Kettlebell lifting: technique, technique, technique. Oh, did I mention technique?
Success in Kettlebell lifting begins with proper technique and that is best taught by direct one-on one coaching. Pavel set up the RKC instructor network shortly after introducing the Kettlebell in the American market in 2001 in order to get this type of training down to the grass roots level. He knew that without it, the Kettlebell would not succeed in the long run.
Well, I assume since you are reading an article titled, “Kettlebell Instruction: My Approach”, that you are considering Kettlebell training and that you are possibly seeking Kettlebell instruction. The Kettlebell has proven itself to be a great training tool with a long, fascinating history (Russia) and yes, you do need proper instruction in order to lift effectively, efficiently and of course, safely. In ten years of providing kettlebell instruction, I have yet to meet anybody who has “gotten it right” on their own. Books and DVDs are only good up to a certain point and the quality and accuracy of that information from those sources varies greatly. I’ve trained hundreds of people who thought they had it “right” through self-instruction but found after going through the Kettlebell Basics Session that they were not even close.
In the world of sports, we have seen the importance of proper coaching. Even Tiger Woods has a swing coach. It is pretty common for guys to buy golf clubs and try to teach themselves the golf swing. They then go out on the course and expect to play well. Does that work out? My guess is not well. Movement in exercise in general and Kettlebell technique in particular are no different. Proper movement must be taught. If you are serious about lifting correctly, you will need to plan on seeking out quality instruction.
This applies to experienced KB lifters as well. Because of the importance of technique and skill development, I still seek out quality instruction by attending certifications, re-certifications and various workshops. I am currently working with Valery Fedorenko (WKC) to help me prepare for age class KB competition and he has reviewed videos of my lifts and has made technique corrections as well as designing weekly workouts based on progress.
The Kettlebell Basics Session I offer takes about 3 hours to cover the material I believe necessary for someone to successfully begin kettlebell lifting. For comparison, my personal training rate for private clients is $100 per hour but I charge only $100 for the 3 hour Kettlebell Basics Session, one third my normal rate. I don’t want money to deter someone from getting proper instruction but I do need some compensation for my knowledge, experience and skills as a coach and instructor. This rate has been in place and unchanged since I began kettlebell instruction in 2002. Follow-up sessions are still less than my normal training rate as well: $50 to $70 depending on the length of the session.
Some KB instructors offer free introduction classes to create interest in KB lifting. I do not. I did my share of KB promotion work in the very early days of the kettlebell by offering free classes and workshops when the kettlebell was totally unknown to our fitness culture. I was one of the of the early RKC vanguard who were out trying to create any interest we could in a crude, primitive cannonball with a handle. Now, with 10 years in our fitness culture, I believe the kettlebell does not need free exposure but it certainly does need quality instruction more than ever.
When instructing KB technique, I work mostly one-on-one and occasionally with two people at the same time (if a couple or friends would like to learn together). This allows me to focus on the needs of the individual(s). Larger classes may be fine for group exercise but I do not find them conducive for high quality technical instruction.
I start each session by taking the client through a Functional Movement Screen to determine if there are any movement deficiencies: imbalances, asymmetries, stability or mobility issues. This information is critical for how to proceed through the Basics Session and for future training program designs. This experience is also very educational for the client to learn more about their body in general and for specifically dealing with weaknesses and injuries currently affecting their training and other areas of their daily life. The FMS is worth the cost of the session just by its self.
After reviewing the results of the FMS, we begin the Kettlebell instruction with the basic Kettlebell movement pattern – the hip hinge. This movement is the foundation of the swing, clean and snatch. If the hip hinge is not solid from the very beginning, nothing works well after that. Teaching this basic movement pattern has proven to be more challenging than most would expect from its simple outward appearance but it is worth all of the time and effort to get it right.
The hip-hinge skill then becomes the swing, the most important of all Kettlebell exercises. In fact, if it is the only Kettlebell exercise a client does, they would get more than their investment of time, money and sweat back in results.
Based on the needs of the client, the KB press, clean, goblet squat, get-up, along with Stuart McGill, Ph.D., inspired core stabilization and other basic strength work (bodyweight & barbell) and conditioning are woven together. This “on the fly” customization of the session has proven to be very valuable teaching method for learning and retention.The personalized content and how it is presented is what separates my Kettlebell instruction from many others.
Time is also allowed at the end of the Kettlebell Basics Session to discuss, develop and explain exercise program design ideas so that the newly acquired KB techniques can be applied to actual workouts that are created to help the individual reach their goals.
Regarding my time in the fitness industry, here is a little more about who I am. I have been involved in and a student of fitness and exercise for a very long time, almost 40 years. I am a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength & Conditioning Association and a Certified Personal Trainer (NSCA-CPT) through the same organization. As mentioned earlier, I was one of the early RKC Instructors (2002) and have continued with the RKC ever since. For the record, I was the very first RKC to qualify for the CK-FMS (Certified Kettlebell-Functional Movement Screen) in 2008. I am also a Certified Fitness Instructor, Coach and Strength & Conditioning Coach with the World Kettlebell Club which is the competition style of Kettlebell lifting. Addition to that, I have a sub-speciality in low back disorder and exercise, greatly influenced by Stuart McGill, Ph.D. and others.
If you are interested in exploring Kettlebell instruction further, please contact me by email: rick.huse@comcast.net or calling 317 372 3532.
I will also be offering Kettlebell Training classes in the very near future. Send me an email and I’ll update you when the place and times are set.
With Thanksgiving receding in our rearview mirror, the season of fitness gullibility and greed is upon us. Miracle diets and supplements, worthless equipment and senseless workout programs are gathering to form a mindless media avalanche of informercials, books, magazine articles, DVDs, unwanted emails and YouTube wannabe experts: a blizzard of mind numbing fitness crap until the first warm day of spring.
For those selling products, this is just an exercise in marketing. Quality and actual performance mean nothing. In fact, they would just reduce their large profit margins. And there is a snow’s chance in hell that they would provide valid research to support their outrageous claims. “If you can’t convince them, then just confuse them.”
Here is a little story that should get your attention:
When I first came in contact with the Bowflex gym, it was called the Schwinn Bowflex because the Schwinn Fitness Division had the rights to sell it through retail channels back in the late ‘80s to early ‘90s. Anyone who wanted to sell the popular Schwinn AirDyne had to become a Schwinn Fitness Dealer which meant buying 5 of every product under the Schwinn Fitness banner. So of course, we had to order 5 Bowflex Gyms. It failed miserably on the retail floor where people could actually try it out. It took 3 years to sell 5 Bowflex, 2 came back twice and we had to sell the last 2 below cost just to get them off the floor. This failure was so consistent across the country, Schwinn cancelled their contract with Bowflex and switched to traditional weight stack home gyms. Bowflex disappeared into the swamp of bad fitness equipment hopefully never to be seem again.
The fitness industry thought the Bowflex was gone forever but we were wrong. A marketing company, Direct Focus Marketing, drug it out of the swamp, hosed it off and began a massive TV marketing campaign which made billions of dollars. Keep in mind the Bowflex failed when people could try it out but succeeded beyond imagination through the impact of TV exposure and slick marketing techniques
By the way. the retail selling price for their most expensive model was $1295. The TV selling price was around $2295 for the same product.
One of our vendors was purchased by Direct Focus Marketing/Bowflex. During the course of a dinner meeting, our contact asked the CEO of Bowflex how they took a $1295 retail item (that failed) and were able to get $2295 for the same item on TV. The CEO explained that they increased the advertised price every two weeks by $200. When the order volume began to drop, they simply went back to the last successful price.
In other words, the price had nothing to do with true value and a fair profit margin. It was based on whatever the “suckers” were willing to pay.
Truth, logic and valid research are not invited to this party. It is well known in the marketing world that the desirous ego can be easily manipulated when “bigger, faster, stronger, prettier, slimmer, quicker & easier” are promised regardless of the facts. To the marketers, facts just get in the way of commerce. They know that the ego really wants to believe its desires can be easily achieved and is also willing to be convinced that the only thing preventing their realization is just merely a matter of making a small investment. The ego/charge card connection is the magic switch which turns the “miracle machine” on.
We have all been caught by our fitness desires. I certainly have and I know some every bright fitness authorities who have made some really stupid purchases as well. The marketers just need to find the right button to push and if they’re any good they’ll find yours, too, unless you can separate yourself from the desired results long enough to clear your head.
If you can disconnect your ego, it is amazing to watch the manipulation while in progress. The half hour P90X shows are classic: claims, bullet-points, testimonials, buy now, repeat but with special offerings and bonuses, repeat but add time limits, repeat, repeat, repeat…
Searching for the mythical Fitness Holy Grail does keep improving fitness but expecting to actually find it is delusional. It does not exist and never has. Finding real answers to your fitness quest in the Fitness Silly Season is like chasing a white rabbit in a blizzard and the people making these worthless fitness promises to your ego are also the same people are making it “snow”.
There is still hope, however. There are educated, responsible and talented fitness experts to provide guidance. There is proven nutritional information (diet & supplements) from reliable sources to support the body’s adaptation to exercise and of course, quality exercise equipment that actually works and does it safely. But the mass media and the internet are not the places to look for it is impossible to see reality in a blizzard.
I have received some interesting feedback from readers who recently tried the 20/40 Kettlebell Swing workout. So I thought I’d add to the basic program with how the regress and progress in order to “wave” the workouts, light, medium and heavy.
Regression is simple, use a lighter weight, reduce the number of cycles or change the work to rest ratio to 15/45. These lighter days can be used for recovery and they are also a perfect opportunity to focus on the swing movement pattern.
Progression is straight forward, heavier weight or change the work to rest ratio to 25/35 or even 30/30. I do not, however, recommend increasing the cycles beyond the max of 20 because that would defeat the goal of a brief intense workout that works endurance and power. Increasing cycles would tend to reduce the power output and drift more toward being more aerobic.
“Waving” your workouts would involve having one light day, medium day and a kick ass heavy day in the course of a week’s training. These workouts can stand alone or tacked on to the end of your normal strength-power workout. If you decide to do that, please consider reducing your cycles to 10 or 15 depending on how much hip work you did during the rest of your workout. Stress and fatigue accumulates during your workout and if you worked the hips hard (ex. deadlifts) you’ll be surprised how little you’ll have left for power swings.
This seems like the perfect time to drop this bit of wisdom. “A true professional knows what to do and when to stop doing it!”
Enjoy the pain and let me know how it works.
I first heard about the iPhone app “ithlete” from Joel Jamieson (The Ultimate MMA Conditioning) at Bill Hartman & Mike Robertson’s Strength & Conditioning Summit at the end of August. He had great success using it to manage client’s workouts by tracking recovery. The premise is heart rate variability, HRV (the distance between heart rate peaks), reveals the dominance of either the sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system at the time of testing which is usually recommended when first getting out of bed in the morning. Sympathetic dominance (lower score) shows greater irregularity between HR peaks, parasympathetic more regular in spacing. Combine HRV with resting heart rate and you have a very accurate biofeedback method to track workout recovery, certainly more accurate than just resting heart rate alone. At least, that is their claim.
I have been using ithlete for over 2 months, reading HRV/Resting Heart Rate every morning and recording to a graph to follow trends and to match up with recorded workouts to test their theory with real world experience.
So far, it seems to work very well. Tough KB competition workouts relate to low scores the next morning but I have been surprised by even lower scores occurring at times the second day post hard workout.
Other life stressors (work, illness, relationships, allergies, etc.) can also effect HRV. Many times in combination with each other. So being aware of other things going in your life is critical.
Being driven to succeed, athletes tend to push on when many times backing off or completely resting would produce better results in the long term. “ithlete” provides numerical and graphic reporting of the daily recovery status to base training or non-training for that day.
The “ithlete HVR” app is $9.99 and the adaptor for picking up the HR signal from your Polar Transmitter is around $49 and is mailed from England. You can find out more from their website www.myithlete.com.
Overtraining can be a real bitch, not only effecting training progress and performance but almost every other area of your life (job performance, sex life, etc.). I think its worth the investment. If you try it, let me know how it works for you.
I have recently had clients work with Kettlebell Intervals at the end of their workouts for endurance-strength and metabolic drive (fat loss). The protocol has been :20 hard / :40 recovery for anywhere from 5 to 20 cycles, depending on KB weight used and the difficulty of the workout that preceded interval portion.
The 20/40 split is a 1 to 2 work to rest ratio. This allows just enough recovery to continue but not enough for the heart rate to drop very much once 5 cycles have been reached. In fact, many have reported the first 5 cycles as somewhat easy. Like, “what’s the big deal”? After have 5 cycles, that snug look disappears and is replaced by heavier breathing. I’ve also gotten use to the “what the hell are you doing to me” glare.
It is amusing to see the look of realization that 10 cycles is only half way to 20 and that the next 10 are going to be even harder. So much for “what’s the big deal?”
12 to 13 reps are common for 20 seconds. Heavier weight usually results to a lower rep count. The intent is to “snap” the swing with a powerful hip/knee extension, breathing in during the drop to back swing and a powerful exhalation at the top of swing. This is commonly referred to as the RKC/Hard Style swing. BTW, fatigue is no excuse for lazy swings or drifting into bad form.
When pressed for time, Kettlebell Interval 20/40 x 20 is a great stand alone workout for endurance-strength, aerobic & anaerobic conditioning. Even with the pressures of modern life, 20 minutes should be doable a few times a week.
To make it easy to time, I use either Tabata Timer by www.Katr.com or Round Timer by www.plainandsimplesoftware.com, apps for the iPhone.They both allow for countdown, warnings and sound effects to know where you are in the interval process.
Tracking heart rate is revealing to the amount of effort needed to do the work. Comparing results of workout to workout heart rate shows training progress and tracking inter-interval heart rate during the workout also shows the accumulation of work/stress.
Take a moderate weight Ketllebell and give it a try. Shoot for 10 cycles and if you think can make it, go for 20. In the future, vary the weight and cycles to experience the different training effects. Enjoy the pain!
The concept of defining fitness seems simple at first glance but it turns out to be more like the Supreme Court opinion regarding pornography: “Can’t tell you what is, but I know it when I see it”. Fitness is truly in the eye of the beholder or more correctly, in the vision of the motivating ego. Something about one’s current status is unacceptable and the ego wants it changed. This fitness change generally becomes a quest to be bigger, faster, stronger or prettier. Basic movement problems and health issues are other major driving forces to seek improved fitness.
Jell-O and the definition of fitness both appear solid on the surface until you grap at them and realize that impression was wrong. Both will get messy while they ooze in all directions.
Many times, when I ask clients about what they expect to get from their investment of time, money and sweat in exercise, I usually get, “I want to be more fit, of course”, which to them is the universal hall pass for answering all fitness questions. They’re thinking, “After all, everyone knows what it means to be fit. Don’t they?” Well, they don’t and that’s the problem. Are we talking about serious weight loss, bodybuilding and shaping for esthetics, training for athletic and job performance, correcting serious medical issues or movement deficiencies, etc.? Strategies for each goal are very different. A “good” technical workout may very well be the “wrong” workout for a particular goal because of individual needs. Therefore, before any program can be developed, everyone must agree on what exactly it means to be more fit and what goals are trying to be reached. Without a target, it is easy to wonder aimlessly around in the forest of fitness options with a bloody forehead from banging into the many workout trees.
A trainer is also responsible for providing a more expansive view of exercise and fitness which is generally beyond the fitness education and experience of most of their clients. This task is much like a waiter explaining a menu to a new restaurant patron. Although this step is necessary to arrive at the best program design, this additional cliente.
education can create another problem called the all you can eat fitness syndrome.
As in the famous scene of the fat man in the restaurant in the Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, when presented with the menu, he reads it very carefully, hands it back to the waiter and said, “Yes.”. When people become more aware of what fitness can provide, they want it all but the body cannot do it all, at least not equally as well and certainly not all at once. If you remember the scene, the patron did eat the entire menu worth of food but when offered a small after dinner waffer, he literally exploded, scattering his inwards all over the restaurant. Fitness gluttony has a price as well that usually comes in the form of poor results and of course, the higher risk of dreaded injuries.
Whether you are a trainer responsible for the health, fitness and safety of your client or an individual fitness enthusiast who has taken on the arduous task of training yourself, the meaning of fitness for that individual and for that moment in time, must be clearly defined before an appropriate fitness program can be developed. The fastest shortcut to this meaningful foundation is by going directly to what is truly motivating the desire for change, the ego.
It is a rather simple process. Keep asking the following question until you arrive at the real answer: “What do you really want to get out of your investment of time, money and sweat in exercise?”
However, there are two rules: the answer cannot be,”I want to be more fit” and each answer is followed by the question “why?” until a satisfactory answer is reached. This “why” will reveal what is actually motivating the fitness quest and will also serve as the motor to keep driving the quest when progress slows or when there are setbacks. The combination of “what & why” forms a strong foundation for developing an effective exercise program.
The answers will fall into four broad catagories: appearance, performance, feel or move better and major health issues.
Appearance is the most common and strongest of all of the motivators. One of my Russian coaches thought of it as frivilous. He referred to it as “wanting to look better naked in front of a mirror” but yet its power can never be underestimated. Bodybuilding strategies are the most common route but the newer athletic inspired approaches to training will also produce that desired appearance with the added benefit of a more functional strength for daily life activities.
Performance means strength and conditioning for a purpose. That purpose may be for sports, military, police, fire, etc. However, in the general public, Special Ops inspired training and “functional” training have become very popular in the belief that type of training will help them reach higher levels of both strength and conditioning, and can be found in various Bootcamps, Crossfit, etc. Sport Performance gyms have also grown exponentially across the country in the last decade as parents invest in whatever it takes to improve athletic careers of their childern.
Feeling better becomes the primary goal when the barnacles of aging reach critical mass. The idea of chasing body beautiful and seriously improving athletic performnace fade as the need to “just moving comfortably in one’s body” dominates awareness. Wear and tear of the joints (arthritis), loss of muscle mass (sarcopenia) and serious bodyfat increases (great American diet combined with little activity) lead to a whole host of life quality issues that exercise and diet can greatly improve.
Major health issues require their own individual approaches to strength and conditioning. Experienced and well educated experts know the correct approaches for their area of expertise and should not guessed at by the uninformed. Heart disease, MS, COPD, cancer, diabetes, stroke, brain damage, etc. are very serious issues but life quality can be improved with the right guidance and proper effort.
As complex as individuals can be, you may find their situation to be a combination of the above catagories and therefore they must be ranked in order of importance. Training is also a process along a timeline so there must be flexability with the willingness to adjust the program as training progresses.
The “how” to train will be born within the anwser to “why” someone is seeking fitness. For any real success, the “why” question must be answered honestly. For as stated above and worth repeating; a technically correct workout could be a total waste of time, money, effort and perhaps even dangerous if the training program doesn’t match the individual’s needs and motivation.
One last comment regarding this issue. There have been many attempts throughout the years to create a universal definition of fitness, design workout programs to address each fitness component of that definition and then sell the concept that if one truly wanted to be fit (by their definition) one would have to train according to their program. I am sure these attempts started out to be sincere efforts to make Jell-o solid but morphed into profit producing adventures with corresponding business agenda.
Please remember, the Fitness Holy Grail is a myth. There is no one perfect workout and the definition of fitness is relative to who is asking and why. I suppose that in some situations that wrestling IN Jell-O could be fun but wrestling WITH Jell-O is not. First establish your goals and then clearly understand your motives. The proper training program will evolve as a natural result of that process.
This has been a winter to forget but unfortunately the memory of snow, ice and below average temperatures will hang around as a Gold Standard for crappy winters well into the future. TV weathermen will delight in dredging up videos of the winter of 2011 to hype their future upcoming winter weather segments as they remember the thrill of actually having huge audiences hang on their every word: school closings, road conditions, risk of losing power, what’s coming next and some weather bunny standing next to the highway saying something that might actually be relevant. But right now, it is impossible to forget this winter because we’re still living in the wreckage of “The Storm” with, what else, more crap on the way.
Here in Indy, we have had snow cover since early December with just a very brief thaw to give us hope that spring might be lurking just around the corner but that was a cruel tease. At least in years past, bad weather was usually followed in short order by sunshine, warmer temps with sightings of actual streets, sidewalks and grass as a reprieve before more bad weather revisited. Side streets, sidewalks and grass are now hidden beneath several inches of frozen solid pack ice snow. Yards have become above ground level ponds waiting for kids with skates and hockey sticks. Oh wait, forget the Norman Rockwell image. Kids don’t skate anymore and the only hockey they play is on Wii. My backyard pond is dotted with yellow pee spots and hockey puck dog turds are stuck to the surface, frozen where they fell. The pack ice is going to be around for awhile for the much needed thawing temperatures are not due for several weeks and I just heard that Polar Bears are trying to cash in their frequent flyer miles to get here.
People don’t like their lives interrupted and nature can seriously interrupt your life and make you feel insignificant and powerless all at the same time. Watching accumulated ice on tree limbs bring down a 25 year old year tree and then power lines along with it lets you know that pedicure appointments, face peels and bridge clubs are very low on nature’s priority list. So is decorating yourself with shiny metal and brightly colored rocks but I digress. Weather extremes, floods, volcanoes and earthquakes are part of the planet’s evolution and we’re just along for the ride. Somehow our egos have convinced us that this is our round playground. Really? You might want to re-think that myopic vision of life on earth.
Yes, planet earth is the big dog and we humans are just fleas. One good scratch and we’re gone. Terra firma and the oceans will move on without us.
I wonder if the dinosaurs had their version of the evening news:
“Well folks, it looks like the local big, big mountain with the hot stuff streaming out of the top is acting up again. Experts claim this could be the big one. Although they have made similar claims before, they believe this time it really is going to explode and rain anywhere from six inches to several hundred feet of ash. Forecasting models are still unclear. Stock up on essentials for we may be without sunlight for some time and leave early for your morning commute to the swamp. Traffic could be heavy.”
Now just for fun, image a few thousand years after we’re gone, a future carbon based life form, after shifting through our archaeological remains, concludes that the red-headed clown found on millions of plastic cups must have been our deity. Well, given our current obesity issues, their conclusion may be more accurate then we would like to admit.
Back to my “I Hate Winter” rant, it is snowing AGAIN. The entire area is out of ice melt salt. When small supplies do arrive at the local hardware stores, they sell out in less then an hour. They throw heavy salt bags down from the trucks to the starving masses below while running their charge cards through a Wi-Fi processor. It is amazing how technology can make fleecing so efficient.
By the way, Lowe’s was selling FEMA model portable generators for $795. Why, because they could. People lined up like sheep to buy them and the Lowe’s staff kept telling their customers that they weren’t screwing them. Really? Anytime someone tells me that they are not going to screw me, I’m trying to figure out how they are screwing me. Magicians call it miss direction. I call it pointing out the obvious.
Speaking of obvious, it’s snowing AGAIN and I’m Sisyphus with a snow shovel. Although no offense to Sisyphus but rolling a boulder up a mountain is not as difficult shoveling snow while standing on glare ice on a slope with a -3 degree wind chill. Damn, it’s snowing AGAIN! Ugh!
Since this is a fitness related website, I should mention with proper body mechanics that snow shoveling can be good exercise. Just honor your personal limitations and protect yourself from wind chill. There is something very rewarding about finishing a difficult task but getting stressed is just going to make the job a lot harder.
Final food for thought: If you’re on the Sisyphus cheerleading squad, we’ll always have a job!
Stay warm, be safe and take care of yourself! This crap will pass or it’s going to be a real cold summer!
The clanging bell and flashing lights of the railroad crossing guard emerges into focus from the veil of the snowy fog as you approach the tracks in the distance. You know the drill. You’re stuck in place just trying your best to ignore the noise and flashing lights while pretending to only vaguely notice the box cars slowly crossing your vision left to right as the freight train crawls toward its own destiny without regard for your plans. Basically, you are collateral damage and it knows that you are too small and insignificant to remotely challenge its power and momentum.
Faking patience can only last so long as the fog keeps producing yet another box car, and another and another and another… Belief that it will soon be over erodes into doubt, despair and the dread that it will last forever. This is followed by a weak attempt in positivity. Surely, it has to end soon. The positivity/negativity tennis match continues while the snowy fog keeps birthing another rolling container of snowy, cold crap. Yeah, you know the drill; you’re stuck until it decides it’s over and no sooner.
The Jet Stream over North America has been held in place for over the last two months with low pressure storms traveling the path like an endless freight train of snow, ice and well below average temperatures. The next box car of disruptive stress is due to bring even greater amounts of snow and ice because two lows are meeting up over Texas with one low pressure picking up extra moisture from the Gulf of Mexico just to add brass knuckles to its punch. Yeah, you know the drill. It will be over when it is over. In the meantime, think happy thoughts about sunlight, green grass, flowers, birds singing and mowing grass instead of shoveling snow.
At the time of this writing, the biggest, baddest winter storm of the season is about 10 hours out. Nature’s furious smack down is predicted to dump 1 to 2 feet of snow just north of us and we will get from 1 to 2 inches of ice with heavy snow on top of that. The entire event will take 48 hours to clear through the region on its way to kick the crap out of the northeast. By this time, ancient communities would be throwing virgins off the cliff to avoid the wrath of this monster. But alas today, virgins are hard to find, it would take a forklift to lift one and the sexual harassment law suit would create more problems in the long run than two inches of ice.
We humans are a resilient species. We adapt to heat, cold, altitude, changing seasons, food shortages, cancelations of our favorite TV shows and even our home town team losing the Super Bowl (well, almost). While walking my longhair dachshund, Eli, I have seen the defiant human and dog foot prints in the un-shoveled sidewalk snow stating that they will not be beaten by challenging weather and thoughtless property owners who refuse to aid their neighbors’ quest by not taking a few minutes to clear their sidewalks (as required by local Health & Safety Ordinances). No, they will not be held captive by these circumstances. Being housebound is not an option and movement is a human necessity, (dogs too) and I expect the same undaunted spirit during this nasty weather.
Movement must be critically important to our fitness and mental health for us to venture out into extremes conditions. Consider what our distant ancestors endured just to survive from day to day. Movement meant food. Lack of movement meant you were food for worms or a really big cat. But on a deeper level, intense movement communicates to your cells that you are still valuable to your family and your tribe. The cells respond by doing everything possible to keep all systems in good working order. When movement stops, the body begins to dismantle its self or as the ER docs state, swirling the drain. In modern times, exercise has replaced survival walks, the hunt, building shelter and defending the tribe. Regular doses of intense exercise communicates at the cellular level that we are still important for something besides trying to find the remote and the cells’ task is to keep it together for as long as possible.
The recent freight train of winter storms is just part of living on this planet and this too shall pass (soon I hope). We, too, will pass but the quality of our time here will be determined in large part by how well we took care of the vessel we traveled in. I suggest get up and move, create time for exercise and if you’re one of my thoughtless neighbors, grab a snow shovel lard ass.
Take care of yourself and stay warm!
Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow
Frank Zappa – 1973
“Dreamed I was an Eskimo
Frozen wind began to blow
Under my boots ‘n around my toe
Frost had bit the ground below
Was a hundred degrees below zero
And my momma cried:
And my momma cried:
Nanook-a, no no (no no . . . )
Nanook-a, no no (no no . . . )
Don’t be a naughty Eskimo-wo-oh
Save your money: don’t go to the show
Well I turned around an’ I said:
HO HO
Well I turned around an’ I said:
HO HO
Well I turned around an’ I said:
HO HO
An’ the Northern Lites commenced t’ glow
An’ she said
With a tear in her eye:
WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO
AN’ DON’T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW
WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO
AN’ DON’T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW”
Some things about living on this planet you would think would just be obvious. As children we were warned about the danger of running with scissors and putting our hands on a hot stove. Later in life, we were told to buckle up, not drink and drive, that smoking can cause heart disease and cancer and certainly not to reach for something under a running lawn mower. Even though we are clearly told not to, many celebrities and professional athletes think it is their right to pack a gun in their carry-on. And we all know at a gut level that if we believe anything a politician or used car salesman tells us, it is at our own peril. You would think that it would be easy to recognize the obvious but every year the emergency rooms treat people who didn’t get the logic email. Obvious eludes many, especially to those who feel they hold a special place in the universe were they are exempt from its laws but Death walks behind them wearing a “I Love Darwin” t-shirt.
In the early 70’s, Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention released a song titled, Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow warning of the evils of doing so but like most things that Zappa produced, it was part of a scathing satire concept album about American life. Because of its controversial nature, it didn’t get air play and you had to be a Zappa fan to even know about it. This all came back to me while watching Eli, my longhair dachshund, sniff the yellow-stained snow drift doggy message board and hearing myself say out loud, “Eli, don’t eat the yellow snow” just as he began to take a bite.
“Watch out where the Huskies go
An’ don’t you eat the yellow snow!”
Well Nanook, the fitness world is full of yellow snow and like Momma, I’ve written several articles warning you to not get sucked into the various fitness myths and the power of knowledge, the critical use of logic and recognizing when your ego is attempting to vaporize reason just to entertain itself.
Today’s lesson, Nanook, is the about the myth of training to failure. I remember in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s the release of Arthur Jones’ Workout Bulletins 1 & 2 and this is when I first became aware of the concepts of training to failure and the use of negatives reps to somehow force greater and more rapid gains in muscle size and strength. Becoming “bigger, faster, stronger, prettier…quicker & easier” is an extremely powerful opiate and because Jones was a very strong personality with a knack of making compelling arguments based on superficial logic and pseudo science, many of his ideas took a strangle hold on less discriminating minds and grew to myth status in short order. What began as a powerfully stated theory, took on a life of its own.
Training to failure has several definitions in the strength training world. Some use the rep just before loss of form as the rep cutoff point and most serious trainers would consider this a reasonable guide to proper and effective effort. However, another definition, the one that concerns me the most, evolved at the gym floor level where the male’s IQ drops 50 points as soon as his hand touches a weight and continues to fall the longer he is in the gym. According to this street definition, the set is over when you can no longer move the weight regardless of the form required to get to that point. In other words, any thought of technique and skill was left in a long forgotten box buried in a yellow stained snow drift. The event of reaching this form of failure is usually witnessed by and verbally supported with primitive grunts of approvals from other Neanderthal true believers.
“Don’t be a naughty Eskimo-wo-oh
Save your money: don’t go to the show”
I know that this sounds harsh to anyone who believes in this sacred training cow but sometimes you have to drop a kettlebell on someone’s foot (or hoof) to get their attention. Please understand that the brain directs movement, nerve impulses scatter throughout the body to find the exact muscle fibers and in what firing order to contract the fibers to cause bones to move. Repeated recruitment of these fibers becomes the foundation of skill and allows for gains in performance to safely appear as the by-product of improving technique. Any deviation from the preferred and established form will weaken the carefully nurtured skill and the pattern breakdown will limit current and future performance and also greatly increase the risk of injury. Remember that the going to failure we’re discussing actually encourages the loss of form for the sake of momentary movement failure but at a very high cost just to appease the ego, at least until the end of the next set.
This style of training to failure is attractive to many because there is an element of the absolute. The set is over because it is over. The weight is not moving therefore there is no further discussion. The training partners saw it happen and just to make sure, they may offer further assistance for forced reps to finish the muscles off for good, like pumping a few more 9mm rounds into an already motionless body. I know the intentions are good and certainly there is serious effort driven by desire for some positive change but the continued use of training to failure will result in an avalanche unintended negative consequences, ranging from less than productive training to the real possibility of serious injury.
“And my momma cried:
Nanook-a, no no (no no . . . )”
With Momma’s warning stated, now what? It is simple. I suggest you listen to your body. It knows what’s going on and what it needs. It uses rep speed to tell you when it has had enough. During the course of a set there is a speed rhythm where the individual reps do not seem to change from rep to rep and then for no apparent reason, there occurs a noticeable speed change. And with the weight slow down and the body’s message is, “I’ve done all I can do for this set. Quit.” If this slow down happens near lockout, you probably one more good form rep left in you, although slower, if you choose to try. If the slow down happens at the beginning of the movement, any further attempt to continue will drift into bad technique and should obviously be avoided. The key is not only knowing when to stop and having the discipline to actually do it. Nanook, that is the definition of a true professional.
“An’ the Northern Lites commenced t’ glow
An’ she said
With a tear in her eye:
WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO
AN’ DON’T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW”
Gracie, female long hair dachshund – 17Nov2000 to 8Dec2010 -are just words and numbers. They fail miserably to tell the true story.
Even though it was the right thing to do, it didn’t make it any easier. Gracie was struggling to breathe, fighting for each breath like a mountain climber clinging to a disappearing ledge. The cancer had taken all but a small amount of her right lung and most of her left. The cancer had also attacked her right ribs and the pain made it all but impossible to lie down. She kept moving in order to try to find a place and position that would allow her rest and peace. Anita and I watched helplessly as that place cruely eluded her and forced the decision we didn’t want to make.
Peace came to Gracie at 4:20am this morning after the doctor found almost no lung sounds and there was nothing more anyone could do. Keeping her alive at this point, even if just another day or two, would be more for us and not for her and keeping her here with all that pain and discomfort just wasn’t fair to Gracie. So Anita’s hand was touching her head and mine were on her back when the rib cage stopped moving. I asked the doc if she was gone and she just softly nodded.
Before this, during a training session last night, clients and friends, David and Vicki, who had recently put down their beloved Boxer, Thor, who had bladder cancer, advised that we need to be with Gracie at the end and they were right. We were there as the light began to fade in Gracie’s eyes just as she was there everyday for us when we came home, when we needed constant, unconditional love and a reminder that a simple dog kiss could put the real meaning of life back in perspective.
I know that she is now in a better place but the sadness hangs on my soul like wet clothing after a downpour and the wind of loss is making the clammy dampness even more unbearable. I miss you, Gracie, and my love for you is beyond any words I can compose but that will not keep me from trying.
When we brought you home as a puppy, this was not the end and timing I expected. Like most dogs owners, I thought you would be with us at least 15 years and die peacefully in your sleep. And like most dog owners, I was wrong. I thought if I did have to put you down, you would in system shutdown but instead, you could sit, with your ears up and look deeply in our eyes with your tail softly moving. You just couldn’t catch a breath and your soft crying begged for relief. Once again, I was wrong about the details. But I wasn’t wrong about your energy and the friend and companion you turned out to be. I miss you and always will.
To all the pet owners, who have read this far; love your pets with your entire soul, understand and respect their needs for they depend on you for all they have and cherish the time you have with them. In the end, it will always seem too short and regret is not something you want to add to the painful weight of loss.
Gracie, your spirit is with us but I miss looking into your loving eyes, stroking your soft fur and holding you close to my chest when you needed love and reassurance. Thank you for your love and peace be with you always!
