Quest for RKC-Week 1 of 16

Just wanted to let everyone know that it is official. Nikki and I have signed up for the Level 1 Russian Kettlebell Challenge Instructor Certification on August 28-30th in San Diego, CA. If you are not familiar with Kettlebells or the RKC, click on the links to find out more information.

We decided that we would take the time to shoot some video and pictures of our training every week as we build up for San Diego. Feel welcome to comment on our status and ask questions or if you are training for the RKC yourself, let us know what you are doing. Would love to share training ideas with all of you out there. Here are the Instructor Certification Requirements for RKC Level I.

We are very fortunate enough to have Dave Whitley, Senior RKC instructor working with us 3 times a week at our bootcamp we attend to make sure our technique improves and that we are on the right track for San Diego.

This past week at bootcamp we concentrated on swings (of course) but David threw in some special twists for Nikki, Jay and myself. We worked a lot of double swings this week which gave the swing a interesting twist and really pushed us harder than we expected. Dave also had us perform a 10 minute snatch test this week. Nikki did a wonderful job and got to 200 with a 16kg. I made it to 163. Good start but needs improvement, and I was pretty much smoked by minute 8.

Our training on our own we decided to work towards improving our strength in the press and the turkish get up. We always perform TGU's on Mondays and have decided to perform press ladders 3 rounds of 3 rungs each side with a light weight to see where we are at. We felt very good this past week so we are going to move up in weight and perform the 3 rounds of 3/3 again.

KB Bootcamp #13 (week 5)

Great class again today.  Today was more of a technique component which I agree is essential to make sure that everyone reviews the very basics of kettlebell exercises.  I was surprised to see that my Turkish Get Up and Swing could still use some work.  This tells me that I should not be practicing other "sexy"  kettlebell tricks until I can get these two movements down.  If I can't perfect these first, then I will be unable to perform the more demanding lifts later on.  

Today in class:

• Warm up for 5 minutes including "the pump"
• Get up practice 1 rep each side
• Partner Turkish Get Ups 1 rep each side then partner goes for 10 minutes
• Kettlebell Swings that ended up turning into the "carousel of pain"  30 seconds swings with 20 seconds rest for 11 rounds

40 minutes & 400 calories later we were done.  Also on another fun note, Nikki and I ordered our first set of actual kettlebells!  I can't wait for them to arrive so I can perfect my Turkish Get Ups and Swings.  

Kettlebell Bootcamp #10

Kick ass day today in KBBC. Dave just returned from Japan where he instructed a kettlebell seminar and basically stepped off of the plane and headed over to teach class. Nikki and I went to an evening class this time due to the fact that Nikki has to go to work early on Friday.

• Circuits of alternating dumbell row, push ups, goblet squats (I believe we went 30 seconds exercise and then 15 seconds rest) x4

• After a quick break we did double arm kettlebell swings for 30 seconds and then 10 second rest x5

All in all we did only around 30 minutes of work, but my heart rate shot up to 185 and I burned 400 calories in that time. Let alone how many calories I am going to burn (one article states up to and maybe over 38 hour increase in calorie burn) since I combined weight training in a format that gets my heart rate to go at different levels.

After class I wanted to video myself performing a turkish get up to show everyone what we are doing when they hear about the turkish get up. David was so gracious as to stick around and watch to make sure I performed it correctly and then jumped in and gave step by step instructions. Thanks so much Dave. Your class and your instruction is top notch! Here is the video with instruction first and the full get up second.

Kettlebell Bootcamp #8

Today was a bit different today.  Dave was out of town in Japan doing a kettlebell workshop, so Dennis was are replacement instructor.  Today we re-learned the turkish get up, and learned a new spin on the swing, the 1 arm swing.

After warm up 5 min, we followed with:

• Turkish get ups, 1 rep, alternate sides for 10 min
• Goblet squat (also called steering wheel squat) with kettlebell followed by 5 push ups then repeat for time (I believe we did 10 minutes or 5 or 6 rounds)
• 1 arm swings with partner (1 person swings while the other rests) 10 swings each arm, then 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 and finally one last set of 10 each arm.

All in all we did around 10 getups each side, 50 or 60 squats with perfect technique, 25-30 push ups and a total of 200 swings. 45 minutes, 570 calories later and my heart rate reached a max of 183.