fms

Kettlebells in the Clinic

October 25, 2022 By Paul Britt, DC 1 Comment

If it wasn’t for kettlebells, I would not be a chiropractor today. I started out with the RKC in 2006 and attended the CK-FMS in 2010. The CK-FMS was the movement program that was based off of the FMS and was taught by Gray Cook and Brett Jones of FMS. It introduced me to movement screening and how to help clients move better, feel better and live better pain free.

I ran my gym based on what the FMS taught. We used the Functional Movement Screen as part of our onboarding program. I loved the results we were getting in members that could not/did not move as well as they should. It started my journey from Law Enforcement/Gym Owner to attending Chiro school. I knew that there was more that I could do to help people with the right credentials, and being a Chiropractor was something that I knew would allow me to help more people achieve even better outcomes.

The ability to look at and screen movement helped tremendously in Chiro school. It allowed me to look at everyone through a movement lens versus just looking at the injury that brought them in. I attended the Selective Functional Movement Assessment certification while in school. That is the clinical variation of the Functional Movement Screen. It allowed me to narrow in on the root cause of the patient’s dysfunction. The RKC/FMS gave me a leg up in the Rehab and improving outcomes.

Fast forward a few years and I am still helping people with better movement and decreased pain with kettlebells. Kettlebells are a significant part of our rehab program. They take up little space and can be used by everyone. The allow us to engage our patients in their rehab due to the challenge and the fun of using the kettlebell. Everyone that walks in wants to try and pick up the 106lb…

We use the skills taught at the Hardstyle Kettlebell Certification (HKC) as our base for rehabilitation and strengthening. You will often hear that the swing, Get Up and squat pretty much fix what ails you. Guess what? It is true. We find that if our patients have those three exercises down, their activities of daily living as well as any extracurricular activity can be performed with little to no dysfunction. Can we fix everything? No, but we can help them improve their lives and make them more injury resistant.

One of our patients, a CrossFit competitor, had to undergo shoulder surgery for a tear. Once we were able to load and stress the shoulder, we started out with the unweighted get up. We started out with rolling to the press. This allowed us to help connect her core to the rest of her body core after six weeks of being sedentary. We performed the movement of rolling to the press without weight. She would lay on her side in the fetal position, roll to supine and press from the floor.

Once she owned the movement, we move to shoulder packing. We use the supine press position and showed her how to pack the shoulder. We accomplished this by lightly pushing and pulling the arm up and down int the press position. This allowed her to feel the movement and perceive what it should feel like when doing correctly. We also showed her to rotate her fist in the press position for movement in the joint. This was for getting fluid moving as well as allowing the body to feel what the shoulder should be doing when functioning correctly.

We like to work the standing to half kneeling after teaching the shoulder packing to get to half kneeling and help with stability. I find that this is often easier to teach than having patients work into the post and to the heist and windmill before they can safely move through the mid-range movements. There is no set number or time frame. We have had one patient work through the parts of the get up unloaded for 6 months before they were allowed to use any weight. Time practicing the get up is never wasted time.

The athlete worked through the rest of the get up without weight and then started with low loads. We moved from 25% internal rotation and 50% abduction to 100% pain free in both ranges of motion in 12 weeks after surgery. She is back to competition weights without pain or dysfunction.

The swing can be used in the same manner. We find the parts of the swing that will benefit patients and work from there. The power of the teaching process and the techniques are often greater than the sum of the swing. For back pain, posterior chain strengthening has been shown to be superior to general exercise and walking programs for treating chronic low back pain. (1)

The swing is a great tool for working with patients with issues in the back. For back pain we start with the basics, breathing. We start with crocodile breathing as taught in the HKC and RKC. A large problem that we find with low back pain and other injuries are breathing dysfunctions. A large portion of our patient base breathe in the upper chest, using traps and accessory muscles to breathe versus the diaphragm. Breathing has been shown to help inhibit the paraspinal muscles and help with spasms. Proper breathing patterns help with balance, pain and the ability to access full strength in a patient. (2)

Proper breathing is essential for being able to develop the ability to use tension and relaxation to get the most out of swings. What do we do, we work on teaching them how to breathe properly. Once they understand how to breathe, it becomes an alert system for us. If they lose the ability to breathe well during an exercise, we have either fatigued them or selected the wrong exercise to use.

The deadlift, the deadlift drag, and the pendulum swing are three of the swing teaching tools that we use a lot. “Deadlifts have been shown to improve low back pain as effectively as low load motor control drills.”(3) That basically says that if the patient is ready, deadlifts are at least as effective as bands, stick drills and similar movements that do not require loads.

Why not make them stronger if it is clinically available to the patient. There is a lot more buy in from the patient when they have that visceral response from lifting real weight and getting stronger each session.

The deadlift drag is a great tool for strengthening the posterior chain and connection it with movement. The set up is deadlift hinge with the bell in front. The kettlebell is moved along the ground in a drag utilizing the lats, rhomboids and other muscle of scapular control as well as erectors and glutes. It has helped us to improve scapular control and function in patients that have scapular dyskinesia.

I have personally used the pendulum swing in my own rehab journey. I suffered a disc injury several years ago that kept me from performing standard exercises. I was able to move into a hip hinge but could not move through the full deadlift pattern with weight. I found that the low position was pain free and I was able to swing a kettlebell in that position. I would get into the hip hinge at a position that did not hurt or worsen my symptoms and perform pendulum swings.

Our end goal with swings is to move through two handed to one-handed swings. Research has shown that this is a great way to help mitigate current back pain as well as help decrease future problems. The one hand swing engages the opposite side spinal erectors and same side external obliques leading to greater stabilization in the back and core.(4)

A specific end user for the Kettlebell Swing as a rehab tool is our Post ACL reconstruction patients.(5) The research has shown that kettlebell swings help decrease the risk of non-contact injuries from high risk to a lower risk profile after 6 weeks of training. We teach them the Get Up, before we allow them to swing. The Get Up is used as a strengthening and screening tool to ensure the patient can load the knee safely before transitioning to the swing. The improvements are due to posterior chain strengthening, the semitendinosus and hamstrings.

The squat as taught in the HKC/RKC are useful in several ways. We like the squat as the end game for connecting the dots of the rehab program. It requires mobility and stability to perform and control of the breathing and tension. We use Bottoms Up Squats to test for connectivity of the core with the movement pattern. If the Bottoms Up Squat cannot be performed, there is a leak in the pattern.

We want to make sure that our elderly patients can get off the floor and the toilet. If they can do that, we have increased their quality of life and survivability. We have found that patients that have gone through the program have reached those goals.

This is a quick look at how you can implement kettlebells in the clinic to help your patients move better, feel better, live better pain free. It does not have to be complicated to work.

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Paul Britt DC is a Certified Chiropractic Sports Physician and Senior RKC based in Gulf Breeze Florida. His practice, Integrative Chiropractic Solutions utilizes kettlebells as rehabilitations tools to help his patients achieve their goals.

Tataryn N, Simas V, Catterall T, Furness J, Keogh JWL. Posterior-Chain Resistance Training Compared to General Exercise and Walking Programmes for the Treatment of Chronic Low Back Pain in the General Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Med Open. 2021 Mar 8;7(1):17. doi: 10.1186/s40798-021-00306-w. PMID: 33683497; PMCID: PMC7940464.
Stephens RJ, Haas M, Moore WL 3rd, Emmil JR, Sipress JA, Williams A. Effects of Diaphragmatic Breathing Patterns on Balance: A Preliminary Clinical Trial. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2017 Mar-Apr;40(3):169-175. doi: 10.1016/j.jmpt.2017.01.005. Epub 2017 Mar 1. PMID: 28259495.
Aasa B, Berglund L, Michaelson P, Aasa U. Individualized low-load motor control exercises and education versus a high-load lifting exercise and education to improve activity, pain intensity, and physical performance in patients with low back pain: a randomized controlled trial. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2015 Feb;45(2):77-85, B1-4. doi: 10.2519/jospt.2015.5021. PMID: 25641309.
Andersen V, Fimland MS, Gunnarskog A, Jungård GA, Slåttland RA, Vraalsen ØF, Saeterbakken AH. Core Muscle Activation in One-Armed and Two-Armed Kettlebell Swing. J Strength Cond Res. 2016 May;30(5):1196-204. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000001240. PMID: 26473519.
Zebis MK, Andersen CH, Bencke J, Ørntoft C, Linnebjerg C, Hölmich P, Thorborg K, Aagaard P, Andersen LL. Neuromuscular Coordination Deficit Persists 12 Months after ACL Reconstruction But Can Be Modulated by 6 Weeks of Kettlebell Training: A Case Study in Women’s Elite Soccer. Case Rep Orthop. 2017;2017:4269575. doi: 10.1155/2017/4269575. Epub 2017 Jan 18. PMID: 28197354; PMCID: PMC5286491.

Moving Strong(er) Equals Training Strong(er)

May 25, 2016 By Russell Andrews 2 Comments

Russ Andrews Group Class

First, let’s consider the human movement system. What parts are involved? What is moving? What initiates the movement?

The human movement system is comprised of the nervous system, skeletal system, and the muscle system—including all the connective soft tissues: tendons, ligaments, and fascia. The nervous system is the master control center of the entire body. It coordinates every function, contraction, and every movement. The nervous system is a super highway of sensory and motor output controlling proper functions, compensating for deficiencies, and altering positions and patterns to maintain homeostasis. The human body is a global tensegrity unit.

Tensegrity

Nerve impulses contract muscles. Muscles and tendons tug on the bones. Ligaments connect bones to other bones, and fascia covers a great portion of the entire system. The skeleton can’t generate movement without muscle contractions. The soft tissue cannot contract to move the bones without the neural input firing impulses into the muscles. It takes all three systems to generate movement.

In perfect human movement, every muscle would be the perfect length, have perfect tension, and have perfect flexibility. The skeletal system would be perfectly uniform and aligned to move with precision and accuracy. The joints would have freedom of movement and quality mobility.

But we aren’t perfect.

Throughout life, we encounter interruptions and interference to our movement system. Here are just a few of them:

Congenital issues
Traumas and injuries
Altered growth patterns
Diseases
Poor nutrition
Lack of quality water
Lack of quality sleep
Sedentary lifestyles
Excess stress
Poor air quality and pollution
Lack of movement and exercise (of any type)

These interruptions force the human system to rearrange its alignment, compensate for imbalances, alter movement patterns, and adapt to dysfunctions—all to maintain homeostasis so we can perform in our daily lives. The body will maintain this re-arrangement until there’s a breakdown, an overload, or some type of system collapse. How can we maintain our systems and facilitate efficient function with minimal breakdowns? In other words, how can we move strong(er) in hopes of avoiding catastrophe?

I teach a wonderful class at Life University in the Chiropractic Science Department called Wellness, Movement Assessments, and Conditioning. In this class, we assess movement patterns then determine the soft tissue connections involved in dysfunctional patterns. After collecting all the data, we begin re-training the dysfunctional movement patterns by introducing corrective mobilization exercises and drills. We begin with simple ball rolling on the involved muscles.

Russ2SimpleBallRolling When using many of the kettlebell and bodyweight exercises in Dragon Door’s philosophy of addressing the total athlete, the improvements and results are phenomenal. When improving dysfunctional movement patterns, it is important to introduce corrective patterns through sensory input. This way, the brain can begin rewriting the movement patterns recorded in the cerebellum.

Some of the exercises we use are the get-up, windmill, one-leg deadlift, goblet squat, cossack stretch, renegade row, bear crawl, and arm bar. These movements are the “backbone” corrective exercises. We also mix in crawling patterns, diaphragmatic breathing, and bodyweight core-engagement exercises.

As my good friend Max Shank has repeatedly said, “To improve movement at a certain joint, say the gleno-humeral joint, work from the inside out.” That’s where the focal point of the corrections begin. Strengthen the core, next work on proper diaphragmatic breathing, address scapula stability and mobility, and then arrive at the gleno-humeral joint for strength and mobility. The same formula of working inside out also applies to the lumbo-pelvic-hip complex.

Along with teaching and instructing at Life University, I work with a local high school building quality athletes with kettlebells and movement exercises. These young players are experiencing the increase in strength and mobility that the kettlebell exercises deliver.

Lastly, at Train Strong Gym, I work with local athletes. We use kettlebells to develop athletic strength and mobility. The benefits from kettlebell training is almost endless.

RussTrainingHighSchoolAthletes

In these three platforms, I have the privilege of introducing the value that the kettlebell exercises delivers to all these students and athletes. The knowledge and experience gained at all these levels is invaluable.

Russ Andrews Fingertip Pushup

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Russell Andrews, Chiropractor (23 years), Assistant Professor at Life University, RKC, FMS, 30 years in Strength and Conditioning, certified in kinesiotaping. Previous speaker for the Glazier Football Coaches Clinics, lecturer, future author, co-instructor with Beth Andrews, Senior RKC at Trainstronggym.com

Combining RKC and FMS

January 8, 2014 By Andrew Read Leave a Comment

The FMS is a fantastic tool kit for any trainer, and when used in conjunction with RKC methods can provide a quick way to resolve almost any issue a client may have. But it can also be incredibly daunting once you start to peel back the layers of the systems and see everything that there is.

One of the best ways to use both systems together is to start to look at the framework that both provide and distil them down to their barest elements. In the case of the RKC drills our purpose is to lead a client in only a single direction, to an “a-ha” moment. A smart drill leaves them with only one direction to go in – the correct one, allowing them to instantly get the feeling or movement they were previously unable to connect with.

While there are many corrective exercises also within the FMS, and this is perhaps what it is best known for, people often forget that the purpose of the FMS is to not only screen for and correct asymmetries, but also to give us a path to follow once we go back to strength work. A simple framework that can be followed is that each movement has four steps –

No load, pattern assistance.
No load, no pattern assistance.
Load, with pattern assistance.
Load, with no pattern assistance.

Looking at how we teach the swing at the RKC you can see that this format is followed closely. We begin by teaching the hinge. This is often assisted in a variety of ways – either using the blades of the hands in the hips to help find the hip crease, pushing the butt back towards a wall, or using a dowel to teach how to keep neutral spine.

And here is where the “a-ha” drills fit in – we can go back and forth between the first and second steps as needed to reinforce the pattern. Our intent is to remove the pattern assistance and have the person do it unloaded but perfectly on their own. If form breaks down we can get them to return to the pattern assistance method (dowel, wall, etc.) until it becomes ingrained.

From there we can move to kettlebell deadlifts with the partner “reminding” the student how to keep the body tight via some tough love. Many people struggle to activate the right muscles to begin with and providing a cue that allows them to feel what muscles need to be switched is valuable. The final step in this process is to finish with deadlifting without any form of pattern assistance.

You can follow the same step for the swing itself. Begin with the hip hinge reinforced with a dowel. Move to hinging without any form of pattern assistance. Then onto the swing where we can assist in any number of ways from using a towel to teach timing, hip drive and straight arms, to putting the toes on a slight raise to teach people to avoid scooping, to having a target behind the student to have them hike the bell more, to spiked swings to reinforce the loading phase of the swing. Finally, once we have cleared all problems with our “a-ha” drills we can swing without pattern assistance.

The FMS also have a logical system of progression for loading and uses four postures that follow a developmental sequence. They start with lying, progress to quadruped, then onto kneeling and finally standing. If you look closely you’ll see that this sequence is the get up. That kind of symmetry between the two systems isn’t a mistake as both are about movement and strength.

But how can we apply our FMC framework to a skill like kettlebell pressing, using the postures too?

One of the issues people often have with pressing is an inability to stay tight through their midsection during the press putting their lower back at risk. If we begin lying supine (face up) we can do the backpressure crunch drill. To perform this have your partner place a rolled up towel under your lower back and lie down on it. Bring your knees to your chest and push your lower back into the ground while your partner tries to take the towel away as you extend your legs. This will teach how to stay tight through the midsection while keeping neutral spine. Retest with your press and see if it has improved.

The next step is to be in quadruped. For this drill we’re going to do bird dogs using a Cook band. Our single kettlebell press is fired on a diagonal and this drill will teach you to stay tight while your arm is moving. (To regress this drill slightly stay in the same position, but use a foam roller on the lower back to teach how to keep the natural curve of the spine). Retest again with your press and see if it has improved.

From here we can choose to press from kneeling and use either the tall kneeling or half kneeling postures. I would pick which one to use based on whether my client had asymmetries in their Inline Lunge or Hurdle Step tests (half kneeling in this case). If they were symmetrical then we could progress to tall kneeling. For pattern assistance we could do a core activation drill and press the kettlebell bottoms up. Again, perform the drill then retest your press to see what has improved. (Kneeling and bottoms up presses are taught and discussed at RKCII so if in doubt please see an RKCII for further information).

The final step is a standing single bell press without any assistance. At any point if the movement degrades there is the choice of regressing the posture used, or going back into the matrix and deciding if we need pattern assistance. Both answers can be right, depending on the person’s unique history.

Keep these simple rules in mind when training and you’ll find a lot of the confusion melts away. The takeaways are that the RKC uses “a-ha” drills to give a client only a single solution to their problem. If the drill you’ve picked doesn’t lead to the right answer then you picked the wrong drill. The FMS uses a simple four by four matrix to figure where training needs to be at any time. Follow the process and you’ll see that the system is very logical, and make sure to use the system.

Tying the two together leads to quick gains for your students and can often shine a light on the right path to take when someone just seems stalled in training.

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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.

Athletic Achievement—And Why I Chose to Stay with Dragon Door’s RKC

March 15, 2013 By Andrew Read 21 Comments

It may surprise people to hear it but I never attended the RKC because of kettlebells. I had been using them myself, and had moved all my clients to using them and gotten rid of nearly everything else we did, but the RKC wasn’t my actual goal. I wasn’t sure whether or not a trip to the USA was worth it in terms of learning enough to justify the cost. The goal was CK-FMS.

I am a big believer in success leaving you clues. I had been seeing Gray Cook’s name all over the place and had bought some of his DVDs and loved what I saw. Then Dragon Door announced that they were going to run an RKC-only FMS based course called the Certified Kettlebell Functional Movement Specialist (CK FMS). So I made the choice to go to this RKC thing and see what the fuss was about before attending the CK-FMS.

I’m glad I did because I learned that the RKC isn’t about the kettlebell. I also learned that it wasn’t really about how to lift them either. The drills and concepts within can be applied equally to training anyone from regular Joe’s to world championship level athletes – and I’ve certainly done that, training people to lose over 30% of their body weight as well as guys like Major League Baseball pitcher Peter Moylan, world no gi BJJ champion Sophia Drysdale and everyone in between.

If you’ve been in the game for any length of time you know one thing with absolute certainty – there’s no “one thing” that people need. Maybe one client has done years of yoga but never any resistance training – they may need to add strength. Others may have the opposite problem – years of heavy weight training may have wreaked havoc on their bodies and what they need is to rebuild and gain some mobility before they end up hurt, or worse. Others may need to lose weight or risk a heart attack. And then there’s sports performance clients who may need all of that at the same time.

Truthfully I almost walked away from the RKC about twelve months ago. I thought that we were in danger of falling prey to our own marketing and that we were missing sight of our core business. As many RKCs work as trainers, allow me to digress for a moment. We are in the fitness industry. Unless you make a majority of your income from training elite athletes you are not a strength coach. You are a fitness trainer or whatever other buzz word you choose to label yourself with. That means you operate in the fitness industry.

There’s no such thing as the strength industry. The majority of your clients will come to you seeking to look better, and likely drop body fat, and feel better through a combination of increased strength, movement and fitness. The faster you come to terms with that the better off your bank account will be.

One of my big issues last year was the removal of the weighted pull up from the RKCII standards. I have always felt that the weighted pull up forced people to be realistic with themselves about their own weight and take appropriate action. In the lifting world there is often a misperception that bigger is better and that a bigger guy is a stronger guy. Whatever happened to “skinny strength” the driving force behind Power to the People? Looking at the average weight of competitors at the London Games – 72kg for men and 56kg for women – tells us something. Namely that if you want to be truly athletic then body weight plays a large part in the equation and if you’re carrying too much weight then your chances of being successful diminish.

Not only that but returning to my point about being in the fitness industry it’s important to remember again why people come to us – to look better. If you can grab a handful of stomach fat do you really think you’re a great role model for the fitness lifestyle? And do you think your pull up might be easier if you dropped some of that? Being your product is always good for business. People can tell from a mile away if you’re actually truthful and stand 100% behind your product or if you’re just on the bandwagon of the next trend and hoping to cash in. Regardless of how you try to justify it to yourself your personal appearance counts very much in your clients’ eyes.

This also ties in to actually following in the steps of what the industry leaders are doing. When a guy like Cook comes out and says that to develop athleticism you need a base of mobility, stability and proprioception I pay attention. He doesn’t say you need strength as your first priority. In fact, both Cook and McGill state that after developing the base level of performance through mobility and stability you then work on endurance before moving onto strength and power.

So it’s strength last, not strength first. Movement is first and we need to recognize that the RKC is about teaching correct movement.

You can see this continuum developed through the HKC, RKC and RKCII. In the HKC we pattern the swing by teaching the hinge, the deadlift and numerous other drills. We use the goblet squat to develop the hip and spine mobility to squat with heavier loads. Then at RKC we add weight to these patterns but by placing the load asymmetrically we are still assessing movement quality, In addition, as anyone who has been to the RKC will tell you, there are lots of reps – endurance. Then finally at RKCII we develop strength and power with movements like the jerk and the heavy single press. From start to finish the system follows a path that I very much believe in.

The RKC understands its core business is in creating the best possible instructors. Instructors who know and understand how to teach and breakdown correct movement above all else. It often previously felt like all we were concerned about was the personal abilities of candidates instead of their teaching abilities.

I have to be honest and say that I have never had a client sign up with me because of what I could do. They’ve signed up with me because of what I can get them to do and the results they see in my other clients. Think about a high school PE teacher for a moment. Do you ever see one post on Facebook a picture of them out-performing the kids they are in charge of? I’d hope not because that kind of ego has no place in education. Our role as RKCs is no different and that show-off attitude as well as having the focus solely on our physical abilities has to go. It’s all about your clients – your kids in this sense – having the best experience they can with you, not about what you can do.

Without wanting to go too deeply into the psychology of training I also need to point out that if you base your sense of self worth on what you can do, when you get to forty and beyond you’re in for some depressing times. Performance drops as you age and there’s no hiding from it. The average age of medal winners at London was twenty-six. That was a good fifteen years ago for me. If the only thing that I derive pleasure from is breaking my personal records I’m going to have a very sad next forty years. But there’s no reason why we can’t be interested in trying to maintain performance, and by that I mean movement as that is the base, as we age.

For me, that is one of the reasons why I am so interested in movement based programs like the FMS and Primal Move – I instantly knew that these things could make a huge difference and that if I wanted to keep my clients healthy long term than we needed to add these kinds of elements into training.

Interestingly these are the exact same things that help to build athleticism. In a world that is overly sedentary we are seeing more and more people try to maintain fitness in later life. If they haven’t moved much since they were six (a likely scenario in these days of no physical education in schools and low sports participation numbers) they are going to need to build some movement patterns.

I hate to break it to you, and it pains me to admit it, but RKC training will actually hinder some athletic components if you avoid other movements (i.e. actual athletic events). Standing still lifting weights doesn’t make you athletic. In fact, other than make you better conditioned, it doesn’t make you anything – not tough, manly, hardcore or any of those adjectives. It only makes you stronger, and maybe fitter.

If you want to be more athletic you need to be involved in athletic endeavors. That can mean anything from martial arts to dance to triathlon to even things like the Crossfit Games or events like Tough Mudder.

(Here’s an interesting thing about the Crossfit Games – even though most of the events are lifting based the strongest doesn’t win. Last year a female competitor named Ruth Horrell from New Zealand came twelfth. The interesting thing about Ruth is that she competes for New Zealand as a weightlifter and is trying to gain Olympic selection for 2016. You’d have to realize that she would be a standout for strength amongst the ladies and yet she still didn’t win. The reason is obvious – her sports skills, and in the case of Crossfit that would be the huge anaerobic conditioning needed to be successful, are lacking. For her to get better at her sport she needs to play her sport more, not get stronger. This is across the board for athleticism – to win more you need better skills than your opponents, not just a single motor quality in high amounts. Martial artists will immediately understand this as they’ll have seen plenty of Herculean looking guys get beaten up and down the mat by someone who looks far more ordinary but has superior skills).

My interest in all training comes down to one thing – what can I learn so that my clients will be able to go out and use their fitness and enjoy their lives more? If that means they want to go in Tough Mudder, then I need to know how to help them run better and get over obstacles. But it also means I need to make them robust enough that they won’t break while running in training. If it means they want to do triathlons or martial arts or rock climbing or even hike to Everest base camp then I need the skills to help them do that too.

I’ve never heard of a client being stopped at the end of a triathlon and asked what their deadlift is, only their finishing time. In other words – the lifting is secondary to the performance. Making that vital difference to clients is all I really care about. I literally can’t afford to think that I only need one tool or one method to get them the result they’re paying me for. I can’t allow myself to think that all someone needs is to get stronger or be tougher. It’s just not that simple and it’s why I’ve traveled the world for the last decade to find the best answers and it’s precisely why I stayed on as an RKC at this point.

As trainers we often forget that our clients don’t share the same endless enthusiasm for training that we do. They want the maximum result from the least effort. There is one thing that has always stuck in my mind about the RKC:

A school of strength and movement with incidental conditioning. This allows a solid base of GPP to be formed that sports skill and conditioning can be built on.

I’ve been doing that with my clients since before I was an RKC. With a background in performance training both as a coach and an athlete that has always been my focus. We need to keep in mind as we forge ahead that every person will need something different and not allow ourselves to be distracted down the path that we enjoy the most when it comes to their training.

We need to make clients more athletic and find ways to embrace our own athleticism so that the base layer of movement and strength can be added to in an appropriate setting. Being in the gym is not the goal nor is having success in it. The goal has to always be making your clients’ lives better outside the gym. That is a product of many fitness qualities and methods.

That is RKC.

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Andrew Read, Senior 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.