WKC Fitness Trainer

I was in Edmonton, Alberta this past weekend for the WKC (World Kettlebell Club) Fitness Trainer course and I am now officially a licensed WKC fitness trainer! The course was instructed by Catherine Imes, who was the first American born Master of Sport in kettlebell lifting, and covered the WKC core lifts, the WKC fundamentals and the WKC training protocols.

We started the day off with the basic mechanics of the swing and then went over the rack position. Once everyone felt comfortable in the rack position we worked on the shoulder press and push press. After the push press we moved on to the clean and then put together the clean and press. We worked on the clean and press for awhile and then finished the morning off with a group workout that involved tempo training... something that I’ve never done before!

The workout consisted of 3 exercises - the shoulder press, the clean and the long cycle press (which is the clean and shoulder press combined). We had to do 2 minutes of each exercise on each arm and had to hit a specific number of reps each minute. This seemed pretty easy at first and I had to slow my tempo down to make sure I didn’t go over the target number of reps. Once we got to the second and third exercises though, my shoulders started to fatigue and it became a lot more difficult to keep pace. I finished the workout without any real problems but definitely found a new appreciation for this type of training. After the workout we took a short break for lunch. After lunch we were taught the jerk, which I found to be the most difficult lift to learn, and finished the afternoon off with the snatch.

The WKC is a much more relaxed style compared to the hardstyle used by the RKC. There were a few times throughout the day where I got my breathing and swinging technique mixed up but managed to get the hang of it and will be working diligently over the next few months though to make sure I have it down pat!

I really enjoyed the course and would strongly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about the the GS (Girevoy Sport) style of lifting. The next level of the WKC is the WKC strength and conditioning coach certification which is instructed by former world kettlebell champion and Honored Master of Sport, Valery Fedorenko. I will be preparing for this course this Fall and hopefully have it by the end of the year!

General Fitness article by Ben on Wednesday, September 21, 2011 2:29:14 PM EST