Report: RKC Level II training weekend

A brief report about the weekend of training I'm just back from, the
Russian Kettlebell Challenge, Level II, training.

The biggest revelation of the weekend was learning about the stuff
featured on this site:

http://www.functionalmovement.com

One of the senior RKC's, Brett Jones, is coauthor of a DVD with one of
the site's main authors, Gray Cook, so that's how we got to learn about
this. Part of the weekend was a lecture followed a hands-on session
where we did some of this stuff with a partner. In addition, Brett
spotted, before his presentation, a problem with my left ankle from
across the room while I was doing pistols and fixed it with a simple
corrective exercise - voila, better pistols on my left side. This stuff
has nothing to do with kettlebells except that the site's authors like
what kettlebell training does for a body, and Gray Cook has taken the
time to get RKC certified.

We also learned proper form, and were tested on, the following
exercises: pistol (one-legged squat) with or without a kettlebell,
windmill with one kettlebell, pullup with bodyweight only, bent press
with one kettlebell, jerk with two kettlebells. Yours truly passed all
the tests, as did most but not all of the other attendees.

Other: after it was all over, a few of us were doing weighted chinups
and pullups just for fun. I did a chinup with 106 lbs. (48 kg) on a
dipping belt, a new PR for me by a few pounds. (The chinup was from
dead hang, paused for about a second with chin over the bar, and
witnessed by a few dozen people.) FWIW, I haven't been training these
for a heavy single specifically, just working on a wide variety of
pullups - weighted w/ 20-25 kg for 3-5 reps, unweighted explosive to
sternum, unweighted touching throat for reps - on a fairly random
schedule and not working the chinup grip at all. Anyone who says you
need to have big biceps to do chinups, I just proved you wrong - for
fun, I had my wife take a tape measure to my upper arms just now:
flexed - 14-1/2" right, 15" left, certainly all-time high numbers for
little old me but not much for some of you studs. If you're trying
to do the math, I weigh 152, so that was 258 pounds doing the chinup -
no excuses, you big guys!

-S-
http://www.kbnj.com