Doc Heads Down Under - Hard Style, High Density in Adelaide, Australia!

For those of you mates who are in the Southern Hemisphere or in Australasia, I'm heading your way VERY soon!

I'll be teaching a special TWO day workshop in Adelaide, Australia, going over the ins & outs of Pavel Tsatsouline's Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC) system of kettlebell training.

Pavel's RKC system hinges on a system of movement and a strength concept known as "Hardstyle", where the ability to maximize tension is a central focus. The "Level 1 RKC" kettlebell instructors' certification is known as the most demanding and thorough kettlebell instructor preparation and certification course in the world. It requires candidates to demonstrate proficiency in teaching and performing 6 main lifts:
- Deadlift & Swing
- Turkish Get-Up
- Clean
- Front Squat
- Military Press
- Snatch (including the RKC snatch test)

For those of you interested in providing BEGINNER level kettlebell instruction, Pavel Tsatsouline has also come up with an entry level certification called the Hardstyle Kettlebell Certification (HKC). The curriculum for this level of certification revolves around the Deadlift, Swing, Goblet Squat, & Turkish Get-Up. Two dates have already been confirmed for the HKC certifications in Melbourne. These techniques will be the focus of Day 1 of our workshop.

On Day 2, we'll be conducting a quick review of Day 1 and covering the advanced ballistics (Clean & Snatch) and the King of the Grinds... The Military Press. The RKC Snatch Test is perhaps the most intimidating part of the RKC certification weekend, but only because instructor candidates failed to learn the lift in proper detail, foolishly choosing instead to gamble on their abilities to either rely on pure athleticism or muscle through it.

We'll be covering these exercises in consummate detail, along with introducing concepts from Gray Cook's Functional Movement Systems (FMS). The FMS technologies have allowed some of the world's most elite professional sports teams & military units to dramatically decrease their incidence of injury while also accelerating their return to functional movement and high performance.

For those of you who are fitness professionals, personal trainers, strength coaches, physiotherapists, martial arts instructors, or other movement professionals, the information you're going to get will make you more competent in your field and quickly improve the results you're getting from your clientele.

For those of you who are trying to get back in shape or lose weight, for those of you who are recovering from injury, for those of you who seek to prevent injury, for those of you whose earning potential is based on your optimum physical performance, the information presented in this workshop is PRICELESS.


On January 23rd & 24th, I'll be teaching all of this and more in Adelaide. We're running an EARLY registration special and we're SEVERELY limiting the number of registrants for this workshop. We're going from 9am - 5pm on Saturday and roughly the same time for Sunday.

Expect about 14 hours of some of the most high quality and high density information that you've heard to date! Just ask anyone who's been to one of my workshops or come to LA to take my tutorial and they'll tell you that you'll leave with enough material to make your head spin and jumpstart your career!

I want to make sure that each and every participant comes in and gets to work DIRECTLY with me, feels the tactile cueing that I've become known for, and improves their ability to move powerfully and reflexively. So I'm making sure this workshop stays small and the quality stays HIGH.

If you want to make sure that we've got a place reserved for you, I strongly suggest that you pre-reg now while there are spaces available and the price is AUS$100 lower than what it'll be after 9 January 2010!

The Paypal registration links are below, and the address is:
THE ENERGY CLINIC
(rear of) 54 Sir Donald Bradman Drive
Mile End, South Australia
(entrance from the corner of South Road and Daringa Street)

Contact Nino Pilla (08) 8212-5606 for more information!

Register NOW & see you Down Under!

Select Days

Day 1 ONLY $250.00 Save over $100 when you register for BOTH Days! $399.00

What's a Pattern?

Functional movement patterning is something I'm fascinated immensely by. And that fascination boils down to a two part question:
1. Etiology: How does dysfunction develop?
2. Treatment: How do we take dysfunctional patterns and re-educate them for optimal function again?

With screening & assessment tools such as the Functional Movement Screen & the Selective Functional Movement Assessment, we are able to identify dysfunctional movement that lies at the root of problematic movement or pain. With any variety of corrections that are available - ranging from manipulation/mobilization, to corrective exercise, to Z-Health, to yoga/martial arts - we can directly affect how the body's neuromuscular system deals with a particular motion.

Wait a minute!!!

What about joint problems?

What about muscle cramps?

What about tendinitis?

What about bone spurs?

What about compressed discs?

Yep... I hear you... and I want you to think slightly outside the box for a moment. Follow me through this line of thought, please.

All of the situations you've described above can be seen as mere symptoms. Not the true root of an underlying problem.

One of the mantras I've heard Z-Health practitioners use is "The nervous system is plastic."

No, that doesn't mean that your brachial plexus is 99% nylon. That means that you are capable of change.

Your body's muscular movement patterns, which are controlled by your nervous system, can be RE-PATTERNED by re-training your nervous system. And retraining the nervous system is often done by imposing a different level of awareness on an action.

My mentor, Gray Cook, calls that "proprioceptive awareness" when spoken about in the context of movement. But there are a growing number of studies where researchers are showing that movement training can directly impact individuals with cognitive disorders.

No $h!#... The Chinese have been saying for millenia that "The inside manifests on the outside, but the outside can change the inside."

Fortune-cookie-speak translation: If you recognize someone (or self) with psycho-social issues, no matter how minor or how major, you can positively affect that person if you can get him/her/yourself to modify your movement patterns.

NOW... back to the title of this post... What's a pattern?

A pattern is an established way of doing things that has become ingrained through practice. What oftentimes is dismissed as genetic or "inherited" is more likely a learned behavior.

Whether the pattern in question is valgus collapse under load, poor spinal posture when typing on your laptop, inappropriate scratching in public, binge eating, saying "uhhh" every few words, or being pathologically late, the reality is that all of these patterns are manifestations of a LACK OF CONTROL.

And that lack of control comes from two things: a lack of SELF-AWARENESS and a lack of understanding of CONSEQUENCES.

Let's take posture for example...

Someone may not be aware of their posture being kyphotic (slouched forward), and as a result, when they think they're standing straight, a 3rd person observer can see clearly that they're not. The nervous system, in this case, has calibrated itself to read the flexed T-spine as "neutral".

For that pattern to be broken, an intervention of sorts has to occur. Whether the person in question decides on his/her own to QUESTION and EXAMINE his/her own posture, OR a therapist intervenes to re-train the posture, the pattern needs inspection, analysis, and active modification to be re-learned. Ask anyone who's successfully changed their posture how difficult it was, and they'll almost all tell you that it took a lot of mindfulness - constantly reminding themselves to sit up straight, walk tall, etc., etc.

The same is true for speech, for movement, for any moment of any action that we are involved in. Mindfulness is the key to recalibration, the key to growth, the key to change.

KBLA's Sunday Group Training Classes - Special Missive for the remainder of 2009

Everyone,

My "little brother", George Samuelson RKC II/CK-FMS, gave me a great example of generosity of spirit and greatness in times of scarcity.

We live in a world where the have-nots have even less these days. And I'd like to ask your help in changing that.

For the next 4 Sunday classes at KBLA, I ask that instead of your usual $20, you bring a new, unwrapped toy worth at least $20 or $20 worth of canned groceries.

This is not the time to be "looking out for #1", but rather the perfect time to look out for those who are way down the totem pole.

I CHALLENGE YOU TO JOIN ME!

Joint Function - Where's the problem?

"My neck hurts."

"My elbow hurts."

"My back hurts."

"My knee hurts."

"My head hurts."

How often have you heard or made these complaints? And how often have you thought that there was something wrong with the joint(s) in question?

Anna Shum, RKC, posted on her Facebook page "what does a stuck door and your [insert ailing body part] have in common?" with a link to Coach Mike Boyle's very insightful video that accurately explains the nebulous approach towards human aches & pains.

So much of what's put out there in terms of healthcare these days is myopic. And when the younger hotshot surgeons who get paid megabucks to do the total knee or hip replacements or other snip-shave-bolt-sew procedures for others make sure to exhaust every "alternative" option before they themselves go under the knife, that SCREAMS something loud & clear.

Let's face it.

A joint, by definition, is the meeting point of two or more bones. Bones are held together on the deepest level by ligaments, and they're buffered by things like bursa, cartilage, and synovial fluid in the joints that do the most movement.

Muscles span joints. They're the reason that bones move or don't move, depending on the neurological command executed in any given situation.

So when there's pain that seems centered on a joint, wouldn't it also be logical to do a thorough examination of the muscles & tendons that span the joint? OF COURSE!

But how often do physicians look past the X-rays & MRIs and take the time to appropriately evaluate muscle function and movement patterns with the appropriate tests & palpation? RARELY.

The most common knee-jerk replies to a patient's joint pain that I've heard far-too-often are "It's arthritis" and "Stop doing that movement and take these pills."

If arthritis is defined as an inflammatory condition in the joint, then what's the underlying cause of that inflammation? MOVEMENT! And if there's a defect in the movement, don't we need to address that?

One of the best lines I ever heard from an ortho specialist that I admire is...

"MRIs are snapshots of the body. Just as a photo can make things look disproportionate in size depending on perspective and angle, so too can an MRI or X-ray."

So unless the radiologist sees something incontrovertable, like a fracture or bony growth, how dependable is the medical imaging at portraying the situation with absolute accuracy and relevance?

That depends on the skill of the "photographer", or the imaging technician in this case.

If you're experiencing aches and pains that seem to be joint related and you're not suffering from acute trauma, deformity, or similarly serious condition, please look past the joints and pull the focus back a little. When your doctor says, "Let's schedule a surgery to have a look around in there" and the doctor's talking about your joints, that generally means that he or she isn't certain enough to bet money on. But they'll certainly bet with your money and your wellbeing.

The neuromuscular movement pattern and how it affects the skeletal system may be to blame for your discomfort!!

Look outside the box and see what the underlying cause of things might REALLY be, folks...

- The neck pain you feel may be because of T-spine strength/weakness & immobility issues.

- The knee pain may be because of weak intrinsics in your foot and poor recruitment in your hip.

- The headache may be stemming from you gritting your teeth and ducking your head every time you hear your neighbor's kids.

And once you take the time to LEARN HOW TO IDENTIFY and then RESET the movement patterns, you may find that your aches and pains are a thing of the past.

Doc's Travel Calendar - Kettlebell Workshops around the world

There's been a lot going on lately, folks. I won't deny that that's been why it's been a month since the last major blog update.

Rest assured that there's been some major stuff afoot on this end, and the new blog updates will have all of the CONFIRMED upcoming travel dates posted on the sidebar.

I'm essentially maxed out for travel in the first half of 2010. So please drop me a line at kettlebellsla@yahoo.com with the subject line reading "Workshop request" if you'd like to have a workshop for the second half of 2010 on of any of the following topics:

1. "Hard Style, High Density": RKC & FMS fundamentals, geared towards the fitness or medical professional & covering the 6 basic lifts required for RKC level 1 instructor certification as well as the rehabilitative and prehabilitative applications of these exercises with Functional Movement patterning.

2. "Hard Style, High Impact": RKC fundamentals as geared towards both traditional & mixed martial artists and combat personnel. Tactical applications will be shown and drilled. Usually taught with SrRKC & World Taekwondo Federation 7th degree black belt, Jon Engum.

3. "Yin & Yang of Kettlebells: Kettlebell Yoga & Viking Warrior Conditioning" with Danish Olympic strength & conditioning coach and Master RKC Kenneth Jay

All of the Hardstyle Kettlebell Certification appearances will also appear in the sidebar updates, so if you're reading this post in Facebook, please visit http://kettlebellslosangeles.blogspot.com.

Looking forward to seeing YOU in a city near you soon! In the meantime, for those of you in LA, I look forward to seeing you training out with me on Sunday mornings when I'm in town and when I'm not, you'll STILL get top-notch instruction from the KBLA-RKC crew.

Kettlebell Form Clinic: Squatting Swings

One of the most common errors that appears with kettlebellers of ALL levels is the squatting Swing. Instead of the kneecaps staying relatively fixed in space and the shins exhibiting minimal motion, some folks perform Swings with their shins swaying back & forth and their knees jutting forward over their toes. This happens when people "squat" into their Swings.

The Swing operates essentially on the same biomechanical platform as the Deadlift from the armpits down to the soles of your feet. That said, we need to revisit the 3 Prys and the Hard Style Lock again.

There are 2 main problems that need to be addressed with squatting Swings: lumbar strength & pelvic rhythm.

Lumbar strength
The lumbar spine needs the strength to maintain extension (a slight arch). Under load, the joints of the lumbar spine are in a biomechanically advantageous position if you keep them in extension. As soon as you fall into flexion, a couple of things happen.
1. The lower back is more vulnerable to injury because of the lesser degree of protection from the lumbar extensors.
2. The kettlebell drops out of the "upper triangle"* (formed by the knees and the groin), which tends to cause the lumbar spine to flex even further, the shoulders to elevate & protract, and the neck to "shorten". The arc/trajectory of the kettlebell becomes less of a Swing and more of a "scoop". If it sounds ugly or dangerous to you, that's because it is.

Pelvic Rhythm
How your pelvis rocks back & forth is absolutely crucial when it comes to the ballistic lifts - Swing, Clean, & Snatch. The apex of each of those lifts should result in a solid Hard Style Lock. At the apex of the Hard Style Lock, the pelvis is posteriorly rotated slightly, thanks to the maximal contraction of the glutes.
--- BUT, the bottom of those lifts should look identical to the bottom of a good Deadlift, a la the 3 Prys. Thus, relative to the femurs, the pelvis is anteriorly rotated at the bottom. So the pelvis has to be MOBILE and COORDINATED enough to move with the direction of the load dependent on where it is.

The timing of the pelvic rhythm is actually pretty simple. If you maintain the Hard Style Lock as long as humanly possible while the bell is on the downswing such that the KB Swing trajectory stays well within the "upper triangle", you'll find that the hips "hinge" or "pry" backwards instead of squatting downwards.

Get back to your training, and train with intelligence and humility. The top dogs in the RKC organization aren't those who are clamoring to show off, but rather those who are jockeying to receive corrections from those who have taken their lifts and their understanding of those lifts to new heights!

As an RKC who came through to the recent workshop Kenneth Jay & I taught at Kettlebells Orange County said to her colleagues, "Things you know the Swing?.... THINK AGAIN!"

*More on the "upper triangle" another time.

This Sunday's events - KBLA morning class and the Doc & KJ workshop

Doc & KJ at the 2008 UCLA RKC

For those of you who were dying to come to the Yin & Yang of Kettlebells workshop that the Dane of Pain & the Doc are teaching at Kettlebells Orange County but slacked on registering and are now wishing that you'd registered sooner, fear not.

The Kettlebells Los Angeles (KBLA) Sunday morning Line-Up* will be in full effect tomorrow morning. What're we covering?

Well, since it's gonna be a warm one tomorrow, it'll certainly have to do with the TGU and the 4 Knots mobility stuff that I've been hammering home for a while now.

Bring your beach towels if you have them, and bring your friends. I keep hearing from folks how they think kettlebell training is potentially the most dangerous fad in fitness these days... and I HAVE TO AGREE.

If you look at half of the bovine feces that's on Youtube these days and how many people take that trash as credible reference material, you too will think that kettlebell training could seriously damage someone.

That's where WE fit in.

KBLA's on a mission to spread the most solidly taught movement science training around. So regardless of whether you're an athlete preparing in the off-season, a child learning the basics of fundamental movement & strength training, a mom who's getting back into exercising after your second kid, or an executive that wants to get back in shape after ACL surgery, we've got the method to help you meet your goals and do so SAFELY!

* moniker courtesy of Coach Ron Jones, RKC