Kettlebell Burn Phase 1: Week 4

I decided to switch from the 16kg kettlebell back to the 20kg KB for the Get Up Sit Up exercise. I had switched from the 20kg to the 16kg in the first place because my shoulder tired out when I attempted to do the prescribed number of reps, and had to stop at 4 reps. This week I thought it might be better to do 3-rep sets with the 20kg, than to do 5- or 6-rep sets with the 16kg. One reason it allows me to do more work. When I did 5-6 reps per side with the 16kg, I needed a fair amount of rest time before I was ready to do another set, so I ended up doing only 2 sets for the whole workout. The switch to 3-rep sets with the 20kg resulted in 3 sets, and thus more work accomplished in the workout.

Turkish Get Up performance was diappointing. I began Kettlebell Burn being able to do 3 TGUs per side within the prescribed period. I was only able to do 4 reps per side this week which is not much of an improvement. I realized I waste a fair amount of effort on my supine to elbow transition. I would often get stuck during the transition, and have to restart the movement from supine positon. I took some time on one of the recovery days to practice this transition with the 8kg and 12kg KBs. With the 12kg I practiced the TGU all the way to the half kneeling windmill, working on getting the thighs and legs closer to the ideal 90 degree relationships with each other.

Before the Wednesday and Friday sessions, I changed my warmup routine to exercises for hamstring and hip mobility, as influenced by this Movesmethod video

• Single Leg Good Morning - 2 sets of 10 with 10 sec. hold on last rep
• Standing Pancake - 2 sets of 10 with 10 sec. hold on last rep
• Heel Pulse at bottom of ATG Split Squat - 1 set of 10 with 10 sec. hold on last rep
• Bridge Rotation On Wall - 2 sets of 5

My body felt fine and ready for Kettlebell Burn after the warmup. However I felt like I needed more time to recover between exercise sets, and I needed just a little more effort per rep. So my overall performance felt down compared to last week. Also, the warmup took about 15 min. which is longer than I would like. I'll try doing this hamstring/hip emphasis warmup on my KB swing days, and go back to the warmup I was doing on my KB strength days which was this:

• Diaphragmatic breathing in child pose - 1 min.
• Dead Bugs - 1 min.
• ATG Split Squat - hold bottom position for a few sec. each side
• The Pump - 1 min.
• Fast And Loose/body shaking for a few seconds after carrying up the KB

My shoulders were sore, soon after the Get Up Sit Ups with the 20kg. I'm not sure if the sore muscles are the delts or rotator cuff muscles - maybe all of them? I never got sore shoulders from doing KB presses, whether on the same day or the following day.
Looking at the instructions for Phase 2, and judging by how I performed this week, I don't feel ready to move on to Phase 2 next week. I decided to repeat Weeks 3 and 4 of Phase 1, in the hope that the repeat will result in enough of an improvement that I'll be able to handle what is demanded in Phase 2. I'm not going to be 100% faithful to the instructions in this case. I'll incorporate some aspects of Phase 2 that I'm confident that I can handle, such as the rep increase for goblet squats and replacment of 2-arm swings with 1-arm swings.

The seeming lack of progress in performance and lack of reduction in waist circumference made me think about ditching Kettlebell Burn for Easy Muscle B, because there is no Turkish Get Up (which I'm already sick of) in the other program and it has chin ups and dips which are more fun to me than TGU. However, Geoff Neupert says Kettlebell Burn will help improve skills in the KB Snatch and Single KB Front Squat, and I do want to improve those skills.