Our kettlebell swing ladder, combines 220 calorie scorching, stamina building reps with mindful rest periods of conscious breathing, ensuring that not a single second of this workout is lost to a wandering mind.
Simply perform one swing, followed by standing tall and performing one breath, deep into your belly, following the instructions below. Next, pick up your bell and reengage with two swings, followed by two conscious breaths, then three of each, then four and so on until you reach twenty swings and a final bout of twenty breaths.
Throughout, try to breath deep and long, using your nose and paying full attention to the sensations of breathing, wherever you feel them most strongly, be it at the tip of your nose or the expanding and contracting of your abdomen and ribs. Equally, pay attention to when and how you breath during your swings — as the the bell reaches the top of each rep, inhale deeply through your nose. As you explosively drive the bell away with your hips, exhale sharply through pursed lips, creating tension in your trunk as you do.
See if you can notice how often your mind wanders during your workout, gently bringing it back to the breath on each occasion, clocking up some serious mental reps for a majorly mindful pump
1. Kettlebell swing x 1-20
With a kettlebell on the floor in front of your body, hinge at your hips to reach down and grip it with both hands and a flat back. Swing the weight backward between your legs until it lightly touches your sitting bone (A). Drive your hips forward to explosively blast it up to eye level (B). Let the momentum return you back into the hinge position and explode straight up into the next rep, or mindfully return the bell to the ground in front of your body.
2. Diaphragmatic Breath x 1-20
Stand tall and place your hands on your hips, pressing your fingers into the bottom of your abdomen. Take a deep inhale through your nose, focussing on breathing deep down below your chest, until you feel the expansion of your belly with your hands (A). Gently let the air back out through your nose, feeling your abdomen ‘deflate’ again (B). This is one ‘rep’. As the swings clock up, you may have to take shorter, sharper breaths, and you may even feel the urge to open your mouth- but attempt to use just your nose and stay in full control of each breath, aiming to lengthen the exhale as much as possible.
With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.
As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men’s Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that’s through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.
Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.
You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.
