Review: Dry Fighting Weight
Eh.
This is another lifting program review - I ran DFW immediately after I completed the 10k swing challenge, which I wrote about here. In that post I also go into more detail on my intentions writing these.
The Program
Dry Fighting Weight (DFW) is a program by Geoff Neupert, published on kettlebell huckster popularizer Pavel Tsatsouline’s website StrongFirst.
DFW consists of two (or three depending on how you count) movements: the double kettlebell clean & press and the double kettlebell front squat, done with bells selected based on your clean & press five-rep max. These are to be done in alternating sets for three thirty-minute sessions per week, for as many sets as possible within the allotted time. The number of reps per set is given for each day, and increases over the four weeks of the program. In general, the first workout each week involves moderately difficult sets, the second uses “ladders” (starting with one-rep sets, then two, ramping up to a hard set and then resetting back to one rep), and the third workout uses easy sets.
DFW showed up on my radar when it was recommended as the default routine for the “kettleballs” [sic] subreddit. r/kettleballs is intended to be a more intensely moderated forum that r/kettlebell with less emphasis on casual trainees. In particular, r/kettlebell has drawn criticism for recommending an idiosyncratic minimalist routine called ‘Simple & Sinister’ to beginners. As a response, r/kettleballs recommends a DFW remix with extra pullups and swings on off-days to encourage more volume and exercise variety. This proved to be a bit controversial (insofar as this sort of thing can be) with Geoff disavowing the remix in a forum post.
My Background Going into It
When I ran DFW in March 2022, I was 26 years old and had been training seriously with weights for about three years and going to the gym for almost eight. My e1rms at the time were roughly 450 lb. deadlift, 350 lb. squat, and 245 lb. bench press. I weighed 207 pounds and had been maintaining that weight after a cut from around 220 lbs. I was and am male.
Immediately before running DFW I had finished up Dan John’s 10,000 kettlebell swing challenge. With Omicron variant still around, I wasn’t ready for more than one session per week at the crowded campus gym I was going to at the time, so I opted to follow another kettlebell routine in my garage. And after a month and a half of hour-long sessions four times per week, I wanted a routine that could be completed faster with fewer KB swings. Hence DFW.
Running The Program
I chose not to follow the DFW Remix due to a lack of time, but reading discussions about it was helpful for thinking about how to modify the program. In addition to the extra days, the Remix page also includes good advice for adapting to different equipment (e.g. mismatched bells, single bells, or bells that aren’t 5 rep max weight).
With two 53 lb. bells and two 70 lb. bells, I had to choose between 10-rep max or 2-rep max press weights, respectively. I opted to use the 53’s for clean & press and the 70’s for front squats. I doubled the number of reps prescribed in the original program - so on week 3 day 3 I did sets of four rather than two. I did my best to increase total reps each session and used a workout timer to find the max rest interval that would allow me to do so.
I also started going back to the gym once per week. For my one weekly barbell session, I used a staggered version of Alex Bromley’s Max-Reps-Speed program from Base Strength for squat, bench, and deadlift.
Results
I completed 30 reps each of clean & press and front squat on my first workout and 42 on my last. At the end of the program, I tested my strict press max with 2x53 lb. bells and got fourteen reps. I only did one four-week cycle of this program and did not have a strong desire to continue after.1
My training maxes for the barbell work all went up slightly, though I don’t think I can read much into it.
Concluding Thoughts
General:
Altering the rep scheme to account for using 10rm bells was fine but not strictly necessary - I suspect that leaving the rep scheme untouched would allow more total reps and might be better. Doing easier sets might also make the “do as much as possible in thirty minutes” format more appealing.
I’m glad I used heavier bells for the squats, but even 140 lbs. total wasn’t that strong of a stimulus for leg strength or hypertrophy (as far as I could tell). My 3-6 sets of barbells squats one day per week felt more impactful than anything done on the DFW days. If anything, the benefit of the front squats is to keep the heart rate up while the shoulders are recovering between sets of clean & press (and for a bit of extra upper back work from holding the bells in the front rack position). With that said, if you don’t care about numbers and just want to be generally “fit”, the squatting in this program is probably enough.
The good:
For a minimal movement selection, the work in DFW is well-balanced across the whole body, hitting the back, legs, arms, and shoulders with a push, hinge/pull, and squat.
I did get better at the KB press in a short time, going from roughly 10 reps with the double 53s to 14 reps.
Three thirty-minute sessions per week does allow lots of flexibility for adding in other types of training. My weekly SBD day was easy to slot in and didn’t seem to interfere with the kettlebell work. I imagine that this would be a great program for adding some minimal strength training atop more focused endurance training.
The bad:
It is, in my opinion, too little variety. Highly focused minimalist routines make sense for powerlifters or kettlebell sport competitors, but this program is marketed as a general fitness program, so why specialize? The extra skill at two non-competitive movements doesn’t seem like a good tradeoff for the boredom and overuse injury risk. In retrospect, the strongest rationale for adding remix days may not be the extra volume (which may or may not be necessary) but the addition of new movements.
Like the 10,000 swing challenge, I didn’t find DFW to be fun. In addition to the limited exercise selection noted above, I disliked the “do as much as you can in half an hour” approach. I’m finding that I prefer my strength training to be like strength training (with normal 2-3 minute rest breaks and the ability to do something else between sets) and for my cardio to be like cardio (with the ability to enter a meditative flow state). HIIT, circuit training, “giant sets” etc. just don’t do it for me. Tellingly, my one SBD day per week (with conventional sets & reps) was the workout I looked forward to most. YMMV, but for me there are too many viable ways to get stronger to want to stick with one that isn’t at least somewhat fun.
I wanted to like this program, but in practice I found it tedious and repetitive. When I finished week four, I was very ready to put DFW behind me and not go back.
A lot of this is personal preference - the max-sets-in-30-minutes really wasn’t doing it for me, but other reviewers love it. It could also be that the changes I made to the rep scheme and the use of 10rm bells made the program more grueling and unpleasant than intended. And it could be that just trying to get workouts over with in a cold garage was the wrong setting to enjoy it. Doing DFW on a sunny day in the grass would be a lot more fun.
I have a more substantive bone to pick with the movement selection. On the one hand, I see why similar programs with minimalist movement selection sell so well. There’s some selection bias where people who want to train solely with kettlebells want to see the simplicity of their equipment reflected in their programming. And experienced lifters often forget how intimidating it can be to learn a new movement. If telling a beginner that they can get fit with only clean & press and front squats gets them up off the couch, that is fantastic. And in the edge case of first responders or “operators” (toward whom StrongFirst markets itself) I can see how hyper-focused training could supplement a physically demanding job.
But for average people with desk jobs (like myself), it doesn’t make much sense. Unlike the big four barbell lifts (which I think are also over-prioritized) there’s nothing analogous to powerlifting to train for2 and way less prestige from being able to rattle off gym PRs for specific lifts. Specializing in a small number of lifts has two obvious drawbacks: boredom and injury risk from repetitive stress. None of the advantages I can think of really outweigh those. I'd rather be decent at clean & press, dips, pullups, swings, rows, front squats, lunges, and snatches than be elite at clean & press and front squats and bad at the rest.
So if you’re looking to run DFW, consider upping the movement variety, either by picking a new movement pair each cycle, adding extra days à la the remix, or (my preference) reworking the program to use a different movement pair each day. I’m not saying you have to swing to the opposite end of the spectrum, but I suspect that expanding from 2.5 to 5 or 6 movements per week would yield some benefits.
Per that last suggestion, here’s my own spin on a beginner-friendly 3x/week kettlebell program in the same vein as DFW but oriented toward my preferences:
Day 1: Dips or pushups supersetted with 1-hand or 2-hand swings
Day 2: Clean & press or clean & push-press or clean & jerk supersetted with Front-squats or goblet-squats or lunges - possibly done as Dan John’s Armor Building Complex.
Day 3: Snatches or bent-press or Turkish-get-ups supersetted with pullups or rows
On week one, do one AMRAP3 set of each exercise. For each subsequent week, do (2/3/4, cycling weekly) sets of (last week’s AMRAP / 2) reps followed by an AMRAP set. Every few 3-week cycles, swap out a few exercises for similar movements.
Feel free to cycle through days 1-3 at a faster rate than once per week.
I probably won’t run this unless I get stuck somewhere without my barbell and plates, but if that happens this is what I’d do instead of DFW.
I finally acquired a barbell & plates shortly after finishing DFW, further dampening my interest in more kettlebell programs.
I know kettlebell sport exists, but IMO it’s too niche to be relevant to 99% of people interested in DFW.
As Many Reps as Possible. For things like bent press or Turkish get-ups that don’t lend themselves to AMRAP sets, just try to increase weight or reps each week.