Phil Scarito RKC - The DV8Fitness Kettlebell Training Blog
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Sunday, July 12, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Brown Jersey Garden Gloves and MVO2 - The Final Piece of the Puzzle?
What can $0.97 Garden Gloves do for your conditioning? Well, as far as my experience goes, miracles. Using these gloves practically eliminates kettlebell handle friction when doing high repetition snatches, such as in MVO2 protocols.
As anyone who has ever done high repetition snatches know, hand damage often is a limiting factor. Your grip can take it, your cardio can take it, your back and your hips are happy, but if your hands are torn, none of the above is really important.
As such many things were tried in the past to remediate the problem. My earlier posts detail some of my experiments in this area. So far, I've done the following:
1) Tamed the arc greatly as per David Whitley's video and Kenneth Jay's description in the book. It helped a lot, sometimes it is nice to have these things refreshed.
2) Using Tuf-Foot nightly. It conditions your palms nicely and heals torn blisters pretty fast.
3) Shaving callouses often. My callouses grow pretty quickly due to heavy deadlifts and snatches, so I keep them under control as much as possible.
4) Using Brown Jersey Gloves if everything else fails. The reason I keep referring to them as Brown Jersey Gloves is because thats what it said on the label. I got them from Gardening section at local Lowes. Using those gloves I was able to get to 80 sets of snatches @ 7 reps with 16kg. kettlebell, which is a great stepping stone for me.
So, I highly recommend to use such gloves if everything else you do is not enough.
***However, using gloves, wraps or any other aids is no substitute for learning the proper technique first. Clean up your technique first and practice without any aids at all only resorting to aids if it is absolutely necessary****
With that said, I'm retesting my snatch numbers next week and hopefully moving on to 8 reps/15 sec.
Cheers!
AAI
As anyone who has ever done high repetition snatches know, hand damage often is a limiting factor. Your grip can take it, your cardio can take it, your back and your hips are happy, but if your hands are torn, none of the above is really important.
As such many things were tried in the past to remediate the problem. My earlier posts detail some of my experiments in this area. So far, I've done the following:
1) Tamed the arc greatly as per David Whitley's video and Kenneth Jay's description in the book. It helped a lot, sometimes it is nice to have these things refreshed.
2) Using Tuf-Foot nightly. It conditions your palms nicely and heals torn blisters pretty fast.
3) Shaving callouses often. My callouses grow pretty quickly due to heavy deadlifts and snatches, so I keep them under control as much as possible.
4) Using Brown Jersey Gloves if everything else fails. The reason I keep referring to them as Brown Jersey Gloves is because thats what it said on the label. I got them from Gardening section at local Lowes. Using those gloves I was able to get to 80 sets of snatches @ 7 reps with 16kg. kettlebell, which is a great stepping stone for me.
So, I highly recommend to use such gloves if everything else you do is not enough.
***However, using gloves, wraps or any other aids is no substitute for learning the proper technique first. Clean up your technique first and practice without any aids at all only resorting to aids if it is absolutely necessary****
With that said, I'm retesting my snatch numbers next week and hopefully moving on to 8 reps/15 sec.
Cheers!
AAI
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
FAMILY FITNESS PT. 2
As I mentioned earlier, my expertise was requested for an article about Family fitness appearing in Staten Island Advance on Thursday May 7, 2009. Not all of my responses made it to the article, so here is part 2 of the Q&A:
Q: What are some recommended exercises for family members of all ages?
A: This is a pretty broad question. In general, adult needs and needs of children differ greatly. Adults can certainly benefit from weight training and cardiovascular routines. Kids, however, should not be engaged in weight bearing exercises activities as their bones tendons and ligaments are still developing. Besides, kids will find such exercises boring.
However, a whole family can surely enjoy swimming, biking, walking or playing games such as Frisbee, volleyball, beach ball, baseball and like. What makes such activities great is that you exert yourself without actually realizing it because you have so much fun.
Q: If a family does not have access to the gym or does not have weight lifting equipment at home, what can they use to stay fit? Household recommendations to weight lifting?
A: If you do not have access to any sort of fitness equipment whatsoever, you can use chairs, stairs and counters or desk/table surfaces. Basically, you will be using your body weight as a resistance. At this point combinations are pretty much endless and are only limited by your imagination.
Let's go extreme - you have an empty room with a carpeted floor and 1 chair. Here is a routine you can do:
20 jumping jacks
10-20 push-ups either off the floor, off the floor on your knees, or off the chair
20 deep squats staying on your heels
20 sit-ups or crunches
20 mountain climbers
10-20 dips off the chair
20 front lunges
20 leg or knee raises
Rest for 30 seconds.
Repeat the circuit 5-10 times
Basically, that's a total body workout with a combination of strength and cardio exercises. You only need about 7x3 feet space on the floor and a chair. Do this or similar circuit daily 4-5 days a week and you will be exercising more than vast majority of your fellow Americans and probably seeing better results.
You may also find the video of the chair and stair workout on my website.
Cheers,
AAI
Q: What are some recommended exercises for family members of all ages?
A: This is a pretty broad question. In general, adult needs and needs of children differ greatly. Adults can certainly benefit from weight training and cardiovascular routines. Kids, however, should not be engaged in weight bearing exercises activities as their bones tendons and ligaments are still developing. Besides, kids will find such exercises boring.
However, a whole family can surely enjoy swimming, biking, walking or playing games such as Frisbee, volleyball, beach ball, baseball and like. What makes such activities great is that you exert yourself without actually realizing it because you have so much fun.
Q: If a family does not have access to the gym or does not have weight lifting equipment at home, what can they use to stay fit? Household recommendations to weight lifting?
A: If you do not have access to any sort of fitness equipment whatsoever, you can use chairs, stairs and counters or desk/table surfaces. Basically, you will be using your body weight as a resistance. At this point combinations are pretty much endless and are only limited by your imagination.
Let's go extreme - you have an empty room with a carpeted floor and 1 chair. Here is a routine you can do:
20 jumping jacks
10-20 push-ups either off the floor, off the floor on your knees, or off the chair
20 deep squats staying on your heels
20 sit-ups or crunches
20 mountain climbers
10-20 dips off the chair
20 front lunges
20 leg or knee raises
Rest for 30 seconds.
Repeat the circuit 5-10 times
Basically, that's a total body workout with a combination of strength and cardio exercises. You only need about 7x3 feet space on the floor and a chair. Do this or similar circuit daily 4-5 days a week and you will be exercising more than vast majority of your fellow Americans and probably seeing better results.
You may also find the video of the chair and stair workout on my website.
Cheers,
AAI
Sunday, May 10, 2009
MVO2 UPDATE
I've been on 15:15 intervals for about 4 weeks now. The progress is slow and somewhat painful - combination of snatches and deadlifts is not that easy on my hands. So, I had to take steps to take care of the problem.
First of all, I ordered Dragon Door 16 kg. kettlebell. Prior to that I was using Perform Better kettlebell with shaved handle. After I received my 16k, it became once again apparent that even with offshore manufacturing Dragon Door provides a superior product.
Second of all, Tuf-Foot lotion is a great product for conditioning your palms. I apply it every night and it greatly reduces tear on my hands.
For instance, after doing the Tactical Strength Challenge on Saturday and thoroughly tearing my palms, I used Tuf-Foot Saturday night and then Sunday night and was able to deadlift again on Monday with only minimum comfort.
Third of all, David Whitley, RKC Sr. posted a very nice video detailing proper Snatch technique. If you had problems taming the arc before ( like I did) and were not 100% on Kenneth Jay's form description in VWC ( like I was) then this video is a must see.
Interestingly enough, my top female client was able to advance to 80 sets of 15:15 using 12 kg. within 4 workouts of first running the cadence test. I'm still at 45 sets however.
I expect, however, that new KB and cleaned up technique will land to the coveted 80 sets within next 10 workouts.
Cheers,
AAI
First of all, I ordered Dragon Door 16 kg. kettlebell. Prior to that I was using Perform Better kettlebell with shaved handle. After I received my 16k, it became once again apparent that even with offshore manufacturing Dragon Door provides a superior product.
Second of all, Tuf-Foot lotion is a great product for conditioning your palms. I apply it every night and it greatly reduces tear on my hands.
For instance, after doing the Tactical Strength Challenge on Saturday and thoroughly tearing my palms, I used Tuf-Foot Saturday night and then Sunday night and was able to deadlift again on Monday with only minimum comfort.
Third of all, David Whitley, RKC Sr. posted a very nice video detailing proper Snatch technique. If you had problems taming the arc before ( like I did) and were not 100% on Kenneth Jay's form description in VWC ( like I was) then this video is a must see.
Interestingly enough, my top female client was able to advance to 80 sets of 15:15 using 12 kg. within 4 workouts of first running the cadence test. I'm still at 45 sets however.
I expect, however, that new KB and cleaned up technique will land to the coveted 80 sets within next 10 workouts.
Cheers,
AAI
FAMILY FUN & FITNESS
Last week my expert advice was requested by Sherrina Navani, Staten Island Advance's reporter writing an article on family fitness in Staten Island. You can see the full article here.
Unfortunately, the format of the article did not allow to print more information, so I've decided to post some parts of my original email reply here:
Q: What are some basic principles mom, dad and kids should keep in mind when it comes to weight loss and weight management?
A:
1) Nutrition is a key component in weight loss and weight management.
Diet is the most important component of any weight loss and weight management program. Unless your diet is under control it is impossible for an average person to accomplish weight loss through exercise.
It comes to simple math: 1 lb. of fat is "worth" 3500 kcal. So, in order to lose 1 lb. of fat per week, a person should create 500 kcal deficit per day. 1 hour of strenuous weight bearing exercise burns approximately 250 kcal. and vast majority of people do not really exercise hard enough to burn that much. One hour of "cardio" burns about 300 kcal. (this is a realistic figure - calorie counters on exercise equipment are not accurate, although no one knows for sure if they over- or under- estimate calorie consumption)
Thus, if an average person spends 1 hour on strength training and 1 hour on "cardio" type exercise, he will burn about 600 kcal. At the same time, smallest meal from McDonald's contains 640 kcal (cheeseburger + small french fries + small drink). So, 2 hours of exercise can be offset by the smallest McD meal and no one ever gets a small McD meal. Nutritional information was taken from McD website.
2) It is a process and a life-style change. Prepare for the long haul.
It is likely that it has taken years or even decades to get to your current condition. So, it is unreasonable to expect that change will happen over night. You have a much better chance of success if you implement changes gradually. Also, you should only be making changes that you will be able to sustain over a long period of time. For instance, broccoli may be really good for you, but if you absolutely hate broccoli, do not make it a staple food of your family's new eating plan. Instead find an alternative you can enjoy.
3) Simple is good. Complicated is bad.
Nothing beats a meal prepared from scratch. As much as possible try to prepare meals at home. Ready-to-eat foods, microwavable foods as well as processed foods are notoriously high in calories, artificial colors, preservatives, sodium, fats and sugars.
Pack your kids school lunches. Make sure they include nutritious choices such as nuts, whole grain breads, vegetables and fruits. Do the same thing for yourself - pack your own lunch.
4) Kids do what their parents do. Lead by example.
Kids imitate their parents. If mom and dad eat unhealthy, are not active and overweight, it would be very difficult to convince kids to adopt any kind of healthy eating habits or to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Parents are role models for the kids, so the best way to convince children to eat healthy and exercise is to lead by example.
5) Have doubts about your family's diet? See a professional.
If you find yourself overwhelmed by variety of nutritional advice coming from magazines, the internet, friends and relatives, books, the television and so on, it is always a good idea to set up an appointment with a licensed dietician/nutritionist. He/she will be able to answer all your questions and set up a nutrition plan specific to your family's needs, likes, special needs and budget.
6) Read your labels.
Educate yourself on what goes into food products you consume on a regular basis. You may be surprised. Just because the label says "All Natural", "Healthy Choice" or "Low Fat/Reduced Calorie" it does not mean that the product does not contain preservatives, packs a lot of calories or trades low fat content for increased sugar content. In particular, read labels on cereals and drinks your kids consume. Often, apparently nutritious choices still have ridiculous amounts of sugar and have a lot of empty calories without much nutritious value.
7) Drink water.
75% of our bodies are made of water. Being properly hydrated is extremely important for maintaining optimal levels of health and fitness.
8) Be active.
Just get more active on a daily basis. Walk the stairs instead taking the evelator, park the car in the back of the lot, take out your garbage, mow your own lawn, take a pet for a walk - possibilities are truly endless.
9) Dump your junk.
Get rid of junk food in your house. If you crave ice-cream late at night and you do not have it in the fridge, it is very unlikely that you will go to the store to buy some. Kids do not need junk food, buying sweets and other junk food "for the kids" is a dis-service to your children and your efforts to eat well. Replace all junk food with healthy snacks: fruits, nuts and vegetables.
10) Eat to live instead of living to eat.
Basically, make the best effort possible to separate food from positive and negative events in your life. Do not use food for reward or punishment. Find alternative ways to rewards kids for good behavior.
Unfortunately, the format of the article did not allow to print more information, so I've decided to post some parts of my original email reply here:
Q: What are some basic principles mom, dad and kids should keep in mind when it comes to weight loss and weight management?
A:
1) Nutrition is a key component in weight loss and weight management.
Diet is the most important component of any weight loss and weight management program. Unless your diet is under control it is impossible for an average person to accomplish weight loss through exercise.
It comes to simple math: 1 lb. of fat is "worth" 3500 kcal. So, in order to lose 1 lb. of fat per week, a person should create 500 kcal deficit per day. 1 hour of strenuous weight bearing exercise burns approximately 250 kcal. and vast majority of people do not really exercise hard enough to burn that much. One hour of "cardio" burns about 300 kcal. (this is a realistic figure - calorie counters on exercise equipment are not accurate, although no one knows for sure if they over- or under- estimate calorie consumption)
Thus, if an average person spends 1 hour on strength training and 1 hour on "cardio" type exercise, he will burn about 600 kcal. At the same time, smallest meal from McDonald's contains 640 kcal (cheeseburger + small french fries + small drink). So, 2 hours of exercise can be offset by the smallest McD meal and no one ever gets a small McD meal. Nutritional information was taken from McD website.
2) It is a process and a life-style change. Prepare for the long haul.
It is likely that it has taken years or even decades to get to your current condition. So, it is unreasonable to expect that change will happen over night. You have a much better chance of success if you implement changes gradually. Also, you should only be making changes that you will be able to sustain over a long period of time. For instance, broccoli may be really good for you, but if you absolutely hate broccoli, do not make it a staple food of your family's new eating plan. Instead find an alternative you can enjoy.
3) Simple is good. Complicated is bad.
Nothing beats a meal prepared from scratch. As much as possible try to prepare meals at home. Ready-to-eat foods, microwavable foods as well as processed foods are notoriously high in calories, artificial colors, preservatives, sodium, fats and sugars.
Pack your kids school lunches. Make sure they include nutritious choices such as nuts, whole grain breads, vegetables and fruits. Do the same thing for yourself - pack your own lunch.
4) Kids do what their parents do. Lead by example.
Kids imitate their parents. If mom and dad eat unhealthy, are not active and overweight, it would be very difficult to convince kids to adopt any kind of healthy eating habits or to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Parents are role models for the kids, so the best way to convince children to eat healthy and exercise is to lead by example.
5) Have doubts about your family's diet? See a professional.
If you find yourself overwhelmed by variety of nutritional advice coming from magazines, the internet, friends and relatives, books, the television and so on, it is always a good idea to set up an appointment with a licensed dietician/nutritionist. He/she will be able to answer all your questions and set up a nutrition plan specific to your family's needs, likes, special needs and budget.
6) Read your labels.
Educate yourself on what goes into food products you consume on a regular basis. You may be surprised. Just because the label says "All Natural", "Healthy Choice" or "Low Fat/Reduced Calorie" it does not mean that the product does not contain preservatives, packs a lot of calories or trades low fat content for increased sugar content. In particular, read labels on cereals and drinks your kids consume. Often, apparently nutritious choices still have ridiculous amounts of sugar and have a lot of empty calories without much nutritious value.
7) Drink water.
75% of our bodies are made of water. Being properly hydrated is extremely important for maintaining optimal levels of health and fitness.
8) Be active.
Just get more active on a daily basis. Walk the stairs instead taking the evelator, park the car in the back of the lot, take out your garbage, mow your own lawn, take a pet for a walk - possibilities are truly endless.
9) Dump your junk.
Get rid of junk food in your house. If you crave ice-cream late at night and you do not have it in the fridge, it is very unlikely that you will go to the store to buy some. Kids do not need junk food, buying sweets and other junk food "for the kids" is a dis-service to your children and your efforts to eat well. Replace all junk food with healthy snacks: fruits, nuts and vegetables.
10) Eat to live instead of living to eat.
Basically, make the best effort possible to separate food from positive and negative events in your life. Do not use food for reward or punishment. Find alternative ways to rewards kids for good behavior.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
VIKING S&C PROGRAM
So, basically, I have decide to follow a workout template from Kenneth Jay's book calling for 2 days of strength training and up to 4 days of MVO2 conditioning.
My strength training program shall consist of Tsatsuline's "Power To The People" deadlift and side press routine with addition of pull-ups and dips performed in a ladder format. On top of that I will be doing Turkish Get-ups as introduced at the CK-FMS certification. So, this is how it looks:
Monday: Strength Training:
Deadlift: 2 sets - 1st is heavy, 2nd is about 10% less than the 1st + 1 set at relatively light weight but with both palms facing in. Each set is 5 repetitions.
Side Press: 2 sets - 1st is heavy, 2nd is about 5 lbs. lighter as I'm limited by selection of weight plates.
Pull-ups/Dips - ladders with pull-ups 1x and dips 2x. Time limit at 20 min.
Turkish Getup - CK-FMS style - 5 minutes, concentrating on the form
Tuesday: MOV2 15:15
Wednesday: OFF
Thursday: Morning: MVO2 15:15; Evening: Strength Training (same as Monday)
Friday: OFF
Saturday: MVO2 15:15
Sunday: MVO2 15:15 (probably at 1/2 volume of Saturday's numbers)
I also perform Joint Mobility drills at least once a day along with static stretching, shoulder flexibility drills and some FMS drills.
Today is the first official day of MVO2. My goal is 60 total intervals.
Stay tuned,
AAI
My strength training program shall consist of Tsatsuline's "Power To The People" deadlift and side press routine with addition of pull-ups and dips performed in a ladder format. On top of that I will be doing Turkish Get-ups as introduced at the CK-FMS certification. So, this is how it looks:
Monday: Strength Training:
Deadlift: 2 sets - 1st is heavy, 2nd is about 10% less than the 1st + 1 set at relatively light weight but with both palms facing in. Each set is 5 repetitions.
Side Press: 2 sets - 1st is heavy, 2nd is about 5 lbs. lighter as I'm limited by selection of weight plates.
Pull-ups/Dips - ladders with pull-ups 1x and dips 2x. Time limit at 20 min.
Turkish Getup - CK-FMS style - 5 minutes, concentrating on the form
Tuesday: MOV2 15:15
Wednesday: OFF
Thursday: Morning: MVO2 15:15; Evening: Strength Training (same as Monday)
Friday: OFF
Saturday: MVO2 15:15
Sunday: MVO2 15:15 (probably at 1/2 volume of Saturday's numbers)
I also perform Joint Mobility drills at least once a day along with static stretching, shoulder flexibility drills and some FMS drills.
Today is the first official day of MVO2. My goal is 60 total intervals.
Stay tuned,
AAI
Monday, March 30, 2009
VIKING WARRIOR STRENGTH & CONDITIONING & WARRIOR DIET
Well, that's a lot of warrior stuff for one posting, but anyway.
I'm back on track with the Warrior Diet. There is not much to say at this point. I will post a video on Wednesday showing me "as is" since we all know that it is better to see once than to hear about a million times.
Today is also the first day (officially) of Viking Strength & Conditioning program utilizing MVO2 protocols.
I did my 5-minute incremental snatch test on Friday. My 5th minute number came to be 34 repetitions with 16 kg. kettlebell. This means that my number for 15:15 interval is 8.
I had an unofficial first take on 15:15 protocol on Friday as well: my most fit client wanted a workout and I wanted to try 15:15 protocol, so we did for 60 intervals.
It felt great.
The thing however is that when it comes to workouts with this particular client, it is me (disturbing as it sounds) who is being a voice of reason. The client wanted to keep on going, so we took a 2 minute break and continued for another 30 intervals.
That did not feel so great as I felt that my form began to deteriorate and I had to reduce reps to 7 per set. I didn't feel to bad about it though, as it was unofficial.
To Be Continued....
I'm back on track with the Warrior Diet. There is not much to say at this point. I will post a video on Wednesday showing me "as is" since we all know that it is better to see once than to hear about a million times.
Today is also the first day (officially) of Viking Strength & Conditioning program utilizing MVO2 protocols.
I did my 5-minute incremental snatch test on Friday. My 5th minute number came to be 34 repetitions with 16 kg. kettlebell. This means that my number for 15:15 interval is 8.
I had an unofficial first take on 15:15 protocol on Friday as well: my most fit client wanted a workout and I wanted to try 15:15 protocol, so we did for 60 intervals.
It felt great.
The thing however is that when it comes to workouts with this particular client, it is me (disturbing as it sounds) who is being a voice of reason. The client wanted to keep on going, so we took a 2 minute break and continued for another 30 intervals.
That did not feel so great as I felt that my form began to deteriorate and I had to reduce reps to 7 per set. I didn't feel to bad about it though, as it was unofficial.
To Be Continued....
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