If you are looking for the best combo workout at home that will give you a lot of strength, and take minimum time, here’s one for you.
Kettlebell swings and Hindu pushups.
Kettlebell swings and Hindu pushups are the best at-home exercise combination that will target the majority of the muscle groups, without spending tons of time in the gym.
You can do it at home, at your own pace. It’s simple, minimalistic, and effective.
Kettlebell swings and Hindu pushups
After doing just 2 exercises per day I had my biggest breakthrough.
Less is more
- Instead of spending hours in the gym, and doing 3-4 sets of each exercise, here you just do 2 exercises back to back.
It’s simple. The program looks like this.
Kettlebell swings and Hindu push-ups workout plan
| Exercise | Repetitions | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Kettlebell Swings | 20 reps | – |
| Hindu Pushups | 10 reps | 4-minute rest |
That’s it.
- 20 reps of kettlebell swings followed by 10 Hindu pushups.
- You can of course adjust your own repetitions to your fitness level. It can be 10/10 or 5/5.
What’s the catch?
- The catch is that you can do 5, 8, or even 15 rounds if you feel like it. But there is more.
- If you are training at home, you can end up stretching the rest time even for 10-15 minutes (why not?)
- If you work from home, set up the timer, and every 15-minute you do one round. Or every 30 minutes.
Does it work?
Hell yeah!
Plus, you can do stuff at the same time. Work, cook, clean, or whatever else is on your schedule. That’s the beauty of this workout.
Minimize exercise to 1 or 2, and do them over and over
The secret is with the selection of the exercises.
Doing just 2 exercises is perfectly fine as long as they will cover the main muscle groups.
Are kettlebell swings and Hindu pushups effective?
I always believed that for a good workout, I need to hit as many muscle groups as possible. For example.
- Squats
- Bench press
- Deadlift
- Shoulder press
- Lunges
This is a great routine that I did for years. Because it worked.
But still, I had to spend a long time at the gym. For each exercise, I was doing 3-4 sets. And if I did less than that, it felt like it was not worth it.
Plus, I always liked to go heavy. And after each workout, I felt like my body was beaten up. It felt good at the end of the workout, but my whole day was slow.
I was feeling tired. Low energy. And always hungry. So then my workout went down to this.
- Deadlift
- Bench press
That was much better. But I still had this guilt that if I only do two exercises, I need to go heavy.
Big mistake.
You should feel better after a workout, not worse
One day my buddy Sergiu showed me a different approach. This was a totally new concept to me.
Doing less is more
He was doing pull-ups every day with one extra exercise. That’s all.
You do medium rep range. But you complete up to 10-15 sets. To keep it simple.
He was getting great results. Plus, pullups were on my radar for a long time. But I never did them in a high volume. Especially not on a daily basis.
I was hooked
My first minimalistic workout was pull-ups, pushups, and box jumps.
That’s all I was doing for 4 months.
Workout 1
| Exercise | Repetitions | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Pullup | 5 reps | – |
| Pushup | 10 reps | – |
| Box Jump | 5 reps | 5-minute |
- Here is the exact version of my first minimalistic workout. It was simple. But extremely effective.
- The numbers have ramped up over time. I started with 3 pull-ups per set. Eventually, I was doing 7 reps per set with a 10kg weight vest.
- I was also doing box jumps with a 10kg weight vest.
- In the beginning, I wasn’t jumping. I was doing single-leg step-ups. But soon after I felt stronger, I add low reps of box jump.
Here was the progression.
| Box Jump (no vest) |
| Single leg step-up (10kg vest on) |
| Box Jumps (10kg vest on) |
It wasn’t perfect. But it didn’t have to be perfect.
- I like it because I was doing different muscle work, and I felt like it energizes my body rather than exhausting it.
- One mistake I did with pull-ups was that I was using the wide bar pull-up. So soon I developed elbow discomfort.
To fix that I’ve changed the grip from a wide pullup to neutral.
- It was closer to the chest, arms were parallel to each other and this took the pressure off my elbows.
- After I changed the angle I was getting much better.
Workout 2
- The next step was to take what I’ve learned and applied to my home workout.
- This time I wanted to focus on something with extra weight (I used a weighted vest to build more muscle), without buying a full set of different dumbbells.
And I finally got it.
Kettlebell workout
This is a perfect weapon for doing any compound exercise at home. Soon after that, I was planning my workout. This time I couldn’t do pullups, but I could spend more time doing a hip extension.
Here is the exact workout I used for 4 months
| Exercise | Repetitions | Rest |
|---|---|---|
| Kettlebell Swing | 20 reps | – |
| Pushup | 10 reps | 5-minute |
Kettlebell swings and pushups.
- From time to time I would add some full-body workouts. Like goblet squat, single arm row, overhead press, and biceps curl.
- But the majority was the former two. This way I can get my cardio in, and my strength, and I still have time for a bunch of stuff.
Benefits of kettlebell swings and Hindu pushups
Cardio
- This workout will build on your cardio like no tomorrow. If you do a single set of pushups cold turkey then you may get a little bit out of breath.
- But try to do the same set of 10 pushups after a 300m row or 20 powerful kettlebell swings. This is a totally different level.
Then, of course, you rest. Even up to 5 minutes. I’ve noticed that the more I rest, the more rounds I can do. And when I get to around 8-10 rounds I already feel energized.
If you wonder how kettlebell swings can influence your running, check out this article I wrote.
Strength
- If you are new to swings, then your strength will go through the roof.
- Not only it will get easier to do more reps, but you will get stronger at everything else you do.
As I’ve mentioned, I like to do once a weekly check-up workout, with a few full-body compound exercises. And I treat that as my “assessment”.
So long story short, after doing swings and pushups only, I was able to do more overhead presses, squats, and biceps curls.
Simplicity
Simplicity and time.
- This is what I love about doing swings and pushups.
- In fact, I’m doing some as I write this article. And after you get used to it, it just becomes a part of your day.
This type of workout is a perfect solution for everyone who is looking for a quick and effective way to stay on top of their fitness game and doesn’t fancy long 2-3 hours of gym sessions.
- I always preferred to do a full-body workout on the same day.
- Instead of doing legs on Monday, and chest on Tuesday, I would simply just do 6-8 full body compound exercises each day.
And even if I skipped the Monday, I still would do a similar thing on Tuesday. So I wasn’t leaving anybody part behind.
So there was something polarizing about this workout.
- That was something new.
- I always thought that doing more is better. And by doing less you won’t get the best results.
(I was dead wrong).
This helped me to get great results without killing myself. Plus, you can do it at any time of the day. You can even do it on the empty stomach.
So if you are following an IF protocol, you should check out my article about doing fasted kettlebell swings, where I explain more in-depth how fasting and swing come along.
Time Efficient
- You cannot spend 20 minutes twice a week doing burpees and expect to have decent results. You have to put in some time.
- I used to do T25 every day and I thought I was getting in good shape. I wasn’t.
I was saving time.
And I felt beaten up.
But I didn’t have jaw-dropping results. Because I was tired all the time I was non-stop hungry. So it bounced back on me. I end up eating more and exercising more. Not good.
Here I “save time” because I can do multiple things at the same time. That’s if you train at home.
Conclusion
- You can do kettlebell swings and Hindu pushups as your primary workout. This helps not only to build muscle endurance but also saves you time.
- One of the best ways to combine them together is to do one exercise after another, back to back.