Completed Week 1 of the Foundation program from Kettlebell Strong! X by Geoff Neupert. I can't give away too much about Foundation but maybe it's ok to report that it focuses on the same fundamental double kettlebell exercises that make up Dan John's popular ABC (Armor Building Comnplex) - the double clean, the double press, and the double front squat.
So far my shoulders have held up just fine. I can't really claim that my current level of overhead reaching mobility is good enough for a pain-free Easy Muscle training block with double KBs, because the training volume this week was low. I can lock out my arms, but my upper back still arches a bit. Last year, not being able to lock out the arms led to shoulder pain. I try to work on my overhead pressing ROM (Range Of Motion), by pulling my arms back after locking them out.
The lower back has held up during and after the double clean and double squat practices. However, I found ATG split squat on stairs is still an essential warmup exercise, and should be done as the first exercise of the warmup. Something about how it loosens the hip flexors dramatically reduces the odds of a back spasm or other unexpected strain on the back.
One unexpected gain was in the number of pike pulse reps I could do when I practice pike pulses for hamstring flexibility. The reps jumped from 8 to 12. This is is one of the easier variations of the pike pulse exericse - one leg while leaning back. I'm guessing the gains came from resuming practice of double KB cleans.
No comments:
Post a Comment