Formosa Fitness

I got 200 swings with the 24kg kettlebell today and it wasn't easy but it was there. I did a 1-10-1 ladder and pooped out at 4 on the down side, if you can believe that. I stopped to breath for a few seconds before cranking it back up. My lower back was aching like crazy.

The results?

My snatch has gotten a whole lot stronger and the hardstyle idea of building the swing before the snatch obviously makes sense. You can't hope to snatch weight you aren't comfortable swinging.

Additionally I've found that swinging the 12kg bell for 80-100 reps makes a great warmup if I'm short of time. I never thought of using swings as a warmup before the challenge but I can say now that they work.

So what's up for December? Not sure yet, but kicking around the idea of a burpee challenge. I did 50 today so....

As I've said many times, I test things on myself in order to teach better classes. I'm the guinea pig and the scientist all in one. I tweak programs and throw out exercises based on my own experience in order to teach clients better and I hope it shows.

One thing that has bothered me over the past month is whether or not to include the kettlebell snatch in my program. It's a tough lift and possibly too much for some fitness clients. For one thing, it's tough on your hands. You run the possibility of tearing the skin on your palm if your technique is off and you do too many at the beginning -- two things that are very hard to avoid when practice is exactly what you need.

So how to solve the problem?

I've looked at most everything on the snatch available and most of it is waaaay too extreme. Doing 200 snatches with the 24kg etc. is great and all but beginners need a mile long on-ramp before they are ready for anything like that. But descriptions of that on-ramp are few and far between. So I've been looking at building my own. 

What I came up with was intervals -- specifically a :15 work, :15 rest interval and switching hands every :30. This means :15 of work and :45 of rest for each hand -- plenty of time to let the hand recover. Plenty of time to know whether or not the hand is getting over-stressed.

None of the typical stuff was working for me. Long sets, even with multiple hand switches, was ripping the crap out of my hands. That's just a no-go. It was really hard to teach with ripped up hands. Not gonna happen. Besides, the protocol itself was going to rule out beginners. One minute of snatching is too much.

I've been working with this protocol for a few weeks and I love it. It got me from the 16 to the 20 and now the 24kg in a much shorter order than anything else I was trying. Yesterday I did the 24kg for 5:00 and the 20kg for 5:00 back to back. That was 50 snatches with the 24kg and 50 with the 20kg in 10:00. No hands tears whatsoever and that's unheard of for me on this volume at this weight.

So try it out and see what you think.

Snatches with the 32kg kettlebell. Excellent. Shows what consistent training with good coaches can do.

LOL. This one really snuck up on me. So I was going to do my upper body emphasis today with the kettlebell but I wasn't sure what lifts to do today. I did snatches yesterday and the day before....yada, yada. You get the picture. So on a whim I went and picked up the 32kg kettlebell.

Last time I tried to press it was July and that was a no-go. Lifting it is on my agenda but haven't gotten around to it yet.

And LOL up it went. No problem. After I calmed down, I tried it again to see if I was seeing things but no, I pressed it again. So you know what I did then, right?

Had to see how many times I could press it. Answer: five. What about the left? Five. So want to guess what I did then?

Yep, got to see how many sets I could do. Answer: 3 sets of 5 left and 5 right. Well, almost. Set 3 stopped at 4 on the right and 3 on the left.

So I'm happy yet embarassed a little about this. For one, I should try this stuff out a little more often. I need to have more confidence in my training sometimes. This stuff really does work. Been too focused on trees instead of the forest lately.

Second, I'm not sure how I did this. I had hoped to train in a systematized fashion through sets and reps of the 20, 24, 28 and then the 32. I was going to have this great program that clients could follow, just like I did. Except now that's ruined because I didn't plan for this. Haha.

I've been reading a lot of stuff by Charles Staley and Dan John lately so that's likely the source of how I did this. The escalating density training (EDT) is no joke. You got to get some of that, if you haven't already. I did a cycle with the double 24kg of double presses and double rows for about a month. But the numbers were fairly stable the whole time. Then later I did another EDT cycle of pullups and dips that was really fun. Actually, I'm still doing that one. But it must be working in spades. I know my pullups are at an all-time high.

I'm also doing some other things that might be contributing too, but in any case, it's all working. Who can tell? I've added Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey over the last month and have been trying to follow Precision Nutrition lately. It's all good.

Anyway, I'm feeling really, really good today and hope to drag some of the things I'm learning along the way into classes. I love seeing clients get stronger while staying healthy and I always make myself the guinea pig.

So train hard and stay safe this weekend!

Because...well...why not? Love how he describes the advantages of the kettlebell curl.

http://strengthandphysique.blogspot.com/ This is his blog. I have one of his books and it's great. Check him out.

There's a swing challenge going on for November. The challenge is 200 swings of your choice a day for the entire month of November. I'm late to the party on this but I started yesterday. I did 8x25 with the 24kg and a ladder 1-10-1 today with the 12kg. You can do any combo of one hand or two hand and using any weight or workout method you want. Using a lite kettlebell to do 200 swings as a warmup is permitted. 

Granted it's a lot of hamstring and lower back work but with some deloading this could be quite a learning experience.

And if you don't know what the kettlebell swing is, come by my studio and I'll show you!

The new IKFF forum is up and running and that was perfect timing. I've been looking for a place to talk about kettlebell training for a long time. Let's hope there're some good mods in place so the info quality will be high. Sign up and join us for what will hopefully be some great discussion. And while you're there, check out the new website. Very nice.

These are two concepts that are important for beginning kettlebell students to understand. Increasing the size of the gas tank is pretty easy to grasp. Think of a Crossfit workout that leaves you lying on the floor. If you can recover from that (and that may be a big if), then your capacity to tolerate hard training will hopefully increase. Your gas tank will allow harder and harder training as you work with the raw muscle aspect of training. (However, leaving you lying on the floor isn't the best way to achieve this attribute. A gradual increase in volume and intensity is the way to go.)

But increasing your fuel efficiency is sometimes difficult to grasp at first. This isn't necessarily intuitive, especially to people that have external motivations for training. Increasing your fuel effieciency means improving technique, increasing joint mobility, etc. These things allow you to lift more weight, go for a longer time, etc. but they work on a more subtle level than just increasing the size of the gas tank.

It just makes sense, right? The better your technique, the more reps you can lift. And yet, the pathway is different than just muscling the kettlebell. Just trying to kill yourself with the kettlebell will work for a while, right up until you get injured or at least reach a plateau. Then the benefits of muscling it will decrease and you'll be forced to improve technique anyway. 

It's the delicate balance between quantity and quality -- without quality, the quantity doesn't matter.

This is where treating kettlebell training as a type of martial art comes into play. Think of improving your lifts the way you would improve your armbar or side kick and you'll see the benefits quicker. 

I mentioned this in my review of Scott Sonnon's Kettlebell Foundation DVD but didn't describe it much. Basically, when you use the kettlebell or most anything else for high volume work, you're packing stress into the body. You then MUST find a way to get that stress out. It's  like wringing a towel and then leaving it in that condition rather than letting it unwind. Or think of a rubber band that's wound up and then not released.

Kettlebell training isn't alone in this regard. I often got this feeling from training baguazhang simply because in that art, you're constantly coiled. You coil one way towards the center of the circle while walking one palm change and you want to wring the tissues in that direction -- maximum coiling. You then unwind with the next palm change but use the momentum to wind in the opposite direction. What's happens is that you're constantly wound up and the more you practice without a compensatory component, the worse you might possible feel -- especially in the back and knees. Those areas don't take winding too kindly.

Kettlebell training works in a similar fashion with it's high volume training. The forearms and back are in constant use while training the kettlebell. If you don't then release that underlying tension, you're asking for overuse injuries.

I've had similar results from over-training the tiger form in hung gar (hongquan). It used a type of constant tension that taichi didn't release. Only closed chain kinetic releases would have worked but I knew nothing of that then.

When I was doing the escalating density training hard and heavy in July, I was packing stress into my body and not really releasing it. Just the name "escalating density" hints at that. The result was that my elbows were feeling pulled apart. Tendonitis was starting to set in. But releasing that tension with compensatory motions as in Sonnon's DVD is getting it out.

These motions are the key to long term practice of these various arts IMO. They are the best antidote to overuse injuries that I know. And as a teacher, I now make at least a few of them a part of every class I teach.

Avoid them at your peril if you're working hard on this stuff.

Here's an IKFF clip showing the Chinese influence on the system. In CIMA terms, what's happening here is called han xiong ba bei -- rounding the back and sinking the chest. Notice that this isn't a permanent position that is to be held -- a bizarre belief still held in many areas of the CIMA world -- but a position to be moved into and out of as the technique requires.

For one, this shows why I talk more about kettlebells these days than CIMA. I'm training a lot of the same body mechanics with kettlebells and doing so adds a fantastic way to develop martial power. It should be oh so blantantly obvious to anyone willing to at least take a look that the shenfa is there. If people can't see it, then I don't know what to say. And training this material in a kettlebell format is much simpler for average folks, and allows them to lose weight and get strong at the same time. It's just a win-win situation.

Second, this isn't just called "han xiong" but is also an example of "suck in, spit out" and contraction/expansion. It's also working the spine bow from the Yang family theory of the five bows. Even more specifically, it works the upper spine bow, which Dr. Yang Jwing-ming believes to be a sixth bow. The thoracic area can generate it's own power without much movement of the lumbar spine. Dr. Yang is one of the few I've heard talk about this sixth bow, but here it is in execution.

Finally, I want to caution people in using this principle. This type of movement is all over the taiji I teach. "Dragon back," "spinal whip," and all the other names I've given you for it in this post are all accurate and show how important it is for CIMA. But you must be very careful in developing it. If your thoracic spine is tight, you can overdo the movement very quickly. If you go up in weight or volume too fast, you add too much shearing force on the spine. I've seen this specifically in long staff work that uses the spine and I feel it when I do the kettlebells with this type movement too much. You want to build volume slowly on this. The compensatory movements shown in Scott Sonnon's Kettlebell Foundation DVD set would also be crucial for removing the residual tension that long sets done in this style create.

Train hard, but smart.

This is a news segment introducing REAL kettlebell lifting to the general public -- competition style. Interesting that the weight loss/fitness aspects of that style are being used to promote it here. The clip is good but full of cringe-worthy moments, "Oh, so it combines strength training AND cardio, "Oh look at the pink bell!," etc. So please remember this is pitched at the gen pop. The reporter is interesting because it's obvious she's never picked up anything other than a pink dumbbell in her entire life. I wish they'd pick someone with at least SOME workout experience to do these segments. Much more interesting that way.

Still, it's nice to see real training being introduced to the public, although I'm not sure what they'll make of it. Showing them comp style -- snatches, jerks, etc. -- is probably too much of a stretch for them. I would have focused on swings, squats, and other basic that are shown more towards the end of the clip.

But having attractive (yet real) women that have actually gotten good results with real training is a great marketing move for the kettlebell community. What's not to love?

Just curious as to what people think of the tunes? I'm trying to provide a new take that differs from the usual metal stuff people attach to kettlebell vids. "Chorus of the anvils" seemed very fitting. And "Die Fledermaus" is a favorite.

I'm experimenting with music that people might enjoy while doing the exercise along with me in the clip. It's cool also because you can also just leave the vid playing in the background and enjoy the music while answering email. Trying to provide a different experience/impression.

Thoughts?

At first I was dead set against using gloves in class. "You should improve your technique" and all that was my usual answer. But I've slowly changed my mind on this. Couple of reasons.

First of all, I'm seeing women that want to do the kettlebells more but their hands are starting to slow them down. Some want to come 4 days a week. With them, hand conditioning is an issue. If the only thing holding them back is their hands, then I'm going to bend on the no glove thing.

Second, when I push myself in terms of numbers or time I inevitably run into hand issues. Of course the natural response is I should improve my technique and I'm trying. But pushing yourself on timed sets means you will confront hand issues. There's no way around it. And looking around the KB community, I feel this issue is being ignored a bit. Tearing up your hands seems to be the norm. No thanks. It's gets in the way of teaching for me. I can't teach with torn up hands.

I'm thinking of adding some dumbbell sets as assistance to my protocols because my dumbbells have padded handles. It helps to build numbers and time. But adding gloves every now and then might help me too.

One student told me about New Grips in the clip above and the clip put some of my fears to rest. This might be the product to get.

So IMO if you need the glove to improve number while technique catches up then maybe it's okay.

P.S. Yes, i have the articles on hand conditioning over at DD, etc. so no need to remind me of them. I think they cover part of the problem but not completely.

There's a great new interview with Steve Cotter up and I learn a little more every time I listen to him speak. This time around he talked a bit about the mental aspects of training and how those lessons learned in the gym can be applied to your everyday life. Mental toughness and building fortitude aren't things that we can access so easily, at least for most of us. The gym can be a dojo where we go to practice and hone that toughness.

Steve also made clear that health has to be the basis of our system for it to be sustained long term. Kettlebells are something that can be done into old age because they don't harm your health. I recently saw a list of Girevoy sport competitors in Russia that were able to still put up amazing numbers even at advanced ages.

He also talked about the Turkish getup, training with bands, what he personally trains, etc.

Check it out for some great insights.

One of the first misconceptions we have to do away with when starting kettlebell training is this idea of training the hamstrings, triceps, etc. I think of this as the Muscle and Fitness or Shape magazine idea of training -- they train muscles or body parts instead of movements. Functional fitness is about moving, things that you should be able to do everyday. Think of the guy that has to be able to move boxes all day. He isn't moving in a way that he can only do for brief periods of time 3 days a week. He's using the whole body everyday. That's more of what we're moving towards.

The kettlebell movements are done a bit more sparingly at first to allow the client to break into the moves more easily. But I try to have them work up to at least being able to swing and squat, push and pull in some fashion everyday. This is where function is built. You have to be able to do it daily or it isn't useful.

But switching gym goers to this model takes time and patience. They need time to understand that the kettlebell paradigm is different. Tricep extensions are out unless isolating that helps build the whole.

Working the same "body parts" everyday is a new concept for some. Let it sink into your thinking.

This and the second part are the best interview I've seen yet with Steve Cotter. Highlights include Steve talking for the first five minutes or so about how his whole system comes from his background in Chinese internal martial arts. He explains how the IKFF teaches to balance the various aspects of fitness so that we are balanced in development and don't have the excesses seen in some areas of the fitness community.

The second part mentioned that we should work for time first with the kettlebell and learn to go for long sets of about 10:00 then, once we're comfortable with that, increase the pace of the work. Only then should we look at moving up in weight for the kettlebell. That clarified some things for me. It gives you a bit more direction in doing your kettlebell work.

I also appreciated Steve's saying that he's a teacher and that means he has to sacrifice some competitiveness to that role. Training for GS tourneys sounds great but I wouldn't let it interfere in any way with running a kettlebell gym or teaching my students. Those apsects have to come first for me. Competing with kettlebells would have to be a distant third. Nice to hear his thoughts on this stuff.

I'm running into several misconceptions about the kettlebell and the related training. So here's a brief response.

"Kettlebells are just a fad."

No, sorry but I don't think they are. This comes from people who usually have never tried them and have no idea what they can do.

KB training is very, very different than the training that goes on in most gyms. The emphasis of the training is different, the tool is different, and experience it produces is different. It someone hasn't tried the training, then they might just look at the tool and see nothing special. That would be foolish.

Those differences have effected enough people's lives at this point that there's no turning back. We're seeing the development of a whole new segment of the market becuase of that.

"You don't need kettlebells to get into shape. Bodyweight training alone can do it."

Well just what do you need to get into shape? Can everyone do it with bodyweight alone? What about women or undertrained men that can do a single pullup or pushup? Is bodyweight training all they need? Hardly.

Fitness tools have a role in training. They allow things that body weight training alone can't give you.

"I don't want to do kettlebells because they'll ruin my taichi (or whatever)."

This one I get in some form nearly every week and I really just don't get it. There is NOTHING about KB training that in any way would negatively impact your taichi or MA training -- except possibly dropping it on your foot.

We really need to pull our heads out of 19th century China and start looking at tools that could really help us. 

My classes are starting to pick up a bit and balancing personal workouts with teaching is becoming more of an issue. EDT and working out fairly hard twice a day are out. It's just too much on my body (edit: actually EDT may be a part of everything I do now. Have to think about this). I now do the workout with my kettlebell classes most times. For example, today I led from the front and we did a killer 20:00 circuit workout:

20 deadlifts

20 swings 10L/10R

20 squats 10L/10R

20 high pulls 10L/10R

I was proud of my guys as they worked with the 16kg for most of the time. Good job, guys! I pushed myself a bit and keep up the pace as much as I could.

I do this for a number of reasons: I like to show I can do as well as teach, I provide visual ques and technique tips just by doing it with them, I get to feel the effects of the workouts I program (today's was a bit too back intensive, should have seen that), and me doing it with them gives clients motivation to do it themselves.

But then doing this twice a day or more is taxing so the personal workouts get cut sometimes (actually a lot lately). It's a little weird but then I like doing basics anyway so it still works.

As a "problem," it's a nice one to have. It's like the "problem" of choosing between Monica Belluci and Sophie Marceau. :) You win either way.

Just throwing this out there but it seems to me that when training with the kettlebell, especially intensely, you'll find three layers: major muscle groups, minor muscle groups, and the purely mental stage.

When you start an intense set, you work the major muscle groups and exhaust those first. Then the minor muscle groups take over and your form improves. This is a nice area to be in. But that niceness doesn't last as you go beyond what good technique alone will get you. As you continue the set, you reach the stage where technique is no longer a refuge and the struggle becomes purely mental. Will you find the will to persevere?

This aspect makes kettlebelling different from some other trainings. It's a fairly unique aspect IMO and that's both a plus and a negative.

For one thing, it's difficult to communicate that we can and need to push ourselves past those comfort zones. Few people IMO really work out this hard. Going through these three layers means challenging your personal boundaries and seeing what's on the other side. It's revealing.

And yet survivable. Every time I hear, "I can't do it, I can't do it" I just have to smile. Because I know that they CAN do it. But they just don't know it yet.

We're capable of so much more than we think. When we persevere and do something we didn't think we could do, we've achieved something to be proud of.  Kettlebelling can provide this growth.

很多女性朋友不敢做重量訓練，因為害怕練出像男人一樣的大塊肌肉，其實並不會發生這樣的事。因為男人有比女人多10倍的激素可長出肌肉，女性沒有那樣的條件，一般女性的雄性荷爾蒙量太低了，再怎麼做重量訓練也練不出像健美先生那樣的壯碩肌肉，除非是有特殊體質的女性，做相當密集的訓練。

另外，很多女性覺得「肌肉」比「脂肪」還可怕，卻不知道她們認為很可怕的「肌肉」，竟是能夠幫助他們瘦得漂亮又健康的最大關鍵。

肌肉到底是什麼?

1.   肌肉的成長階段在青春期結束之後就告一段落。換言之，就是肌肉量會逐年減少。

2.   越不鍛練肌肉，流失的速度越快。

3.   懷孕期間，肌肉的流失會增加，因為肚子裡的baby需要蛋白質來成長。

4.   光靠節食跟有氧運動而不做重量訓練，肌肉只會流失不會增加。

5.    重量訓練把你失去的肌肉找回來。

6.    女性朋友在增加肌肉時，並不會讓您的身材大一號，反而會更加緊實，看起來格外苗條。

7.    肌肉的確能夠超有效率地幫你燃燒脂肪。

肌肉的好處

1.    肌肉能讓你的身體有高速的新陳代謝率。

2.   肌肉是一種活性組織，需要消耗大量的卡路里來建造，因此身上的肌肉越多，您所消耗的卡路里也越多。

3.    肌肉建造越多，脂肪消耗越多。

流失的肌肉該如何打造呢?

有氧運動和中強度的心肺運動固然很重要，但是沒做到重量訓練的話，就錯失了打造肌肉的最佳機會。