Assumed the Cannonball AO was about as far from me as the Deep and left the house early, only to arrive at the AO a solid 12 minutes before kickoff.  Was surprised to see one of the Church doors open and kettlebells visible from the parking lot.  I guess that kind of red carpet service you get when the site Q is the Assistant to the Parking Lot Manager of New River Church and one of their pastors frequents this new AO.

Once the pax funneled in, I took them for a quick loop around the parking lot and knocked out the warm-up:  (in cadence) SSH x25, windmills x10, overhead press w/ KB x10, halos x10 (counter clockwise & clockwise), merkins x15, downward dog / honeymooners and an attempt at Supermans w/ KB in hand (went over real well lol).

Ran the guys w/ our KB’s down to the far end of the parking lot and we got started:

• 4 cones set-up (1st at the far end of the lot), the next 3 about 7 parking spaces apart.  Quick and dirty – do an exercise at the first cone, immediately lunge walk (w/ twist) w/ KB to the next cone, drop the KB, run back to the first cone (every time) and bear crawl back to your KB.  Once there, you do the next exercise, lunge walk w twist to the next cone, drop weight, run to the very first cone, bear crawl back to weight (now 2x the original distance)….you get the point.
  1. Exercise #1 – plank rows w/ kettlebell (10 reps per side).  Key here being to maintain flat plank the whole time as you hold body w/ 1 arm and pull w/ the other.  Lunge walk, run, bear crawl, (wait for all Pax to finish bear crawl – those waiting did upright rows w/ KB), then
  2. Exercise #2 – wood choppers (crowd pleaser).  It’s a play on the KB swing, but a little harder.  Start w/ KB above your head to the left then swing it down to the right side of your legs, and then swing back up to the left side of your head.  Key here is to not blow out your knee, but to actually accelerate as much as you can on the way UP.  10 reps going left to right, 10 reps right to left.  Lunge walk, run, bearcrawl 2x the distance (wait for pax, those waiting did curls w/ KB), then
  3. Exercise #3 – single leg RDL’s (romanian dead lifts) w/ kettle bell in the hand of the leg that is going straight back.  10 reps per side.  Lunge walk, run, bear crawl 3x the distance (those waiting for pax to get back did thrusters w/ KB), then
  4. Exercise #4 – toe touches w/ KB (20 rep count).
  5. Turn around and rinse and repeat whole cycle, only double the rep count for all exercises above.  Good stuff.  Bear crawled out at this point.
• Next up were some good old fashioned super sets – two exercises given, do them back to back, no complaining.
  1. Alternating merkins w/ one hand on the KB at all times (10 reps per side) / bent over KB tricep extensions (10 reps per arm)
  2. Get ups (hold KB in each hand 5x each) / KB jump squats (10 reps)
  3. Big boys w/ KB press (15 rep) / KB american hammers (20 reps per side)
• Only had a few minutes, so we gave ourselves 10 parking spaces to get back to COT and everyone did bear crawls back to COT w/ KB in hand (use it as a hand, no dragging, switch hands half way through).

  I have to say the effort level by everyone was awesome to see – not a single person was half a$$ing it – all were finishing each set strong and suffering through each of the long bear crawls.  I was especially proud of one of their newest pax, Mysterio, who did not give up on that last KB bear crawl stretch.  The dude had some serious fight – he’s going to be good one.

  Thanks Two Ferns for the chance to step up and lead at the new Lake Wylie KB AO.  Didn’t really know what to expect w/ a KB workout, but had a blast – hope the others did as well.

  ChaChing