leadership

How to Survive & Thrive as a Personal Trainer – However Hard it Gets

November 24, 2020 By Kristy Agan Leave a Comment

The gym business has always been a tumultuous one. At the end of the day, we are dealing with clients who are only human. They get down on themselves. They fight with self-doubt. They lose faith. They struggle with developing self-discipline. And most have never had someone in their corner. So, gaining and keeping clients has always been a challenge for gym owners.

Now, let’s add a pandemic, business closures, political turmoil, a weakened economy, and you have a recipe for a super charged/super stressed population. Unfortunately, most humans retreat when times get tough. We turn to food, alcohol, prescription drugs, illegal drugs, and we turn away from training our bodies. We turn away from striving to be stronger versions of ourselves.

We stop putting ourselves first. We stop seeing our physical and mental health as a priority. We stop seeing it as something worth investing in. We stop viewing that investment of time & money in our bodies as a necessity. With all of these human flaws and road bumps, how can a gym owner like myself continue to be successful in this chaotic and stressful time?

In a volatile environment, how can a personal trainer attract people into a regular training program and create a small sense of normalcy for them?

Our people need us now more than ever, but how can we as gym owners keep the fires burning during a time when people are so scared? If 2020 has taught me one thing, it’s that my personal relationship with my clients is what is keeping my doors open.

As gym owners, we MUST:

INVEST

To be blunt, a business owner has to make money. At the end of the day, we have to pay the light bill. However, in order for that to happen you have to be willing to INVEST. You have to invest your time. You have to invest a big part of yourself. You have to invest your energy. You have to invest a piece of yourself into every soul who walks through your door.

Your clients are trusting you with their most valuable commodity… their health. So, if you aren’t willing and able to invest in them… why should they be willing to invest in themselves?

CONNECT

You have to connect with people. That doesn’t mean you have to agree with them on everything under the sun, or want to hang out with them on weekends. It simply means that you have to be willing to get to know them. Find out what makes them tick. Discover their likes and dislikes. What motivates them? What scares them?

If you train someone with social anxiety and you call them out in a group training class, they might not come back. You may train someone who LOVES attention, but because they don’t receive any praise at home or at work…you complimenting them on a job well done might be just what they need to fill them up. Our business is as much about connecting to people than it is about teaching them how to lift.

ENERGY

“You can’t pour from an empty cup.” As someone who has to invest so much of themselves into their people on a daily basis, it is very easy to feel empty at the end of the day. You must find ways to recharge your own batteries so that you can be your best for the people coming to you for help. Your energy, good or bad, will drive theirs. Sounds like too much pressure? Well tough. You might just be in the wrong business if that sounds too difficult. But for those of you who are ready to accept the challenge, you MUST replenish your own energies first.

What do I mean by replenishing your energy? I am what you may call an “introverted extrovert”. Basically, I enjoy being around my people, but I HAVE to recharge by being alone. I LOVE being around my clients. I LOVE working with them and watching them get stronger. But working with 100+ clients on a daily basis absolutely drains my energy. I HAVE to find moments in each day to refill my energy tank so to speak. Here are some ways I do that:

turn the lights off and turn the music off in the gym once a day and close my eyes for 10 min. I simply lay in the floor, close my eyes, and enjoy the silence.
I only respond to messages certain times of the day and those times are scheduled on my calendar. I REFUSE to allow my phone to dictate my life. I am in control of my schedule and I will NOT allow a “smart” phone to be my boss. I am in control. Say that again to yourself… “I am in control.”
I always, always make time for myself to train even if that means turning down personal training appointments. I have a set time I workout and I never cancel that appointment. How can I inspire others to put their health first if I do not treat my own health with the upmost importance?
Walk outside and get some fresh air. Sometimes I feel like Superman. I get recharged and gain strength from the sunshine.
Grab a coffee at my favorite coffee shop and sit by myself.
Read something other than news.
Listen to instrumental/classical music when I train, when I write, when I am cleaning, etc… there is already too much noise in the world.
Sit outside in the evening and watch the sunset even if it is only for 5 minutes (I seriously do this every night when my kids don’t have extracurricular activities).
Practice yoga. While my schedule doesn’t currently allow me to attend sessions with my yoga instructor, I practice what she has taught me at least 10 to 15 minutes per day. These small sessions with myself have benefited me in so many ways. That sounds like a good topic for another article!
Leave my phone in my bedroom when I am at home so that my kids have my full attention… my clients have been with me all day. They can wait.

LONGEVITY

I don’t know what tomorrow holds. I don’t know if people will continue to train with me, or if they will retreat back inside of their homes, scared of a virus that supposedly runs more rampant in gyms than other places. But, I have never left my successes or failures to a political figure. I don’t wait for others to tell me what and how to do something. I have goals I aim to achieve and I make plans to make them a reality. Regardless of what is going on in this crazy world, I have to make my own path.

I have hard days. I have months where I get scared when I see that my revenue is down from previous months. I also realize that some gym owners live in areas where they have been told they cannot legally operate and are being forced to close. I expect to see more closures coming my way as well. But time and time again, I have visualized how I want my business and my future to look, and I make it happen.

Whether it’s a change of business model, whether it’s more workouts outdoors, whether it’s training people online, whatever “it” looks like in the future, I am passionate about my role in my client’s lives and theirs in mine. I know I have built a business that is more than these brick walls. I am building a community of physically and mentally strong people. My gym is so much more than a brick and mortar building. My gym is and will continue to be my family. And I always fight hard for my family.

***

Kristy is a Senior RKC and PCC Instructor with Dragon Door. She also owns and operates KA Athletics in Rome, GA where she is joined by her husband, Joe Agan (PCC, RKC, HKC) and Donna Martin (RKC, HKC).

You can follow Kristy on Instagram & Twitter @kristyagan and Facebook @Kristy.Agan.Trainer. And don’t forget to follow KA Athletics on Facebook, Instragram, and Twitter @ka_athletics to stay updated on gym events.

Coaching the Kettlebell Coach

August 1, 2018 By Chris Holder Leave a Comment

Master RKC Chris Holder Coaching RKC Coaches

After attending and passing an HKC or RKC Workshop, we’ve done countless swings, feel confident about the material, and want to present the ideas we’ve learned to our clients. If you are like me, you’ve invested a ton of time and effort into other training systems. And you know that it’s difficult to integrate all the moving parts into a single sensible flow of program design.

During a certification weekend, I make a point to lecture on how to coach. “How to coach” is a drastically different subject than “what to coach”. The RKC manual and the instruction protocols we follow to teach the exercises are very thorough. If you’re a smart coach and refer back to the manual, most cases are very simple. But, how to coach it all—that’s an entirely different conversation.

Is this article about coaching style? Yes and no. Is it about coaching procedures? Sort of… I define coaching as the entire approach when teaching the material, the techniques, and the expected intensities for a given set. For great coaches, this is effortless. But, new coaches will need to make a conscious effort to develop the coaching muscle memory before it can become automatic. After twenty years in the college strength and conditioning world, I can confidently tell you that I’m there—but it took time. In this post, I will outline much of what I teach about coaching.

What Modality Are You Teaching?

Kettlebells, Olympic lifts, TRX, and CrossFit all have certain inherent personalities—and your temperament should fit the training setting. For example, when coaching the Olympic lifts, there is a massive psychological component with an athlete who is attempting a personal best. In that moment, you might go from being a coach to a psychotherapist. You might help them manage fear and hesitancy instead of yelling and trying to fire them up.

It’s extremely important to clearly understand the nature of what you are coaching. A yoga instructor yelling for their students to perform various poses will probably not be a yoga instructor for very long. It’s a ridiculous but clear example.

The RKC is a high tension program, which also means it’s high effort. So, an instructor using a very calming yin tone will likely not help their trainee get the most out of a nasty kettlebell swing ladder.

Embody the spirit of what you are coaching.

Who Are You Coaching?

One of my favorite things about the CrossFit community is that the members know today will not be easy. The programming always includes a big push at some point. If I were a box owner, I would assume that most of my clients have some edge, and that I can take them to some of the outer realms of fatigue, burn and through certain pain thresholds.

Conversely, I will never forget my first paying personal training client. At the time I had been coaching college kids for about seven years when I got an email from a woman who had some back pain and wanted to hire me for kettlebell training. We exchanged emails, agreed on a price and planned our first meeting the coming Saturday.

Remember, I had been coaching bulletproof 18-22-year-olds for years—and a severely deconditioned, 70 year old woman who was about 50 pounds overweight walked in! She was carrying two 2lb kettlebells with plastic handles attached to nylon straps which formed what can only be described as oversized hacky sacks. She insisted on using them. While I wanted to ask her where the hell she found that nonsense, I knew that my tough-guy approach was not going to work. I suddenly had to learn how to work with a brand new demographic. Thankfully, I knew that an elderly woman would not respond to me screaming at her to pick up the weight!

Know Your Stuff

Know the information cold, in your sleep, without thinking. Make sure you refer to your RKC or HKC manual many times after your certification weekend. I’ve had the profound luxury of training between 300-500 athletes every day, Monday through Friday. At minimum I’ll led 1,500 individuals in their training (in groups of course) each week. Regardless of the season, my athletes do 100 swings a day. So, that’s 150,000 swings that I could potentially dissect and critique each week. Most personal trainers won’t see that many swings in a year.

My coaching uptake is fast simply because I’m truly immersed in it daily. I see a slew of funky swings, tons of just-right swings, and more horrible swings than any one person should ever have to see. Every day I quickly analyze and pump out corrections at a blistering pace. I’m not a genius, I simply have critiqued—and continue to critique—countless reps.

Watch everything, be an observer at all times. Watch other people’s clients so you can bank reps. Record your own reps with your phone and critique yourself. Be a student every waking moment of the day and deconstruct what you are seeing—pass everything through your RKC filter. Mentally pick apart what you see to sharpen your blade.

I can coach anyone, and it’s not because I’m special. It’s because I’ve been able to constantly analyze and coach for years without pause. It’s nothing you can learn from a book or at a certification weekend. You have to do the time, put in the reps, and see as many repetition attempts as possible.

What To Watch

A good coach has a very specific eye for watching reps. Each exercise has lists of technical requirements. But, all of our movements begin with the feet on the floor—even the get-up. As you watch your clients or athletes train, your eyes should first go to their feet. Many technical errors in the top half of the body can be remedied by correcting the feet—not the chest, shoulder, or even the back. Our feet connect the movement to leverage, support posture, and give the athlete a foundation. The feet are the gateway to all things good. So, your eyes should start at the feet and return there throughout the set.

Breathing is also a frequent cause of technical flaws. When do they inhale? When do they exhale? Are they exhaling completely, or are they sipping and leaking? Know the answers, have a game plan for their breathing, and then coach it. Breathing is more listening than watching.

We have very clear standards for all of our movements. You know them because you were responsible for learning and demonstrating them at your RKC or HKC workshop. We don’t just enforce the standards to complicate the RKC weekend, we enforce them because they almost guarantee safety and without question ensure top performance. You need to coach those standards and elements. While we all eventually develop some degree of stylistic variations of our own, before you teach them to your clients, they should already have a firm handle on the basics. Look for the basics as you watch, and correct accordingly.

Lastly, I want you to pay particular attention to the head and neck. The RKC and HKC curriculum is filled with huge, dynamic movements. We need to understand the potential range of motion of the individual spinal joints. Joints are meant to move—until they are not. Whenever the body is loaded, the spine should stay motionless, unless the exercise is specifically designed for the spine to twist, rotate, flex or extend. The spine doesn’t stop at the shoulders, and most trainers forget that the neck is still part of the spine. I have multiple stories that will give you the chills involving athletes simply turned their heads while under load and breaking their backs. So, without getting into too much gore, the head and neck need to stay relatively motionless any time while the athlete is under load. Correct this immediately.

Chris Holder optimal Coaching Position

Positioning Is Everything

While it is important to watch reps, your orientation to the athlete while observing the reps is just as important.

Unless you are a seasoned pro, you should never watch a rep while standing directly in front of the athlete. Conversely, watching someone from behind is not only a very poor position for catching technical errors, it’s also incredibly creepy. Don’t be a creep.

The best location to watch reps and get the largest amount of information is in front and at a 45 degree angle. This is the most optimal spot for nearly all training methods, not just kettlebell training. It gives you the opportunity to see the most movement through several planes of motion. If you can’t stand at 45 degrees for some reason, then standing directly to the side is the next best option.

Intensity

The word HardStyle should say it all. But, after all my years of coaching one fact is very clear: most coaches and trainers don’t fully understand how much intensity they want from their athletes or clients. They don’t know how hard they should go!

With the grinds, we usually work in sets of 5, 3, and 1, and most of the intensity is handled within the programming. But, if you program your clients’ intensity along with sets and reps, they will make even greater progress in less time. For example, let’s consider pressing 3 sets of 5 reps for each arm. You could tell your client to use a 1:5 tempo (1 or burst up followed by a 5 or slow return). You can use any tempo (1:5, 1:2, 3:2, 5:1…) and any combination of ups and downs to really dial in the intensity.

During RKC Certifications, we teach an “effort dial” drill. While you do kettlebell swings for a set of 10, we yell percentages: 80%, 70%, 60%, 100%, etc. This drill quickly teaches how to dial effort up and down in the real world. But, if I am being totally honest, if you aren’t swinging 100% on all the reps, you are wasting time.

Most people don’t know what hard is, so show them. Most of your clients have never ventured into the pain cave. They might think they have, but most have no idea what it means to push. Show them, but be smart and safe. Let them have a real “that was the absolute maximum I could give and couldn’t muster one more” experience. They will thank you.

Be A Tremendous Communicator

Tremendous… read everything. Expand your vocabulary in general and within the realm of training. I’m notorious for saying that we need to have 14 different ways for saying the same thing. Be comfortable communicating because it is the life blood of your business. If you can’t communicate what you know, who cares what you know!

I studied Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) for two years so I could refine my ability to communicate. Do you need to do that? No, but you should… or you should study something like it. There are multiple ways to communicate with your clients—it’s not all just verbal. When you are trying to get an athlete to push, your words alone might not do it. The tone, volume, and pace of your speech as well as your body language all effect what your client hears and understands. Own all aspects of your communication so the people under your watchful eye clearly understand on what you want.

10 Questions

I drive my assistants and athletes crazy with “10 Questions,” but it’s incredibly effective. Regardless of what I’m teaching to a group—even if it’s review—I end every section with 10 Questions. My students know that we will sit for the rest of the afternoon until they ask me ten questions related to the information we just covered.

This fall, about 100 new athletes will come into my facility to begin their journey as a Cal Poly Mustang. One of the first things I will teach them is how to do kettlebell swings. For most of them, this is their first experience with kettlebells. Since I coach at such a frenetic pace, I have to know that they are absorbing the information. So, we teach for 30-45 minutes, and then regardless of the size of the group, we gather and they are required to ask me 10 questions. This forces us to communicate. Again, I have been talking a mile a minute at them in the session. I need to know if what I’ve tried to convey has reached them. They raise their hands, or I pick on the ones who are trying to hide. Either way, we break the ice and this helps the athletes become more willing to speak to me next time.

It also puts me on the spot. 10 Questions happens several times a day, especially during heavy instruction times. You wouldn’t believe some of the off the wall ideas going through the minds of these athletes. At times they ask questions I’ve never heard before, and it forces me to think. I have had countless “ah-ha” moments mid-sentence while working through an explanation. And if they truly stump me, I have no problem telling them that I don’t know, but will get them an answer as soon as possible.

For those of you who have taken an RKC or HKC where I was the lead instructor, you all know too well about 10 Questions. I do this at every certification I lead, several times a day. 10 questions is beneficial for a deeper understanding, and it quickly creates rapport between the class and myself, but also within the group of attendees. By the end of day one, they have all asked several questions and they naturally become more willing to speak up as the course progresses.

Lastly…

The moment you think you “have it” is the moment you have lost your way. Many of you would faint if you saw my resume, list of experiences, degrees, mentorships and certifications. I’m very lucky. I’ve learned from the absolute best in the world in a myriad of disciplines. My list of mentors is a who’s who of strength and fitness legends. And after all of this, I know that I’m just scratching the surface. The more I learn, the more I realize how much more I need to learn.

Be a student at all times. Listen to everyone—even the folks you think are full of crap. Every time you close your mouth and listen, you will learn something. Approach each day as an opportunity to forge your coaching craft. Read anything you can, attend workshops and certifications on modalities that you might not think are useful. Listen to podcasts and interviews about the movers and shakers in the industry. Refine your coaching to the point where there’s nothing left to correct, then pick it apart and correct it anyway.

***

Master RKC Chris Holder is a collegiate strength and conditioning coach professionally for over 15 years having worked at Eastern Kentucky University, Appalachian State University and San Jose State University. He is in his second stint and eighth year at Cal Poly in beautiful San Luis Obispo, CA.

The 2000 graduate of Eastern Kentucky University majored in physical education and earned a master’s degree in kinesiology from Cal Poly in 2005. In February 2012, Holder completed his doctorate in Chinese Medical Qigong Therapy. Under the tutelage of world famous Qigong Grand Master Dr. Jerry Alan Johnson, Dr. Holder conducted groundbreaking research on the effects of Medical Qigong Therapy with athletes in competition. This research has spawned other works and additional studies on the effects of this ancient medical practice and its impact on athletes and athletic performance.

Holder received his American doctorate from the International Institute of Medical Qigong in Monterey, CA, and is also licensed in China to practice medicine from The Western District Qigong Science and Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Institute in Beijing, China.

Is Certification Worth It?

July 13, 2017 By Michael Krivka and Adrienne Harvey 3 Comments

Education, training, and certification are expensive propositions. Training certifications can last several days and cost well into thousands of dollars—even before adding in the cost of time away from your business and family, transportation to and from the certification, hotels and other extraneous expenses. So, if you are going to invest your hard earned cash in a certification, it sure as heck needs to be worth it and then some! I’m not talking about making back your initial investment, but making back the costs several times over. With those parameters in mind, it makes sense to think twice about seeking additional certifications.

Which Certification Should I Attend?

How do you sift through all of the certifications out there to find ones that you can: a) afford to attend, b) allow you to make back your initial investment several times over, and c) provide you with information that will benefit your athletes today and tomorrow?

Consider these items before attending:

Location
Instructor
Certifying organization
Credential status
Content
Can you use the techniques, tips, correctives, regressions and progressions?
Does the certification fit the abilities and goals of your client demographic?
Can you immediately apply what you’ve learned at the certification to your current clients?
Does the certification provide actionable content or is it too specialized, obscure or advanced for your current (or projected) clients?

While all of these criteria are important to consider—and should play a role in the decision making process—what is the most important thing to consider? Far and above all of these considerations should be the contents of the course and how it applies to your clients.

A good certification will provide you with eighty to one hundred percent actionable material. That’s a pretty high percentage, but it also shows that the certification is dialed in and not just hours of “fluff” or useless content. It also shows the maturity of the content, the instructor and the organization behind it. An ideal certification workshop will have little or no wasted time, and the majority of the time will be spent on training and hands-on work to reinforce the principles and techniques taught.

A poor certification will provide you with very little actionable material; less than fifty percent actionable and a high percentage of theory, conjecture and anecdotes. These certifications are “personality-driven” and are usually nothing more than a handful of tips. The remaining time is often spent listening to stories and fluff to fill in the time.

Along with the RKC and PCC, two examples of excellent one-day certifications which provide near one hundred percent actionable material are the HKC (Hardstyle Kettlebell Certification) and the SCC (Strength Calisthenics Certification). Both of these certifications are tremendously powerful and provide attendees with a high percentage of actionable material that they can immediately apply to their current (and future) clients.

Focus on the HKC

The HKC focuses on a very precise number of core techniques; the kettlebell swing, the kettlebell goblet squat and the get-up. These three techniques are individually very powerful, but together are game-changers for athletes of all levels and clients of any caliber.

The kettlebell swing is the foundational ballistic of Hardstyle kettlebell training. It is the base that all ballistic techniques are built upon. Errors and bad habits with the swing will be transferred to all of the other ballistics, so it is imperative that the swing is base lined and solid. The swing has tremendous carryover to athletics and is an amazing conditioning tool. The swing trains and teaches the athlete how to add explosiveness to movement. It “fills in the blanks” of any client’s strength and conditioning program.

Michael Krivka goblet squat The goblet squat is the foundational grind in Hardstyle kettlebell training. Squatting, while a basic human movement pattern, has become a difficult competency for most people of ANY age. Training with weight machines and avoiding the movement altogether has only exasperated the problem. The goblet squat will help restore lost functionality in those who currently don’t squat and will create a new baseline for those who are currently training with squats.

The get-up is neither a ballistic nor a grind, but rests solidly in the realm of functional movement patterns that set the foundation for excellent movement and mobility. The get-up is unique in that it establishes linkages across the entire body. It trains the athlete to establish positional and transitional strength from the ground to standing, and develops exceptional mobility and range of motion in the hips and shoulders.

In addition to the swing, goblet squat and get-up there are several other techniques that are introduced at the HKC. These techniques reinforce loading and unloading principles, mobility issues, and bracing. In particular, the deadlift, the RKC plank and the “naked” get-up are taught and examined so that the trainer has an even greater understanding of the three primary kettlebell techniques.

Focus on the SCC

Like the HKC, the SCC focuses on a very specific group of techniques: push-ups, pull-ups, squats, inversions, leg raises and bridges. Even though these techniques are well known—at least superficially—they are infrequently fully explored or understood. At the SCC, these seemingly simple techniques are taught, examined and developed in such a way that a trainer can apply them to any training situation with any client. Key elements of the SCC provide trainers and instructors with the knowledge, tools, and cues to help even the most de-conditioned clients begin their calisthenics journey. Likewise these same elements can be used to continually progress the same basic exercises to elite levels. Body awareness, muscular tension, and coordination are common threads throughout all the drills taught and coached at the SCC.

SCC Austin Group Photo 2017

Push-ups: While nearly everyone has performed a movement called or presented as a push-up, few have really been taught how to do the push-up in a way that will safely and effectively build usable strength. The SCC teaches participants how to coach this powerhouse movement from the ground up. Far from just being an “upper body” exercise, participants are shown how a properly performed push-up engages the whole body.

Pull-ups: The SCC brings this challenging-to-general-populations exercise down to earth. Get your clients of any level started towards this empowering strength and confidence-builder. Even if a client is very de-conditioned, they can still get on the pull-up bar to begin the powerful lead-up drills taught at the SCC.

Squats: As in the HKC, the essential human movement–the squat–is taught in great detail and is regressed and progressed for nearly anyone who walks through the door to train with you. Desk jobs and sedentary lifestyles have robbed many people of their human birthright to squat. The SCC can teach a trainer how to get their clients past bad habits and movement difficulties over time. Basic bodyweight squats have the potential to improve your clients’ quality of life, strength, and injury resistance.

Inversions: Let’s face it, many of our clients will be very uncomfortable getting “upside down”. The SCC teaches several important steps to ease our clients into these healthy, fun, and empowering positions. Crucial cues even experienced trainers may not know will be introduced for headstands and handstands along with gentle alternatives for clients who may not yet be ready.

Leg raises: the leg raise family both on the ground and from the bar are taught at the SCC in great detail. While all the movements taught at the SCC engage the midsection (aka the core or the abs), the leg raises really focus on the area. Desk-bound and sedentary clients often find great relief after conquering the first few steps of the leg raise series. Building a strong midsection—and giving your client the “ab focus” they want (which helps keep them coming back) has so much more benefits beyond an aesthetically pleasing six-pack.

Bridges: While the full bridge is taught, the real gold with the bridge series lies in the earlier steps. Instead of breezing past these powerful mobility and strength enhancers, the SCC teaches the details of these steps. How many of your clients have tight hip flexors and forgotten glutes? The bridge series can be a surprising secret weapon. The very first step is a game changer!

Programming principles and creative modifications are taught for all of the movements in the SCC. Likewise the manual includes sample workouts which will no doubt give you many ideas for creating group and individual programs. When you go back to the gym on Monday to lead your clients or groups, you can bring a new plan of attack.

Adrienne Harvey Senior PCC, RKC-II Push-Up

Summary

At the beginning of this post it was stated that you should be evaluating a certification by looking for one that provides a high percentage of the material being actionable and applicable to your clients. If you look carefully at the content of the HKC and SCC you will see that fully one hundred percent of the material will benefit your clients. This includes clients who previously have experience training with weights or were competitive athletes in the past. It also includes clients who have never had any training, or enough time has passed, that the training is in the distant past and all the skills need to be dusted off and reintroduced. All of techniques can be scaled or modified to meet the needs of your clients, by either making them easier or more difficult, and all contribute to their overall athleticism, mobility and movement. In addition, most of the techniques can be modified or scaled to help work around common injuries/complaints i.e., back pain, knee pain, shoulder pain, etc.

Before you decide to spend your time and money on any certification be sure to take some time to evaluate what actionable and applicable skills you are walking away with. Are you going to get skills and understanding that you can use daily with your clients? Bottom line: look for certifications that will allow you to help all of your clients (in a number of areas) as well as give you skills that will help enhance your reputation and increase your income.

Join Master RKC Michael Krivka and Senior PCC, RKC-II Adrienne Harvey at the upcoming SCC/HKC workshop in Gaithersburg, MD February 2018, or look for an SCC/HKC combination workshop weekend in your area.

***

Michael A. Krivka, Sr. – Master RKC: Michael A. Krivka, Sr. is a Washington, DC native who has been involved in Kettlebell training for over a decade and is currently a Master RKC and member of the RKC Board of Advisors and the RKC Leadership Team under Dragon Door (where he has been listed as one of the top reviewed RKC’s in the world for the last five years). He is also the author of a bestselling eBook entitled “Code Name: Indestructible” and is in the process of finishing up several other eBooks on Kettlebells, body weight, and the integration of other tools into an effective strength and conditioning program. 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)… read more here.

Adrienne Harvey, Senior PCC Instructor, RKC-II, CK-FMS, has been RKC Certified since 2010, and RKC Level 2 certified since 2011. Kettlebell and bodyweight training have been crucial in Adrienne’s personal quest for fitness. A core member of the PCC team, Adrienne loves sharing her knowledge with small groups and individuals. She also loves to develop recipes and workout programs to further support performance, body composition, and of course—FUN. Go to http://www.giryagirl.com for more information about Adrienne.

The Four Pillars of Strength

February 12, 2014 By Mike Krivka Leave a Comment

INTRODUCTION

People are constantly looking for new ways to increase their strength. They get wrapped up in changing up reps, loads, intensity, and new exercises in the blind pursuit of strength. This pursuit usually entails looking for a new training program, tool, or gimmick that they desperately hope will give them an edge and increase their athletic abilities. Unfortunately what usually happens is that they fall back on their old training habits and apply them to their new program with dismal results. Let me borrow a definition from someone who is (obviously) smarter than I am: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” – Albert Einstein.

So if I told you that there are four basics tenets of strength that you can apply to the training program that you are doing right now, that would almost instantly increase your strength – would you try it? Really? Then I’ll let you in on a trade secret in the strength and conditioning world! The keys to strength lie in the “Four Pillars of Strength” (and they all start with the letter “G”): Grip, Gut, Glutes and Gaze. Let’s take a look at each one and see how focusing on one or all of them will ensure that you actually do get what you are looking for!

GRIP

I know this seems obvious but increasing your grip strength, or even focusing on what your grip is doing, will give you a huge jump in the strength game. Think about when you missed that heavy Deadlift – what failed? Your grip failed. How about when you tried to do that strict pull-up and you couldn’t ramp up the tension to complete it – what kept you from making it happen? Your grip failed. How about the last time you did your RKC Snatch Test (05 minutes to do 100 reps with a 24 kg Kettlebell) – what happened around minute four that made the last thirty or so reps hard? Your grip failed.

So is it really a question of increasing your grip strength or learning how to manage your grip? Well it couldn’t hurt to increase your grip strength, and I strongly suggest that you do, but the better you become at managing your grip the better results you are going to get. What do I mean by “managing your grip”? What I mean is that you need to learn when you should be applying maximum tension and when you should be using just enough tension to keep control of the situation. Taking the time to master this one technique will make your Kettlebell technique improve, help you manage your fatigue, and allow you to train harder and (more importantly) harder.

Does strengthening your grip only apply to your hands? Heck no! Your feet are almost as important as your hands when it comes to grip strength. The recent appearance of “minimalist” shoes is nothing new to traditional strength athletes who know that without a firm, direct connection to the ground their strength will be fragile and tenuous. For athletes, especially contact or combat athletes, strengthening your feet and how well they grip the ground during dynamic and ballistic loading will go a long way in protecting your ankles, knees, hips and back.

When it comes to your feet do you know what they are doing when you are swinging or snatching? How about when you are doing pull-ups or push-ups? Well you should! When you are performing any movement skill you not only need to maintain control of the load, be it your body weight or a Kettlebell, but you also need to get feedback. If you are compromising the surface area of your foot, and therefore compromising the quality and quantity of feedback you are getting from your feet, then you are never going to be able to get as strong as your potential.

Test it out:

Pistol or Body Weight Squat – Pick either the Pistol of the Body Weight Squat (Squat) and take some time to explore what your feet are doing when you do this movement. Chances are that your feet are tapping like you are playing the piano with your feet or you are rolling onto the edge of your foot. Both of these are very common and are easily remedied! As you are pulling yourself down into the Squat or Pistol “grab the ground” with your whole foot, especially your toes, and feel how much more stable and strong you feel. Don’t lose this tension at the bottom; instead let it by the driving force behind driving the ground down and away from you as you come up. BTW – does your hand grip affect your Pistol and Squat? Heck yes! Having trouble maintaining tension throughout the whole movement? Make a fist and crush your grip to help create stabilizing tension throughout your upper body that will irradiate into your legs. You can also squeeze a towel or a hand gripper to get the same effect.

Kettlebell Swing or Snatch – the same concept holds true here as it did with the Pistol or Squat. You’ve got to pay attention to what your feet and hands are doing if you are going to ever become stronger doing the Swing or Snatch. There are two key moments in the execution of both the Swing and the Snatch that you want to pay close attention to what your hands and feet are doing: during the backswing of the Swing and the Snatch and in the overhead lockout of the Snatch. In both of these positions it’s easy to concentrate on your grip, as you should, but are you over-concentrating on your grip? Maximum tension should only be applied to the Kettlebell grip at the bottom of the backswing and at lockout overhead; all the rest of the time you need to use just enough grip to keep the Kettlebell under control. How about looking at what your feet are doing as well? Your feet should be gripping the ground maximally on the backswing, really grabbing the ground and giving you a solid base to drive off of. During the Snatch you should think about doing the same thing when you hit the overhead lockout; grip the Kettlebell tightly to buffer the impact and create a stable strong base to receive the load on.

GUT

Your Abs are the bracing system for everything you do and learning how to use them properly will allow you to generate more force as well as accept more of a load. Being able to regulate your abdominal tension is critical when it comes to creating power from the ground up – and it’s invaluable when it comes to protecting your back. The concepts behind Intra Abdominal Pressure (IAP) will teach you how to create a “virtual belt” around your midsection that not only reinforces the spine but allows you to transfer energy more efficiently.

Just bracing your gut and hoping for the best isn’t enough; learning how and when to tighten is the real key. Coordinating breathing and the amount of breath you inhale and exhale are important as well as learning how to “bleed off” tension (through hissing and/or the martial arts kiai). You’ll see people panting, huffing and puffing while training; never once thinking about how that unregulated breathing is affecting their performance. Having a strong gut is not a matter of doing sit-ups and crunches – both those exercises have faults that only lead to more problems down the road. While I’m a big fan of the Ab Wheel, or as I call it “The Wheel of Pain”, you really need to shown how to use it correctly or you’ll overstress your shoulders and lower back. So how do you get a strong gut? Learn when and how to breath.

Sucking in a big gut full of air and letting it out is going to get you nowhere. You need to regulate the amount of air you bring in, how much tension is used to maintain it, and how to effectively release it. Taking in too much air at one time is counterproductive as well as taking in too little; not to mention trying to maintain it by using your throat. Yikes! I teach a really simple technique to get enough air in, braced, and ready for use that seems to work well for most people. First off you can’t take a big “gulp” of air through your mouth. It’s going to create pressure in the wrong area and lead to problems. All you need to do is take a “predatory sniff” of air through your nose and hold it. NOTE: the “predatory sniff” is a technique you can observe right before someone take a swing or tackles a defender. It’s a cue that an attack is imminent but it is also a great way to prepare for an explosive energy requirement. Hold that breath in your gut, deep in your gut and not up in your chest, then let it out under control through your teeth like you are hissing. This sequence will take a while to develop but once you get it down you will be able to reference the skill on demand. Time this breathing sequence with your efforts and you will find that you aren’t getting breathless or winded… but did I mention that this takes practice to achieve?

Test it out:

Pull-ups – applying this directed breathing during a grand makes it easier to stay “tight”. Try doing a pull-up with a big gut full of air and see how it feels. Now try it with the method described above. It should be a lot easier and feel tighter and “crisper”. One of the things you will need to work on is regulating how much air you release. Too much too soon and you’ll be left only half way up… this is a regulated release of air, with the accompanying abdominal pressure, that lasts the whole movement.

Swings – Kettlebell Swings can make even the most well conditioned athlete breathless; but it doesn’t have to happen early in the session. Take a quick sniff of air on the backswing of the Swing and then explosively let it out in conjunction with your hip snap. You’ll find that the Kettlebell moves faster, and higher, than usual and that you are able to regulate your breathing for longer as well. This breathing pattern is quick and crisp and doesn’t require as much air to make it effective as the grinding version.

GLUTES

Much aligned and often ignored, especially by guys, the glutes are the biggest, and as far as I’m concerned, the most important muscles in the body. So developing the ability to integrate them fully and activate them at the appropriate time will make you strong – fast! While everyone knows (not really, but let’s assume they do) how important the Glutes are then why do we still see people with soft knees and soft Glutes at the top of their Kettlebell Swing and Snatch? That’s because they aren’t tying in the Glutes to the end of the hip snap and missing out on tying in the biggest muscles in the body into their technique.

When I talk about working the Glutes most guys ignore my advice and head for the nearest set of dumbbells to work on their curls or grab a bar to work on their bench press. Women are more receptive to my advice because they understand the “power” of strong Glutes… but for a different reason than the one that I’m interested in addressing! So why are the Glutes so important? Because the Glutes are not only the biggest group of muscles in the body they are also the brace for the abs and the foundation for the back. Weak Glutes and you’re going to be overtaxing your abs and lower back to do the work that the Glutes are designed for. Especially bothersome are people who have spent an inordinate amount of time developing their abs (think mucho sit-ups or crunches) and have compromised their posture and have effectively short-circuited their ability to fully engage their Glutes. Don’t believe me? Take the following two tests and see what happens when you are able to clench your Glutes for all they are worth!

Test it out:

Tip-over Test – Have someone stand tall and strong, locking their knees and clenching their Glutes as hard as they can. Place your hand on their chest and slowly start pushing. See how hard it is to rock them back onto their heels. Do this again a second time but have them keep their Glutes relaxed; slowly start pushing against their chest and see how easy it is to rock them back onto their heels. Now here comes the clincher: same setup as the previous two but this time have them relax their Glutes and only clench them when they feel like they are going to tip over and fall. Be sure to put your other hand behind them just in case they can’t “catch” themselves. If they can’t catch themselves then they need some serious “Glute therapy” to get them turned back on! If they are able to catch themselves then they will have a shocked look on their face when they realize that their Glutes are the reason why they didn’t fall.

Stance Test – how wide you have your feet apart can directly impact how tightly you can clench your Glutes. Is really that important? Only if you want to move faster, hit harder, and translate more energy from your body into a Kettlebell or bar. Try this series of tests to see how your stance (distance between your feet) impacts your Glute tension. Start with your feet in stance that is wider than your shoulders. Squeeze your Glutes as hard as you can and make a mental note of how tight they are. Move your feet in a little this time, just inside shoulder width, with your heels right under your arm pits. Squeeze your Glutes as hard as you can and make a mental note of how tight they are. Now place your feet together with your big toes almost touching. Squeeze your Glutes as hard as you can and make a mental note of how tight they are. Last one: with your feet together once again, put your heels together and let your feet point off at an angle, let’s see 15-20 degrees. Squeeze your Glutes as hard as you can and make a mental note of how tight they are. What did you find? Did you find that the wider the stance the less Glute contraction you get and the more narrow the stance (especially with your heels together!) the more Glute contraction you get? What does that tell you about how you can get more power out of your hip snap if you learn to maximize your Glute contraction by minimizing your stance? Yeah, I thought so…

GAZE

What the heck are you looking at? No really. What the heck are you looking at while you are training? How much do your eyes, and how they are being used during movement, impact your performance? Quite a bit actually! If you watch people doing Kettlebell Swings or Snatch you’ll see that most of them have their eyes going up, down, left, right, pretty much everywhere and it gets even worse when they change hands. Training yourself to focus internally is hard enough but you also need to create some discipline in what you are doing with your eyes and your head as you are training. Remember that your head is going to follow your eyes and you can end up doing some weird stuff to your neck and back if you’re not careful.

So what should you be doing with your eyes? First think about keeping your head neutral on your neck. Neutral means that your chin is neither pointing up or down – you are looking straight ahead. You will see a lot of people putting their head into weird alignments because they are trying to look at one spot while they are performing a lift or movement. This is something you can do and it does have its benefits – except for the fact that it’s going to put your neck and thoracic spine into some weird loading configurations that you are going to regret in the long run. So if your head is neutral and you start to do a squat what should your eyes be doing? As you pull yourself back into your Squat your head should track with your torso and your gaze should end up stopping about 08-10 feet in front of you. As you drive up out of the Squat your head should remain neutral and finish where it began at the beginning.

I know what you’re thinking! You’ve seen pictures of athletes going for a world record Deadlift or Squat with their head up and back and their chin jutting forward. Yep – you can do that! If you’re chasing a world record and you are familiar with the risks that you are taking when you do that, and then by all means proceed. But if you are training on a regular basis and don’t want to take risks with your neck and thoracic spine then stick with the neutral position. You’ll thank me one day…

Test it out:

Posterior Chain Activation Test – Take a stance with your feet just inside shoulder width and with your head in a neutral position, squeeze all the muscles in your body from head to toe. Get a feeling for how much tension you’re able to create with your head in a neutral position. Now try looking straight down at your toes and then squeeze all the muscles in your body from head to toe. Once again get a feeling for how much tension you’re able to create, especially in the posterior and anterior chain (front and back of your body). For the final attempt try looking straight up at the ceiling and then squeeze all of the muscles in your body from head to toe. Get a feeling for how much tension you were able to create and if there was any difference in the amount of tension you could produce front and back.

What did you find? I’m guessing that if you created enough tension in all three positions were surprised to find that you were able to balance out the tension with your head in a neutral position but you lost tension either in the posterior or anterior chain when you looked up or down. Kind of strange that most coaches recommend that you look up when you Squat or Deadlift but in reality you lose tension in the muscles you are trying to activate. Something to think about… Look up too much, shifting the tension from the posterior to the anterior chain, and you can say hello to Mr. Hernia because you’re going to shift the tension too far and put stress on the abdominal wall.

NOTE: a slight downward tilt of the head works best to fire up the posterior chain, especially if you are a martial artist, soldier or law enforcement officer. This part physiological and part psychological phenomenon but it really works. Keep looking straight ahead, but tilt your chin down and in a little bit, and you can take advantage of the physical and psychological boost this head position gives you.

Swing Test – This is an easy test to do and experience. Grab your favorite Kettlebell and do a handful of Swings. First try doing them with your head staying neutral throughout the movement; that means that your gaze will shift from ahead of you to in front of you as you swing. Then try to do the Swings with your head up the whole time. Keep looking up throughout the technique and get a feel for how your hip snap feels and the weight of the Kettlebell. Finally attempt to do some Swings while looking down throughout the technique. Get gauges for how your hip snaps feels, how heavy or light the Kettlebell feels, and how your breathing is. What did you find? Did you notice that with your head in the neutral position throughout the movement that you were stronger, faster, and more relaxed? If you didn’t go back and try it again; I think you’ll be shocked at the difference.

CONCLUSION

I hope that you take the time to look at how these four pillars can be added into your existing strength training program, regardless of if it is with kettlebells, body weight, or barbells. I am confident that if you mindfully apply the principles that I outlined above that you will be amazed at how quickly you will get gains! BTW – don’t try to implement all of these new skills at the same time. I would strongly suggest that you take one and apply it across a spectrum of techniques and see how it works for you. Then, once you’ve given yourself a chance to explore it fully, add another element to the mix. Being able to apply all the variables surrounding Grip, Gut, Glutes and Gaze will take practice and few people will be able to get them all working at the same time. But if you can get two out of three you are well on the way to making some great gains!

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About Michael A. Krivka, Sr. – RKC Team Leader: 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 and the RKC Leadership Team under Dragon Door (where he has been listed as one of the top reviewed RKC’s in the world for the last five years). He is also the author of a bestselling eBook entitled “Code Name: Indestructible” and is in the process of finishing up several other eBooks on Kettlebells, body weight, and the integration of other tools into an effective strength and conditioning program. 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)… read more here.