Sunday, February 15, 2009

Kettlebell Krazy

This past Saturday, Charles, Courtney, Ben, Kyle, and I attended an excellent Kettlebell workshop at Cville BJJ. We went through the fundamental movements (swing, TGU, clean, press, snatch, windmill), and also learned some other miscellaneous movements and got some great programming ideas. Check out the pics below...

Great new way to bring the pain: walking swings!



<--Back swing


Half Rack-->







Today, a group of us met at Rocky Top for a great Mountain Athlete workout, "Olive Drab." Lots of heavy walking lunges, jingle jangles, rope climbs, and swings. Great effort from everyone who came out. We also got to watch Forney battle his way through the clean/ring dip/double under WOD from the mainsite, and ended the session with some deadlift troubleshooting.

Recently, I've been interested in different functional fitness gurus' approaches to flexibility/mobility and stretching. Here are some of my favorite findings...

Kelly Starrett on why stretching is dead. CF discussion board thread discussing stretching based on the teachings of the great Dan John. And finally, my two favorites: shoulder and hip mobility drills from Rob Shaul at Mountain Athlete. I think all these great coaches get it right, and consequently I haven't done much static stretching in months. Yet I've seen awesome increases in my flexibility from squat therapy, mobility drills, and the Oly lifts. Got an opinion on the subject? Weigh in under comments.



13 comments:

charles said...

kettlebell seminar was fun, thanks for letting us know about that. definitely worth the $60, if only for the bruises.

we made up a tabata today; 8 rounds of 20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest for each of 4 exercises. total 16 minutes:

kb swing 45#
situps
pushups
kb squats 45#

forgot to keep score.

Dave Lewis said...

Today's Group Workout: "Olive Drab"
Credit again to Rob Shaul at Mtn Athlete

Warm-up: 10min. TGU, 1 pood KB

Training:
6 rds
20m walking lunges @ 35# DB's
10x Jingle Jangles
4 rds
Rope Climb
Push Press @40kg, 60kg, 60kg, 70kg
15x swings @ 1.5 pood KB

Ended with 3x HAM drill

charles said...

8 rds for time:
-12 pullups (CF games standards; chest to bar)
-12 burpees
15:46

ben said...

went to the AFC yesterday for some back squat 5x3@165 (light)
deadlift 3x3@190 (moderate)
push press 5x5@105 (pretty tough)
finished up with a pretty fun exercise from performance menu:
3x10 of 1 GHD situp + 2 Russian Twists at the top with a light med ball, really tiring so give it a try

decent workout, need to retest max clean and snatch at rocky top soon,
also served as a reminder that the AFC is completely worthless

Bin said...

KB circuit at home
3x10:
Round the World, each way
Figure 8, each way
Swing
Lunge
Goblet Squat
Windmill
L-sit on paralletes

Hope to hit up my b-day workout this Friday..

Armando said...

Squat Clean 7x1:
135
145
145
155
165(+20 PR)
155(to work on narrowing stance)

Armando said...

Continuously compounding pull-ups:
16 min. + 12 PUs (PR by 14 PUs)

ben said...

nice job on the constant PRs Armando!
ripped hands suck btw! for my most recent rip I tried the "pour salt in wounds" method, but I'm not sure I salted for long enough (didn't dry out fast enough). one other tip we got at the kettlebell seminar was to steep a bag of black tea and then hold that to the wound, I guess it might have a similar drying out effect, haven't tried it out tho

Armando said...

You know, I've heard some people use the little film that you get from hard-boiled eggs. They just put strips of it over your wound for a while at a time, and your wound is completely healed and almost scar-free in no time. Should have tried it after the wonderful rip from the pull-up ladder (non-callous rips I think are fucking merciless).

Bin said...

"That birthday thing Armando send me (I forgot the actual workout but got it pretty close)"

Max rounds in 23 minutes:
11 DL (185lb)
11 PU
23 calories on the rower
Lead directly into:
8 muscle-ups
8 rope climbs
8 man-makers @ 2 20kg KB (heaviest they had)

5 rounds + DL, ~6min on final triplet

Thanks Armando! That was a bad workout to start on after not working out for a week

Armando said...

Can't really grip much of anything right now, and I had all of the Mem Gym weight room to myself today, so I did some squatting practice.

Burgener warm-up and some other Dan John drills.

Workout:
3 sets of each exercise to reach...
5 RM on Overhead Squat - got to 95lbs (PR)
3 RM on Front Squat - up to 155 (PR)
1 RM on Back Squat - got 215 (PR), failed at 225

Working on pushing my knees out as much as possible on the drive up. Successful until I got to the last two Back Squats.

Armando said...

For those of you who won't be able to make it to the workout tomorrow at 1pm, I'll be at Mem Gym starting with my workout for the day at 3pm. Everyone and anyone is welcome to join. I'll be working with the split jerk and the turkish get-up. I'll also have my camera with me, if you wish to have any of your movements recorded for more detailed reviewing.

Mostafa said...

Hey Uva Crossfit, could you add me to the uva x-fit mailing list please.

My email address is cairoin@gmail.com

Cheers!