Long Cycle Training

If you could only do one exercise for the rest of your life, what would it be? Setting aside the absurdity of the question, most thought exercises are built on absurdity after all, I would say the double kettlebell clean and jerk. If a particularly clever person asked the question and pointed out that those are two exercises, I would say double kettlebell long cycle. Checkmate smartass.

Long cycle training is a shorthand way of saying chained clean and jerks. I believe the term comes from the kettlebell sport world, but every time I think I know the source of a term, somebody proves me wrong. Suffice to say that long cycle is a kettlebell sport event. It's also a damn good strength training exercise. The thing I love about the exercise is the efficiency. If we analyze the clean and jerk through Dan John's five basic human movements; push, pull, hinge, squat, and loaded carry; the clean and jerk definitely involves four of them and can arguably involve all five. The clean is a hinge and a pull and the jerk is a squat (two actually) and a push. If you hold the weights in the rack position, you can argue it's a loaded carry too. The clean and jerk basically hits everything. When you chain them together into long sets, they also work your cardio system (which is great if you, like me, don't really enjoy dedicated cardio work). In a half hour of long cycle training, you get a lot of work done that hits most if not all of your basic movements.

I've trained long cycle on and off over the years, but this year I really discovered my love for it. Besides a few short breaks to train other lifts, this year I've focused on long cycle training. Last month I read Denis Vasilev's Kettlebell Sport Training Methodology. This was my first foray into kettlebell sport. I've always focused on hard style. I'm still performing hard style clean and jerks, but I wanted to read about a different training perspective.

For those who don't know, the long cycle event in kettlebell sport involves the lifter performing clean and jerks for 10 minutes without putting the kettlebells down. Denis Vasilev is one of the greats and won numerous world championships. He's completed over 100 clean and jerks in 10 minutes with a pair of 32 kg kettlebells. I figured it was worth my time to read what the man has to say. The most useful fact I took from his book was the total volume of clean and jerks he's performed. It makes sense. The more you practice something, the better you get at it. If you want to get good at writing, you need to write a lot. If you want to get good at running, you need to run a lot. If you want to get good at clean and jerks, you need to do clean and jerks a lot.

Based on that idea, I've been experimenting with a slightly different training methodology over the last two weeks. I have a nice set of kettlebells. I have pairs of every weight from 8 kg up to 48 kg in 4 kg increments. That gives me a lot of flexibility. My methodology for the last two weeks is broken down into three days: a high rep with light weight day, a medium rep with medium weight day, and a low rep with heavy weight day (light, medium, and heavy for me obviously). I use ladder sets and add more rungs with lighter weights. Each day I set my timer for 30 minutes and crank out as many good quality ladder sets as I can.

I had to move my Sunday session to Monday due to a septic backup (the joys of owning a home). So on Monday I did ladders of 2, 3, 5, and 10 using a pair of 24 kg kettlebells. The sets of 10 were brutal. I completed 50 total reps. Tuesday I did ladders of 2, 3, and 5 using a pair of 28 kg kettlebells. Again I completed 50 total reps. I wasn't expecting that since I completed 40 total reps with this setup last week. I'm not complaining. Tonight I did sets of two with a pair of 32 kg kettlebells. I can squeeze out a set of three, but the third rep isn't a clean as I want so I'm sticking to sets of two for now. I completed a total of 28 reps. Therefore, I completed a total of 128 clean and jerks this week.

It's too early for me to declare this methodology good, bad, or merely adequate. I am enjoying it though and each day is challenging for different reasons. The high reps with light weight day challenges my endurance, especially the sets of 10. It's as much a mental game as a physical game to get through those sets. The medium reps with medium weight day is a good overall challenge of strength and endurance. The high reps with heavy weight day is a challenge of my strength. I think this will be a good method for closing the year. I'll try to remember to report back my thoughts after week six.