Hi Josh,
I just purchased the System Six Fat Loss program. I began the KB/bodyweight plan, but I'm curious to know how long to wait between sets. For instance, the first workout is:
KB Military Presses
4 Sets of 5 to 10 reps
KB Swings
4 Sets of 10 to 30 reps
Do I do 5-10 KB military presses then immediately do 10-30 swings, then wait a minute or so? Or do I do the presses, wait, repeat to 4 sets, then move to sets of swings? How long do you suggest waiting between sets?
Also, I'm kind-of confused on the weekly plan. It shows that Monday is 40 minutes of strength, Wed is 30ish minutes strength + cardio and Friday similar to Wednesday. However, I just did the first workout (Saturday is my Monday:) and with 1 minute breaks between sets, it took about 16 minutes. I'm not sure where the 40 minutes comes in. Can you please clarify?
Thank you for your help.
Best,
J.
Really great questions J!!!!
The money on this program is that it's so much heavier than most fat loss programs. We get more fat loss results in less time with less overall volume, by using two kettlebells at the same time.
SO, the trick is, I'd want the pair of kettlebells you are using to be heavy enough that you'd want to rest 3 minutes or so between each press/swing couplet. And, in reality, people often by the last set are resting 30 seconds to a 1 minutes between the presses and the swings.
Now, a lot of it depends on how good you are at the tension techniques – bracing your butt, abs, squeezing the kettlebells, ect on the presses – as the better you get at the full body tension, the heavier kettlebells you are going to be able to use.
And as far as the swings, a set of 30 swings with two kettlebells (in this workout) shouldn't be something you can be fully recovered from in a minute. If it is, it's just too light.
So, shown another way, it could look like this:
KB Military Presses
4 Sets of 5 to 10 reps
rest ≈30 seconds
KB Swings
4 Sets of 10 to 30 reps
rest ≈3 minutes
Really great questions! I know this workout runs pretty counter to the "normal" kinds of fat loss workouts out there. Thanks for asking and getting clarity!
-Josh
***************************************************
As a side note – System Six: Easy Fat Loss really is unusual in the world given that it's a fat loss program meant to be done with TWO KETTLEBELLS.
Using two kettlebells is a fat loss power tool. It's so good that I don't understand why most kettlebell trainers are still stuck in the world of "one kettlebell for fat loss workouts"
I mean, I trained people for years using dumbbells, and got great fat loss results with dumbbells. Guess what… we used two dumbbells. It's a higher level of stress on the core and full body stabilizers to use two weights instead of one, it creates a higher hormonal response to each exercise – it's just more powerful.
And on top of that System Six: Easy Fat Loss goes fairly heavy for a fat loss workout. That's actually the secret to how we get away with such low volume of sets and reps, and such shorter workouts -> and get awesome fat loss results.
If I had a message for all of the kettlebell instructors out there it would be this: Try out using two kettlebell workouts with your fat loss clients for a while, it just works.
by Josh Hillis, RKC, NASM-CPT/PES/CES, ZH-MRES/MIS
Leave a Reply