On most days you head to the gym and ‘do the right thing’. You take out your training log, follow the reps and sets, add a little more weight than last week and walk out the door feeling pretty darn good about yourself. Other days, you’re not quite ‘feeling it’ and you spend less time curling heavy weight and more time chatting up the IFBB Bikini Pro in the squat rack. Hey, it happens.
Then there are some days you just walk into the gym feeling extra pumped and super focused. Sure you could bang out your regularly scheduled training program. Hell, the way you’re feeling you could probably hit a couple of PR’s. But, today, you’re same-old training program just won’t do. You want to tackle something tough. You want a challenge. You want to train so hard that you crawl out of the gym. You want to GET CRUSHED.
Lucky for you, we’re here to help. Each week we’ll give you a tough, one-off workout that you can try when you are looking for the ultimate training challenge of just feel like you need a break from your regular routine. But be warned, this training program will leave you totally CRUSHED.
Squat & Swing
I believe it was Sir Isaac Newton who said, “what goes up, must come down”. Well, in this workout, you’ll be going up and down at the same time. While the rep scheme decreases by a rep per set on the Barbell Back Squat, it increases on the Kettlebell Swing. So, by the end of the workout you’ll have done 55 reps of each exercise. The goal is to get all 10 sets completed as quickly as possible (while using proper form). And given that the squat should crush your quads and glutes, and the swings should hammer your glutes and hamstrings, it may be a while before you can tackle another ‘leg day’ once you are done with this one.
The Workout
Criss-cross the following two exercises as prescribed below. Use 1x bodyweight for the Barbell Back Squat and 50% bodyweight for Kettlebell Swing
A1) Barbell Back Squat 10 sets x 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 reps
A2) Kettlebell Swing 10 sets x 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 reps
Dan Trink is a personal trainer, strength coach and nutritional consultant based in New York City. To find out more about Dan visit www.trinkfitness.com.
