Here’s a little smoker that will get the heart pumping, a short six-minute kettlebell workout that should be done with a heavy weight. Heavy enough to get your heart rate up within the work time but light enough so that you can maintain proper form and work fast.
Three exercises of which two are combos, four sets of one exercise, 20 seconds work, and 10 seconds rest.
Quick 6-minute interval workout.
You can use this to get a quick 12-minute workout in, a 4-minute warm-up, a 6-minute workout, and 2 minutes of stretching, or you can repeat this workout by resting for one minute after a round and then repeat another 2 to 4 times.
Set one
- Single arm swing (L)
- Single arm swing (R)
- Single arm swing (L)
- Single arm swing (R)
Set two
- Dead swingclean and jerk (L)
- Dead swingclean and jerk (R)
- Dead swingclean and jerk (L)
- Dead swingclean and jerk (R)
Set three
- Dead clean and squat (L)
- Dead clean and squat (R)
- Dead clean and squat (L)
- Dead clean and squat (R)
Alternatives
If you’re not familiar with the jerk yet, remove it and just do the dead swingclean. The dead swingclean is a kettlebell clean variation that starts with the weight being dead and is then cleaned with a swing.
This type of workout is called interval training and some also refer to it as Tabata, but for it to be real Tabata it needs to be super intense, way more than this will be. For something to be super intense, you would need to be able to work at your max for the given work time.
Here are some more ideas for a similar kettlebell workout structure using intervals.
All of the above 4 examples of interval training with two kettlebells have to be done with a light enough weight so that you can move fast for the work time. If you fatigue your muscles then you will not get the intended effect. If you’re advanced, you can do all 4 Tabata sets in one session as we did.
