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RKC School of Strength

Official blog of the RKC

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Gripping Your Strength

October 22, 2014 By Nick Lynch 1 Comment

RKC Team Leader Nick Lynch 2014

The first two body parts to make any form of physical contact (unless you’re in FIFA) are your feet and hands. First feet, then hands. To strengthen your feet, train barefoot. To strengthen your hands, train barehanded and lift heavy stuff with vengeance.

Why should you care about your grip strength? “The tenser your muscles are, the more strength you display and build.” –A quote from the Naked Warrior. In order to withstand your 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th rep with a thicker grip swing, one must remain completely tense to not throw the bell at a loved one or through your neighbor’s window.  “What is truly remarkable is that tightening your fist can enhance your leg strength, as well!” – Naked Warrior. The difference between gripping a 1.5-inch handle and a 4-inch handle speaks for itself. There is 2.5 more inches one must attempt to tighten their hand around. The extra 2.5 inches is harder to grip no matter who you are!

In this program, you will be using the kettlebell swing with a modified grip to strengthen your hands, elbow and shoulder joints.

  • 1st step – Get a 65% max swing weight kettlebell
  • 2nd step – Get a hand towel
  • 3rd step – Learn to perform a swing safely by hiring your local RKC instructor!

The program:

1. Wrap hand towel 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 or fully around the handle of the kettlebell

2. Perform 10 swings every minute on the minute (EMOTM) for 10 sets or 10 minutes

If you find your forearms screaming for mercy, adjust the thickness of grip. Example; Set 3, adjust handle from 3/4 grip to 1/2 grip. Set 4 from 1/2 grip to 1/4 grip. Set 5 from 1/4 grip to kettlebell handle only. Use a ladder format for increasing grip thickness until you can complete 10 sets of 10 reps EMOTM with towel fully wrapped around the handle. Once you can complete this, move up 10% in kettlebell swing weight.

Use this program as a swing supplement to your current program. This can and should be done 1-2 days per week. 3 if you plan on trying out for the over the top sequel… Embrace the power of your grip strength!


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

Filed Under: Tutorial Tagged With: grip strength, kettlebell grip training, Nick Lynch, tutorial, video

Stumped on Warm-ups?

April 16, 2014 By Laurel Blackburn 5 Comments

Laurel Blackburn StretchI remember being a newly minted RKC back in 2009. I couldn’t wait to get back and start training clients. I had a head full of knowledge and a heart full of pride and excitement.

One of the things that stumped me a bit was doing warm ups and movement prep for my classes. Yes, we learned some basics such as the pumps and hip flexor stretches, but after doing that class after class, I was looking for something more. Something my clients and I wouldn’t get bored with doing before every class.

As I continued with my education through Dragon Door and the RKC, I was able to add to my knowledge and my toolbox. By taking the CK-FMS in 2010, I learned about compensations for proper movement, and how to correct them. I added many of the correctives to my own movement prep/warm up as well as my classes.

I noticed that my client’s movement improved and their performance skyrocketed. The workouts that followed a good movement prep helped them perform the Kettlebell exercises with much better form. The better the form, the more they got out of our workouts.

My classes are thirty minutes and many of my personal training sessions are thirty to forty minutes, so I was looking for something that I could do with them that didn’t take a lot of time. The movement prep had to hit all of the areas that are crucial to getting the most out of their workouts. The movement prep also had to give me the most “bang for my buck” in addressing some of the most common problems I see in many of my clients such as ankle, thoracic spine mobility and proper breathing techniques.  Again, I added to my arsenal by continuing my education by taking the Primal Move certification. This certification was the final piece of the puzzle in providing my clients and myself with everything needed to address the biggest movement and mobility issues.

I took everything I’ve learned through certifications and workshops and came up with my own movement flows. They are quick and easy and my clients enjoy them.

I’ve included one of my favorites and I will be posting a lot more in the near future. I hope you enjoy this, more importantly, I hope your clients enjoy them. Let me know what you think and please let me know if you have any special cases or issues with your clients that need specific drills. Chances are I have a movement flow that will address these issues.

Have fun and get moving!

***

 Laurel Blackburn is an RKC Team Leader and owner of Boot Camp Fitness and Training and Tallahassee Kettlebells.  Look for Laurel at www.bootcampstogo.com or www.tallahasseekettlebells.com.

At 51, she is out to prove that age is just a number. Her goal is to motivate and inspire people everywhere, both young and old that strength, flexibility and mobility can get better with age. Follow her adventures on her blog: www.SuperStrongNana.com.

Filed Under: Workout of the Week Tagged With: bootcamp, group fitness, Laurel Blackburn, mobility, RKC, self-esteem, senior, trainer, tutorial, video, warm-up, women

Fixing the Press

July 17, 2013 By Josh Henkin Leave a Comment

I have to be honest, I have somewhat of a love affair with pressing weight overhead. In my early years of lifting I loved to bench press. I was pretty good at the bench press in even in high school, but it wasn’t till much later than I would find my passion for the overhead press. Part of my delay in developing my relationship with the overhead press was the fact I came into the fitness industry in the late 90’s where pressing overhead was suppose to be TERRIBLE for your shoulders. The philosophy slowly changed where it was alright to press overhead, but as long as you didn’t go below 90 degrees in the motion. Now we have come full circle where everyone wants to press everything overhead!

My own personal attachment to the overhead press began when I started to Olympic lift. Although I was quite good with the bench press, I felt darn weak in putting any weight overhead. I learned quickly that the overhead press wasn’t just a fancy name for the shoulder press, but really requires integration of the entire body. My weakness didn’t stem from a problematic upper body, but I didn’t understand how to properly utilize my body as a singular unit—really the basis of what functional training is suppose to teach us.

The fact that overhead pressing was one of the three classic ways old time strongmen measured strength (lifting from the ground and carrying weight were the other two), I felt like I was gaining a better form of strength. Not only focusing on the Olympic lifts, I began to compete in Strongman where lifting all sorts of different implements overhead required even more awareness on how the whole body is responsible for developing strength, not just a single muscle or group of muscles.

I recall having a colleague of mine who had an extensive background in Olympic lifting try to press a steel log overhead, he was greatly humbled by the great differences in just changing the implement. For some time I focused my efforts in raising my overhead press by changing the standard training variables such as load, speed, volume, and implements. Then my whole philosophy changed quite quickly.

At one point I was able to press a 40 kg kettlebell for 15 repetitions, not too shabby. However, about two years ago I noticed I could no longer even come close to pressing this weight even for 1 repetition. I was down to struggling to press a 24 kg kettlebell. Doctors found that my spinal cord was being heavily compressed by a disc in my neck. Surgery was necessary, but I was left to wondering if I would ever be able to train in the manner that was so important to me (yes, standard lifters mentality).

Right after my spinal fusion I was told that I couldn’t lift more than 20 pounds for a period of a few weeks. This would be followed by no more than 40 pounds for additional time. How does someone who is so use to lifting heavy come to terms with this limitation? I began to rethink how to train and how to get strong.

Not being able to focus on weight really threw me for a loop. How do you stress the body if you can’t just keep adding weight? The answer was in how we train the body during body weight drills. Sure, weight vests and other implements are used to stress the body, but more commonly, changing leverage in the body is used to increase the intensity of body weight training. How come we don’t do this in weight training?

That is why I started to form a series of kettlebell pressing progressions based around changing our body position that alters leverage of the weight. A lot of people actually have a leaky press. What’s a “leaky press”? They rotate and laterally bend when they press overhead. While some may argue that this is an old school method, it does reduce the carryover to other forms of overhead pressing because you can’t lean when you use most other implements in pressing overhead.

In my mind, the overhead press is just as much a great trunk stability exercise as it is an upper body exercise. The overhead press has a lot of similarities to the push-up, by learning to resist the pull of the weight to one side or the other, we actually build integrity and strength through the hips and trunk (similar to altering body position during a push-up). We can then stress the body in a two different ways with leverage and focus on trunk stability.

-Change Body Position

-Alter Pressing Motion

-Or Both!

The attached video series breaks down these ideas so you can easily integrate the right progression for your goals. You will quickly find which variation is the toughest for you and you might have to make this version your priority! Understanding these principles allows you to press almost every training session and self periodizes your training.

Try a cycle like this one:

Monday: Heavy

Military Press 5 sets of 3

Wednesday: Medium

Kneeling Double Press 3 sets of 5

Friday: Light

Half Kneeling Alternating Press 3 sets of 6 (per side)

 

***

 Josh Henkin, Senior RKC, CSCS has been a RKC instructor since 2003 and has implemented kettlebell programs for major Division I programs, SWAT teams, and many different general fitness programs. Josh is also the creator of the DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training system where he is a highly sought after presenter worldwide. He can be reached at info@ultimatesandbagtraining.com or http://DVRTFitness.com

 Josh_Henkin

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Workout of the Week Tagged With: bench, demonstrate, fixing, henkin, josh, kettlebells, overhead, press, video

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Dragon Door Publications / The author(s) and publisher of this material are not responsible in any manner whatsoever for any injury that may occur through following the instructions or opinions contained in this material. The activities, physical and otherwise, described herein for informational purposes only, may be too strenuous or dangerous for some people, and the reader(s) should consult a physician before engaging in them.