Showing posts with label form. Show all posts
Showing posts with label form. Show all posts

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Perfect Form Deadlift - at 16m old

Of course if anyone was going to have a great deadlift, it would be Franz and Yoanna Sniderman's Marianna. Look at the natural knee position. Wild.




Awesome, no? A little bit of work tuning the eyes/head position and bam, super girl athlete.

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Saturday, February 13, 2010

Simple Ab Workout: Double KB Heavy-ish Swings for Sets

Last night, paying particular attention to form, i think i found what's likely been obvious to many folks who focus on kettlebell swings:
  • swinging two bells is very different from swinging one in two hands or one, hand to hand - the stance is different, the feel is just different.
  • getting bells that add up to a challenging weight can be well, challenging, physically and mentally
But here's the biggie for me from last night:
  • Doing short intense sets (like 10) - really works the abs - especially in putting the bells down in a controlled way at the end of each set. now that's a surprise.
I certainly felt my abs had been worked, each time i took a break between my 10's for recovery. Phew - in a good way.


higher faster stronger - and cheaper - DD kb's (story)

These short heavier 10 sets of 10reps also made doing two sets of fifty swings with just one of those bells, double handed, a far nicer experience - by which i mean going to one bell let me focus far more on form than control + form simply because the sets are longer, and i can get into them more to compare and contrast what i was just doing in the heavier sets - if that makes sense.

If you give this protocol a try, let me know what you find.

For folks less familiar with kettlebells, they are an awesome tool for fitness - especially perhaps for folks not inclined towards heading to the gym. There are a bunch of posts sited below to help get an overview of KB's if you're interested.


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Sunday, December 13, 2009

Return of the Kettlebell Swing. Awesome Endurance Strength, Full Body, Technique Rich Finisher via Running the Bells

What to do when your practice/training/work session is not quite as long as you'd like it to be but you just can't keep going with your main effort? For me, the hardstyle kettlebell Swing is the Answer, and in particular, running the bells with the swing is becoming a great finisher - at least for me. Here's an example scenario you may find useful.

Recently, in an effort to improve my endurance strength and get my overall workout volume up a bit, i've been adding in 15/15 Viking Warrior Conditioning (review) days as a complement to my Return of the Kettlebell work (some experiences with the RTK protocol documented here).

As folks who get into snatching a kb a lot know, this can be grief-ful for one's hands as technique and adaptation occur. Rather than going all out, therefore, i've been gating my sets by my hands: if a callus starts to get that dread gonna tear dry pully feeling, i quit. Yesterday, i likely should have rowed instead to give my hands a break, but taped one hand instead, and did the work. Quit when the hand actually got sore in the callus area. Pain is a signal for change. Ok. I'll change. But to what?

Stopping sooner than the rest of me might wish with the snatches, what to do to keep the heart rate up into that working level similar to the VWC and get in a full time work set? The approach i've come up with is one variant of running the bells.

Running the bells, described previously, is a thing i think i may have originated for simulating hills workouts: one lines up bells of different sizes and goes from lighter to heavier back and forth nonstop.

In this variant, drawing on Pavel's love of ladders, i thought i might try that with a Run.

TO that end, i lined up a 20, 12 and 16, and did a back and forth run with the 20 as the increment marker. The 12 in the middle became a nice recovery set where i could focus on technique and overspeed work. So the sets went like this

First Rung:
20*10swings
12*10swings
16*10swings
12*10swings
----
40swings

Second rung
20*15swings
12* 15swings
16* 15swings
12* 15swings
-------------
60 swings

Third Rung
20*20swings
12*20swings
16*20swings
12*20swings
--------------
80 swings

Fourth Rung
20*25swings
12*25swings
16*25swings
12*25swings
------------
100 swings

280 swings, i'm guessing about 10-12 minutes work (100 swings takes me about 3-4 mins i think)

Obviously there are other ways to vary this - add in another bell; keep adding rungs, whatever.


Progress towards Owning my Swing.
What i find kinda nice with this short session/finisher is that it lets me focus on the swing. I've written before i think about how in order to keep my heart rate up between RTK sets, and DOMS down (more about cardio=reduced doms), i use a really light bell, and do 50 swings (about 2 mins) for active recovery between ladders. This has let me focus on technique with such a small load. It's been great to have this as the swing is otherwise not at this point a core part of my diet. But it is such a beautiful move.

So what i've found with a short session of running the bells this way is that each weight brings attention to a different technique aspect. The 20 seems to get focus on lower lats, keeping these open and hip drive. The 12, as said, is mainly speed and pelvic rotation (i'll come back to that latter point in another post), the 16 is general connected form. That's nice. It's really an interesting practice to do these small bursts of focused attention on the distinct challenges of particular loads. Likewise there's sufficient load effort overall with the ladders for real work to be done, if heart rate is an indicator.

Advantages, Heart rate stays up, it's a kind of interval work because of the recovery in the lighter load reps, pretty much all aspects of the double handed swing get worked, including strengthening my hands/grip which will help for the snatch.

I like it. If you give it a go as a finisher for one of your sets, please let me know.
Related Posts:


Tracy Reifkind Showing How the Hard Style Swing is Done, Cooked, and Served Up

Friday, December 5, 2008

More On the Perfect Rep Quest: Volume + Integrated Cardio

I don't usually log my actual workouts here, but with growing interest in the perfect rep/strength development, thought it might be worth logging an experiment.

One of my current goals is to increase the size of the kettlebell i can press (i have dreams of the 24). Right now i'm pressing 3 of the 16 on the right and 1 of the 16 on the left.

The strategy:
  • try integrated cardio in strength work
The tactics:
  • part 1: kenneth jay's High Volume/Low Volume, discussed here.
  • part 2: integrating vigerous cardio between sets, as per Davis, discussed here.
  • part 3: using Timed sets rather than absolute numbers of sets, a la Charles Staley's EDT. If you're not familiar with EDT, there's some great articles on t-nation. here's one.
The specifics: high volume day

So with the goal of getting in about 200 perfect rep presses a side, i set the timer for 15, pressing 5 on one/ 5 on the other. Recovery. During the recovery, i did 10 body weight perfect form DLs - this actually keeps the heart pumping without taxing the shoulders. Using the DL also lets me practice bone rhythm, breathing, head posture, eye movement in my DL. Every second used.

Now i confess, when i got to a scant 45 reps with the 12KB (8 sets of 5), i had to drop to the next size down (8KB) in order to maintain form. So yes i sacrificed pressing the weight to focus on form. But i did not care. The lighter bell at this rate/volume was still effortful while letting me get that pattern engrained.

I did two 15 min "zones" as Staley calls them. Total, 175 reps/arm (17 sets zone one; 20, zone 2).

What was fun: concentrating on the form. With KJ's approach i feel like i've been given permission to do these lighter weigths just to think about form.

Fringe Benefit? By adding in the fast BW DL's between pressing sets, the presses, amazingly, felt smoother - easier even. I wasn't expecting that.

Now whether and how these cycles will lead to strength is of course the other key part of this equation. But for today, this integrated resistance/vigorous cardio felt great, let me focus on form for TWO moves, and strength benefits promised to come. ya hoo.

The next day:
that many bodyweight DL's - am somewhat aware of my hamstrings today - but perhaps that DOMS effect of vigerous cardio is making it less intense than it would be otherwise? hmm.

Part Two of this series continues here: volume and the perfect rep: it seems to be working.

Friday, August 15, 2008

The Refined Turkish Getup: Functional as well as Diagnostic

What is a Turkish Get Up, and why is it such a stable element of Hard Style Kettlebell Training? Is there a "hardstyle" or "RKC" form of the Turkish Get Up, and why should you care - or care to practice this form rather than any other? These questions and more are explored in the following post.



(April 09: update on Position 4, the High Hip Bridge debate here)
(april 09, two: update on TGU as Diagnostic compared with FMS more questions than answers)

and just to be explicit, the following has now been captured in incredible step by step detail, with corrective drills, in the Kalos Sthenos DVD/Manual, touched on in the above two links.

There have been a number of posts of late on the various RKC sites commenting on how the Turkish Get Up has evolved as a move at the RKC.
For folks not familiar with it, the Turkish Get Up is a great full body move that asks a person to go from a supine position to a standing position and back down again with a weight held in a fully extended arm. To achieve this work, just about everything is involved at some point in the move. It's been adopted into a suite of core kettlebell moves. This is why most recently Gray Cook and Brett Jones have been talking about it as a great diagnostic move too for calisthenics or beautiful movement.

There are numerous variations of this form with kettlebells, but over the past year or so, it has settled into a crisp clear execution of form designed to work the full body very well. While there is some debate about who/when this form was evolved, it's the one Hard Style is promoting, and for good reason. The illustrations following are of Dr. Mark Cheng, the person who wrote the latest RKC certification manual section on the Turkish Get Up.

As Brett Jones has said, this version of the TGU is not meant to replace any other TGU version, but it is an excellent diagnostic for showing where weaknesses may be. Combine this with the Functional Movement Screen, and we can see where there are stability or mobility issues and how to address them. If the TGU improves, the methods were effective; if it gets worse, need to check again what's up.

As a general technique, it is also strongly recommended that TGU's are practiced naked to start with (ie nothing in your hands), then work up to balancing a shoe on the flat of the palm to ensure excellent arm positioning and body awareness,THEN think about weight. At the recent Certified Kettlebell Functional Movement Specialist workshop (review here), Brett Jones ended up calling the Naked TGU + Shoe the Extreme TGU. In our group where we decided to go naked + shoe (before it was called "extreme"), Tom Nunn and i personally found that using the shoe gave us a focus for our raised arm without unduly fatiguing us with weight while we were frequently pausing and repeating moves to interrogate what might be happening with form.

Indeed, for those new to this move, get the form perfect first is the message: there's a LOT of neuro-muscular adaptation in this move that will work you out without anything in your hand, fear not.

Here's a review of the complete TGU as illustrated by RKC Team Lead Dr. Mark Cheng at the CK-FMS workshop

(1) start rolled full length on the side to grasp the bell with both hands
1upStartSide.jpg
(2) then you're rolled flat on back with KB to chest (no photo)
(3) press up the bell with both hands straight up
1upPiston.jpg
(4) if the bell is going to be held with the left, bring the right arm down at 30-45 degrees to your body so that your hand is in line with your hip - this hip/hand alignment is critical: notice for now where the knee is: it is upright rather than collapsing in. Keep it there. That hand by the hip will help that in the rest of the moves.
1upPost.jpg
(5) Go up on your right elbow from that position (keep the KB left arm straight). Again, notice the knee: upright, rather than collapsing in. Also, that right leg did not leave the ground while getting up onto the elbow. If it does leave the ground, that's another sign of work to do.
1upElbow.jpg
(6) then go up on your right hand - note hand position still close by hip
1upHandSit.jpg
(7) then PRESS UP YOUR HIPS - you're on your side remember, so you have a line through your nice straight body at this point with the kb straight up, and you balanced on the other hand. Lats are fired on both sides. make sure to feel you lats working. If this hip elevation position is an issue, that's another sign of another issue for work.
1upHipUp.jpg
(8) With your left foot leg on the ground, bring your right leg back through - work to get this pull through as even as possible - so that you get your knee down behind you and your hip lined up with that hand on the ground. Left knee still up.

update/note April 09: there's been some debate about whether or not or why or why not this hip thrust is the right thing to do in a TGU. There's a discussion/analysis of at least some of that debate in an accompanying post on the high hip bridge, here.
1upHandHip.jpg
* Added Note: Windmill hinge vs Windshield Wiper Crouch.
At the CK-FMS, this position caused considerable discussion. You'll note Doc is almost in a crouch here and the right leg is doing what came to be called a "wind shield wiper move" with the right foot almost aligning behind the left foot.

Here are comments from Andrea Chang, RKC, based on discussions of this posture with Pavel, Andrea du Cane, Gray Cook and Mark Cheng (quoted with permission):
looking at the pictures in your blog again, photo 8 [above -mc] shows the transition from the hips up bridge to the kneeling position, where mark sweeps his leg back and places his knee near his hand. in photo #8, his knee is further back than usual and he is crouching, showing more flexion in the knee on the ground. what i heard was that this is due to his particular martial art -- which movement's of helped him to develop this move -- however, the consensus was that the crouch was too pronounced. whether or not you need to do a windshield wiper move with your leg to help get in a more stable position is determined by your own body mechanics, it is not manditory as far as i understand.

the knee should be closer to the hand on the ground, allowing for the body to be in a more open hips forward stance, with an elongated spine, packed shoulders and zipped up core (yup i said core).

using the windmill technique to get out of, or back into, position #4 (photo #8 in mc's blog) is preferable to the crouch, and what eventually agreed upon at the ck-fms. note of caution, the hinge at the hips for the windmill technique can be cheated by novices/students by allowing the hand they place on the ground to go down rather quickly with a thump -- this is not desired. a controlled descent is what they're after.

Back to the sequence: So now you're kneeling on one knee, with one hand on the ground, arm straight and the other arm up with the KB. Note alignment of hand by side

(9) Get your hand off the ground so you're now in a genuflecting position. You are not using the hand on the ground to give you a boost up: this is a controlled movement of the torso into an upright position. If you cannot get to that upright position smoothly, that's another sign of work to do.
1upGenuflect.jpg
(10) put your weight on that forward leg (the left leg with the foot firmly planted on the ground), you can look straight ahead now, and stand up. No hesitancy, just right up. The shoulder with the bell should be sucked down into the socket, the lats fired holding up that kettlebell. If it's difficult to get to that standing position in one step, work to do there, too.
2downStand.jpg
* Now reverse.
back into kneel
2downGenuflect.jpg
hand down by hip - maintaining control, not falling over onto the hand but deliberately lowering hand by hip (for those who know the move, think hinge from Windmill).
2downHandHip.jpg
leg back through and hip up
2downHipLeg.jpg
lower butt, leg extending out, arm on ground extended and hand by hip
2downHand.jpg
lower to elbow
2downElbow.jpg
lower to back
1upPost.jpg
both hands on bell to bring it down to the chest

2downPost.jpg
bring the bell down to the chest (no photo - sorry)

roll to side with bell
2downSide.jpg

The goal in part is to get this to be a crisp sequence of steps that can be broken down into individual units and then flowed into one motion.
1. kb to chest
2. press up bell
3. arm to side
4. roll to side
5. on elbow
6. on hand
7. hips up
8. leg back to kneel prep
9. torso erect in genuflect
10. Stand up
reverse.

Throughout, stay in a straight line all the way up: so the direction you start the TGU in is the direction you end in.

Putting it all together, here is Mark carrying out the "bottom's up" version of the TGU (can you see the small differences? also note the windshield wiper move going from bridge to genuflect to standing, rather than windmill hinge):



The problems we attended were:
- the extended leg leaving the ground
- The bent knee caving in
- inability to lower to do a controlled lower of hand to ground from genuflect or to get up to
-genuflect from hand on ground
- difficulty with hip extension

Each of these issues maps to a corresponding stability and/or mobility issue that comes out in the FMS (pdf overview here). That's pretty cool. It's interesting to see that sometimes simply cleaning up form (position of hand relative to hip) has an major influence on performance. Or sometimes other work needs to be done. Regardless, we all knew the TGU was a powerful as a move in its own right; now we know it's powerful as a diagnostic tool as well.
As always, if moves like this are new to you, find an RKC in your neighborhood and ask them to check your form: a post is no replacement for a skilled set of eyeballs - especially those training up now with the CK-FMS.

Thanks to Andrea Chang for synthesizing the discussion on Position 4/photos 8 & 12

photos © mc, 2008

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