In March 2011 the lads from the Kilkenny Kettlebell Club will be hosting the EGSA Long Cycle event.
Mark and Eddie, who run the KKC, are the country’s top Kettlebell Sports athletes and coaches, and they are pushing the sport of kettlebell lifting hard.
Here at Wild Geese, we’re not ones to back down from a challenge, so today I started my training cycle with the aim of competing, and putting on a good show, at the event in March.
If you go back through this blog you’ll see that I kept a training journal for the run up to last years Kettlebell Biathlon. An event I did quite well in, at least in the Jerks event, my Snatch wasn’t great. But this time round its my favorite of the Kettlebell lifts, the Long Cycle or Clean and Jerk. I’ve often said that for a fighter the 1 arm clean and jerk is probably the best lift a fighter can have in his training arsenal, but for competition we use a pair of bells.
The event involves swinging a pair of bells from between the legs to the rack position on the chest. The bells are then explosively jerk to an overhead lockout. This is then repeated for as many reps as possible within a 10 minute time limit.
It’s a brutal event, it uses every muscle in the body as well as seriously testing the athletes cardiovascular fitness and mental strength.
On the day I’m aiming for 68 reps, with either 24 or 28kg bells (total tonnage lifted: 3264 tonnes or 3808 tonnes respectively)
So with that in mind, here’s today’s training:
All done with double kettlebells.
Warm Up: 5 minutes Clubbell swinging Long cycle – 12’s x 10, 16’s x 10, 24’s x 10, 32’s x 4 (minimal rest between weights)
Work Sets: Long cycle – 24kg x 20reps x 2 16kg x 20 x 1
Dead Jumps (a pair of bells on the floor outside the feet, explosively deadlift them jumping as high as possible) 32kgs x 10 x 2
Cool down: A yoga-ish stretch and game of chase with my 2 yr old boy!
Not a bad day one. My technique needs some work, my breathing was all over the place on the first work set, but came together on the second. This will be a long three months, especially if I’m going to hit my targets.
More tomorrow.
Regards
Dave www.wg-fit.com