All Around Growth — reflections on faith, freedom, and finding purpose through Orthodox Christian living, formation, and the long work of becoming. Earlier episodes available to supporters.
This workout serves dual purpose you are obviously working out the shoulder(deltoids) but the standing and weight on one side forces stabilizing muscles through your whole body to fire and keep you from dipping to the weighted side.
3. Kettlebell Front Squat – 50 reps
In as few sets of good form as possible
No more than 1 minute rest between sets
Goal – 50 reps in one set, then move to larger kettlebell
This exercise does not work in reps instead its time or distance.
Your goal is to carry and walk with the weight for as long as your grip can hold it, then switch the weight to the other side and repeat
Do 2 sets of this carry for time on each side.
Rob's Beginning Weight: ~35lbs for 100 paces x 2 sets
The recommended starter kettlebell weight for the swings and squats is a 44lb or 54lb kettlebell but you can start lower obviously, you will just probably work through to the goals a bit quicker. This workout is best when done 3 or 4 times a week with a day between each workout. The first week you might need an extra rest day after the first workout if you are not using those muscles in your daily life. The great thing about it is this really scales well by just bumping up the weight.
All around the growth. Friends, I'd like to welcome you to the ninety second episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. Like I said, this is a show focused on building the lives of our dreams. And I hope that you are gaining clarity in your life, because writing that updated description yesterday helped me gain some clarity on my end. My name is Rob Kaiser, and I am your host of this show. Today is Friday, February 5th, 2021. And it is again a chilly morning. A little bit warmer than it was yesterday. Enough to where we got a little bit of snow melt, which subsequently froze. And this leaves a nice layer of ice everywhere. Now it looks like our part-time tenant farmer, uh Cody, was able to make it in this morning. I say part-time because he, you know, I mean he's a doesn't he doesn't live here, but uh he does indeed lease land here. So um he was able to make it in. That's a good sign. And I'm hoping that I don't slide down too much because I'm waiting for the day for one of us to get into an accident here, sliding out onto the main road as we try to leave before we are able to get the work done on the driveway. Um fixing it. Anyways, back to the show. The title of today's show is The Optimal Workout. Yes, a long lead up into what we're going to talk about today, but all of that was relevant, all of that is important because I was originally going to do a show on personal development. And as I prepared my notes for personal development, I read personal development consists of activities that develop a person's capabilities and potential, build human capital, facilitate employability, and enhance quality of life, and the realization of dreams and aspirations. Personal development may take place over the course of an individual's entire lifespan. And that is what Wikipedia has to say on personal development. But after reading about that and understanding that we talked about financial stuff yesterday, if we talk physical today and then followed up with personal development on Monday, and then family on Tuesday, we begin covering all of the various categories that we're setting goals in. Or at least that I'm setting goals in. And so, you know, before we actually hit the road, let's go ahead and revisit that newly updated show description just one more time. This is a show focused on building the lives of our dreams. Rob's focus is on sharing relevant content regarding personal growth and development, specifically through the seven following categories: financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social, and career. Join the community at t.me slash all around growth. So as I thought about that last night, when I actually assembled these notes, instead of this morning, I felt so confident about the idea of having rotating show topics based on these seven categories because I am setting goals in these seven categories. And if my goals are aligned with the direction that I wish to head in life, then it makes sense that I would indeed create show topics based on uh based on those goals, based on those categories. So yeah, I I I shifted gears a bit and wanted to talk about the physical aspect. And that's relevant because for the past 30, well not the past 30 days, but largely during a 30-day span in January. I engaged in my first 30-day test. And the 30-day test is an idea that was discussed in The Strangest Secret of the World by Earl Nightingale. And I will link to that in the show notes. I've also done episodes on Earl Nightingale in the past in this specific recording or production that he has uh he has done. Now, why physical? Why did I begin the year with some sort of physical 30-day test? Well, Dan Miller of 48 Days, author of 48 Days to the Work and Life You Love, recently did an episode on the experiences he faced going through his own challenges with burnout and also his experiences on what he did to deal with that, which included but certainly wasn't limited to involvement with doctors in the spheres of functional medicine. And what that gave him some insight into was that once he engaged in physical work, working out, that he it he discovered that it opened the doors, opened some creative doors for him, and it facilitated new ideas and improvements in his own life. And when I heard that, I thought, okay, I can step it up and I can learn something from this and I can do more. So I'd already been doing some stretching, and I say some because admittedly I got a bit lazy and complacent with it, but I talked frequently about taking on new things and also removing certain things as we take on new things. Nevertheless, when it came to working out, I wanted to be um I wanted to be efficient during it. And because I can't remember the specific episode where Dan Miller made this suggestion about the physical capacity or physical workouts increasing the creative capacity that we have, I just linked to all of the content that he provides because it is awesome and inspirational and highly recommended. So the the the physical workout that I have been doing is a kettlebell workout, and somehow I managed to neglect the actual workout that I am doing in my notes because I was so excited about the new direction of the the not yeah, the new direction of the show. I guess that that is what it is. But here's what I've been doing. So I have uh two kettlebells that I use primarily, one is a 10-pounder, and the other is a 10-kilogram or a 22-pounder, okay? And I that's what I have because that's what I was gifted, and when I started using the lighter one, I realized that I could use uh a heavier one, so I bought a 10-kilogram one, even though I was looking for I think I was looking for a 15 or a 20 to start with, but I will be 100% honest with you. The 10 kilogram is plenty, and I do a simple workout that consists of this 75 kettlebell swings, 50 kettlebell shoulder presses, 50 kettlebell squats, and uh a modified farmer suitcase carry. Okay, so let me explain what I'm doing here with that. The kettlebell swing is pretty self-explanatory. I I had to watch some videos on how to do this to make sure that my form was halfway decent, and I should probably watch some more and film myself because I while working out is good, it's easy. If you haven't worked out in a long time, it's easy to overdo it, it's easy to remember what we used to be, and I can assure you that what we are and who we are today physically is not who we are and what we once were in the past, but we have the potential to be that again and more, but we need to take it slow. So I started with a very light weight, and I certainly couldn't do all 75 kettlebell swings in one pass. So if you can't, you do as many as you can do, rest up to 60 seconds, do another set as many as you can do, rest up to 60 seconds until you reach 75. I am at a point now where I'm able to do 40 to 45 swings without resting. And when I started in early January, I could barely do you know 15 or 20 without needing to take a rest. Umce you can do 75 without resting, that's the time when you move up to a heavier weight or a heavier kettlebell. Now I used the 10-pounder for the shoulder presses, and even though it's only 50, at the same time when I was started, I was only able to get 10 or 15 without or before taking a rest. Now I'm able to do 25 and then and then some if I really if I really push. So with regard to the squats, that's a hard one for me because my mobility and my flexibility is limited. So I am not even using a kettlebell, and I have a hard time doing a flat-footed squat as it is. I don't know if it's because I'm so out of shape or if it's just because I always had this kind of you know flexibility or mobility problem. I don't know, but I hold on to the kitchen sink and try to practice good form with my squats, and that's the best I can do. And you know what? I'm making progress, and maybe some point in time in the future I will level up to the point where I'm able to do some good form squats with the kettlebell, but in the interim, I'm not doing squats with any weight whatsoever because that's what works best for me, and you got to do what works best for you in whatever context of your life, and we all start somewhere, but if we start off poorly, we're building a bad foundation and a weak foundation for the strong future that we want to have. So it may seem a little bit, you know, pus or whatever, but start slow, start right, and just remember do it right or not at all. That's the motto of the Davy Tree Expert Company, and the history of the company and that saying specifically has stuck with me over the years, and I'm glad I had that experience. I'm glad I learned that, and it's something I try to remember to this day. Do it right or not at all. After the 50s, after I get my 50 squats in, the modified farmer's carry that I do, the suitcase carry is I I sling a towel, a small hand towel, through the three kettlebells that I have the five pound, ten pound, and the ten kilogram. And I walk around with it 100 paces, each arm, switch arms, and do two sets of that, 100 paces. Um until I get some heavier weights, that's just that's kind of what I do, and I might experiment with looking into an additional exercise, but you know, for now, I'm I'm happy with that, and I'm able to do all of this in less than 25 minutes, and uh I am experiencing some good results, and it it feels good. So, in less than two hours a week, I'm able to squeeze in some workouts in a way that I haven't done in a very long time. So I did that for the 30-day period in January and seem to have effectively created a new habit. I've stayed consistent with it this month and I plan to stay consistent with it as time goes on. My 30-day test currently is a financial test, and that consists of spending time specifically one Pomodoro each day, preferably in the morning, working through Quicken. And that's either going to consist of updating my transactions and making sure my books are in line with my accounts, or spending time going through the tutorials learning how to more effectively navigate and manage the software that I'm using to manage my life and business. And I think that I will experience better results with the software when I am in a position to more effectively navigate how to use it. All right, next month is going to be a 30-day test on something related to personal development. And you know, like we said earlier, the seven categories are physical. I'm sorry, the physical, yikes, easy for me to say. The seven categories are financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social, and career. And we're going to talk about personal development on Monday. Now, I may not get to the point where I am able to articulate what that goal is, but I like the idea of talking about it and thinking about it ahead of time. I like the idea of having some structured or some more structured show topics like this. And I'd be interested in your feedback on what you think about this idea and the potential direction that the show may be heading with regard to the description, which you can read in the updated podcast show notes or on BuzzSprout itself where the podcast is being hosted. So hopefully you found this show to be a valuable use of your time and you enjoy what you heard. And if that's the case, in the show notes at the bottom, you can also find a link that says click here to rate and review the podcast. Click that link, it'll take you over to Apple Podcasts, where you can leave a five-star rating and a written review if you like. Both of those things help positively impact the algorithms there. And at this point in time, since we are getting the most plays through iTunes and the Apple platform, that is where we ought to focus on trying to positively affect the algorithms. If you have any questions or feedback for me, you can send them to allaroundgrowth at gmail.com, or better yet, join the telegram group at t.me slash allaroundgrowth. Or if you've got the Telegram Messenger app on your phone already, you can simply search within the groups for all around growth. And you should be able to find us there. Alright, everybody. That is it for today. I sincerely appreciate you listening and tuning in once again. And in addition to leaving a review, if you like what you heard, share it with uh share it with your friends or family. Post it on social media. Try to spread the word. It is certainly appreciated. And again, last but not least, I'd like to encourage you to join the telegram community because we've got a small community, but it's kind of awesome what's taking place there.
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