Some presses

MP, 5 sets of 5/5 @12kg yesterday morning, lots of singles @16kg during the day.

The strength difference between my left and right side has grown quite a bit. Probably because I usually do all demonstrations during classes on my right, which is actually nothing else than GTG. I guess I should wear my watch on my right wrist for a while :)

Chilly morning

My guys are tough - it's getting pretty cold now that November is closing in (having to scrape frost off my windshield makes it unpleasantly obvious), they still prefer training outside. Which I completely understand, I love this spot, too:





But if I'm teaching several hours in a row I have to keep moving, too, so yesterday I decided to do the ballistics with them. I chose I-go-you-go-style as it regulates rest time naturally, serves demonstration purposes and still enables me to watch them move and make corrections if necessary - and it's fun for them, too.
Unfortunately I forgot my sock sleeves so my hands were beaten up by noon, so that was it for the day (this was all not planned so I don't remember the exact number of sets but it was something like):

10-12 sets of 20 (one and/or two hand, normal or flip) swings @12, 16, 20kg
8-10 sets of 10/10 snatches @16kg,
5 sets of 5/5 snatches @20kg,
5-6 sets of 5/5 cleans @24kg
4-5 sets of 20 Figure 8s To a Hold @16kg
? sets of 12kg juggling

LOL

Whatever was going on over there, it was not pretty... :D

EDIT:

Okay guys, it's a quiz :)
Leave a comment with your guess on what the heck was happening.

Taikei says a dog ate Brett's lunch and he's about to spank him - sounds plausible to me as my face is frozen as if it was my dog... :D

No 50 sets today

50 sets of 9 for me, 8 for him - this was the plan for today. But my VO2Max training partner got 34 snatches on his test in the last minute, so (and due to some time constraints, and because he is also one that's itching for challenges) we agreed he'd try and go for 9 reps, too, and we'd drop back to 30 sets. I was a bit sore from the weekend so I didn't mind. Snatching at the same cadence is gonna be more fun :)

I declared my shoulder healed

Finally! No signs of impingement or any other discomfort.
Which means it is time to add presses back in. The plan is to start out @12kg and build up some volume (er, slowly!!) to get the groove greased again. Well, knowing me you can imagine the most difficult part is not to forget "just because I can doesn’t mean I should.", lol. Re-channeling extra energy is the way. Knowing how to fool yourself is priceless :)

"I'm such a good, good boy... I just need a new toy..." :)

Military press, 6 ladders of 3 @12kg
10 flip swings @24kg between ladders

Oh, and if Motley, here's my favorite for tomorrow's VO2Max :)

Get-ups and clubs

TGU 1/1 @16kg, 1/1 @20kg, 1/1 @24kg
25 CB double swipes (cca. 1min)
15/15 CB mills (cca. 1min)
5 rounds, rest as necessary.

Finally confident enough to do 24kg get-ups in the house :)
After my first (and right away 3-digit-) rendezvous with the Beast yesterday I didn't actually feel the urge to swing any kettlebell of any size today, lol. The clubs just seemed right to get some blood flowing nice and easy.

New snatch test rules

That means I have 5min to snatch the 16kg as many times as my BW in kg.
That freakin' thick handled thing that keeps beating up my hands.
(Which is probably due to the fact that I only snatch it if I have to. I usually prefer doing high volume with a lighter weight or low volume with a heavy weight.)

So I better get used to it.
And I better start off by making it feel light.
It even looks light :)



10 two hand swings @48kg
10/10 snatches @16kg
10 rounds.

Time to jump back on that blog wagon

Thank you, guys, for all the comments and emails, it really warms my heart and I'm more grateful for your care and concern than I can say!

Now, this is what's going on: 

I'm working a lot. Out of bed at 5 a.m., back home around 8 p.m. I invest a lot of time and energy into my "victims", and it pays off. I love to see them getting stronger and healthier day by day. See a guy who was on the verge of puking after a couple of sets with a 12kg two months ago swing the Bulldog now. See a wrecked shoulder confidently support 24kg snatches. See the amazed look at the ground suddenly so near when the crossed tubing makes a knee stiffened by an old injury bend into a deep squat. See overweight people drop belt holes, bodybuilders open up, postures improve, flat feet regain arch, back pains diminish. My fighters bring medals home. The young lady I posted about swung a 20kg yesterday, for sets of 10. And the like. But it also means I'm dog tired by the time I get home and I often just can't wait to fall into bed, thinking to myself "I'll post tomorrow", just that those tomorrows are no different, lol. 

Also, the CK-FMS stuff turned my first interest in biomechanics into something close to obsession (my family and No.1 test persons say: "you're a maniac but this is what makes you special", lol). I couldn't put the reasons for this any better than Roger Bartlett:

"But why do we do it? Well, the usual reasons are:
• To help people perform their chosen sporting activity better. We should note here that this does not just apply to the elite athlete but to any sportsperson who wants to improve his or her performance.
• To help reduce the risk of injury.
[...] And, from a personal viewpoint:
• Because it is so fascinating. Yes, it is fascinating, otherwise so many of my generation would not still be doing it. It is also intellectually challenging and personally gratifying – if you can contribute to reducing an athlete’s injury risk or to improving his or her performance, it gives you a warm glow."

And the more I learn about all this, the more I can also catch a glimpse of how the RKC system is perfectly in line with these principles, taking them to yet another level... fascinating, indeed.

I'm also translating the FMS manual into Hungarian for the Budapest course in February. A helluva job, and pretty time consuming, too, as it also means creating terminology, sort of. Nonetheless a very rewarding one, too.

Speaking of translation... The RKC weekend! (My, that was almost 3 weeks ago, and I still owe a writeup...)

It was a very intense weekend, indeed. I had the double job of assisting and translating, but that was no burden at all, on the contrary, it was the best thing that could happen to me, as it delivered a tremendous opportunity to benefit as much from being present as possible: First, there was no way I could skip a word of what Andrea and Brett were presenting. (I even had to translate Peter 'back' into Hungarian, now that was sort of funny!) Well, if you ever tried translating you probably now you sooner or later switch to a kind of automatic mode where information just "flows through you" and you don't remember much after you're done. This time this was not an option as right after translating a section I had to go and put all that was said into practice by assisting the candidates. Circumstances can be your best friend if you just let them :)
It was a different approach this time, with more focus on teaching how to teach, so to say, and now that I had more kettlebell teaching experience myself than back in May I kept linking info and tips to my own clients and real training situations and real problem solving... I think it's not that much of an overstatement to say I learned even more this time than in May. Not that we missed out on all this stuff when I got certified, please don't misunderstand, but it all was more hypothetic back then and so more difficult to internalize and integrate into my present system of knowledge, not like the exercise form details and stuff related to our own training that I, of course, had a better foundation to build on for. I'd rather say many "loose puzzle pieces" I had been carrying around from May slipped to their places in combination of the new info or seen from the new points of view delivered this time.
And of course there was a lot of fun to have, too, starting right on Thursday with having the chance to spend a big part of the day with Andrea and Brett just hanging out in Budapest, visiting the King's Palace, having lunch together and doing some shopping downtown - I had a backpack full of questions half of which I didn't ask because it was a lot more interesting to just listen to whatever they had to say :) Then I met people I was looking forward to meet and exchange thoughts with like Tamás "Crossfit-Budapest" Radnai I only knew from the blogosphere, and also made friends with great people I didn't even knew they exist a day before... Oh, and there was a lot of shakin' and bakin', too, during the course of which I was suddenly hovering intimidatingly near the ceiling and Brett was raised to knighthood and in spite of which I now own a neatly bent red nail I keep showing around earning considerable respect with as a person that knows people that can do things like this to objects like this... :) 

Andrea

Brett (and said red nail)

Peter

Tamás