RKC School of Strength

Official blog of the RKC

Archives for October 2015

Regress to Progress—Why Patterning is the Key to Fixing Your Swing

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Matt Beecroft Swing Setup
Matt Beecroft demonstrates the incorrect (left) and correct (right) position for starting a kettlebell swing

Movement quality underpins any good strength training system. The RKC has never been just about the kettlebell, it’s always been about learning to move better. And the key to moving better is often knowing the right time to progress an exercise—and when to regress. It can be challenging to know when to increase the movement challenge, complexity or difficulty of an exercise if you don’t have an RKC instructor to coach you. Fortunately, the RKC system also includes an awesome system for teaching the movements progressively and safely.

Sure, you could go out and learn 17 different techniques in other one or two day workshops… But not only will your personal proficiency in those lifts be suspect (unless you are an athletic freak, like our own Master RKC, Max Shank) but more importantly your ability to communicate and teach the information to others will also be questionable. This is especially true when attempting to coach someone who is new to training efficiently, safely, and effectively.

Also, the skill set of an athlete and a coach are very different. Many of your clients aren’t really interested in your amazing athleticism, they are much more interested in how amazing you can make them. We all know great athletes who are terrible coaches and vice versa.

The intelligent progression of exercises which teach how to get from “point A” to “point B” is what sets the RKC apart. If someone is having trouble mastering the swing, you probably know by now that trying to correct it is difficult. Because swings are ballistic, they’re fast, so trying to correct a client (or yourself) during an exercise like a swing can be almost impossible.

The first thing I want to emphasize that you must be patient with the steps leading up to the kettlebell swing. You will know if you have successfully completed the steps if you finally pick up the kettlebell and swing it with some grace and efficiency. But, if you have sped through the progressions too quickly, your swing will be ugly and dangerous. And then more problems will arise when you progress to the clean and the snatch—which should look exactly like a swing in many ways since your arms simply guide the kettlebell to these other positions while your hips do all the work. These more sophisticated exercises will amplify and illuminate all the flaws with your kettlebell swing technique.

Many people speed through the progressions in various exercises thinking that if they have to be patient and spend the time mastering the basics (note: basic doesn’t mean easy) or need to regress the exercise, then they have somehow failed or gone backwards. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

A few things happen when people try to outsmart the process, or jump ahead in the progressions:

  1. They find out that their swing is terrible and have many things to troubleshoot.
  2. They get injured.
  3. All of the above.

Either way, they will end up spending much more time ironing out their kettlebell swing issues. Hopefully they will go to an RKC Workshop to learn the “a-ha drills” we teach to troubleshoot and save time. Otherwise, they risk getting sidelined by injury instead of patiently mastering the progressions and enjoying the journey. Speeding ahead with load and intensity usually causes limited or dysfunctional movement patterns, if adequate mobility and motor control (stability) aren’t achieved beforehand.

So, how should you fix your kettlebell swing?

Embrace the suck and regress to progress. One reason the swing is taught through a progression—at least in my opinion—is because of the patterning. In many respects, it’s similar to some of the ideas in the Functional Movement Screen (FMS). By the time you pick up a kettlebell, after all the correct patterning you have practiced , it shouldn’t look like you are trying to hump the bell! Instead, your kettlebell swing will be a thing of power and beauty.

The general rule is to only use techniques that improve form, quality of movement, and quality practice while reducing compensations. Unfortunately, many trainers don’t have a system for teaching the swing, they just pick up the kettlebell any way they can and then try to get it to move!

The FMS and the RKC teach patterning in this order:

  1. No load, pattern assistance.
  2. No load, no pattern assistance.
  3. Load, with pattern assistance.
  4. Load, with no pattern assistance.

In the RKC, we begin by teaching the hinge unloaded. This is often assisted in a variety of ways – either the student uses the blades of their hands in their hips to help find the hip crease (sometimes coined “chopping and popping”), they might push their butt back towards a wall, or use a dowel touching three points along the spine (head, between the scapula, and the sacrum) to teach how to maintain a neutral spine.

Next we would aim to do this without load, but with no pattern assistance. Our goal is to remove the pattern assistance and do the movement unloaded with perfect form. If the form breaks down we can go back and return to the pattern assistance method (dowel, wall, etc.) until the right movement becomes what we do every time. Old strength coaches were renowned for not letting their athletes pick up a bar until they could first do the movements correctly with a dowel or a stick.

The third stage is load with pattern assistance. In the RKC curriculum, this is the kettlebell deadlift. Placing the kettlebell in line with the heels also places the shoulder blades over the kettlebell. This makes for a foolproof deadlift when we simply stand up with the bell. If you can’t do it slow then you probably can’t do it fast—this is what grinds like the deadlift are all about. Slow is smooth, smooth will become fast later. If the deadlift lacks stiffness or tension, we can use the static stomp deadlift or Hardstyle plank to link the body with tension and to keep midline stability and posture.

The next step is using the deadlift drag or pendulum swing to teach the backswing and the start of the swing—pattern assistance with load. At the final stage we will do dead swings or the proper two handed swing, which is the load with no pattern assistance. If we have adequately mastered the first three steps, the final stage, load with no pattern assistance, will be solid.

Every time I progress a client who isn’t ready, I find that I spend a lot of time trying to troubleshoot their swing. Regressing these clients back to one of the first three stages of patterning was the fastest way to actually help them master the swing.

So relax and enjoy the journey. Be patient in your progress and understand you don’t have to master everything immediately. Basic doesn’t mean “easy”. Spend more time on patterning and you will likely spend less time with the difficult task of troubleshooting swings at full speed. This approach also works with more advanced exercises, for example if your clean isn’t great, your one arm swing probably will need work. If your press isn’t great, your clean will need work. If your kettlebell snatch isn’t great, then your one arm swing, clean, and press probably all need work too.

If you find that your swing isn’t great, don’t think of regressing to an earlier step as failure, or that you’ve made a mistake. You are still traveling in the right direction. Regressing to progress is an amazing strategy that will still have you traveling in the right direction.

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Matt Beecroft, RKC Team Leader, PCC Instructor is the director and head coach of Reality Self Defense & Conditioning in Adelaide, South Australia. He can be contacted through his website at realitysdc.com.au email: matt.beecroft@realitysdc.com.au or follow him on Facebook: facebook.com/MeetLifeHeadOn.

The Mindset of Mastery—From Exercising to Practicing

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Florian Kiendl Mastery Mindset

Watching any true master perform is always a fascinating experience. To the “average Joe” it looks like magic—he is immediately convinced that the master is a prodigy, and that he himself could never reach such a level. He might wonder why he should even bother trying if his own results will be mediocre at best.

But, when someone who has trod the path to mastery—even in a completely different field—watches the same performance, they understand what it takes to reach a high level of skill, and will value it even more.

What is Mastery?

To most people, mastery means performing at a very high level in a given field. They do not understand that high performance and expertise are actually just mere side effects of true mastery.

In my understanding, the path to mastery begins when someone takes action to deeply and profoundly explore their area of interest. Depending on where they are in their journey, their actual skill level might be high, medium, or even low. But, the difference lies in the approach we take to acquire and improve our skills. The “master to be” focuses on the process of honing and refining his or her skills instead of just quickly producing results. Many great masters of the past in strongman feats, martial arts, or any field of the arts acquired their fame fairly late in life—this is because it took time to achieve their extremely high skill level. But, many of these great masters are still known for their skills today.

Giotto di Bondone, an Italian artist considered to be the pioneer of the Italian Renaissance, was once asked by the emissary of the pope to prove his expertise. So, Giotto drew a perfect freehand circle, knowing that true mastery shows best in details rather than in the final work.

Kettlebell Training Mastery

One great master of our time, Taekwondo Grandmaster Kwon Jae Hwa, put it differently when he stated:

“A black belt is only a white belt who never quit.”

A Word on Competition

These days, when everyone can address the whole world with a few clicks, we are becoming more and more competitive. We humans like to show off our skills, which is a good thing as long as it inspires others to follow along. But when this mutual encouragement turns into a competition, it tends to get ugly. When we compete, the goal often changes from self improvement to fast results for conquering our opponents.

In Germany we have the saying, “Sport ist Mord” which means “sports are murder”. For too many people, this idea is an excuse to be in—and stay in—bad shape. Of course any competitive success comes at a price. In sports, your body pays in the end. High level athletes in almost any discipline have only a few years to earn their fame (and money) before their bodies fail them. Unfortunately this often happens while they are still fairly young.

While I do not oppose competitions, it’s important to keep in mind that the most important reason for exercise and training is to make our bodies as healthy and resilient as possible. If you are a competitive person and like to measure yourself with others, use this trait to keep yourself motivated. But, do not trade a few short moments on the winner’s podium for a lifetime with a healthy body. In my opinion, that trade is never worth it.

To Achieve Mastery, Focus on the Process

To master kettlebell training, you need to increase your knowledge and skills. Try to absorb as much information on the subject as possible, then let your mind make the connections during practice. Every bit of information has its time—you might hear it a hundred times before something suddenly clicks in your mind for the next big leap into mastery. Don’t try to force it, but focus on the process of continual self improvement.

Mastering the Kettlebell

As a martial artist, I got hooked on kettlebells because of the depth of the training. Each and every move—as simple as they might look to the uneducated eye—has loads of subtle details. You can literally practice just the swing for years without ever reaching a point of absolute perfection with the movement. Don’t get me wrong, you do not need to practice the swing or any other RKC move endlessly to get it right. It usually just takes a few weeks to learn all six of the basic exercises in our system. But, once you have learned the basics and decide to really focus on the technique, you will find loads and loads of subtleties to work on for years to come.

Last but not least, kettlebell training has a built-in system to gauge your progress. Whenever you feel like you have mastered a move, start over with a heavier kettlebell.

The reward of this approach to kettlebell training is twofold:

  • You will never get bored, because there will always be something to work towards.
  • You are less likely to get frustrated when your progress slows down (which will happen eventually).

Kettlebell Training Mastery

The RKC System—a Masterpiece of Physical Education

You can greatly advance your kettlebell and trainer skills relatively quickly with the RKC system. Dozens of highly skilled trainers from various fields have combined their skills and nearly 15 years of research to create an almost foolproof system. The RKC can turn any motivated candidate into a highly skilled coach and kettlebell athlete within a few short months. Attending one of the three-day RKC Workshops is the pinnacle of this transformation, but only if the candidate has trained hard in the months before—or after the workshop if they were unprepared.

Taking the RKC certification will turn you into a coach who can watch someone move, then systematically help that person improve their athletic abilities. Say goodbye to trial and error, because the RKC provides the tools to make educated decisions about how to proceed with training, based on your observations.

 

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RKC Team Leader Florian Kiendl is a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and runs a Martial Arts Gym in a small town close to Munich (Germany). He made it his mission to help his students to improve their movement and overall health. In his search for ways to overcome the movement restrictions of his students (and his own) he found the RKC and now works together with Master RKC Robert Rimoczi and others to help as many people as possible to gain back their Strength and Agility. He writes a regular Blog at blog.kettlebellgermany.de and offers workshops all over Germany teaching the RKC kettlebell exercises: KettlebellGermany.de. If you have questions or comments on the article feel free to email him at florian@kettlebellgermany.de.  Special photos by Florian F. of Flowtography

The Best Things You Aren’t Doing With Your Kettlebells

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Steve Holiner Squat with Mismatched Kettlebells
Senior RKC Steve Holiner Squats with mis-matched double kettlebells

Recently, I had a blast teaching the first RKC in Sacramento, California. We had a fantastic group of people—coaches who wanted to learn. We are all coaches, even if that simply means we are coaching ourselves. When I teach RKC Workshops, my goal is not just to teach people great technique, but I also teach why we do what we do. The RKC method is a powerful functional fitness system because of the deeper understanding we have with our drills, along with our detailed techniques.

Is all this information really that important? Isn’t it just about having a great kettlebell swing? While the answers to those questions are ultimately up to the individual, the old saying, “knowledge is power” still holds true. The knowledge from an RKC Workshop gives so much more power and value than most people expect. Each time we teach the deeper explanations behind “just” another clean, swing, snatch or squat variation, it is exciting to see everyone’s eyes light up.

The best part is the realization that powerful results don’t require complicated applications. Using two different sized kettlebells for double kettlebell drills is a wonderful example. Of course using mismatched kettlebells can simply be a way to perform double kettlebell drills when only a few kettlebells are available, but there is also a better reason to train with them: setting up progressions for RESISTING rotation. Many coaches also refer to this as anti-rotational training.

Before we get into the details of anti-rotational training, we should acknowledge that you may already be using some forms of it. Snatches, one-arm swings, presses, and cleans all represent anti-rotational movements. Renegade rows, suitcase carries, and other similar drills are additional variations of anti-rotational movements. Overall, I think one of the BIGGEST benefits of kettlebell training is the number of anti-rotational exercises that can be performed.

According to renowned physical therapist Shirley Sahrmann, anti-rotational training is important because, “During most daily activities, the primary role of the abdominal muscles is to provide isometric support and limit the degree rotation of the trunk… A large percentage of low back problems occur because the abdominal muscles are not maintaining tight control over the rotation between the pelvis and the spine at the L5-S1 level.”

Learning to resist movement decreases the risk of back injury and allows us to move through the hips—the way the body was designed to move. The ability to resist excessive motion also gives us a foundation to progress and learn more complex movements over time. The first and foremost of these more complex motions is rotation. As many coaches have said, “We can’t produce what we can’t resist first.”

Rotational training is really important for punching, kicking, throwing, and almost anything which requires a great deal of power.

With so many different anti-rotational exercise options available with kettlebells, why choose mis-matched kettlebell training? First, it gives us many more progression possibilities. Secondly, it will allow us to introduce the concept of anti-rotation very gradually. Most people struggle when complex ideas are taught in an overly aggressive way. Lastly, mis-matched kettlebells will make some of our classic exercises that much smarter!

Implementation

Instead of just throwing some random weights together, we will start sensibly. This will allow us to meet an individual client’s needs, as well as easily see when they have hit their limit. In general, I find starting with a 4kg difference works well for most people. For example, a good starting place might be performing mixed kettlebell front squats using a 16kg and 12kg.

Next we’ll need a dowel rod, chalk line, or mat line for measurement on the ground. It will give us some important feedback. During a mis-matched kettlebell exercise, we will predominately watch the front and back of the movement to see if the trunk or hips are moving in rotation, or leaning. Many times, the trunk and pelvis will hold still, but the feet will move to compensate for the instability applied to the body. So, placing the a dowel rod along the toes, or lining the toes up to the edge of a chalk line or edge of a mat will provide quick and easy feedback. How much movement of the feet should we allow? My rule of thumb is “really technical”, if you actually need a tape measure to determine the amount of movement, then you are doing fine!

Remember, you will be switching sides, so keep that in mind when programming. The easiest solution is to use even numbered sets and just switch off on each set. However, if we use an odd number of sets, we will typically perform half of the set with the weights one way and switch halfway through.

Progression

You probably guessed that the most obvious way to progress is to add more weight… While that is true, I actually find that increasing the difference between the two kettlebells is even better. For example, if we are doing front squats and start with 16kg and 12kg kettlebells, we have a total load of 28kg. If it goes well and we want to increase the challenge, instead of just going heavier (which we still could do), we might try the same front squat with a 20kg and an 8kg kettlebell. Even though the total weight is the same, the larger weight difference between the kettlebells increases the challenging anti-rotational effect.

Another option is to change the position of the load. If we use this strategy with an exercise like a lunge, we can hold the load low by the hip and simply move the weight to the rack position, or finally overhead. That changing leverage will make anti-rotational challenge harder and harder. Keep in mind, during more unstable drills like single leg deadlifts, step-ups, and lunges, the anti-rotational forces are more difficult due to the instability of the movements.

The overall goal is to eventually move to true single arm exercises. If you have been around kettlebell training long enough, you will probably notice that as simple as one-arm exercises sound, getting people to do them really well is not so simple.

On the other hand, it is also a really cool way to making jump towards heavier loads. For example, double 32kg swings might just be out of reach. But, swings with a 32kg and a 24kg might be very possible. While the weight is quite a bit lighter, working on resisting the rotational forces will not only allow us to build upon heavier loads, but build a stronger and more stable foundation.

As we often say in DVRT, strength is not just what we lift, but what we resist. Try using some of these mixed match kettlebell ideas in your training and let us know how your kettlebell training takes another leap!

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Josh Henkin, Master 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. Josh Henkin is also the author of DVRT, The Ultimate Sandbag Training System now available in paperback and ebook format.