So there I was, minding my own business....

...driving to my morning class when a woman in a little red car ran a red light, directly in front of me and I plowed into her driver's side.

Thankfully, God was looking out for me and I emerged unharmed. So did the 20 or so kettlebells I was carrying.

My car on the other hand ain't doing so well. I haven't heard from the insurance adjuster yet, but I am expecting it to be a total loss.

Iron Tamer at Gym Condition in Atlanta

Over the weekend we made the drive down to the ATL to deliver some Full Body Power to RKC Delaine Ross' Gym Condition.

6 hours of advanced kettlebell training and feats of strength, including pressing combinations including no-hands and double kettlebell Turkish Get-ups, and the EVIL kettlebell burpee series.

We spent the final hour with tips and techniques to improve the Secret Service Snatch Test. We covered pacing, the Super Secret Double Breathing technique and programming to increase numbers.

This of course meant finishing off with a five-minute snatch test to put it all together!

Yasser sums the whole experience up in this photo, which I like to call "Aftermath":



Here is the whole group, looking strong:




Thanks to my beautiful wife Mandy (in the red) for her using her mad camera skills. She is working on a web gallery of all the shots, hopefully it will be complete in a few days.

Thanks to everyone who participated for making it an awesome workshop, extra-huge thank you to Delaine for having me down. I look forward to the next one!

RKC

Wow, what a weekend!

In cold Minnesota town several dozen people rose to the challenge, pushed themselves thru and joined the ranks of the RKC School of Strength.

Congrats to all and a HUGE thank you to everyone on Team Whitley for making my first Sr. RKC teaching experience so memorable. Hardstyle!

Extra-special congrats to my friend Sara Cheatham for her promotion to Senior RKC instructor!

Click here to see a pic of Sara and me.

The Gratitude Campaign

I think this is a great idea.

Check it out by clicking here.

Heavy and Low volume

One of the toughest things for me to do is to rail it in and hold back on purpose. I think that enthusiasm will often get you farther than talent.

Today I did a modification on a ladder workout from the RKC manual.

ladder circuit
pullup w/purple band
48kg clean and pushpress
squat 2x24kg
snatch 48kg
1,2,3,4

BW pullup 1,2
48kg clean and srtict press 1/1,1/2 (missed rep 2 on the left)
box pistol 1/1,2/2
snatch 48kg 1/1,2/2

Also done as a circuit. Finished feeling stronger than I started.

I am stoked because we got a shed for the new house, built by my parents Amish neighbors. My Dad installed a pullup bar in it for me before delivery, so I can do pullups at home, whenever I want!

Dennis Rogers

Dennis Rogers destroying Steel.

I joined Dennis Old Time Strongman University last month and have already bent a horeshoe and can rip a full deck of cards.

Wanna learn to this kind of stuff? Click HERE.

SSST

I was reading on Rif's blog about his snatching goals and on Aaron's blog about his progress with the 5:00 snatch test for the Tactical Strength Challenge and made a few comments regarding the SSST and snatching in general.

I thought I'd expand on it here.

Most important: Establish a baseline of acceptable performance that I impose upon myself. For me this is 220 with 24kg and 120 with 32kg. Even if a workout calls for less thatn that, I know that I can grab a kb ANYTIME and get these numbers.

Some facts and observations on timed sets/tests:
10:00 is NOT twice as hard as 5:00.

8:00 is twice as hard as 5:00 and 10:00 is twice as hard as 8:00, especially if you keep your pace above 22-23 reps per minute (24kg).

There are many strategies for upping numbers. Here is one that has proven itself:

Set your gymboss to 1:00 and decide on your number per set, but pace it so that you get from 15-30 sec rest. Let's use 5/5 as an example.

Start snatching and set the bell down after each set. When Gymboss beeps, do the next set. Complete 10 sets. Do this 3-5 workouts and then 1 rep per set. Sometimes you'll need to step back a rep or 3 and ramp up again.