Condition Kettlebell Gym

Earlier this week when I had a kettlebell class do a series of presses I found myself saying, “Keep pressing like that but don’t make faces.”  One lady asked, “Why?  Because it will get stuck like that?”  NO!  Because making faces is a sign that your balance of tension and relaxation is gone and that is the first step to inefficiency.  As a Z-Trainer, we learn that the path to efficiency is:

1. Perfect Form

2. Dynamic Postural Alignment

3. Synchronized Respiration

4. Balanced Tension/Relaxation

When you start a press, you should begin with proper form, then you make sure you are standing up straight with an elongated spine.  As you press you should sniff in at the bottom and blow (or hiss) out as you press.  Your abs, glutes, and quads should be full of tension, but your face and neck should be relaxed.

The pathway of ineffiency is the exact opposite.  The first thing to go is your balance of tension/relaxation, then your breathing gets off, and first posture, then form goes.  The best way to keep from having bad form is to stop and correct it before you get to that point.  When you notice that you are making faces, stop and fix your balance of tension and relaxation then proceed with your press.

Last week I was at Whole Foods and something caught my eye.  On the shelf were these brown, grainy, interesting tortillas.  Usually I stay away from wraps of any kind because of their nutritional content (or, more like lack of nutrition in their content) but these looked like they could be an exception.  I read the ingredients and the first one was stone ground whole wheat flour and there was no sugar of any kind on the list.  Let’s move onto the nutrition facts.  110 calories, 2g fat and more than 3g of dietary fiber - the real test of any product that claims to be “whole wheat.”  And these were some big tortillas!  I was excited to find something new and went to the checkout.  As I was walking to my car, I couldn’t help thinking that it was too good to be true.  So I double checked the label.  All of that data was for HALF OF A TORTILLA!  Who eats half of a tortilla???  Well, the content of this product still ended up being an ok choice, but I have even seen desserts at Trader Joe’s labeled “serving size: 1/2 a muffin”  I bet even less people eat half a muffin than half a tortilla!  So, my advice is that if you read anything on a label, make sure that you’re also checking the serving size.

5 RKC’s across the country are competing in what is called the Great Kettlebell Meltdown.  There is a link on the blogroll if you want more info. Basically, there are 2 categories in which the participants can compete.  #1 weight/inches lost and #2 Perfomance.  Every one weighed in and/or tested yesterday and then in ten weeks, they will repeat the weigh in/perfomance tests and the winners are the most improved.  In honor of their contest, our classes did their workout yesterday.  There are 300 total reps and you are trying to get through the exercises as quickly as possible:

25 V-Ups

25 Snatches R

25 Snatches L

25 Pushups

50 Swings

50 Burpees (that one is KILLER)

25 clean and press Left

25 clean and press Right

50 Mountain Climbers

It took my classes’ participants between 20 and 25 minutes to complete it.  Then, in the Great KB Meltdown, there is a 5 minute snatch test as well.  That was optional in yesterday’s workout at Condition, and most people opted out of it since the 300 workout had so much cardio.

Hi guys!  Sorry it has been a LONG time since I have been blogged.  It won’t happen again.  :-)  Things have been really busy here at Condition (which is a very good thing!) and I am proud to make two big announcements about happenings this Spring/Summer.   First of all, I’d like to announce that Katie Bigelow, a Z-Health Level II trainer majoring in neuroscience at Emory University, will be getting her RKC in June and then will begin teaching some classes here.  She is a very smart girl and we’re all very excited about what she can add here at Condition.   

Secondly, Senior RKC David Whitley will be holding an all day intermediate kettlebell workshop here on May 3rd.  The sign up for that event will be up on the website sometime next week.  David is a phenomenal trainer who can help kettlebell lifters take their training to the next level.  More info to come…