Joe Rogan Kettlebell Workout

This is a Joe Rogan inspired workout that I designed several years ago and first published here.

There is approximately one minute of intense power work done with the Gorilla Cleans. The Sprawl into Deadlift should be done nice and fast and followed by one minute of rest to get the heart rate slightly down. The second task is 3 repetitions of Dead Snatches on one side followed by the other side and performed with one kettlebell. Clean two kettlebells up and perform 4 intense Squat Thrusters. This last exercise is all power.

The heart rate spiked on the first task and the one-minute rest got it down a bit. The second task is short enough to put everything in the 3 dead snatches on each side followed by 4 intense double bell squat thrusters. I can tell you that none of this is fun with a set of heavy kettlebells. You'll feel like you are going to die but in a good way. Then you need to push yourself to perform the active recovery because really, you will want to lie down, curl up, and just get your breath back, but instead, you push through and for two minutes you perform the downward into upward dog, followed by one minute of heavenly rest and doing absolutely nothing but let the mind wonder and enjoy the euphoria.

For the programming, you would adjust the weight, rest time, and the number of rounds. So, for someone who is unconditioned, you would go with a lighter weight, introduce more rest, and start with the lower end of the rounds. Each round is approx. 6 minutes with 4 minutes of that being active recovery and rest. 5 rounds would be approx. 30 minutes.

As an example, for a beginner, you would remove the last task and leave that for another day. You would do only 2 to 3 rounds to start with, and you would build all this up over a period of time while repeating the workout.

The work is to be performed explosive and intense with the heaviest weight possible. You clean the kettlebells into a racking position and wait for the timer to start, at the beep you start your Gorilla Cleans by dropping one side into a hang clean, you pull it straight up while dropping the other side. The reps are kept low so that you can maintain explosiveness. Left + right equals one rep.

Return the weight dead to the ground and immediately move into the sprawl deadlift. The sprawl is bodyweight and doesn't demand that much as you pop your hips down to the ground, from there you explode up and pull the feet in to place them right in position for the deadlift that follows.

The amount of rest can vary, you want to make sure that you're recovered enough to put the same amount of intensity in the next round. If your heart rate is still high then you increase the rest time.

The Dead Snatch is my favorite kettlebell snatch variation as it's the longest (ground to overhead) and most explosive. You perform a squat movement and pull the weight to overhead in one smooth and explosive pull.

The Squat Thruster is again, all lower body-powered and not to be confused with a squat and press. Come in and out of the squat explosive to thrust those bells up overhead. If we wanted to increase the complexity and make this even harder (i.e. the subject has progressed) then I would change the squat thruster to a Dead Clean into Squat Thruster .