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Fitness Blog - May 2010
Mar's Kettlebell Adventure
Marlaena and I went back to Seattle this past weekend to do some one on one training with RKC Team Leader Andrea U-Shi Chang at her private training studio, Kettlebility. We only went up for the day, lucky enough we're only a few hours hour away and have that luxury, so we drove up first thing Saturday morning, trained with her for a few hours and then jumped back on the road and drove back home.
It was a long day and my butt was pretty sore by the time we finally got home but it was definitely well worth it! Andrea and I were able to work out a few mechanical bugs that I had with my swing and she also showed me how to do the clean properly. I was going through the right motions but using the wrong muscles to pull the kettlebell off of the floor. She had me do push-ups till I couldn't lift my arms up and then immediately had me do multiple reps of cleans on each arm to force me to use my hips rather than my arms and shoulders. It was a great drill and I could feel the difference right away.Marlaena started off with her double swing as well and then moved on to the more difficult single arms and then worked on combinations of both. She seemed to pick things up so quickly and has incredible athleticism so Andrea moved right along and showed her the turkish get up, goblet squat and some really cool stretches before our session ended.We both had a great time and really enjoy training with Andrea. She is very knowledgeable and a great instructor and her studio, Kettlebility, is clean, bright and very welcoming.Thanks Andrea, we'll see you soon!Exercise & Workout article by Ben on Sunday, May 30, 2010 10:50:36 PM EST
My new Kettlebell DVD's
I just received a couple of new kettlebell DVD's and books in the mail and I'm super stoked to get started on them! I wrote in an earlier blog about going down to Seattle and getting my HKC designation. After the seminar I bought a DVD by the instructor Brett Jones called Kettlebell Basics for Strength Coaches and Personal Trainers. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking to get into or learn more about kettlebells, it's a great instructional video and Brett does an exceptional job of breaking down and explaining all of the exercises.After getting home from the seminar and watching the first video I was totally hooked on the kettlebell so I went ahead and ordered a couple more books and DVD's from the King of the Kettlebell - Pavel Tsatsouline. I ended up getting one of his first and one of his most recent in "Enter the Kettlebell" and "Return of the Kettlebell" from Dragon Door publications. I've already watched the first one a few times now (it's awesome) and have been practicing my swings, cleans and presses diligently over the past few days!I'm going back to Seattle this weekend and really hope that I can work out any kinks that I have in any of the exercises. Marlaena and I are going down to train with RKC Team Leader Andrea U-Shi Chang again. I'm taking my video camera down this time so any corrections or adjustments that I need to make to my technique, I'll hopefully be ale to fix when I can break it all down in slo-mo when I get back!I'll be filming some of these new kettlebell exercises in the next couple of weeks and will hopefully have them ready to include in a new update later this Summer!Exercise & Workout article by Ben on Wednesday, May 26, 2010 12:56:43 AM EST
CrossFit Intro
So my training partner Jordy and I have started on our CrossFit journey! We completed our introductory session (the first of ten) with Patty, the owner of CrossFit Vancouver yesterday and even though we didn't do a ton of training in the first session, I'm still feeling pretty sore all over this morning!
We spent the first half of the introductory session discussing the history of CrossFit, the ideas that got it started, the fitness principles CF was built around and how it has and continues to evolve over the years. For those of you that aren't familiar with CrossFit yet, here is an excerpt from Foundations written by the founder of CF, Greg Glassman that will help to explain a bit:
CrossFit is a core strength and conditioning program. We have designed our program to elicit as broad an adaptational response as possible. CrossFit is not a specialized fitness program but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains. They are Cardiovascular and Respiratory endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy.
Aside from the breadth or totality of fitness the CrossFit Program seeks, our program is distinctive, if not unique, in its focus on maximizing neuroendocrine response, developing power, cross-training with multiple training modalities, constant training and practice with functional movements, and the development of successful diet strategies.
After we talked for a about a half an hour or so we moved and did a full body warm-up and got ready for the fitness test which included:
- a flexibility and ROM test
- a 400 M sprint with a 20lb. medicine ball
- pull-ups to failure
- dips on the olympic rings to failure
- push-ups to failure
- full sit-ups (total reps after 1 minute)
The sprint at the beginning was pretty tough because it had been awhile since I had run that far that fast and found it even more challenging trying to carry and maneuver a big med ball in your hands at the same time! I managed to finish the sprint in 1:15 though, which is apparently a fairly respectable time. The next component of the test was the pull-ups which I've been working on for the last couple of months and it showed because I managed to do a solid set of 20, which I was very happy about! We then moved on to the olympic ring dips which I found pretty challenging since I've never tried using the rings before. I still managed to squeak out a set of 10. After those two components we took several minutes to rest before moving on to the full sit-ups and push-ups. I've been boxing since I was pretty young and have done the firefighter testings in the past so have done more sit-ups and push-ups in my life than I'd ever like to remember so I found this part of the test to be a little bit easier. I managed 40 push-ups before failure and 35 full sit-ups in a minute.After we finished the fitness test, there were a few minutes left in the session so Patty thought he'd be a real nice guy and throw a "workout of the day" or W.O.D. at us! And because we only had a few minutes he thought he would introduce us to tabata interval training, which is 20 seconds of intense work followed by 10 seconds of rest done continuously for 8 cycles or a total of 4 minutes. We did body weight squats and after 4 minutes and about 120 squats, my hip flexors were screaming!I was pretty bagged after the workout but felt pretty awesome too! I really liked everyone that I met down at the gym and I think I'm really going to like training down at CrossFit Vancouver! And I'm a little sore today but nothing that will slow me down because we're going back in a couple days for our second workout and I know it's only going to get harder as we get further into our sessions! I'll keep you posted!Exercise & Workout article by Ben on Friday, May 07, 2010 8:37:19 PM EST
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