Archives for September 2013

It’s in the Hips, Part 2

September 25, 2013 By Mark Bixby 2 Comments

In part one of this four-part series, I talked about how hip stiffness is usually part of a larger complex of stiff tissues and joints throughout the body. I then offered a very basic mobilization sequence starting with a knee sit and progressing to a standing hip extension/flexion drill. In this second part of the series, I will discuss more dynamic strategies for opening the hips and hamstrings to produce the active and resilient flexibility needed for sport.

After finishing the initial PCC with Al, Danny, Steven and Adrienne, I had the opportunity to attend the GAIN Conference hosted by Vern Gambetta at Rice University in Houston. This five day event, which started each day at 6:30AM on the Rice track and concluded at 9:30PM at the Valhalla Pub, included lectures and practical sessions hosted by luminaries in Olympic, collegiate and professional athletics.

One of the most inspiring presenters was Jim Radcliffe, Head of Strength and Conditioning at the University of Oregon for the past 28 years. It was immediately obvious that Jimmy was first and foremost a “movement” guy, who happened to be applying his principles in one of the most successful and well-funded athletic departments in the world. He spoke of growing up in northern California where he climbed trees and ran through the woods acquiring strength, mobility and coordination in a natural environment. He then discussed how his strength and conditioning program for Oregon football was based upon the natural movements he grew up with. Jimmy said that probably only 25% of his team’s work is done with weights. And much of the weight work, such as his Good Morning sequence, adds movement into the progressions.

Jimmy’s training template is as follows (in this order): dynamic mobility, “pillars of strength” (reflexive core stability drills), two stations of hip hinging drills, two weight-based stations (usually Olympic-style lifts), and agility work. The athletes do much of this work barefoot, and the agility work is often done in Oregon’s 40-Meter sandpit. Most importantly, Jimmy uses what he calls a “Jet Tempo” in his workouts to mimic the pace that Oregon football has become famous for. He emphasizes that he does no additional “conditioning” work to supplement his workouts. As he wants every rep to be explosive, he has no interest in training kids to do cardio at less than game pace because he doesn’t want to create “slow” neural adaptations.

The video that follows is an adaptation of the dynamic mobility drills Jimmy had us do in one of our practical sessions at GAIN. He said the athletes spend 3-5 minutes max doing this before going on to their reflexive core work. As Pavel demonstrated in Super Joints, Beyond Stretching and Relax into Stretch, athletes need to be flexible in athletic positions. They need mobility/stability under the incredible amount of tension produced by making high-speed cuts and other athletic moves. This sequence is a great way to loosen up the hips and hamstrings to prepare your body for whatever intense workout you may have in store for it.

***

Mark Bixby is a Dragon Door RKC Team Leader, PCC Instructor and MovNat Instructor. He discovered kettlebells in 2002 and found that they are the quickest, most effective way to train. A combination of past injuries and persistent low physical self-image had caused Mark to have severe posture issues and chronic back pain. Kettlebells taught Mark how to use his hips so that he didn’t tuck his pelvis and slump with his posture. He grew taller, stronger and more confident. More than six years later, Mark has accomplished huge gains in strength, flexibility and stability and he finds that kettlebells still present significant physical and technical challenges. Because the skill set can always be refined, kettlebells continue to push Mark towards higher levels of body awareness and fitness. Mark can be reached through: http://www.dkbfitness.com/.

2 of the MOST Common Kettlebell Mistakes

September 18, 2013 By Josh Henkin 9 Comments

If you train long enough there is one absolute guarantee, you will make mistakes! Most people look at mistakes as a negative, but in fact they teach us so many valuable lessons. We learn what works for us as individuals, we realize that different points in our lives require different types of training, an understanding that our needs change as we go through our journey of fitness will evolve. You see, the only way you actually learn these lessons is by making many of these mistakes.

I hope to save you a bit of time from 20 years of training so that you don’t have to learn all these lessons on your own! When comes to training with kettlebells for the past ten years I have also ran into many trainees that seem to run into many of the same issues.

By writing this article I hope to help you learn from my own experiences. Yes, you will make mistakes, but realize the only really bad mistake is the one you keep repeating! Hopefully I can help you avoid those times of frustration with two of the most common mistakes and result haltering kettlebelI mistakes.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Any time you start something new, it is cool, it is exciting, it is motivating. Unfortunately, just as many times we take a good idea and take it to the extreme. Getting reintroduced to kettlebells for me in 2002 was the first time that I saw pressing weight overhead being heavily promoted as a means of improving health and performance.

Many fitness programs were still touting overhead work as dangerous to the shoulder. However, the RKC focused on many overhead lifts as a means of having a healthy and strong upper body. Overhead lifts were about integrating the lower body, trunk, and upper body in one efficient and highly effective unit.

What was the mistake? Many people went from very little experience of lifting overhead to 90% of their program or more being overhead lifts. I started to see an influx of people with overtraining injuries because like anything good, people tended to overdue it!

What should you do instead? Instead of taking a good thing and going to the extreme, slowly integrate new ideas and exercises into your routine. Nothing wrong with adding 2-3 sets of 3-5 repetitions of a new exercise into your training program. That ends up being about 15 repetitions, instead of 30 plus repetitions that I would see in most new training programs.

Find out how your body responds, see if you are ready to do more or if your body needs more preparation. One of the hardest things for many of us to do is to slow ourselves down. Trust me, patience has the reward of long-term progress and injury free training versus the instant progress many see from just doing something new and stalling early and developing issues!

Not a Balanced Routine

You just read about exercise x, it is the new exercise that basically is suppose to solve ALL your training needs. This is the ONLY exercise you ever need to use a again. What do you do? If you are like most of us, you do as you are told. You focus on this one, okay, maybe two different lifts and POOF, all your training needs are solved!

The reality is that most of us need much more variety, especially earlier in training. Whether you are referencing legendary coaches and scientists like Tudor Bompa that spoke of an “anatomical adaptation phase”, periodization models that spoke of “general physical preparation”, or even old time strongmen that used a wide array of gymnastic and strength training exercises to build a strong foundation before more focused training. In any of these situations, the best coaches and athletes realized a need to prepare the body for more intense training.

I remember many people coming to me so excited to start kettlebell training and when I asked them how much exercise they had been doing most hadn’t done anything with great intensity for some time. Looking at their training they were doing one to three kettlebell exercises. Many times with the same movement patterns.

Here is a common kettlebell routine I would see.

Kettlebell Swings 3 x 15
Kettlebell Clean and Press 3 x 5
Kettlebell Snatches 3 x 10

I am taking some liberties with the programming, but you get the idea. All three have a two legged hip hinge movement, all done explosively. There is no squatting, no lunging, no single leg work, no stability exercises. Two out of the three exercises are overhead movements there is no upper body pulling at all. You start to see such movements are quite unbalanced. How might I change this routine? Here is something I loved to provide with beginners.

Workout 1

Goblet Drop Lunge 2 x 6 each side
Rows 2 x 8-10
Suitcase Deadlift 2 x 8-10 per side
Overhead Press 2 x 5 each side
Front Plank 2 x 30 seconds

Workout 2

Single Leg Deadlift 2 x 6 each side
Assisted Pull-ups (Band or otherwise) 2 x 6-8
Front Squat 2 x 6-8
Get-up Sit-up 2 x 5 each side
Mountain Climber 2 30 seconds

You can see there are two more exercises per routine, but that isn’t the big difference. In each routine we get a far more well rounded movement based program. We place the most challenging exercises first and more isolated or stable exercises later. There is single leg work, balance of pushing and pulling, working different angles, and a compliment of squatting, lunging, pulling, and foundational stability.

Most people make the mistake of over doing or not doing enough for their fitness in the initial stages. A good base of fitness helps prepare the body for more intense programs later on.

One of my favorite stories to illustrate my point is follows the path of a young man. In his early 20’s this well built young man (with limited training experience) told me he hurt his back deadlifting. I asked to see his technique and program. His technique needed a few tweaks, but his program needed far more!

I asked him, “Where did you get this program?” He replied, “It is what elite powerlifters do!” “How long have you been training?” I had to ask, “About six months.” After asking him to repeat to me who the program was for a few times he understood his mistake. I wasn’t trying to embarrass the young man, but rather remind him that following the right program for your current ability level helps you get to higher and higher levels.

If you follow these two simple rules I ensure you that you will have many years of success. It can be hard in this day and age of instant gratification to have the discipline to have patience and honesty with where you are currently starting. However, if you are able to implement these ideas, the rewards are years of successful training with the greater chances of experiencing plateaus and injury!

***

About Josh: Josh Henkin, Senior RKC, CSCS has been a RKC instructor since 2003 and has implemented kettlebell programs for major Division I programs, SWAT teams, and many different general fitness programs. Josh is also the creator of the DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training system where he is a highly sought after presenter worldwide. He can be reached at info@ultimatesandbagtraining.com or http://DVRTFitness.com.

4 Secrets to Engaging and Retaining Clients

September 11, 2013 By Brian Wright 2 Comments

So many of us as trainers, coaches, and fitness business owners get caught up in studying our craft…sometimes to a fault.
We work on programs for clients, we study manuals, we read blogs, and we attend countless workshops.

I have a long list of letters after my name, so clearly I am not saying that I am above any of that, or even non-supportive of it! In fact, I believe that we as a fitness professional community need MORE quality education. It is through that knowledge base that the RKC, CK-FMS, Primal Move Cert, PCC, and other personal training certifications helps us to change our clients’ lives for the better!

I am suggesting that perhaps we focus too much on the specifics of delivering program instead of the overall feelings those programs are supposed to create.

Let’s ask ourselves what people want…

They want to feel successful
They want recognition
They want a sense of belonging
They want to have fun

No matter how great of a program coach you are (and there have been some of the best in the business to have called themselves RKC’s), your clients will not stick with you unless their needs and wants are being met immediately. No matter how great of a marketer you are, you will not be able to hold onto those that the message reaches unless they have feelings of complete satisfaction relatively early into your program.

How do we create these feelings as business owners?

We might need to become better instructors! The answers are not in more education in this case. They are also not in attending another workshop to learn corrections, form and technique, or even which direct mail campaign to write. The answer is that we need to create a tribe feeling that people flock to in droves.

People want to feel successful. On the first day of training – either in a group or individually, people need to feel like they can do it right away. I believe as good instructors, we can find certain exercises that they can complete while being challenged. These exercises need to have benefit and they need to be within your program framework. That way you will maintain your fluid message, illustrate your passion appropriately, and be able to build on your education model.

For example, if a client goes through the RKC plank, the deadlift motion, some FMS style corrections, and maybe completes a few static stomp deadlifts or even some “sloppy” low swings within the first hour they meet you, they may not feel the same sense of accomplishment you do as their instructor. They have no real patience for the end product. You may have had this client sign up for a full 12 weeks, (as I hope you do in your training agreements) but without some immediate successes, they will be hard pressed to be engaged.

As a business owner – when is the best time to get a referral? Within the first 2 weeks of a new client signing up! Because they are excited! They want to tell people about the program they just signed up for; they want to share their successes! GIVE THEM SOME right away.

Focusing my attention on getting my clients success fast, I use the TRX. The program has a quick learning curve with good strength circuits. I bring in the Kettlebell early as well, as it often times is a major reason why people have sought me out. I teach them the RKC plank and explain to them that a 10 second plank is a great tension practice (most people can find decent tension for 10 seconds). I teach them the deadlift and the beginnings of the swing, but for many their success is in TRX inverted rows, TRX counter balance squats (even while holding a racked Kettlebell if they have the strength), and in feeling a good plank. They feel like they get their expectations met right away (I’m working hard from day 1) as well as moving closer to better understanding tension and the proper neural patterns I want to teach. It’s a win/win scenario!

Here’s the key – no matter what they do, I make it a big deal!!!!! That’s their success – that you are VERY proud of them, happy for their effort, their accomplishment, and their decision to begin a workable program! As their sessions click on, they start swinging, doing presses, pushups, a flexed arm hang or assisted pull-up – these are GREAT accomplishments! They get written down, they form the beginnings of their 6 week goals, and they feel like they are doing well right from day 1.

They want recognition. Clients feel successful because you are recognizing them. Blast them out on Facebook, put them in your newsletter, but best of all – just send them a text or phone call. People see that a FB blast or newsletter mostly helps YOU out – to promote your business. (It’s still important, but it’s second to the personal relationship building that a one on one contact can forge). If you are managing trainers, then not only coach them to do this for their individual clients, but as the business owner – do this as well!!! Remember, the clients write their checks to your business and your program philosophy – not to their individual trainer. It is ultimately your responsibility to keep those clients happy – that comes with their feelings of success and getting the personal recognition they deserve.

They want a sense of belonging. You know what line people remember from the TV show Cheers? It’s the line about everyone knowing your name. You know why CrossFit is so successful (a multi-million dollar business)? It’s because of their community they have created! As business owners of outdoor/in-home training businesses, training studios, or just a handful of neighborhood clients, it is our responsibility to create a tribe! Our clients are the members and we’re the chiefs. Who sets the tone? We do! Who does the work? They do! All you have to do is create the model. Here are some suggestions:

Motivational music THEY like is a must.

A slow clap build up before the start of a PR attempt or a difficult circuit/work set

Inclusion of team work drills like team carries and races against time, I go/you go drills, friendly competition (if it fits into your community – it mostly does not fit into mine). Borrow ideas from team sports blogs and books. Coaches are great resources for how to bring a team together. This mostly applies to the group training model – but it doesn’t have to be! Who’s the teammate for a one-on-one training session? You are! Get in there and do the carry with them!

Lastly, people want to have fun. Most people don’t really want an exercise regimen or physical therapy program. But they see it as necessary to their health; they see value, and they probably don’t hate it once they start. That’s not good enough! Even though it’s sometimes painful, we can create an environment that people love! Play games, make them laugh (while they are working!), come up with themed sessions. As trainers, we have the best jobs in the world. We are teachers of recess! I always tell my students –this should be the most fun you have all day! The 3 hours I see them each week should be fun, exciting, and fulfilling on all levels!

All of these four points do not negate a progressive, safe, and workable program approach. You still can teach all the fantastic things we learn in the workshops and certifications we attend. We can help people improve their ankle dorsi flexion with FMS corrections, we can improve their squat pattern, and we can get them strong and conditioned swing/goblet ladders. We can do all this while we are playing music, making jokes about tough love to check core tension, joining in on their goblet squats – being a teammate in their pain – keeping energy high over the loud “eye of the tiger” music we blast and congratulating them on their effort.

Using the 4 key elements for engaging and retaining clients, here’s a sample group session (can be modified for an individual session very easily):

2-3 mins foam rolling and general prep (as people trickle in – it’s the “how you doing” time)

2 -3 mins of meditation – I turn off the lights, I tell people to forget about their days, and think about the tasks at hand – basically a mental awareness time with drills on “really feeling” their bodies. (I play some hokey meditative music at this point – something I can joke about later on) – but I believe there is still real value in this for my program

5-10 mins of primal move, dynamic warm-up, general corrections (naked getups or drills with pauses for dorsi flexion focus, T-spine rotation repetitions, bridge variations depending skill levels (there’s a progression for all)

5-8 mins of loaded prep – deadlifts, carries/holds, plank drills, more corrections that feel harder maybe (face the wall squats for example) goblet pry stretches, or stick overhead squats, maybe a few swings (no more than 50 – 5×10 at most)

Note: (We are 20 mins into the session and so far have not done any WORK, but we have laid foundations, prep, addressed progressive corrections and of course furthered the culture of the tribe – that we are here for your total health with high emphasis on your mental state, your mobility, and your feelings of fun)

The Program sometimes has a theme – today is Aug 6th – so we will do the devil’s workout – 6 -6 -6
6 double KB Deadlifts
6 pushup variation – 1 arm progressions for advanced, just good quality range of motion for others
6 double clean and squat

NEXT Series
6 TRX Rows – pretty aggressive in the angle
6 double clean and press
6 kneeling windmills (3 each)

NEXT Series
6 overhead lunges
6 double swings or heavy 2 hand swings
6 getups to the hand (floor press, elbow, hand ) 3 each hand
That’s 6-6-6

10 mins conditioning games

Then we do trivia questions about the other members in class – I have asked each person to write down 2 little known facts about themselves (what country were they in when their first son was born? What position did they play in high school football?) and other things people can guess at. The class then will buzz in and attempt to answer. A right answer means they get to choose from one of 6 low skill conditioning exercises, a wrong one means I get to choose.

Exercise list

Burpees
Carries
Stair sprints
Hollow rocks for time
Crawls
Sand bag drag

5 mins recovery – static stretching, rolling or other low grade correctional drill.

That’s the hour – I’ll point out successes, bring the entire “team” together in shared pain, joy and camaraderie. Come renewal time – we’ll rely on this “tribe” experience to drive not only the business success – but their success in that they are sticking to a program for years!

***

About Brian Wright MS, CSCS, RKCII, NSCA-CPT: Brian is the Owner of BW-PT and Director of Sport and Spine Athletics, with 13 Studios in the DC metro area with over 520 average sessions per month. There’s a renewal rate of 83% on our personal training packages and group training packages.

Want a Foolproof Planning System for Group Workouts?

September 5, 2013 By Andrew Read 2 Comments

Just like there’s more than one way to skin a cat there are many, many ways to create a training plan. When it comes to training individuals this is usually fairly easy as you are able to adjust according to the individual’s response to the previous sessions and there can be a large amount of communication back and forth regarding what they enjoyed, felt was beneficial or potentially too much for them. But that relatively straight forward planning process changes immensely when you start to look at group training.

I know many trainers these days have gone to group training in an effort to better leverage their time but one of the consequences of training a group is that everything has to become far more general and very often individual needs are lost in the change. Recently there was a post on the Dragon Door Certified Instructors facebook page regarding just this problem so I thought it might be helpful to outline a system that allows you to plan any workout.

The thing about this system is that I found out recently that it is also the exact same method being used to plan sessions by guys like Alwyn Cosgrove. The main thought that goes through my head when I train groups is that I want to be sure that we hit the most important things for everyone. Everyone needs more mobility and core work, no questions. So no matter what we need to hit those things in every single session. Not only that, but as Ian King told me we need to make sure that we place our priorities first in the session so that we can attack then when we have the most focus and energy. It’s no good saying we’re all about core training and doing five minutes of it tacked on at the end of the session.

While these two things need addressing we also need to understand that while strength is important so is movement. And if, like many, you came to kettlebells to increase athleticism then we need some form of movement work in our session too. This doesn’t mean we need to go jumping around like a ninja on amphetamines but it does mean we should consider doing some work that isn’t bilateral and maybe is from a split or single leg stance, or it could be rotational work, or may even include some running or agility drills.

Finally, no matter how people choose to argue it, there needs to be some kind of fitness or conditioning work. Your heart is a muscle too and needs to be worked through all ranges for health. However, this work can take many forms from competitive games like a head to head workout, or a simple run around the block. The actual format doesn’t matter as long as you do something that gets your heart rate up.

I’m reluctant to call these rules, as I think of them more as a set of guidelines as to how a session should be run to ensure that we make the most of the time we have for training. Warm up Extra mobility work based on your warm up. Core work. Skill practice, power and speed work.Strength.Competition/ conditioning /Cool down.

I won’t dwell on warming up too much as I hope most people understand what it is for. A warm up should start generally and end specifically. If your session is to include overhead pressing, for instance, a warm up might have joint rotations through the major joints, then stick dislocates, Y and T work with a light band and then some light pressing. All of this lets you know where your body is up to prior to actually testing it with today’s main work. The warm up includes essential mobility work. Good examples include, after joint rotations, brettzels, armbars, and Cossack squats. The next stage of the warm up is often forgotten except by veteran trainers, or those who have finally understood that they have issues that need to be constantly addressed. A good option here is to allow people five minutes of their own time to address their individual needs based on what they felt was stiff or tight during the warm up. This is also a great time for all your lazy clients to do the therapy work that their physiotherapist gave to them, because there’s a large chance that it isn’t being done at home. This extra mobility work can be different from session to session and is not set in stone – it needs to be driven entirely individually.

I’ve been on both sides of the core training argument. From, “I lift heavy therefore my core gets all the work it really needs in preventing my trunk from collapsing” to doing specific core only sessions twice a week that were an hour each. Unfortunately my clients don’t have two spare hours each week to do core only work but I can make sure that they do at least some each time they train. Core work needs to involve both resistance to flexion and rotation such as planks, as well as exercises that strengthen those functions like sit ups or hanging leg raises as well as exercises like the get up or windmill that tie them all together. I know many will suggest that it not a good idea to hit core work before you do any heavy lifting but the reality is that most people are lifting nowhere near their absolute potential and whatever fatigue you cause in the muscles that stabilize the spine is negligible compared to the benefits you get from putting this most vital piece of the training plan at the front of the session when it can be addressed with full attention.

In terms of training sequencing you should always hit the most demanding efforts before the less demanding efforts. This can be a little confusing as many equate work that leaves them out of breath as demanding, however in this context it relates to CNS demand. So speed and power exercises go before maximal strength work, which goes before strength endurance work, which in turn goes before pure endurance work. If there is no need for speed and power work within the session, and for many there isn’t as the risk is simply too high versus the possible reward, you can still use low level power activities such as jumping rope, or skipping and running drills. These will serve to really wake the system up and get it ready for the main body of the workout. Strength work will form the majority of your training session.

Maximal strength has a carryover to many other activities and is also the thing that is most responsible for changing people’s bodies the quickest when combined with a good diet. The competition and conditioning phase is an ideal part to set up a head to head style workout, or do any of a number of complexes or hybrid workouts such as higher rep kettlebell ballistics combined with endurance activities like running or rowing. Finally the cool down should include the same elements that were included in the warm up. This is a final chance to check that the body is still operating at least as well as it did when you started as well as a chance to bring the body and mind back to a resting state.

Here’s a sample session with the deadlift as the main lift:

Warm up

Butt touches (face away from wall and hip hinge until your butt kisses the wall, then extend hips until lockout). 3 x 20.
Body weight single leg deadlifts for 10 each leg paired with 10 body weight squats. Repeat sequence so you’ve done 20 reps for each.
Lunge walk x 10m forward and back. Crawl x 10m forward and back.
Two-hand swing 2 x 20. Extra mobility – Towel toe touches. (Roll up a towel and place it between legs, just above the knees. Reach down and touch the ground, squeezing the towel hard between your knees. Bend your legs as needed to touch the ground). Pair this with cobra stretches. 2 x 10 each.

Core work

Get up 1/1Crawl 10m forward and back Plank hold for 60 seconds. Repeat three times.

Power and speed work

Power clean 5 sets of 3.

Strength

Deadlift 1 x 10 @50%, 1 x 5 @ 70%, 1 x 3 @80% then 5 x 2 @90%

Competition/ Conditioning

Kettlebell snatch x 10/10
One hand swing x 10/10
Row 250m Repeat five times.

No rest between exercises but take two minutes rest between rounds. The goal is to keep the rowing pace even through all five rounds. (FYI the standard at my gym for this is a 24kg for men and holding under 50 seconds for the 250m row, and for ladies the 16kg bell and holding under 60 seconds for the row). Cool down – Repeat the warm up sequence in reverse so that you start with the twenty rep sets of swings and finish with the butt touches.

***

About Andrew Read, Master RKC, Dragon Door Australia: Andrew Read, Master RKC, is head of Dragon Door Australia and Read Performance Training. Recognized as Australia’s leading functional strength trainer he is a regular contributor to Blitz, Inside MMA, International Kickboxer, Oxygen, Ultrafit and Breaking Muscle. His coaching background spans nearly twenty years having worked with many Olympic and world championship level athletes.