Monday, December 15, 2008
mc's version of KJ's beast pressing protocol - just fyi
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Protocol Review: What do i do?
A few folks have kindly asked exactly what am i doing in this volume protocol for presses i've been writing about recently (here's the latest post). Thanks for reading and for your interest.
The following is my current rif on KJ's Beast Plan for Presses (described in the RKC manual, 2007, 2008 and the subject of a forthcoming book).
As said, this is a slight variant on the protocol developed by Kenneth Jay. Any compromises to that plan are entirely mine. This post is not a protocol endorsement at all - i'm just experimenting and have not completed that experiment. I'm posting this in the interest of being clear about the method of the approach. I'll continue to report my results, but i'm only a sample of one so far. If you're interested in playing along, by all means, but again, no guarentees :)
With that caveat in place, here we go:
Light Day
As soon as form on the press starts to go south - like a complete rep but needing to put in a hip - go to a lighter bell, and keep going.
I do two 15 min zones. Many challenges within this: getting to 200 reps with perfect form; getting to the complete cycle with the same weight are two good ones.
Heavy Day
Again, i set the 15min timer - not so much because i want to work for 15 mins, but because i want to make *sure* i use the full period for recovery. If i cut that short, the rep fails. That's all there is to it - at least for me. And strength work like this is 2-3 mins. The timer helps me stick to that because i HATE waiting and like to rush to do the next press. For me, that's a doomed strategy, so i use the timer. Then, with heavy bell ready,
Then recovery. Then it's onto partials. reset timer.
So, Kenneth has neat ideas here: if i don't want to do parials with a 4k jump up to the 20, i could do partials with a double bell combination. KJ is a big fan of stacking bells, even if they don't come up to the goal weight of the new bell. Here's where that happens for me: just before one heavy bell looses form.
So, the Partial recipe is to press up with the assist of the other hand, come down to sticking point; press back up; come down a little further, press up; down a little further, press up. This approach to partials is very cool. It works on both sides - where i get down to on each side is a bit different, but it's working.
Two notes on the partials: perfect form.
First, as said, if i feel form is about to get lost, i bail to go to the 16 stacked with another bell, for slightly under the 20 weight, to about an 18. Second, breathing and handle gripping.
Many folks already know this; i've heard it alot too, but it's not until i've really practiced it with this approach that i've gotten how vital it is. For me, it's
There's at least a two day gap between the light day and the heavy day for pressing, so that's *only* once a week for the complete pressing cycle. The other days of the week are currently replete with fighting despair while trying to build up my pistol and pull up, again with heavy/light days per both, snatching once a week (or so) to stay solid with the new RKC snatch test numbers, and a whole lot of rowing thrown in for fun, happiness and alternating steady state/interval cardio. Thanks to KJ there too for pointing out the similarity between rowing and snatching.
Ok, wow, surprised that took so many words to detail, but i hope that helps anyone curious about exactly what i'm doing in these sets. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
A few folks have kindly asked exactly what am i doing in this volume protocol for presses i've been writing about recently (here's the latest post). Thanks for reading and for your interest.
The following is my current rif on KJ's Beast Plan for Presses (described in the RKC manual, 2007, 2008 and the subject of a forthcoming book).As said, this is a slight variant on the protocol developed by Kenneth Jay. Any compromises to that plan are entirely mine. This post is not a protocol endorsement at all - i'm just experimenting and have not completed that experiment. I'm posting this in the interest of being clear about the method of the approach. I'll continue to report my results, but i'm only a sample of one so far. If you're interested in playing along, by all means, but again, no guarentees :)
With that caveat in place, here we go:
Light Day
- pick a weight i can do ten reps with and get ready for multiple sets of five
- set a timer for 15mins (i like the gymboss as a physical device & use it alot, but for a BIG screen version, this freebie javascript page rules.).
- Press strong/best side for 5 - inhale on the press/exhale on the descent. focus on form each rep.
- Press weaker/lesser side for 5
- Put the bell down
- Do TEN bodyweight DeadLifts (so focus on form, in particular, bone rhythm, so that's getting the ass down fast to finish with the knees, exhaling on the out, inhaling on the up. These are done FAST - as fast as can be done to keep that perfect bone rhythm form, yes, but also to keep the heart up to test the effect of integrated cardio)
- mark down complete set with a | in a workout book.
- Take a breath
As soon as form on the press starts to go south - like a complete rep but needing to put in a hip - go to a lighter bell, and keep going.
I do two 15 min zones. Many challenges within this: getting to 200 reps with perfect form; getting to the complete cycle with the same weight are two good ones.
Heavy Day
Again, i set the 15min timer - not so much because i want to work for 15 mins, but because i want to make *sure* i use the full period for recovery. If i cut that short, the rep fails. That's all there is to it - at least for me. And strength work like this is 2-3 mins. The timer helps me stick to that because i HATE waiting and like to rush to do the next press. For me, that's a doomed strategy, so i use the timer. Then, with heavy bell ready,
- i do my C&P on the strong side; park the bell.
- Pause for a breath to feel in the zone.
- Do my C&P on the weaker side. park the bell.
- Do z health drills during the recovery period.
- make SURE the full recovery period has passed.
- Repeat.
Then recovery. Then it's onto partials. reset timer.
So, Kenneth has neat ideas here: if i don't want to do parials with a 4k jump up to the 20, i could do partials with a double bell combination. KJ is a big fan of stacking bells, even if they don't come up to the goal weight of the new bell. Here's where that happens for me: just before one heavy bell looses form.
So, the Partial recipe is to press up with the assist of the other hand, come down to sticking point; press back up; come down a little further, press up; down a little further, press up. This approach to partials is very cool. It works on both sides - where i get down to on each side is a bit different, but it's working.
Two notes on the partials: perfect form.
First, as said, if i feel form is about to get lost, i bail to go to the 16 stacked with another bell, for slightly under the 20 weight, to about an 18. Second, breathing and handle gripping.
Many folks already know this; i've heard it alot too, but it's not until i've really practiced it with this approach that i've gotten how vital it is. For me, it's
- inhale going up; exhale coming down - it's just smoother, more in control - for me, anyway.
- grip the handle especially if in grief on going up. When i've felt my weaker side pushing through the sticking point, gripping the handle with extra force on the heavy day, and towards the end of the light day, helped keep the form groove.
There's at least a two day gap between the light day and the heavy day for pressing, so that's *only* once a week for the complete pressing cycle. The other days of the week are currently replete with fighting despair while trying to build up my pistol and pull up, again with heavy/light days per both, snatching once a week (or so) to stay solid with the new RKC snatch test numbers, and a whole lot of rowing thrown in for fun, happiness and alternating steady state/interval cardio. Thanks to KJ there too for pointing out the similarity between rowing and snatching.
Ok, wow, surprised that took so many words to detail, but i hope that helps anyone curious about exactly what i'm doing in these sets. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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Sunday, December 14, 2008
Strength and the Perfect Rep, continued: volume works
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A week or so ago i posted about my initial experience of trying Kenneth Jay's high reps lower weight / higher weight lower reps work. The report covered my first effort with high volume.
To recap First Light Day of Cycle:
A bit of background: for me, getting a 16 press on my left side has felt pretty hit or miss. The stars have to be aligned or something. I was therefore keen to see if the reps of grooving in the form were going to have an impact. The answer seems to be "yes."
First Heavy Day of Cycle:
Since this mayn't be entirely the easiest way to derive the routine, and since i've had a few questions, if you're interested on exactly what i've done, please see this new post on the protocol.
The personal benefit of volume:
The first obvious benefit of volume is that i got a 50%
improvement on the left side. Now, i'm pretty durn sure i'm not 50% stronger on the left than i have been. What seemed to be happening is that the form was far more locked in. And so the form was applied to the heavier weight.
Additionally, one of my foci on doing the reps on the high volume day was to focus on breathing, especially on the bell going up - inhale up, exhale bringing it down. Doing that breathing pattern really seemed to make the left side (the weaker side) come into form. Biggest difference: the left press was WAY more relaxed.
Doing this breathing during the partials with the 20 was also a revelation in smoothness. I've done such partials before, and usually ended up holding my breath. Breathing is better :)
The Next High Volume Day
Now this was cool and unexpected. The next high vol day went like this:
The next Heavy Day
Well Joy and Amazement, here's the pay off, if there was any doubt. How many C&P's with the 16? SIX. that's right: from 2 to 6 on both sides. That's a three fold improvement on just the session before. To be clear that's 6 C&P singles rather than 2 singles.
How do i know it was only 6? I lost it on the 7th and 8th attempts on the left side - finishing with an assist each time. That was not deliberate. I could not tell from the previous efforts that the left side was going to fail. So i need to learn to listen to that.
Action during Recovery on Heavy Day: i should also note that i did various z health drills during the recovery phase between these singles, mainly, but not exclusively, shoulder drills. Did that contribute to the gains as well? A recent study on integrated cardio (discussed here) seemed to suggest that ROM work (like z) does contribute to strength gains. It's something i'll continue to do when i have a 2-3 min recovery pause on a heavy day. Form form form.
Relaxed Tension?
The big, and i mean BIG difference for me in these C&P's was that they felt smooth. Like they were just gonna GO UP. The left side was not as fast going up as the right side - the sticking point echo was there in the 3rd-6th reps, but i could just tell that i could press through them solidly, stable upper body, no hip coming into it.
Also, with the breathing and form, the move became far more of a clean - exhaling into the rack - and then the press, inhaling into the up, lock, exhaling down into the rack. I hadn't been so aware previously of the rack at the end of the clean, and especially the value of that exhale into the rack. Relaxed.
I know, in HardStyle we talk about tension, and getting all tight and locked, but we also talk about the balance of relaxation/tension. And perhaps that's what was kind of happening here for me: a better balance of tension and relaxation.
When gals doing GS events are ripping off TONS of C&P's with the 16 (inspiring, eh?), my few 6 singles may seem pretty frickin' tame, but, i console myself: i'm not doing GS at this time; my focus is on getting stronger presses. The 16 is a start.
Next Steps:keep going
This report is just ONE complete cycle really of the high/low
approach. My approach will be to see how the adaptation/strength curve progresses: will there be more sets of 12, till i get 2 full zones (2 full 15 min periods) of complete 12's; what will the carry over to the heavy presses be? More 16's? how long till finally pressing the 20? will the 24 come into sight, which is the end game here. I don't expect each week to give these kinds of % increases, but am keen to see how the curve unfolds.
Summing Up
It's too soon to make any real summative statements about the effects of high/low volume on my strength - the gains i've had so far seem like adaptation more than raw strength - they're just too big. But so what? The way these moves *feel* is so much better that if i got no other benefit than closer to the Perfect Rep, that would be worth the price of admission. But the payoff seems to be that this protocol, as promised by its author, is also pushing well into strength. Thanks again to Al for pointing me to it.
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To recap First Light Day of Cycle:
- 9 sets of 5 at 12kg, followed by 8 sets of 5 with 8's in the first 15 min zone.
- Then 20 sets of 5 with all 8's in the second 15 minutes.
- Breaks were used with bodyweight deadlifts focusing on bone rythmn, form and breathing.
- ((9*5*12) + (8*5*8)) + (20*5*8)= 1340 vol, with 37 sets total - 185 reps
A bit of background: for me, getting a 16 press on my left side has felt pretty hit or miss. The stars have to be aligned or something. I was therefore keen to see if the reps of grooving in the form were going to have an impact. The answer seems to be "yes."
First Heavy Day of Cycle:
- I did a C&P on the right with the 16 - good. fine
- The C&P on the left? solid. wow. That thing just went up. wow. The stars are aligned, right?
- So then the 2.5-3min break for full recovery (more on recovery times for different kinds of strength here).
- I did a C&P on the right, starting with the strong side first (here's why).
- And, amazing! that sucker went up on the left side again - no hip, just solid up.
- Recovery.
- I got it up on the right again, the left side stuck half way so it got an assist. Recovery, again right side went up (rep 4) and the left side again hit the sticking point, so got an assist.
- Recovery.
- Then did a set of partials with the 20 on both sides. Breathing right here - inhale on the press; exhale slightly on the down; inhale on the extension. up and down as KJ says each time trying to get a little lower and back up. Works.
- BIG EVENT: 2 solid C&P's on the left. *Doubled* previous effort
Since this mayn't be entirely the easiest way to derive the routine, and since i've had a few questions, if you're interested on exactly what i've done, please see this new post on the protocol.
The personal benefit of volume:
The first obvious benefit of volume is that i got a 50%
improvement on the left side. Now, i'm pretty durn sure i'm not 50% stronger on the left than i have been. What seemed to be happening is that the form was far more locked in. And so the form was applied to the heavier weight.Additionally, one of my foci on doing the reps on the high volume day was to focus on breathing, especially on the bell going up - inhale up, exhale bringing it down. Doing that breathing pattern really seemed to make the left side (the weaker side) come into form. Biggest difference: the left press was WAY more relaxed.
Doing this breathing during the partials with the 20 was also a revelation in smoothness. I've done such partials before, and usually ended up holding my breath. Breathing is better :)
The Next High Volume Day
Now this was cool and unexpected. The next high vol day went like this:
- first 15min zone: 13 sets of 5 ALL 12k's (no break between zones)
- second 15 min zone: 2 more sets of 5 at 12's followed by 13 sets of 5 with 8's.
- Not only is that an increase in the number of sets with the 12 (from 9 to 15 - just under 50% improvement) for a total 28 sets. 140 reps / side total
- The rest between sets was exactly the same as the previous day (10 bw dl's) so it seems the sets themselves were somewhat longer.
- That said, total Volume is up: (13*5*12)+((2*5*12)+(13*5*8))= 1420. A little under 10% improvement in one week.
The next Heavy Day
Well Joy and Amazement, here's the pay off, if there was any doubt. How many C&P's with the 16? SIX. that's right: from 2 to 6 on both sides. That's a three fold improvement on just the session before. To be clear that's 6 C&P singles rather than 2 singles.
How do i know it was only 6? I lost it on the 7th and 8th attempts on the left side - finishing with an assist each time. That was not deliberate. I could not tell from the previous efforts that the left side was going to fail. So i need to learn to listen to that.
Action during Recovery on Heavy Day: i should also note that i did various z health drills during the recovery phase between these singles, mainly, but not exclusively, shoulder drills. Did that contribute to the gains as well? A recent study on integrated cardio (discussed here) seemed to suggest that ROM work (like z) does contribute to strength gains. It's something i'll continue to do when i have a 2-3 min recovery pause on a heavy day. Form form form.
Relaxed Tension?
The big, and i mean BIG difference for me in these C&P's was that they felt smooth. Like they were just gonna GO UP. The left side was not as fast going up as the right side - the sticking point echo was there in the 3rd-6th reps, but i could just tell that i could press through them solidly, stable upper body, no hip coming into it.
Also, with the breathing and form, the move became far more of a clean - exhaling into the rack - and then the press, inhaling into the up, lock, exhaling down into the rack. I hadn't been so aware previously of the rack at the end of the clean, and especially the value of that exhale into the rack. Relaxed.
I know, in HardStyle we talk about tension, and getting all tight and locked, but we also talk about the balance of relaxation/tension. And perhaps that's what was kind of happening here for me: a better balance of tension and relaxation.
When gals doing GS events are ripping off TONS of C&P's with the 16 (inspiring, eh?), my few 6 singles may seem pretty frickin' tame, but, i console myself: i'm not doing GS at this time; my focus is on getting stronger presses. The 16 is a start.
Next Steps:keep going
This report is just ONE complete cycle really of the high/low
approach. My approach will be to see how the adaptation/strength curve progresses: will there be more sets of 12, till i get 2 full zones (2 full 15 min periods) of complete 12's; what will the carry over to the heavy presses be? More 16's? how long till finally pressing the 20? will the 24 come into sight, which is the end game here. I don't expect each week to give these kinds of % increases, but am keen to see how the curve unfolds.Summing Up
It's too soon to make any real summative statements about the effects of high/low volume on my strength - the gains i've had so far seem like adaptation more than raw strength - they're just too big. But so what? The way these moves *feel* is so much better that if i got no other benefit than closer to the Perfect Rep, that would be worth the price of admission. But the payoff seems to be that this protocol, as promised by its author, is also pushing well into strength. Thanks again to Al for pointing me to it.
Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Why "Fire the Lats" in a Kettlebell swing?
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When swinging a kettlebell in the RKC Hardstyle, you will regularly hear an RKC instructor say "fire the lats" as an aid to "pack the shoulder" or to keep the shoulder from flying out of its socket
(is Lance, pictured left, firing those lats?? aren't those shoulders a bit high?)
When i saw my first RKC and heard this, i had no idea what the above instruction meant or to feel whether or not i was achiving it. Much tough love was administered in an effort to trigger the phenomena.
At the RKC cert, lat firing was realized, along with many other refinements to the swing, such that i understood Pavel's idea of the swing firing down and INTO THE GROUND rather than out. The nirvana moment happened for me when i felt/got that with "lats fired" the kettlebell swing could barely reach chest height - the arms just did not go higher.
Didn't really think about the causes of that effect, but have tried since then to instill it as a heuristic in the folks i coach: when that big side muscle is working, the shoulders stay in the sockets and the arms just will not go more than chest height - individual variation will be a bit below (like me) or maybe a bit above (haven't seen that as much).
So why, you might ask, would the lats being ON have what i've called a "braking effect" on the apogee or top point of a swing?
We can go back to the pull up as a lat exercise to put this picture. As i wrote there:
So, the lat works on the shoulder, or in particular the shoulder joint, by its connection on the upper arm. Firing it will therefore brake the top arc of the swing, and maintain the shoulder control when the arm adducts or crosses slightly in front of the body to do two handed or one handed swings.
You can try this out yourself without a kettlebell. Lock your elbow and first start with your arm at your side, relaxed, and just try raising your arm by moving your arm in front of you and all the way up so your upper arm is close to your ear (if you can't get it to your ear we have another thing to talk about). Look at how great the arc is of that arm. from your side all the way up, like 180 degrees.
Now get your arm by your side and try flexing the muscles you feel along your sides. When you have that "grr" tight feel, now see how high you can raise your arm comfortably. Somewhere around 90 degrees, give or take?
In other words, and here's what at least to me seems so amazing, the muscle is not working within the shoulder to hold it back in its socket, but is actually using this mass of back muscle tied into the inside of the upper arm, to put a brake the arm action forward when it's flexed, and THAT the main action keeping the shoulder "packed" in the swing.
One more visualization: imagine someone tied a thick jump band to the inside of your arm, and held it going under your armpit and across your back. Initially when the band is relaxed, you can move your arm up in a full arc. If that person tightens that elastic up, that's going to limit the degree of the arc the arm can now be raised (this may also help reinforce why the lats are so big in pull ups: that lat muscle wants to get that arm down and back, in the direction of the muscle fiber).
SO the arm is kept from flying up (or out) of the socket with the help of the lats that both hold it back and limit its arc / range of motion when the muscle is flexed.
What is the shoulder socket or glenohumeral joint? If we talk about "packing the shoulder" in the swing, therefore, we are talking about a joint - the shoulder joint. A joint is where two bones come together to act as a lever. In the shoulder joint, the top of the upper arm bone or humerous, connects with the scapula, or shoulder blade.
The way the lat is connected to the upper arm, therefore, pretty literally, helps keep the arm in its socket.
It's not the only muscle acting on the shoulder joint. There are a bunch of muscles stabilizing the shoulder like the rotator cuff set, but beyond these stabilizers, there are three main actors on the shoulder: the delts, which take the arm to the sides, the pecs which helps bring the arm up (think bench press) or forward (baseball throw) and the lats.
In the swing, while the deltoids and pecs do some work, the major action on the shoulder is the lat. Remeber, the swing is not a pull (from the pec). The swing is carried forward on momentum from the hips. The lat acts first like a brace and then a brake, as said, to keep that momentum from throwing the arm out. This effect is reminiscent of the action of the hamstrings when sprinting: the hamstring acts as a brake so that the leg doesn't go flying out from all that quad power: it wants to pull that leg back down into extension.
The second action is bringing the bell down, keeping the shoulders packed with lats fired, lets one accelerate it beyond what gravity/momentum allows if the arms just come down with the descent of the swing. Pavel demonstrated this powerful pull down into the ground rather than way out in front at the cert using a super light (8K) bell, saying with the right form/muscle work, you should be able to get that power drive acting on any size bell you can swing - even tiny ones. The difference in feel is that the energy of the bell is coming down into the ground. As we practiced this over the cert weekend, many of us started to find ourselves being propelled backwards in our swings just at the end of the swing, showing heel skid marks in the sand.
Note: as RKC Randy Hauer points out, the down phase of the swing is initiated with the hips flexing (hinge at the hips). My point is that in the upper body part of this move, the flexed lats keep that move solid. Thanks for the clarification, Randy.
Putting the muscle together with the movement
By seeing how the lat is connected to the arm, and knowing that a flexed muscle means a muscle that is being shortened in the contraction, you can probably see how that muscle - again with all that muscle mass along the back of the lat working - is going to be able to support the transfer of power from the hips and out through the arms without the arms projectiling out of the shoulder. Likewise, keeping those lats fired and the arms stable while coming down with the bell insures the same protection coming down again, whether with gravity alone at 32m/s/s or overspeeding down.
Summary
By considering both how/where the lat is connected to the arm and how it operates on the shoulder joint has helped me understand why "firing the lats" supports excellent form in the swing, as doing so:
Bonus benefit to lat firing? Spine stabilization. Look at that lat images above: the lat's knit through so much of the spine, right into the butt, you get that working both sides, that spine is gonna be solid through the swing. ya ya, there are all the erectors and stuff in the lumbar spine too, and good thing, but look at that lat go! Thanks to Dev Chengkalath for reminding me that the lats connet to and affect the spine as well as the shoulder in the swing. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
When swinging a kettlebell in the RKC Hardstyle, you will regularly hear an RKC instructor say "fire the lats" as an aid to "pack the shoulder" or to keep the shoulder from flying out of its socket(is Lance, pictured left, firing those lats?? aren't those shoulders a bit high?)
When i saw my first RKC and heard this, i had no idea what the above instruction meant or to feel whether or not i was achiving it. Much tough love was administered in an effort to trigger the phenomena.
At the RKC cert, lat firing was realized, along with many other refinements to the swing, such that i understood Pavel's idea of the swing firing down and INTO THE GROUND rather than out. The nirvana moment happened for me when i felt/got that with "lats fired" the kettlebell swing could barely reach chest height - the arms just did not go higher.
Didn't really think about the causes of that effect, but have tried since then to instill it as a heuristic in the folks i coach: when that big side muscle is working, the shoulders stay in the sockets and the arms just will not go more than chest height - individual variation will be a bit below (like me) or maybe a bit above (haven't seen that as much).
So why, you might ask, would the lats being ON have what i've called a "braking effect" on the apogee or top point of a swing?
We can go back to the pull up as a lat exercise to put this picture. As i wrote there:
... [the Lats] enable the trunk to be pulled up via shoulder (or glenohumeral joint) extension. How does that work? The lat is like a big triangle of tough stretchy stuff that is nailed down along the spine from the middle of the back, just under the shoulder blade, right down into the butt at the sacrum. That's a lot of back. So the mid (or thoracic) spine is one point on the triangle; the sacrum (at the butt) is the second, and the third is in the arm, on the "medial side of the intertubercular groove of the humerus"
The lat connected in this way supports four movements of the shoulder joint: extension (movement of the humerus straight, posteriorly), bringing it across and in front of the body (adduction); internal rotation (putting your lower arm behind your back); bringing your arm up and around so that you can grab the opposite shoulder to the upraised arm (horizontal abduction).
You can try this out yourself without a kettlebell. Lock your elbow and first start with your arm at your side, relaxed, and just try raising your arm by moving your arm in front of you and all the way up so your upper arm is close to your ear (if you can't get it to your ear we have another thing to talk about). Look at how great the arc is of that arm. from your side all the way up, like 180 degrees.
Now get your arm by your side and try flexing the muscles you feel along your sides. When you have that "grr" tight feel, now see how high you can raise your arm comfortably. Somewhere around 90 degrees, give or take?
In other words, and here's what at least to me seems so amazing, the muscle is not working within the shoulder to hold it back in its socket, but is actually using this mass of back muscle tied into the inside of the upper arm, to put a brake the arm action forward when it's flexed, and THAT the main action keeping the shoulder "packed" in the swing.
One more visualization: imagine someone tied a thick jump band to the inside of your arm, and held it going under your armpit and across your back. Initially when the band is relaxed, you can move your arm up in a full arc. If that person tightens that elastic up, that's going to limit the degree of the arc the arm can now be raised (this may also help reinforce why the lats are so big in pull ups: that lat muscle wants to get that arm down and back, in the direction of the muscle fiber).
SO the arm is kept from flying up (or out) of the socket with the help of the lats that both hold it back and limit its arc / range of motion when the muscle is flexed.
What is the shoulder socket or glenohumeral joint? If we talk about "packing the shoulder" in the swing, therefore, we are talking about a joint - the shoulder joint. A joint is where two bones come together to act as a lever. In the shoulder joint, the top of the upper arm bone or humerous, connects with the scapula, or shoulder blade.
The way the lat is connected to the upper arm, therefore, pretty literally, helps keep the arm in its socket.
It's not the only muscle acting on the shoulder joint. There are a bunch of muscles stabilizing the shoulder like the rotator cuff set, but beyond these stabilizers, there are three main actors on the shoulder: the delts, which take the arm to the sides, the pecs which helps bring the arm up (think bench press) or forward (baseball throw) and the lats.
In the swing, while the deltoids and pecs do some work, the major action on the shoulder is the lat. Remeber, the swing is not a pull (from the pec). The swing is carried forward on momentum from the hips. The lat acts first like a brace and then a brake, as said, to keep that momentum from throwing the arm out. This effect is reminiscent of the action of the hamstrings when sprinting: the hamstring acts as a brake so that the leg doesn't go flying out from all that quad power: it wants to pull that leg back down into extension.
The second action is bringing the bell down, keeping the shoulders packed with lats fired, lets one accelerate it beyond what gravity/momentum allows if the arms just come down with the descent of the swing. Pavel demonstrated this powerful pull down into the ground rather than way out in front at the cert using a super light (8K) bell, saying with the right form/muscle work, you should be able to get that power drive acting on any size bell you can swing - even tiny ones. The difference in feel is that the energy of the bell is coming down into the ground. As we practiced this over the cert weekend, many of us started to find ourselves being propelled backwards in our swings just at the end of the swing, showing heel skid marks in the sand.
Note: as RKC Randy Hauer points out, the down phase of the swing is initiated with the hips flexing (hinge at the hips). My point is that in the upper body part of this move, the flexed lats keep that move solid. Thanks for the clarification, Randy.
Putting the muscle together with the movement
By seeing how the lat is connected to the arm, and knowing that a flexed muscle means a muscle that is being shortened in the contraction, you can probably see how that muscle - again with all that muscle mass along the back of the lat working - is going to be able to support the transfer of power from the hips and out through the arms without the arms projectiling out of the shoulder. Likewise, keeping those lats fired and the arms stable while coming down with the bell insures the same protection coming down again, whether with gravity alone at 32m/s/s or overspeeding down.
Summary
By considering both how/where the lat is connected to the arm and how it operates on the shoulder joint has helped me understand why "firing the lats" supports excellent form in the swing, as doing so:
- holds the arm into the shoulder joint socket (packs it in) and thus protects the shoulder during the momentum up of the swing
- acts to brake the upper motion of the swing for optimal moment of the down stroke
- supports that big in front of the body DOWN pull on the arms during that hip hinge down stroke of the swing
Bonus benefit to lat firing? Spine stabilization. Look at that lat images above: the lat's knit through so much of the spine, right into the butt, you get that working both sides, that spine is gonna be solid through the swing. ya ya, there are all the erectors and stuff in the lumbar spine too, and good thing, but look at that lat go! Thanks to Dev Chengkalath for reminding me that the lats connet to and affect the spine as well as the shoulder in the swing. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Friday, December 5, 2008
More On the Perfect Rep Quest: Volume + Integrated Cardio
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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:
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. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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
- 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.
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. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Monday, December 1, 2008
The Perfect Rep - and the role of volume with form.
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This post is a reflection on one aspect that contributes to the experience of the perfect rep: high volume. It's only one part, but i'd like to unpack a bit of why that part, at least for myself, and a rather new understanding of "volume" is becoming such a key part of "perfect."
One of the first things that struck me in reading Pavel's work like Enter the
Kettlebell is the emphasis on "the perfect rep." Don't go to failure; don't do so many reps that form goes to hell. Stay fresh. Make every rep perfect.
But what is the "perfect rep"? And how do we know if we have one?
This may not be your experience, but i've interpreted this "perfect rep" thing as getting the form right mechanically, and executing with the correct weight for the correct sets and moving on, eg doing the ladders for ETK's ROP. Upon reflection, though, that progression doesn't sound much like an experience of "perfection," does it? Sure one feels good after doing the workouts, and yes progress most emphatically occurs. But is it "perfection?" And why is experiencing perfection so important? would i know it if i did encounter it?
Some time ago i wrote about how seeing Will Williams doing the kettlebell front squat - in particular the breathing to go with that move - stopped me in my tracks as seeming effortless and perfect. I'd described it as what i'd understood art to be about, when a move goes from the mechanistic to the graceful.
The parts of perfection. Last week or so, looking at the kettlebell front squat, i came back to the front squat, going over how zhealth breaks down the concept of efficient movement into four parts that seems to be a recipe for the perfect rep:
What's been hitting me of late as a key feature of even getting into step one - hitting the target/perfect form - is volume by repetition. In other words, tons of reps. Which means lighter weights.
What's a Rep, really? Generally speaking, i've thought of reps as simply reps within a set, and that volume is just whatever you get from the total reps x mass for a particular workout. Increasing reps, especially when focusing on strength, has seemed just the wrong way to think about it, too: loads of reps is endurance strength, not power strength, heh we want POWER to PRESS. And it seems many protocols for strength reinforce this. For instance, in Charles Staley's excellent Escalating Density Training, in your 15 min. blocks, once you get 70reps inside a set, pretty much time to up the weight. What more is there to volume than that? Over the weekend, talking with Suleiman Al-Sabah about our mutual pressing goals, Al encouraged me again to think about doing "lots of reps" and reminded me of Kenneth Jay's part of the RKC manual on building strength. So i went to have a bit of a re-read.
The rationale for volume by rep: Kenneth talks about the need to do lots and lots of reps at a weight that can be readily sustained for lots and lots of reps to build up the neurological patterns of what that move is. The caveat to this volume, of course, is that you have to know what the correct form is to be repeated. See that RKC instructor.
Assuming that instruction has taken place, the rationale here for upping volume as half the strategy to strength is that this repetition neurologically groves the pattern of performance for building up the weight. To this end, Kenneth has Low Volume and High Volume days: lost of reps at lighter weight for grooving the pattern vs fewer (perfect) reps at higher weights to develop load.
Patterning is important. I've been focusing on the importance of patterning within z health practice - in terms of healing movement patterns, and taking those patterns from the level of conscious effort to unconscious habit. Over the weekend, i'd decided to focus just on my suitcase dead-lift form with KB's, using the EDT 15 min approach: the sDL's for the first exercise; floor presses for the second. For the sDL's I used a weight about half of what i usually use for such sets, just to focus on rep quality. The main points of concern, like that front squat for hitting the target meant correct head and eye position throughout the move, correct knee position, correct hip hinge, correct butt backness, and doing all this with bone ryhthmn. That's a lot to do. The cool thing that happened was that when everything was firing together, the rep simply felt better: more effective, more efficient, like all the parts working as one thing rather than as a bunch of joints and muscles trying to achieve something. Sadly by the time i was actually finished the 15 mins, and the sets of 5 reps were starting to really connect, (a) the time was up but (b) i was just starting to feel fatigued. Good time to stop, right? And keen desire to do it again. Oh, and i felt that workout the next day, too.
It's funny how when you need to hear something, you keep hearing it over and over, eh? At least i find this. It's like the opposite of a nightmare where you keep having the same monster, only bigger, until you stop turn around and look at the monster and say "can i help you?"
An Example of Rep Volume in Action. The Sneaky sneaky Way of the RKC. It was in the afternoon, after this morning workout, that i had the meet with Al and his recommendation of "lots of reps" and a reread of Kenneth Jay. And in rereading that section, i recollected one of the most profound experiences of the RKC cert: connecting with the swing. Indeed, i had a revelation of what the hardstyle swing form was, compared to how i'd interpreted and executed previous instruction. I felt i *got it* from "firing the lats" to getting the energy down into the ground. it was ah ha, ah ha, ah ha. I left the cert feeling pretty good about that swing, and could hardly wait to share these refinements with others.
How did that happen? Repeated instruction i'd thought and such attention on form over several days, but - i see it all now - the other key ingredient: lots and lost of reps. LOTS. Sneaky sneaky. Every 20mins over three days a timer went off and we were doing swings. And those were just the regularly scheduled ones. Any opportunity for pause was filled with swings, using a bell weight that enabled a perfect rep from first to last. So combine that volume with constant supervision to tweak and correct form, yes we'd better leave with a dang good sense of the swing. The other day i was quietly delighted when i was demo'ing a swing, the trainee laughed. I asked why. He said "well it's so right - the swing - that's what it's supposed to look like." With the instruction, it's the reps, isn't it.
Putting it together: More Reps Are Alright, Jack.
It's taken me till today to put it together that it's just this type of volume with focus on form that, ya, does embed the move in the body. And more, it does provide the basis for increasing the load, just as KJ and Pavel have said. As proof positive, half way through the cert, with the encouragement of team assistant instructor Lynda Angeles, i was double swinging 24s with proper form. That effort with that load would not have been possible - it was certainly not imaginable - prior to this halfway point in the three days of swings marvelous swings.
The take away at least for this first step towards a perfect rep, of Hitting the Target, is indeed doing what it takes to get in the volume of reps. This is not using a sissy weight. Pavel would not have let us get away with this during the RKC, but as KJ says in the RKC manual talking about presses: using a weight you can do for 5-15 reps, and if you're doing 15 reps, your high volume day better be 200/side.
I used to think of light days as just a way to keep effort alive and not burn out from higher work volume. Ho hum. I now find myself energized and looking forward to these high volume lighter weight days as an opportunity to have that form *click* in those moves where i've had instruction, and can monitor myself to feel that connection.
Hope if you've had questions about the role of volume of reps, these reflections might help you too experience where the path to the perfect rep, after instruction and knowledge of proper form, is aided immensely by rep volume.
Note: do look at Mike's comments below on fascial adaptation - and the recommendation to change up trunk positions for HIGH volume (thanks Mike).
Book Plug: Kenneth Jay in the New Year.
Now if you don't have an RKC certification manual to read up on Kenneth's approach to the press, fear not. A book is coming in the new year to focus says Kenneth on, perhaps not surprisingly, the perfection of the press, the pistol and the pull up. In the meantime, happy repping.
update: the quest for the perfect strength rep through volume continues, charting the course here. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
One of the first things that struck me in reading Pavel's work like Enter the
Kettlebell is the emphasis on "the perfect rep." Don't go to failure; don't do so many reps that form goes to hell. Stay fresh. Make every rep perfect.But what is the "perfect rep"? And how do we know if we have one?
This may not be your experience, but i've interpreted this "perfect rep" thing as getting the form right mechanically, and executing with the correct weight for the correct sets and moving on, eg doing the ladders for ETK's ROP. Upon reflection, though, that progression doesn't sound much like an experience of "perfection," does it? Sure one feels good after doing the workouts, and yes progress most emphatically occurs. But is it "perfection?" And why is experiencing perfection so important? would i know it if i did encounter it?
Some time ago i wrote about how seeing Will Williams doing the kettlebell front squat - in particular the breathing to go with that move - stopped me in my tracks as seeming effortless and perfect. I'd described it as what i'd understood art to be about, when a move goes from the mechanistic to the graceful.
The parts of perfection. Last week or so, looking at the kettlebell front squat, i came back to the front squat, going over how zhealth breaks down the concept of efficient movement into four parts that seems to be a recipe for the perfect rep:
- perfect form - hitting the target
- dynamic postural alignment.
- synchronized respiration
- balance tension and relaxation
What's been hitting me of late as a key feature of even getting into step one - hitting the target/perfect form - is volume by repetition. In other words, tons of reps. Which means lighter weights.
What's a Rep, really? Generally speaking, i've thought of reps as simply reps within a set, and that volume is just whatever you get from the total reps x mass for a particular workout. Increasing reps, especially when focusing on strength, has seemed just the wrong way to think about it, too: loads of reps is endurance strength, not power strength, heh we want POWER to PRESS. And it seems many protocols for strength reinforce this. For instance, in Charles Staley's excellent Escalating Density Training, in your 15 min. blocks, once you get 70reps inside a set, pretty much time to up the weight. What more is there to volume than that? Over the weekend, talking with Suleiman Al-Sabah about our mutual pressing goals, Al encouraged me again to think about doing "lots of reps" and reminded me of Kenneth Jay's part of the RKC manual on building strength. So i went to have a bit of a re-read.
The rationale for volume by rep: Kenneth talks about the need to do lots and lots of reps at a weight that can be readily sustained for lots and lots of reps to build up the neurological patterns of what that move is. The caveat to this volume, of course, is that you have to know what the correct form is to be repeated. See that RKC instructor.
Assuming that instruction has taken place, the rationale here for upping volume as half the strategy to strength is that this repetition neurologically groves the pattern of performance for building up the weight. To this end, Kenneth has Low Volume and High Volume days: lost of reps at lighter weight for grooving the pattern vs fewer (perfect) reps at higher weights to develop load.
Patterning is important. I've been focusing on the importance of patterning within z health practice - in terms of healing movement patterns, and taking those patterns from the level of conscious effort to unconscious habit. Over the weekend, i'd decided to focus just on my suitcase dead-lift form with KB's, using the EDT 15 min approach: the sDL's for the first exercise; floor presses for the second. For the sDL's I used a weight about half of what i usually use for such sets, just to focus on rep quality. The main points of concern, like that front squat for hitting the target meant correct head and eye position throughout the move, correct knee position, correct hip hinge, correct butt backness, and doing all this with bone ryhthmn. That's a lot to do. The cool thing that happened was that when everything was firing together, the rep simply felt better: more effective, more efficient, like all the parts working as one thing rather than as a bunch of joints and muscles trying to achieve something. Sadly by the time i was actually finished the 15 mins, and the sets of 5 reps were starting to really connect, (a) the time was up but (b) i was just starting to feel fatigued. Good time to stop, right? And keen desire to do it again. Oh, and i felt that workout the next day, too.
It's funny how when you need to hear something, you keep hearing it over and over, eh? At least i find this. It's like the opposite of a nightmare where you keep having the same monster, only bigger, until you stop turn around and look at the monster and say "can i help you?"
An Example of Rep Volume in Action. The Sneaky sneaky Way of the RKC. It was in the afternoon, after this morning workout, that i had the meet with Al and his recommendation of "lots of reps" and a reread of Kenneth Jay. And in rereading that section, i recollected one of the most profound experiences of the RKC cert: connecting with the swing. Indeed, i had a revelation of what the hardstyle swing form was, compared to how i'd interpreted and executed previous instruction. I felt i *got it* from "firing the lats" to getting the energy down into the ground. it was ah ha, ah ha, ah ha. I left the cert feeling pretty good about that swing, and could hardly wait to share these refinements with others.
How did that happen? Repeated instruction i'd thought and such attention on form over several days, but - i see it all now - the other key ingredient: lots and lost of reps. LOTS. Sneaky sneaky. Every 20mins over three days a timer went off and we were doing swings. And those were just the regularly scheduled ones. Any opportunity for pause was filled with swings, using a bell weight that enabled a perfect rep from first to last. So combine that volume with constant supervision to tweak and correct form, yes we'd better leave with a dang good sense of the swing. The other day i was quietly delighted when i was demo'ing a swing, the trainee laughed. I asked why. He said "well it's so right - the swing - that's what it's supposed to look like." With the instruction, it's the reps, isn't it.
Putting it together: More Reps Are Alright, Jack.
It's taken me till today to put it together that it's just this type of volume with focus on form that, ya, does embed the move in the body. And more, it does provide the basis for increasing the load, just as KJ and Pavel have said. As proof positive, half way through the cert, with the encouragement of team assistant instructor Lynda Angeles, i was double swinging 24s with proper form. That effort with that load would not have been possible - it was certainly not imaginable - prior to this halfway point in the three days of swings marvelous swings.
The take away at least for this first step towards a perfect rep, of Hitting the Target, is indeed doing what it takes to get in the volume of reps. This is not using a sissy weight. Pavel would not have let us get away with this during the RKC, but as KJ says in the RKC manual talking about presses: using a weight you can do for 5-15 reps, and if you're doing 15 reps, your high volume day better be 200/side.
I used to think of light days as just a way to keep effort alive and not burn out from higher work volume. Ho hum. I now find myself energized and looking forward to these high volume lighter weight days as an opportunity to have that form *click* in those moves where i've had instruction, and can monitor myself to feel that connection.
Hope if you've had questions about the role of volume of reps, these reflections might help you too experience where the path to the perfect rep, after instruction and knowledge of proper form, is aided immensely by rep volume.
Note: do look at Mike's comments below on fascial adaptation - and the recommendation to change up trunk positions for HIGH volume (thanks Mike).
Book Plug: Kenneth Jay in the New Year. Now if you don't have an RKC certification manual to read up on Kenneth's approach to the press, fear not. A book is coming in the new year to focus says Kenneth on, perhaps not surprisingly, the perfection of the press, the pistol and the pull up. In the meantime, happy repping.
update: the quest for the perfect strength rep through volume continues, charting the course here. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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