From Jon’s Training Log
March 27, 2008
Today I wanted to really challenge myself and get a great workout for strength, power AND conditioning. So I went back to my favorite all time workout…the 15/15 x 10 minutes for double kettlebell cleans & presses.
I first developed this workout when I opened up the Monkey Bar Gymnasium in January 2001. We thought it would be great to have a day to raise some money for 9/11 victims and train hard. So we thought, how about a 1000 rep push up workout? Then I saw the famous Jack Lalanne did it in 23 minutes…wow:) that is badass!
I thought I could do it under an hour for sure, so I devised a plan to break up each minute to get max reps without killing myself. Max Strength and Max Conditioning is what I got. I tried 30 seconds on and 30 seconds rest but I usually hit fatigue too early so I dropped it in half to 15/15 and the results have been amazing. I got 1000 in 40 minutes exactly and had three students make it in 1 hour! Since then I have used this 15/15 method to get 500 in 12 minutes, which is my personal best.
After this first success I modified the 15/15 to alternate between two exercises for everything; push ups and chin ups, cleans and presses, handstand push ups and kip ups, squats and swings, plyo jumps and broad jumps. Heck sometimes we do 4 exercises alternately like push ups to chin ups to squats to swings maybe repeating the 4 for 20 minutes. What I really love about this workout is it is incredible at improving Strength, Power, AND Conditioning and it does it all in just minutes. The best workout I have ever made without question.
I first started using kettlebells in this workout 3.5 years ago when I first got into kettlebells and the cleans and presses kicks your butt for sure:) One thing I love about doing cleans and presses for the 10 minute 15/15 workout is it’s fun to total the poundage for the workout.
Sometimes I like to go heavy for power/endurance and sometimes go lighter for more strength/endurance, that is the beauty of this workout…you can actually do sets of 1 (for more power) or sets of 10 (for more endurance) and train totally different systems.
My previous PR was cleaning and pressing the 24k’s (106lbs) overhead 91 times, which equals 9,646 lbs.
So my goal was to beat that total…so instead of going for more reps I thought I would just go heavier. This is partly due to some motivation from one of my trainers who is getting super strong, Joe Gorshe is his name and last week he did 87 reps in 10 minutes with the 24k’s for a total of 9,222 lbs. I was motivated to really set a strong mark. I grabbed not the 28’s but the 32’s and decided I was going to get 80 in 10 minutes. It started out good and hard doing sets of 4, but at about minute 3 or 4 it started to really hit me. So I just stayed focused; you have to or you will crash and burn. This is the time for pure mental strength, to NOT quit, just keep pushing thru the pain…and it did, it hurt a lot, but the next thing I knew I had only 3 minutes left, 6 sets of 4, 24 little reps left!!
I did it! It was a big accomplishment and I was very happy with hitting 80 reps.
If you are up for the challenge try it out then write us back and tell us how you did!!
32k’s Cleans & Push Press (10 minutes of 15/15):
20 sets of 4 = *80 cleans & presses (PR) in 10 minutes!!
This is a New Personal Record!! 11,200 lbs lifted in 10 minutes:) Beat previous by 1,554 pounds!!:)
Great, short, intense workout…love it:) Great strength AND conditioning!
4 Stars!
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