All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2012 and beyond – Geoff Neupert. All rights are reserved.
Photography by Paul McDaniel.
You may not distribute this book in any way. You may not sell it, or reprint
any part of it without written consent from the author, except for the
inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
2
Disclaimer
You must get your physician’s approval before beginning any of these exercise
instructions or workouts.
These recommendations are not medical guidelines but are for educational
purposes only. You must consult your physician prior to starting this program or if
you have any medical condition or injury that contraindicates physical activity.
This program is designed for healthy individuals 18 years and older only. See
your physician before starting any exercise or nutrition program. If you are taking
any medications, you must talk to your physician before starting any exercise
program, including Kettlebell STRONG!. If you experience any lightheadedness,
dizziness, or shortness of breath while exercising, stop the movement and
consult a physician.
It is strongly recommended that have a complete physical examination if you are
sedentary, if you have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes, if you
are overweight, or if you are over 30 years old. Please discuss all nutritional
changes with your physician or a registered dietician. If your physician
recommends that you not use Kettlebell STRONG!, please follow your Doctor’s
orders.
All forms of exercise pose some inherent risks. The editors and publishers advise
readers to take full responsibility for their safety and know their limits. Before
practicing the exercises in this workout, be sure that your equipment is well
maintained, and do not take risks beyond your level of experience, aptitude,
training and fitness. The exercises and dietary programs in this program are not
intended as a substitute for any exercise routine or treatment or dietary regimen
that may have been prescribed by your physician.
Don’t lift heavy weights if you are alone, inexperienced, injured, or fatigued. Don’t
perform any exercise without proper instruction. Always perform a warm-up prior
to all forms of training.
3
Table of Contents
Foreword
5
Introduction
7
Philosophy: The Why
8
The Nuts ‘n Bolts: How To...
1. The Rack.
2. The Double Front Squat (FSQ)
Common Front Squat Mistakes:
3. The Double Clean (DCL)
Common Mistakes In The Clean:
Foot Position On The Ballistics
Big Toe, BIG Deal
The “Magic” Assistance Exercise:
The Dead Stop (Power) Clean/Swing/High Pull/Snatch
4. The Double Military Press (DMP)
Common Press Mistakes:
5. The Double Swing (DSW)
QUESTION: “Why Don’t You Base The Doubles Skills On The Double Swing, Like The
Singles Skills Are Based On The Swing?”
Common Mistakes On The Double Swing:
A Word About Bending The Elbows On The Double Swing
6. The Double High Pull (DHP)
Common Mistakes On The High Pull:
7. The Double Push Press (DPP)
“What about the feet – Should the heels stay down on the “drive-phase”?”
Common Mistakes On The Double Push Press:
8. The Double Snatch (DSN)
More On Lowering The Kettlebells Between Reps Of Snatches
Common Double Snatch Mistakes:
9. The Double Jerk (DJK)
Troubleshooting the Jerk
10. Double Clean and Jerk (DCJ)
10
10
15
18
20
23
25
28
31
31
33
36
39
Program Design
The STRONG! Program
The “One” Program
77
77
82
Appendix:
84
On Head, Neck, And Eye (And Spine) Position
84
41
41
42
44
46
48
51
51
52
56
56
57
59
74
4
Acknowledgements
Thank you, Jesus, for giving me the idea to commit this information to paper.
To my beautiful wife, Courtney, who continually supports me and loves me no
matter what.
To Pavel, who helped me understand the importance of tension in my training as
a part of body mastery.
Finally, a big thanks to Tim Anderson, my brother from another mother, who
selflessly helped me complete this project.
5
Foreword
By Pavel Tsatsouline, Chairman, StrongFirst, Inc.
I was so impressed with Kettlebell STRONG!, that I am going to ask Geoff to
include parts of it into the Level II SFG kettlebell instructor course manual.
Tightly written, the book is full of "meat". Using his extensive weightlifting
experience, Geoff Neupert is expanding and refining the StrongFirst kettlebell
training system. His insights into the foot position and weight distribution in
"pulls", the neck position, and other subtleties important to a serious student of
strength alone are worth the price of the book.
Then you get crystal clear step-by-step instructions to mastering double kettlebell
lifts, along with troubleshooting tips. Last, but not least, is the program design.
We do not call Geoff "Captain Complex" for nothing; he is StrongFirst's go-to
person for professional program design.
Get Kettlebell STRONG!.
6
Introduction
Why learn to use a pair of kettlebells?
Why not?
Seriously, pretty much every benefit you experience from single bells will be
amplified with a pair of bells.
Probably the most important thing about using a pair of kettlebells is that you can
do even more work in than you can with a single KB.
And that means faster results.
And who doesn’t want that?
When you start incorporating doubles work into your training program you’ll
notice the following:
•
•
•
•
•
Increased conditioning levels
Faster gains in strength
Get leaner faster
Feel more resilient
Feel more powerful
And for time efficiency, nothing can beat working with doubles, especially when
you get into some of the advanced program designs.
What you’re about to read is what I believe – and my experience teaching others
has shown this to be true – the fastest, safest, easiest way to learn how to
use a pair of kettlebells.
This is the exact sequence I teach in my sold out Kettlebell Muscle workshops.
The attendees love it and see amazing and immediate results, more often than
not setting Personal Bests in many of the lifts, and I’m sure you will too.
So without further ado, let’s dig in.
7
Philosophy: The Why
My rationale for teaching the double kettlebell lifts the way I do, specifically the
order and sequencing of the lifts is for a very good reason: The double kettlebell
lifts are a Catch-22.
You have to be somewhat strong to start using them effectively and when used
effectively, they get you really strong.
In talking with my good friend Jeff O’Connor, former StrongFirst Master Instructor
and North American Strongman Champ (275lbs), we concurred that one of the
smartest ways to train is to actually “work out” with double kettlebells and
practice your lifts with a barbell.
Why?
Because the double bells are more “forgiving” than the barbell and that means
you’re able to do more work with them. And more importantly, recover from that
work. And, by now, we all know that in most cases, being able to do and recover
from more work, means you’ll get stronger.
Heavy barbell work tends to take a toll on your joints. Anyone who’s been under
a bar for long periods of time can attest to that. On the flip side, double kettlebell
work is easier on your joints and more demanding on your muscles. And we all
know by now that increasing tension in a muscle is the way to get a stronger
muscle.
Speaking of barbells, let’s talk more about that Catch-22.
Unlike their cousins, the single kettlebell lifts, the doubles play by slightly different
rules. The single kettlebell lifts, because there is only one bell moving between
your legs and under your body, is generally performed with a narrower stance.
This narrower base of support makes the trajectory of the single bell lifts arc-like
– hence the term “taming the arc.”
The doubles, on the other hand, require a wider stance. And because of this
wider stance, we no longer have as much of an arc. This means several things:
1. The trajectory of the bells is no longer as much of an arc – it’s more
vertical than horizontal.
8
2. Because the trajectory is more vertical than horizontal, we can no longer
rely as heavily on the posterior chain – the gluts, hamstrings, and lower
back to generate / produce force.
3. Because we can no longer rely as heavily on the posterior chain and the
trajectory is more vertical, we must start to rely more on the anterior chain,
including the quadriceps to generate force.
4. This makes the double kettlebell lifts similar, but not exactly like their
barbell cousins – the Olympic lifts.
5. Therefore, for maximum efficiency and optimal performance, we need to
borrow some of the strategies of Olympic lifters and apply them to our
double kettlebell lifts. Fortunately, I have 15 years of experience in
Olympic lifting so this comes naturally to me.
This means that we will start our double kettlebell training somewhere
unexpected and unusual – and no, it’s not with the Double Swing.
Believe it or not, from my experience the Double Swing has very little direct
transfer over to the major double kettlebell lifts, such as the Double Snatch
and the Double Clean and Jerk.
It’s fantastic for grip strength, metabolic conditioning, and teaches you how to
finish driving with your hips with a pair of kettlebells, but that’s about it.
So, where do we start?
That’s the subject of the next section...
9
The Nuts ‘n Bolts: How To...
Learning how to use two kettlebells instead of one is a fun and enlightening
process. And if the process weren’t enough, there are three major reasons you
should consider using double kettlebell exercises in your training program.
1. You can perform more work with two kettlebells.
2. You can stimulate (potentially) faster growth/progress with two kettlebells.
3. You can decrease workout time with two kettlebells.
However, learning the double kettlebell exercises is a different process than
single kettlebell exercises. Pretty much everything is different, not because the
rules of the game change with double bells, but because they are accentuated.
Below is the following order I believe is best for learning the double kettlebell
exercises. Each exercise contains a lesson upon which the following exercise is
layered. If you follow this progression, by the time you get to the end, the
exercises become almost effortless, because your body is familiar with the gross
movements and the fine movements become almost incidental. (Almost.)
1. The Rack.
The Rack Position is where everything starts.
It’s the launch pad and the rest stop for most of
the double kettlebell drills, so it’s important to
get this position correct from the start.
For most people, the rack with two kettlebells is
uncomfortable. And with heavy kettlebells, it’s
very uncomfortable.
So the first order of the day is getting
comfortable with discomfort.
Seriously.
Learning how to overcome discomfort is one of
the major tasks in mastering successful double
10
kettlebell lifting – whether you’re lifting heavy kettlebells for strength, or you’re
lifting moderate sized kettlebells for conditioning. The name of the game is
learning how to control your body with your mind.
The rack position for men is completed when both kettlebells are resting on the
chest and the knuckles of both fists are touching or the handles of both bells are
touching. Just make sure you don’t smash your fists together.
This is a great position to stress the abdominals, obliques, and other muscles of
the torso, including the intercostal muscles (aid in respiration) and the serratus
anterior, an important shoulder stabilizer.
For women, as Pavel mentions in Enter the Kettlebell, resting the kettlebells on
the breasts is potentially unhealthy so keep the kettlebells off the chest and just
to the side of the shoulders.
KEY POINT: Think of the muscles in your body as a zipper. To be
successful, and comfortable in the Rack, you must learn how to “Zip Up!*”
correctly.
Here are cues to tighten up your Rack – to
“Zip Up!”:
1. Push feet through the floor
2. Pull kneecaps up into groin
3. Make your navel and tailbone meet
in the middle by forcefully tightening
the gluts and contracting the
abdominals as if bracing for a punch
4. Power Breathe!
5. Keep shoulders down and lats
contracted.
This is the start and the finish position for
many of the double kettlebell lifts, so learn
to be comfortable here.
Rack holds for time here will help you get
used to the initial discomfort of this
position. They will help you master the
magnitude of tension in each muscle group involved.
Not only that, but they’ll help you breathe behind the shield, which is the practice
of being able to breathe behind partially tensed abdominal muscles.
11
This helps protect your spine, which is loaded significantly more with the double
kettlebell exercises than the single ones.
*Special thanks to Pavel for introducing the idea of “zipping
up.” For more information on its benefits, purchase his book, The
Naked Warrior.
Next, let’s take a look at some of the common mistakes seen in the Rack
position...
12
Common Mistakes In The Rack Position:
1. Using a “sport” rack.
This is not a mistake per se, but more of a danger to
non-kettlebell sport athletes. The GS rack position
promotes slumped or slouched upper body, with one
of the goals being able to touch or rest the elbows
on the top of the pelvis.
Considering most Americans and westerners in
general already have poor slouched posture,
common sense dictates that spending more time
there and doing it under load would not be healthy
for joint issues associated with said posture. This
includes shoulder impingements, lower back pain,
and hip pain.
Not only that, but we now know that load cements
posture, both good and bad, and the host of issues that are associated with poor
posture.
(Note: I am NOT saying that the sport position causes these issues in a healthy
sporting population. As we know, there’s a difference between choosing to be in
a position and being forced there by default. The sport lifter is an example of the
former, and the general population an example of the latter.)
2. Using your neck as your abs.
Many times people will “hide” behind the bells in
the rack by tucking their chins. Sure, this
facilitates an abdominal contraction but doing so
decreases the role of the extensors and can
inhibit the muscles protecting the back.
To fix it, do more direct ab work like Planks or
some form of abdominal flexion work, like
Hanging Leg Raises.
Also, make sure you practice spending time in the
rack – just the rack, holding the kettlebells there
for time, learning how to breathe behind the
shield.
13
3. Allow your elbows to flare.
I get it – it’s not always comfortable to keep your
elbows down and in. But it’s one of the safest
ways to play in the rack position. Not being able to
do could mean you’re weak in the middle (weak
abs), or too tight in the shoulders and unable to
use your lats to pull your shoulders away from
your ears, or maybe even both.
Doing so however actually makes the rack
position harder to maintain as energy leaks out of
your middle many times through your lower back.
Over time, this can lead to lower back injuries.
To fix this, stretch your lats and strengthen your
midsection with either some Planks or some
flexion work like Hanging Leg Raises.
4. Holding your breath in your face / not breathing behind the shield.
Often times newbies – those new to double
kettlebell work, will hold their breath up in their
heads. You’ll know you’re doing this if you feel
pressure in your head or feel your face “flush” or
feel that hot feeling on your ears.
Instead, you need to learn how to draw your
breath into your pelvis and hold it there.
With your breath in your pelvis, tighten your abs –
but not all the way. Use just enough tension to
overcome the pull of the kettlebells on your body.
They’ll naturally want to pull you forward and/or
peel out of your hands and off the front of your
body.
Learning how to tense your abs and “breathe
behind the shield” will help center the mass of the
kettlebells into your body, safely align your joints to support the extra load, and
protect your lower back.
14
2. The Double Front Squat (FSQ)
Most people mistakenly think that since the Swing is the foundational kettlebell
exercise for single kettlebell work, that the Double Swing (DSW) must be the
foundational exercise for the double kettlebell exercises too. It’s not.
Remember, the key point here is that the Swing is the foundation
exercise for kettlebell training. Double kettlebell training is built
upon single kettlebell training, so the Swing is still the foundation
for all kettlebell training.
The fundamental double kettlebell exercise is the Double Front Squat
(FSQ). This is primarily because it is a “moving rack.”
The DSQ teaches you how to stay tight
and breathe behind the shield regardless
of load, especially while moving the body.
To perform the FSQ, clean the kettlebells
to the rack position. (Don’t worry about
how to clean the kettlebells up there –
we’ll get to that next…)
•
Your foot placement should be just
outside of your hips, maybe
slightly wider. You’re your feet
pointed straight ahead or turned
out to about 15 degrees.
•
Inhale and hold about 75% of your
maximum lung capacity. You will
feel your abdominals contract.
Contract them harder by actively
bracing for a punch.
•
Using your hip flexors, pull yourself into the hole. (This is a key point! Most
people forget about this and sit back into their hips*.)
•
Pull yourself down and back, or, pull your knees to your chest. (This
concept of “pull your knees to your chest” has been a “gold nugget” – a
true gem of a cue for me and my clients/students. It seems to disrupt the
subconscious mind’s “squat pattern” and produces near perfect squats
15
more often than not, because the brain is distracted by a completely new
cue for the squat pattern.)
•
Keep your head back, your chin slightly elevated and your eyes slightly
up.
•
As you do so, push your knees forward over your feet. The sensation
should be your butt going backwards and your knees going forwards—like
you’re pushing the two apart. This will keep your weight centered over
each foot. This will also appropriately distribute the load between your
lower legs and your upper legs and hips**.) My good friend Jeff O’Connor
likes the cue, “make your femur longer.”
•
•
Pull the kettlebells down toward
your waist to keep the kettlebells
from falling out of the rack while
in the hole.
•
You may also interlace your
fingers while holding the bells.
•
Think “Big Chest” and push your
chest up and out while
contracting your lats to hold the
bells in place.
•
Do not round your lower back by
letting your tail tuck under you. (If
this happens, you are going too
low and need some corrective
work.)
•
When your butt touches your
calves, stand up, exhaling
through the sticking point.
Push the floor away from you but also drive yourself up from the ground
by thinking of leading with your traps. This will help keep you upright and
prevent your knees from locking before your hips.
Don’t forget to “Zip Up!” just like you would on any of the ballistic
movements. This will also help you stand up.
16
Interestingly enough, if you focus on “zipping up,” you can fake out your mind in
situations of fatigue and still maintain a near perfect squat!
* Active Negatives/Successive Induction: Based on Sherrington’s
Law of Reciprocal Inhibition. When the agonist contracts, the
antagonist relaxes to a certain degree. In the FSQ, when you pull
yourself into the hole with your hip flexors, your hip extensors
(gluts, hip external rotators) relax, enabling you to achieve a
deeper, more upright squat. Because the hip extensors are no
longer fighting you, they stretch even more. When you proceed to
stand up, they produce a more forceful contraction because they
have been stretched more.
**Contrary to popular belief, the lower legs – the calf
musculature – is heavily involved – or should be at least – in
the Squat. The calves, especially certain muscles in them, act as
knee extensors. When they are stretched, the feet dorsiflex, and
load potential energy into the tissues. When you stand up, the
feet actively plantarflex, straightening the lower leg and moving
it back toward upright, thus opening the knee joint from the
opposite side of the joint as the quadriceps.
The Front Squat is one of those lifts that you should video yourself doing so you
can see if you’re form is up to snuff. More often than not, you’ll find one of four
mistakes. Let’s take a closer look...
17
Common Front Squat Mistakes:
1. Knees collapse either on the way down or on the way up
Often known as “valgus” collapse, this is a sign of
some of the following, if not all in combination:
Weak abs, tight adductors, tight deep hip
musculature, weak lateral hamstrings.
There are several ways to address this:
1. Re-pattern you squat with the Goblet
Squat, paying careful and special attention
to pausing at the bottom and prying to gain
hip mobility
2. Focus on abdominal work – Planks and
abdominal flexion exercises, like the
Reverse Crunch or the Hanging Leg Raise.
3. Spend some time balancing out your kettlebell work with complimentary
exercises like many of the Yoga asanas to help open your hips.
2. Feet externally rotate during either the ascent or descent of the Squat
This is very similar to the valgus collapse. In this
case, there is not enough mobility in the hips, so
the body creates it by subconsciously shifting the
feet. There are a couple of fixes:
1. Take a slightly wider stance. This is
sometimes caused because the stance is
too narrow. Remember, the feet are
shoulder width apart, maybe slightly wider.
2. Spend some time opening up the posterior
hip capsules by doing some rocking (see
the Jerk section for “Rocking.”)
18
3. Hunched upper back
This is caused by having a weak upper back
musculature: Specifically the muscles that pull
your shoulder blades down and back.
Spend some extra time rowing. One arm KB rows
are perfect in this situation. You could also do
some of Dan John’s “Bat Wings.”
Alternatively, it is possible that your anterior chain
is weak and/or tight. So strengthening this area
will also help you maintain good posture in the
rack.
4. Elbows flaring out on the ascent
This is commonly seen among bigger guys. It’s
where the elbows flare out laterally, causing the
upper arm to internally rotate and the elbows to
rise.
This is common for people with poor thoracic
spine mobility and/or poor shoulder mobility. It
happens because you are unable to use the lats
to keep the elbows tight to the side of the body.
It can be particularly dangerous for the a/c joint in
the shoulder and to the lower back as many times
it also contributes to upper back rounding (which
in turn makes the lower back round).
A simple way to fix it is to spend some time doing
thoracic mobility drills and shoulder
mobility/stability/flexibility drills, like the Turkish Get Up and the SFG Arm Bar.
19
3. The Double Clean (DCL)
After the FSQ, it’s time to move on to the Double Clean (DCL). The DCL teaches
the trainee how to get the kettlebells to the Rack Position safely and effectively,
setting up future exercises such as the Double Military Press, the Double Push
Press, and the Double Jerk.
The DCL is an outstanding developer of the forearms and biceps. The fast
eccentric action forces the elbow flexor group to quickly decelerate the weight,
thus stretching the muscles under load. Anybody who has done Dead Hang
Cleans or Snatches can attest to this.
The DCL, because of more total load used (two KBs instead of one) requires
more force production on the swing phase of the clean. Since of course there is
an equal and opposite reaction for every action, the loading on the backswing is
also faster. The traps are also majorly loaded.
The DCL is a great exercise for packing muscle mass onto the shoulder girdle
and back, which is great for combat athletes.
I used to think that the DCL was the easiest double kettlebell ballistic to learn
after the Double Swing until I really started playing around with it. Now I think
differently and teach it before the Double Swing. Most people find it easier to
have a target with a heavier load and need a small rest between reps. The DCL
allows you to just that.
Before we start though, here’s a critical point to remember with all Kettlebell
Ballistics:
“The Hips Drive and The Arms Guide.”
This of course means that the hip action for
the Double Swing (DSW), the Double Snatch
(DSN) and the Double High Pull (DHP) will be
EXACTLY the same only with varying
degrees of force applied.
Here is how you set up the DCL:
•
Use a slightly wider foot placement
than you would for your Swing.
Obviously, your feet should be wide
enough to get the kettlebells through.
20
Turning the feet out 15 to 30 degrees
is acceptable.
•
Traditionally, we have taught people to
point your thumbs behind you so that
your fists are approximately 45
degrees from center of both
kettlebells. Both hands should form a
continuation of the “V” from the set-up.
(The tips of the thumbs could touch
each other.)
•
Hike the kettlebells between your legs,
keeping your chest up and out – again
– “Big Chest” like the FSQ.
•
Glue the elbows to the ribs throughout
almost the entire motion, especially on
the back swing. This helps you tame
the arc and keep the kettlebells from
smashing into your body when you
catch them.
•
Keep your arms high in the groin, with
the upper arms pressing against your
adductors – high near the groin.
•
Snap your hips – focus on squeezing
your ribs with your elbows so that they
don’t move away from the body.
•
Focus on externally rotating your
thumbs – pointing them back over
your shoulders – and lifting the
kettlebells to your waist. This will keep
you from over-cleaning the kettlebells
and causing them to crash into the
21
rack position, bruising your shoulders and possibly forcing you to lose your
balance backwards.
To get from the Rack back between the legs to re-clean the bells,
perform the following:
•
Let the kettlebells “fall” from the Rack guiding them back into your
groin, pointing your thumbs down and back. (You will be actively
accelerating them via the “Hike Pass”)
•
Get out of the way at the last second by pushing the hips back letting
the kettlebells swing through your legs
•
Repeat the steps for the “set up” and perform multiple reps
Remember, the DCL is a delivery mechanism for getting the kettlebells to the
shoulders. Make it as tight and efficient as possible and you’ll be able to move
heavier weights overhead.
However, for many, the DCL poses problems. Let’s take a closer look at some
common mistakes...
22
Common Mistakes In The Clean:
There are four major mistakes found in the Double Clean.
1. Banging the arms/wrists with the kettlebells
This is a pretty simple fix. There are three things you need to comprehend here:
First, the KBs must go up, not out. This is not a Swing.
Second, in many cases the upper arms are coming unglued from the sides of
your body after you’ve snapped your hips. They must stay there. In fact, they’ll
even move back somewhat behind your body. Only the elbows bend.
And third, well, third leads us to...
2. “Scooping” with the hips
“Scooping” refers to a rebending of the knees and
as the hips move forward during the hip snap. It’s
almost similar to an Olympic pull. Almost.
This comes from either a lack of confidence in
your ability, from using bells that are too heavy, or
trying to pull bells that feel heavy with your arms.
A simple fix is to do “Dead Stop Cleans.” (We’ll
get to those later.)
3. Rounded Upper Back
This is especially noticeable on the backswing. It’s a problem because the
thoracic spine and lumbar spine are analogs and work in a synchronous rhythm:
When the thoracic spine rounds (flexes), the lumbar spine does too. When the
thoracic spine extends, so does the lumbar and vice versa. So if you have
23
excessive, or even slight rounding of the upper back, do you think that the lumbar
spine is in its safest position or not?
(The answer is “not.”)
So rounding the upper back from a safety point of
view is bad. It’s also bad from a mechanical
advantage.
When the thoracic spine rounds, so does the
lumbar spine. And when that happens, the pelvis
tends to tuck underneath the body (posteriorly tilt).
This makes it virtually impossible to [fully] load the
hips.
This decreases force production, which then
means you’re forced to find a way to get the bells
up any way possible. This leads us to...
4. Tensed Arms
Also known as “pulling with the arms.”
This is a subconscious act and usually happens
when you don’t have enough confidence in your
technique – or your strength, or both.
The arms come off the sides too early and negate
finishing your drive with your hips. If you can
actually get the bells to the rack position, they end
up crashing there.
The easiest fix is to go back and work with a
lighter pair of kettlebells, really focusing on
keeping your arms glued to your sides only letting
them go after the hip snap.
If that doesn’t work, then do Double Swings with a
heavy pair of bells – really heavy – and swing to about waist level, focusing on
driving hard with the hips and really locking out at the top – really “zipping up.”
24
Foot Position On The Ballistics
At my workshops I always get asked about foot position. I think that’s because
people are surprised to see mine (and my whole start position set up). There are
two major foot positions:
Feet Straight Ahead v. Feet Turned Out
And there are pro’s and con’s to each, although I think from an anatomical
perspective, the weight of the pro’s falls to the “feet straight” position. Read the
rationale below and see if you agree.
1. Hip and Pelvis Mechanics
Most people can achieve almost 90 degrees of hip flexion without their femur
banging into the top of their hip socket. But once they get past 90 degrees,
unless they have narrow hips, the femur can pinch the soft tissue in and around
the hip joint: capsule, ligaments, labrum. (Been there, done that. Three times.
Fun stuff.)
25
So for most people, the natural choice is to externally rotate the feet, allowing the
entire leg, femur and all, to externally rotate in the hip joint.
This sounds like a good decision except this shortens the deep hip rotator
musculature under load, which in turn doesn’t fully engage the entire hip
musculature. I’ll get to more of that in a minute...
Consider first that most people sit all day long. One of the common dysfunctions
we see is short, tight hip flexors. This pulls the pelvis anteriorly (like pouring a
bucket of water away from you) and also externally rotates the femur in the hip
socket, due to the line of pull of the psoas muscles. This means that the deep hip
external rotators are already shortened.
Feet Turned Out
(Anterior Pelvic Tilt)
Feet Pointed Straight Ahead
(Neutral Pelvic Alignment)
And this means that the hips tighten up. Consequently, this means that
prolonged loading – both static (sitting) and dynamic (kettlebell ballistics) makes
this whole area tighter, and tighter. Not only that but when these muscles get
short and tight, you are no longer able to get into the posterior hip capsule. This
shifts the weight out of the center of the joint and moves the femur anteriorly,
26
placing excessive strain on the soft tissue associated with the anterior hip. This is
bad. J
Not only that, but because of the anterior tilt and all the confusion about training
the abdominal musculature and the associated weak abdominals most people
have, it becomes much easier to place the lumbar spine in a hyperextended
position, exposing it to possible injury.
By training with the feet pointed ahead (and performing specialized corrective
drills to open the posterior hip capsule and simultaneously strengthen the deep
hip external rotators) you can restore, maintain, and strengthen the natural
mechanics of the hip and pelvis.
2. Weight displacement in the feet –
heel v. midfoot
When training with your feet turned out, it
becomes necessary to shift either the
majority of your weight into the outsides of
your feet, your heels, or some
combination of both.
This sounds like a great idea because we
know that shifting your weight into your
heels helps activate your gluteal muscles.
And according to many movement
experts, many people suffer from “gluteal
amnesia” – the inability to use their glutes.
However, it’s my contention that although
driving through the heel is a good shortterm strategy to awaken “sleeping
booties,” it’s a terrible long-term strategy
for hip and lumbar health.
Before going into the “scientificals” of the
mechanics, all you need to do is take a
look around you to know why.
Sprinters have heavily muscled
hamstrings and glutes. And very few back
problems as an overall population. This is
because they run on their midfoot.
Big Toe, BIG Deal
I briefly wrote about the importance of the big
toe in my book, Kettlebell Muscle. Still very few
people get it. I’ve even had a PhD with a postdoctoral specialty in “movement” just not get it.
When you load the big toe, you are loading the
posterior chain – that magical group of muscles
responsible for acceleration.
Most people cue away or off of the toes, during
any hip hinging or squatting activity. I think this
is a big, big mistake. The big toe has a muscle
attached to it – the Flexor hallucis longus that
crosses the ankle joint and attaches to the
fibula. From a visual standpoint it forms one
half of an “X” from the plantar surface (the
bottom) of the foot to the outside of the calf.
This stabilizes the ankle joint which then has an
impact on how the knee and hip function.
Using the big toe when you squat or pull or
swing also innervates the glutes and
hamstrings, causing them to contract harder
because the FHL and the glutes and hams are all
share the same nerve innervations, L5 and S1.
So taking the big toe out of the loading
equation reduces power output and joint
stability all the way up the posterior chain.
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Running heel-to-toe is a bad idea. It can lead to lower back pain (among other
things.) This is fine for walking, but it’s not great for high force activities.
Why?
Because your foot is a shock absorber. There are 26 bones in your foot and
that’s because your foot is designed to not only articulate, but absorb and
distribute force into, through, and out of your body. Heavy heel striking doesn’t
allow for efficient high force transmission.
Based on my own experience of overcoming chronic hip AND knee pain, I’ve
found that long-term cueing off the heels only exacerbates these types of
problems and can actually cause them.
So what should you do instead?
Load the whole foot, including the toes.
This means you have to shift your weight forward over the midfoot during set up.
It may feel awkward at first, but it does several positive things from both a health
perspective and a performance perspective:
1. It directs the force up the leg into the center of the hip, stimulating more
muscle for contraction and force production
2. It allows for a more natural pelvic rhythm, keeping both the deep and
superficial abdominal musculature engaged
3. It allows force to be directed and transmitted safely around the spine and
into the bells which means less energy leakage and more weight or more
reps potentially lifted
3. Fascial winding and force production
Fascia: Imagine covering a steak in clear plastic kitchen wrap. That’s basically
fascia. Except fascia has a TON of mechanoreceptors in it. (Mechanoreceptors
are specialized cells that provide feedback to the brain about where your body is
in space and time.)
And it is in many parts of your body, one big, long piece, tying different parts of
your body together.
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You can also think of fascia as a string, or better yet, a giant, wide rubber band.
Pull on one end and you stretch the whole band.
When you turn your feet straight with a wide stance on the double kettlebell drills,
you are stretching, or loading, your fascia. And since you’re fascia covers your
muscles, you are actually able to load your whole kinetic chain more than if you
pointed your toes out.
Go ahead and stand up right now and try this for yourself.
Get into your normal stance – toes out. Fold at your hips and pay careful
attention to how they load. Place your hands on the outside of your hips too in
order to feel their position and how the muscles contract.
Now stand back up and point your feet straight ahead, at approximately the same
width.
The first thing you’ll feel is awkward.
The second may be a mild sensation of a stretch – or tension – running up the
outside of your legs.
Now fold at the waist.
Other than feeling even more awkward and like your feet want to spin out
externally, you should feel and even greater sense of stretching or tension. Not
only that, you should feel like you can sit or push your hips back further. (That’s
because you can.) This is a form of preloading, just like pulling back on a rubber
band before you shoot it at your friend across the room. Or a spring that’s been
fully coiled.
You may find that your knees collapse inwards. Don’t let them. Push them apart
without letting the ball of your big toes come up. This will increase the natural
arch of your foot, which in turn, will allow your ankle to move easier.
Feel your hips open even more?
Great.
Now push your hips back and your knees apart even more and you should feel
your hamstrings, calves, and glutes really “load up.” There should be zero stress
on your lower back. You should really feel a lot of tension in the backside of your
body.
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Now perform some “air” Swings and see how they feel. Explosive and effortless.
(Of course, it’s air...)
But your probably wondering how well this works and whether it really produces
more force.
Brandon Hetzler, MS, CSCS, RKC, tested this out in his lab on a force plate and
found that feet pointing straight ahead produced more force on a 2H Swing than
the traditional toes out position. These are preliminary studies and nothing has
been published, but there is some hard data there worth mentioning and
investigating further.
4. Mobility Restrictions – Ankle and Hip
So why is it that we traditionally recommend that people turn their feet out when
doing the KB ballistics, and even more so on the doubles?
I can’t say for sure, but I think it *might* be because we want to give them an
“out” for poor hip and ankle mobility. It might not be though.
Am I saying that turning your feet out is “bad?”
No, I am not. It can be potentially bad.
We all have slightly different shaped pelvises. Dr. Stuart McGill, noted expert in
spine biomechanics, has noted that people from different parts of the world have
different hip depths and widths, predisposing some to greater and lesser ranges
of motion in their hips.
So hip mobility, or lack thereof and the discomfort associated therewith, may
actually be genetic.
Lack of ankle mobility, specifically dorsiflexion, will also limit your ability to load
your hips, resulting in default to turning the toes out on the ballistics. It will also
increase shearing forces on your lumbar spine, which is obviously a bad thing.
Spend some time working on your ankle mobility. (See side bar called, “Big Toe,
BIG Deal.”)
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The “Magic” Assistance Exercise:
The Dead Stop (Power) Clean/Swing/High
Pull/Snatch
I’ve rarely found a one-stop shop cure-all exercise for anything, let alone
kettlebell training.
But if there ever was one for double kettlebell training, it would be the “Dead
Stop” or “Power” position.
I first stumbled on this simple but effective
drill re-teaching the Swing for attendees of a
“Kettlebell Burn” workshop in early 2011.
(Later that year, my good friend and Master
RKC Mark “Rif” Reifkind introduced it to the
RKC community at large after discovering it
himself.)
At the time, there had been a lot of confusion
about how Swings were being performed.
The subtleties of the Swing had been lost by
many RKCs and kettlebell enthusiasts and
their ballistic exercises – especially their
Swings – had been turned into “fast grinds.”
Essentially they were over-muscling their
Swings and they had lost their “float” – that
point in the Swing where right after you pop
your hips the bell floats up in the air, seems
to hang at the apex of the Swing appearing
momentarily motionless, and then falls back down between the legs.
The Dead Stop was the cure.
The set up is the same as it is for any double kettlebell ballistic. However you
only perform one rep at a time and then park the bells back at the start. You then
reset your start position.
This negates the stretch reflex and stretch shortening cycle found in repeated
reps of ballistic work. It forces you to pay attention to not only your set up in the
start position, but also whether or not you can maintain that position – namely the
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“Big Chest” position – throughout the duration of the rep, which is critical for
taming the arc on the double kettlebell ballistics.
It teaches you to keep your head up, a big chest, and to really open the hips on
the backswing otherwise you lose power production with each successive rep.
And of course it restores the “float” better than almost anything else I’ve come
across in the last ten years.
When including it in your training, place it first in each session. Perform 3 to 5
reps per set of the Dead Stop when you’re first getting started. As you progress
and feel like you own your position, then you can start adding reps. Sets of 10 on
the Dead Stop are brutal for conditioning.
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4. The Double Military Press (DMP)
If the Double Clean teaches you how to get your kettlebells from the floor to the
rack – from a state of relative relaxation to a state of tension (the heavier the
bells, the more tension you will need in the Rack), then the Double Military Press
is something else altogether.
And is there a kettlebell exercise that uses more muscle and is better overall
upper body developer than the Double Military Press? Arguably not.
And what is that something else altogether?
If the Front Squat teaches you how to move in the rack position, I would argue
that the DMP teaches you how to move the rack position.
Let me explain.
In the FSQ, you move in the rack – it is a “moving rack”. The position doesn’t
really change. The position of your body does, but the rack should not.
In the DMP, your body doesn’t move – it
stays still, but all the things you learn how to
do to make the rack successful, still apply,
but now you have to move the kettlebells
without moving your body – or your torso and
legs specifically. You have to move a load
away from your body’s center of mass,
increasing your center of gravity, as you
extend the kettlebells at arms length
overhead.
In order to achieve a successful DMP, you
must apply all that you know from the rack
position, and you must be able to maintain, or
even intensify that effort, as the kettlebells
move overhead. This is necessary to keep
your balance and to keep from injuring your
shoulders or lower back or both. Not only
that, it is also necessary to prevent any
“leakage” or the dissipation of energy through
softness in the body that would otherwise be
directed to the Press.
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So, just like the rack position begins from the floor, it should go without
saying that so does the DMP.
Here’s how to perform the Double Military Press:
•
From the rack position, push the kettlebells up, away, and behind you and
your feet through the floor, remaining “zipped up.”
•
Pull your head back and lift your chin slightly until you feel the muscles in
the back of your neck engage. You may choose to look at the bells or not.
Doing so facilitates the extensor reflex and more powerfully extends the
elbows.
•
Press the kettlebells overhead keeping your forearms as close to
perpendicular to the ground as possible throughout the entire motion—
lifting and lowering the bells. This ensures the lats remain engaged
throughout the DMP.
•
Keep your lats engaged throughout the movement by pushing your
sternum up and out at a 45-degree angle to floor as you press the
kettlebells. This will also recruit your pecs.
34
•
Lock the kettlebells out over your head with your upper arms in line with
your ears and your arms perpendicular to the floor. Your weight should be
in the middle of your foot, toward your heels.
•
Lower the kettlebells by actively
pulling them back into the rack using
your lats. (Again – successive
induction just like the FSQ.) An
effective way to ensure the lats are
engaged on the descent is again to
push the sternum out and away from
the body but to also imagine that you
are bending a metal bar about your
head.
Practice the DMP both on it’s own and
mixed in with the Double Clean, as in
Double Clean and Press. The two exercises
are different and the sensations are slightly
different, but there is great carryover
between the two.
In strength circles it’s said that in order to
press a lot, you must press a lot. In order to
do that, you want to make sure your form is spot on, otherwise an unplanned
injury will definitely keep you from pressing a lot too. Let’s take a look at some
common mistakes...
35
Common Press Mistakes:
1. Hyperextension of the lower back
This is just leaning back while you Press. It can
be an advanced technique. Can be. Not always
and arguably, not often, since most people
aren’t “advanced.”
Normally most people do this because they are
trying to shorten the distance they have to
move the bells to lockout.
To correct this, you need to do some more
abdominal work. Heavy abdominal work. You
know what I’m going to say already, don’t you?
That’s right – hanging leg raises and Planks.
2. Soft knees
This will kill your Press.
Think of everything below the shoulders as a
vertical column – a pillar. A Pillar of Power.
(Catchy, huh?) So the more rigid you can keep
your column, the stronger position you’ll have
from which to press. Make sense?
So if your knees are bent, your pillar is swaying,
leaking power and losing strength, either in the
form of high-end strength or reps.
To correct this, focus on driving your feet
through the floor and pulling your kneecaps up
into your groin. Squeeze your glutes. Use a
light enough set of kettlebells where you can
practice this sensation and not focus so much
on the weight.
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3. Torso leakage
This is where the torso gets wobbly under load.
It’s usually seen either right at the start of the
Press or near the lockout. (Do not confuse this
with “sneaking under the weight” by moving the
torso forward under the bells at the lockout –
similar to weightlifters.)
It’s caused by an inability to properly pressurize
the abs and lock off the glutes at the beginning
of the Press and maintain it all the way through.
So, there are three fixes:
1. Work on your Power Breathing. (See
Pavel’s, Naked Warrior for details)
2. Focus on traditional abdominal exercises
– you know the ones – say it with me
now: “Planks and Hanging Leg Raises” (or Reverse Crunches)
3. Lighten the load enough where you can press your bells without thinking
while focusing on maintaining the pillar.
“Yeah, But Shouldn’t The Forearms Remain Vertical?”
Generally speaking, yes. This is pretty easy to do with lighter bells. However,
when the bells get heavy, this becomes tough to do.
Why?
Because your arm naturally moves forward and in toward the midline of the body
to compensate for the extra weight of the bell. Unlike when pressing a single
heavy kettlebell, where you can shift the weight of your hip under the load, there
really is no place for the torso to go to get maximum leverage. So the leverage
had to come from the upper body.
And when you think about it, this makes sense. The weight of the mass (the
kettlebell) is naturally centered over one of the main pivot points (levers) in the
body – the elbow. (Again, in the single kettlebell Press the majority of the load is
centered over the hip on the pressing side.)
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The way you control the bells is with your grip. The tighter your grip, the more
irradiation you experience and the more your lats contract to stabilize the
shoulder. And the more the delts and triceps contract to move the bell overhead.
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5. The Double Swing (DSW)
As I mentioned earlier, the Double Swing is an excellent conditioning tool. It’ll
challenge your grip and your hips.
I place the DSW here in our learning sequence because I just find it unwieldy
sometimes. It’s just easier to learn the Double Clean first. In talking to other
experienced kettlebell lifters, they’ve found the same thing. This is most likely
because there literally is no rest in the DSW like there is in the DCL and the
Double Snatch.
Everything you to set up the Double Clean, you do to set up the DSW.
Nothing changes except you are not trying to place the bells on your shoulders.
The major key and most important point to remember in the DSW is that the
backswing is ACTIVE.
To receive maximum benefit and stay safe, you must HIKE PASS the kettlebells
on the backswing. (Did I mention that this was important?)
If you only remember one thing about the DSW, that was it.
The DSW is a valuable exercise because in order to snatch two kettlebells, you
must have great hip and grip strength. If you don’t have them, the DSW will get
you there.
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But not all the way.
There’s another equally important exercise and we’ll discuss that next.
QUESTION: “Why Don’t You Base The Doubles Skills On
The Double Swing, Like The Singles Skills Are Based On
The Swing?”
I think the Double Swing is a great conditioning tool but for learning the doubles I
think it falls short. Here’s why: If you recall how we started this course, the
premise is that the doubles, because of their wider base and shorter stroke have
more of a vertical trajectory than horizontal one. So we borrow concepts from
Olympic lifters, since the barbell Olympic lifts are close cousins of the double
kettlebell lifts. According to Master RKC Brett Jones, the Swing is a horizontal
projection of force. We want a vertical one. So that pretty much negates the DSW
as a foundational exercise.
As I said, it’s a great conditioning tool, and it promotes a phenomenal hip snap for
improving hip power and it improves grip strength, but for actually moving the
kettlebells UP, it falls short. That’s what building the leg strength with the DFSQ
is for and mastering vertical trajectories with the DCL is for.
One final word: I do like using the DSW as a specific strength exercise for the
Double Snatch. Why? Because the DSN requires a massive explosive effort from
the hips – very similar to the vertical jump. And just like the vertical jump, you
actually do need some quad strength. So we work the vertical plane with the
DFSQ and the horizontal plane with the DSW. Combine the two and you should
have a really powerful Double Snatch.
40
Common Mistakes On The Double Swing:
The most common mistake I see made with the DSW is not finishing the hip
lockout.
This is due to focusing incorrectly on several areas:
1. The weight of the bells in the hands
This is a pretty simple fix. Instead of focusing on your hands, focus on
your feet and your hips. Remember, the hands are just hooks. Drive your
feet into the floor and lock your hips at the top of the Swing. Don’t worry
about where your Swings finish – only focus on finishing your Swings with
your hips. As you get stronger, you’ll be able to drive the bells higher and
higher.
2. The height to swing the kettlebells
The only thing you should be focused on is your hips and feet. Drive your
feet into the ground and snap your hips hard and the bells just respond to
how much force you’re putting into your Swing. The harder you swing, the
higher the bells. Not much more too it than that.
3. Inability to root
This is a common mistake made by people when they start swinging a pair
of bells. Their base is wider and the mechanics feel just a little weird, a
little off. Some people feel a little out of control because now each arm is
in control of a kettlebell, instead of two arms controlling one, or one arm
controlling one. There’s a lot going on here at first.
If you can’t get this down after a few reps, then either a) go extremely light
and do some DSWs or b) go extremely heavy with a single KB and do 2H
Swings.
Again, the Double Swing teaches you how to drive your hips hard and is great for
building hip strength. However, it’s still a horizontal projection of force: Great for
Swings, but not so good for the Double Snatch.
Fortunately there’s another exercise we can use to help us float heavy bells
overhead...
But before we get there, let’s have –
41
A Word About Bending The Elbows On The Double
Swing
In the RKC, we teach people to lock the elbows on the Swing. This keeps helps
keep the shoulders packed, which in turn helps stabilize the lower back, which in
turn creates more hip power.
Furthermore, more often than not, when people bend their arms on the Swing,
it’s a sure sign they are pulling with their arms, instead of driving with their hips.
Straight elbows are a sure fire way to correct this problem.
Often times when demonstrating any sort of Swing, people notice that my elbows
bend and wonder if it’s wrong, since they have been taught otherwise.
The answer is: It’s dependent on the situation.
Let me explain.
42
You must first know the rules and play by them before you can break them
without suffering any ill consequences.
Being a former Olympic lifter, I prefer Snatches as my conditioning exercise of
choice. I already have a great hip hinge and a very powerful hip snap from years
of Olympic lifting. Chances are better than great that you do not.
When I swing, my elbows bend because my body has been programmed to
Snatch not Swing. For most people, this would not be a valid excuse. However, I
am able to still keep my shoulders packed and my lats engaged and still allow my
elbows to bend passively. This comes from 15 years of heavy Olympic pulls,
where the shoulder mechanics are almost identical to kettlebell training. The
elbows only bend after the hips have been snapped and they do so to guide the
bar to its ending position.
Therefore, you too may bend your elbows on your Swings ONLY IF you can keep
your shoulders packed and your lats engaged.
Don’t leave this to chance or guesswork: The only way you’ll know for sure
whether you’re doing this correctly or not is to get out your trusty smart phone
and film yourself.
When you’re first learning how to use double kettlebells, I recommend against
letting your elbows bend on your Swings. The DSW can be a monster and you’ll
need all the strength and stability you need. Only later on when you have a
couple thousand reps under your belt should you try the more advanced variation
and let your elbows bend.
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6. The Double High Pull (DHP)
The Double High Pull is used as a transition exercise (the first of two) between
the Double Swing and the Double Snatch.
It teaches the trainee to not only learn how to
“float” the kettlebells, but to direct the
kettlebells while they’re floating. This is great
because the trainee doesn’t have to worry
about locking the kettlebells out overhead.
This means that he/she can get a sense of
how much force he must generate with his
hips in order to get the bells high enough to
punch over the head.
The DHP also teaches you to keep the
kettlebells close to your body and really tame
the arc, which is much more important when
dealing with two bells rather than one. This
once again due to the reduced stroke, the
greater load, and the less room the hips
have to absorb the load of the bells.
The other really great thing about the DHP is
that it is also an outstanding upper back
developer, punishing the trapezius, rhomboids, and rear deltoids. (Combine
these with the DCL and Watch Out!)
The hip mechanics of the DHP are exactly the same as the DSW. However,
instead of projecting the kettlebells ahead of you harness the energy produced
by your hips and connect it to your elbows.
Again, the main goal of the DHP is to make the kettlebells feel like
they are weightless, floating in the air so you can later direct them up
and back over the head into the Double Snatch.
Here’s how to perform the DHP:
•
Set up your kettlebells just like the DSW
•
Snap your hips just like the DSW
44
•
Explosively pull your elbows up and back behind your body at the end of
the swing, directing the kettlebells toward your head. Remember, your
hips DRIVE and your arms GUIDE! Now is the time to guide the
kettlebells AWAY from your face and next to your head. Again, they
should feel “weightless,” as if they are just hanging in the air.
•
At the top, actively pull your shoulder blades together.
•
Your intent is to finish the exercise with the elbows fully flexed, the upper
arms parallel to the floor, and the kettlebells next to the cheekbones. The
arms are parallel in relation to each other. This doesn’t mean that this is
the position your arms will end up in and that’s ok. The goal of the intent is
to get the bells to pause – or hang momentarily in the air.
•
To get from the weightless end position next to your face into the
backswing, your intent is to pull the kettlebells down into your groin by
pushing the kettlebells down toward the floor and get out of the way at the
last minute. This will direct the bells back behind you instead of down
below you. This “intent” is not only safer for your back, but will allow you to
generate the force necessary for the next rep. It will also save your grip.
The High Pull can get kind of “squirly” – that is, it can get away from you,
especially if you’re lacking the confidence to perform it. The key then is to gain
the required amount of confidence. Let’s look at some mistakes associated with
the High Pull...
45
Common Mistakes On The High Pull:
1. Arching the back at the top of the pull
Often times in order to bring their shoulder blades
together, people will give up their position of
strength in their middle and lean backwards at the
top of the pull, arching their back. This is a bad
idea because it places the lower back at risk.
To correct this, focus on keeping your abs braced
and your gluts clenched at the top of the pull and
focus on your elbows. Whether they go behind
your head and your shoulder squeeze together or
not is of no real consequence – it’s the intent that
matters.
As long as you intend to drive your elbows back
and pull your elbows back, the bells will end up in
a floating position necessary to allow you the
room to punch the bells up in the air.
2. Dipping the chest forward in order to pull the elbows back
This mistake is very similar to arching the back
and is done for exactly the same reason – it’s just
a different manifestation.
Again, snap the hips, lock the gluts and brace
your abs – let the bells float up by guiding them
with your arms.
As long as your intent is to pull up and back and
you get the kettlebells to stall out somewhere by
your head or slightly above, you’re on the right
track.
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3. Not finishing with the hips
This mistake comes from anticipating the pull
and not being patient enough to finish driving
the bells with the hips.
Take your time and pop the bells with your hips.
If you can’t, you need to do one of two things:
1. Use lighter bells – ones that really allow you
not to worry about the weight of the bells and
only focus on your hip drive, so they can float
and feel effortless, or
2. Do more DSWs to get used to driving and
finishing with your hips.
4. Elbow pain
Elbow pain is fun stuff. (Sarcasm.) The reason most people get elbow pain is
because they’re trying to actually pull the bells with their arms, instead of actually
using their hips to drive the bells. In this case, drop the DHP and spend some
time – lots of it actually – swinging heavy bells, while keeping your elbows
perfectly straight.
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7. The Double Push Press (DPP)
If the Double High Pull teaches you how to float the kettlebells and guide them
with your arms, then the Double Push Press allows you to explosively move
heavy kettlebells overhead and learn to be comfortable doing so.
The DPP is a great exercise in and of itself. It is an outstanding exercise to
develop explosiveness (power). For the purpose of muscle-building, it allows us
to overload the musculature of the shoulder girdle with kettlebells that we can’t
press (pay attention here…) or can no longer press due to fatigue.
It is also a great developer of the Vastus medialis, the little teardrop shaped
muscle just to the inside of the knee, which is a very important medial knee
stabilizer.
I used to think there were two ways
to perform the DPP. But really,
there’s only one way.
Here it is:
1. With the kettlebells in the
Rack Position, and keeping
the torso vertical, quickly dip
the knees. (Make sure the
weight stays over the center
of your feet.)
2. Quickly reverse the motion
and drive the kettlebells out
of the Rack Position and
overhead by driving your
feet into the floor, locking
out the arms in line with or
slightly behind the ears.
That’s it. Simple.
Don’t over-think it.
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There are 2 D’s you have to remember – “Dip” and “Drive.” (I bolded them in
the instructions.)
If for some strange reason that doesn’t work, use the following imagery and the
other very simple cue:
Think of a wave of force moving from the floor through your legs, into your arms
and out of the top of your body. It is important to understand that your ability to
press the bells is dependent on your ability to quickly generate force.
And here’s the cue:
“Jump and Punch.”
This seems to work for just about everybody, regardless of his or her athletic
ability or coordination level.
Now the kettlebells are over your head. How do you get them down?
There are two ways:
1) Pull the bells down as you would on a Press or
2) Drop the bells back into the rack.
Choosing method one is great if you want to increase your strength or muscle
mass because it increases the amount of tension placed on your shoulder girdle.
It’s best used with lower rep sets.
Method two is great for higher rep sets done for either hypertrophy or
conditioning.
Dropping the kettlebells back into the rack sounds simple enough, but if done
incorrectly will hurt you. The key is to absorb the force of the impact of the bells
on the shoulder girdle by “catching” the bells with the legs by quickly bending the
knees. This dissipates the force into the legs and back into the ground. This
quick knee dip, or eccentric load, is one of the reasons this exercise is a great
quad developer.
Make sure when you do this that you maintain tension in your abs – breathe
behind the shield – and just letting a little air get knocked out of you when the
bells land on your chest. Letting all your air out will make you lose your intraabdominal pressure and you could end up hurting your lower back.
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Some questions arise on the DPP on how to perform consecutive reps.
Do you just keep “dropping and popping”—that is, drop the kettlebells back into
the rack and immediately explode right back up or do you straighten the legs
after the catch, reset, and move on to the next rep?
The answer is the latter.
Reset your position between each rep. It is harder and will ensure correct
technique.
“What about the feet – Should the heels stay down on the
“drive-phase”?”
Should you keep your heels down all the time?
It depends. Some people are more comfortable and can produce more force
lifting them (like myself) and others find it easier to keep them down. World
Champion weightlifters have been produced from both schools of thought.
The argument for keeping your heels down is that it keeps the kettlebells moving
up over head in a perfectly vertical trajectory and that coming up on your toes,
pushes the bells slightly forward, making them harder to catch, and you also “delink” your ribcage from your pelvis – losing the tension in your middle necessary
to produce and direct force, exposing the lower back to potential trauma on the
lockout.
The argument for coming up onto your toes is that it’s a natural result of “triple
extension” or a jumping motion – extending the hips, knees, and calves and in
doing so, you produce more power, and therefore can lift more weight. While
pushing the weight out front may be a concern for novices using a barbell, the
kettlebells, because they pull your arms back toward your heels when overhead
(due to their offset center of gravity) makes a strong case in my mind for allowing
the heels to leave the ground.
Play with both and decide for yourself.
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Common Mistakes On The Double Push Press:
Push Press mistakes are pretty much self-correcting, especially when the
kettlebells are heavy enough. And they are simple enough to correct they don’t
even warrant any pictures.
1. Locking the weight out in front of you, instead of overhead.
You’ll know it when you do it because your shoulders will yell at you, and if the
bells are heavy enough, you’ll drop them.
More often than not, this is caused by sitting back, instead of down, on the initial
dip.
Change your focus to breaking at the knees first, while keeping midsection
pressurized.
2. Failing to completely lock the kettlebells overhead.
More often than not, this is because your first dip is too slow. It needs to be sharp
and explosive, along with the drive phase. It’s not slow and you shouldn’t feel
your way through it.
Also, make sure you remember to actually press along with your push. The arms
and shoulders are actively involved in the Push Press. The legs don’t do all the
work.
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8. The Double Snatch (DSN)
The Double Snatch is one of the best exercises to not only develop your power
output, but to measure it as well. Why?
Because you have to have A LOT of it to get those bells up over your head!
There’s a reason the Double Snatch is the eighth drill in this sequence. By the
time you get here, you will really already know how to perform it. You just need
some gentle prompting.
The DSN, in my opinion, is really just a Double High Pull and a Double Push
Press sown together. Literally.
Consider the following:
•
In order to perform the DSN, you have to generate enough force to
explosively pull the kettlebells up near your head. You have to be able to
“float” them. The DHP teaches you this.
•
In order to perform the DSN, you have to be able to comfortably and
explosively move weight into the lockout position overhead. The DPP
enables you to do just that.
So how do you do the DSN?
Simple. This way:
•
Obviously, set this up just like everything else.
•
Think about the DHP but direct your elbows upward instead of back.
•
At the point at which the kettlebells seem to stall or feel weightless,
aggressively punch the ceiling. The kettlebells will fly upwards, rotate in
your hand over your fists, and land gently on the back of your wrists.
•
Keep pushing up on the kettlebells when they are overhead. This ensures
they stay there and you actually own that rep instead of just sneaking it in.
If you don’t know what I mean, don’t worry – you will when you do this.
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If they don’t land gently, then you’re doing it wrong!
My cue at my Kettlebell Muscle workshops is highly
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sophisticated so I will attempt to lay it out here in great detail, without
overwhelming you. In fact, I will give it to you word-for-word so you don’t forget it.
Here it is:
“Okay, SNATCH!”
And that’s it. (Yes, that’s a heavy dose of sarcasm.) Usually everyone looks at
me with jaws hanging open thinking there must be more to the Double Snatch
than this. But it isn’t. At this point their bodies have been programmed to do the
DSN and yours will be too. The only difference is they have actually gone
through the entire process described thus far – you haven’t.
I know, this sounds too good to be true.
It’s not. It works. Every time. For everyone.
I usually encourage people to use a lighter pair of bells for the first couple of sets
just to remove the fear factor. But usually by the end of this segment they’re
using larger bells – the ones they were cleaning earlier in the day.
Sometimes, depending on the group, I’ll tell them to think about their Single Arm
Snatch. Then I’ll have them perform a couple of 1 arm Snatches before I
introduce the DSN proper. You can do this or move right into it from the Double
High Pull. Either is okay – it just depends on what you need psychologically.
Re-Snatching.
Here is where the differences between the Snatch and the Double Snatch end.
Because the kettlebells are pretty heavy, and there’s a higher degree of skill
involved in the DSN than the Snatch, re-snatching is different. In order to resnatch the kettlebells, drop them into the rack position and then use the same
motion for the backswing as you would for the DCL—tuck the elbows to your
sides and throw the kettlebells back through the legs with your upper arms
internally rotated and your thumbs pointed back.
This is more for safety than anything else.
The arc created by the DSN if you don’t lower the bells to the chest is too
unwieldy and unless you are super-strong, you have a strong chance to hurt your
lower back.
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More On Lowering The Kettlebells Between Reps Of
Snatches
I've been asked if lowering the bells on the DSN like a regular 1 arm Snatch is
"bad."
Well, it depends on the context.
And the context is dependent on your strength levels. If you can double
snatch a pair of 40kg's, then re-snatching a pair of 24's may not be so bad. The
issue is lack of space in the hips and the trajectory of the bells. You must be
able to tightly tame the arc on the backswing and you must have mobility in
your hips to create enough space to absorb the force of the bells. Otherwise,
you'll end up decelerating the bells with your lower back and your arms. Not
good for your spine or your elbows.
That's why I recommend lowering the heavier kettlebells to the rack before
re-snatching them.
Well Isn't That A Half-Snatch Then?
What? There is no such thing. You either snatch the bells – fix them overhead
in one continuous uninterrupted motion without a press out or you don't.
That's a Snatch. It’s that simple.
How you get the bells down to perform another Snatch isn't qualified.
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Common Double Snatch Mistakes:
There are very few, if any Double Snatch mistakes.
Why not?
Because they will have been eliminated by the learning process.
1. You learn how to drive with and keep driving your hips using the Double
Swing.
2. You learn how to “float” the bells to create the space to punch them
overhead with the Double High Pull. Plus, the DHP lets you know just how
much hip drive you’ve used.
3. You learn how to punch the bells up overhead with the Double Push
Press, getting comfortable with putting heavy (heavy-ish) weights
overhead in an explosive manner.
The only thing that I see people doing is rushing the lockout. They simply don’t
“own” their DSN at the lockout. There’s no confidence there. The easiest way to
correct this is to just pause in the lockout and hold it.
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9. The Double Jerk (DJK)
Of all the double kettlebell exercises, indeed any kettlebell exercise, the Jerk
seems to give people the most trouble.
It shouldn’t.
It’s pretty easy.
But again, like a great joke, there has to be a great set up. Only the DJK isn’t
funny.
The point of the Jerk is to improve or develop power. In the strength world,
generally speaking if you can’t press a weight, you push press it. If you can’t
push press a weight, then you jerk it.
Simple enough.
However, people often confuse the Jerk with the Push Press.
The way to avoid confusion is to think of the Push Press as a “2-D” exercise –
“Dip and Drive” and the Jerk as a “3-D” exercise – “Dip, Drive, and Drop.”
The “drop” is the difference.
In order to jerk effectively, you must create enough space under the bells for you
to drop underneath them and fix them overhead at arms length.
Here’s how to perform the Double Jerk:
•
Keeping the torso upright and perpendicular to the floor, quickly dip the
knees. Keep the kettlebells in the rack – don’t let them separate from the
chest.
•
Explosively change directions and drive the kettlebells off the chest.
•
When the kettlebells reach the top of your head, DROP underneath them,
fixing the kettlebells over the head with straight arms and locked elbows.
•
Then stand up so your arms remain locked overhead and your legs are
straight. This should look like your Press or Snatch or Push Press lockout.
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To return to the rack and/or repeat, do the same as you would for the DPP –
either lower it like a Press using an active negative or actively drop it back into
the rack and catch the weight with your legs.
And it’s really that easy.
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Using The Jerk For Conditioning
Kettlebell Sport uses the Jerk and the Clean and Jerk as contested
exercises, both of which traditionally last 10 minutes. The goal is to
perform as many reps as possible without putting the kettlebells down in
that 10-minute period.
This is just brutal. It develops an amazing work capacity (an “Android
Work Capacity” I believe Pavel called it) and an unbelievable tolerance for
pain and suffering.
Amazingly enough, every principle you’ve learned so far applies to
conditioning using the Jerk, starting from the very first one: You must
become comfortable with discomfort and become comfortable in and
with the Rack Position.
Troubleshooting the Jerk
The Jerk gives people a ton of problems.
I think I know why: We’re too strong for our own good.
In Soviet weightlifting pedagogy (teaching methodology – I just always wanted to
use the word “pedagogy” in a sentence...) the would-be weightlifters learn the
Jerk before the Press.
Because of our bench press backgrounds, we want to muscle up the Jerk and
which can’t be done. The Jerk is about power, patience, timing, and finesse.
And because of our bench press backgrounds, we are bound tight around the
chest, shoulders, upper back and arms.
First Things First – Flexibility and Mobility
If you want a good Jerk, you must be able to do two things:
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1. Put both arms over your head in line with your ears while standing
2. Put both arms over your head in line with your ears while in a shallow,
semi-squat position.
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The first is relatively easy to do just by cheating, the second is not and will find
any and all of your mobility/flexibility flaws.
Here’s how we open you up to get your arms overhead.
1. Focus Specialized Breathing
This is usually the last place people look – myself in the past included. However,
it should be the first.
Poor breathing mechanics will lock down your thoracic spine, shoulders, and
neck faster than just about anything else except a traumatic injury.
So the first thing we need to do is restore natural breathing – belly
(diaphragmatic) breathing. And then we need to integrate it into position specific
drills.
So here’s belly breathing:
•
Lie on your back and
place a shoe or your
hands on your stomach
•
Breath into your stomach
as if you’re drawing air
into your feet
•
As you inhale, the shoe
should rise. As you
exhale it should lower
•
Perform as many reps as
you need to in order to
feel comfortable belly
breathing
•
When you’ve got that,
move on to the next
breathing drill
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And here’s a breathing drill that’s position specific to the Jerk.
•
Fold at the waist, reach your arms over your head, and rest them on
something approximately waist level, so your essentially folded in half
•
Don’t worry if your arms and shoulders feel tight – that’s natural
•
Inhale into your belly so your stomach drops to the floor and you can feel
your belly pressing against the tops of your thighs
•
As you slowly exhale, gently press down into the chair with your hands
and create space in your upper back and shoulders
•
Perform this as many times as you need to until you can no longer create
space in your shoulders and upper back
•
You can alternate between this and belly breathing
2. Increase Hip Mobility
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If focusing on the breathing doesn’t open people up, I usually go to the other end
of the body and have people open up their hips. That’s because of the fascial
chains or slings that comprise the body. Each shoulder is attached to the
opposite hip primarily by the lat and it’s surrounding fascia. Sloppy or tight
shoulders many times are stabilized and/or mobilized by focusing on the opposite
hip.
There are many good hip mobility drills, but I prefer a really easy and simple one,
called Rocking.
•
Get down on your hands
and knees, with your
head up and your feet
pointed away from you
so the tops of them are
on the floor
•
Keep your head up, your
eyes straight ahead and
a big chest
•
Press your hands into
the floor and slowly push
your body back over your
feet so you are almost
sitting on them
•
Do not let your lower
back round – maintain
your natural lumbar arch
•
Then shift your weight
forward so 80% of your
weight is on your hands
•
Rock back and forth between the two positions
•
Do up to 20 reps
3. Increase Thoracic Spine Mobility
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I used to do a lot of t-spine mobility work years ago. Now I don’t. Don’t really
need it. But some people have never done any and are in need of some really
good drills.
Here are three:
The “Egg Roll”
•
Sitting on the floor with
your knees bent and
your feet as close as
comfortable to your
body, tuck your chin into
your chest
•
Hug your knees and
slowly roll backwards
until your upper back is
on the floor and your
pelvis is off the ground
•
Reverse your momentum
and work to get back to
your starting position
•
Don’t worry if you can’t –
many people can’t at first
either. But as you do
more and more continual
reps, your body will
loosen up and you’ll be
able to make it back to
the start position.
•
If this start position is too challenging for you, start on your back and work
from there by gently throwing your lower legs and feet over your upper
body and eventually your head
•
Perform as many reps as you feel comfortable doing
Windshield Wipers
This is basically targets your T-Spine mobility from the bottom up. Make sure you
keep your shoulders down while doing this drill. Not only will you loosen up your
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T-Spine, but you’ll also reflexively work your abs, which by default, allows your TSpine to loosen up.
•
Lie on your back and pull
your knees up past 90
degrees at the waist. Let
your legs relax. This
protects your lower back
and engages your abs.
•
Roll your legs to one side
of your body, pause, take
a breath or two, and roll
them back to the start.
Repeat on the opposite
•
As you get looser and
more comfortable, feel
free to increase the
demand of the exercise
by extending your legs
out so they’re almost
straight while touching
the floor.
•
Perform as many reps as
you’d like – but pay
careful attention to not
letting your shoulders
come up off the floor as
your legs cross the
midline of your body
side.
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Half Kneeling Windmill “Thread The Needle”
Here’s a great drill I learned from my friend Jeff O’Connor. This works your TSpine mobility from the top down. It’s also a great shoulder mobility drill as well,
which transitions nicely into our next segment.
•
Assume a half-kneeling
windmill position like
you’d find yourself in the
Get Up
•
Leading with you eyes,
rotate your head and
toward the side of your
body that has your hand
and knee on the floor
and “thread” your arm
through the space
between your hand and
your knee
•
Make sure you keep your
elbow locked and push
your hand into the floor
•
Grab your side if you’d
like
•
Now look with your eyes
to the opposite direction
and rotate your head
looking toward the ceiling
– pull your arm out of the
hole and point it straight
up at the ceiling, forming
a “T” out of your torso and your arms
•
Repeat for 10 reps each side
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4. Increase Shoulder Mobility/Stability
Last but not least, we address the shoulder complex. Why? Because most of
what goes on (or is not going on as the case may be) can be “fixed” by working
on the other areas.
When that’s not the case, here are two drills that will help.
The Armbar
This is arguably one of the greatest simultaneous shoulder mobilizers and
strengtheners around.
It teaches you how to keep your shoulder “where it lives” (in its socket) while
simultaneously stretching tight pecs and biceps. Like anything of course, it can
be done wrong. So pay careful attention to the directions below.
•
Lie on your side and grab
the kettlebell, pulling it into
your stomach
•
Roll onto your back and
press the kettlebell from
your stomach overhead
•
Bend the knee on the side
your holding your kettlebell
and sweep the opposite arm
up over your head, in line
with your body
•
Step over your body with
your bent knee and rest your
head on the arm that’s
outstretched. You should be
lying on your side with the
kettlebell in the air
•
While keeping your shoulder
supporting the kettlebell
pulled to the same side hip,
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gently allow your chest to
drop to the floor, using your
hips to make this happen, by
slowly twisting them into the
floor
•
While doing this, your the
knee on your working side
will be touching the ground
with your leg at about a 90
degree angle
•
Try to stack your shoulder blades on top of each other while pulling the
shoulder of the arm holding the bell back toward the hip
•
Use your breath to create space and pry your hips toward the floor
•
Continue to move the arm you’re lying your head on behind your ear to create
even more space in the shoulder on the ground
•
When you can no longer create any more space in the shoulder complex,
slowly roll back to the start and lower the kettlebell
Stick Dislocates
When I first started Olympic lifting, I
had VERY tight pecs and shoulders
from way too much heavy bench
pressing. These became my bread and
butter. I used a broom handle and did
multiple sets of 10 frequently – usually
multiple times per day. This loosened
me up in no time flat.
•
Hold a broomstick with a wide grip,
palms down, with your arms
outstretched overhead and with
your elbows locked
•
Try and move your arms over your
head and behind your body without
bending your elbows. You can bend
them if you must.
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•
With the stick behind your body,
return it back to the start while
trying to keep your arms straight.
You can bend your elbows if you
must.
•
If you have to bend your elbows,
work toward keeping them locked
•
If you can keep your elbows
locked, work toward moving your
hands in one hand-space at a time
and repeat the process
After you’ve restored your mobility you’re ready to work on your technique.
Technique Drills
At the 2012 Summit of Strength I was asked to look at an attendee’s Jerk. It
wasn’t pretty sight. He was strong but lacked the timing and the patience.
Here are three drills I used to help him fix his Jerk. I’ve found that they will help
fix most Jerks:
1. Jerk Drives / Jerk Starts
2. Overhead Quarter Squats w/ a pause
3. Jerk Drops
Let’s take a closer look.
1. Jerk Drives / Jerk Starts
Jerk Drives / Jerk Starts teach you how to produce enough power to
create separation between your body and the kettlebells. This is what
allows you to create enough space to jam yourself between the bells and
the floor.
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•
Hold a pair of medium sized
kettlebells in the rack
•
Keeping your abs braced,
quickly dip your knees into a
quarter-squat being careful not
to let the bells separate from
your body
•
Quickly reverse direction and
use your legs to drive the
kettlebells off your chest and up
to just slightly above your head
•
They should “hang” in the air for
just a moment, kind of like the
Wile E. Coyote just after the
Road Runner tricked him into stepping off the cliff, but just before he
falls
•
Let the bells drop back into the rack, catching them with your legs, like
you would on a Push Press. Remember to keep your torso upright the
whole time
•
Perform 3-5 reps per set
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2. Overhead Quarter Squats w/ a pause
Of all the positions to achieve in kettlebell lifting, the “catch” or the “drop”
is the hardest to get into and to master. This where you get to see whether
you have enough shoulder and thoracic spine mobility to get under the
bell. This position should be trained, because like the Rack, it too is
uncomfortable. You need to come to grips with discomfort.
Plus, most people fear this position because it’s an unknown entity –
they’re not quite certain where they should end up in relation to the weight.
They just know that they should go down somewhere and somehow the
bells end up over their head. Training this position helps you get
comfortable in the “catch.”
•
Press or Push Press a pair
of lighter kettlebells to the
lockout position overhead
•
Keeping your stomach tight
and your chest out, slowly
squat down into a quarter or
even half squat
•
You’ll notice that you can’t
squat straight down but your
hips will have to push back
to counter balance having
the kettlebells overhead
•
Pause in this position for 2-3
seconds and then stand up
•
Perform 3-5 reps per set to
start. As you feel more
comfortable, work up to
about 10 reps per set to
increase your confidence.
3. Jerk Drops
Of all the Jerk support drills to teach people how to Jerk, this is my
favorite. It is by far the most simple to understand and perform. From my
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experience 80%+ of people who have problems with the Jerk fix it with this
drill. It’s that powerful.
•
Stand on a low box in a doorway or set a heavy bar on the pins in a
power rack or a TAPS unit in a position such that your upper arms are
just above parallel to the ground – usually about 2-4 inches above your
head
•
Simultaneously push your hands up into the bar and drop into a
quarter squat
•
The timing should be such that your elbows lock and you reach the
bottom of the squat simultaneously
•
Return to the start and perform 5-10 reps
Most of the time these 3 drills work. When they don’t, it’s usually just a matter of
patience, repetition, and practice.
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I suggest setting aside practice sessions where you perform circuits of these 3
exercises integrated with sets of Jerks, to “knit” the movement together in your
mind. Here’s how it might look:
Perform the following as a circuit:
A1. Jerk Drives
A2. Overhead Quarter Squat and Hold
A3. Jerk Drops
A4. Jerks
x5
x 5-10
x 10
x3-5
Avoid fatigue and rest as needed between each set before proceeding to the
next.
We did this type of “circuit practice” at the last RKC2 I taught at and all the
attendees concluded that it made their Jerks significantly better.
Once you’ve got the Jerk down, you’re ready for...
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10. Double Clean and Jerk (DCJ)
Of course no double kettlebell discussion would be complete without the good ol’
Double Clean and Jerk, also known as the Long Cycle Clean and Jerk (LCCJ).
It is a fantastic exercise that can be used for a number of things:
1. Getting seriously strong by using heavy bells for lower reps, between 3-5
2. Pack on some serious muscle by using moderately high reps, between 1020
3. Build tremendous levels of conditioning by using moderate weights for
higher reps, 20+
Rumor has it that certain units within the Russian Special Ops use this exercise
almost exclusively. That same rumor says they use a pair of 24kgs for multiple
sets of 20-30 reps.
A couple of years ago I was challenged while on the phone with my good friend,
David “The Iron Tamer” Whitley, StrongFirst Master Instructor, to see if I could do
20 LCCJs in a row with a pair of 32kgs. Never having done it before and never
being one to back down from a challenge, I said, “Hold on, I’ll call you back in
five...”
It was more like ten – because although I was done in about 3 to 3 ½ minutes
and it took me the other seven to catch my breath long enough to get coherent
sentences out.
Yeah, it’s that good.
Of course, the LCCJ is really a no-brainer by the time you’ve gotten to it after
building upon it with previous nine exercises. The technique will be no big deal.
The gut check will be. It’s a serious exercise yielding serious results.
It’s “easy” to perform. It’s a Clean followed by a Jerk followed by a Clean followed
by a Jerk, and so on.
Here’s what it looks like broken down:
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The Long Cycle (LCCJ) is truly a monster. Fatigue will build quickly when you
first start doing these, so take your time and be patient with your sets and reps.
Focus on your form only, and put the bells down when your technique starts to
falter.
I recommend you start to build up the number of total reps per training session,
rather than adding reps per set when you’re first starting out. Only after you’re
feeling really comfortable (have become comfortable with discomfort) that you
move on to adding reps per set.
Finally, many people want to know about the width of their stance. Unlike the
Jerk where you may want to bring your stance in after your Clean, on the LCCJ
you’ll maintain the same stance for the Jerk as you do the Clean. That way
you’re not constantly reshuffling your feet between the Clean and the Jerk.
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Program Design
What’s the “Best” program to do to learn these exercises?
Well, just like the single kettlebell lifts, it’s best to practice them. Not do
“workouts” but actual practice.
Start with Exercise #1.
Play.
Have fun. (There’s a novel and lost concept, huh?)
Progress from the first exercise through all 10 exercises. Sometimes in a single
day. Sometimes over the course of a week or two. Mix it up. Your goal is to feel
comfortable and confident with each exercise. It will most likely take different time
periods for that to happen with each exercise. Don’t worry about it. It’s natural.
Don’t get hooked on reps and sets until you feel you have good control of each
exercise. Then start designing more substantial and specific programs.
Until then, have fun. You will still make great progress in your strength and
conditioning levels.
“Do the thing, have the power.” - Emerson
“Ok, that was a let down,” I hear you say. “I was hoping for more detailed
guidelines.”
Fine, I’ll spill the beans then:
Here’s the simplest, easiest method I know of to wear out your first pair of
kettlebells.
It’s called the “STRONG!” Program, because upon completion, you will be.
The “STRONG!” Program
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Let’s assume you’ve got a pair of kettlebells that you can use on all your grinds
for a tough 4-5 reps. Here’s how you get the most out of them – make them feel
light.
And let’s just focus, for argument’s sake, on one of the best exercises you can do
for all-round strength and development with a pair of kettlebells:
The Clean and Press.
Sure, you can add in some other exercises as a warm up or when you’re done
with your workouts, but save your energy for this big “bang-for-your-buck”
exercise.
Here’s how you’d master the Clean and Press, making your heavy pair of
kettlebells feel like toys.
First, train for strength.
Start with low reps. Really low reps. Like 1-3.
Use multiple sets. Five to ten is about right.
For example, you can use 10 sets of 1 and then progress to 10 sets of 3.
Somewhere between 15 and 30 reps should do it.
Here’s how that will look:
Workout 1: 10x1
Workout 2: 5x2
Workout 3: 10x1
Workout 4: 6x2
Workout 5: 10x1
Workout 6: 7x2
Workout 7: 10x1
Workout 8: 8x2
Workout 9: 10x1
Workout 10: 9x2
Workout 11: 10x1
Workout 12: 5x3
Workout 13: 10x2
Workout 14: 6x3
Workout 15: 10x2
Workout 16: 7x3
Workout 17: 10x2
Workout 18: 8x3
Workout 19: 10x2
Workout 20: 9x3
Workout 21: 10x2
Workout 22: 10x3
Workout 23: 10x2
Workout 24: Rep Max _____
Do each workout every other day, three a week – one day of rest between them,
and take weekends off. Rest as necessary between sets. The goal is to make
each and every rep. On your last day, Workout 24, perform a “rep max” – which
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is where you see how many reps you can get in a row without putting your
kettlebells down. It’s a good measure to see how far you’ve come.
It’ll take you 8 weeks to make your kettlebells feel light, but what’s the rush?
Better to own each and every rep then struggle your way through and fry out your
nervous system because you were pushing too hard.
That’ll get you really strong. The volume will slowly increase – triple, actually.
And you’ll get lots of practice – between 30 and 67 reps per week. And you’ll put
a little bit of muscle on too. Not too much, especially if you’re undereating. But
enough to make your shirt no longer look like it’s still on its hanger.
Second, train for work capacity and/or hypertrophy.
Everybody could use a little extra meat on his or her bones. It makes a man look,
well, more manly, and it gives a woman her curves.
If you’re really that opposed to putting some meat on your bones, then just watch
your calories - keep them on the low side.
So, from our initial workouts, here’s what you’re going to do:
Drop the total number of sets and up the reps per set.
Use about 5 sets, maybe even as high as 10 if you want to pack on some muscle
and shoot for 3 to 6 reps per set. Rest should be kept between 1 to 2 minutes
between sets.
Here are examples of what some of those workouts might look like:
Option 1: The “Short Course”
You can get this program done in about 4 weeks if you do it three days per week.
Again, your volume will double in the space of a month – from 30 reps to 60 reps.
This is for people who don’t have problems with recovery. If in doubt, do the next
program. You can also do this program only twice a week, spreading it out over
the course of 6 weeks.
Workout 1: 10x3
Workout 2: 10x2
Workout 3: 10x3
Workout 4: 10x4
Workout 5: 10x3
Workout 6: 10x4
Workout 7: 10x5
Workout 8: 10x4
Workout 9: 10x5
Workout 10: 10x6
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Workout 11: 10x5
Workout 12: 10x6
Option 2: The “Slow And Steady”
This one is for the patient. It’s A LOT of volume that builds up over the course of
time – 16 weeks to be exact, if you’re training three times per week. Your volume
will double – going from 30 reps to a whopping 60 reps, with a pair of kettlebells
that you once struggled to Clean and Press 4 to 5 times. By the time you finish
this program, your kettlebells will feel like toys. You’ll also end this particular
cycle with a Repetition Maximum.
Workout 1: 10x3
Workout 2: 5x4
Workout 3: 10x3
Workout 4: 6x4
Workout 5: 10x3
Workout 6: 7x4
Workout 7: 10x3
Workout 8: 8x4
Workout 9: 10x3
Workout 10: 9x4
Workout 11: 10x3
Workout 12: 10x4
Workout 13: 10x3
Workout 14: 5x5
Workout 15: 10x4
Workout 16: 10x3
Workout 17: 6x5
Workout 18: 10x4
Workout 19: 10x3
Workout 20: 7x5
Workout 21: 10x4
Workout 22: 10x3
Workout 23: 8x5
Workout 24: 10x4
Workout 25: 10x3
Workout 26: 9x5
Workout 27: 10x4
Workout 28: 10x3
Workout 29: 10x5
Workout 30: 5x6
Workout 31: 10x4
Workout 32: 10x5
Workout 33: 6x6
Workout 34: 10x4
Workout 35: 10x5
Workout 36: 7x6
Workout 37: 10x5
Workout 38: 10x4
Workout 39: 8x6
Workout 40: 10x5
Workout 41: 10x4
Workout 42: 9x6
Workout 43: 10x5
Workout 44: 10x4
Workout 45: 10x6
Workout 46: 10x5
Workout 47: 10x4
Workout 48: Rep Max ____
We’re all different – we have different tolerances for stress and all adapt at a
different pace. To recap, this is designed to be a 16-week program, training three
days per week. It may not go as smoothly as that. You may have to only train
twice a week based on your recovery, which will stretch this out into a 24-week
cycle. If that’s the case, take Week 13 off, and start Week 14 with Workout 25.
Third, increase your conditioning levels and/or train for fat loss.
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This can be done by simply manipulating the rest periods between your sets – by
gradually decreasing them over time.
Start with 10 sets of 6 reps and stay there for all the workouts.
Here’s an example:
Workout 1: 120s rest
Workout 2: 110s rest
Workout 3: 100s rest
Workout 4: 110s rest
Workout 5: 100s rest
Workout 6: 90s rest
Workout 7: 100s rest
Workout 8: 90s rest
Workout 9: 80s rest
Workout 10: 90s rest
Workout 11: 80s rest
Workout 12: 70s rest
Workout 13: 80s rest
Workout 14: 70s rest
Workout 15: 60s rest
That’s just an example, but again, you can see, over the course of your workouts
you’re just whittling away the seconds.
So, imagine what a good 18-36 weeks of Clean and Presses could do to your
body – you could be way stronger than you are now. You could be more
muscular – have more shape, and you could be down a pants size or two just by
following good old fashioned progression principles.
Nothing fancy, nothing exciting, nothing shiny or sexy.
Except the outcome.
What if you want to just use double kettlebells to improve your
conditioning?
Well, you could do that too.
Let me share with you what I’ve only shared with a select group of people one
other time – the April 2012 RKC candidates, when I was giving a lecture on
program design using the RKC system (now the StrongFirst system). I call it the
“One” program.
If you could only do one program to get you strong and superbly conditioned,
what would it be?
Before I give you the details, I want you to be prepared – I’m going to ask you a
very important question after you’ve read this. Answer it honestly, ok?
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The “One” Program
Just like the Lord of the Rings trilogy had the “One” ring to unite and control it all,
I believe there really is one program that can give you maximum bang-for-your
buck with double kettlebell training: Strength, conditioning, and even fat loss.
I call it the “One” program.
You can use any of the double kettlebell exercises, but I think the “easiest” from
a fatigue management perspective is the Double Swing.
Exercise: Double Swing
This workout is “only” 10 minutes long. You’ll see why in a second.
It’s based on the “Top of the Minute” training model – you do one set at the top of
each minute – so every time your timer says “:00” or your second hand reaches
the “12.”
The workouts are written in the following manner:
Work in seconds: Rest in seconds
Workout 1: 15s: 45s
Workout 2: 20s: 40s
Workout 3: 25s: 35s
Workout 4: 20s: 40s
Workout 5: 25s: 35s
Workout 6: 30s: 30s
Workout 7: 25s: 35s
Workout 8: 30s: 30s
Workout 9: 35s: 25s
Workout 10: 30s: 30s
Workout 11: 35s: 25s
Workout 12: 40s: 20s
Workout 13: 35s: 25s
Workout 14: 40s: 20s
Workout 15: 45s: 15s
Do you see how powerful that program REALLY is?
Within five to eight weeks, you can increase your conditioning levels by 200% by
flipping your work-to-rest ratios upside down.
What was 1:3 becomes 3:1.
Now let me ask you the same question – actually a two-parter – the one I told
you I would ask you after I showed you the program, that I asked the RKC
Candidates:
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How conditioned do you think you would be if you could perform this
workout with a pair of Beasts? (48kg kettlebells)
Here’s the second part:
And how strong do you think you would be if you could do that workout
with a pair of Beasts?
As I looked around the room, most of the candidates got it. They were nodding
their heads and many of them were shouting, “Very!” as the thought sunk in.
Again, do you see how powerful that program REALLY is?
Of course there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of more ways to cook
your double kettlebell training.
I gave you two great ones. Start there with simplicity and then move on to
something more complex.
Combining the “STRONG!” program with the “ONE” program.
I know that inevitably, someone will ask me if they can combine the two
programs, and if so, how would you do that?
Well, like Alfonso Duran, my weightlifting coach says, “anything can work if
applied properly.”
So, I would only combine the strength and hypertrophy program of the
“STRONG!” program with the “One” program.
And I would do “STRONG!” twice a week – Mondays and Thursdays. And I would
do the “One” program twice a week – Tuesdays and Fridays. I would rest on the
other 3 days. The cycles would obviously be different. You may have to get a
bigger pair of kettlebells once you get through “One” the first time. However, the
volume is continually increasing on “STRONG!” so you may just be fine. Worst
case scenario, you use the same pair of kettlebells repeatedly on “One” but you
continue to refine your technique and your Swings become more and more
powerful, as witnessed by the increased height to which you swing your bells.
Enjoy your training!
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Appendix:
On Head, Neck, And Eye (And Spine)
Position
Over the last 6 or so years, there’s been a lot of controversy on the position of
the head when lifting weights.
Is it the traditional eyes forward, head up? Or is it neck neutral / neck packed?
Before I give you my answer, let’s consider how the body is designed. When your
body is operating correctly, your eyes lead the way. For example, when you look
up, your body moves ever so slightly into extension (leans back). And when you
look down, your body moves ever so slightly into flexion (leans forward). These
are reflexes that are hardwired into you and which are developed during the first
couple months after birth. You continue to “cement” these reflexes until about the
age of three.
Also consider, that based on these extension and flexor reflexes, the natural
order of movement is:
•
•
•
The eyes lead
The head follows the eyes
The body follows the head
An argument has been made (which I bought into around 2006) that the head
and neck should remain in neutral when lifting. The rationale is that this
preserved the natural curves of the spine and allowed the joints of the spine to be
centrated and therefore more neural drive (“nerve force”) made it to the muscles,
allowing for stronger muscular actions.
This sounded great in theory and produced some fairly positive results in the
short run.
The problem with this theory is that it ignores the body’s natural and normally
hardwired reflexes that we discussed earlier.
So as soon as you bend over and load the body your reflexes should naturally
operate. One of those reflexes, the Righting Reflex, is an automatic reflex to
bring the head back over the body’s base of support and the head in line with the
horizon. (There are actually several Righting Reflexes.)
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I want to emphasize here that this is a natural and hardwired reaction. To train
in “long spine” or with a “packed neck” for the sake of joint centration or
supposed increased neural drive, trains your body out of this reflex.
How?
Because part of the righting reflexes responses is when you bend forward
(flexion), your body automatically fires off the extensor reflexes to control/prevent
you from collapsing against the weight of gravity. And when you move into
extension, such as a back bend, your body automatically fires off the flexor
reflexes to keep gravity from collapsing your spine.
Here is a perfect example caught in this
picture of Maurice Deriaz, the great Swiss
strongman, performing a one-arm Clean &
Jerk with 228 pounds.
Notice how his spine is naturally forming
an arch (one of the strongest structures
known to man) to support the load.
The spine naturally curves toward the
direction of the load unless you cognitively
override it. So, when you bend at the
waist, such as in deadlifting, your body’s
natural and normal reaction is to arch the
spine toward the load, forming an arch,
from that position – from flexion into
extension.
Therefore if you continually seek “axial
extension” or to “pack your neck” you are training aberrant and unnatural
movement patterns and are essentially fighting and potentially dulling your
reflexes.
Are you sure you want to do that?
What About Neutral Spine – Shouldn’t You Maintain That Under Load?
That’s a great question.
My answer is “probably.”
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However I question the wisdom and logic of trying to do it by maintaining the
body’s natural curves while standing.
Because they’re just that – neutral, and therefore natural, while standing. As
soon as you load the body, various reflexes, based on positioning, are initiated. I
think the faulty logic we have used is that under load those curves should be
maintained as they are while standing. If that were the case, then spine wouldn’t
be as articulated as it is and wouldn’t be the perfect shape for bipedal locomotion
– our primary “function.”
Think about this:
When you bend forward at the waist or hinge at the hips for a Swing or a Deadlift,
we are making an assumption that “neutral” is the maintained the same way as it
is standing, so we cue “long spine.”
But when you bend over, as I mentioned earlier, your “righting reflexes” are
initiated and they’re designed to keep your head over your body and your eyes
level with the horizon – an internal gyroscope if you will, unless you are willfully
overriding them, like squatting down to look at something on the ground, like my
little boy will often do. Even then, your reflexes are at work, making sure your
body is perfectly counterbalanced.
For example: If you look down at the ground in a squat for example, your body
naturally shifts backwards, displacing your center of mass over the back of your
feet into your heels, and your shins will start to become vertical. From that same
position, if you look up, your body naturally shifts your weight forward into your
midfoot, even your toes, to maintain its center of gravity over its base of support.
If it did not, you’d lose your balance and fall backwards.
(Incidentally, this is one of the reasons many people can’t squat today. They’re
reflexes have been “dulled” and they no longer work automatically as they
should. More on that shortly...)
The obvious next question is, does this change with load?
The answer is yes.
Depending on where the load is, the body should naturally change its positioning
to counterbalance that load.
For example, when the weight is in the hands, the center of mass is pulled
forward. The body naturally counterbalances the load by reflexively activating its
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extensors, specifically the posterior chain. (It also reflexively compresses the
viscera and braces the spine through intra-abdominal pressure.)
And since the body is designed to follow the head, and the head the eyes,
naturally and normally the head will be up, or slightly up, with the neck in
extension (not hyperextension – don’t confuse the two). This is because the
“neck-on-body” righting reflex stimulates the extensor muscles to bring the body
back to an upright position. Let me say this again in case you missed it the first
time: This is a natural and normal reflex.
The same is true for all forms of external loading – the body seeks to support the
load through using its reflexes first.
This all begs a very serious question:
Well Why Do People Report Positive Results Using These Strategies?
I’ll be the first to admit that I too saw positive results when I first used them too.
Why? Because they were new stimuli to the body that provoked a positive short
term response. That’s it.
I have the good fortune to have trained clients for as long as 11 years, so I get to
see the body’s long-term responses to these strategies. And they haven’t been
good.
Why not?
Because we (the fitness/medical/exercise industries) are operating under the
assumption that the keys to “fixing” posture are musculoskeletal or
neuromuscular, that is, we either address the muscles or the “nervous system”
and we come up with strategies that appear to address the problems but instead
only address the symptoms.
So what IS the problem?
Reflexes.
Quite simply, our reflexes are dulled, from environmental factors, specifically
sitting. Address or sharpen the body’s natural, normal, and hardwired reflexes,
and these issues take care of themselves, with no extra effort on our part.
And how do you do that?
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Well that’s beyond the scope of this book, so I recommend you start with a book
by my good friend, Tim Anderson, called, Becoming Bulletproof. And from there, I
recommend you attend one of our one day “Learn-By-Doing” Becoming
Bulletproof workshops so you can see how to integrate this very simple theory
into your double kettlebell training.
To sum up, based upon my observation of long term clients, my developing son,
and pertinent literature, neutral spine is position-dependent. There are different
“neutrals” related to the activity, assuming of course, your reflexes are working
correctly.
That may not convince you, so let me tell you some observations I’ve made both
in person and on video from advocates of these various theories:
I’ve never seen a person keep “packed neck” or neutral neck under highspeed load. And I’ve seen A LOT of people perform the kettlebell ballistics over
the last 10 years. The head and neck always do either one of two things: fall into
flexion or move into extension – there is no middle ground. The closest I’ve seen
to keeping this neutral position is Master RKC Brett Jones, and even he has
since reverted back to a “head up” position on his ballistics and as such his
performance and health have improved.
Nine times out of ten, the advocates of neck packing fail to maintain a
packed neck at the end of the backswing of the KB ballistics. When
watching demonstrations – video or still, I see cervical protrusion often times
combined with cervical flexion. (The pushing forward of the head combined with
the dropping of the chin.) Sometimes it’s one or the other. Again, this initiates the
body’s flexor reflexes – to make the flexor chain contract – which is the exact
opposite of what we want to get out of the backswing. We want the extensor
chain to work. So at the risk of beating a dead horse here, we want the head up
to maintain the body’s natural extensor reflexes and avoid any sort of “reflex
confusion.”
Many “neck packing” and “long spine” advocates finish their ballistics with
their heads in flexion instead of on the top of the body. This comes from an
unwitting overreliance on the flexor reflex/ flexor chain. It’s a great way to
destabilize your lower back and end up with lumbar spine issues down the road.
(Ask me how I know...)
The body should “unwind” under the head during the backswing of the
kettlebell ballistics. This is just what it sounds like – the head stays on top of
the body, with some horizontal displacement (obviously) but the spine does not
move as one piece. It articulates reflexively in response to the load. Don’t worry if
you can’t imagine it – like a good work of art, you’ll know it when you see it.
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The assumption is made that joints can’t be centrated if the exact spinal
curves are not maintained or maintained in relation to each other. If this has
not been measured across ALL populations with EMG analysis and fluoroscopy,
then this is a best guess, not hard science. Plus, it is also science performed on
a population with movement restrictions and joint dysfunctions.
Many people are confusing neck extension with neck hyperextension. Many
people see neck extension (again, which is a natural movement, even as is
hyperextension, even though the latter is not preferable and can be damaging)
and automatically shout, “Her neck is hyperextended!” That’s not always the
case. It’s actually quite easy to see and most often happens around C2-C3 and
looks like an actual kink – or an angular appearance. As I mentioned earlier, you
can’t say definitively unless you are looking at movement under a fluoroscope.
Loss of thoracic mobility cannot be compensated for by locking up the
neck by packing it or keeping it neutral. Many people have complained of
neck pain discomfort while keeping their eyes on the horizon during kettlebell
ballistics. Neck packing anecdotally alleviates their pain, which of course, is
awesome. However, neck issues are often because of a lack of mobility in the
thoracic spine. So unless you have full range of motion in your T-spine, you are
most likely just addressing your symptoms and masking the root cause of the
problem.
The argument that ontologically (developmentally) the neck should be kept
packed under load for safety reasons is flawed. The argument for “neck
packing” under load is supposedly because the neck is a structure that’s
designed for quick, unloaded movements. This argument based solely on its
structure assumes that force is being absorbed by the neck structures (loaded)
during ALL heavy loads in ALL populations. This is only the case if ALL
populations are identified and then tested. Otherwise, this is limited at best to
likekind populations – populations with similar dysfunctions and pathologies.
Consider that one of the leading proponents for neck packing almost failed
the Swing evolution at his RKC. This was because while trying to keep his
neck packed, the natural happened – he was flexing his lumbar spine. When he
actually did as we instructed him to do in the RKC – keep his eyes on the horizon
– he was able to maintain the arch in his lower back. Surprise! You can’t fight
nature.
Ultimately, test it for yourself and see. If you’re functioning correctly/optimally,
you should have no problem keeping your head up during kettlebell ballistics and
some of the kettlebell grinds, like the Squat. You may have to do some extra
“rehabilitative” work for your vestibular system.
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