Workout of the Month: No Way Out

ALL LEVELS / kettlebell workout for strength and endurance / 12 mins

Equipment: kettlebell

Don't be the fool on April Fools'; try our workout of the month instead. No way out is your way out of boring exercises. In only 12 minutes, this kettlebell workout will target your whole body and challenge your strength and endurance. Ready?

This month’s workout is a high-intensity kettlebell workout that will challenge your strength and endurance in under 12 minutes. Using just a kettlebell, you will cycle through three rounds of 4 exercises. Since we are talking about a timed circuit, you will perform as many reps as possible within the allocated time for each exercise. There is a 10s rest between exercises, and the duration of each subsequent exercise decreases – to allow for an increase in fatigue. And to make things interesting, you will be alternating between a loaded (kettlebell) exercise and an unloaded (bodyweight) exercise.

The exercise sequence is as follows:

Beginners – use 5-10kg kettlebell

Advanced – use 10-20kg kettlebell

The focus of this workout is the pace. The bodyweight exercises (lunge and squat) will allow you to go faster, and preferably unbroken; the kettlebell exercises will require a slower/controlled pace, and you may need to break it into manageable sets.

This workout will challenge your aerobic capacity, and there is no way out of this, except to pace yourself well. The rest period is not high and will only be adequate to set yourself up for the next exercise. But take comfort in the fact that the duration of each exercise will decrease. Don’t forget that each time you complete a cycle, you will be more fatigued, so it’s ok to slow down a little – try to go unbroken in your reps.

Keep note of your progress, record the total number of reps at the end, and try to beat it next time.