Helen
A classic triplet combining running, kettlebell swings, and pull-ups. Tests your engine across three domains.
- Format
- For Time
- Time cap
- 12 mins
- Level
- intermediate
For Time
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Open in FizHelen is a for time workout by Fiz, built from 3 movements, with a 12 mins cap. It is set at intermediate level.
About Helen
Helen is three rounds of a four-hundred-metre run, twenty-one kettlebell swings and twelve pull-ups. It is one of the most useful benchmarks in the catalogue because it tests three genuinely different capacities in sequence — running engine, posterior-chain power, and upper-body pulling — and it is short enough that you can re-test it every few months without wrecking a training week.
The run sets up everything
The run is the part people get wrong. Four hundred metres is short enough to sprint and long enough that sprinting it will cost you the swings. Run the first one at a pace you could hold for a mile, not a lap. You want to arrive at the kettlebell breathing hard but able to pick it up immediately, because the transitions are where this workout is won and lost.
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Where the swings and pull-ups break
Swings are the honest middle. Twenty-one is right at the edge of what most athletes can do unbroken while fatigued — if you can hold them together for all three rounds you will be several places up the board. The pull-ups then arrive with a grip already compromised by the kettlebell, which is the whole design. Plan to break twelve into two sets from round two onward and you will almost always beat the version of yourself that tried to go unbroken and failed at rep nine.
What's a good Helen time
Under ten minutes is a strong Helen. Elite athletes go under eight. Ten to twelve is a good competitive time and twelve to fifteen is where most consistent athletes finish. Because the three domains are so distinct, it is also a useful diagnostic: if your splits fall apart on the runs, you have a conditioning problem, not a strength one.