Cardiovascular training is any activity intended to make your heart and circulatory system more efficient in delivering oxygen to your body's systems. Activities such as running and cycling have typically been prescribed as cardio. However, any activity in which the muscles create a demand for oxygen and that can be sustained for a period of time can be a cardio workout. You can use kettlebells in a variety of ways to create just such a sustain demand for oxygen.
Weight Training and the Aerobic Energy System
When you train with weights for strength, the load is too heavy to be lifted for longer than a minute without rest. Each exercise typically targets only a small group of muscles. The muscular contractions are also so intense that blood flow is momentarily restricted in that muscle group. For that reason, traditional weight training protocols do not stimulate improvements in the cardiovascular system. The activity must be sustained for twenty minutes or more. To achieve that duration, cardio activities are usually spread across multiple muscle groups and use much lighter loads.
Cardio Weight Training
There are two basic ways to produce a cardio effect with weights. The first method is with circuit training. In a circuit, you perform a series of exercises one after another with no rest between exercises. The second method is by training in intervals. A weight training interval is when you perform as many reps of an exercise as possible within a limited time, rest for a limited time, and continue. One popular work: rest ratio is 15:15; 15 seconds of work alternated with 15 seconds of rest, repeated for 20 to 40 minutes.
Kettlebells and Cardio
The design of the kettlebell lends itself to cardio weight training. Two exercises, swings and snatches, are ideal because they involve most of the body's major muscle groups, and are easy to perform in high numbers. In the dumbbell and barbell versions of snatches, the weight must be reset in the hang position or lowered all the way to the ground to finish a repetitions. With kettlebells, you simply allow the weight to swing through your knees, and then reverse the motion.
Kettlebell Complexes
A complex is a circuit that is performed with one piece of equipment that is not set down until every exercise in the circuit is complete. For example, using a kettlebell, a complex might consist of swings, jerks, windmills, front squats, and bent rows, first with one hand, and then with the other. When the final repetition of the rows has been completed with both hands, you may set the kettlebell down and rest.
The swings train the hamstrings, the jerks the upper body pushing muscles, the windmills the core, the front squats the quads, and the rows the upper body pulling muscles. With a selection of exercises like this, you make demands across all muscle groups while alternately allowing them to rest.
Kettlebell Intervals
Kettlebell swings can be performed with a bell one or both hands, and are less technically demanding than snatches. Snatches actually require more work, and thus will burn more calories across the duration of the workout. A common scheme for a kettlebell interval workout is 15 seconds of swings or snatches, then 15 seconds of rest.
One option is to swing or snatch with one, rest, then switch hands for the next interval. Add in the next rest interval, and you have a full minute of training. Just repeat 20 to 40 times. Another option is to swing or snatch with one hand for 15 seconds, rest, work with the other hand, rest, then perform 30 seconds of two-handed swings followed by 30 seconds of rest. That is two minutes of combined work and rest.
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