Today’s morning WOD involved a 20kg Kettlebell and my re-entry into the ETK ROP, or “Enter the Kettlebell, Right of Passage” protocol.
Overhead pressing is one of those areas where I am decidedly weaker in and one that I want to develop. These kettlebell workouts are not necessarily part of the AdventureFitTraining.com workouts, nor are they directly related to any goal in support of adventure racing, but I do like them and whose to say that my racing performances won’t benefit from it?
Here’s the first Friday WOD:
3 Ladders:
1 rep right, 1 rep left
2 reps right, 2 reps left
3 reps right, 3 reps left
The notation I usually see for these kinds of rep schemes looks something like this:
3 x (1, 2, 3)
So if you see this in the future (I’ll try to remember to back link it) remember the above bulleted explanation.
Proved to myself that I could slog it out for 30 miles. While it wasn’t exactly running the entire time, it was however forward progress in a consistent direction.
Training mileage has been at a record low. Honestly, maybe 10 to 12 miles a week, tops. Most of my training has been centered around concepts borrowed from CrossFitEndurance (CFE). I would call it CFE except for the fact that even with that I am not as consistent as I should be. I cherry pick what I feel are suitable endurance-friendly strength and metabolic conditioning workouts from CrossFit and RKC kettlebell training.
Strength is important to me, partly as a hobby and that I like setting PR’s, but also because I recognize the value strength plays in endurance events, particularly events like adventure racing. You never know when you need to portage a boat full of gear across what you thought was just one sand dune, which later turned into 20 sand dunes.
So this weekend my wife Darcy said, “You need to get ready for the American River 50, you at least need to do a marathon! ”
So I did. She and the kids went to church, and I put on my Merrels.
Couple lessons learned:
Feet swell around mile 23. I will need a pair of shoes larger than my current size.
Run-walk pattern will happen, either I embrace it, or succumb to the inevitable
I can subsist on peanuts oranges and jerky for “event food”
I love running
Seriously, I can see why people would get hooked on this. Already I am looking forward to the next time I can ‘Go Long’.
After a grueling weekend of learning, re-learning, applying, and re-applying techniques to put all of the RKC candidates onto the road of proficient, safe, and highly effective kettlebell training I almost didn’t want to look at a kettlebell. Ever. Again.
Pavel is a commanding dude. Sticks to what he knows and gets it to hit home with just about anyone he trains. I have to say, thinking back to the weekend after a week and a half, I’m ready to pick up the kettlebell again. This is also happens to have coincided with my hands healing up. Yep. Ripped four callouses in the first 5 minutes of the weekend.
Format:
The format of the weekend started with a test. One that I had mistakenly considered to be one of the hardest things I would have to do for the entire weekend (or ever). Not true, there was much more than just a test and watching technique demos. We were expected to learn. Throughout the entire course of the weekend the candidates were being evaluated. Start on one side of the kettlebell curve of proficiency (in my case, poor) to the other side (moderately better).
Here’s the snatch technique I only slightly improved on just before the RKC snatch test:
Friday:
Snatch test: 5 minutes of 100 kettlebell snatches (for me it was a 24kg bell)
Swings and Get-ups
Saturday:
Cleans and Presses
Snatches
Sunday:
Technique Review and Testing
Grad Workout
There was SO MUCH information that this outline is just a gloss-over. Nothing was as simple as I thought it was going to be. My swing took a lot of refinement and over the course of the weekend I imagine it looks better than when it started.
The biggest take-away for me was the coupling of performance excellence and safety. There’s no reason why safety should be thrown out when you’re pushing yourself hard to achieve your goals. Safety and performance do not have to be mutually exclusive.
The other big component for me was learning to detect and correct basic movement patterns in people through simple, effective techniques. Learning to squat correctly is hard for a lot of people, if you can cue them successfully, you can prep them to be safe and enable them to push past performance barriers. It’s a good feeling.
Team Whitley
The best thing about the whole experience was the people part. There were approximately 6 teams of 10 to 12 people led by RKC Team leaders. My team was lead by David Whitley of irontamer.com. Dry, cutting humor, to the point. There is no glossy with this dude. Either you have it… or you don’t, and here’s what you need to get there. If you have an opportunity to train with this guy, TAKE IT!
RKC was a great weekend and if you are contemplating training anyone in kettlebells, stop here first: Dragon Door Kettlebells
Thanks to Jordan Vezina RKC II for the help on getting me to the door – I would have preferred to spend more time on my technique (my hands wouldn’t have been as destroyed from the snatch test!!)
