“Should I incorporate Swings on my ‘OFF’ days”?
“Rebuilt After 40”:
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Learn and Master Your DOUBLE Kettlebell Technique:
Should you add kettlebell Swings on your off days?
For most guys over 40, my answer is:
Probably not.
A Rebuilt After 40 customer recently asked me if he should add Swings on his off days.
And the first thing I told him was this:
“It’s not how much work you can do. It’s how much work you can recover from.”
That’s the part a lot of guys miss.
There’s a natural tendency to think:
More work = faster results.
But for guys in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, that’s usually not how it works.
If anything, piling more work on top of an already solid program can eventually push you into an over-reached state where you don’t even feel like training anymore.
If you absolutely feel like you need to train every day, one option is to take a 3-day-per-week program and spread the same amount of work over 6 days.
So instead of:
3 x 30-minute sessions
you could do:
6 x 15-minute sessions
The problem?
Those shorter sessions can feel too easy.
So you start adding:
“Just 5 more minutes.”
Then 10.
Then 15.
And before long, you’re doing more total work than the original program called for.
So instead of automatically adding more Swings on your off days, I recommend something else: Recover HARDER.
Here’s what I focus on:
1. Get to bed on time
I like “lights out” by around 10:00–10:30 PM.
Cool room.
Dark room.
No electronics if possible.
2. Walk every day
On off days, go for longer walks.
Walking is useful for stress reduction, getting outside, and increasing NEAT — Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.
That’s calorie expenditure that comes from activity outside your programmed workouts.
3. Work on your weak links
Find the areas that are chronically:
Stiff.
Sore.
Tight.
Inflexible.
And spend your off days working on those instead of automatically adding more training volume.
That’s what I do on most of my off days.
4. Get more out of your actual training days
Focus on technique.
Make every rep feel the same.
Use the right tension techniques on your slower lifts.
And on ballistic lifts?
EXPLODE.
Every rep.
The big takeaway is this:
More is not always wrong.
But sometimes “more” should mean putting more energy into:
Recovery.
Walking.
Restoration.
Technique.
Sleep.
Instead of just adding more workouts.
Stay Strong,
Geoff Neupert.
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