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I've taken a short hiatus from blogging, about three months worth. During this time I have been diligently working on my Olympic lifting. I've also been dealing with some nasty tendinitis in my right forearm. Kettlebells have taken a bit of a back seat, as I'm learning that you can't train for two sports at the same time. I've also started playing around more with clubbells as part of my active recovery.

I think I am going to shift the focus of this journal to be less about my numbers and more about the weird stuff that goes through my head about training. I can only hope that it will be something interesting, but there's no guarantee of that.

Anyway, tonight's training consisted of:

Barbell Clean
Barbell Snatch
Back Squat
Kettlebell Push Press

During my training, I occasionally glance at my iPhone in between sets. I'll check out the latest Facebook posts, check my email, maybe play a one minute game of Bejeweled. It struck me this evening how many Facebook posts I see each day with people talking about food and diet and losing weight. I have been guilty of that a bit, but to be honest I'm really getting tired of seeing it all the time. I've read a lot about the subject in the past few months. And this is what I've come to accept: (1) If you want to get lean, cut out the processed carbs - the breads, pastas, cereals, etc. Make your carbs consist of fruits and vegetables. (2) If you want to be healthy, cut out the crap. (3) Don't be afraid of fat. That includes saturated fats. They are not bad for you. It's the trans fats that are bad for you. (4) If milk doesn't agree with you, or if glutens (typically wheat products) don't agree with you, stop eating them. Or anything that doesn't seem to agree with you for that matter. If you're ok with it, enjoy it. (5) Reduce your caffeine intake toward the evening. Ummm... that's probably about it. Not too complicated.

Now plan your training for tomorrow and get a good night's sleep!

Upcoming World Kettlebell Club Fitness Trainer Certifications

Between now and the end of the year, I will be teaching two more WKC Kettlebell Trainer certification courses. This course is the prerequisite for anyone that wishes to attend the Coaching Certification with Valery Fedorenko.

The two venues are:


Saturday, November 13th @ Rhode Island Fitness & Martial Arts, Smithfield, RI


Saturday, December 4th @ The Claude Robillard Sports Center, Montreal, Canada


This course covers the single kettlebell foundational lifts - swing, clean, press, push press, jerk, snatch and half snatch. We also review the long cycle variations as well as the bottoms up variations. Everyone who attends will also receive a copy of the WKC's Fitness Protocol, which will also be reviewed and discussed in the course.

If anyone is interested in attending either of these dates or if you are interested in hosting a course yourself, please let me know.

Lifting Update

It's been a little while since my last update. Things are still moving forward and I'm loving it.

For the most part I am now concentrating on the Olympic lifts. I'm training them Mon-Wed-Fri. Weekdays in between I have not been doing much aside from recuperating. Weekends are spent running around with the kids, although I have recently picked up a 50' rope and have been playing a bit with it in the backyard ala Battling Ropes.

My OL training has been consisting of Cleans, from both the power position and from the floor, snatch pulls, jerks (from the rack) and back squats. I'm becoming technically more comfortable with these movements and have slowly been increasing the weight used.

I have been laying off the kettlebells during this time as my body is still getting used to the barbell work, but I hope to start introducing some lighter, longer sets again next week on my in-between days.

That's about it. Tonight I'll be visiting the Institute for Heavy Training. I'm looking forward to hitting it hard and getting the necessary refinements from my coach. Let's rock!

Bells: Bars & Kettles

Nice short session today. My knees and ankles are on the mend, so I didn't want to do anything too extreme today. But just enough to keep progressing forward.

Warmup: empty bar, the usual

Snatch: 65/3, 85/3, 105/2, 115/2

Back Squat: 115/5, 135/5

Kettlebell Long Cycle: 2 x 16kg - 5 minutes @ 6 rpm

Band work for the rotators

Snatches felt good, they are landing overhead nicely, without too much of a squat. I threw in the back squats to see how my knees would feel tomorrow. My delts and rotators have been fried as of late, so looking to balance them out with some band work. No pressing for them today.

Long Cycle felt good. Not too intense today, but a good start. I need 60 reps to make Rank III. I am going to try to start working these in regularly and hopefully hit rank soon, then move up to the 20's for the November competition in NJ.

Mini Milestone

Olympic lifting today, not too much as my left knee and ankle are still hurting from last week. I guess I overstretched them with the pause squats. So today, I made sure not to perform any deep squatting.

Warmup - empty bar

Cleans: 65/3, 85/3, 100/2, 115/2, 135/2, 155/1, 170/1

Push Press behind the neck: 65/5, 90/5, 110/5, 135/5


The last set of cleans marked my first bodyweight set. Yay!

Friday Lifting

Here's what went down this past Friday. It was a relatively quick session (as I had my sports massage scheduled directly following), but I have been feeling the effects all weekend, particularly in my ankles and knees.

Warmup: empty barbell (see prior workouts, same)

Clean & Jerk: 65/3, 85/3, 115/1, 135/3

(for the first three sets of C&J, I cleaned the bar, then performed a front squat, pausing for 5 sec at the bottom, then came up, performed the jerk, holding that position also for 5 sec before lowering the bar)

Seated Snatch Hold: 65/1

Snatch Balance: 65/4, 65/1

(it was here that I first felt some soreness in my left ankle, so I didn't push it)

Pistols: 5/5

That was it for the day.

USAW Coach

As I returned from today's workout I received an email from USA Weightlifting informing me that I am now officially one of their Sports Performance Coaches! Hurray!!

OK, enough celebrating, now let's get down to business. I was out of commission last week as the family and I went away on vacation. No real training there except for running after the kids.

Once I returned, I had a few short kettlebell sessions to get things moving again. The first was a 12 minute Clean & Press set with a 16kg bell for 10 rpm. The next was an 8 minute snatch set with a 20kg bell at 14 rpm. Both of these sets were with multiple hand switches.

Today was the first day back at the gym for some Olympic lifting.

Warmup - my now-standard empty bar warmup

Snatch: 65/5, 85/3, 105/3, 115/1

Press: 65/5, 85/5, 105/5

Front Squat: 95/2, 115/2, 155/1, 175/1

Handstand Pushup: 1 set of 5

Kettlebell Swing: 16kg - 4 minutes (switched hands as needed)

That's it and that's all!