A brief YouTube instructional by Ben Greenfield describing a 4-minute high-intensity interval training (HIIT) routine using a single kettlebell. He summarizes a Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research study comparing bike-based HIIT to kettlebell-based HIIT and presents a Tabata-style protocol comprising kettlebell swings, sumo squats, one-arm clean-and-presses, and sumo deadlifts (20s on/10s off, two rounds per exercise, total ~4 minutes).
Chapters
Hey, I'm Ben Greenfield, and I've talked a lot about high intensity interval training. But the majority of studies that have been done on high intensity interval training were done on interval training using a bike. Maybe a bike hurts your butt. Maybe you don't like the bicycle. Maybe you don't have room for a bicycle in your basement or wherever else you happen to be working out. Well, the fact is, the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research just did a study in which they compared high intensity interval training using a bicycle with high intensity interval training using the almighty kettlebell. And what they found out was that the specific four exercises that I'm about to show you being done with a kettlebell were equal to or superior to a bicycle when it comes to high intensity interval training. So what did they do in this study? They did four different exercises for 20 seconds on, 10 seconds, off with the kettlebell. That's it. Go one time through. It's called a tabata set. So what were the four exercises? They started off with a kettlebell swing. Kettlebell swing, very straightforward. You simply hold the kettlebell down by your crotch. You swing it through your crotch and up, just like so. So what they would do is 20 seconds of kettlebell swings. Next, after the kettlebell swings, they did the kettlebell sumo squat. You simply bring the kettlebell up to your chest, holding it like a goblet. You get your feet nice and wide. So for a sumo squat, your feet will be wider than shoulder width apart. From there, you.
And stand down, and stand down and stand. So that's exercise number two. So we've got the swings, We've got the sumo squat. You do 20 seconds of swings, 10 seconds of recovery, 20 seconds of swings, 10 seconds of recovery. Then you move on to the sumo squats and the same thing. 20 seconds of squats, 10 seconds of recovery, two times through. Next exercise is the kettlebell clean and press. So with one arm, you'll simply start hovering just down by your ankles. Then you clean to here, up to the shoulders and press. So you'll do 20 seconds of kettlebell clean and press with the right arm, take 10 seconds of rest, and then do 20 seconds of kettlebell clean and press with the left arm. Then finally, the last exercise that I did in the study was, was the kettlebell sumo deadlift. Very much like the kettlebell sumo squat. Feet nice and wide. Except this time, instead of holding the kettle up by your chest, you hold it down by your crotch and you simply squat and stand, squat and stand again. 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, three times through. So that's it. You've got the swings, you've got your sumo squat, you've got a clean and press, and you have a sumo deadlift. 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, two times through each of those, total of four minutes. That's a complete high intensity interval training routine. That's been proven by science. And we all love science, don't we? So I'm Ben Greenfield from BenGreenfieldFitness.com Try out that workout. Let me know what you think in the comments section. Best of luck. And now you don't have to get on the bike.
