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Burn Fat with my Russian Kettlebell Daily Workout and HIIT

Posted Aug 24 2008 5:48pm
Need to burn off some belly or ass fat? Who doesn't! The key to burning fat with exercise is to train hard and train often. You don't need to jog or walk for an hour every day. You don't need to pedal on bike that doesn't move while reading Men's Health or Oxygen magazine. What you do need to go is bust your butt hard for about 30-45 minutes a couple of times a week to really melt the fat off.



High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT, is probably the most time effective fat burning system known today. You can do pretty much any activity from sprinting, to weight lifting, to body weight exercises while using HIIT principles. HIIT is simply going very hard at a physical activity for a enough time to force your body into oxygen debt (trying to catch your breath), and then resting for a set amount of time to catch or partially catch your breath.



So, how do you get started? Well, pick something you like to do. In my case this is kettlebell, weight lifting or sprinting. The important thing is that it is a full body activity.

Then pick a set amount of time to go all out. Anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 minutes will do depending on how tough the chosen movement is.

Next pick a rest time, a general rule of thumb is to rest about half as long as the sprint session, that way you will not be able to fully catch your breath in the later sets.

One the first set or two, go hard but save yourself a bit. One the middle to later sets, leave nothing on the table and really dig deep into your energy reserves.



Here is an example:



Bike Sprint, 20 seconds

Rest, 10 seconds,

Repeat 8 times going a bit harder each sprint set. You should feel a bit nauseous and totally winded by the end of the last set.



Example 2:

Weighted Stair Climbs (grab a weight in each hand totaling about half your body weight)

Climb 2 flights of stairs

Walk down them

Repeat as many times as possible. On the last set or two try to double the work load and climb four flights at once. This is a workout I often do at the end of my powerlifting training sessions.



My kettlebell workout of the day has some HIIT aspects to it. The workout lasted 30 minutes and was done with a 24 kg kettlebell. Each kettlebell exercise was paired with a bodyweight exercise. The idea here being to get the heart rate way up with the kettlebell movement and then keep it high with the body weight movement. I rested about 10-30 seconds between each series. This entire workout took about 45 minutes including the mobility drills so you can try this at home and will have addressed mobility, strength and conditioning.



  • Mobility Work, 15 minutes
  • Warm-up (push-up, sit-up, jumping jack circuit 3x10)
  • kettlebell swings 20 reps paired with Inchworms 10 reps (series x2)
  • kettlebell one handed swings 10 reps each hand paired with High knee twists (series x2)
  • kettlebell snatch 10 reps each hand paired with body weight squats (series x2)
  • kettlebell swings 20 reps paired with alternating lunges 10 reps
  • kettlebell swings 20 reps paired with mountain climbers 10 reps
  • kettlebell swings 20 reps paired with wide leg mountain climbers 10 reps
  • kettlebell swings 20 reps paired with jumping jacks 20 reps



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