This is a milestone post for me. First things first, I completed the SFG1 in Vancouver BC and am now a certified kettlebell instructor under the Strong First organization. It is a proud, very proud moment and significant accomplishment for me.
What a weekend. I arrived late Thursday pm to my friends' house and enjoyed a nice meal and hit the sack for some rest. Friday morning came and I was nervous but excited. I got warmed up at the house and then headed out. The training facility at It's Time for Results Fitness was just 10 minutes from my friends' house - very nice. I arrived early at just after 8am, got checked in, and after signing in and doing a couple of hangs from the pull-up bar I quickly passed the pull-up test - 5 pull-ups. It was super easy and I thought to myself this is a good start. I had rested most of the week per Kevin's training plans, and I immediately realized how smart that had been.
I started meeting some of the other candidates and could tell there were some really good people at this certification. The instructors started us out at 9am and we did a bunch of intros. The cert was led by master instructors Jon Engum and Doc Hartle. Very impressive individuals. The trainers at the facility that were assisting in the cert seemed very good too.
The skills we practiced on Friday, Day 1, were the Swing, both 2H and 1H, and then the Double Swing. I picked up a few nuances on the swing that were useful, but I do have reasonably good swing technique. Throughout the day we definitely did a shitload of mainly 2H SW with the 24kg for men (snatch size bell). Hundreds of them. Felt pretty good though.
We then practiced Cleans, but mainly Double Cleans. Eventually I did pick up on a very key pointer on my cleans, to basically squeeze my armpits on the descent out of the rack and imagine I had a phone in each armpit and couldn't drop it. The idea is to keep the elbows from flaring, very critical when the weight gets heavy not to have this, and for efficiently in motion. That was a great technique cue and I was able to implement it immediately and improve.
We did a lot of Pressing in the afternoon and evening and practiced a number of different tension techniques on the 1H PR. A bunch of people ended up doing PRs in the 1H PR which was cool to watch. I have not been pressing heavy for some time - been doing 24kgs in everything for months. I cleaned a 36kg a couple of times and tried to press it once, didn't get it past the sticking point. Instead of really grinding on it, I decided to step back and try and conserve my energy. That was a good call.
I got back to the house that evening and soaked my elbows and forearms in ice, and then a hot shower, My right elbow was acting up from all of the 1H pressing we did (we ended up doing it all basically on one side of the body because we were trying to practice these tension techniques and didn't have time to do both sides). I knew coming into this cert that I was tight in the shoulders and it was impacting my elbow a bit. I really started to realize on this first day how critical it is that I improve my Thoracic Mobility - and that would really come into play on Day 2.
I woke up Saturday morning and was feeling a bit sore and tired, though I did sleep well and all of the ice, hot shower, and a lot of mobility work and soft tissue work with the lacrosse ball and foam roller that I did on Friday night had really helped. I had focused on mobilizing the thoracic area as much as possible and the tension on my R elbow had eased off. I was honestly a little surprised but pleasantly so.
Saturday, Day 2, started off with a bang as we went right into a workout to start the day after doing a mobility warm up from 8 to 8:30, of double cleans and presses with the 24kgs. Metallica was blasting, and it was pretty cool I have to say. I was like shit, this day is going to mean business. Body was responding well though and I was feeling like ok, this is going to be fine.
We spent a lot of time on the Turkish Get Up on Day 2. A lot of time. The number of technique tips I learned in the Get-Up was pretty amazing. For me, the key thing though is screwing in the shoulder going up from the elbow, and above all, keeping the elbow locked. I had one hell of time locking my elbow in the Get-Up - all day long. We did Arm Bars though and that immediately started opening up my thoracic area a lot. I learned some cues in the Arm Bar that are really going to help me do it more effectively in a manner that will help me quite a bit. Working on the Get-Up and truly realizing the issues I have with Thoracic Mobility was an eye-opener and probably the biggest takeaway for me from the weekend. This is something I really need to sit down and discuss with Kevin and learn how to turn this weakness into a strength. I have it in my mind to be doing long-cycle clean and jerks in the future, but if I don't improve this issue, it's not going to happen.
We spent a lot of time learning the Goblet Squat and then also did some double front squats. Squatting is something I am pretty good at, and that was feeling very good. We did an absolutely brutal workout combined with 2H SW and Goblets that was in the format 10 2H SW, 1 GSq, 9 2H SW, 2 GSq and so on until 1 2H SW, 10 GSq - WITHOUT SETTING THE BELL DOWN. One of the hardest things I have ever done and I had to set the bell down a couple of times because I was worried about the degradation in my technique from fatigue. Forearms were absolutely shot.
We did light Snatching practice on Day 2 as well. Practiced first with High Pulls which is an exercise I really don't enjoy much. I didn't get a ton of cues from this work, all it did was get my nerves up a bit for the Snatch test that I knew was coming first thing on Day 3.
The day ended with an absolutely brutal workout called the Deep 6. All of the 6 basic movements, practiced in succession, first in a series of shorter complexes (supersets of 2 of each), but then 4 and 2, and then all 6. I was using a single 16 and absolutely was shot at the end. Doing a TGU with the 16kg was pushing me close to failure. My forearms and wrist were so tired, just shot. Man it was a lot of overhead work on this day.
We all went out to dinner at a Greek place on Saturday night which was nice. No one stayed too late. I again did a treatment of ice, hot shower, a ton of mobility and soft tissue work back at the house. This was a hard day - they put us through the paces on Day 2. There was quite a bit of upper body and overhead work and I was seriously wondering how I was going to pull off the testing on Day 3.
Day 3, testing, Sunday. We started at 8am, got warmed up, and bang snatch test right off the bat. I actually was one of the last participants to go. I didn't feel too nervous, I was bouncing around doing Fast and Loose drills (also something useful I learned) and trying to get focused. The test itself was a blur. I nearly executed my plan flawlessly. Did 10 L, 10 R, set the bell down, quick reset, 10/10 10/10, set the bell down - 60 reps, Little longer rest but not much, picked it up and did 10/10 - 80 reps. I had an SFG nearly in my face saying "Come on Chris, how bad do you want this!!!" and hear the time ticking away. The last 20 reps, particularly the last 10 which I finished on my strong side, R side, as planned all along, were just a complete blur. People told me my last 20 reps looked to be my strongest, which I can say certainly was not the case for most participants. I finished with 10 or so seconds to spare I think. Eventually the SFG came over and said my breathing was great, great pace, good job but he was overlooking that I didn't get lockout on every rep. He wasn't going to fail me for it but said some instructors would have been more critical and potentially called some no counts. I felt like it was fair that I passed, I definitely did an acceptable job, but understood what he was saying. I already knew at this point that lockout was an issue on some things due to my thoracic mobility challenges. I knew my hardest skill then was going to be hitting the TGU later during testing.
We then took the written test, and did quite a bit of practicing skills and troubleshooting individually and in the larger group, which was pretty fun. It was an opportunity for teaching skills practice. Frankly it was also an opportunity to rest.
We had lunch and then came back at 1:30 and started skills testing with the 24kgs.
DB SW - 10 reps
DB CL - 5 reps
DB PR - 5 reps
TGU - 1/1
DB SQ - 5 reps
SN - 5/5, with swing switch
I felt I had nailed everything. On the SN I overly emphasized lockout on each rep. My team leader came up to me at the very end as people were wrapping up and told me everything was great but they wanted to give me the chance to re-test on the TGU as they felt I had not locked out the elbows at each step. The pressure was on, and most of the room was watching. I told them I wanted the opportunity to prove I could do it. I got down and did 2 beautiful Get-Ups and fought like hell to lock those elbows out. I thought I had done enough to pass.
Some time elapsed as we rested and then did the Grad Workout, which as 2 DB CL, 1 DB PR, 3 DB SQ - we did 23 total rounds! The first 8 or so were 24kgs and then we got swapped out for 20s. I think I was showing signs of fatigue on not staying tight enough on the presses. It would have been cool to complete that with the 24s but at that point I just wanted to survive and was somewhat grateful for the 20s being swapped in.
We wrapped up and then everyone met with their team leader. I went nearly last and when Coach Cole Summers told me that I was an SFG, man, what a great feeling. Tremendous personal accomplishment and I believe this is one step in what I hope is a long journey on the road of strength. I learned a lot about myself this weekend, met some truly great people which made a tremendous impression on me. What an environment, it was so invigorating and inspiring. I am excited to meet with Kevin, share the stories, highlight my weak points that I need to turn into strengths, and figure out the next step to take in training to continue progressing, learning, improving, getting better every day.
