RKC Done. Now What?

Now that the RKC has been in the rearview mirror for a few weeks, I thought I might have wanted to change gears a little bit and train differently.  I really don’t.  For now, I may be hooked onto kettlebells for my own training.  Like I said in recent posts, I was really impressed with the RKC system.  I can honestly see myself trying to achieve RKC level 2 in the future.

Through my training for the RKC, I was able to feel really good.  I felt strong, mobile, and lean.  I don’t know if you can actually “feel lean”, but the bathroom mirror was certainly helping my case as I definitely dropped a
few pounds during the summer.

So what now?  After I took a few days off, I decided that I was going to continue what I was doing in preparation for the RKC.  Honestly, I really want to do 200 snatches in 10 minutes and press a 44k (kettlebell nearest to half of my body weight).  These are the goals of the Rite of Passage Program in the Enter the Kettlebell book by Pavel.

Some may think “Why would I want to do all of those snatches again?” I want to because 200 reps in 10 minutes is now the goal.  Also, the conditioning effect from 12 minutes of snatches beats a half hour on the bike any day for me.

This program definitely worked in preparation for the RKC as I definitely felt that my pressing and pull up strength improved greatly over the summer. I started the summer pressing a 24k for 5 and by the time that the
RKC rolled around, I was doing 5 sets of 5 with the 24k.  At the RKC, I pressed a 36k pretty easy which was a PR for me as I had only done a 32k for 2 before.  I honestly think I could have gotten the 40k if we had a few more minutes to test.  Now I am starting over with a 28k.

What I like about this program, besides the fact that I really got stronger, is that it is pretty simple to follow.  On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I will be doing 1 arm KB presses and Pull Ups.  On Mondays, I will also be doing snatches for conditioning while Wednesdays and Fridays will be swings for conditioning.  Thursdays will be double kettlebell cleans, Swings, and Snatches.  Mondays are a low volume day, Wednesday is medium, and Friday is high volume.

These workouts can take me less than 45 minutes to complete with a quick warm up consisting of foam rolling, stretching, T-spine mobilization, and some Goblet Squats.  This is great considering the fact that my schedule is going to get crazy here real soon with the pre-season and regular season starting.