Mike Krivka

Kettlebells and 007 (Part 03): Practice versus Working Out

February 20, 2013 By Mike Krivka Leave a Comment

With excerpts from Michael’s book: Code Name Indestructible

Now seems as good a time as any to discuss the difference between practicing and working out. Some people do one exclusively and some do the other – what I’d like to suggest is that you do both. You’ll hopefully agree in a minute.

Practice entails mindful, meticulous attention to detail, execution, and safety (three things that sometimes go out the window during workouts). When practicing, you are intentionally executing a technique as perfectly as possible, working on transitions, range of motion, tension, etc. There’s no time requirement during a practice session – similar to Dan John’s concepts behind “punching the clock” workouts; you show up, get the work done, and go home. In a practice session you create the foundation for the technique (and other techniques as well). You’re trying to make that foundation deep and wide. Practice is important and while it’s not especially glamorous or exciting – it’s necessary.

Working out means you have a plan and a will to attack today’s objective. Less attention (and sometimes none at all) is spent on perfect movement or technique – you just hit it as hard as you can. Doing a workout is an opportunity to test your technique while under stress – sweat, snot, blood, and pain are all considered stressors in the gym, on the field, and in a fight. You are using the broad technique and strength base that you established during practice and seeing how it holds up under fire. Sometimes you’ll do really well, while other times you’ll realize it’s time to practice more.

The RKC School of Strength, spends a lot of time progressively loading and practicing perfect technique. This is a great method for developing strength in a traditional manner and works very, very well. CrossFit, “The Sport of Fitness,” relies less on practicing and more on testing the technique under stress. This allows for tremendous adaptation as well as amazing physical transformations in a relatively short period of time.
I suggest making both the ideas of practicing and working out an active part of your workout planning. Why turn your low intensity days into practice sessions instead of workouts? Take one or two workouts a week to broaden and strengthen your technique-base, as well as your strength-base, so that when you decide to apply yourself during a tough workout you’ll have the skills to match the intensity.

Invariably, someone will ask, “Excuse me Brainiac, but can’t I practice the technique before the workout as opposed to wasting a whole workout?” My reply has been and always will be that a workout is never wasted when you practice the basics – NEVER. You’ll be a better athlete in the long run if you focus on the basic skills and basic strength techniques of your sport. This type of attention will allow you to make a difference when your moment in the spotlight comes.

Remember the old adage that “practice makes perfect”? Well it’s wrong – PERFECT practice makes PERFECT. You’ll never be able to work on perfecting a movement skill if you are doing it under stress – you’ll make bad accommodations and you’ll cheat. Practice will give you the ability to deeply ingrain good movements into your skill set with the ability to use them when necessary.

When you’re planning workouts, place a practice “workout” on your low intensity day and make sure it includes something you really need to work on. This will give you a chance to slow down, focus on technique, while still “punching the clock” and getting some work done.

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Michael A. Krivka, Sr., RKC Team Leader is a Washington, DC native who has been involved in Kettlebell training for over a decade and is currently an RKC Team Leader and member of the RKC Board of Advisors under Dragon Door (where he has been listed as one of the top reviewed RKC’s in the world for the last five years… Read more here.

Kettlebells and 007 (Part 2) Intensity? Or Insanity?

February 1, 2013 By Mike Krivka 4 Comments

Overview

The intensity of your workouts can do everything from defining your goals to defining your personality. Some workouts will be low intensity; kind of like a lazy afternoon on a river interspersed with shooting some class III rapids every once in a while. Other workouts are like a firefight; short, intense, gut-wrenching and leave you in a puddle of sweat (and other bodily fluids if you’re not careful). Low intensity workouts are usually associated with building absolute strength; think Dan John and Pavel’s Easy Strength protocols. High intensity workouts are currently associated with building cross-modality strength and endurance; think CrossFit. Does intensity correlate to certain personalities? Could be! Think of the strong, silent-type of strength athletes – definitely low intensity. How about the wild, spontaneous, Type-A athletes – definitely high intensity. I know these are both generalizations – but you get the idea!

Defining Intensity

When you discuss workout intensity you need to look at load and duration as well – because they are interrelated. Intensity can be looked at as how explosive a muscular contraction will be needed for a safe, efficient, and effective execution of a given technique. In other words, a kettlebell snatch is a lot more intense than a biceps curl. Intensity can also be perceived as dependent on the overall physical condition of an athlete. Doing a series of fifty yard sprints would be intense for a powerlifter but not so bad for a soccer player – and it could outright kill a sedentary IT tech! Think about this: as intensity increases so does the anaerobic capacity requirement. If you think running sprints and running a 10k are the same because they are both running, then think again. The anaerobic requirements of a sprinter and a long distance runner are completely different; but the sprinter will fare much better than the long distance runner when it comes down to survival-based anaerobic functions. Also, don’t forget that intensity needs to be determined by the individual and is highly variable depending upon age, weight, diet, recovery, experience, and the presence of illness or injury, etc.

mkrivka_blog2 — An example of a low-intensity workout

Load refers to how heavy the object is that you are moving. Once again, heavy is a relative concept. If you are swinging a 53 lb kettlebell and switch to a 110 lb kettlebell, you will immediately get a sense for what load does to intensity. A light load will allow you to move faster for longer, while a heavy load will only allow you to move “fast” for only a short period of time. Did you notice how I snuck the relationship between duration in? Yeah, they are mutually exclusive in that one is going to adversely affect the other. If you don’t have first-hand experience with this phenomenon trust me, you will very soon! All it will take is doing your snatch test with a heavier or lighter kettlebell than you are used to and you will have a graphic example of the effect of load on intensity.

Absolute vs. Strength Endurance

Which one are you? Are you focusing on your absolute strength or are you working on stretching your strength and endurance to new heights? Well, as athletes (and if you are using kettlebells you are most definitely an athlete) then you have to be able to work towards fulfilling both of these area of your training. The accumulation of absolute strength will give you the ability to do more work and make physical tasks easier to accomplish. Plumbing the depths of strength and endurance will temper your spirit and give you the tenacity to keep going when the going gets tough.

So, can you accomplish both? Yeah – by learning how to moderate or wave the intensity of your workouts. When working on absolute strength, think double body weight dead lift, you need to stay fresh and strong in between each set. That means low reps, heavy loads and lots of rest between sets. The intensity will be high because of the heavy loads but the duration will be short. You won’t exhaust yourself quickly and you’ll be able to make steady gains. When working on strength endurance, think RKC or USSS Snatch Test, you need to work as hard and as fast as you can to meet the time requirement for each test. The intensity will be high because of the time constraints but the load will be low in order to let you move fast and stay fast. This is when you are pushing the limits of your strength, physical and mental strength, by going fast (while maintaining technique and safety) but you’re done quickly – really done!

Programming Intensity

So can you make steady progress to meet your absolute strength goals and your strength endurance goals? Absolutely! With a little planning and a lot discipline you can make this work. It’s not “snake oil”- it’s all about planning your workouts and leaving the gym behind while you still have some reps left “in the bank”. Planning the workouts to alternate low intensity workouts and high intensity workouts might look something like this over the course of ten workouts:

The above training outline isn’t going to work for everyone. It’s really going to depend on your existing strength base and your ability to recover in between workouts. What it does show is that with a little planning and a basic understanding of how to manipulate intensity you can progressively move forward and gain strength and endurance without excluding one or the other from your training.

The long and short of it is you’re going to need to gauge the intensity of the workouts based on your own experience and the advice of your RKC or coach. Going too fast with a heavy load will “blue flame” you and going too slow with a light load will get you nowhere fast. You’ve got to find just the right mix of load, speed and intensity – and that balance has to include attention to form, execution and safety.

High intensity Video:

About Mike: Michael A. Krivka, Sr. is a Washington, DC native who has been involved in Kettlebell training for over a decade and is currently an RKC Team Leader and member of the RKC Board of Advisors under Dragon Door (where he has been listed as one of the top reviewed RKC’s in the world for the last five years). Mike has traveled extensively throughout the United States teaching Russian Kettlebells to military (USMC, USN, USA and USAF) and law enforcement personnel (FBI, DEA, USSS and CIA) as well hard-living civilians from Soccer Moms to CEOs. In addition to teaching workshops and clinics he logs several hundred hours a year teaching and training with Russian Kettlebells at his own gym and martial arts studio. He is also a Level I CrossFit Trainer, and Olympic Lifting Coach.

When he is not tossing Kettlebells around he is teaching and training in the martial arts, something he has done since he was thirteen years old. His martial arts training, sparked by a childhood fascination with Bruce Lee, spans early training in Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Wrestling, Western Fencing, Sambo, Ninjutsu, Muay Thai and Gung Fu and has culminated in being awarded a Full Instructor JKD Concepts (Jeet Kune Do – Bruce Lee’s base art) and the Filipino Martial Arts (Kali, Escrima, Arnis and Maphilindo Silat) under Guro Dan Inosanto. He continues to train in and explore other martial arts to continue to hone his technical and teaching skills.

Kettlebells and 007 (Part 1) by Mike Krivka

January 11, 2013 By Mike Krivka 6 Comments

If you’ve watched any of the Bond movies, you’ll notice one undeniable fact: James Bond is one tough and resilient mother! Okay, there was a while when one-liners were more important than the ability to shoot or throw a decent punch, but those days are behind us now that Daniel Craig is portraying 007. Bond is back and he’s as tough as ever—which is just the way I like him!

So, what does this have to do with you? Well, quite a bit actually. I contend that the training necessary for a top-tier secret agent is the same for a Super Mom or Dad, or even a semi-decent athlete. Let me explain—and this is important so PAY ATTENTION! You need the same physical abilities and attributes as a secret agent but you won’t need them to the extreme degree—but you never know! You need the ability to pick up heavy things; push, pull, and squat with a load; and move fast and hard when necessary. What’s not super about that?

A secret agent needs to be:

Strong
Resilient
Tenacious
Flexible
Mobile
Agile
Athletic

These are all physical attributes that you can develop through a well-rounded functional training program. You need to have a balance of strength, speed, power and endurance—just like you’d need to chase down a couple kids all day, or to keep yourself motivated while you’re huddled over a computer.

Let’s see how that stacks up against the CrossFit Ten Attributes of Fitness:

Strength
Agility
Flexibility
Power
Speed
Stamina
Accuracy
Balance
Endurance
Coordination

Not bad. Actually darn close. Both lists have similar physical and mental aspects. So, how many of these attributes do you need? I would say you need all of them. You might need more of some and less of others, but you will still need all of them. You will also need to spend extra time on the attributes where you’re deficient.

Now would be a good time for me to define each one of the Secret Agent Attributes mean to me and how I think you’ll need to develop them.

Let’s start with Strong. If you could only improve one attribute—and this applies to most everyone—it would be strength. I’m not talking about increasing your bench press or biceps curl, I’m talking about adding pounds to your deadlift, clean or military press. Increasing your ability to move heavy weights is going to put some meat in the right spots and make you harder to kill! I think Mark Rippetoe was quoted as saying, “Strong people are harder to kill.” I couldn’t agree more. I don’t mean that in a literal sense—unless you really are a secret agent! What I’m referring to is real muscle (not the puffy muscles from bodybuilding) which allows you to perform difficult tasks with ease and survive situations that would injure or kill others. I really like the CrossFit dictum of “training for the known and unknown”. I think this is an important mindset to keep in mind when conceptualizing your training program and components. In short, get strong to be strong.

Resilient – To me, being resilient means that you can do what needs to be done, without getting destroyed in the process. Resilience is different at different ages. As a secret agent in your prime (30’s), resilience means escaping the villain’s underground lair while being shot at, chased by henchmen, while still having a little left in the tank to show the cute redheaded damsel you saved a good time… if you know what I mean. As you get older, resilience means bouncing back from a tough workout quickly, taking an unexpected fall without injury, or even changing a tire on the side of the road. Once again, it’s only a matter of degree not function. By the way, as far as I’m concerned, resilience is also a mental attribute—meaning you can face adversity, persevere, and accomplish your goals.

Tenacious – I love that word! When I think of tenacity I think of my old dog Katana Loki (yeah, I know, cool name). She was a Staffordshire Terrier (another name for Pit Bull, but don’t hold that against my little girl) and I used to play tug of war with her and she would NEVER let me win – EVER. She only weighed about forty-five pounds but she would give everything she had when it came down to it. As a physical attribute, tenacity is the ability to find the way to accomplish your goals, even if the path is difficult or painful. Being a secret agent, or even a Jane or Joe Bland, is sometimes a tough path and you’ll need to have the physical and mental ability to keep going even when you want to quit. How do you develop tenacity? The only way is to train outside your comfort zone and do the workouts that others won’t. You’ll become physically stronger, and you’ll also have the mental muscle to match. Bruce Lee made an interesting observation about fighting many years ago. He said, “If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you.”

“Flexible as silk and as strong as steel,” one of my Gung Fu instructors admonished us to become in every aspect of our lives. Looking at some people, you might think flexibility is the antithesis of strength, but I think it is part of the same package. To me, flexibility means you’ve developed your physical attributes to accommodate movement within your sport or activity, within and sometimes exceeding normal range of motion. I’m not saying that you have to do full splits, but you should have enough command of your muscles that you can move and perform without running into roadblocks of inflexibility. I’m fortunate that I’ve always been relatively flexible, but I still have to work to maintaining it. I’ve worked with a lot of athletes who were extremely strong but couldn’t even touch their own toes. Think about this— being strong makes you harder to kill, but flexibility makes you even harder to injure. Is there a mental aspect to flexibility? Hell yeah! If you can’t take the obstacles thrown in front of you and turn them into hurdles, then you need to get a grip and focus on the goal.

You might ask, “Isn’t being ‘Mobile‘ the same thing as being flexible?” Hardly! To me, being mobile means that you have that ability to move and function at the full capacity of your body. After many years of taking hard falls in wrestling and judo you’d think my back, neck, and shoulders would be toast, but that’s not the case. I’ve spent a lot of time keeping all of my joints and connective tissue mobilized through various means like foam rollers and yoga. As a secret agent, you never know when you’ll have to climb to the top of a tower to disarm a nuclear weapon. Or, as a parent you never know when you may have to chase down one of your kids from the top of the play set at McDonald’s. Being mobile makes you more resilient and will also give you more confident in your ability to get the work done without injury. Explore the information on the MobilityWOD site or attend a Primal Move workshop and you will understand what you need to work on.

Being “Agile” doesn’t necessarily mean jumping and leaping like a ballerina in the Bolshoi. To me it means the ability to quickly and seamlessly transition from skill to skill. I am reminded of an experience I had while working with some tactical officers from a large metropolitan police department. The officers prided themselves on their shooting skills, and I was impressed with their ability to “kill” paper targets. When they asked for my assessment I gave them a quick skill test to show them the real life level of their pistol work. I made them do 5 kicks to the heavy bag with each leg, and 4 lengths of hand over hand on the monkey bars, 5 burpees, and 4 bodyweight deadlifts. Then they had 30 seconds to put 5 rounds in the “X”, change magazines and then put 5 more rounds in the “X”. (Note: everyone had a chance to shoot their 5+5 first, in order to establish a baseline of accuracy and time.) How did they do? Well, no one had an accidental discharge in the process, but no one came anywhere near their previous score. So is agility a physical or mental skill? The answer is yes…

Everyone is “Athletic” to one degree or another. If someone says that they’re a “runner” then they are considered an athlete. If someone else says they’re a “tennis player,” then they are considered an athlete as well. Some people are more athletic than others in my eyes. If someone is a NCAA wrestler, a high level MMA competitor, or an Olympic caliber gymnast, then they are going to get kudos from me. If you are trying to find your “inner athlete” then you are on the right path and I commend you. To me being athletic means that you have developed the basic skills of your sport to a relatively high degree, and are able to apply them under dynamic circumstances. What are the skills that you will need as a secret agent? It’s a long list but it would definitely include running, climbing, combatives, etc. All of those skills take the preceding attributes (strength, resilience, tenacity, etc.) and put them into a dynamic, competitive environment where your skills are tested to see if they “hold up under fire”. In other words, an athlete puts himself into a competitive environment to see if his training and skills hold up. The same thing should hold true for the secret agent—and for you. I’m not saying you have to topple megalomaniacs seeking to control the world’s supply of gold, but you want to be able to test yourself through the auspices of a difficult workout on occasion in order to see if your training is actually working.

Note: I have to mention a very powerful concept that changed how I train myself and others. You will see this as an underlying theme within the workouts and throughout the whole program. While no one workout will address all of the skills below, most address several. Dan John identified five movement skills which need to be practiced and that you should be using when developing strength and experience:

Push
Pull
Squat
Hinge
Carry
Other – i.e., Turkish Get Up, “Ground” work

This grouping of movements should define your strength program, and also give you a framework for identifying your strengths and weaknesses. (For a more detailed explanation of this, pick up Dan John and Pavel’s book Easy Strength. It will give you a completely different perspective on your training requirements.)

For more super-powered James Bond-style workouts, check out Mike’s book, Code Name: Indestructible.

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About the Author:

Michael A. Krivka, Sr. is a Washington, DC native who has been involved in Kettlebell training for over a decade and is currently an RKC Team Leader and member of the RKC Board of Advisors under Dragon Door (where he has been listed as one of the top reviewed RKC’s in the world for the last five years). Mike has traveled extensively throughout the United States teaching Russian Kettlebells to military (USMC, USN, USA and USAF) and law enforcement personnel (FBI, DEA, USSS and CIA) as well hard-living civilians from Soccer Moms to CEOs. In addition to teaching workshops and clinics he logs several hundred hours a year teaching and training with Russian Kettlebells at his own gym and martial arts studio. He is also a Level I CrossFit Trainer, and Olympic Lifting Coach.