Finished 10,000 Kettlebell Swing Challenge

Day 5 last night: 40 lbs, 500 reps, 29:55 on the time. Grip strength is definitely the limiting factor, was killing me at 250. Going to Lowes and buy parts for a bigger, 1" thick handle, see if that makes a difference.

I finally got round to starting this earlier this week.
Few days in 3rd session tonight, its given me a bit more of a kicking than I first figured it would, Hands are fucked, forearms are feeling it but looking forward to tonightā€™s session.

I knew it would be hard, but I was surprised at how long it took me to do the first session, timings for all 20 should be interesting.

Hi,
I have some questions about Dan Johns 10 000 kettlebell swing challenge, about the low volume exercises: should I change the weights during the 30 days? In that case with which percent? And if I choose military press, front squat, chin-ups/pull-ups: which weight should I go with? May I change the weight on the kettlebell during the 30 days if the bell is too light or heavy?
I would be thrilled to get answers to my questions :slight_smile:

Best regards,
Marie

Iā€™m confused as to how the rest periods work, the programme provided seem top contradict the rest explanation. Is this how it should look;
10 swings
Press 1 rep
rest - 30 - 60 secs
15 swings
Press 2 rep
rest - 30 - 60 secs
25 swings
Press 3 reps
rest - 30 - 60 secs
50 swings
rest - 3 minutes

Cheers

Always have had a love for kettlebells and decided to start this challenge, man is it brutal. I have been doing it with a 32kg bell due to lack of a 24kg where Iā€™m located, but for the first week I had to drop the last set of 50 down to 35, plan to increase the reps up to 50 hopefully by the half way mark.
I structured the strength movements in between a little differently than most people Iā€™ve talked to who have done it. Instead of selecting 4 movements to alternate through the week to do in between the swings, I am only doing two: clean and press and then goblet squats.

So it would look like:
Day 1: Swings with clean and presses in between
Day 2: Swings with goblet squats in between
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Swings with clean and presses in between
Day 5: Swings with goblet squats in between
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Just swings
and so on and so forth til the 20 workouts are done

This has really kicked my ass, the forearm pump/burn/whatever an adequate word would be when doing the swings plus the clean and presses is soul crushing, but awesome. Definitely recommend trying this challenge with these two strength movements for anyone out there wanting to run it again.

Having done some KB swinging in the past (still fairly limited) I think Iā€™ll personally find it pretty difficult to hit 50 swings in a row - typically Iā€™ve maxed out at ~25 reps after completing a few sets and canā€™t do more than that at one time.

What did this 50 rep ā€˜setā€™ typically end up looking like for the people who have completed it? I envision it sucking pretty hard after the first two rounds, and the 3,4,5th it basically being several attempts at 10 swings before making all 50 in that ā€˜setā€™.

A set of 50 swings builds a nice mental toughness, as long as you can keep your form. 10,20,30,40 is just as good of a rep scheme.

I did this workout about 2 years ago. I started with a 55 and at the end did it with a 70. Two hand swings. One hand swings in high volume start to bug me after about 300, plus, your grip fries better doing two.

I thought about doing it again, but donā€™t see myself doing it. Iā€™d rather do snatches or hills sprints for conditioning.

Interesting ā€¦ Yeah I assume the goal of the workout is to get to 500 swings as fast as possible (at least thatā€™s what Iā€™ve distilled it down to).

Was thinking about this program last night and this sounds like a pretty boring 28-30 days, but also a great challenge. Finishing things in general can be tough, no matter how easy they are.

I think Iā€™m going to give it a shot in February and try to knock it out in 28 days.

[quote]ttombobadly wrote:
Interesting ā€¦ Yeah I assume the goal of the workout is to get to 500 swings as fast as possible (at least thatā€™s what Iā€™ve distilled it down to).
[/quote]

Have you actually read the article? You probably should, if this is your current take-away.

Probably touched a kettlebell 4-5 times in my whole life but I may learn the swing and start incorporating it just so I can do the challenge at some point. Very interesting thread

I just picked up some kettlebellā€™s this last week (2 50ā€™s and a 32kg) and plan on taking up this challenge. My program will go as;
10 kb swings, 1 double kb clean and front squat
15 kb swings, 2 double kb clean and front squat
25 kb swings, 3 double kb clean and front squat
50 kb swings
Repeat 4 more times.
Second workout will be clean and push press, instead of, clean and squat.
Iā€™m interested what my body composition and 4 main barbell lifts will be like by the end of this. Currently my singles are;
Bench press - 237.5lbs
Deadlift - 370lbs
Back Squat- 305lbs
Military press 150 lbs
@ Bodyweight 160-165lbs
I should be done by January 9th if I follow my plan to the T.

January 2016. Half way through the challenge with a question, please.
I am following the program fairly strictly: two days on, one off, sets of 100.
Iā€™ve just managed (in the last 1000) to complete 3 sets with 50 unbroken. Must I wait until I get all five sets unbroken before adding strength?
Context: 50 year old woman with about three years of crossfit under my belt. Took up the challenge because my husband did it last year and talked me into doing it with him this year. Really glad I did.
Working with a 16kg kettle bell. Time for 500 varies from 29 - 33 minutes.
Appreciate any suggestions/observations.

How are your strength movements?

I guess I am not sure what you mean by strength movements, as I havenā€™t Incorporated any yet. I was interpreting the prescribed challenge as completing unbroken sets before adding strength movements.
If I do add them now, what do you suggest I start with? I am leaning towards the push press.

Ive never done this challenge before but if you said it helped you lose weight and boost your deadlift, Ill consider it.

I ran some numbers and if on day 1 you start with just 24 reps and lift 24 more reps per day, by day 29 you will have over 10,000 reps total. For example:

Day 1: 24
Day 2: 48
Day 3: 96
ā€¦
Day 27: 672
Day 28: 696
Day 29: 720 (only need to do 208) =10000 swings

I have some questions:
1, what was your diet like
2, how did you pick your starting weight
3, how did you pick your ā€œstrengthā€ exercises and what rep scheme did you use to maintain recovery

If I were you I would just stick to the program and do 500 swings per workout. Its proven. Sure your method would probably work but then its not this program. Its a variation of it and it may or may not work as well. I found the 10,15,25,50 reps to make up a block to be perfect due to the mental battles you have. After you get to about 8th session or so you will see that the program was written perfectly hence why Dan John would get so frustrated when people kept asking to modify it.

When I started the program I think I used 12-16kg bell. I did my 500 and it took me like 50 minutes to get thru it. In about 4 workouts you will get it under 30 minutes and thats when I would bell up. Even do 16kg for the 10,15,25 then 12kg bell for the 50 rep and as you improve do more weight for more of your workout session.
(Im male btw, my gf did the program too and finished doing 500 with the 20kg bell). She started with the 12kg I believe. Your first session you will quickly discover your starting bell weight.

First time I did program diet was ok, but we were moving so I didnt eat as strict as I usually do. I still burnt fat like crazy. You burn a lot of calories with the shear volume of work in this program.

My deadlift didnā€™t go up with this program. Then again my deadlift PR is pretty high for me, meaning I have to put in a shit load of work to even get back up close to my deadlift PR.

For strength exercises I would stick to higher intensity lower volume. I couldnā€™t even do the strength exercises the first week of the challenge due to my body trying to recover from the 500 swings. As you get more conditioned you can add strength exercises in. Keep it to the big compound lifts.

Here is a vid of my gfs 21st workout she wanted to record a time PR with the 20kg bell. did it in under 24 mins.

Im interested in the challenge can i use plate with handles instead of Kb? dont have acces to them

no. buy kb.

Thread resurrectionā€¦

I think I want to do this and have a question!

Do you do this on top of your current program or for a month is this your only program?

Itā€™s a challengeā€¦do it by itself and see how it effects you. Itā€™s not something I recommend you do for extended period of time. Just do the challenge as itā€™s outlined.

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