A Test

I train simply and narrowly. I have done the "biathlon" lifts (jerk and snatch) for 1.5 years and their assistance moves (heavy jerks and heavy swings), almost to the exclusion of everything else. When I felt I hit a mental wall earlier this year, I switched to long cycle.

Even with the best training program, there will be walls and plateaus, both mental and physical. Everything will work, but only to a point. At that point, one must re-assess, ponder, and figure out some new way to stimulate progress. That almost never means switching up the routine completely, but commonly means tweaking a variable, taking a little rest, doing something fun, or a test. A test will re-establish your baseline in whatever you test, and like the stock market, the results over time should show a average increase in progress.

In the past, for me a test was commonly a long set of snatch with lighter weight and multiple hand switch. That test would stimulate me to think about my weak links and the long sets would show me how my mind and body behave under long durations of work and fatigue. My last 2 tests were earlier this year. One was a 12kg snatch set to 1000 without putting it down. It took 51:50 to complete. That was after a 32kg PR snatch set (5 min., 30/28). Next time I will strive for less hand switches, less time, or more reps. Probably not more than one of those at a time. 2 Weeks later, My next test was 16kg snatch set to 500. That took 31 minutes even.

In December there is a cross-world type competition that spans kettlebell camps and philosophies. It is a 20 minute set (10 snatch, 10 long cycle), highest reps wins. You can switch and put it down and rest anytime you want. Obviously I will not put it down until the end of my set. I have only been doing long cycle for the last few months.

Today I tested myself to establish a baseline and to measure off it every so often in the future. In the meantime, I will continue to train long cycle only, both 2-hand and 1-hand.


16kg
10 minutes snatch
202 reps, switching every minute, ~20 rpm.

immediately to 10 minutes long cycle
114 reps, switching every minute, ~11 rpm

316 reps total.

Next time I will use 20kg and use the same time and format. The pace will undoubtedly be a little slower. I could have gone a little faster in both lifts. It may have meant putting it down to rest, which I refuse to do, or compromising technique, which I will also not do. I locked out still every time. I actually denied myself 2 snatch reps during the last 40 because I felt I did not land the lockout vertical enough.

Cate Imes recently said "We can play by their (hard-style) rules and still put up good numbers, but not the other way around." paraphrase, parenthesis added.

I will do the best I can in that test, and it will be interesting that my training will be 1- and 2- handed long cycle, occasional heavy 1- handed jerks, and swings. All one-handed stuff will be only one hand switch. Like Marty Farrell said, the point is to perform the test while training like we train, and not switching up our training just for this meet. Proper training should make the performance strong anyways, especially with easier rules.

It is good to test one's self every now and then. Every workout should not be a test per se, but it can offer good, constructive self-criticism and a different stimulus for the mind every now and then. It is a good practice for when the tests come in life unexpectedly. It shows long-term growth and progress and motivates me to keep training right. Try it. you'll like it.

Jump Rope

Ron, this one is for you, buddy.

Disclaimer: I am NOT a jump rope expert, or even close. I am not an expert at anything other than music. I can hold my own in pistol shooting and I am following in the footsteps of kettlebell masters, but otherwise I am just a guy with a little personal experience. In fact, everything I write and publish anywhere, even stuff someone else has said or taught me, comes from personal experience and is my opinion based on that. You probably want to learn jump rope from a real expert, like Buddy Lee.

Here is my personal experience with jumping rope:

From my experience, it has great benefits for kettlebell lifters. Valery recommends running to massage the innards and build wind. I have only been a runner twice in my life, and only when forced to in the police academy and ROTC. I so loathe it. Jump rope is a great alternative to get the above benefits and more.

The consensus is that it is 3 times as effective as running. That means 10 minutes of skipping rope is like 30 minutes of running. A no-brainer for me.

It builds wind

the rotation action of the wrists are very therapeutic for the forearm and is a great warm-up and active recovery exercise for any kettlebell lifting. Swing, clean, and snatch work the grip when holding onto the bell, and the snatch, press, clean, and jerk put pressure on the back of the forearm. Jump rope is great to work out the whole arms and help recover.

The rhythm is variable, and requires coordination. Again, obviously a benefit for kettlebell lifters.

The shoulders and upper body are under resistance, but do not move much. It is almost "static" like the rack position and the overhead lockout. Great practice in building endurance and energy efficiency without weight on your body.

Technique and programming:

Like anything else, here the goal is performing the set with ease and efficiency. Do not do more work than you have to. That means jump an inch off the ground and go a steady pace. Or you could vary it and do intervals, etc. The possibilities are limitless. Experiment with what muscles are doing what share of the work getting the rope to spin and get you off the floor. Be light on your feet.

Buddy Lee recommends a "500" program for beginners. Like anything else, the learning curve will be steady and you will get it if you stick to it. I was so frustrated when I first started. Work on not skipping and being able to do at least 140 skips in a row. Do sets of 140, 140, 140, and 80. That adds up to 500. Rest as needed in between, but as you get better, cut the rest time down until the whole set is around 3- 4 minutes. Do that at that pace without a skip and you can move on from there.

I like to alternate sets of 100-200 with sets of swings. My rest lasts until the second hand gets to the 12 again. This is after my money kettlebell sets.

More on other beneficial exercises I like on another day.

Happy Jumping!

Mental benefits of "GS" lifting

As you know, there are 2 or 3 main philosophies of kettlebell lifting in this country.



1. The first (not necessarily the best!) and most popular for now: The kettlebell is a tool for physical development, mostly metabolic. The purpose is to lift it as "hard" as you can with maximal tension. The set/rep scheme is usually freestyle and as fast and as dense as possible. You mix bodybuilding moves, feats of strength and a few ballistic moves (swing and snatch done as hard and fast as possible).



#2 comes from decades of collective experience and research from top athletes and scientists. They have done all the leg work for us and have observed that, with a kettlebell, the most sure and best, life-long gains in strength, wind, resiliency, etc., come from lifting heavy things off the ground and over your head many times. The snatch, jerk, and long-cycle clean and jerk rule. Swings and occasional presses can fill it in when necessary. These few lifts are done within a time period, without putting the weight down until you are done. Reps are spaced out evenly in order to focus fully on your lifting technique. Efficiency and relaxation and deep, purposeful breathing with your body's movements help maximize your work capacity. This matrix is a true test of mental endurance and physical fitness.



Pick any one and stick to it and you will get great physical results. But in my opinion, they sharply divert when it comes to the mental aspects of training and its effects on the rest of your life. In the long run, even the physical will divert. One will take you to a plateau and eventually diminish your returns, and the other will keep you like the turtle in the race: slow, steady, methodical, focused. It is easy to see which philosophy requires more mental sharpness and discipline.

The whole concept of paced lifting over a relatively long time is special and unique. One must hone deep concentration to:
1. Perform a perfect rep, 1 at a time, every time.
2. Relax in between reps to save energy
3. Breathe deep, slow, and along with the body's movement.
4. Find mental strategies to reduce stress and deal with fatigue.
5. Use leverage and manage pain.
6. Improve body awareness in space.
7. Discipline one's self to be safe but not to fail, to stick it out to the end.

Building these skills with regular, daily practice helps the body and mind deal with a load. Obviously there is the physical load of weight that your body is holding and moving. Also, weight or not, there is a mental load, or stress. This practice primes your mind to command itself and the body to behave under the load, or "stress" of any other area of life.

At work, I drive a car or pedal a bike. Sometimes I must go very fast then immediately stop and deal with a tense situation, mental or physical. Would I want to let the stress build on the way, or would I want to breathe, relax, and prepare for the possible "fight for my life?" I can go 110 mph on a city street with clenched teeth and white-knuckle, or do the same with steady breathing, relaxed, and calm. It makes a huge difference in the mind and body.

Our lives in the 21st century are filled with stress. Most fitness programs maximize stress and tension. Why should you get fit for an hour and have to spend another hour (which I do not have) doing yoga or qigong (all great things), just to come down off the physical stress? Why, when you can do it while you are lifting weights? Tension and stress come in physical, emotional, and mental forms. They will always be there and there is only so much we can do to minimize them. What matters is what control we have over our minds and bodies under them and how we react during the load.

When I was doing workouts labeled by 3-letter combinations (ETK, RKC, etc.), the mental component was never addressed. Relaxation and restoration was only addressed in other forms, but not while actively working. In a year and a half, there are already many personal events where classical kettlebell lifting philosophy has benefited me in very profound and unexpected ways. I will highlight them in future installments. Happy lifting!

Expert vs Novice Part 3

What do we gain from the relentless practice of a few primal exercises (lifting heavy things off the ground and over our head many times)?Besides the obvious strength, endurance, resiliency, and technique?

I've already mentioned the mental skill from months and months and thousands of reps: the mental "groove" to move efficiently and effortlessly. Also comes the discipline to relax, de-stress, endure pain, and not waste your energy with overstated and un-needed tension. The practice and ability to relax under a load and breathe has several other surprising benefits that I will will expand on later.

We also gain better body awareness from those correctly performed thousands of reps. Our brains and nerves learn about force generation, speed, gravity, momentum, acceleration, leverage, joint angles and ranges, and timing, all from practicing the basics. We also learn how our body moves through space with all those forces and variables affecting us and the weights we are holding.

My favorite move is the jerk. If I do a few hundred perfect jerks, I will gain enough body- and spatial-awareness to easily perform a heavy windmill, side press, get-up, or half tweaked spinning bottoms-up jumping one-legged bent push press. I will not waste my time practicing those unless I am being paid to perform them. And I am still gaining a deeper understanding of the basics, the backbone, of my sport, making me a better athlete.

Sadly, this staple of the kettlebell sport and fitness arsenal, the jerk, has fallen by the wayside in America until recently. I think it does not fit the doctrine of exaggerated tension and bodybuilding-type philosophies of the hard-style movement. Fortunately a few open-minded trainers from this group are discovering its value with a little commitment. They are stumbling onto training ideas that resemble those of AKC/WKC. It has to be practiced to realize the potential gains.

Jerks are to kettlebells as scales are to music. Like I said before, the mental gains of sport kettlebell lifting and training have some very unexpected benefits that carry over to "unrelated" areas of life. I will expand later. Remember, "make it look easy" by practice and imitating the masters, and anyone can be on the road to mastery.

Novice vs. Expert - Part 2

Say you want to use a basketball and a hoop as tools to get in shape. Obviously you would want to learn the game of Basketball, with all its rules and strategies. That would maximize your potential with those tools and make you the best equipped to improve physically using those tools. You would want to select a teacher that would acknowledge and imitate the best basketball players, past and present. Know that no one is going to take an orange ball, hoops, and a gym and create a better game than basketball as we know it.

Classical Kettlebell lifting is a sport. It has rules, strategies, and some amazing athletes to imitate. It is an ultimate strength-endurance test, the ultimate fitness-sport.

There is a popular movement of "experts" in this country who use the kettlebell as a tool to get stronger and more in shape. Their ways of using the tool delivers great gains for a time. Sadly, many of them display their "power" for all to see and practice the "impressive" feats of strength (not bad in itself) and their basics are horrible. It is like a "basketball player" who only does twirling dunks and half-court shots but cannot function in a game of basketball. Even though many of their students are getting good physical and metabolic gains, they make it look hard. How? They are full of needless tension. This is not maximal powerlifting, folks. Wasteful tension has another name: stress. Purposeful relaxation, especially under a load (mental, or physical), takes a lot of discipline and skill. It is an integral strategy of the kettlebell sport and wellness in life. Efficiency and confidence (the opposite of tightness and stress) is how the experts make it look easy.

A kettlebell is a mass of weight that can be used for any lifting habit. I encourage you to explore what is was designed for: lifting it off the ground and over your head many times with a purposeful efficiency and make it look easy. You have to feel it to believe it.