Steve Cotter has agreed to run a 3hour masterclass before his CKT seminars.
This will run from 6-9pm on Friday 1st June.
Places are extremely limited, if you do not email or phone to book a place entry will be refused. No walk ins will be accepted.
Cost for this will be a mere €50 per person. Ideally paid in advance, this can be done simplest via paypal (send to dave@wildgeesema.com, specify that this for Steve Cotter as well as your name and contact details.)
If you’re interested, do not hesitate to contact me.
We’re now only ten days out from Steve Cotter’s next visit to Wild Geese.
This time it’s serious as it’ll be not just the CKT 1, which we’ve run here before, also the CKT 2 which will be a whole new level.
I am nervous and excited at the same time. I know Steves high expectations, those he sets for himself and which he expects to see reflected in his course participants. His standards are high, he leads by example and he requires all who learn from him to express the same level of commitment.
Each time he’s visited it’s been a new experience. His knowledge and ability to pass on this knowledge has gone up. His patience with questions and his ability to answer them in depth gets better and better (maybe it’s just he understands our accents better…).
His last visit skyrocketed my Kettlebell Sport performance with just a few simple technique tweaks.
It’s his teaching that helped create the training that lead my guys to success in Wexford last weekend (see the last post featuring Phil’s GS sets)
I’m going to link you now to a friends site over in Edinburgh. Rannoch conducted this interview with Steve a while ago and to be fair it’s about the best interview around with the man. Have a look here:
Over the last few posts I’ve been talking about the Kettlebell Clean which for those in the world of Kettlebell Sport serves as a precursor to this, the kettlebell jerk.
Jerks.
What a fantastic lift.
It is one of my all time favourite lifts. In fact that gives me an idea for a future post, a top ten of my favourite kettlebell lifts……
Anyway before I go off on a tangent, lets look at the Jerk and it’s component parts.
First, what is a Jerk and how is it different to a press?
When I teach a kettlebell workshop, or if you follow my Workshop series, I have the Jerk as the last step in a continuum. The continuum opens with the “Hard Style” or high tension military press, then relaxes into a Push Press and the more relaxed and efficient military press techniques untill finally we get to the Jerk.
On one end of the continuum all the strength and power comes from the upper torso, particularly the upper chest, shoulder and triceps.
As we move along the continuum we are integrating more and more of the body, adding in more and more potential for force production and power, assuming of course all the links in the chain are working right.
If we take a strict press and say that 100% of the force is generated by the upper torso. We can say that a push press, with its added leg drive, spreads the load to maybe 50% upper and 50% lower body. The Jerk then is closer to 80% lower body with the arm and shoulder merely finishing the lift.
Good news then for beaten up idiots like myself who have recurring nagging injuries around the shoulders.
Good news also if you’re involved in any sport that requires the integration of the entire body to generate force to be expressed by the upper body (think throwing, punching, batting etc…)
So how does it work?
Well in the Level 3 Kettlebell manual where the Jerk is detailed it takes over 1500 words and 26 photographs over 6 pages to give the full overview. If you think I’m repeating all that here….well….
So what I have done is made a video. In fact it’s two videos, part one is 10 minutes detailing the launch section of the Jerk, part 2 is another 10 minutes detailing the Lockout, drop and breath.
Yes, the Jerk is that technical.
But it is well worth the effort, especially if you’re a combat athlete or any athlete that requires full body coordinated strength and power.
So without further ado, here’s part 1:
And here’s part 2:
Using the Jerk in your training is highly dependent on your training goals. I love heavy jerks for multiple sets of low reps for power.
I also hate doing but really appreciate higher rep sets for the endurance factor. They’ll do more for your ability to hold a high guard and hit hard than any amount of push ups.
Precede each jerk with a clean and you’re now doing the best lift ever, the clean and jerk or “Long Cycle” as it’s known in the kettlebell world.
Long Cycle truly is a total body lift. The posterior chain does the Clean, the anterior chain does the Jerk while the heart and lungs pick up the slack.
One moderately weighted bell is all you need to smoke your cardio with Long cycle, one or a pair of heavier bells will develop strength and power of mind and spirit.
Or they’ll make you simply hate life.
Take your time with this, learn it slow, develop it, nurture it and it will reward you.
An interesting conversation took place here the other day with one of my lads.
He’d just finished his training and we were chatting about the progress he’d made. He commented that it was down to simply following a program.
And to a large degree he’s correct, good programming is vital to success in any athletic endeavour. But in his particular case and in many other people’s case, it’s not the whole truth.
When he joined me he was already following a training program set out by an online coach and simply asked if he could use my facility to train out of, things hadn’t worked out well at the last place he was using.
I agreed and pretty much left him to it. He followed his program religiously and made great progress. But it could have been better.
Since then he’s switched to training directly under me. No, in his chosen sport my programming skills are probably not as good as the specialists he was consulting online, but there is one major difference.
I am there, watching.
Not only that but I can judge what days to push forwards and what days to back off. I can adjust the training on the fly as needed.
And I can converse with him between sets and work out what adjustments need to be made in order to best advance him as an individual. These could be technique issues or weak/imbalanced areas specific to him.
In other words, he receives “coaching”, where as previously he only received “training”
The difference is crucial.
A coach is there, always there.
A good coach knows his athletes as well as or often better than they know themselves.
A good coach knows as soon as his athlete steps onto the floor where he is mentally and physically, before anything more than “hello” has been said.
A good coach can pick out an athletes weak points and eliminate them.
A “trainer” can’t do this. Nor can the vast majority of fitness instructors.
If you are training for something, be it athleticism, physique or sport, ensure you search out a coach, someone who doesn’t just hand you a workout, no matter if it’s the perfect program or not. But find someone who can get in your head, someone who can work out what makes you tick and can manipulate you to tick more efficiently.
If you are a fitness instructor/trainer whatever. Endeavour to learn how your athletes think. Always be assessing.
There’s a lot of internet chatter about assessments, especially since the whole FMS thing exploded onto the scene. But in Wild Geese I am assessing you from the minute you enter the building to the minute you leave.
Each and every movement, each facial expression, the intonation and construction of your sentences when you speak, the way you stand, walk, the look in your eye. All these tell a story.
These are all things a coach should be looking for, should be reading and taking note of.
Each tiny element helps build a story. A coach can read the story and workout how best to steer it.
The difference in an athlete’s success/failure isn’t always the programming. The best program in the world is no use if the athlete can’t implement it on those occasions where life gets in the way.
The shoulder joint is probably the second only to the knee in terms of athletic injuries.
It is certainly problematic for martial artists, our main clientèle. We have many “older” athletes training with us who suffer a legacy of a bench press obsessed teen years.
For many of us the issues are simply overuse. Many time our pectorals are simply overused, overtrained or simply over tight. This then leads to the shoulders rounding forwards, the scapula winging out and the counter muscles in the upper back becoming weak and essentially lazy.
Sometimes the problem is the upper traps being over active which switches of the lower traps which are partly responsible for stabilising the scapula.
And then there’s the more severe injuries that we see. In the Judo and BJJ the guys get bent and twisted into positions that are designed to injure. If these locks (submissions) are applied a little to hard, too fast or too often and if you don’t tap out in time you run the gauntlet of injury. After all these locks were originally designed, not for sport, but for disabling a person intent on causing harm.
Omoplata - all sorts of nasty if you don't tap in time
So what do we do?
Not training is simply not an option.
The first thing is obviously dropping in on Dan, our resident sports therapy, acupuncturist and Muay Thai exponent.
After that, we implement some rehabilitation drills. The exact drills will depend on your individual injury, the ones selected in this presentation are big bang drills, they hit the most common problems head on.
Starting out with YTL positions. You’ll see I’m doing these free standing, but you may lie on a bench.
Next we take out a band and repeat the same positions but with added resistance. It is important to move with control, so don’t use too heavy a band. I find a pause at the end of the movement really helps.
With the unloaded drills go to fatigue with each one. With the band you can play around a little, heavier bands with low reps for strengthening the rotator cuff and stabilising the shoulder, or a lighter band for higher reps for flushing the joint.
The last section is simple band pulls, to the front and behind the head. These are fantastic and I recommend them to everyone. If you work in an office keep a band in your top drawer and do these at intervals through the day.
With these I like to go at pace for reps. Vary the angle at which you pull, when you find on that is a little harder than the others, stick with it. For me personally I start at eye level and pull down to the chest.
Regardless of which drill your working, always ensure that the shoulder blades (scapula) and pulled back and down, the spine is long and the chest elevated. This should be monitored and checked on each and every rep. If the shoulders aren’t set, there’s no point in completing the rep.
Have a look at the video, sorry about the quality there must have been some dodgy setting on the camera, but you can see the each exercise.
I have a history of shoulder issues going back, I believe, to an injury in my teens. These are my go to drills and have also helped many of my guys keep pushing forwards. Do them regularly and you may never experience the debilitating pain, if you’re already damaged relax all your pressing and concentrate on these instead.
For all else, there’s Dan.
You’ll get him on 086 046 4641 or Email: info@wildgeesema.com
I don’t ask for testimonials, it’s not my way. But this came in via facebook as part of a larger discussion and I think it has a wider message than “my coach is oh so great”. It comes from one of my girls, a woman who’s been in the fitness industry for years, so when she speaks out on it her words have weight.
Over to you Linda:
I come from a fitness instruction background and worked for over 10 years in commercial gyms. Since joining Wild Geese and training with Dave, my whole approach to training has completely changed and if I were still an instructor my approach to instructing would be very different too.
Looking back now I view the commercial gym environment as dangerously ‘toxic’ particularly for women. I know in WG if I asked questions such as ‘how many calories will I burn off in a Kettlebell class’ ‘where are the 4kg Kettlebells?’ or ‘can someone measure my body fat’? I’d get a polite response but I wouldn’t last a week in there unless I changed my approach. That’s exactly what I had to do.
Now I view training as a means of getting better at something, I want to master the clean and jerk (man that’s a technical beast), I want to be able to do one-armed push-ups, I want to get 10 pull ups before the end of 2012, I could go on and on. It’s all about gaining, gaining strength, gaining confidence, gaining new abilities.
Now I train to gain not to lose.
So that in a nutshell is why I respect Daves opinion and those he is connected with and want to tap into your opinions on what is happening in Ireland today in terms of promoting physical activity. You guys represent and promote a healthier psychological approach to training/physical activity etc…I still work in the industry, at consultancy level, and from time to time end up in conversations with people that are directly or indirectly involved in the promotion of physical activity at policy level. It’s nice to have a little army of opinions standing with me when I find myself in these positions. Especially as I think the views of people in the world of Kettlebell, martial arts etc… are under represented, if represented at all, around the tables where policies are being developed.
You can read the whole of Linda’s comment and join in on our discussion regarding fitness for schools and young people by following this link to Facebook. I don’t know if you’ll be able to see it without adding me as a friend, but please take the time to look through, read the article and leave a comment.
At first there’s nothing wrong with the statement. Then as I mulled it over the ridiculousness of it started to dawn on me. I’ll give you a moment, see if you get it.
Well?
In case you didn’t, here’s my thought process:
Healthy eating course, ok, they want to improve their health.
Hang on a sec….Why do you need a course, it’s not as if healthy eating is complicated!
If a food grows out of the ground, or it eats (or would have eaten) something that grows out of the ground, then it’s healthy.
If a food has only a single ingredient, then it’s probably healthy.
What more is there to know, other than learning a few recipes, isn’t that what Mum’s and Grannies are for?
Now learning about nutrition is different story, that’s science, that’s talking about macro nutrients, micro nutrients and a whole lot besides. I myself am waiting to hear back on a nutrition course I applied for. But healthy eating, c’mon, Grill yourself a Steak, throw it on top of a plate of mixed salad and chuck a small portion of spuds on the side and you’re good.
It seems everyone is talking about MMA these days, slightly fewer people are wearing all the gear (but have no idea), less again are actually practising and a few are genuinely training and competing.
This for the competitors.
The rest of you can read if you want to.
Since the birth of MMA in the 90′s and it’s seemingly unstoppable rise to global domination, more and more people are jumping on the band wagon. At first it was martial arts instructors suddenly billing themselves as MMA coaches. Thankfully most of those have been recognised for what they are. But now the fitness industry is doing the same thing, every second article on the web shows some hair brained workout that is “specific” to MMA.
Lets get some thing straight from the off.
Random training is not good training.
It’s fine for “general” fitness which will suit the “general” population.
For an athlete it sucks.
Most athletes don’t have people trying to punch their lights out or break their arm as they participate in their chosen sport. So a dodgy strength & conditioning program may see them through as long as it doesn’t cause them injury.
But a fighter is different. As technically blessed as they may be, if they gas or run out of strength before the other guy, if they are carrying a training related injury when they step onto the mat. Then they are going to get hurt, and it’s you the coach that is responsible for this.
Perhaps coaches should have a record, same way a fighter does.
“In the blue corner is John with a record of 5 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss…”
Imagine if that continued with, “…..his Strength & Conditioning coach is Dave, his athletes have a record of 5 wins, 2 draws and 32 losses”
Wouldn’t that tell you something?
But anyhow, thats just my rant about the current trend.
Just because you have done a few Jitz classes or have a Karate black belt doesn’t make you and MMA coach. Being able to swing a kettlebell or make pretty waves in a rope, doesn’t make you an MMA Conditioning coach.
Case in point:
Imagine stepping into the ring thinking your hot shit after your coach had put you through all that?
Your opponent would be laughing his way to the after party!
But anyway, back to the title of this post before I go off on a complete rant…
MMA Cardio.
It’s vital!
But what are the best cardio methods for an MMA fighter?
Simple answer, there isn’t one.
What?
That’s right there isn’t ONE, there are many.
And the right one is the one that is right for your particular fighter at that particular stage in his career.
I’ve a fighter who’s requirements were Speed, Explosive Power and Cardio. He was already as strong as an ox, he just wasn’t used to being fast and he often gassed.
So for cardio I utilised this knowledge and built him a solid workout based on explosive power and core strength with short but intense finishers for his cardio. He loved the workouts but lived in fear of the finishers.
This video is an example of one such finisher. It’s two exercises, the Battling Rope which is fast and requires constant power output interspersed with Farmers Walks, ideal for core strength and endurance under load.
Think about this, you’re in the ring, you are locked into a clinch or grapple and both are struggling to negate each other, both looking for the opportunity to explode out. During this time you are under heavy load but not moving much (farmers walk), then an opportunity is presented and you have to burst into a flurry of activity (battling ropes).
Of course these aren’t your only exercise options, these are just the two that best covered this athletes particular needs.
Here’s what it looked like:
We did 5 rounds of this, as soon as the farmers implements are lifted the ropes start and they don’t stop until the implements hit the ground again, immediately swap over, minimal rest. Each week the drill should take less and less time.
Most of my regular clients are activley involved in physical sports, many are martial artists from a variety of styles, others play Rugby, GAA and even Soccer. So injuries are quite common and the guys are well used to them and it takes something serious for them not to turn up here for training the next day.
But for our other members, those who are just here for a bit of fitness, should they be doing the same?
Is it safe to train with an injury or should you just stay at home and rest?
My answer is (nearly) always yes. You should come in and train.
The rider is that the first thing you do is let me know as much as possible about the injury so that we can have you doing exercises that won’t negativly affect it. There’s no point twisting your ankle then coming in and doing 10 minutes of skipping followed by jump lunges, that’s just silly.
But we can work other exercises. If the injury is in te lower body, we work the upper body and vice versa. Some exercises may still be viable, a twisted ankle may be fine for light squatting (bodyweight) andf maybe even some careful farmers carries. These exercises may even speed up the recovery assuming the injury is not too serious as it stimulates blood flow through the area.
The rider to this is always common sense. It’s that you must at all times listen to your body and take informed decisions based on it’s feedback. If the pain is increasing, stop immediately and switch to something else.
So unless your injury is serious, go training. At the very least you’ll get a warm up and some mobility work done, which will help the rest of the body. Just use common sense and listen to your body, the last thing you want is a relapse.
Before I finish off, if the pain is serious or the injury is persisting and not going away, get it checked. At Wild Geese you can chat to Dan, he’s our resident witch doctor and is one reason why our team of instructors seem so invincible. His number is 086 827 5955. Or you can call any physio / osteo that is local to you.
I’m just back from visiting my friend Kieran Dolan at his gym in Tullamore.
The reason for todays visit was that he was hosting Irish bodybuilder, winner of class 2 in the Irish Nabba Bodybuilding Championships and The U80kg class at the RIBBF Bodybuilding Championships, Patrick Lowbridge.
Patrick, or Pa as he’s known, gave an informal Q&A where he shared his knowledge and experience of the murky world of bodybuilding, the training, the dieting, the drugs and the tan. All very, very interesting.
A few things he said stood out to me in particular:
Lift heavy, 3 sets of 6-8 reps, ideally just 6 to failure.
Stick to big compound movements, forget the fancy stuff
Get your workouts done in around 45 minutes
Cycle between 6 weeks of all out training effort and around three weeks lighter, high rep work, around 8-12 reps per set.
Don’t be afraid to take the week off occasionally, rest is vital.
Building mass and reducing fat is all about food.
Eat clean, eat your veggies and get plenty of water into you.
All good advice, regardless of whether you are a body builder, athlete or simply a fitness enthusiast.
The best result I ever had from a body building program followed similar lines, big exercises performed for 4-6 reps, even with my martial arts practice I still built size and strength. This was way before I started training with Kettles and during a time I was solely focused on mass building rather than athleticism. When my training switched to a more athletic focus again for martial arts conditioning I lost some size but found that I’d built an excellent foundation to build strength and explosiveness onto.
Body building, done in the manner prescribed by Pa, training that follows the old school of Dorian Yates, Arnold and the like, it works. It’ll get you big, it’ll get you strong and it’ll lay a foundation upon which you can base your athleticism.
Pa is very open about the short comings of his training though. We talked for a while about my martial arts and the differences in training practices. Pa and his fellow body builders, in Pa’s own words “we’re not into training those deep (core) muscles, we’re more about superficial, stuff you can see.”
So while he does train his Abs daily, he doesn’t want to thicken his waist so it’s all high rep sets for various styles of crunch, great for aesthetics, not great for power.
Saying that, so long as he squats, deadlifts and performs standing overhead pressing, he should still develop decent strength through the core.
All in all today was a interesting and enjoyable, it’s always a pleasure to hear from high level athletes, regardless of their sport, there’s always something to be learned.
If you’re ever in Tullamore, be sure to check out Dolan Fitness, you’ll find Pa there most evenings as he is preparing for the Worlds.
Subscribe via Email & Receive 41 Articles on Motivation
Simply click the image to enter your email address
Steve Cotter CKT Seminar in Dublin – June 2-4th, 2012
Certify as a Kettlebell Instructor under Steve Cotter, click image for more details
eBook
W.M.D - click for details
Upcoming Workshops:
Steve Cotter CKT Level 1& 2 2nd - 4th June 2012
Three days training with the worlds most in demand Kettlebell Coach.
This is a certification course far beyond anything else currently available. CKT 1 -
Date: June 2 – 3,
Times:
June 2 – 9:30 am to 5:00 pm
June 3 – 9:30 am to 12:00 pm CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
CKT 2 -
Date: June 3 – 4
Times:
June 3 – 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm
June 4 – 9:30 am to 5:00 pm CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
