The Kettlebell Long Cycle – The Best Workout You’re Not Doing
The kettlebell long cycle might be the best single-exercise workout on the planet. In terms of bang for your buck, I can’t think of anything that comes close. It builds upper body muscle, strengthens the core and improves cardiovascular health and performance.
Having added the kettlebell long cycle into my training recently, I’ve gained a huge amount of respect for it. A simple combination of movements with massive upper body strength and endurance benefits, it’s a perfect upper body workout for anyone short on time.
Here’s what the kettlebell long cycle looks like, as demonstrated my multiple world record holder, Denis Vasiliev…
What is the Kettlebell Long Cycle?
The kettlebell long cycle is a double-arm clean and jerk. It’s one of the lifts performed in kettlebell sport (Giveroy sport), and is designed to test upper body strength and endurance. In elite competition, it’s performed for 10 minutes without rest.
In kettlebell sport, the number of reps performed, combined with kettlebell weight and bodyweight, determines each lifter’s ranking. This unique judging criteria makes for a more strategic lifting sport, as opposed to weightlifting or power lifting, where each lifter is judged purely on weight lifted.
It also makes the training far more suitable for general health and fitness, because it’s less specialised towards pure strength and power.
Why is the Kettlebell Long Cycle So Useful?
For the general exerciser, you’re usually looking to improve overall health and fitness. Put another way, you’re often not looking to emphasis one particlar aspect of your fitness. You want to build muscle AND build endurance AND burn a lot of calories.
The high volume nature of kettlebell long cycle means that you hit all of those goals in one go.
If we look at the demands of high-volume kettlebell exercise, you’ll see exactly what I mean. In 2020 a study titled ‘Cardiopulmonary Demand of 16-kg Kettlebell Snatches in Simulated Girevoy Sport‘ was published. The researchers concluded…
The kettlebell snatch test produced a VO2peak of 37.6 ± 4.4 ml·kg·min (82.7 ± 6.5% VO2max) and a HRpeak of 174 ± 10 b·min (98.0 ± 3.4% HRmax). These findings suggest that GS kettlebell snatches with 16-kg can provide an adequate aerobic stimulus to improve cardiorespiratory fitness in those with a VO2max of ?51 ml·kg·min, according to aerobic training recommendations from the American College of Sports Medicine.
In English, it means that high-volume kettlebell work is sufficiently hard to improve cardio fitness.
These findings were echoed in research from 2024 titled ‘Physiological characterization of a simulated kettlebell routine in experienced kettlebell athletes‘.
In this case the researchers usedt the long cycle sepcifically to measure fitness outcomes. They compared experienced lifters with beginners, and found that the weight of the kettlebell determined the size of the outcomes (which would seem obvious – heavier kettlebells mean harder work!)
They concluded…
The present study shows that a 10-minute-long, long-cycle kettlebell routine evoked very high levels of physiological responses.
What Body Parts Does the Kettlebell Long Cycle Train?
Pretty much everything!
In the clean you’re training your hamstrings, glutes, lower and upper back. You’re engaging the core and shoulder as you’re stabilising the weight in the rack position. The grip is trained worked throughout as well.
With the jerk, you’re training the legs in the dip and drive, then the chest, triceps and shoulders with the press overhead.
It’s an all-body exercise, but it emphasises the upper body. The lower body engagement is there, but it’s limited.
Limitations of the Exercise
Whilst I love the kettlebell long cycle, it’s not the answer to every fitness question. Here’s the limitations as I see them…
- It’s designed for endurance, not strength. That means if you’re looking to build absolute strength and power, look at difference exercises.
- It’s not a great leg-builder. Whilst there’s some leg involvement, it simply doesn’t have the range of movement or time under tension to build real leg muscle and strength.
- It’s a technical lift. The long cycle isn’t something you should be undertaking until you’ve got the technique nailed, because the injury risk is significant without good execution of the movement.
If you account for these limitations, it’s an excellent addition to a training programme.
Programming the Kettlebell Long Cycle
The kettlebell long cycle will fit into almost any workout programme.
If you’re following a split such as a push/pull/legs then put it in the push workout. If you’re on a body part split, you’ll want to add it to a shoulder day. If you follow an all-body programme, it can go on any day that you choose!
Be aware of the volume of the workout, and factor that in.
Done properly, a kettlebell long cycle is a lot of reps and a lot of effort. It’s not the kind of workout you recover from in 5 minutes – you’ll need a day or two between efforts to give your body a proper chance to rest.
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How to Build Up to a Full Long Cycle
When you first start out, the idea of completing even a 3-minute set feels light-years away. If you’re used to weight training, you’ll have an idea of what fatigue feels like. Kettlebell long cycle is a completely different type of fatigue, in that it’s both a muscular and a cardiovascular fatigue.
Here’s how to build up your kettlebell long cycle…
Pick a Suitable Kettlebell Weight
The obvious limiting factor is the weight of the kettlebell. If you’re new to lifitng, you’ll want to go very light. You’ll find out why shortly into your first attempt!
Start by aiming to complete 1-minute-long sets with a light weight, so you can begin to understand how it feels to go high rep and long duration. You’ll find that your shoulders get very tired, very quickly. Stick with the light weight until you can manage a 3 minute set. By light, I’m talking 8-12kg kettlebells.
When you’re hitting 3-minute sets, move up to the next weight. This way, you’re building up the strength as well as the endurance required. It’s a long process though, so don’t expect to make huge jumps overnight. To quote a friend of mine, the kettlebell long cycle is ‘soul crushingly difficult’, so it’s not to be taken on if you’re looking for an easy workout!
Speed of Reps
Whilst in the beginning you might think it’s about rushing, you’ll really want to slow down. If you aimed for 6 reps per minute, across 10 minutes that’s a 60-rep set.
In the early days of your kettlebell long cycle journey, I’d aim for 8 reps per minute, because that will hammer home the technique. Yes, you’ll fatigue more quickly, but improving the technique means you’ll make yourself more efficient in the long run.
Supplement Your Training
The way to build up your kettlebell long cycle is by doing kettlebell long cycle – there’s no better prep.
However, you’ll still want to supplement your training with other complimentary efforts. In terms of cardio, think short, high-intensity bursts to mimic the cardiovascular demands of the kettlebell long cycle.
Think balancing shoulder training by performing shrugs and incline reverse flies. Otherwise, there’s a lot of pressing movement, and not much rear delt work.
For your core, think of stabilising movements. I like front rack holds, farmer’s walks and side plank clamshells. These all stabilise the core and support the lower back. You don’t need to train in flexion and extension (crunches), you need to be training stiffness.
Use Correct Equipment
When you watch videos of the best kettlebell athletes in the world, you’ll see many of them wearing olympic weightlifting shoes. If you’ve got them, I’d suggest wearing them. If you haven’t, at least pick a pair of hybrid training shoes – I think the Reebok Nano X are the best I’ve used.
The flat soles, stiff uppers and the slightly elevated heel give you the best ground contact, mobility and torso position for the high rep lifting. Individually, these might seem like small differences, but collectively they add up into a big deal over a lot of reps.
A competition kettlebell will make life easier as well – they’re uniform size and shape, regardless of the weight. This will help to dial in technique. It’s also better if you intend to compete in Kettlebell sport, because you’ll be training with the equipment you’ll be competing with.
What to Expect From Kettlebell Long Cycle
The two biggest changes you’ll notice are a huge increase in high-intensity cardiovascular capacity, and a significant shift in the amount of upper body muscle you have.
What’s interesting to me is what kettlebell athletes look like at an elite level.
I’ve spent a lot of time in and around lifting sports – weightlifting, powerlifting, strongman and the like. Whilst they’re very impressive, they’re specialist. It means the aim is to be excellent at one thing, rather than a variety of things. It means you’ll see a lot of overweight competitors in each of these sports.
If you’re training for health and general performance, you need to tick several training boxes, not just a specialist one or two. Kettlebell long cycle is an excellent addition to a general health and fitness training programme, because it trains different elements of fitness.
There’s a lot of debate in the kettlebell world over whether long cycle is a muscle building or endurance event, but to me the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. If you’re competing in Girevoy sport, then you’ve got decisions to make – emphasing load or reps. For all non-competing kettlebell enthusiasts, then we can play around with load and reps.
This means you can perform the lung-burning, high-rep sets with a light to moderate weight, or you can emphasise load and go for the muscle-building approach. I like to mix them both up.
If you’re not aiming to be a specialist, go for variety. Your fitness and physique will benefit a lot from it.
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