or her training, and you tend toward the longermore traditional workouts. Well call you Type 1.

The second type of person is the one who is inconsistent in his or her workoutsbecause you have a crazy-busy life and are under the impression that you wontmake progress if youre not doing the longer workouts. Well call you Type 2.

Below youll find two different prescriptions based on your type.

Type 1:

The first place you can start is by simply cutting the length of your longerprogram in half. If its at 60 minutes, cut it to 30.

The second is to cut your rest periods from the longer traditional rest periods of 3to 5 minutes to something shorter - use the Chinese range - 60-90 seconds, 2minutes if over 85-90%.

Doing the second will allow you to do the first.

And yeah, I know that what Im suggesting you do may sound difficult, andmaybe downright impossible based on what you may currently want to achieve.Remember, I wouldnt ask you to do anything that I havent done myself.

At the time of this report, my main workouts are only 30 minutes long.

They allow me to stay fresh, and train frequently, thus getting the most out of theUniversal Strength Maxim.

Type 2:

You just need to carve 20 to 30 minutes 3 times per week out of your schedule.Before work, at lunch, after work, after the kids go to bed, whenever. Then pickONE exercise and do it.

Heres what else:

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Regardless of which type of kettlebell strength enthusiast you are, if youre at aloss of how you should structure these types of workouts, dont worry, Ive written100 different programs for you in my new book,Kettlebell Express! ULTRA -Reloaded.

There are all kinds of time-efficient workouts in there that you can use to getplenty strong.

Incidentally, like the Chinese, these types of short-rest programs will also makeyou lean too.

Unfortunately, you cant get your hands on my new book Yet.

Keep your eyes on your inbox because in the upcoming days Ill send you somemore time-efficient workout info to help you get more results in less time.

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