尋夢園

Boy does it help to have a professional do things:

My classes are starting to pick up a bit and balancing personal workouts with teaching is becoming more of an issue. EDT and working out fairly hard twice a day are out. It's just too much on my body (edit: actually EDT may be a part of everything I do now. Have to think about this). I now do the workout with my kettlebell classes most times. For example, today I led from the front and we did a killer 20:00 circuit workout:

I did a ten minute set of kettlebell snatches last week and tore my left hand. I did another 10 minute set today and tore my right hand. So that's it for me for a while.

When I do sets and reps with the KB my hands are okay. But most every time i do a 10 minue set, I tear them. I know that these long sets are the standard for comparison in the KB community but I'm starting to think they have limitations as a training method. LOL. I'm going back to sets and reps.

One of the first misconceptions we have to do away with when starting kettlebell training is this idea of training the hamstrings, triceps, etc. I think of this as the Muscle and Fitness or Shape magazine idea of training -- they train muscles or body parts instead of movements. Functional fitness is about moving, things that you should be able to do everyday. Think of the guy that has to be able to move boxes all day. He isn't moving in a way that he can only do for brief periods of time 3 days a week. He's using the whole body everyday. That's more of what we're moving towards.

The kettlebell movements are done a bit more sparingly at first to allow the client to break into the moves more easily. But I try to have them work up to at least being able to swing and squat, push and pull in some fashion everyday. This is where function is built. You have to be able to do it daily or it isn't useful.

There's a great new interview with Steve Cotter up and I learn a little more every time I listen to him speak. This time around he talked a bit about the mental aspects of training and how those lessons learned in the gym can be applied to your everyday life. Mental toughness and building fortitude aren't things that we can access so easily, at least for most of us. The gym can be a dojo where we go to practice and hone that toughness.

Been very busy lately. And sick. Uck. But we are now selling the kettlebells comercially in Taiwan. Take a look:

Everyone has their version of the 300 workout but I guess it's more of a concept and an inspiration than anything else. The workouts revolve around hard training as inspired by the movie. So here's a "Spartan workout" that I did yesterday for kettlebells:

I've been thinking a lot about this lately: working out with kettlebells is different from other workouts -- they take courage.

They're here! I'm offering them to you guys that read the blog first. Below are CASH ONLY prices. Come pick them up at my studio. Get them while you can!

I'm running into several misconceptions about the kettlebell and the related training. So here's a brief response.

"Kettlebells are just a fad."

There's still no central location that lists the kettlebell workout methods for some reason. You have to search around and read through the jargon to figure out how to use it. That's not so good. So I'm taking it upon myself to introduce the methods in a series of posts. Hopefully beginners will find this useful.

At first I was dead set against using gloves in class. "You should improve your technique" and all that was my usual answer. But I've slowly changed my mind on this. Couple of reasons.

This was my workout this morning. It's a kettlebell circuit from Kettlebell Athletics that was posted at IronGarm:

50L/50R snatches

First of all, if you weren't a man (or woman) before you trained with Steve Cotter, you surely will be afterwards. The International Kettlebell and Fitness Federation certification that I just went through in Malaysia was the hardest thing I've ever done -- both mentally and physically. I'm trying to think of something comparable and all I can come up with was going through US Army basic training. Even though that was two months of 4-hours-a-night sleep and 4-5 mile runs every day, it was also spaced out over two months. And I was 25 years old at the time. This cert felt like two months of basic training crammed into two days. That's how tough it was.

Talking about ecalating density training and what not might seem confusing. So what the heck am I trying to do lately?

Here's an IKFF clip showing the Chinese influence on the system. In CIMA terms, what's happening here is called han xiong ba bei -- rounding the back and sinking the chest. Notice that this isn't a permanent position that is to be held -- a bizarre belief still held in many areas of the CIMA world -- but a position to be moved into and out of as the technique requires.

This and the second part are the best interview I've seen yet with Steve Cotter. Highlights include Steve talking for the first five minutes or so about how his whole system comes from his background in Chinese internal martial arts. He explains how the IKFF teaches to balance the various aspects of fitness so that we are balanced in development and don't have the excesses seen in some areas of the fitness community.

Love Scott Sonnon's presentation here on the one arm clean and jerk. I did a long cycle with the 16kg KB this morning and loved it. The clean and jerk is more technical than many other lifts so give yourself time to get it right. I know I am.

I have a series of new kettlebell videos that I made to introduce complete beginners to the bell and how to use it. If you have any experience with the KB at all, you'd likely find the clips tedious to watch. Again, they're for beginners because that's what we have in Taiwan. Almost no one here knows how to use the KB so I'll have to spend lots of time introducing how to use it over the next few years and this is one way of doing it. Chinese translated versions will be coming soon.

The clips show basic techniques and finish off with a basic circuit that people can use to work out for 10-20 minutes.