This week I have been  following Week 6 of Enter the Kettlebell.   The clean and press ladders are going fine and I’m looking forward to adding another ladder to the practice next week.  I’m improving with my chinups, although not nearly fast enough to suit myself.  I need to get some better bands so that when I have to switch to assisted chinups I actually get some assistance.  (The band arrangement I have right now just is not cutting it.)  Until then, when I run out of steam with chinups, I move to bent rows.

The kettlebell swing and snatch training is going well, although some of the  swing practices are pretty crazy. Five seconds’  rest between sets of 25 swings?  That’s not a rest, it’s death avoidance!    Oh my.  But I’m getting through them.

Monday was “light” with 4 ladders, 3 rungs each of cleans and presses, plus the “pulls” as required in the ETK workbook.    Monday also included snatches.  They went well but I felt pain in my hands way too early in that practice, in my opinion.  This will definitely be something to discuss with Elise when I train with her again.

Tuesday was a variety day, and my practice looked something like a double workout from the Program Minimum part of Enter the Kettlebell.  The first part was kettlebell swings – 50 of them followed by a 1 minute jog.  No rest, just repeat until 12 minutes are up.  After a brief recovery I then did part two, 5 minutes of continuous Turkish Get Ups, alternating sides.  I used one of the baby kettlebells.  This was a killer day.  But I felt great the rest of the day.  Funny how that works. 

Wednesday was “medium day” from ETK.  It looked much like Monday, except there was swing practice in lieu of snatch practice at the end.  After burning it up on Tuesday, this was pretty tough, but I followed the protocol as required.  I also practiced  pushups and planks at the end, two exercises I’d really like to be better at.

Thursday was another variety day, and I used my heaviest kettlebell and did swing intervals at :30 on/:30 off for 12 minutes.  For active rest during the :30 off I did prisoner squats or alternating lunges.  Then I did 7 minutes of Turkish Get Ups, “naked” (no weight.) Doing them this way makes it much easier to focus on form and I’ve decided that I’ll do  them this way for a while.  Form matters so much more than how much weight you can hoist without killing yourself.

Friday was a rest day for me. Yay!! I needed it!

 
Saturday was a “heavy” day.  The clean and press ladders and pulls were the same but the swing practice was the heavy part.  This was the one with 25 swings and 5 seconds of rest.  Thankfully it only lasted 6 minutes.  Some really ugly thoughts came to mind when I was in the latter part of this practice.  But again, I made it through.  I have definitely developed some new respect for those who have completed the ETK program!

Sunday is a rest day. Looking forward to the rest and a little extra sleep.

I’m basically happy with the way my training went this week.  I noticed that I had to work hard on staying focused mentally as well as physically.  I didn’t really get this when people mentioned it before, but it’s clear now. 

No more fasting for me for the time being.  I need a steady supply of energy, and personally I find that my energy is significantly affected by fasting.  As long as I’m doing ETK, there won’t be room for it.

Moving on to week 7 of ETK (round 1) on Monday. 

I’m shifting gears with my training.  I have followed the Beginner Kettlebell program that Elise designed for about the last 2 and 1/2 months.  It’s what she gives all of her new kettlebell students.  I think doing them helped me in many ways, and I feel that the time doing those workouts was well spent.

However, I’ve decided to follow the program designed by Pavel in  Enter the Kettlebell.  It seems to be the most trusted method for developing the kind of pressing ability and conditioning that is necessary for the Russian Kettlebell Challenge.   Given that I’m jumping into this game a little bit later in life than most, I want to follow the program that I feel will give me the greatest chance of success at RKC, in the shortest period of time.

That is not to say I’m in a hurry to get to RKC.  In fact, having started Enter the Kettlebell this week, I see now that it is probably going to take me even longer to get ready than I thought before.  That’s okay.  As long as I’m moving forward at a steady pace and seeing regular gains, I know I’ll make it when the time is right. 

I am cheating a little and I hope it doesn’t come back to haunt me.  I am skipping the Program Minimum section of ETK.  I feel that my workouts from Elise have earned me the right to start at the beginning of the second part of the training, the ”Rite of Passage.”   If I can’t handle it after I’ve tried it for a few weeks, I will reevaluate. 

For anyone unfamiliar with Enter the Kettlebell, the idea is that you begin the program with the kettlebell that you can press 5-8 times.  You follow the program, repeating it as many times as necessary, until you are doing  presses, swings and snatches with the size kettlebell that is appropriate for your tests at RKC.  Or until you can one-arm press half your bodyweight and snatch a 53 pound kettlebell 200 times in 10 minutes (men.)  The similar goal for women is to be able to perform the 10 minute snatch test of 200 reps with a 12kg kettlebell and clean and press the kettlebell closest to  a quarter of their bodyweight once with each arm.  I will be following this program a long time.

 My ETK training actually started several days ago.  I’ll finish Week 5  on Saturday.  (It’s week number 5 because I skipped  those 4 weeks called “Program Minimum” this time and went straight to “Rite of Passage.”)  So far it is going well, and I’m finding I have a bit of DOMS from the pressing, a very good sign in my opinion.

“Rite of Passage” in Enter the Kettlebell calls for 3 structured practice days, 2 variety days in which you pretty much do whatever exercise you want,  and 2  days off.  One of my variety days will be spent doing sprint intervals.  I’m doing this for extra HIIT benefits and for the extra lower body work.  You may know that lower body is the part of me that I love to hate.  My other variety day will probably be spent doing Turkish Get Ups and/or trying out the workouts I’ll be using in my coming-soon fitness classes for women. 

I’m also hoping to continue Eat Stop Eat,  the intermittent fasting that I’ve tried recently.  I completed a second fast this week. It was more difficult this time, quite different from the first.  But I’m starting to see some results.  (I’m after a bit of body fat loss.)  I’ll be closely monitoring my strength as I go along, as I know it is difficult to see fat loss and strength gain at once.  Since strength is primary for me, I’ll stop the fasting if things don’t go well.

Probably I won’t post my ETK workouts.  They are quite repetitive.  I’ll likely only write about whatever is new or what my variety days are like.  Or maybe I’ll find other things to drone on blog about. 

That’s my plan.  Unless I change it. 

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!