Ask Coach Stevo!

"Hey Coach Stevo! My goal is to lose 1lb/wk for the next 10 weeks and I already strength train 3x per week. Should I bike for hour or do kettlebell swings? How many hours of kettlebell swings are equal to an hour bike ride?" -Teresa M.

Ok, so your goal is to lose 1lb/wk. I'm going to interpret this non-literally and here's why.

I don't think you want to weigh 1lb less per week on a scale because I don't think you are flying on the space shuttle or entering a wrestling tournament in 10wks. I think you want to be, bear with me, "1lb hotter per week."

A very important factor in hotness, health, fitness, etc. is fat loss, it's true. And any form of movement will burn calories and that is vital to fat loss. But there are other, more important and quickly attainable benefits that you can derive from an hour of training than fat loss alone. Most important of all, especially to hotness and long term injury prevention, is posture.

Stretching your hip flexors will do more to improve your booty than anything else!If you spend all day sitting at a desk in front of a computer, your body gets used to two things: hip flexion (legs up) and medial shoulder rotation (hunching). This chronically shortens your hip flexors and pectoral minors among other things and creates a posture that is both unhealthy and decidedly un-hot. An ideal use of an hour of your time after doing that for 8 hours would be repeated hip extension (squeezing your ass cheeks together) and lateral shoulder rotation (squeezing your shoulder blades together). That is exactly what the kettlebell swing is: the anti-sitting.

So let's say that the caloric burn of spinning and swings are equal (they aren't, btw), after sitting and hunching for 8 hours, why would you want to pay money to go somewhere and... sit and hunch for another hour?

Tracy Reifkind is the Queen of the Swing and at 47 years old, lost over 100 lbs in a year with good nutrition (absolutely vital), walking, and swinging only 20min per week. But more importantly she is still fucking built. She gained well over 100lbs of hotness. Yes, you should absolutely be strength training 3x a week. That is vital. But use the other 2 hours per week of training efficiently and ask yourself: "What is my goal? What is my behavior? Does my behavior match my goal?" If your goal is health, injury prevention, cardiovascular health, or hotness: swing. If it's to be lighter on a scale or to win the tour-de-france: bike. 

My suggested workout: do 300 swings in an hour, 2x per week and try to make the time it takes you shorter every week. Simple, and it comes with Coach Stevo's "Ticket to Hotness" guarantee!