Not in this case.....

Ben Franklin said "Well done is better than well said." Up until this minute I would agree. Andrew Read RKC II, CK-FMS wrote a piece I read this morning that sums it all up. Remove Pavel from Andrew's story and insert Mark Reifkind Master RKC and you will have MY story. Which, speaks to the consistency of the RKC because my conversation with Mark happened over dinner 3 years ago. I was forty-four years old, he and I had an 'old persons' talk about training smarter and not just pounding out reps for rep's sake. Andrew's post is perfect. Read it here. The question is....will you benefit from the advice of experience of others or will you pound yourself into the ground. Remember, there is strength in mobility and symmetry. Even up your bells and iron out your movement compensations that have developed over the years. Last night Shannon was working with me shortly before class on my T-spine rotations. My T-spine is locked up. I stopped rotating my spine in 1991. This was the year I herniated my L5-S1 disc. 'Twisting' killed me so I stopped all rotational sports (if you call softball or baseball a sport...personally I think of them more as 'activity') . Flash forward to 2011 and after 6 years of KB training, I have great back support but the "Bretzel" triggers a dragon deep within the system that seizes my diaphragm, kills my breathing and spasms the peri-spinal muscles. So....I'm working on it. What's your dragon? Can you identify it? Are you working on it or working around it? (BTW-in the picture, Andrew is the first from the left, then it's Andrea, Geoff and Shaun (the original Beast Tamer).

250 LBS -vs- 120 LBS

Yes, it really does change you. Look at the ankle/knee/hip/shoulder joint distortions. Now at 50 pounds over weight the beginnings of the distortions are there to some degree. This depends on HOW you carry the extra weight. This is frightening because the first step for the aggressive 'loser' is to start........running. This is the beauty of KB training. We can place the force....tense the muscle....build the strength....that creates the muscle.....that burns the fat.....that lightens the load and corrects the distortions. All this in a way that is safe and joint friendly. Need we say more. ("Black" on an x-ray or MRI is air or gas. Notice the lungs are full of are and the 250lb person has a lot of gas trapped in their bowels)

OH.....My Butt !!

Actually, it's the posterior chain (PC). What is it? Easily stated, it's the muscles used for jumping. Burpees activate the PC very nicely (Get your 50 !!). The muscles actually run from your lower back to the back of your legs. And, they run deep. You may notice them more in the next couple days. Tomorrow we will be very kind to this area and rest them with some passive lengthening movements.

Sooo....what's happening?

Does anyone feel it? The 500 snatches with a light weight. I did it Friday with a #3 and Saturday with a #2. I am noticing some serious metabolic demands. Maybe coupling them with the burpees it triggered something but my bodyweight is down and I have woken to my alarm for the past two days and that never happens. So, I think were on to something here. I am going to continue it for as long as it seems reasonable. I have been wanting to drop some body fat before my re-certification in July. I did the 500 snatches again today with the #3. I think I will alternate the 2 and 3 while snatching 500 daily. That is 13,200 lbs of work one day and 17,600 lbs the next. Today it took me 20:45 min to get the 500 snatches. That is an awesome work return on a very small time investment. Now I am off to get my burpees. Get yours. 34!!

BTW....The SSST is on the Calendar !! Time to bust up your number

A question about Burpees....

As children we did burpees. In the Marine Corps they called the 'bend and thrusts." I like that name the best. Either way we never left the ground. Meaning...when performed we did not jump in the air from the squat position. I don't know where that came from and frankly I don't care. It's a jump. Bad for ankles, bad for knees, bad for hips and bad for lower back if you have poor form and/or posture. Just bad. The hard corps wing nuts that jump with the burpees look silly after 20 (that is a generous number) and should have stopped at 5. When you do your burpees (4 today) finish each one standing up right. Chest back. Looking forward. Hips forward. Knees locked. Then do another. You don't need to be a speed freak. Use the full range of motion.

Get your 4.

DAY 3...

Like any good progression, it is totally dependent on staying on track. The benefits happen at the end. Any weight training program will start seeing real results mid-program...not the first 1/3 of the training cycle. So, changing your program frequently falls under the category of muscle confusion which is good. But if you are not on the program long enough to begin with, it just becomes 'a work-out' and not a program. I have trained with some very smart people. Too smart for their own good. Constantly changing things around and going on to a new philosophy of training before getting simple results from the training they were doing. Meanwhile, us 'over-trainers' were still increasing our weights even thou we were "over-training." And we were over-training. No doubt in my mind. But you do have to wring that rag dry before trying something new. Look at how well everyone did on the SSST and RKC Snatch test. We have not been training for this or focusing on 'so-called' conditioning. But there we were, snatching to beat all hell and posting impressive numbers. Look around to other clubs. Ask those who travel around to other clubs (Cap, Linnea, Super Dave, Big Dan...and the others) and check how we compare. We post great numbers. Which brings me to my almost annual shameless self promotion. Dragon Door has a feature on it's website to rank RKC Instructors. Here is the link. If you haven't done so in the past I respectfully request that you put in a good word to the mother ship ON BEHALF OF THE STUDIO. Please take a minute and describe your experience with NEKB. Don't focus so much on my instruction. Rather, if you would talk about the training environment I would greatly appreciate it. People read these things. Dragon Door gets a lot of traffic and it is some of the best advertising for our studio. Plus, other instructors are watching and it's nice to have a little friendly local competition.

NOW->->->->->GET YOUR THREE BURPEES !

Some thoughts....

First, I want to introduce a guy that really puts forth an effort. This is John. John and I went to H.S. together and (as fate would have it) ended up in the same series in Marine Corps Boot Camp. John is a good guy and generally nondescript. HE is a pilot for a major airline and a good family man. If you met him in a bar you wouldn't expect this kind of brilliant behavior from him UNLESS you knew him. He is stealthy, to say the least. I love this picture of him. There is another picture I love as well but I will let this one sink in and maybe post the other one tomorrow. In Johns own words," No winkies were hurt during the photo shoot."

The Burpee Progression started yesterday. Today you perform two burpees. I am dedicated to sending out and email everyday for the next 99 days to remind you. Keep the count going at home during non-class days. Class days we will start our training with the burpees due that day. If you come to class and you have already done the burpees for that day it will just be extra training for you as you do them with the class (the love never ends). The progression has drawn out some forces. We are actually 8 days behind Steve and Brenda. They started the progression unknown to me. Cap is throwing in a push-up progression and Cat' is with us in spirit. She is going to bust them out independently.

The SSST was a monster success. Everyone did better than they thought and creating new approaches based on their individual performances. Multiple requests for a follow-up test have surfaced. I will announce it again. Very soon. Weeks, not months. Personally I am still really tight in the trap'z bilaterally. tonights training will put this to bed as we work lighter pairs. I have put very specific time aside tomorrow to get the record board up on the wall. Out pet project will be to start targeting the categories and filling in the board.