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RKC School of Strength

Official blog of the RKC

Master RKC Dan John

The Get-Up

April 12, 2017 By Dan John 6 Comments

The Get-Up

When in doubt, I pull John Jesse’s classic book, Wrestling Physical Conditioning Encyclopedia (printed in 1974), off my shelf. Jesse collected the history and wisdom of every strength, conditioning and wrestling coach and compiled it into a rare book that covers all the bases of strength training.

The first lesson one learns when reading Jesse is humility. In case you think YOU invented something, flip through the pages to find:

  • Swings
  • Sandbags
  • Circuit training (including mixing bodyweight work with barbells)
  • Rehab, prehab, tendon and ligament work
  • And, many, many more ideas involving equipment, movement and training
  • Oh…and the get-up

On page 154, we meet Otto Arco. He was the model for many of Rodin’s sculptures and we remember him for his skill in one particular exercise:

Arco, at a bodyweight of 138 pounds, could do a one hand get-up with 175 pounds. The get-up was his “secret” to all around body strength, body power and body composition. Arco wrote this in his book, How to Learn Muscle Control:

The main purpose of muscle control is self-mastery. Muscle control involves far more than the mere ability to make the muscles contract. It teaches you to relax, which is sometimes even more important than contraction. It gives you a selective control, and therefore the ability to single out those muscles necessary to the work to be done, and only those muscles; leaving the antagonistic, or non-helpful, muscles relaxed.

Arco, over a century ago, singled out the core and keys to the Hardstyle system: “selective control.” This is the ability to turn to stone when necessary and to relax…when necessary! It is the secret behind Bruce Lee’s one-inch punch and the ability to hit a golf ball far. We find the get-up in Jesse’s chapter 13, “All Around Strength and General Power Exercises,” where we also discover the ballistic exercises like the swing, the jerk and what we would now call “snatches” in the kettlebell world.

Arco maintained a honed physique that he modeled well into his sixties by focusing on an understanding of muscle-control. While the swing and goblet squat will illuminate the role of flicking the switch of hard/tight and fast/loose, the get-up will demand something best summarized by Jesse (155):

The athlete, in projecting his total body strength in competition, must mold the strength of localized areas into a total coordinated body effort.

The get-up, sometimes called the Turkish get-up was named after the great tradition of Turkish wrestlers using this move as an entrance test. It has enjoyed a rebirth in the new millennium due to the efforts of members of the RKC. At its simplest, the get-up is simply getting up off the floor with a load and returning back down. It can be done to exacting measures with fourteen or more separate steps up and fourteen or more back down. Somewhere in the middle is how we will teach the get-up.

Although the true benefits are “a total coordinated body effort”, when you observe the get-up, you find that many isolation movements are present, too:

Basic rolling

Press

Hinge

Lunge

Loaded carry (waiter walk)

We also find the “four knots”. The hips and shoulders must be both tight enough and loose enough to roll, slide and adapt through the positions as we move from the ground to standing. Both shoulders are engaged during the full movement at a variety of angles and loading parameters. One needs to be tight and loose throughout as we flow through the positions.

The get-up teaches the ability to remain stiff and tense through movement. When discussing reps of the get-up, I always err on the side of fewer. There are two reasons:

  1. Safety is part of performance.
  2. Trashing doesn’t help tuning.

The first point is the key to the RKC Code of Conduct. Don’t trip over a kettlebell haphazardly left on the floor. Don’t let go of a swing and hit someone in the face with a kettlebell. Don’t go out of your way to be stupid just to become (in)famous on the internet.

Those are all tenants of the “safety is part of performance” idea. With the get-up, a kettlebell is held directly above your skull. The kettlebell will win in a collision, so don’t drop it on your head.

More to the point, the get-up teaches total body coordination and total body strength. Like the Olympic lifts—the barbell snatch and barbell clean and jerk—it takes a level of focus to perform a get-up correctly. A single heavy get-up reflects the training base of perhaps months or years to get the movement “right.” Like the Olympic lifts, one doesn’t see the months of training and preparation that allow one to perform—and, yes, perform is the right word—a heavy get-up.

I keep the reps low to insure concentration, focus and optimal performance. As an Olympic lifting coach, I rarely get over ten reps in either lift with good lifters. With the get-up, I have found that few people can maintain the high levels of mental and physical coordination beyond about ten reps, too.

Get-up Kneeling Windmill

The second point is hard for many of our hard-charging brothers and sisters to understand: getting trashed is something a college freshman or someone who really doesn’t understand training does. I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone online doing Tabata get-ups some day (twenty seconds of get-up, ten seconds rest for four minutes) or some kind of “get-ups to failure.”

This kind of nonsense is an issue in the fitness industry. Sadly, it is what most people “hear” when we say the phrase “training session”.

Even though I want to make you move better and move more, most people’s ears tell them that I want you to puke in a bucket and lay in a sweaty mess on the floor.

No!

The get-up is all about tuning the body. The words “tune” and “tone” come from the same root. When we train people, we should be trying to tune them up. If you sit too much, stretching the hip flexor family and strengthening the glutes will do much more together.

When someone struggles in a get-up or cheats a position a bit, it tells us that something is going on today. I use the get-up and variations of it to access what is going on with a person that day. An unusual hitch in movement or a lack of mobility here or there can be addressed instantly if we see the get-up as a tuning exercise rather than a trashing movement.

Speed can mask problems. The get-up highlights weak links and poor linkage. My old training partner, John Price, used to always remind me, “An athlete is only as good as the weakest link.” The get-up is a different movement after a trip over ten time zones. The get-up is a different movement the day after an American football game.

But, a few minutes of intelligent corrective work, and tuning the body, allows us to get back into the game.

Stu McGill, the famous Canadian back specialist, offers trainers and coaches a challenge for every workout and program: after the exercises and rep scheme, write a column to explain why each exercise and rep is included.

When it is not included in a workout, we should ask why the get-up is NOT there.

***

Master RKC, Dan John is the author of numerous fitness titles including the best selling Never Let Go and Easy Strength. Dan has spent his life with one foot in the world of lifting and throwing, and the other foot in academia. An All-American discus thrower, Dan has also competed at the highest levels of Olympic lifting, Highland Games and the Weight Pentathlon, an event in which he holds the American record.

Dan spends his work life blending weekly workshops and lectures with full-time writing, and is also an online religious studies instructor for Columbia College of Missouri. As a Fulbright Scholar, he toured the Middle East exploring the foundations of religious education systems. For more information visit DanJohn.net

Filed Under: Kettlebell Training, Mobility and Flexibility Tagged With: Dan John, get up, get-up programming, Hardstyle, hkc, kettlebell get-up, Master RKC Dan John, RKC, teaching get-up

Why Recertify?

May 18, 2016 By Dan John 5 Comments

Dan John Instructing at the 2016 San Jose RKC

As I review my half-century in the weightroom (I started lifting in 1965), I begin to see our world of strength through the lens of something Arthur Schopenhauer noted:

“When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it’s a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect.”

With my massive collection of Strength and Health magazines and the short-lived American Athlete magazine, I can pick up an issue from just after World War II and see articles about how to repair the wounded warriors. The training presented for injured veterans was just like what most people now consider training: laying down on machines, isolation work and a few sets of about eight to ten reps. While that kind of training is perfect for someone with compromised health and fitness, it’s not optimal for elite sports performance!

I can read articles from the 1950s and see kettlebells used for leverage work, curls and grip training. I have found swing articles from the 1960s that emphasize dangerous overflexion at the hinge and overextension at the plank.

Yes, kettlebell work had basically devolved into a mess. Powerlifting had pushed Olympic lifting out of the way, and the bench press became the answer to every question. It wasn’t a good answer. Some excellent coaches and trainers were pushing the strength envelope, but others were bogging us down. Speaking of bogging us down in the mess, one famous strength coach advocated using mud as resistance and noted “progress will be made.” It works for pigs, so why not?

“Whadduya bench?” became the fitness standard. We saw the rise of the machines for leg training—as if leg presses indicated anything in the field of play or nature. The world of lifting was a mess.

Dan John's Goblet Squat
Dan John’s Goblet Squat

And then, the kettlebell returned and all credit—all credit—goes to Dragon Door if you wish to be historically sincere. As an Olympic lifter, I couldn’t fathom how these kettlebells could help me. I was surprised when I learned that the swing (done correctly and not how I first did it) made me a better Olympic lifter when I better understood the hinge. As much as I knew how to coach the squat, the horns on the kettlebell allowed me to teach pushing out the knees with the elbows. And, I invented the goblet squat.

One arm pressing trumped most of the overhead work I was doing with throwers as it demanded the hard work of the whole chain of anti-rotation muscles.

I became a better coach with kettlebells. But, I wouldn’t have been ready for them when I first saw them in Strength and Health.

As if kettlebells were a part of my coaching life’s plot, they arrived exactly when they needed to arrive…like what Gandalf says about wizards.

I learned enough to fill my head at my RKC certification in San Jose in 2008. Oddly, I learned even more a few months later as an assistant at an RKC at UCLA. And, I learned more again and again and again…

I started coaching in 1979, and thirty years later my head was being filled again!

 

I tell people all the time, you can’t think through a ballistic movement. To understand the swing, snatch and clean, you need to “hear” the standards, drills, corrections, and the insights several times before it “clicks.” Oddly, your technique might be seamless, but you might not be able to coach someone who has a simple error in their technique. Or, you might be able to “see” the problem, but your own technique is muddled.

When it comes to the goblet squat, get-up and press, are you really prying, packing or patterning the correct path? Or, are you just getting the reps in? Are you putting the kettlebell down like a professional every single time? How is your breathing? Your tension?

Hip Hinge Coaching San Jose RKC

You need other eyes. You need community.

You need to recertify!

I work with a handful of RKCs daily. It is a rare few weeks, when someone does NOT take me aside and point out that I’m making a basic error. On paper, I am a Master RKC—but in my own training, I am just another person swinging a kettlebell. I try not to get lazy. I try to stay packed and attack the hinge.

…but sometimes I don’t.

Over time, skills degrade. “Safety is part of performance,” except when we get tired, lazy or pressed for time. There are no excuses for lack of safety!

Dan John Coaching San Jose RKCRecertifying will get eyes on you again. Recertifying for $500 means three days of expert teaching and evaluation from at least three people, if not many, many more. This is a bargain compared to hiring a personal trainer.

Whenever anyone returns from a retreat, a clinic, conference, or workshop, the enthusiasm and excitement drips off of them. They have clear eyes and a missionary zeal.

When I first embarked on my RKC journey, I came home and converted everyone I knew to the “Kettlebell Crusade”.

But, like all things, this wanes over time. It’s not bad or good, but without community, without an ongoing dialogue, the battery runs out of excitement.

Outside of an annual visit to “Kettlebell Kamp”, the best thing I can recommend is recertifying.

For as much as I learn during the day, I think I learn more at night. At dinner, we exchange emails, gym insights, training mistakes, and fixes. A wealth of information seems to fit perfectly on a napkin. My favorite RKC dinner moments are when John Du Cane gives me a “MUST” read book recommendations. I am forever grateful for his recommendations.

JDC does an interesting thing, when he asks for my book recommendations, he opens his phone and buys the books as I list them. If you believe in Shark Habits (“One bite!”) like I do, then this is a good example to follow.

It’s a rare day when I do NOT get a text, email, post, or message from someone I met at an RKC. It’s nice to recommit to the shared experience. But, people still move on, drop off and walk away. Recertify your way into a new group of people who can walk the walk with you.

For example, if you were certified before 2008, you missed the goblet squat. Since then, the get-up has been revamped several times. Finally, I think we’re teaching it with the appropriate steps, corrections, and drills. The sections on programming are tighter and clearer with more actual programs.

San Jose RKC Seth Munsey Group Getup

There are more swing drills and clearer correctives. In other words, the RKC is evolving. There was nothing wrong with the Sig Klein articles in Strength and Health, but kettlebells and kettlebell training has evolved. I rarely wear leopard skin and lace up boots when I train. (Note: I said when I train. My gym is judgment free, so you would be welcome to do what you need to do.)

I enjoy being part of this evolution. As much as I loved the original notion of the “kettlebell revolution”, the kettlebell won. If you are keeping score, I enjoy the kettlebell evolution ever more. Hundreds of people teaching thousands of clients with millions of swings will produce new insights, new ways of teaching and greater clarity with problems and issues.

I believe in investing in my continuing education. I sit in the front row at workshops and sign up for a weekend certification or conference at least once a year. It’s hard to find a better deal than the $500 for the three-day RKC recertification.

In 1993, with two little girls in the house, I flew out for a week-long discus camp at Dennison University. For that week, Tiffini worked full-time along with fulfilling full-time mommy and daddy work. It cost a lot—money we didn’t have—and it was a ton of work for me.

But, it changed my life. I have gone back every year since. It sharpened my coaching toolkit, opened my mind to new possibilities, and honed my own techniques.

We have earned back, in every way, this investment.

Look at recertification with the same lens: for $500, you are recertified for three years. More importantly, you’ll have a chance to fill your quiver of arrows, add new tools to your toolkit, experience a dynamic new community, learn new and evolving information, and get new sets of eyes on your technique.

The question shouldn’t be “why recertify?,” it should be “why not?”

It is the perfect way to plot your career.

****

Master RKC, Dan John is the author of numerous fitness titles including the best selling Never Let Go and Easy Strength.

Dan has spent his life with one foot in the world of lifting and throwing, and the other foot in academia. An All-American discus thrower, Dan has also competed at the highest levels of Olympic lifting, Highland Games and the Weight Pentathlon, an event in which he holds the American record.

Dan spends his work life blending weekly workshops and lectures with full-time writing, and is also an online religious studies instructor for Columbia College of Missouri. As a Fulbright Scholar, he toured the Middle East exploring the foundations of religious education systems. For more information visit: http://danjohn.net

 

From the RKC manual:
There are four compelling reasons to recertify and keep your RKC status.

The number one reason to recertify is to keep your skill level up to the current standards of the RKC. This signifies the importance you place on continuing your education and keeping your personal athletic skills sharp.

The second reason to recertify is the obvious benefit you receive from the Dragon Door marketing machine, by being listed as an RKC on the DragonDoor.com website. This can lead potential clients to you and give you a presence within and outside your on community.

The third reason to recertify is the ability to network with like-minded trainers. This is an extremely valuable tool to help keep you current, offer support and advice in all manners of kettlebell training and professional issues.

The fourth reason, is to continue to receive a discount on purchases of kettlebell and Dragon Door kettlebell products. Orders can be placed by logging you’re your instructor account online, where qualifying products are automatically discounted, or by calling DragonDoor.com customer service at 1-800-899-5111 or internationally 214-258-0134. Identifying yourself as a currently certified instructor is required, so the phone agents know to use your account to place your order.

Filed Under: Coaching, Kettlebell Training, Motivation Tagged With: Dan John, kettlebell training, Master RKC Dan John, recert, recert RKC, recertification, why recert

How to Nail the RKC Kettlebell Snatch Test Once and For All

February 17, 2016 By Dan John 11 Comments

Nailing the RKC Kettlebell Snatch Test

The RKC Kettlebell Snatch Test seems to bother many people. It’s 100 reps, and quickly indicates the issue:

Is it your lungs?
Is it your buns?
Is it your guns?

During the snatch test, the skin comes off your hands, sweat drips in your eyes, and your organs seem to rise up in rebellion. If you have been practicing the snatch test by practicing under ten reps, resting for a set period, then repeating, you can usually have pretty lousy technique without ripping skin off of your hands.

Sadly, for the people I have prepped, I learned that the proper way to help someone improve their kettlebell snatch is to wait until around rep 70 to comment. The challenge of doing 100 reps in a set period of five minutes demands that the candidate bite the bullet and learn to keep snatching properly throughout the challenge.

After the first Belfast RKC, one attendee wrote, “With one sentence, you changed the way I snatched and I nailed the test.” I asked what the sentence was and the newly minted RKC answered, “It was when you said that you need the courage to drop the kettlebell into the swing with authority each and every time.”

Remember, first and foremost:

The swing is a swing.
The clean is a swing.
The snatch is a swing.

The bulk of the issues most people have with the clean or snatch can be cured by coaching the swing portion of the moves. As if by magic, learning a proper swing for the clean or snatch stops most wrist banging and lockout issues.

But, for a proper swing, we must set up for it with a good drop from the snatch. Teaching the kettlebell snatch “from the top down” has advantages that are only apparent when the reps are high. Again, a few sets of five then resting will be a lot different than going after 100 snatches in 5 minutes.

Three terms that seem to help 99% of the population when working with the snatch from the top down are: “Pour the Pitcher,” “Swim” and “Unzip the Jacket.” Before getting into the specifics, let’s look at a key principle explained at a recent workshop, the position of the body in the “Cylinder.”

In the Olympic lifts—especially the locked out front squat position just before the jerk (or in training movements)—the lats are flared out, and the chest is tall in what most people would recognize as the traditional “Muscle Beach” pose. Although this posture is ideal for some movements, we want a slightly different position. The opposite of this posture is the “hollow rock” from gymnastics. While it is perfect for holding an Iron Cross on the rings, this position is not what we want for our RKC movements. Instead, consider a position “in the middle.” Now, I love continuums, so think of the Olympic lifting posture on one end, and the hollow rock on the other—the RKC cylinder would be in the middle.

RKC Kettlebell Snatch Test Collage

This insight allowed me to finally connected the dots in regards to holding the hips in a neutral stance for training. If the pelvis is like a bowl filled with water, we want to stand (and stretch and move generally) without the water pouring out forward, backward or to either side. Utilizing this notion of a cylinder helps immensely with the hip position, too. It’s like the story of the Three Bears, one wants to stand “Just Right.”

While we are discussing posture, let’s add an additional insight about the packed shoulder. Sometimes, it is difficult to teach the packed arm to experienced athletes. Years of compensations can make some people convinced that their shoulders are packed, when in truth, their traps are on their ears! Fortunately there’s a very simple solution for this problem:

Years ago, Janis Donis, the famous Javelin thrower, told me that all throwing movements need to be done with an “open armpit” to protect the shoulder. This idea illuminated my discus throwing and kept me trouble-free with decades of pain-free shoulders. Literally, the entire armpit should be exposed for throwing movements. It shouldn’t twist or turn the shoulder down, a movement that often signals an “arm throw.”

As I worked with more and more guys who had played collision sports and trained like bodybuilders, teaching the packed shoulder became a more of a chore. Between the injuries and Frankenstein training, many athletes were not aware of where their shoulders were. Many were thinking, “Isn’t it right next to my head?”

Get ready for my million-dollar drill: Grab the tag on the back of your shirt collar. For most people, this will pack the shoulder “instantly”. Now, many people will need to slide down the spine a bit more to get the position, but this simple movement “instantly” packs the shoulder. Note how the bicep is on the ear? This is also probably the most-heard phrase during waiter walks, consider how “open” the arm pit has become with this simple move. Now, hold the shoulder in this position and simply straighten the arm. Now we have the packed shoulder and the open arm pit. Now that the body is in the cylinder, it is time to drop the kettlebell.

Let’s look at three terms or images that all lead to the same powerful swinging hip hinge. Let’s start with “Pour the Pitcher.” Now, if I drop the kettlebell straight down, my head is the first point of contact. Hitting the head multiple times with a heavy kettlebell is NOT optimal. Yes, please feel free to quote me on that. So, obviously, we need to push the bell forward. But, launching it straight out to the position of the top of the swing is not perfect either. With a heavy kettlebell, the athlete simply can’t counter this movement, and the athlete will either be pulled forward, or the kettlebell may even cause damage or injury—this is a lot of force in a bad position!

The first image I ever heard for the proper drop was “Pour the Pitcher.” With the thumb leading from the lockout position, simply turn the wrist and think of pouring milk on some cereal. (Just think of the cereal, don’t eat it. Cereal is for cows. Eat the cow instead.) Because of gravity, the kettlebell will start coming down in front. I encourage people to immediately get “the courage” to attack the hinge here.

“Swimming” is another cue that helps some people. Like the crawl stroke, imagine bringing the bell down the midline of the body as if you were doing laps in a pool. This image immediately made sense to me because the correct crawl stroke isn’t performed with a straight arm or a precisely prescribed angle, the elbow angle “depends” on many factors. The same is true for the kettlebell snatch. I also like this term because it illustrates that this is a dynamic movement, not just a simple free fall.

“Unzip the Jacket” is a phrase I heard at my RKC in San Jose. Simply, one should think of unzipping a jacket. Again, there is no National Zipping Policy, so there will be multiple ways to accomplish this task. As always, keep thinking about attacking the hinge.

Something I hear over and over from RKC candidates who FAIL the snatch test is the following kind of statement:

“Well, I did 30 reps the first time I tried the test, then built up to 54 with the 24kg kettlebell. I was hoping that the energy and enthusiasm of the group would get me those last 46 reps.”

I believe that you should come to the RKC already able to do 100 reps of the snatch. Now, that doesn’t mean every workout is done with the snatch-test weight kettlebell. Months before the RKC, I often recommend that the candidate use lighter kettlebells—as light as 12kg for men—and do several sets of 100 in training. I think it helps to “get used to” 100 reps.

Recently, I did a little challenge where I had to do 100 reps with the 24kg kettlebell. At 18 reps, I smiled. Later, I was asked, “Why did you smile?” Well, it’s because I use this system:

  • 20 reps with my left hand
  • 20 reps with my right.
  • 15 left
  • 15 right
  • 10 left
  • 10 right
  • 5 left
  • 5 right

This system gives a total of 100 reps with only seven hand switches. At 18 reps, I figure that I only have two more reps left with my weak hand and then I get to use my strong hand. In my mind, the first twenty reps get me over the hard part! The next eighty reps will be dessert.

But, if you don’t have the courage to actively drop the kettlebell for each and every rep, every rep will be hell.

****

Master RKC, Dan John is the author of numerous fitness titles including the best selling Never Let Go and Easy Strength.

Register for the Upcoming 2016 San Jose, California RKC taught by Master RKC Dan John with Senior RKC Chris Holder, and RKC Team Leader Chris White

Dan has spent his life with one foot in the world of lifting and throwing, and the other foot in academia. An All-American discus thrower, Dan has also competed at the highest levels of Olympic lifting, Highland Games and the Weight Pentathlon, an event in which he holds the American record.

Dan spends his work life blending weekly workshops and lectures with full-time writing, and is also an online religious studies instructor for Columbia College of Missouri. As a Fulbright Scholar, he toured the Middle East exploring the foundations of religious education systems. For more information visit: http://danjohn.net

Filed Under: Kettlebell Training, Tutorial Tagged With: Dan John, how to do the RKC snatch test, how to pass the snatch test, how to snatch a kettlebell, kettlebell snatches, Master RKC Dan John, RKC Prep, Snatch Test

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