Pavel Tsatsouline, Chairman of StrongFirst, published a new “Total Tension” Kettlebell Complex that is built upon four double-kettlebell exercises: Clean + Press + Squat + Renegade Row. His original material is available at http://www.strongfirst.com/total-tension-kettlebell-complex/. Here is what I did on Thursday. My work was a bit more “complex” than Pavel planned because I needed to shift from light weight for presses to heavier weight for squats and renegade rows. Changing bells meant that I needed to add an extra clean to my routine in every round.

Warmup:

Air squats – 20 reps
Windmill stretch – 20 reps

Workout:

1 clean + 1 press + 1 clean + 1 squat + 1 renegade row per arm
1 clean + 2 presses + 1 clean + 1 squat + 1 renegade row per arm
1 clean + 3 presses + 1 clean + 1 squat + 1 renegade row per arm
1 clean + 4 presses + 1 clean + 1 squat + 1 renegade row per arm
1 clean + 5 presses + 1 clean + 1 squat + 1 renegade row per arm
1 clean + 6 presses + 1 clean + 1 squat + 1 renegade row per arm
1 clean + 5 presses + 1 clean + 1 squat + 1 renegade row per arm
1 clean + 4 presses + 1 clean + 1 squat + 1 renegade row per arm
1 clean + 3 presses + 1 clean + 1 squat + 1 renegade row per arm
1 clean + 2 presses + 1 clean + 1 squat + 1 renegade row per arm
1 clean + 1 press + 1 clean + 1 squat + 1 renegade row per arm

Clean: 12 kg kettlebells – 11 reps, 572 pounds
Press: 12 kg kettlebells – 36 reps, 1872 pounds
Clean: 16 kg kettlebells – 11 reps, 770 pounds
Squat: 16 kg kettlebells – 11 reps, 770 pounds
Renegade row: 16 kg kettlebell – 11 x 2 = 22 reps, 770 pounds

Two-handed swings
16 kg kettlebell – 5 x 20 = 100 reps, 3500 pounds

Chin-ups – 5 x 1 = 5 reps

Weight: 8254 pounds

This session took 34 minutes from warmup to my last chinup. I drank a lot of water and toweled off repeatedly as I was working in my driveway in full sun.

Pavel recommended using the 32 kg kettlebell for renegade rows, but I decided to start with the 16 to reduce my chance of injury. I am glad I did. Doing just 22 renegade rows (one with each hand in 11 sets) with the 16 felt hard at the time and I noticed it that night and the next morning in bed. The strain was like a punch in the gut. My abdomen feels like I did 100 situps after not doing any for months. This is good! I will definitely stay with the 16s for several weeks before experimenting with moving up to the 20s.

I got through 5 presses easily enough, but faltered completing 6. I got it, but did not have a 7th in the tank. That is the nice feature of a pyramid design workout – pushing to limits and then backing off.

My next Total Tension workout that I plan to do Saturday will pyramid squats while keeping the presses at 1 per set. I am worried that I can do so many squats that pyramiding will kill me on the renegade rows. I may limit how far I go with squats.