Mike Mahler’s 16 week doubles program, complete. Secret Service Snatch Test anyone?

This week, I finished a 16 week double program drawn out by Mike Mahler.  It consisted of exercise programs for four weeks apiece.  I used two 70 lb kettlebells throughout.

The first session was a 5×5 program.  You do 5 sets of 5 reps for a certain exercise.  For example, I would do a set of military press, (I could only do 3 w/ the 70′s) rest a minute do a set of 5 double rows, rest a minute.  Repeat until 5 sets were completed.  After that was done I would do double squats alternated with one arm 70 lb snatch.   The workout was 3 days a week as well as using some different exercises like floor press (benching from the floor) pullups, double swings and seated one arm military press where you sit on the floor with you legs spread and put the bell in the rack position.  It completely takes the legs out of the equation.  This program was a good warmup for EDT. 

What is EDT?  Glad you asked, Escalation Density Training, it was invented by Charles Staley.    Take 2 exercises and do them alternatively for reps of 2-5 for as many sets as you can for 20 minutes.  Rest 5 and then take two other exercises and alternate for 15 minutes.   The goal is the next time you do those movements, you have to do 1 more rep than the last time and you’re fighting the clock.    I did a 4 day split.  It was tough, especially on leg day.  Doing double 70 squats followed by one arm 70 snatch for 12 + sets will get a good sweat going.  I did substitute an exercise out.  I was doing renegade rows and hating them.  They hurt my shoulder my chest and I wasn’t feeling them in my lats at all.  I switched to a one arm row with the other bell in the top position instead.  Thank you Mike Mahler.  I was able to raise my reps in the double miliary to 30 in 20 minutes, and I did 65 double squats.

From there it was time to ratchet up the intensity and do HIT.  HIT stands for High Intensity Training.  I took Mike’s suggestion and did 2 sets of 5 and then did one all out set.  He said to stop at 7, but on some exercises I went for it all.  Now the double military instead of doing  an all out set of repping out, I did  drop sets with dumbbells that were at the gym.  For double rows, I maxed out at 13, Double Squats, I maxed out at 13 (I couldn’t keep the bells in the rack.)  The real success story was the double swing.  My last round was 25 reps up to chest level.   I really enjoyed HIT.   The Wednesday workout was double 70 lunges and single arm snatch.  2 hours later, my legs still had the shakes.  WOW!  On Fridays I was doing a double sots press with 35′s.  Hard exercise in that you have to balance yourself in the bottom of the squat and then do presses.  It took me a couple of weeks to find the groove with it. 

I had an epiphany 8 weeks into this program.  During the “variety” days, I was doing other kettlebell movements, and found myself getting sore.  So I decided to drop my workouts to 3 days a week.  What a difference!  My body wasn’t sore getting out of the car.  I didn’t have  pain in the top of my right knee.  My right forearm stopped squwaking.  I realized, I was addicted to the stimulus of working out.  I wasn’t happy personally with my job.  In fact I hated it, the only happy time of the day was when I was working out until I got home.  Not a way to live.  Luckily, I knew the end was near and I had an offer to work somewhere else.  Once that happened, I was able to rest 4 days a week, and as matter of fact, really enjoyed it!

The last four weeks I did a cluster training routine.  Basically it’s a rest/pause routine, but you do five rounds of it called clusters.  So for double squats, I started w/ 5 sets of 3 with 30 seconds rest.  Once I finished the 15 reps.  I would rest 3 minutes and repeat 4 more times.  The second exercise was double snatch w/ 35′s.  Because I was usually cooked from the squats, I would do 5 sets of 15 double snatches w/ two minutes rest in between sets.  For upper body it was Double Military Press and Double Rows.  With the double military, I would do 2 sets of  2 w/ a minute between and the 3 sets of 1 with 1 rep.  I would rest a minute, do a set of double rows x 10 reps and then rest 3 minutes.  Repeat the cluster four times.   For Double Squats by the end I was able to do the 75 reps w/ just 15 seconds in between each sets.  For the Double Military, I would try to add one more set of 2 to each cluster.  At the end I was able to do 42 reps.   I also did this Monday, Wednesday and Friday w/ the other four days off.

The 16 week was terrific in that you didn’t get burned out doing the same program too long and stayed fresh.  I also lost about 8-10 lbs during this time and was able to increase strength with my weight loss.  I wasn’t overweight, just needed to watch my diet and get into fighting shape for a vacation in Florida.  There were other options to the program, such as Mike’s version of EDT, which takes the clock out of the equation.  German Volume Training, which I’ve done and been bored to tears, and the Russian Bear program, which I’m curious about, but I would have to drop down to double 55′s and would take an hour.  I like the four programs I’m working with now, the exercises are simple to learn yet challenging and there is enough variety to keep you in the game.  Mike suggests taking 3 weeks off and start it up again, I’m going to take 8 off through the summer.

I found a 6 week program that is focused on passing the snatch test.  200 snatches in 10 minutes!  One day you do 25 minutes of sprinting, another day you jump rope for 20 minutes.  This should be real interesting, especially because I’m not the most coordinated human in the world.  The program is free on mbodystrength.com.  It looks extremely challenging, but I’m up for it.  There are some things I’m going to have to substitute working out in my basement, rows for pullups, chair raises vs hanging leg raises, rep numbers for double cleans.   But I’m looking forward to it. 

Today I took my baseline test for snatches.  I set the timer for 10 minutes.  I’ve done 100 in 5 minutes.  The goal was to do a certain number of reps each minute and rest to the top of each.  I knew going balls to the wall wasn’t the answer.  During the Rite of Passage last summer, after the presses, I rolled a 10 and did 140 snatches in 10 minutes doing 7,7 each minute.  I was fresh so I set a goal of 150 and using my 55, decided to start a 8 reps each and then see how I feel.  I did the first 6 minutes, 8,8 and I was able to rest 20 seconds.  For the 7th minute, I did 5,5,2,2 so I was at 110 with 3 minutes left and starting to really fatigue.  For the 8th minute I did, 5,5 , for the ninth, I did, 4,4,4,4 and rested for 35 seconds so I was at 9:15 with 136 reps.  I gutted out 7,7 and put the bell down with 12 seconds left for a total of 150. 

My hamstrings were screaming and my left grip was tired, but I felt like I could have done 160 maybe a little more if  I put the pedal to the metal at the end.  I also was using a 55 vs. the traditional 52.8 or 24 kg.  That calculates out to 156 reps w/ the 24.  Anyway 150 is a good baseline to start and we’ll see what happens in 6 weeks.

One Man’s 2 year journey with the world’s greatest fitness tool

I discovered the kettlebell in May 2009.  I was working out at Gold’s Gym in Milford and saw people doing these weird movements and like most of the unenlightened, scoffed at it.  I mean I had every right to.  I was a 190 lb guy with a 205 lb max bench press, two shoulders that each had to be treated with a cortisone shot over the last 10 years and had such great form on my deadlift that it’s a miracle I never spent a few days in traction in the hospital.  So one day in May, bored off my ass at work; (being a head hunter in the great recession is the ideal way to earn a living.) my workouts (lifting and running)  I curiously decided to look up kettlebell workouts.  I came to the Art of Manliness website and found a simple 5 exercise circuit to try.   Did some research on youtube on how to do the exercises and tentatively picked up the bells to see which weight I should start with.  I settled on the  12kg or 26.4 lb bells  Did my first circuit and it was love at 1st swing.  I did 4 circuits with 30 seconds rest between each exercise n 30 minutes and I was absolutely gassed, soaked in sweat and had a complete body pump.  From that day on, I was  hooked.  There were issues though.  I had bruised forearms and sore hands.  I didn’t know the correct form on the “clean” portion of the clean and press.  I was flopping it over my wrist instead of around.  I also didn’t realize you “hook” the bell with your fingers.

After the first week of doing the workout and studying the clean form, I was able to tweak some of the movements and perform more efficiently.  I also decided to move up to the 16kg or 35lb bells.  I remember doing them and feeling how heavy they felt!   But what amazed me was how easy they quickly became!  I mean, I never made gains lifting and here I was moving up to the heavier bells and now looking at the 20kg bells!  I felt like a born again Christian discovering Jesus!  When my workouts were done, I was too tired to run had stopped altogether.  To me it was the perfect combination of lifting and cardio in a small amount of time.  

I continued to search different kettlebell websites and came across www.mbodystrength.com and downloaded a free 12 week workout.  Printout in hand I looked up all the movements on youtube.  Snatch, Turkish Getup, Halo, Windmill, Clean and Jerk, Double Clean, and studied the movements.  I remember trying to perfect the movement of the Turkish Getup in the middle of the floor, pausing the computer after each step.   It was great.  I had major league issues perfecting the snatch.  It killed my hands and I couldn’t time it correctly on the snap on the top without banging my wrist.   The program was great, I was making gains using heavier bells, monthly.  My shoulders STOPPED hurting just from where you military press a kettlebell vs. a dumbbell.  I learned functional strength.   A bench press is not functional strength unless you are going to press a 300 lb lady off of you.   People would come up to me and ask me about doing swings.  I would hear “I’ll hurt my back.”  I would explain it’s dropping your hips back like hiking a football, engage your hamstrings, and thrust your hips forward, think humping.    I hated doing TGU.  I would to the left side reps first and then the right.  They were the first exercise in the circuit and I thought an exercise in and of complete misery.  But I was in the best shape of my life and could see the changes in my shoulders. 

By the fall I was obsessed, I would follow the program but was downloading other workouts including Dave Whitley’s 101 kettlebell workouts.  I started doing his 30 workouts in 30 minutes, highlighting each one I completed.  I turned into a complete stimulus junkie.  I was logging my workouts on-line, going to the dragondoor.com forum every day and finally got the fishhooks out of my pocket and bought the Enter the Kettlebell book.  I also quit the gym.  My membership ran out at the end of November, there was a free gym in my office park in Burlington.  The wonderful firm I was working for shut down my office 15 miles away and I was commuting 41 miles each way.  My parents asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I said KETTLEBELLS.  So I was put in charge of ordering them for my self.  I ordered a 35lb, a 45lb, and 2 55′s.  I had debated between buying a 65 instead of a 2nd 55, but in hindsight, it was the best decision I made.  There was a 3 week delay between the delivery and the end of my membership so I did the old barbell/ running routine.  I couldn’t believe how bored I was.  Thankfully, the bells came a week before Christmas and I opened one of the 55′s up and used that.

During the fall I started playing indoor soccer for the 2nd time in 20 years.  The first time had been a decade prior.  I had quit running and just doing the bells kept me in condition to play and at the end of the games, I still had a little extra in the tank.  I just didn’t get tired.  I was using David Whitley’s 101 workouts and doing the stacking workouts which were brutal from a conditioning perspective.    After reading Enter the Kettlebell, I learned even more about strength.  How you’re supposed to tense your muscles all the way up.  When you clean a kettlebell, that energy and momentum should move all the way up your body.  How you should grip the bell hard, flex the lats, pull the bell down with your lats (think of a lat pulldown)  Grip the floor with your feet, and most important, flat soled shoes or barefoot.  Like most, I was working out in running sneakers which is the worst thing you can do.  Think of lifting standing on a mattress.   I began to like doing the TGU.  I started alternating hands after each repitition as suggested in the book.  Suddenly, I could do 10, 15 minutes of non-stop getups with a 45 and a 55 just by switching hands!

In February for my birthday, I got a 28kg/62lb bell and two lessons with a Russian Kettlebell Certified trainer.  She tweaked my technique and I was finally able to perfect the snatch.  Then I got hit by the injury bug.  I broke a rib playing goalie in soccer.  A guy charged me as I was picking up a ball and kneed me in the back of the rib cage.  And then I was flipping a kettlebell to switch hands, missed and broke my finger in 2 places.  It didn’t hurt until the next morning when it swelled like a balloon.  After a month and a visit to a hand doctor, it finally turned the corner.  I still worked out, but kept away from movements that would aggravate it.

From April to September, I did the Enter the Kettlebell’s Rite of Passage with a 28kg and 32kg which I got for Father’ Day.  Fantastic pressing workout where you do 5 ladders of presses 3 different days.  One light day where the ladder would be 1,1, 2,2,3,3. which is 30 presses on each side  One medium day where the ladder would go up to 4, or 50 presses  and heavy day with 5 rungs or 75 presses.  You also have to do pullups after each rung of presses.  At the end of the workout, you roll dice and whatever the number is you do swings or snatches for those number of minutes.  Heavy day used to cause me anxiety.  It was tough, especially ladder 4 and 5 and rungs 4 and 5.  The goal of the workout is to press 1/2 your body weight and snatch a 55 lb kettlebell 200 times in 10 minutes.  During this, I did 140 in 10 minutes, probably had a 150 and was not in a happy place when it was over.  Borderline puking.  You also had 2 variety days where you could do

Since then, I’ve switched to doubles work and followed Mike Mahler’s website.   Currently I’m working with double 70′s and have tweaked my diet, started using magnesium oil and learned how to optimize natural human growth hormone.   I can military press two 70 lb kettlebells for 4 reps.  I also have passed 1/2 of the 10 minute snatch test.  I was able to do 100 in 5 minutes.   I did then in 5 sets of 10,10 rest 10 seconds.  Once I got to 100 I put it down.  I didn’t need to set any records, I just wanted to finish.  My grip was shot and my hamstrings had the shakes. 

In the past two years, I’ve turned a lot of my friends onto the kettlebell.  My friends started a drinking game where if the word was mentioned, you took a drink of beer.  Recently I switched jobs and no longer use the corporate gym.  When I was there I would watch people, toiling on the elliptical, the leg extension, pec dec machines, not getting anywhere and knew I had the secret.  It took me until I was 40 to learn how to workout.  I’m glad I discovered the secret and it’s turned into a passion for me.