Parasympathetic Nervous System Influence

"Rest and digest." The Z stuff is amazing. I'd like to come up with a writeup of how I personally see and understand the small bit of Z I learned at R-Phase, but I want it to be concise and at the same time easily comprehensible for anyybody out there, so it'll probably take a few more days. But I've already started practicing the talk as well as the walk :)

As soon as I arrived home, I started out working with my family. They all got pretty excited (except my husband, ever the classically stoic type, he just kept smiling at the sudden reduction of the funny "sweep" of his right foot he had had ever since he was a kid, a sort of a bit incredulous and confused but anyway appreciative smile... ). My son enjoyed "being made strong", my younger daughter got rid of her loud, "thumping" walk that had been also causing her heel pains for quite a while now, and my elder daughter was so fascinated altogether she announced she wanted me to teach her "all the moves and all this stuff" right away (she's 13) :)

I did a short demo in my morning group during the warmup, too, as a result of which the right shoulder ROM of a client improved instantly from what you would call Nazi-style lockout to full vertical. Later, in the middle of the workout he came up to me and asked: "Would you please do that magic to my other shoulder, too? It's so cool there's no tension, restriction, whatsoever on my right any more..." The beauty of the whole thing is, it is you, my friend, that should perform the "conjuring trick" for it to last, and I can teach you how... :)

Cooooool!

The fifth day of Z-Health R-Phase is over, we did the written, teaching and assessment testing today. I think I did quite well - which is really easy as all you have to do is follow the protocols by the letter and pay attention to details with the drills and everything else takes care of themselves as if by magic. And exactly this is what is on my mind all the time: this is like magic. We spent 5 days going over background and theory and all that, and it all makes perfect sense, and I do feel comfortable with all that in general, but still, it is still way beyond my comprehension when, in particular, I see tilting one's ankle 3 times gently to the side make a chronic shoulder pain go away, on the spot... ?!?

Also, I was lucky enough that I got the chance to have my injured leg checked by Dr. Cobb personally! Wowww :) It was massively frightening to be confronted with the fact that my center of gravity was inches away from where it should have been... Was it a wonder, then, that I had balance issues even just standing on that leg?!? He worked with me on that a bit today, he put me in one (two, actually) of the most weird positions imaginable and all I had to do was a few small pelvic tilts (he called them nerve glides). And!!! Lo and behold, there was I standing on one leg, planted like a tree, and even did my first ever stable pistol on my left leg there and then! (He did hold my hand for all cases but he didn't actually support me). Woohoo!! Freakin' awesome, and at the same time, sort of, mystical :)
And on top of all that, he said the balance issue was probably not from the knee tendinitis but the other way around, and it all goes back to an impingement of a nerve by scar tissue of a many years old abdominal surgery incision... A glimpse of how endlessly much I don't know I don't know.

Another really cool thing was that yesterday during lunch break Kenneth The Dane Of Pain personally taught me the Viking Push Press, the jerk and checked my bent press too. There were, thank God, no really big issues, but, as we all know, it's the small details that make the big difference :)

Am I lucky or what? Life's soooo good! :)

FMS, Z-Health and such

We had another FMS-weekend with our one and only Brett Jones at the end of October, which was, as expected, a blast. Lots of AHA-moments, for me personally also some unpleasant news: he scored me two asymmetrical 1's (HS left, ILL right) and even the TSPU was 1. I was not that much surprized by the former, all the more by the latter (I used to be a solid 3 on that). Brett had a fully comprehensible explanation for it (injury and pain messes up or even blocks your stability patterns to protect you, so to say, from yourself), but still... Okay, I know what to do and I'll fix that, but I wouldn't have thought it'd have such an effect even after half a year or so.

But now I also see why it was (and why it necessarily was) the case and now I don't even understand what I was so surprized about, lol. This Z-Health stuff is amazing, and although we are only at the end of the second day yet and we only got just a small glimpse of the system, it brought about, like the CK-FMS, an instant paradigm shift, from the biomechanical approach to the neurological one and that makes the whole thing frighteningly large-scaled and at the same time so logical and, actually, simple that I get light-headed just to think of it.

More to come and 'get busy being afraid': in addition to broomstick voodoo I can now cast or break a spell (if I so wish, haha) with one touch :)

Kettlebell Woodstock

That's what the first ever HKC event was like, with Pavel and John, all the Masters and all but one Seniors (so sad Sara couldn't make it) present. It was sooo coool to see them all again, as well as many more friends like Andrea Chang, Ricardo, Fawn, Tracy, and to finally meet guys in person like Adam Glass, Dustin Rippetoe or Brad Nelson.
Speaking of the latter... Well... he's such a nice guy, really... You wouldn't ever think he'd come up with something as mean as The Sissy Test... :) (In case you haven't tried yet: it's 25 swings, 1 burpee, 24 swings, 2 burpees, 23 swings, 3 burpees, etc., all the way down to 1 swing and 25 burpees - done for time.) I did that last Tuesday, it took me about 40min and it was waaay more of a horror than 1000 swings in 50min @24kg or 80 sets of 8 @16kg VO2Max or whatever crazy stuff I had ever done before. (I had suspected something like that, or else why would I have kept putting this off for more than a year in the first place? LOL.)
I even had the chance to clear up a couple of form questions regarding the windmill and the bent press with David Whitley (thanks again, Dave!) so I'm a lot more positive about L2 now, too.

But back to the HKC itself. 

In a nutshell: The 3 most basic kettlebell lifts were taught, the goblet squat, the (old, switching-legs) get-up and the basic swing. There was a technique test and a teaching test, too. I missed the workouts though - although the chapter on program design in the manual is a gem, in training matters feeling is more believing than seeing, I'd say :) Oh, and there was an entry test of pullups/flexed arm hang, too (I still wish it was something KB-related, just to make sure people do spend some time practicing the drills before showing up). 
Assisting Andrea Du Cane was, again, a great experience, highly educational and lots of fun at the same time. We had a fantastic bunch of dedicated people on our team who were a pleasure to work with. Results-wise, I don't know for sure but I think the overall failure rate was similar to that of an average RKC. The HKC was nowhere near as physically challenging as even half a day of an RKC weekend, that's true, but, its main focus was on teaching people how to train with kettlebells _safely_ and that was taken very seriously when it came to passing or failing people.

One thing is sure: This is going to be HUGE!! It was amazing to see such a diversity of folks showing up: from as young as 10 years of age (okay, that was Jeff O'connor's son, but still) to well over 60, of all fitness levels and training experience. This way the RKC principles of hardstyle kettlebell lifting are going to reach a much wider public. Many of the candidates stated they wouldn't have dared to even dream of attending an RKC but in the HKC they saw an opportunity to take a smaller bite first - at the end most of them were eager to learn more and do the RKC within a year. They'll be better prepared, not only in the 3 lifts taught but also because they have now seen it's all by far not as easy as they maybe thought to learn (and teach!) correct form and will probably seek out an RKC to help them get ready.

And the other thing is, as kettlebells are now 'in', there are far too many trainers out there already that think they must jump on this wagon too, and they're teaching without a cert and without a freakin' idea of what they're doing trying to copy youtube stuff or whatever and how dangerous that can be for their clients. They'd probably never commit themselves to doing the RKC but much harm could be avoided if they got at least the very basic instruction at an HKC.

As for training this week:
Not much. I'm still tired.
Tuesday I was glad to be alive at all (I arrived Monday night), lol. Some Z drills only.
Wednesday I did a lot of naked and light weight (low and high) windmills, "leash" bent presses, and then
5/5 military presses @12kg
5/5 side presses @12kg
5/5 bent presses @12kg
5 times through.
I actually got a bit sore in the lats, cool.
Thursday I practiced hang cleans and dead cleans @16 and 24kg and then did variations of the FTL press @2*12kg (the double overhead version is really no joke!). Fun stuff.
All I could think of the whole day today was sleep so I only did naked partial get-ups (sit-up to half-kneel, HKC-style - this is a great drill by itself for the T-spine and the hips) and a few 2*32kg deadlifts, that was all.

Heavy swings

I had to finally try, my ego needed that :D

Yesterday:
Every 45sec:
10 (5/5 one hand) swings @24kg
10 (2 two hand/2 L/2 two hand/2 R/2 two hand) swings @32kg
10 (two hand) swings @40kg
10 times through, 300 swings, 22,5min

That was fun. And hard, too. Especially the one hand swings @32kg - in the last round you would have had to look pretty hard for the "overspeed" in the eccentric, lol. But the 40kg is no joke either, 10 reps may not seem a big deal but there's a whole world of a difference when swinging it in timed sets.
They made the 24kg, on the other hand, feel quite light, which is good if I want to start snatching it again (and eventually try jerking it, too) soon.

Ranting and training

Let's get that rant over with first.

Ever happened to you? An opponent's ultimate argument in a discussion is "I know I'm right, I've been doing this for 20 years!"
So many people claim to be an expert just because they did something long enough. Even if it was nothing more than mindless repetition of whatever they picked up somewhere some time. Dunno... Especially when I see what results they got - AND at what price. Quantity doesn't equal and doesn't always imply quality.
Experience vs. expertise.
They may sound a bit similar, but please, PLEASE, don't confuse them.
Practice alone doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent.
Just the fact that you have been doing something (one way or the other) for 20 years doesn't necessarily mean you've gotten any better at WHATever you've been doing - you've probably gotten more efficient THE WAY you've been doing it, that's all.
If you were compensating for an asymmetry, you got more efficient compensating your asymmetry.
If you were squatting your swings, you got more efficient squatting your swings.
If you were designing lousy programs you got more efficient designing lousy programs.
I could go on and extend this to all areas of life - please raise your hand if you've never met a lousy teacher/boss/parent/tradesman/doctor/[insert whatever social role here] with an impressive amount of years of "experience"...


As for training this week:

Monday:
5/5 TGU @16kg
some extra work on the high bridge+corkscrew
two hand swing + goblet squat ladder @16kg
10 sw - 10 sq - 9 sw - 9 sq - ... down to 1 (no rest between rungs)
//not only were those goblet squats killing me, I also noticed I'm drifting a bit to the right, still trying to unconsciously unload the injured leg, I guess//
squat form work: 5 curls at the bottom, 1 front raise overhead+ascend @8kg, 5 times
a few 16kg presses

Tuesday:
GTG BW chins and pistols
Pistols on the left leg are a complete disaster: seems like my left ankle got more locked up than ever :( It'll be a loooooong way to the RKC II... But, you have what you have and that's what you have to work with/on.
ankle tilts, toe pulls, 6 position ankle circles, closed chain knee circles
@12kg:
30sec (15) snatches L - 30sec (15) cleans L, 30sec (22) swings L - repeat R (3min)

Wednesday, Thursday and today:
BJ #1, 2, 3
3 rounds @12kg each day
40 swings, 6/6 presses, 10 goblet squats, 5/5 TGU, 10/10 snatches.
That means 600 swings on the swing day, 90 presses/arm on the press day and 150 squats on the squat day. Left me tired and sore but all in all it's not bad for the start.

Still 12kg, upping volume

Friday:
1min on, 30sec off, @12kg:
4*(snatch - clean - press - snatch - clean - squat - transfer)
44 two-hand-swings
4*(snatch - clean - press - snatch - clean - squat - transfer)
4*11 one-hand swings
5 times through, 30min

Saturday was off, there was a two-day kettlebell bootcamp in Budapest where I also taught a block. It was about how to get a lot of work done in a relatively short time. For me, that means combos and circuits. We did 3 mini-workouts (lighter weights and/or shorter times - more demo-wise). I had them do:
#1
5 snatches L - TGU down and back up L - 5 snatches L - transfer - 5 snatches R - TGU down and back up R - 5 snatches R - transfer - etc.; 7min continuously (you'd normally do 10min or more, if you just do this)
#2
with partner, double bells, I-go-you-go
10 renegade rows
10 see-saw presses
10 cossacks (this was new for many so they used just one light bell)
3 rounds
#3
would have been 5 rounds of the above snatch-press-squat combo, but they were pretty fried already so I did some CK-FMS corrections instead (shoulder blade retraction and open chest when holding one bell by the horns to avoid a "turtle back" while squats/cossacks)
#4
"death in three minutes" - the name comes from a student of mine and the whole thing originates in my lousy memory. I actually wanted to have him do the KBLA Trifecta but I messed up the instructions so it went like this:
30sec swings L - 30sec cleans L - 30sec snatches L - transfer and repeat R
He survived, so we kept it, LOL.

Today I felt pretty hungry right in the morning (which was unusual) and it didn't get better during the day (even more so) so some time around noon I decided to eat a few eggs, so what - but that proved to be a big mistake as I felt so heavy and sluggish the rest of the day I couldn't even see my bells around, let alone do a BJ workout as planned.
Then I checked out Rif's blog and found this:

"Scale it, yes.Modify it, of course. Just don't not show up. Unless blood is involved.
lol.
I think."

Sort of funny, he's like a guardian angel to me, I always find the right thing there at the right time. Thank God he's back to blogging again.
I followed the link to Tracy's blog and found her last workout, 21min of 12kg swings, and did just that. 
But, instead of squats and getups at the end I went down the same ladder and added 10 two hand swings just to have 1200 swings in 40min.

That was fun. It's been a long time I hit 4-digit numbers. I guess the last time was November 2008, those 120 sets of 9 @12kg VO2Max.

Busy, lazy, whatever

Yes, on one hand I was busy, busy, busy figuring out how to make the best of having a place of my own business-wise. Not just marketing and referral system and such, but also, how my training portfolio should look like and what teaching conception it should be based upon. How to integrate the activities of the other two RKCs in the area (my student Will and Zoli, we were teammates when we got certified - they are going to offer classes there, too) so that there's consistency in our work but also room for individuality. Now we have beginners' classes and workshops we all do pretty much the same way - teach the 6 basic exercises. These go for a given time period and once they started no one can join in. Then each of us offer some goal-specific classes, whatever we are more experienced in: for fat loss, GPP, MA and other contact sports conditioning, rehab and restoring movement quality, even classes to compliment (and balance out) bodybuilding (Zoli is a bodybuilding-fitness trainer in the first place). These are open for anyone to join but folks are required to have the basics down. Looks all good on paper, and we had a good start so far, too, but time will tell how it works out in practice...

On the other hand, I used all this as an excuse to procrastinate returning to training - okay, some time off after my knee injury was okay, but then I was on holiday, and then the fear and then this and then that, and maybe it's just me, but the longer I waited the more difficult it seemed to get started again. And then of course I lost a lot of my previous condition and it was frustrating to be confronted with that, too. After the Budapest cert I started practicing the basics again, doing a couple of sets here and there but it was all rather half-hearted and I readily let myself get diverted.

But now it's time to pull myself together. 3 months of passivity was more than enough. Or maybe I needed that, I don't know, but now I definitely feel the urge to get back in shape which was not the case before.

This week I dusted off my 12kg bell and did the Brett Jones 3 day RKC prep program to get a baseline. I did 3 rounds of each day with 20 swings/snatches and 5/5 clean-and-presses, clean-and-squats and TGUs. Took almost an hour and I got pretty tired, but I expected worse...

Then I did a swing workout yesterday:
Start every 45sec:
20 swings @16kg
15 swings @20kg
10 swings @24kg
10 times through, 22,5min, 450 swings

I was very pleased by the fact it didn't feel that hard at all and I could have gone on (I was even thinking of doing 5 more ladders) but then I said to myself I'd better build up slowly and right I was as I got sore like hell by today, LOL.

I'm going to stay with the BJ program with one or two additional swing workouts for two more weeks and after the HKC I'll add VO2Max training back into the mix. I just don't know yet if I should build the 15:15 @16kg back up (I was at 80 sets of 8 in May) or start with 12kg and do the 36:36 protocol first. Let's see what the cadence test says when I'm back home.

The center of the Universe

That's what a kettlebell swing is.

How many times did I hear that? At least 20 times at every RKC event (this was my 4th), from Pavel and all the Masters, Seniors and Team Leaders, plus at least 20 times every week from my own mouth, when I'm preaching this same thing to my students. Nothing new, one could think.

But...
"An inch wide, a mile deep."

We were sitting in a restaurant Saturday evening, waiting for dinner. I'm talking with Geoff Neupert and I raise the subject of so many people failing RKC 2 and why. He seems reluctant first, 'I wasn't there, I don't know'. - 'But still,' I insist, 'an idea, maybe?' - 'Probably because many people forget the basics'. I don't let the subject lie, however, and go on telling him about my knee injury and the mixed feelings I have towards the L2 drills since that, mainly that the basic (L1) exercises had helped me get and stay out of pain but now the L2 drills seem to put me back into pain again: push presses and jerks bother my knee in the front, windmills and bent presses in the back, pullups bother my elbow, etc. (in short: fear).

He helps me clear up some technique details and gives me tips, which is already great. But then he says:

"It's all about the basics. Remember? The center of the Universe is the swing. A pullup is nothing else than a swing. A jerk is a swing. A windmill is a swing..."

Dinner was served at this moment, we didn't continue. But it's food for thought and I'm digesting it for almost a week now. I re-read some parts of RTK, NW and the old RKC book, searching for the jerk as a swing, the windmill as a swing, the pistol as a swing... I've found a lot and there's more to find. My brain keeps replaying that movie of him sitting there in front of me and telling me this. Not just because he made me stop fretting. It was as if I had caught a glimpse of how deep a mile can be.

Status update

I just thought I'd announce I'm not gonna post for another month or so :)

Me and my family are leaving for Austria to visit my in-laws, we'll be back around August 8th. And using wifi in the Austrian Alps can be quite a challenge, I'll be glad if the internet connection works long enough to check my emails once in a while.

Those knee issues I had mentioned in my previous post culminated meanwhile in a full blown hamstring tendinitis due to which I had to request an RKC II transfer to next year. It was a bummer, but what can you do. Even now, it isn't fully recovered yet, it still objects to being fully locked out, but at least my everyday life is not affected anymore (it's only funny in the first five minutes to have to work the clutch pedal "from the hip" while driving...).

But I was/am making the best use possible of this down time. There's a lot bubbling in the witch's kitchen :) Me and my student Will have joined forces so we are going to run Kettlebell Debrecen together, in our own Courage Corner. And because two people make up a system and a system is always more than the sum of its elements, there'll be a lot of exciting changes on all fronts in the second half of August after the Budapest Cert, or in September the latest. But I'm not going to tell a word about the details yet, I don't want to blow the surprise :)

Have a wonderful summer!