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H2H: Kettlebells Circuits

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Continued...

We finished off Day #1 with one of my favorite in the KB arsenal, the Turkish Get-Up.  I don’t know why it appeals to me, but from the first time I saw it on Pavel’s RKC video - I loved it.  What I didn’t realize was how important it is in the “Tactical Athlete” context.  The Get-Up teaches you how to recover, under stress, from getting knocked down.  It moves you safely from the fully supine position to a guard, then up to your classical kneel-and-shoot, and then up.  Done holding 53 pounds directly over your face, the Get-Up definitely forces you to remain task oriented and trains your core like you would not believe.

Day #2:

Gut Check.  0530 and it’s back at it for another eight hours.  The most surprising thing is … I’m not that sore.  I haven’t been to the gym two days in a row in years - and after eight straight hours of lifts, presses, swings - I’m still good to go.  Training to failure may be okay for some people, but if you’re working in a Rapid Response field, whether is military, public service, or in the private sector, you can’t be crippled by your training.  Nothing says you won’t get a call-out, as your walking out of the gym back to your car.  If you just fried your quads doing leg presses, you’re gonna be in trouble.  This will become obvious to all of us later.

Once again, we report to the barracks.  We all grab a few bells and head to the beach for “Hand-to-Hand Kettlebell Drills”.  This is why I came.  The style of kung fu that I practice trains a serious amount of rotational energy rather than vertical energy, so it’s more like swinging a bat than swinging an ax.  It’s all about manifesting power from the core.  Nothing gives that to you like Jeff’s H2H drills.

Hand-to-Hand kettlebell training may actually be the ultimate tactical performance exercise.  It trains balance, cardiovascular endurance, coordination under stress, and good old-fashioned toughness.   We go from drill to drill mixing swings, lunges, presses, flips and catches - this goes on for hours.  Eventually we’re all completely burnt, and we end up swimming to cool down. Massachusetts in the summer may not be Ft. Bragg, but it is still pretty hot!

We returned from lunch and got back to it. More H2H . . . more sun . . . and more sand.  I was definitely feeling my inner sugar-cookie, when we got the news.  A series of explosions in London’s public transportation had been targeted.  Unknown dead; unknown injured.  The Troopers were notified they may be called up as part of the standard response plan to terrorist attacks.  The Aussie and his girlfriend left to go make phone calls to their relatives in the UK.  I was left to wonder about the EMS response to Mass Casualty Incidents and Weapons of Mass Destruction.

After knocking off “naked” pull ups for reps, Jeff takes it to the next level.  He clipped two 36 pound kettlebells to a belt strapped around his waist.  He proceeded to knock off some more pull-ups.  You won’t be scaling that wall in shorts and a T…. It’s gonna be with your weapon, your duty belt, a LBV, and God knows what else.

Jeff led us through the warm-ups for the kettlebell evolution.  I was surprised to see how much I had been doing wrong when training on my own.  Evidently, there is a wrong way to swing a huge iron ball!! The mechanics of the KB Swing are exactly the same as the Dead Lift.  Shins straight, butt out, chest open, shoulders back and head up.   I had been training for over a year doing it like a Squat.  The effect of just that one correction changed the entire scope of my practice.  Jeff ran us through the Swing, Snatch, Clean, and variations of the Military Press, giving corrections and key points of each technique along the way.  If you’re going to train with kettlebells, I really can’t emphasize enough how important it is to train under one of the certified RKC instructors.  They will improve your lifts immensely, and save you from wondering what you’re doing wrong.  If you’re getting hurt or not putting up the weight you want to be, there is a reason and a solution.

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