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Kettlebell Thread for the Newbies...

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Lew, Sounds like great progress since you opened this thread, Congrats! I touched a kettlebell for the first time in Sept of last year, so I'd say I'm still a newb, but it's all relative. A couple of things that might help from my experience:


Primary goal: strength.
Secondary goal: weight loss.
Ultimate goal: be the last one to wipe my a#@.
(I read that on the forum. Thank you to whomever posted it first.)

In pursuing your ultimate goal, I would suggest mentally switching the primary and secondary goal. I would keep moving forward with S&S because it will help bigtime, but there are a lot of other things that will help as well. By mentally switching those goals you'll see them. It probably has more to do with stress, sleep and regular movement throughout the day than you'd imagine. Here is everything I learned loosing 50lbs in 2013. The main thing is keep your eye on permanent life changes. Pavel says knock out your swings and getups like brushing your teeth. Try to take that attitude of permanent life upgrade everywhere you look. This is the attitude that made losing this weight different than the other times over the past decade I lost a ton of weight. Now 1.5 years later its still gone (and I've put on ~18lbs of muscle thanks to Pavel)!

Because I am ~30kg overweight, (or undertall; I should be 6'7" for my weight;)) and I carry most of my weight in my abdomen, I've made peace with my TGU.
Since I'm already doing ~32kg extra weight, fat plus the KB, I figure I'm already 'simple' on my TGU. :eek:
Now all I have to do is increase the KB weight in inverse proportion to the scale loss!
Agreed! Glad you saw this!

On the mobility Issues: I thought when I lost all that weight I'd be able to move easily again. Well it was a lot easier, but not like it was in highschool. I was stiff, immobile and weak. For the mobility part I found Kelly Starretts work very helpful. I'd strongly recommend looking at his Mobility wod which is amazing because there are hundreds of videos on specific issues, so you can really find and treat your own problems. I've heard great things about Original Strength, which I think you've been pointed to. OS doesn't require as much mental effort, so I would stick with it if it's working.

On all the stuff you have to remember to get technique right.

I'm not sure what the original source is, but it's true that you can't think your way through ballistic movements. So here is what you do.
  1. Make your setup perfect. The setup is slow, so you can handle a lot more things to remember and get better faster. Check the boxes everytime. Hands crease the hips, butt goes backwards, hips 1/2 way between knees and shoulders, back straight, head up, paw the ground with your feet, pre-engage the glutes by pulling the knees apart as you sit back. tighten the armpit and pull!
  2. Choose a measure of "goodness" of the swing. To start with that should probably be height of the bell, or "float". When you get good enough that you know what it feels like the indicator should be the crisp feeling of "snap" in the hips at lockout. At first you won't have snap, and you can't tune zero, so start with how high the bell floats.
  3. Read through which ever book you are following and pick the one or two que's that seem most important. Just focus on that while you are swinging until it is nearly automatic. Pay attention to how you are implementing that que and tune it to make the bell float higher. Cycle back and forth with a couple and ques, notice when you manage to do both. Did the bell seem lighter, did it go higher?
  4. Once you've got those ques down and they are pretty automatic ( I now breath in anytime my butt goes backwards, whether i'm swinging, jumping, or sitting in a chair :p ) reread the book. two things will happen. 1) You will have a new and different understanding of the entire description and 2) new things will stand out to your as most important. Pick one or two of them and cycle back to step 3.

A couple other things that have been really really helpful for me:
- Think of your workout as a practice and a recharge yes. But go a step further and think of it as a meditation. How to meditate: put your attention on your breath. Notice when your attention has strayed. Put your attention back on your breath. Substitute swing or getup in that sentence. You will progress MUCH MUCH faster. For a while I tried to do double duty and listen to podcasts while working out. The results suffered bigtime. It's a meditation. Bring your mind back to the task at hand.

-When you look forward to where you are headed be wildly optimistic. Set goals that stretch you. When you look backwards and evaluate how far you've come compare yourself to where you were, to average people, and to the historical average. Whether looking forward or backward stretch your timescale to months at least. It gets rid of the noise of occasional bad sleep, travel, etc...

-People always overestimate what they can do in a month and underestimate what they can do in a year. Even people who know this to be true.

Hope this helps you and others and thanks for starting the thread!




.
 
People always overestimate what they can do in a month and underestimate what they can do in a year.

That sounds like something I should have heard 100 times by now in my life, because I'm sure it's true. But I swear it's the first time I've heard it!

Great inputs and interesting blog you have, Travis. Thanks for sharing.
 
...think of it as a meditation. How to meditate: put your attention on your breath. Notice when your attention has strayed. Put your attention back on your breath. Substitute swing or getup in that sentence. You will progress MUCH MUCH faster.

I was thinking about that very thing in between sets of swings this morning.
 
That sounds like something I should have heard 100 times by now in my life, because I'm sure it's true. But I swear it's the first time I've heard it!
QUOTE]

I know right! I think I heard it from Tony Robbins, but I'd be surprised it wasn't and old thought before Mesopotamia. For the math geeks out there the insight is that much in the progress of life is powerlaw in nature. At short timescales it feels flat no matter where you are on the curve, but at long time scales you can see the hockey stick.
 
Since I just mentioned this in another thread, I'll repeat myself, repeat myself here. :) Consider taking a Flexible Steel workshop. One of the things we teach you is how to use your strength to improve your flexibility - they are not things to be looked at as conflicting.

-S-
 
Lew, Sounds like great progress since you opened this thread, Congrats! I touched a kettlebell for the first time in Sept of last year, so I'd say I'm still a newb, but it's all relative. A couple of things that might help from my experience:




In pursuing your ultimate goal, I would suggest mentally switching the primary and secondary goal. I would keep moving forward with S&S because it will help bigtime, but there are a lot of other things that will help as well. By mentally switching those goals you'll see them. It probably has more to do with stress, sleep and regular movement throughout the day than you'd imagine. Here is everything I learned loosing 50lbs in 2013. The main thing is keep your eye on permanent life changes. Pavel says knock out your swings and getups like brushing your teeth. Try to take that attitude of permanent life upgrade everywhere you look. This is the attitude that made losing this weight different than the other times over the past decade I lost a ton of weight. Now 1.5 years later its still gone (and I've put on ~18lbs of muscle thanks to Pavel)!


Agreed! Glad you saw this!

On the mobility Issues: I thought when I lost all that weight I'd be able to move easily again. Well it was a lot easier, but not like it was in highschool. I was stiff, immobile and weak. For the mobility part I found Kelly Starretts work very helpful. I'd strongly recommend looking at his Mobility wod which is amazing because there are hundreds of videos on specific issues, so you can really find and treat your own problems. I've heard great things about Original Strength, which I think you've been pointed to. OS doesn't require as much mental effort, so I would stick with it if it's working.

On all the stuff you have to remember to get technique right.

I'm not sure what the original source is, but it's true that you can't think your way through ballistic movements. So here is what you do.
  1. Make your setup perfect. The setup is slow, so you can handle a lot more things to remember and get better faster. Check the boxes everytime. Hands crease the hips, butt goes backwards, hips 1/2 way between knees and shoulders, back straight, head up, paw the ground with your feet, pre-engage the glutes by pulling the knees apart as you sit back. tighten the armpit and pull!
  2. Choose a measure of "goodness" of the swing. To start with that should probably be height of the bell, or "float". When you get good enough that you know what it feels like the indicator should be the crisp feeling of "snap" in the hips at lockout. At first you won't have snap, and you can't tune zero, so start with how high the bell floats.
  3. Read through which ever book you are following and pick the one or two que's that seem most important. Just focus on that while you are swinging until it is nearly automatic. Pay attention to how you are implementing that que and tune it to make the bell float higher. Cycle back and forth with a couple and ques, notice when you manage to do both. Did the bell seem lighter, did it go higher?
  4. Once you've got those ques down and they are pretty automatic ( I now breath in anytime my butt goes backwards, whether i'm swinging, jumping, or sitting in a chair :p ) reread the book. two things will happen. 1) You will have a new and different understanding of the entire description and 2) new things will stand out to your as most important. Pick one or two of them and cycle back to step 3.

A couple other things that have been really really helpful for me:
- Think of your workout as a practice and a recharge yes. But go a step further and think of it as a meditation. How to meditate: put your attention on your breath. Notice when your attention has strayed. Put your attention back on your breath. Substitute swing or getup in that sentence. You will progress MUCH MUCH faster. For a while I tried to do double duty and listen to podcasts while working out. The results suffered bigtime. It's a meditation. Bring your mind back to the task at hand.

-When you look forward to where you are headed be wildly optimistic. Set goals that stretch you. When you look backwards and evaluate how far you've come compare yourself to where you were, to average people, and to the historical average. Whether looking forward or backward stretch your timescale to months at least. It gets rid of the noise of occasional bad sleep, travel, etc...

-People always overestimate what they can do in a month and underestimate what they can do in a year. Even people who know this to be true.

Hope this helps you and others and thanks for starting the thread!




.

Travis, thank you so much for the thought and time you put into this post. Lots of usable info here!

I read your post about going to India and a potential Kettlebell access issue.
If I might offer a suggestion (tongue in cheek); pack two bags, one kettlebell in each, and now you've built farmers walks into your trip as well! Lol

I use my active rest between sets to make breakfast, fold laundry, etc. I feel SO productive.
But you advocate doing none of that during the practice?
 
@Lew Through out the day my poster is straighter and I seem to be holding my abdomen firm subconsciously.

I have found the same thing to be true. It's a good feeling. Now that it's happened on its own, I'm trying to activate it as often as I think about it.

How's week two going for you?
 
I have a newbie question.

My usual practice is in the morning about 6am.

If I have a slow day at work and I get home at a reasonable hour, is it okay to do S&S twice in one day if I really want to?

I'm swinging 16kg 2H, and TGU with 4.5kg.

So yea or nay on two practice sessions a day...
 
My usual practice is in the morning about 6am.

If I have a slow day at work and I get home at a reasonable hour, is it okay to do S&S twice in one day if I really want to?
Sure, but ease into it, e.g., try 2 getups each side and 40 swings and see how you feel the next day.

-S-
 
I'd recommend to do more stretching instead. Don't forget that you get better while you recover from your training. I have neglected the stretching but feel and perform much better since I do them. Recovery and stretching are an important part of the training process and will most likely help you to improve faster than a second training session.
Don't forget the body is not a linear system.
 
Two sessions are done usually by advanced athletes that spread the total work load for the day in two instead of one session.
So for instance power snatch, power clean and front squats in the morning and snatch, clean and jerk and back squats in the evening.
 
@Lew
While I like Steve's post above, I seem to recall that you have some squat related mobility concerns.

As a result, I would encourage you to bump up the priority to reinforce quality Squat mechanics, movement and position with additional time available for pursuing your StrongFirst goals.
 
I have found the same thing to be true. It's a good feeling. Now that it's happened on its own, I'm trying to activate it as often as I think about it.

How's week two going for you?

It is going very well. I am on track to increase swings to seven at the end of the week. The 12 kg kettlebell arrived and it is working out well. It is much better for the warmup halos and it can be safely used for TGUs. The 16kg half getups last week helped a lot and the flag waving stopped. I am going to do more TGUs with a shoe to nail the technique. In one of the discussions the other day there were plans being made for a SFG course in England, maybe early next year. Have your heard any more?
 
Travis, thank you so much for the thought and time you put into this post. Lots of usable info here!

I read your post about going to India and a potential Kettlebell access issue.
If I might offer a suggestion (tongue in cheek); pack two bags, one kettlebell in each, and now you've built farmers walks into your trip as well! Lol

I use my active rest between sets to make breakfast, fold laundry, etc. I feel SO productive.
But you advocate doing none of that during the practice?

My first thought was to agree, but I think it depends on where you are coming from. I guess I'd say keep the priorities in order. Consistently training is most important. Training better comes next.
Next question is better for what? For the strength benefits you could probably go as far a "greasing the groove" method and just do sets throughout the day with long breaks between. The main thing is when you are in practice, your full attention is there. There is a mental switching cost, so if you are not focused during recovery it will be a bit taxing to get your head back in it. My point is that if feeling productive is keeping you consistent, then mess with that with care.

However if you also want the conditioning benefits, I think you want to focus on the active recovery too. There is a skill to recovery, that you probably won't learn doing other things in between. There are three different aspects I've had success focusing on: 1) how to breath so as to lower the heart rate quickly 2) how to notice and consciously relax tense muscles 3) how to move around in a way that promotes muscle relaxation and leaves me with the most power for the next set.

For 1) I'd say just experiment. For me I've noticed the a quick inhale, brief hold and slow exhale seems to work best to catch my breath.
For 2) try practicing "progressive muscle relaxation" (Progressive muscle relaxation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) you'll find YouTube guided meditations that show you how.
For 3) start with panels Fast and Loose Drill and experiment around there. For me the best during swings seems to be bounceing with loose shoulders, "shaking water off the legs" and a sort of rubbery boxing like movement.

Btw we traveled with 4 20kg suitcases, so I got a bit of farmers walking in ;)
 
@Lew
While I like Steve's post above, I seem to recall that you have some squat related mobility concerns.

As a result, I would encourage you to bump up the priority to reinforce quality Squat mechanics, movement and position with additional time available for pursuing your StrongFirst goals.

You are absolutely right.

I will add a second session, after I "own" the first.
 
I have had my first, official, WTH moment, in the shower... by myself..:eek:

About 6 months ago I noticed when I closed my eyes I would start to lose my balance. That bothered me a lot.

Since starting S&S that has abated and now stopped.

I actually now try to take more of my shower with my eyes closed to 'see' how long I can maintain my balance.
 
Two weeks into S&S and the results are showing up. I wore the HR belt today and there is a big improvement in the HR numbers. The max HR is better than it looks. It peaks on the first three swings and drops in a few seconds. After the third set the peaks average 125. This is for 16kg 2H 5x10 swings. There is also improvement in breathing. There has been no soreness or fatigue after a practice.

1st Day MHR 138 AHR 122 - Breathing hard and used breath test to swing.

14th Day MHR 142 AHR 106 – Breathing almost normal and waiting on HR to drop.

Tomorrow I will start 7x10 swings.
 
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