KettlebellPlanet.com

If you need to build muscle or get stronger, there are few methods better than picking a heavy barbell off the ground and putting it over head a bunch of times. The range of motion, about 7 feet for most men, is a long way to move a heavy weight through. It's because of this that your whole body will be challenged, and forced to adapt.

Want to get bigger, learn to put more weight over head. Want to get even bigger? Well you get the picture. Don't be afraid to go heavy once you have your form down. A basic standard of strength is the ability to strictly press your body weight unsupported (nothing to lean against like in the seated military press).

As for drills, you can do the clean and press, the clean and push press, the clean and jerk, the snatch and probably some other cool lifts I can't think of at the moment.

I prefer the clean and press as well as the clean and push press simply because I haven't had proper Olympic lifting instruction. That being said I do a lot of snatches with kettlebells, so just do what you are comfortable with and try to learn some new drills as you go.

While you are doing these over head drills, at some point you are going to want to rest. That's OK, rest for a bit. Then, use a trick I learned from Alwyn Cosgrove, do a set of an opposing drill as you recover from the first one. This will give your body time to recover from the first drill while you sneak in some extra volume instead of sitting around. A typical workout using this method would look like this:

• 1 set of clean and press, rest 1 minute
• 1 set of pull-ups, rest 1 minute
• repeat

I love this method because I keep my workouts under 45 minutes but I need a lot of sets to warm up for heavy singles, and this allows me to get more work done in less time. And don't be afraid that it will make you weaker on your "big" lift like the bench press. I have hit many PR's using this method.

When I am writing workouts, this is displayed as A1 and A2 for the first set of drills, B1 and B2 for the second and so on. Here is the upper body strength workout I did today using this method.

• A1 Barbell Clean and Press
• started with the bar, added 20lbs per set until I hit a max single (new PR!)
• 3 x 3 at 75% of 1 rep max
• A2 Pull-Ups 
• Using Fat Grips
• 11 x 5 (the fat grips really reduce the amount of reps I can do per set)
• Cable Curls
• 3 x 15

For semi-private or personal training contact:

Nathan Donahue
Calgary, Alberta
Nathan@kettlebellplanet.com
www.kettlebellplanet.com