I started the week with “light” day of Enter the Kettlebell week 8  on Monday.  This week the pattern for the cleans and presses changes so that you really do have a light day of presses, a medium day and a heavy day.  In ETK terms that equates to 5 ladders of 3 rungs each on the light day, 5 ladders of 4 rungs each on the medium day  and 5 ladders of 5 rungs each on the heavy day.  This pattern remains in place through the end of the Rite of Passage, week 12.

Light day was no problem with the cleans and presses. Chinups were tough.  The conditioning practice on light days includes kettlebell snatches performed at an easy pace: 10 R, 10 L followed by a minute rest.  In this case, the practice lasted 8 minutes.  I’m not sure if grip strength is the problem, or just form in general.  But kettlebell snatches are just painful for my hands.  I’m training with Elise Matthews, RKC-II on Sunday and am psyched about letting her evaluate my form with snatches, among other things.

Tuesday was a variety day and I chose to do a test to see how many swings I could do for a set period of time with as-close-to-perfect form as my body and brain could agree on.  The practice lasted 12 minutes and wasn’t physcially  tough because I was focused on correct form as opposed to a completing a certain number of preselected reps.  When I felt like I was losing form in any way at all, I stopped and rested until I felt ready to go again.  It was an interesting practice, and illuminated the fact that many of my past workouts have gone too far.  The hardworking exercise fanatic in me always wants to push the work load.  I have to focus on taming that beast because form needs to be the priority.

Wednesday was medium day, so the clean and press practice included an extra rung in each of the five ladders. It went fine.  I think I must be getting stronger with the presses.  For the conditioning portion of the practice,  I did kettlebell swings for 8 minutes: 24 swings (which equates to about 45 seconds work for me) followed by 15 seconds active rest.  This part of the workout felt more heavy than medium!

By Thursday I realized that I would be losing a rest day this weekend because I’ll be training with Elise on Sunday.  I am taking rest days very seriously and prefer to err on the side of too many at this point, so eliminating one from the week didn’t feel right.  I considered using Thursday, a planned “variety” day, as a rest day to make up for losing Sunday, but then realized that if I did so, I wouldn’t get much practice with Turkish Get Ups in this week.  That didn’t seem right either, so I did a workout of 15 minutes of slow “naked” (no weight) Turkish Get Ups followed by some (no idea how many) single leg deadlifts.  (Just because I miss deadlifts). I think it was a good compromise.

The need for rest was confirmed when I somehow slept over 9 hours Thursday night.  Because today, Friday, is a planned rest day, I had turned off the alarm clock.  I expected to wake up at my usual time but slept through instead.  I feel really good today, and am excited to tackle my first “heavy” day of cleans and presses tomorrow.   More fun follows on Sunday!  Yay!

The family went to the pool and part of me wanted to go with them.  But there’s all summer for that, and I was ready for my scheduled appointment with Elise Matthews, RKC II.  My goal of becoming prepared for RKC was my priority. So I trained with Elise for an hour and change on Sunday. 

Whenever I leave her studio, I always feel great about what’s ahead and what I’ve learned.  And it was no different this time.  It is always a pleasure to work with her.

As usual, she started by asking me how the last few weeks had gone.  I told her how I’d had fun figuring out the kettlebell snatch, and how I had torn up my hands in the process (although thankfully, they’re better now.)  I told her that the workouts had gone well, that I’d made progress building endurance and strength, but that a brief bout with a cold had erased some of that, at least temporarily.

Then she began to evaluate three main movements for me:  the swing, the clean and the snatch.  We focused on each one individually.  With the swing we discussed my range of motion, and whether or not it was large enough.  I made a mental note to work on enlarging the range, even though she said it would be fine as is.  My kettlebell clean needed another dose of  “arc taming,”  something I never seem to hear enough about.  Apparently the arc was especially wild on the left, which accounts for the bruises on my left forearm only. 

At our last session I was introduced to doing kettlebell snatches.  At that point, mine looked more like one of the pictures of Pavel demonstrating the WRONG way to do them in Enter The Kettlebell.  So I was psyched to show Elise my progress.  I knew my technique would still require much refinement, but I also knew I had come a long way.  I was both surprised and relieved when she didn’t find too much wrong with the snatches.  When I told her that I was having some low back pain when I used a  (for me) medium sized kettlebell to do snatches, she immediately diagnosed and showed me how to  fix the problem.  This is one reason why it is important to work with a certified kettlebell trainer.

We spent a good deal of the time talking business.  She gave me some great ideas to use when coaching other women and shared some of her experiences in the fitness business.   We talked about how kettlebells are basically unheard of in our area, and what the best way to change that would be.  We discussed RKC:  the organization, and the certification weekend.  I think I may have enjoyed our conversation more than the training. 

Then she walked me through a workout she had her kettlebell group perform the day before.  I’ll be doing this workout as part of my weekly line up over the next several weeks.  I only did one round, and I can say with certainty that this will be a good one, for those of us who love to train hard.   Details to follow. 

Once again, I’m ready to charge forward and see how much I can accomplish before our next meeting.  We made plans to have that next session in several weeks. 

Today’s workout:  none.  Too much DOMS.  Love it! 

I really have a love/hate relationship with the workout of the day – the Lower Body Workout from Elise.  The official name I’m giving this one is Brutal.  It’s exhausting and humbling from front squat after front squat after front squat.  Almost in a MMA Conditioning Workout  kind of way.  But, the rewards are significant - legs that feel they’ve been given a good shake up, and a  healthy number on the heart rate monitor in the calorie burn category.  Plus a feeling of accomplishment from knowing that I’ve given due attention to my most “troublesome” area.

Here’s the program:  10  2 Hand Swings, 10 Front Squats, 10 Reverse Lunges (5R, 5L) 10 Single Hand Swings (each hand) and 10 Clean & Squat (5R, 5L.)  Rest and repeat.  Over the last 3 weeks, this has been my progression with the workout:

• 12 kg kettlebell x 6 rounds (2 weeks ago)
• 12 kg kettlebell x 3 rounds. 16 kg kettlebell x 2 rounds (last week)
• 12 kg kettlebell x 4 rounds, 16 kg kettlebell x 2 rounds (today)

I don’t want to do more than 6 rounds of this one EVER if I can help it.  Ugh!  So I guess next week I’ll try to use the 12kg for 3 rounds and the 16 kg for 3 rounds.  I don’t know if that will happen, though.   Any other suggestions?

This is what I did for fun practice, after the above: 

• snatches with the 8kg bell 5R, 5L
• Windmills with the 4kg (tiny I know, but I was tired by then) 5R, 5L

Did that 2 times through.  I wanted to do more snatches but I was pretty much in agony with my hands.  They are lagging behind on the snatch-adaption process.  Sigh.

Over the weekend I also performed  the workout I named Beautiful.  Nothing major to report – it was decent, although the cleans must have gone wrong at some point because by the end I had some tender spots on my left forearm.  I practiced snatching and windmilling and deads at the end, and felt good, with the exception of my hands.  See above.

This week I have the goal of adding in a strictly HIIT day also.  Haven’t decided what it will consist of.  Probably it won’t include a kettlebell.  Just for a change. 

No workout yesterday.  In fact, most of the day was spent horizontal trying to find relief from a headache which wouldn’t pass. This morning it’s mostly gone, so I’m back to the routine. 

Today I did the Upper Body Workout from Elise.  Here’s how I do it:  5-10 Get Up Propers, 5-10 1 Arm Bent Rows, 5-10 Clean & Press, 10 Single Hand Swings.  Then switch sides.  Rest after doing both sides, then repeat.  I made it through 4 times.   Each time through, I did 9 Get Up Propers and 9 Clean & Presses, and 10 of the other two exercises.  That’s about the same as the last time I did the same workout, so I’m satisfied.    I didn’t feel like wearing the heart rate monitor so no fun data, but I know that the practice was about 30 minutes.

I only did one tag-on exercise for fun today.  On each side, I did one snatch with the 8kg into a windmill.  Sort of.  I think I need to practice that one when I’m fresh.  Thanks for the idea, Jeremy. 

My hands are starting to feel better after the major burning from too many kettlebell snatches the other day.  I’ve been using Corn Huskers Lotion frequently, and it’s working its magic.  If you kettlebell and don’t use the Corn Huskers, RUN out and buy some.  That may be more difficult than it seems, though.  Around here it’s onlycarried in unexpected places.  I found mine at the grocery store and the CVS after searching walmart, target, kmart and pretty much every other place I could think of.  There are some online sources that have it, if you are desperate, though.

Sandy Sommer, RKC, suggested the Corn Huskers.  He also pointed me to this article for more help with hand care.  If you haven’t seen it before, it’s by Dave Whitley, Senior RKC.  If you have other hand care tips or practices, let me know.  It obviously is a process  for your hands to adapt to frequent use of the kettlebell.  Especially if you’re like me, and used to wear gloves to lift at the gym.  I’m strangely proud of the callouses I have now!

Figuring that I’d be too sore this morning for my scheduled Turkish Get Up and Swing combination workout, I slept late.  (Hmm. Been doing that a lot this week!) In reality, I wasn’t all that sore when I got going,  and probably should have gotten up at my usual time so I could have made better use of the rest of the day.  Oh well.

The prescribed workout of the day involves up to 3 Turkish Get Ups per side, then 25 swings.  Rest and repeat.  It’s my favorite one in the rotation Elise provided. Today I used the 8kg bell and did 3 TGUs on alternating sides (6 total) followed by 25 swings with the 16kg kettlebell x 4 rounds.  

Snatches:  I couldn’t NOT do these. Experienced kettlebell friends, tell me:  should I keep on practicing every day if I feel like it?  Or will that lead to overtraining?   With the 8kg bell, I did 10 per side x 5 rounds.  By then my hands were really hurting/burning.  (More and different callouses are on the way.)  I upgraded to the 10kg bell just to see how it would go, and managed several more per side before deciding to stop the insanity on my hands.  So I’m basically obsessed with snatching the kettlebell at this point.  Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Yesterday I felt like dirt.  Sometimes you don’t realize how bad you feel until you feel better and think back.  Today I can think back.  At least it’s over.  I slept late this morning because I felt so bad last night.  Maybe that’s what I needed.  My workout today was mid morning, and I had tons of energy.

To start off, I did Elise’s cardio workout.  It’s the one that is mostly swings, with a few cleans thrown in at the end of each round.  Since I got my heart rate monitor, I’ve been keeping track of which of these workouts burns the most calories.  The lower body work out wins, but I believe this one comes in second.  It’s just a piece of information, though.

Last time I did six rounds of this workout. Today I finished 7 rounds without any difficulty.  My grip was wearing out by the end of the cleans, but otherwise I still felt good.

Despite the tired hands, I picked up the 8kg bell and decided to really work at this kettlebell snatch situation.  (Mind you, I learned this move 2 days ago.  8kg is a lot today.)  I also chose to wear my wristbands just because I knew that if I didn’t, this wouldn’t last long.

It was ugly, and then – it got OK.  One time I tried snapping my hips crazy hard and success!  Soft landing with the bell.  Ah hah!  I had another breakthrough when I tried snatching continuously, rather than doing a swing-snatch-swing-snatch thing.  (Don’t know why I was doing that anyway.)  Wow!  So I kept going.  I did a bunch of them.  Over and over.  I lost count.  I rested a little here and there, and I think I finally stopped about 15 minutes later.  Probably not too wise to do that many.  My elbows are feeling strange at this point.  Not injured, but confused.  Hopefully tomorrow I won’t be crying.  And hopefully I’ll remember how to find the groove I somehow managed to stumble into today.

Back to the kettlebells.  :-)   Mainly this practice was all about swings.  Two hand kettlebell swings, one hand, back and forth.  Elise loves to throw in some cleans in pretty much every workout, and they are there in this one too.  Good stuff.  I’ll be honest, I was a bit tired (and maybe had a teensy weensy bit of DOMS in my legs) after that killer MMA workout the day before, but I still managed six rounds of this program.  I got the new Polar watch working and it indicated that I burned 212 calories in 20:49, which included a short warm up and cool down.  Not bad!

 I woke up feeling a bit out of it today, and wasn’t sure how I would do with my kettlebell practice.  Elise  designed a pretty tough  Beginner Lower Body Workout, but I got through it alright.  This is what it looked like:

10 2 Hand Swings

10 Front Squats

10 Reverse Lunges (5R, 5L)

10 Single Hand Swings R

10 Single Hand Swings L

10 Clean & Squats (5R, RL)

She suggests a rest as needed between exercises and then a longer rest after the the circuit.  Then repeat.

I just wanted to match the same effort as the last time I did this  lower body workout, and I managed that.  Every day doesn’t have to be ground breaking. (I’ve been repeating that to myself all day.)

I’m probably taking a rest day tomorrow since today was iffy.  The elbow is bugging me today also, which is another good reason to rest.

I am a kettlebell newbie.  I’ve been training with them since March.  I hope to graduate from newbieness soon. 

I train strictly with kettlebells.  I made the decision to try this several months ago, for many reasons.  Suffice it to say that I’m convinced kettlebells are probably the most effective training tool available.  I’m so convinced that I’m training for the Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certification Workshop to become an RKC Instructor.  The certification requirements are challenging to say the least, and it will take me many months to prepare, but I am determined.

I train 5 days/week, usually at home.  It takes me about 20-30 minutes per day.  I’m following the program that Elise Matthews, RKC II designed.   I can see changes in my strength since beginning my kettlebell training about 6 weeks ago, and I was already in really good shape.  I’m excited to see what happens as I get stronger, and more Kettlebell Fit.  In future posts I’ll elaborate on all aspects of preparing for the RKC and what is happening with my training.  Will you cheer me on?