Friday, September 11, 2009

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.

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