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These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
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For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

MAKING A TOP-LEVEL COMMENT WITHOUT CREDENTIALS WILL EARN A TEMPORARY BAN

Welcome to our monthly focused improvement post. Here we have a distilled discussion on a particular aspect of kettlebell training. We try to go over various techniques of kettlebells, how to program kettlebells, and how to incorporate kettlebells into other modalities of training. 

***

This month’s topic of discussion: Kettlebell training for Athletic performance or How did you incorporate kettlebells for your sports training?

• Describe your training history and provide credentials
• What specific programming did you employ for this technique?
• What went right/wrong?
• Do you have any recommendations for someone starting out?
• What have you done to improve when you felt you were lagging?
• Where are/were you stalling?
• What did you do to break the plateau?
• What sort of trainee or individual would benefit from using the/this technique/program style?
• How do you manage recovery/fatigue/deloads while following the method/program style?
• Share any interesting facts or applications you have seen/done
• Looking back, what would you have done differently?

***

These threads are used as a reference. As such, we ask that you provide credentials of your lifting history and that you are an intermediate and above. For beginners we ask that you use this thread to enrich yourself by reading what others before you have done. If you are a beginner or have not posted credentials you will have a temporary ban if you make a top level comment.

Previous Monthly Focused Improvement Threads can be found here.

The mod team thanks you :)

[This post was originally written for r/kettlebell]

On this subreddit we have a number of strong pressers. Recently, we’ve had a few commenters being confused by, or even criticising, their upper body lean when pressing. But honestly, unless you’ve actually done a heavy strict press you really have no idea what that feels like.

How and why we lean in the press

When pressing, you generally want the load moving in as straight of a line as possible, and as vertically as possible. There are a few exceptions.

For example, in bench press, the top position is above the shoulder, and the bottom position towards the middle or bottom of the sternum. A straight line would involve horizontal movement, and you probably want to initiate by shoving the bar towards your face.

When overhead pressing in particular, there’s a negotiation between your bodyweight and the implement’s weight. As the weight increases relative to your bodyweight, you increasingly have to get out of its way.

With barbell pressing, you want the bar to be over your mid foot, and stay there. That means either tuck your chin, tilt your head back, or lean back. A couple of times I’ve scratched my nose on the center knurling on the descent - that’s how close you want it to be.

I personally prefer the lean back. It gets your upper pecs involved a bit in the press, and you’re sure to get your head out of the way.

With kettlebells things change a bit depending on whether we’re talking the double or single kb press.

Double kb press works much the same as the barbell press, except your head is automatically out of the way - so the only question is whether you like the lean back to involve the pecs. I personally have a mild lean back on higher rep work. I haven’t filmed anything with a 5RM or heavier in a while, so I honestly don’t know how that compares for me.

I know of maybe one or two strong people who use the “open up the chest” cue on double kb presses. If that works for you, great - but in my opinion, and that of almost every presser I respect, you want to keep it as close to your center of mass as possible, meaning elbows forward, or at most out 45 degrees. In my opinion, the travel out to the side is a waste of energy.

With single kb presses you have not only the frontal dimension to lean in; you also have a chance to lean laterally. By doing that, you shift the center of gravity and modify the muscles used slightly. The goal is to get the bell in the rack position to sit between your feet, rather than right on top of or even to the outside of the foot on the pressing side.

It takes a good amount of oblique strength to support heavy weight like that, so the first time you try it with a heavy bell your obliques will likely be just about the sorest they’ve ever been.

Last point: There’s no rule stating that your technique must look identical throughout a set. You can have little to no lean at the beginning, and gradually lean as you fatigue. Or you can pick one side and stick with it throughout. Fitness is a game where you set your own win conditions, including what technique you want to use.

The line between different types of presses

A strict press uses no lower body power, other than stabilising under the load. A push press has an initial dip to generate leg drive, and a jerk has a secondary dip to catch the implement.

As long as your knees stay locked it’s a strict press.

In a side press you rotate your torso and bend at the hip, until your torso is roughly horizontal, and press from there. In a bent press you start the rotation, then initiate the press from there while almost pushing your body down. The bell stays roughly in the same place, while your body gets closer to horizontal. Once the arm has the bell locked out, you stand up with it, like in a windmill.

As long as there’s no hip bend it’s a strict press.

Injury risk

Injury risk for lifting doesn’t correlate to form. I repeat: Injury risk when lifting doesn’t correlate to form.

Risk of injury is a question of load management, and whether you’re prepared for what you’re trying to do. Injury rates for lifting are lower than for running, which again is lower than for team sports.

If you think about it for a moment, it’ll probably make some sense; when lifting you manage all the variables yourself - load, rep count, rest between sets, fatigue - but in team sports someone might put in a hard tackle from a blind angle.

Progressive overload is a crucial aspect of lifting. In short it means you must do more over time to keep improving, but it also means that over time you’ll be capable of doing more. This capacity is highly specific, both to lifts and to the technique used in lifts.

Some of the best deadlifters ever have pulled with a very rounded upper back. If you’ve always pulled with a straight upper back, maxing out on a round back deadlift would no doubt pose a certain risk, but if you’ve built up with that technique over time and increased your capacity there the risk would obviously be much lower.

When not to lean

There can be instances where leaning is the wrong choice.

If you’re in a competition or doing a certification where there are specific rules, follow those. If you’re training for such a competition or certification, look up the rules and train in a way that lets you use the required technique. A good way to do that might be to push press and do a controlled descent from there.

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

MAKING A TOP-LEVEL COMMENT WITHOUT CREDENTIALS WILL EARN A TEMPORARY BAN

Welcome to our monthly focused improvement post. Here we have a distilled discussion on a particular aspect of kettlebell training. We try to go over various techniques of kettlebells, how to program kettlebells, and how to incorporate kettlebells into other modalities of training. 

***

This month’s topic of discussion: Programming for Kettlebell Sport

• Describe your training history and provide credentials
• What specific programming did you employ for this technique?
• What went right/wrong?
• Do you have any recommendations for someone starting out?
• What have you done to improve when you felt you were lagging?
• Where are/were you stalling?
• What did you do to break the plateau?
• What sort of trainee or individual would benefit from using the/this technique/program style?
• How do you manage recovery/fatigue/deloads while following the method/program style?
• Share any interesting facts or applications you have seen/done
• Looking back, what would you have done differently?

***

These threads are used as a reference. As such, we ask that you provide credentials of your lifting history and that you are an intermediate and above. For beginners we ask that you use this thread to enrich yourself by reading what others before you have done. If you are a beginner or have not posted credentials you will have a temporary ban if you make a top level comment.

Previous Monthly Focused Improvement Threads can be found here.

The mod team thanks you :)

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth

Intro

Hi, I'm Hombreguesa, 5'8" M 36 y/o. Some people may recognize me, but I don't expect most people to. I don't post a whole lot. This is for two reasons: 1) I realized that I contributed more noise than signal, and 2) I'm just plain awkward to talk to on the internet. Every great once in a while I post in the daily/weekly threads when I have that burning need to tell strangers about my training. If you care to know more, I wrote this review two years ago.

Since then, I've run Easy Strength, prepped for an OCR, run Deep Water Beginner and Intermediate followed by 5/3/1 Leviathan (I dubbed this Becoming the Sea Beast, and it took me until the end of 2023), I ran ES again, 5/3/1 BtM, moved 265 miles north in May, did a lot of different KB work through the summer, came back to ES once again, did some rucking and O-lifting for a bit, and then started the program at hand: the Armor Building Formula, which I ran from 10/28 to 12/20.

I originally had no intentions of doing a write-up, but when I posted in the r/kettleballs weekly thread about it, interest was expressed. Please allow me to cobble my thoughts together.

Program Proper

I believe DJ doesn't need an introduction. And as most people know, he released a book titled Armor Building Formula this past summer. The ABF is built upon the double kettlebell complex of 2 cleans, 1 press, and 3 squats, known as the Armor Building Complex, or ABC, and the double kettlebell Press. Honestly, it's not a complicated program. Due to the nature of KBs being a fixed weights, the program focuses on progression through an increase of volume and densitity. For 8 weeks, three days a week, you alternate the ABC and Pressing.

Results

Quantifiable gains are a bit fuzzy for me to express. Lately, I haven't been tracking specific markers closely. Since I've moved, training has been more about showing up and getting work in. Decembeer 11th marked two years of daily structured physical activity, though, and that was a big milestone for me. I still do have long term goals, but at this point, I'm living DJ's approach of "little and often over the long haul."

Having said all that, my shoulders are noticeably more defined, my pressing ability has improved, along with the muscular endurance of my shoulders and upper back, and my dad made a comment about how my lats look bigger over Thanksgiving. I do feel denser as well, especially through my midsection.

As far as body comp is concerned, I honestly haven't been tracking my weight too closely this cycle, which I realize is a little unfortunate for a write-up. October is my birthday, Halloween is my wife's favorite holiday, and of course we have Thanksgiving here in America followed quickly by Christmas shenanigans. Therefore I made the decision to not sweat my food choices.

Somedays, like yesterday at the holiday work party, I over indulged in sweets. Oh well. At this point, I fluctuate anywhere between 171 lbs and 175 lbs, but I mostly hover around 175 due to bloat, and it seems I always have a bit of a belly. I'm sure if one were to make more adult-like choices for their eating habits, they would see better results than I did.

Otherwise, my baseline nutrition, if you care to know, is eggs, ham, and plain greek yogurt mixed with PB powder for breakfast; two hardboiled eggs, two tangerines, an apple, and whatever is leftovers for lunch (usually meatloaf, soup, or some chicken dish); a small snack after work that is either cottage cheese or peanut butter with a little chocolate; and home-cooked, whole-food meals for dinner.

Experience

The first two weeks are a break in period. You still train three days a week, but you do the ABCs and the pressing each session to become acquainted with the movements and to figure out which weights to use. I wanted to run the ABCs with double 28s, but my shoulders couldn't keep it up for more than 10 rounds, and the goal is 30. I had to switch to 26s. For the press, I used 24s, and I did rounds of 2-3-5 as opposed to the firstly suggested 2-3-5-10 rep scheme. The reasoning was two-fold: Firstly, my pride. I wanted to be able to say that I did it with 24s. Secondly, that was the lightest weight I had available to use in doubles.

For transparency, I want to let everyone know I train in my garage, but I don't have ALL the KBs I listed. I have a 20 kg, double 24s, and a 32. To save money and space, I bought 4 of these this past summer in 2 kg increments. They can be a bit awkward, but you learn how to make them work pretty quickly.

In the beginning, I also added a bunch of additional work. I was doing finishers inspired by Brian Alsruhe's EDC program because I bought some new sandbags, and I felt I had the energy. Ultimately, I dropped this work because I wasn't eating to support it. As for "off" days, I jumped rope (JR) for easy conditioning. I would do 30" on/30" off until I was doing that for 15'. I recently dropped back down to 10', but now I JR 40" on/20" off. After the JR, I then do mobility work. stretch, perhaps some heavy swings with the 40, and I put something light overhead. I really like putting weight overhead.

At first, when I made the decision to put something overhead everyday, I was going all out. After about 2 weeks of that, previous shoulder issues started acting up. I backed off. Eventually, I dropped a lot of extraneous work and stuck more closely to DJs advice of just doing the program by itself.

As for the goal workouts, the ABC session of 30 rounds in less than 30 minutes was no problem. It was just a matter of doing it, as most things in life are. And yes, I was sweaty and tired after and knew I had worked, but I didn't feel crushed. The final pressing session was this past Wednesday, and that was 100 reps with the 24s. I didn't perform as well as I wanted to because of a little cold, but I did put the bells up 100 times, so mission accomplished.

Final thoughts

Overall, I enjoyed it. There were days that I dreaded the ABCs, but I always loved pressing. As I already stated, I just fucking love putting weight overhead. As far as time commitment, it was pretty minimal, which I also appreciated. You can do extra work if you'd like, but you definitely don't need to. If I did a quick warm up and only the prescribed work, I was done in about 30 minutes, and I had plenty of energy through out the day because I got to sleep more. That was something I really liked.

If you haven't picked up the book, you probably should. There is a lot more in it than just this program.

What's next?

Originally, as I wrote out this whole DJ training block a few months ago, I planned on running MMS+10K Swings (I refer to it as The Dan John Special) again, but go up a weight class. I decided not to do that because my wife is halfway through her first pregnancy, and when I gain like that, I become pretty useless around the house. Priorities have changed a bit. So, I will deload over Christmas week with some hard yoga, and then run Pavel's Rite of Passage for real with the 28. I've run half-assed attempts twice before, but now I'm going to do it right. I'll continue JR for conditioning for now, and I will add Pistol Squats as well for leg work. After that 13 weeks, our daughter will be here, and I will switch to Geoff Neupert's The Giant. After that, who knows?

Thanks for reading, and happy ballin', homies.

Edit because I forgot how old I am

Please select flair and read the Wiki before posting.

Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

These threads are *almost* anything goes. Please understand that although the quality standards are relaxed here compared to the main page all other rules are enforced equally.

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

For more distilled kettlebell discussion, check out the Monthly Focused Improvement Threads -- where we discuss one part of kettlebell training in depth