Andrea Jacks crushed 5 ladders of 5 reps in the Clean and Press with a 16 kg kettlebell in 16 minutes and 30 seconds! She accomplished this without putting the bell down! To top it off she did an extra ladder saying, “This one is for you, Clance.” That is 90 reps each arm, 180 reps total, non-stop, with a 16 kg kettlebell. That is a challenging feat for most men and an extremely impressive performance by a female. Check it out here: http://www.laylor.com/2009/12/19/611/

Andrea is on course for an exceptional result in her 10-minute snatch test on January 23, 2010. Stay tuned!

Naturally, I have taken a progressive approach with Andrea’s training. After she completed Clean & Press 5 (1,2,3,4,5) ladder workouts with a 16 kg kettlebelI a couple weeks ago, I moved to Density Training before moving up to a 20 kg kettlebell. This approach protects against injury and helps the body to become adequately accustomed to that load. The side effect most women like is that density work increases fat loss. If you want to learn more about Density Training, read this blog – http://www.laylor.com/2010/01/11/breaking-plateaus/.

I believe this is an example of an effective strength and conditioning program. Like the term says, you need to get strong and improve your conditioning. To build real strength you cannot be jumping around the gym doing exercise after exercise. Pick just a couple of key lifts and make them the core of your program. After you knock those off and you still have some energy left, do some conditioning work to build stamina and burn off fat.

To learn more about Andrea and her training, check out this post:
http://www.laylor.com/2009/12/15/she-is-a-machine/