Check out the shout out about www.losestubbornfat.com and the Scarlett Johansson article at 1:25!
Dragon Door is the company that brought kettlebells back to the United States, and offers the RKC Instructor Certification: The most challenging, intense, and comprehensive kettlebell certification in existence. (I’ve been RKC Certified since 2004, and a Level 2 RKC since 2005)
So I was really stoked to get featured on DragonDoor.tv!
The RKC system of kettlebell training is distinct from other kettlebell certifications in a few important ways:
3 Important Kettlebell Training Lessons from the RKC System of Kettlebell Training:
1.) Safety is part of performance
2.) Do less things, and do them better
3.) Maximize power
Safety is Part of Performance
This is my beef with about half of the CrossFit gyms out there – They repeatedly run people into the ground. Everything goes to failure and absolute muscle exhaustion.
In the movement world (Z-Health especially) we call this “startle” or “threat”. You’ll notice when people take a set to failure they start to get tension in the wrong places (like their neck) their form starts to deteriorate (shoulders come up, back rounds), and the look on their face starts to resemble the look someone would have right before getting into a car accident.
Those are just a few of the ways form breaks down when you are pushing a set to the limit, but they all lead to weakness, inefficient movement, and possibly injury.
If your program drives you to failure all of the time, you are practicing bad movement. When you get really good at bad movement, you get pain and or injury. It’s only a matter of time.
In the RKC System, we tend to use volume (lots of sets and reps) instead of maximum intensity and absolute failure. By doing lots of sets and reps, we can keep each set perfect – in essence, practicing perfect movement a lot.
When you practice good movement a lot, then good movement becomes automatic.
Do Less Things, and Do Them Better
Some people are more entertained by doing lots of things at a mediocre level. The RKC way is to pick a couple things, and get really good at them.
In the fat loss world, I’m fairly unique in that I have my clients do four movements per workout. We do a push, a pull, a squat, and a hip extension (like a kettlebell swing or a deadlift).
I can’t really wrap my head around it, but I guess normal trainers have their clients do 20 or 30 different things in a workout.
The major upside of simplified workouts is that you always know exactly what to do, AND you know if you are making progress.
For example, if last month you could only do 3 pullups, and this month you can do 4 pullups, you know you are making progress.
If you do completely random different things all of the time, you never really know.
You can run around doing a bunch of random things and get fat loss results for a couple months. But to really make long term progress, you’re actually going to need to get stronger, and get better at moving.
Let me repeat that girls and guys: To make long term progress in fat loss – you need to get stronger, and you need to get better at moving.
Maximize Force Production
There are two schools of kettlebell lifting – Kettlebell Sport and Hard-Style.
Kettlebell Sport is sort of the marathon running of kettlebell training: It’s about maximum efficiency for long periods of time.
Hard-Style is exactly the opposite: RKC Hard Style training is the sprinting of kettlebell training: It’s about power and force production.
I’m a fan of Hard-Style training because it’s essentially getting as much work done as possible, in the shortest possible amount of time. In fact, I don’t think that there exists a more powerful fat loss work out than Hard Style kettlebell training.
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By Josh Hillis,
RKC II, ZMIS, CPT, PES
“I ripoff Josh Hillis’ workouts to use with my clients on a regular basis.”
-Dave Whitley, Master RKC Instructor, and owner of Nashville Kettlebell
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