Fitness Business

5 Reasons Every RKC Should Train for the RKC-II

December 23, 2015 By Matt Beecroft 1 Comment

Matt Beecroft Kettlebell Pistol

In 2008, in Hungary, I completed my first RKC. As one of the longest-certified RKCs in Australia, one of the most important things that has kept me motivated as an instructor is furthering my education. Constantly learning, evolving and setting new goals every year has kept me passionate about the fitness industry. Most importantly, I have sought out the best knowledge to help my clients be healthier and to become better athletes.

The RKC has always been touted as the “black belt” of kettlebell certifications—and it is! Earning it comes with a great sense of pride, achievement, and status within the kettlebell community. As a martial artist who holds qualifications higher than black belt in two different systems (which took me many years to achieve), I can say that earning your black belt is not an end point. There is much more beyond earning your black belt. In many systems, the black belt is just the beginning—it’s a rite of passage for practice at a deeper level.

For me, earning certifications isn’t about the ranking or increase in my perceived status, nor is it about the piece of paper. It’s is all about what is learned along that journey—that is the real gold. While the certification experience itself is amazing, the golden nuggets are found along your journey to the RKC. And the same is also true for the RKC-II.

I think many people shy away from the RKC Level-II because it may seem like too lofty a goal. The techniques are challenging, and for people without a big background in strength training, the strength prerequisites can be daunting. In the past, people have gotten injured while they were training for it, and some even arrived injured at a Level 2 workshop, knowing they wouldn’t pass the certification. Coincidentally that is exactly what happened to me the first time around. Even though I knew I was injured and wouldn’t pass, I still decided to attend. I traveled to the other side of the world to gain the knowledge and experience to bring back home to my clients. And it was well worth it. Afterwards, I came back home, healed my injury and embarked on a new training program with a coach. I reinvented myself and came back to smash the test and achieve my goal. I had the sweet satisfaction of overcoming my challenges and achieving my long term goal—and not quitting.

However, what I learned along the way was far more valuable. In my own training, the biggest growth periods seem to happen because of an injury. Making mistakes and overcoming obstacles often means big time growth.

As an RKC, the RKC Level-II might be the single best thing you aren’t training for at the moment. Training for and earning your RKC Level-II certification demonstrates a number of things:

It shows that you can be a client.

If you are a personal trainer, but have never trained with a personal trainer or a coach then you will probably struggle to understand the experience of being a client. It’s hard to lead someone through something you haven’t experienced for yourself.

It’s best to train for an RKC workshop or the Level-II by finding an RKC-II instructor to train you and write a program for you. This also means you will need to be a client. Dan John has eloquently said, “ A coach who coaches himself has an idiot for a client”. While I was able to train myself for the RKC—at the time, there were only a few RKCs spread out across Australia, so training with an RKC meant a few hours on a plane for a training session—training myself for the RKC Level-II wasn’t as successful. I needed someone to carefully assess my level, weaknesses, strengths, and technique. I needed honest feedback and a program specifically designed for me and my level of training at the time. This kind of instruction can only happen face to face, not with cookie-cutter, generic training programs. I needed a program written by a skilled coach.

It shows that you are coachable and can follow a program.

The only program that works is the one you will actually follow—and the devil is in the details. Preparing for and passing the RKC Level-II demonstrates that you can follow multiple programs for a long period of time. At the time of my first RKC Level-II certification, the guys had to press ½ their bodyweight. Without enough absolute strength in the “strength bank” for a few years prior, candidates would need to follow a strict program to increase their overall strength over a period of six months to two years. In my opinion, many people attempt the Level-II too soon after their RKC Level-I. They sometimes overestimate how strong and mobile they are, only to discover that they may need another six months to a year—or even longer to really be prepared. Following a program also shows that even as a coach, you are still coachable.

It shows you can take care of your body and auto-regulate your training.

In the lead up to my RKC Level-II, I became too focused on quantity to get the volume up for my big lifts. Once I started sacrificing quality for quantity, and pushed through workouts when I was fatigued, it only led to one thing—injury. Statistically, I am sure about 30% of potential candidates don’t make it to the Level-II because of shoulder or other injuries. Another 30% (or probably more) arrive to the certification with an injury. Preparing for and passing the Level-II demonstrates that you can sweep emotions aside, listen to your body, and auto-regulate your training so that you do not get injured. In other words, it demonstrates that you can train intelligently.

It shows you have learned about programming and progressions.

How do you improve program-writing skills? You improve by following a great program a coach has written specifically for you. Some of the biggest things I learned while training for my Level-II were about writing programs. I learned the most by talking to my coach and trying to understand the “whys” of my program. My understanding of the benefits and pitfalls of particular exercises and programming principles skyrocketed. Learning from a textbook will only get you so far. Nothing can replace the experience—and more importantly the feeling—of following specific programming, particular exercises, and how they all fit together. Writing programs is a science and an art. Many trainers make the mistake of writing programs for clients without first testing them on themselves or someone else. It helps to know firsthand how these programs and exercises will affect your clients. It is challenging to know when a client is ready to progress, and when to hold off. Learning progressions and regressions of kettlebell exercises is a big part of programming, and you learn all of this on the road to the RKC Level-II.

It shows you have the required mobility, stability and strength.

Learning and successfully executing the windmill, pistol, jerk, and bent press means you have earned the prerequisite mobility, stability and strength! These lifts demand that that you have the required blend of t-spine, hip, and ankle mobility/stability and strength. These specific lifts are a demonstration of your athleticism. Some trainers may say that these lifts are “circus tricks” and there is no need for clients to learn them, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Comments like these often come from trainers who don’t have the athleticism to do these techniques well, if they can even do them at all. While the bent press is an old-time strongman lift, it is also the perfect demonstration of hip mobility, thoracic mobility, and shoulder stability. Old-time strongman lifts and “circus tricks” like the bent press demonstrate strength, flexibility and athleticism—why wouldn’t I want my clients to possess these attributes? Sure, it is easier to be mediocre and not an athlete, but for those who want to deepen their practice and their movement quality, I can’t think of many other lifts with the perfect blend of athleticism that these lifts demonstrate.

So, are you up for the next challenge in your kettlebell practice? While full of challenges, the road to the RKC Level-II is rich with the priceless experience and knowledge for your development as a girevoy and fitness professional. As a RKC, it could be the single best thing you aren’t training for right now.

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Matthew Beecroft is an RKC Team Leader, PCC, and CK-FMS certified instructor. He is also a GFM and Animal Flow instructor and an Expert Level 2 instructor with Krav Maga Global. As a Muay Thai coach, he has trained amateur and professional Muay Thai champions. He can be contacted through his website: www.realitysdc.com.au

HardStyle Health and Wellness

November 18, 2015 By Dan Mahoney 4 Comments

Dan Mahoney RKC-II Gym

Eight months ago, I began a new chapter of my coaching career. I became the Health and Wellness Manager at a Boston-based company’s trendy headquarters—complete with an in-office gym. Before now, I had never considered myself qualified for this type of role. It was a totally unique way to help people. I had constantly tried to help family members who sat long hours at their desks with their back pain, but my instructions to move around every sixty or ninety minutes often fell on deaf ears. Being an in-house Health and Wellness Manager meant the chance to help whole teams of people during their workday. Feeling confident that I could make a difference, I took the interview. It was one of the smartest decisions I have made as a trainer.

As a kettlebell instructor, “personal trainer” and “coach”, I never would have imagined that I could help a company work better, and improve how its employees work. [Disclaimer: I had never before worked a day in an office, and felt like a fish out of water.] I knew very little about business outside of what I had been exposed to at my first gym, and from running my own gym. But, I did know that I could leverage my knowledge and beliefs forged from my RKC, and most recently my RKC-II, to make an impact on this company’s fitness and overall health. And so, I began my mission to introduce kettlebells and swings to a group of tech and business wizards who were mostly unfamiliar with fitness.

Getting Started

One of the biggest perks of working in-house is the tremendous amount of artistic license and control over the program you develop, how you reach your clients, and how much of an impact you can make. I was surrounded by hard working employees ranging from 22-60 years old, all of whom were hunched, exhausted, and headed down the road of prescriptions and pain.

The company had no idea what they wanted me to do—which was liberating, but also frightening. The only restriction was the size of their pre-existing gym. It was set up with all of the latest and greatest fitness equipment: Bosu balls, dumbbells from five to fifty pounds, a smith machine, a few boxing bags, and a treadmill. I had to be creative, and decided to teach my new (and quite resistant) clients the skills they needed to live a healthier life. My tool of choice was the kettlebell. I knew that I could implement this in a large class setting or one on one and get the same great results. The plan was to run a beginner’s class for those who were looking to get back into the swing of things—no pun intended—and for those that were new to fitness. Initially, we ran another class too, but quickly needed to add a third for another level of skill and strength. This class allowed for the more advanced employees to continue refining their skills, while the others were improving their basics.

Coaching in a Different Realm

The true role of a coach is to figure out how to help the people you are coaching perform at their best. And it was also important to recognize that health and fitness were not big priorities for most of the company. Trying to connect with my new clients was difficult, it was a completely different dynamic than working with a motivated client who has personally hired you to get them into shape. At times, it was completely demoralizing!

Dan Mahoney Corporate Gym — Dan Mahoney, RKC-II trains his corporate clients in this Downtown Boston in-office gym.

Implementing a Plan and Call to Action

A call to action and buy-in process was my first priority. I met with as many people as possible for their individual movement screens, to discuss their personal goals, and to find out how they thought I could help their department and the company as a whole. When I compiled my notes, I clearly saw that my instinct was correct—kettlebells would undoubtedly benefit this group. They all needed and wanted general strength and conditioning, and to keep off the pounds. The older employees who may have had a recent injury or were dealing with chronic pain wanted to get rid of that pain. So, for the next week I moved twenty two of my personal kettlebells (which ranged from 12kg up to 48kg) to the office gym. I got more than a few confused looks while walking through the streets of downtown Boston!

As an RKC, I knew that not everyone would be ready for swings right away, and I did not expect them to just jump in and deadlift from the floor. At first, the most important thing was that they bought into the idea that proper training and improving the way they moved was more beneficial than getting put through the wringer for an hour. All of them expected that a session would leave them in a pool of sweat, and that they would wake up the next day worse than the day before. Because they thought that fitness was all about gasping for air on the floor at the end of the training session, they expected to be sweaty, sore, and buried!

The RKC system has and continues to provide the employees a new understanding of the benefits of actual training. To date, I have been able to incorporate the big six of the RKC (swing, squat, clean, press, get-up and snatch) with some of the more advanced and dedicated employees, while the new and intermediate employees are still reaping the benefits of deadlifts, swings, squats, get-ups and light single arm pressing. They have accomplished great things—pressing the 24kg to completing pistols. Our CEO—who didn’t quite understand why I was having him swing or do get-ups at first—has been on a heavy dose of get-ups, swings, arm bars and other mobility work I learned during my RKC-II.

The goal of the health and wellness program is not to simply make people as strong as possible, even though some of them are really excelling. Our goal is to create a comfortable, healthy atmosphere where people strive to improve themselves on both a personal and professional level. Equally as important, I aim to educate each employee to safely and successfully perform movements that improve their fitness and quality of life.

I urge all RKC Instructors to look for opportunities to challenge their coaching abilities outside health clubs, gyms, and studios—and to spread the RKC message to those who might not otherwise have the opportunity to experience it. I have learned more about myself as a coach in the past nine months than I ever did while working at a conventional fitness facility. I am continuing to expand my comfort zone to include situations like speaking in front of the company, working with new issues presented by different employees, and learning how to build relationships that will inevitably grow my own business.

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Dan Mahoney, RKC-II instructor, can be contacted by email: danm17@gmail.com

Work Together And Thrive

February 18, 2015 By Nick Lynch and Lori Crock Leave a Comment

Nick Lynch Lori Crock and Class

Regardless of how isolated, individual and introverted you are, humans are altruistic as confirmed in a famous study called “The Dictator Game.” If we wish to thrive we need to work together.

As a business owner and participant in the fitness industry, I’ve regrettably made the mistake of puffing out my chest with failed bravado. The “grinder” mentality of “I’m right and everyone else is wrong” leaves that individual isolated and angry. The fact is, the fitness industry changes all the time, although some tried and true forms of training remain effective. Kettlebells, calisthenics, martial arts, climbing, carrying, running, swimming and anything else that follows our primal instincts tend to work well.

The point I’m looking to get across, with my friend Lori Crock here, is if you want to grow your business and promote yourself within the fitness industry, it’s best to work together. Larger corporations practice this tactfully all the time!

16% of Americans have a gym membership. 67% of those 16% don’t use it, leaving just 6% of Americans who actually use their gym memberships. Now let’s be honest, how many of that 6% are using kettlebells and calisthenics at the gym? Considering that 6% is primarily made up of giant corporate chain memberships, I would have to guess we’re now looking about .005% of the 6% of Americans utilizing their gym membership for kettlebells and/or calisthenics. Now we have an honest view of what we’re up against, does it make sense to fight with one another?

Clearly if we have such a niche market, it only makes sense for RKC instructors to work together within or community. If you have an RKC within a couple hours distance from you, set up workshops together. Schedule RKC workshops, HKC workshops, and help each other promote them. When working together, you have automatically doubled the growth potential by 100%. Remember, we’re a niche market. Most people have never heard the letters RKC put together in a sentence before.

If a fellow RKC reaches out to work with you, be open to the opportunity to grow your business. If you get a call or email, call or email back, this is the first step towards establishing a trustworthy relationship; it also confirms a certain level of professionalism! We make up an extremely insignificant number within the fitness industry. To make that number more significant, we MUST work together and not against each other.

Team Leader Lori Crock and TL Nick Lynch working together teaching a class in Milwaukee. — RKC Team Leader Lori Crock and RKC Team Leader Nick Lynch working together teaching a class in Milwaukee.

One more time: we make up an extremely small number within the fitness industry. To make that number more significant, we MUST work together.

“None of us is as smart as all of us.” ~Ken Blanchard.

Lori: working together isn’t hard to do. Nick and I are in different states, but our businesses are connected in many different ways.

One of Nick’s students, Andrew Keller, a true inspiration, with an 80 lb. + weight loss, earned his HKC at the October, 2014 certification event I was privileged to host as the owner of MoveStrong Kettlebells in Columbus, Ohio with Master RKC Andrea Du Cane.

Nick sent Andrew our way, and Andrew, now an HKC, worked hard to achieve his goal. Andrew is now a Superb Health Milwaukee instructor and continues to inspire me and many others.

Andrew Keller teaching photo — Andrew Keller, HKC at the Columbus HKC training along side a MoveStrong HKC, Terry Butterworth.

So when I was traveled to the great city of Milwaukee recently for the Progressive Calisthenics Certification (PCC) Workshop, Nick and I met in person and I had the opportunity to co-teach a kettlebell class at Nick’s gym.

Nick and I had ‘met’ online as new RKC Team Leaders, but there is nothing like meeting in person. I believe that it is a worthy goal to try to meet in person the people we are connected with online, so that we are friends in the true sense of the word.

Three RKC instrutors Earn PCC Together — RKC Team Leaders Nick and Lori with Senior RKC Rob Miller at the Milwaukee PCC

While our fitness niche may be small compared to the industry at large, we have a strong brand community and working together delivers many benefits, including:

Increased learning – sharing business practices, marketing, programming and clients.
Deepened loyalty – the more we have connections to individuals within our community, the more we have a sense of belonging and pride in what we do.
Attracting others with results – a strong team delivers results that attract others to the community.
Encouraging accountability – we keep each other on track per RKC standards.
Driving new directions – we challenge each other to think, assess, expand, create and take risks.
Sharing what’s great – why recreate if something is already great? We share content, promote each other and collaborate online and at events.

This business excites us and our students inspire us. The RKC methodology is sound and many of us have built our businesses around it. So we already have a lot in common.

With more than 50 percent of small businesses failing within three years, and gyms second only to restaurants in this regard, it makes sense to work together to share knowledge, business and marketing practices, programming, hard lessons and successes, and even clients, to succeed in this business and to raise the standards in the fitness industry at large.

Are you in?

***

RKC Team Leader Nick Lynch is a Strength and Conditioning Coach at Milwaukee School of Engineering University (MSOE). He owns Superb Health Milwaukee, a kettlebell studio in Milwaukee, WI. Most recently, he became an RKC Team Leader. He has 13 years of full-time training and coaching experience and a lifetime of wellness education. Nick lives in Milwaukee, WI with his wife Natalie and son Weston.

Lori Crock, RKC Team Leader, FMS II and MovNat MCT II, owns MoveStrong Kettlebells in Dublin, Ohio where she teaches small group kettlebell classes to all ages and fitness levels and continues to be amazed, inspired and educated by her students. Her email address is lori@movestrongkbs.com

Kaizen–The Ancient Japanese Art of Continuous, Incremental Self-Improvement

November 5, 2014 By Florian Kiendl 6 Comments

Florian Kiendl Beast Kettlebell Swing I was introduced to this term years ago when I worked as an IT Consultant for a German automotive supplier. I learned that it was this ancient Japanese concept that transformed Toyota from a small and inefficient car manufacturer into the de facto worldwide industry leader in production efficiency and accuracy. Today virtually all major car manufacturers use the Just in Time concepts invented by Toyota to produce their products. These concepts can save tons of money in production costs while maximizing quality at the same time.

At this point you might think: “And what has this to do with me? I’m a fitness professional!”

Think again! What kind of results might a simple concept—with the power to turn a young company that started out producing the cheapest and most error prone cars on this planet into an industry leader in a few short years—produce if applied to your business or training?

Interested? Then stay with me.

What is Kaizen?
The roots of this concept lie deep in the Japanese culture. It has enabled people to create some of the most magnificent works of art and craft in history. The approach is simple and yet extremely efficient in itself.

Instead of working their butts off until a project is finished or has completely failed (as most westerners tend to do) the ancient Japanese would regularly sit down and assess the process of creation and make minor adjustments along the way. This way they can gain a much deeper understanding of the task at hand, enabling them to complete it easier with better results.

Kaizen and the Hardstyle Kettlebell
For us as Trainers…

Applied to training this might be the idea of starting out with a given program and adjusting it little by little to create the most effective version of that program along the way—instead of running a full cycle of it then looking at the results and starting over with a completely new program if they are less than satisfactory.

Kaizen is about digging deep into the process and learning how to execute it in the most efficient way during the process, rather than assessing the results and making adjustments afterwards. In a way this fits nicely to our Hardstyle approach for kettlebell training. Instead of banging out as many reps as possible and adding as much weight as possible to any given move, we try to improve the technical execution of the exercise to make it as powerful and crisp as possible.

The biggest problem with Kaizen for our western minds is that it takes more effort to track the improvement because the changes are incremental. If you improve your swing, making it more powerful while keeping the weight and reps the same, it is difficult to assess your progress. In contrast, if you step up in volume or weight, the progress can be easily seen by anybody. However, my experience tells me that stepping up in volume or weight too fast can hinder your progress—especially with the ballistics.

What can Kaizen do for your Business?
The biggest impact of using the Kaizen approach will be to your business. Whether you are an independent trainer or a gym owner you will profit from it by:

The almost automatic adaptation to changes in your environment.
You can avoid reorganizing your business, which can be a pain and will always lessen your income.
You will have the systems in place to respond quickly to your customer’s needs
Your employees will feel like they can actively influence their work environment and will be happier and more productive.

When I used to work for Microsoft as an IT Consultant, they had the policy of reorganizing the entire company every other year. Aside from the obvious—adapting to a fast changing market environment—the idea was to keep the company (and especially the employees) agile and hinder the growth of rigid structures. However the reorgs where a pain for most the employees and often did not make a lot of sense. Even a small business like a garage gym can be quite complex and it can be difficult to predict the side effects of a major change. By keeping the changes small and confined, you can avoid disturbances and more easily observe which changes are effective and which are not.

Take advantage of the Kaizen approach in 5 easy steps

Step 1: Know your Destination
This should be clear but every so often I meet trainers who do not think about what they want to achieve. We are an industry of enthusiasts, who do what we love. People whose first priority is making money work in banks or sell insurance contracts. Don’t get me wrong, doing the things you love for a living is the best thing you can do for yourself and your environment, but if you do something for a living it must sustain your lifestyle. Training 10 people in your garage gym is a nice pastime but it won’t pay your bills.

So, you need to be clear about where your business should be next year, the year after, or in five years. Knowing your destination gives you the means to navigate through the chances and risks of your daily business and eventually arrive somewhere.

If you are a trainer in a gym, you might have the feeling that this is something you don’t have to worry about. But please follow me on a little thought experiment. First take a moment to sit down and ponder the ups and downs of your daily job. Now try to picture yourself in 10 – 15 years doing the same job you do today (considering factors like family, children, getting older). If this is a pleasant thing to imagine, then congratulations on having the job of your life. If not, you need to decide where you want to go from here.

FlorianKiendl Double Kettlebell Press

Step 2: Embrace Change
There is a German saying that goes like this:

“If the wind of change is blowing, some people build walls – others build windmills”

Make sure you belong to the latter group. For many of us it is quite unsettling that everything is constantly changing. If that is the case for you, think of it this way—the only thing that is truly constant is CHANGE. If you expect and anticipate changes to happen, you can probably profit from them. If you try to keep things as they are today, it is only a question of when you will be overtaken by reality.

Step 3: Take time to analyze your situation
This is hard, but absolutely critical. If you are like me, sometimes it feels like everything happens at the same time and you have barely time to react to the most urgent demands. However you can succeed in the long run if you are reactive mode. It is absolutely critical that you make it a habit to regularly assess your situation. Only this can give you the power to improve your situation and avoid problems.

Actively ask for feedback. Whether they are your clients, employees, or business partners actively ask them to tell you what they like and what could be improved.
Make sure your clients have the means to give you anonymous feedback. If you wait until they are prepared to tell you to your face, you have probably lost them as a customer.
Have a regular meeting with your staff to you ask them for their take on what’s going on. In this meeting you should also collect ideas about what could be improved.
Take time to ponder the information you’ve gained on a regular basis. Have a scheduled time at least once a month to review all the information. This can be a done on your own, but if you have employees or coworkers it may be more productive if you have them with you.

Appreciate all feedback whether it is good or bad.
All information you gain about your business is valuable—whether or not it makes you feel good. If you follow the steps I laid out, you will soon realize that negative feedback is actually much more valuable than praise. Praise is good for marketing, but moaning and groaning improves your business.

As an RKC Instructor you will be used to receiving good Feedback from your Clients, but do not fall into the trap of assuming the few who tell you are otherwise are weirdoes or moaners – they are probably those clients who trust you most and want you to succeed.

Step 4: Act
Whenever your sources have brought something which can be improved to your attention, determine if you have the means to improve it. In many cases, it will not take a big budget or much planning to implement smaller improvements. Go for the quick wins first instead of the big projects. The bigger the change, the more risk is involved.

Florian Kiendl Board Breaking

Step 5: If you do not act, explain why.
To gain the information you need to steer your business, you rely on the people around you. It’s in your best interest that they continue sharing their opinions with you, and they will continue to if they feel their voices are heard. There is nothing more frustrating than sharing information to help the business improve only to see no improvement or reaction . Make sure you spare the people around you this frustration.

***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 comment on the article feel free to email him at florian@kettlebellgermany.de