Is 300 swings/day effective on its own?

[nipun]

I’m 6’2”, 265 ish, 45 years old and got WAY out of shape between COVID and caregiving for a dying parent. I used to do kettlebells and judo 3-4x /week before the world stopped, have some residual muscle.

I’ve challenged myself to do 300 swings/day of a 28 k bell in order to get back in shape, combined with reducing calories, etc.

Is this enough to see strong results? Or do I need more?

 

[juancarlos]

@nipun When you are WAY out of shape, you don't start with mad numbers anyway. 300 will give you results. How long, who knows. Start and get going. Observe!

As a point of reference, Tim Ferriss figured the minimum effective dose for swings is 75 total reps three times a week.

 

[faithless2]

@juancarlos I do 100 5 days a week and it's working great for weight loss!

 

[ioannes]

@faithless2 Weightloss has nothing to do with exercise. It's how and how much you eat.

 

[faithless2]

@ioannes Ok. Burning calories has nothing to do with weight loss. I'll make sure to write that in my book.

 

[ioannes]

@faithless2 If you don't monitor your calorie intake exercising can't help with weight loss.

 

[faithless2]

@ioannes No kidding

 

[jekyll]

@ioannes When I do DFW and bike, I usually burn about 800 calories extra in that time. If someone looks at the research the difference between a normal BMI individual and an individual with an obese BMI the calorie difference per day is between 350-700.

If you look at people who do dietary restriction + no exercise vs exercise + dietary restriction there is a significant increase in weightloss for the exercise group.

 

[ioannes]

@jekyll People interpreted wrong what I said. Of course you lose weight if you exercise because your calorie deficit is bigger and also training weights tap in your calories for at least 24h after exercising.

The biggest misconception is for people that train but still eat far too many calories and blame it on the exercise part.

Losing weight is mainly done in the diet and a bit in the training room. You can't out train a bad diet.

When I say bad diet I don't mean an extra tbsp of peanut butter or 50g of chocolate. I mean an extra 1000cal surplus.

 

[jekyll]

@ioannes

Weightloss has nothing to do with exercise.

I don't know how else to interpret this. It's silly to me that it's my fault for taking what you're saying at face value rather than your fault to properly articulate what you actually mean.

The whole you can't outrun a bad diet is lost on me, TBH. I used to be an endurance athlete and would eat ice cream to prevent me from losing anymore weight.

Some of my friends have done Iron Mans, where during their training they were eating 7,000+ calories per day.

 

[ioannes]

@jekyll Being an endurance athlete and doing iron man is not what the common people are doing.

I'm an active membre on the r/cico and I can tell you that many people overestimate what they are burning in calories during exercise and underestimate what they are eating.

Even if you are doing weight training 5 times a week, it doesn't allow you to binge on bad food.

 

[jekyll]

@ioannes

You can't out train a bad diet.

I just gave you examples of how this is wrong and now you're saying it has to be common folk.

If you want to keep moving the goal posts, that's fine. Understand that what you're saying now is completely different than your first two comments.

For the common people thing, the American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes of vigorous activity on top of resistance exercise 3 times per week at a MINIMUM and encourage more activity as tolerated.

 

[bhulksmash]

@jekyll See what you're missing here Vlad is that it's Schrodinger's diet: if you out train your diet then it ceases to be a bad diet.

 

[ioannes]

@jekyll You are giving extreme examples on a post that says "45 yo and out of shape". You are the one that is misunderstanding what I'm trying to say.

Tell me how that relates to the OP? He won't be an iron man freak any time soon.

So telling him he can out train a bad diet is a bad idea.

 

[jekyll]

@ioannes My man, I'm talking about hitting the AHA guidelines causing someone to go from an obese BMI to a normal BMI. I understand what you're saying but the lucidity of what you're saying simply does not track with me.

 

[doingwhatjesusdid]

@ioannes

So telling him he can out train a bad diet is a bad idea.

No that's not the take away here unless you are making a lot of assumptions about who your audience is. There's a lot of variability in what constitutes "bad diet", and also a lot of variability in how much effort people are willing to put into getting in shape. Whether or not you can out train a bad diet depends how bad the diet is and what the training looks like.

Generally, I agree that for a good deal of the population seeking to lose weight, the intake side is probably the side where you can make more immediate progress. But that's hardly the same thing as saying that the calories out part of the equation is fixed.

You can balance really high caloric intake with a lot of exercise, but you typically need to be very committed to long training sessions (like an endurance athlete) to get much over 1000kCal daily on average. It takes a certain level of fitness to be able to sustain that level or higher week in and week out as a lifestyle, but it's not something you can sustain right out of the gate if you aren't in decent shape already. It's certainly possible to go way, way higher, but at that point it's a lifestyle.

That being said I think the take away here is your ability to burn calories scales with your fitness level, so by not dismissing the getting in shape aspect entirely, you are generally better off. Like even the common man.

 

[jraycaen]

@nipun I did! I’m down 120lb as of this morning, highest was around 340lb. I love swing challenges like this to jumpstart a healthy lifestyle change. Eventually you’ll plateau and want to follow or make a specific program. One that tracks progressive overload, it’s the only way to really make progress after a certain point. But it’s a great idea, my first 30 lbs was just swings not even diet.

I’d suggest setting a timer. Every minute do 10 swings on the minute for 10 minutes. That’s 100. Doing this 3 times a day will hit your goal without totally burning you out. Another idea is to leave your kettlebell by a white board. Periodically throughout the day, bang out some swings, then mark down your number. Shoot for 300 before bedtime.

In the beginning, doing ANYTHING will help. The main purpose of hitting that 300 mark is to build up a routine, one that you’ll expand on later. Go for it, you’ll kick ass!

 

[godsendwoman06]

@nipun I think this could be a decent starting point to get back into things. 28 kg is not a light weight and so you are moving a fair bit of volume each day. Overall you should see results in cardiovascular endurance and strength in your legs. Obviously you are lacking any sort of pressing but this can be programmed in later and once you get back into things.

 

[nipun]

@godsendwoman06 Thank you! How long would you suggest doing this for?

 

[harris316]

@nipun do it until it's easy, then do another couple weeks or so, then add more volume. also look up 10,000cswing challenge, could be up your alley