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.