It’s a gloriously sunny November afternoon here in the Pacific Northwest. It’s a great day to be outside doing kettlebell snatches. I will post a demo video sometime soon as to how to do this amazing and diversely-beneficial exercise, but it’s safe to say that the snatch is great for just about everything: done for volume, it’s taxing on the heart and lungs and it requires explosiveness from the hips, glutes, core and shoulders. It’s really growing on me.
For the Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC for short; you may have heard of it), one of the tests to become a certified trainer requires doing 100 snatches with a 53# kettlebell in five minutes. There are several training protocols for it, but one involves doing six snatches a minute, left and right, for seven minutes. Then, after you’ve mastered that, do 8 and 8 for 6:00. Then work your way up to 10 and 10 for 5:00, and you’ve arrived. I’m not planning – at least for now – on becoming an RKC, but I thought that test sounded like a good one to go after.
So today I set out to do the first stage: 6 snatches per side every minute for seven minutes. But after seven minutes, I still felt pretty strong, so I kept going. I stopped at ten minutes, and it felt great. I’m looking forward to hitting it again soon and maybe doing 7 and 7, or maybe even 8 and 8 for just 6 minutes. That would be challenging for sure.
So to recap, today I did…
Ten rounds, one round per minute:
6 KB Snatches – left
6 KB Snatches – right
One last tip: When doing workouts like these, always start with your weak side. That accomplishes a few things: It allows you to place your focus where you’re weakest and when you have the most energy. It’s also easier mentally; if you get the “harder” side over with early, you can look forward to the stronger side being easier. Finally, it helps balance you out. Never do more with your strong side just because you can; mirror with your strong side what you can do with your weak side. Over time the strength gap will narrow between your weak and strong sides.
Enough for now. Until next time, be excellent stewards of your bodies and hit your workouts hard! Make those minutes count.
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