Glossary

Exercise index

• ABC - Armor Building Complex, a double kb complex invented by Dan John, consisting of 2 cleans, 1 press and 3 front squats
  • Single Kettlebell ABC - a single kb complex consisting of a clean and a press the first side, a hand-switch swing, clean and press the second side, two front squat the second side
• Clean
• Clean & Jerk (C&J, LC)
• Clean & Press (C&P) -You’ll generally do one clean, one press, one clean, one press, etc., and one of each is counted as one rep.
• Front Squat (FS) - a squat where you have one or two kettlebells in rack position
• Goblet Squat - a squat where you hold a single kettlebell in front of you
• Half Snatch (HS/HSn) - an exercise where you snatch one or two kettlebells, then drop to rack position
• Jerk
• Long Cycle (LC) - clean & jerk
• Lunge
• Press (Strict Press)
• Push Press
• Snatch (Sn)
• Swing
• TGU - Turkish Getup

Kettlebell terminology

• Rack position - having one or two kettlebells in contact with your shoulders. It’s the position kettlebells start in for press, push press, jerk and thruster, and the position they sit in for front squats and lunges.

General lifting terminology

• 1RM, 2RM, etc. - rep max, or repetition max. An xRM is the highest weight you can move for x reps for the given exercise.
• AMRAP - as many reps as possible
• Cardio - training geared towards improving your aerobic capacity. Kettlebells can help here, but traditional cardio like running, biking, swimming, rowing and skiing are better. Top-level kettlebell sport athletes generally do cardio as well to improve their sports performance.
• Conditioning - roughly your ability to keep going. Often it’ll be used for your ability to recover between bouts of activity in the same workout. The term is also used for training that improves your conditioning.
• Dropset - a technique where you go to failure with one rep, then immediately grab another one and use that. A variation is a technical dropset, where you go to failure, and then use an easier variation. For example, you could do presses to failure, then push presses, then jerks, or you could do lunges to failure, and then squats.
• ES - Easy Strength, a collection of programs and books by Dan John focused on doing easy, low-rep, low volume work
• Failure - when you’re unable to perform another rep without resting. There are variations on the concept like technical failure, where you can’t perform more reps without altering your technique.
• Ladders and reverse ladders - doing back to back sets with a variety of numbers of reps. If a program tells you to do ladders of 1,2,3, you do a set of 1, rest, a set of 2, rest, a set of 3, rest. The program will either tell you how many ladders to do, or to do as many as possible in a given period of time.
• Program - like a routine, but with additional information on how to progress and handle fatigue. In a program, each day will build on the previous one, and set up the next.
• Rep/repetition and set - the most basic units of lifting. You grab a kettlebell and do a deadlift; that’s one rep. You do another another 4 reps, and let go of the handle. You’ve now done one set of five reps. If you rest a bit and repeat, you’ve now done *two sets** of five reps.
• Routine - a very basic repeating structure for your workouts
• Work capacity - your ability to tolerate volume and recover between workouts

Other terminology and abbreviations

• 1’ on/1’ off, and similar formats - notation for time spent lifting and resting for GS
• ABF - Armor Building Formula, a book by Dan John focused on alternating days of ABC and presses
• Chain - like a complex, but instead of doing one exercise at a time you run though them a number of times. For example, you could do a swing, a clean, a press, and a front squat, and repeat that sequence 5 times without setting the kettlebells down.
• Complex - a combination of exercises done back to back, without setting the kettlebells down. For example, you could do 5 swings, 5 cleans, 5 presses, 5 front squats.
• DFW - Dry Fighting Weight, a program by Geoff Neupert using the double kettlebell clean & press and front squat
• EMOM - Every Minute, On the Minute. Every minute you do a bit of work, then rest for the remainder.
• GS - girevoy sport, see kettlebell sport
• Kettlebell sport - a sport involving timed sets of kettlebell exercises, without setting the kettlebell(s) down. The main competition lifts are snatch, LC and jerk.
• RPM - reps per minute. Used in kettlebell sport to note the lifting pace.
• S&S - Simple & Sinister, a program by Pavel Tsatsouline that uses Turkish getups and kettlebell swings