Archives for November 2013

The PCC’s International Debut in Gothenburg, Sweden: Nothing Lost in Translation

November 26, 2013 By Adrienne Harvey 22 Comments

The fact of Going To Sweden hadn’t fully hit me until the plane landed in France for a connection, and I stopped hearing English. As soon as I stepped off the plane in Gothenburg, it was immediately evident that Sweden was different. I’d never been to Scandinavia and despite the jet lag and lack of sleep was incredibly impressed by the gorgeous and efficient little airport—it was obviously the product of many smart people thinking about how to make it gorgeous and efficient. Even baggage claim was impressive, with three organically shaped baggage claim belts next to full sized tree statues featuring carved “leaves” and a pair of electric plugs at the base for charging phones. The plugs were labeled to indicate the power was even from a green source. After exiting with no hassle or passport stamping—which was a little disappointing since I wanted a Sweden stamp—our host, Fredrik Högström with Al and Danny Kavadlo were waiting and ready to go!

Not even 10 feet outside the airport, we’re already back in our habit of scouting out found items for flags, l-sits, and adventurous pistols. Before we reached the parking lot, Danny did a great human flag on a cool sculpture/planter topped with ornamental cabbages. As Fredrik drove us to town, Al, Danny and I wondered at the landscape as it slipped by on our way to downtown Gothenburg. The trees were different, cars were different, the roads were different, and of course we asked Fredrik about all of it.

After checking in and dropping off our bags at the hotel, Fredrik took us to lunch. Our first meal in Sweden would be Thai and it was delicious. We asked how to say “please and thank you” in Swedish (tack), as well as the words for beef (biff) and chicken (kyckling—which is fun to say for some reason). Espresso is espresso in Swedish, and chocolate “choklad.” After learning please, thank you, beef, chicken, espresso, and chocolate I felt fairly confident.

The lunch had energized us all, and even though Al, Danny and myself had been traveling for hours (my journey involved 3 airplanes), we decided to walk around Gothenburg to adjust to the time change. Almost immediately, the Kavadlo brothers snapped into action and began scouting places for awesome feats of bodyweight strength. The sun was out and so were our cameras. We started in with human flags, L-sits, and dragon flags, taking advantage of the good lighting.

It was amazing to see Al and Danny’s endurance was still strong after nearly no sleep and all the traveling. At the time it seemed a little crazy to do these things after so little rest, but it ended up being well timed since the sun wouldn’t be out for the rest of the trip and darkness descended very early. Thankfully the three of us had arrived a couple days early to adjust to the time change. We wanted to really be “on” to lead the physically and mentally demanding PCC Workshop, especially since this was the PCC’s international debut.

After coffee and some organizational planning, Fredrik took us on a tour of his gym, Kettlebell Center. We loved the giant pegboard, stall bars, pull up bars, kettlebells, giant battling rope—and of course we had to play with everything. A trainer named Hillevi was finishing up with her group class which involved a very serious circuit. I was excited to meet her as she was one of the women attending the workshop. So far, it’s been mostly men at the workshops, and I want to encourage more women to attend. The range of exercises covered at the PCC are fantastic for any and everybody as are the progressions. The women who do attend are often surprised at how well they can perform some of the progressions and master steps.

On Friday morning we could hardly wait to get started. The thing I first noticed about the participants was how excited they were and the variety of body types. Everyone looked very athletic, but it was obvious that there were a number of different specialists and athletes in attendance. This is something which can really bring a lot of value to workshops—a variety of athletic backgrounds and different skill and strength attributes. It’s a great opportunity to test out new cues, coaching and teaching approaches, and of course to learn from their experiences. Something I find fascinating are very mental cues. I wasn’t sure how many of these cues would be language dependent, so this would be very interesting.

We began the PCC in the classic Dragon Door way by gathering into a huge circle in the middle of the gym. After a greeting from John Du Cane, everyone in the circle introduced themselves. As expected, some of the best trainers in Sweden were in attendance along with accomplished trainers both in the RKC and new to Dragon Door who traveled from all over Europe. Amazingly, we also had someone attend from as far away as Kuwait!

Even though nearly everyone spoke perfect English, I still wondered how the nuances of our instruction would translate. But yet again, the universality of the strength and movement ideas we were teaching overcame any small language differences with ease. Since many of the attendees were accomplished fitness professionals from various fields (kettlebells, martial arts, calisthenics, yoga), this universal language of movement and strength was even more evident.

On the first day, when I was coaching someone with their clutch flag, I was reminded of a favorite “translation” between exercises. While helping someone at a previous PCC, I noticed exactly how much the clutch flag and the one arm elbow lever have in common. During a break in St. Paul, I played with the clutch flag and elbow lever together. Setting the angle of the bottom arm grasping the pole for a clutch flag, then keeping that same position, I came away from the pole and immediately tried the 1 arm elbow lever on the ground. For my particular build, the positioning was exactly the same, and have found it to be this way for some other people as well. Why mention this previous PCC realization/cue? Because it’s very easy to explain with just a few gestures and words. The way it translates itself will also depend on someone’s athletic background. Yoga practitioners tend to immediately grasp the idea because of how it relates to similar movements—even though the clutch flag might have previously given them some difficulty since being sideways while clinging onto a pole is incredibly strange at first. Pointing out the similarities between the two moves has been useful for coaching the clutch flag or the 1 arm elbow lever, whichever of the two they perform or understand best is the place to start.

Even though it’s incredibly rewarding to help people with the pull-up, I must admit to really enjoying coaching the flag. The attendees of the PCC in Sweden were very advanced with their own training, and while we love discussing how to help their clients progress with specific coaching methods, it’s incredibly fun to figure out just the right cue, combination of words, or exaggerated gesture to trigger their own success with a new move like the flag or clutch flag. While every attendee had a very solid grasp of the pull up, few people seemed to have given the clutch or press (human) flag much attention. Although it can be difficult to find an optimal place to practice flags, and because they’re sometimes dismissed as flashy “tricks”, I think the clutch flag and human flag have a lot to teach us. While it’s true that the human flag and clutch flag will always get attention when performed in public, the real value of the clutch and human flags are the proprioception, extreme tension, and control that they teach. The tension needed for the entire flag series translates into any full body drill, while really emphasizing lessons of body positioning and the extreme need for awareness of where all our “parts” are in space—while in a very unfamiliar plane!

The human flag is such a maximal move that every muscle is involved, and at least for some of us, total concentration is required. It’s easy to forget this when Al or Danny demonstrates the flag. Their polished performances hide the fact that they worked, struggled, and practiced the flag for many years. Over a coffee break, I asked Danny to tell me how long he’s been working on his amazing human flags—and the answer (thankfully) was for a lot longer than I would have guessed. Another reason that it is so fun to coach the clutch and human flags at the PCC is the potential for troubleshooting. With the participant on his or her side and in the air, this is often a completely new experience even for seasoned instructors/coaches/athletes/enthusiasts. The flag series can’t be accomplished with brute strength alone, and while you must be strong to do the clutch flag, it’s not the whole story. The clutch flag is also very interesting since it is so body dependent—different builds need to adjust for their own situations.

It was great to see that everyone not only easily understood all of the instructors, but really seemed to excel with their movements and coaching while at the first European PCC Workshop. Paul Wade’s ideas were NOT lost in translation.

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About Adrienne Harvey, PCC Team Leader, RKCII, CK-FMS, Primal Move Nat’l Instructor: Originally RKC Certified in 2010, and RKC Level 2 certified in 2011, kettlebell and bodyweight training have been crucial in Adrienne’s personal quest for fitness. A core member of the PCC team, Adrienne loves sharing her knowledge with small groups and individuals. She also loves to develop recipes and workout programs to further support performance, body composition, and of course—FUN. Go to http://www.giryagirl.com/ for more information about Adrienne!

The Straight Handstand—The Door to Amazing Strength Development

November 19, 2013 By Co-written by Lionel Ng and Bruce Dierl 9 Comments

If you are reading this blog, chances are you are looking to make some physical improvements to yourself – e.g. you want to be able to run faster, or to jump higher, or to churn out amazing feats of strength, etc.

Being able to do and hold a straight handstand for one solid minute will aid in all-round athletic development.

But before we begin, let us first take a look at a couple of handstand photos.

Even though there is no one “perfect” handstand form, so to speak, the straight handstand that we are talking about here should approximate the one shown in the picture on the left, as opposed to and contrasted with the handstand depicted in the picture on the right.

Essentially, a straight handstand should find the back flat, with no arch in the lower back. The major limbic joints of the body, i.e. the wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles should find themselves “stacked”.

The reason for the difference between a straight handstand and an arched one is also the reason why being able to do and hold the former is going to make you stronger and more coordinated.

The key word here is “tension”.

In order to perform a handstand, as with any other physical feat, one requires some level of bodily strength. If you are able to stand and balance using your arms, just imagine the kind of strength, coordination and body awareness that you will achieve.

In a straight handstand, the entire body is tensed in a coordinated manner, with the exception of the facial and neck muscles. We are talking about conscious muscle engagement (you are using it, not just training) to hold this unnatural position, it makes subsequent hand balancing elements ‘easier’ to learn. When one finds his or her lower back arching in a handstand, chances are that some parts of the body are not being engaged as needed to achieve the straight form, or some structural issues subsist that makes the straight form difficult to achieve.

The ability to generate and hold this muscular tension throughout the body such that a straight handstand is achieved comprises two key ingredients: coordinated strength and body awareness.

Our legs are strong not only because they make up a large part of our bodies; it is also because we tend to stand a lot. We are able to stand on our feet so well because we have been doing it since we were little. Using the concept of perceived effort level (PEL), over time as your musculature has been doing prolonged hours of work keeping you standing upright, you get so used to it that you stop perceiving this effort level as an undue strain or demand. Of course, we don’t remember much from when we were really little. Otherwise, you might have recalled that learning to stand was a real pain.

The same broad principles apply in the handstand. Because the handstand is a relatively new and somewhat unnatural position for those of you who are not acquainted with it, you are going to find it terribly difficult, at least initially, to tense your body in the requisite manner while trying to hold it in the air, on your hands. This is normal, and only to be expected.

And, make no mistake, the handstand, especially the straight handstand, is a powerful physical tool that unlocks many doors in the realm of physical fitness and culture.

You will get stronger from holding your handstand. This is because the tension that your body generates and maintains while you are performing a handstand is an exertion of strength.

Through the practice of handstands, we learn to generate muscular tension in some pretty challenging circumstances. Which means to say, the finer balance involved while you’re standing on your hands will compel you to tense your muscles harder than when you are standing on your feet. What this in turn means is that you are able to contract your muscles rather powerfully, and hold this contraction over a certain period of time.

Speak to any strong power lifter and he or she will tell you to brace your trunk while you are lifting. The act of bracing the musculature in the torso is a cornerstone of the ability to move some serious weight. Bracing is a requirement for a straight handstand and can be translated into the other athletic disciplines or types of movement that you may be interested in.

Since your hands are smaller than your feet (pardon my presumption if this isn’t true for you), and they lack a proper heel that would allow for effective balance in the direction away from your fingers, you will find that in holding a handstand you will be needing to perform many micro-adjustments in your musculature as a form of re-balancing exercise in order to continue staying on your hands.

When all is said and done, while the handstand is not going to make you as strong as the Hulk, or as finely-balanced and superbly-coordinated as Spiderman; but what it is going to give you is a sound foundation upon which these traits can be more readily built and refined.

Envisioning your body in space while holding an inverted position on your hands helps with development your body awareness, in terms of muscular effort and proprioception. For those of you dreaming of flags and front levers and the like, all these skills share a similar trait that requires full-body tension as in the handstand. Main point of difference – since in a flag or a front lever, or a back lever or a planche, your major limbic joints are not going to be as stacked under your bodyweight as in the handstand, they are going to require far greater and more specific arm and shoulder strength in varying scapular positions.

For a novice, the tremendous arm and shoulder strength required for a proper planche or lever isn’t going to come as quickly as is hoped. Tensing the body while struggling to hold a desired position is often nigh on impossible. That is why one should start with the handstand if one aspires to these other skills – the handstand, by the law of simple physics, does not require the same staggering levels of arm and shoulder strength. Learning it will teach you the body tension that will then stand you in good stead as you pursue the other static strength holds.

Often, the exertion of the scapular complex to fight the pull of gravity in a lever or flag or planche is going to be rendered extremely challenging if the body is not tensed. A loose and sagging torso and legs represent far greater resistance by leverage than a torso and legs that are powerfully-tensed/engaged. Acquiring the ability and the capacity for this tension in the handstand will greatly expedite the learning process for the other, more strength-demanding, exercises.

On a side note, even if the freestanding handstand is not your goal, hand balancing training has benefits which should not be overlooked. Hand balancing training is more than just kicking up onto the wall and holding for time. The alignment and balance drills and flexibility training will help with many of the mobility issues faced by the individual on a daily basis.

Due to the nature of the practice, hand balancing training helps with shoulder health and strength. Strength and health should go hand in hand unlike today where the pursuit of one aspect (usually strength) solely results in poor long term health (joint problems, imbalances etc).

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Post is Co-written by Lionel Ng and Bruce Dierl of Basic Training Academy. Credit to Ling Qinghu, ex-acrobat from the Fujian Acrobatic Troupe, for teaching me (Bruce) the fundamental principles behind the handstand. Credit to Yuval Ayalon, former gymnast and former Le Reve performer for his guidance in understanding the finer intricacies of hand balancing. Bruce and Lionel previously attended a workshop by Ido Portal.

When You Want to Succeed—Cut to the Essentials and Put Forth Supreme Effort

November 12, 2013 By John Du Cane, CEO and founder, Dragon Door 22 Comments

John Du Cane does his best to cut to the essentials and put forth a supreme effort, be it in Dragon Door business or his own health practices.

Michelangelo commented that sculpting his perfect statue was a matter of chipping away the extraneous stone until the perfect form revealed itself. He also commented that if people had any idea how hard he worked, they wouldn’t marvel so much at the results of his labor. And herein lie two of the secrets to great success in any endeavor: hone your skill at cutting to the essentials—and put forth an unremitting, focused, supreme effort.

As athletes, we are in the business of cultivating ourselves as ongoing works of art. We are physical culturists, dealing with one of the most malleable and frustratingly entropic materials imaginable: our own bodies. Nothing degrades like human flesh left to its own devices. Nothing falters and falls apart like a directionless, undisciplined spirit. The winds of impermanence are constantly blowing against the sand paintings we create of ourselves. Faced with such vulnerability and uncertainty, we continue to cultivate ourselves with pride and diligence, celebrating the transient beauty of our beings—or we disgrace ourselves and degrade into decrepitude.

Two entropic forces contribute to our decline—rather than our glory—as human works of art: Lack of focus and laziness. The road to lack of focus is paved with the baubles of variety. Laziness is a crisis of the spirit, best overcome by the inspiration of hero-figures and the connection to a group of mentors and motivating fellow-seekers.

Variety is a double-edged sword. We need variety to entertain us and to explore potentially rewarding new methods. Yet variety is the Great Distracter, pretending there’s a magic secret over the horizon, whose capture will finally reward us with success. When the real secret to progress is and always has been the diligent application of a few core, essential practices.

PCC Lead Instructor Al Kavadlo is a hard-working practitioner of the essentials and a role model for the dedicated cultivation of the body as an ongoing work of art.

In many types of physical cultivation, success can be measured. You document heavier lifts for more reps. You run faster, you punch harder. You reduce body fat percentages. You increase muscle size. You pass physical tests, you enter competitions. You keep a log book (right now, I have set strength goals for myself with kettlebell practice—and a daily log has made a huge difference to my progress.)

For many other types of physical culture—like my own personal practice of Qigong and Tai Chi—progress and success is extremely hard to measure. How do you measure movement skill or internal energy levels? Not easily! Much of the measurement here stems from your own internal monitoring and gauging of your well-being. Cutting down to the essentials and committing to a daily, dedicated practice becomes all the more crucial.

How are you doing these days with your personal physical cultivation? How is the artwork coming along? What could you discard or do differently from now on, to progress as a fine piece of ongoing art?

Structuring a PCC Recovery Day

November 5, 2013 By Angelo Gala 5 Comments

Hey there! How is your training going? Are you making lots of progress on your pistol, handstand push-up and bridge progressions? That’s awesome! How is your body feeling? It’s about time we address the purple and pink striped elephant in the room. Do you take the time to work on skill/technique development and regressions rather than just focusing on cultivating specific strength? How often do you take a day off? Do you include some active recovery or are you inclined to just take it easy and catch up on some youtube or boobtube? Yep, lots of questions coming your way, I know. I’m not trying to poke or point fingers at what you may be or may not be doing. Lets talk recovery and building a happy body that wants nothing more than to rebuild and be better than ever!

I personally LOVE the PCC minimalist approach, especially when it comes to recovery days. But what exactly is a recovery day? Following a simplistic approach to fitness, to me a rest and recovery day incorporates more of what you typically do less of.

Try making a point to emphasize eating and sleeping. Food provides the nutrients and building blocks that support the demands we place on our bodies. When we sleep, are body’s little worker bees put on their hard hats and rebuild our foundation to be bigger and better, allowing our muscles to grow stronger and longer. Catching up with friends and family reminds us of what is important in our lives providing a necessary distraction from the mental grind of vigorous exercise. Light cardiovascular activity is a must. Yes, I said it. I know that High Intensity Interval Training is all the craze right now with plenty of scientific research to back it up but please don’t forget that we need to be easy on our bodies from time to time. 20+ minutes of easy-moderate steady state exercise is a very heart healthy activity to include. Lastly restoring range of motion to our body’s joints and increasing our flexibility will keep our physical body in balance.

If you are wondering where to fit this in, take a step back to look at your weekly training block. How many days in a row are you pushing your body? The acclimated body can go hard for up to three days in a row before it will be asking for a de-loading day. If you are a little more advanced in your age, or have less than 3-5 years of consistent vigorous exercise under your belt, your body may require a break every third day. At a minimum one should back off at least one day a week with a preference of two (maybe three) days depending on your training history. Again, this does not require a total day of nothing on the agenda, just enough of a change of pace to allow the battery to recharge.

Structuring a Recovery Day:

It can be next to impossible to recommend a routine for everyone who reads this article, but I can at least provide some guidelines to help structure a recovery day based on the demands these workouts place on the body.

Recovery can actually to be very intuitive. Many of us are goal oriented and have been working on obtaining certain skills like a back lever or freestanding handstand push-up. Along the journey to these benchmarks we stumble across tight backs, sore shoulders and wrists or maybe even creaky knees. These are all signs from our body telling us that it may require a little extra love and dedicated time where you give back to your self.

Looking specifically at the movements found in the PCC curriculum, we ask a lot out of our shoulders, chest, triceps, forearms and core musculature as we work to support our entire body weight practicing all the push-up, handstand and arm lever variations. Though the single leg squat progressions do not place a significant demand on the lower body compared to a 2x body weight barbell squat, we may find that limits in our mobility hinder our ability to achieve full range of motion in the pistol squat, or at least challenge our confidence in the movement’s execution. If the bottom position of the pistol is easy to obtain, compare it to the shrimp squat, or even the double shrimp? Most likely we will find some difficulty along that journey.

I always structure a recovery workout for my athletes to begin with 20-30 minutes of a steady cardiovascular activity. A few suggestions may be an easy 5k run on a mostly flat to rolling course, a bike ride on the smallest chain ring of your crankset, a steady swim or up to a 5k row focusing on mechanics, cadence and breathe work. The steady cardio is programmed first in our recovery for a few reasons. Most importantly it will generate body heat and prep your soft tissue for manipulation and stretching. Steady cardio creates a calming / meditative effect on the body and mind. It also promotes an environment of self-exploration where you may develop the intuition of what areas of your body may need a little extra attention when it is time to stretch.

After the heat-building phase of the cardio warm-up is complete, it’s time to address some binding in the soft tissue with self-myofascial release techniques (self-massage). For this you can purchase all sorts of tools to address every area of the body such as foam rollers, PVC piping, rumble rollers, tennis balls, a tiger tail and so on. I suggest picking up a lacrosse ball, as it is the most universal tool, you can easily take it anywhere and it can generally apply enough pressure on your trigger points to promote change.

Using the lacrosse ball or roller is theoretically very simple. Pick a muscle group to work on and lay your bodyweight over the tool. Initially you will scan around your soft tissue on the tool looking for any tender spots or pain spots. Once something jumps out at you, stop moving and isolate the discomfort. Try your hardest to not move off the spot, then apply a contract and relax activation with the muscle group you are rolling over. You can do this by either squeezing the muscles you are resting on or moving the stimulated joint through its natural range of motion over and over. This will most definitely cause a bit more discomfort but let me be upfront and completely honest with you. When it comes to restoring / improving mobility or flexibility, its going to be uncomfortable. The more discomfort you can tolerate (aside from sharp pain, which is always bad) the more change you will make. If its not uncomfortable, then you wont be making much if any progress. Your only other option to break up the binding is to get a deep tissue sports massage on a weekly or biweekly schedule. If your budget isn’t big enough to afford regular body work, then get comfortable with being uncomfortable on a lax ball 😛

Personally, I beat my body up enough that I can spend all day doing soft tissue work, so in order to keep ourselves within a reasonable time cap, pick an area on the front side and back side of the shoulders as well as an area both on the front side and back side of the hips. Spend about 5 minutes on each or at least until you feel a bit of the discomfort begin to subside.

Now that we have successfully built requisite body heat and prepped our soft tissues to make change, its time to focus on increasing our flexibility since many exercises in the PCC curriculum require a fair level of specific flexibility. To do this we will work from the ground up.

-Single leg squats require a significant amount of ankle mobility so here we can utilize a standard Standing Calf Stretch focusing on dorsi-flexing our ankle as much as possible. Don’t forget to practice this stretch with the knee straight as well as bent.

-To get the outer hips, a Standing Figure 4 Stretch is achieved by crossing one ankle over the opposing knee. From this position, sit back as if you were sitting in a chair while simultaneously reaching your rib cage over the top shin. Do your best to keep your hips as neutral as possible rather than shifting them to help counter balance the posture.

-Inner thighs are most accessibly stretched in the Bound Angle Pose. Here push your lower back up against a wall and pull your heels together as close to your inner thighs as possible. For the remainder of the stretch, place your hands on your knees with fingers pointed toward your midline and gradually apply pressure down into your legs as if you could press your knees all the way to the floor.

-Stretch the backside of your legs with the traditional Head-to-Knee Pose. From a seated position, extend one leg forward and align the sole of your opposite foot against the inner thigh of your extended leg. From here, square the center of your chest with the knee of your extended leg and lean forward in an attempt to rest your bottom rib on your upper thigh bringing your nose-to-knee.

-Half Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch with a side bend will open the front of the hips as well as prep the spine to bend and twist. Set up in a lunge position with the back knee on the floor. Bind your fingers and stretch both arms over head. From here slide your hips forward until you feel a significant stretch in the hip flexor muscle of the down knee then begin to side bend over the front leg focusing on a long stretch sensation from the top of the hip all the way to the bottom of your armpit.

-You are only as young as the mobility of your spine so to improve this, hang tight in the half kneeling position while you twist your opposite elbow over the front knee. Place your hands in a prayer position with fingertips facing forward then press your hands together to engage and deepen the twist.

-Heart Opener’s Pose is a great stretch for the mid to lower back, it improves your overhead position and acts as a great prep for bridging. Find your way into this posture by setting up in a quadruped position (kneeling on all fours). Prioritize the stretch in your middle back first by pressing your belly button down towards the floor, arching your spine. Finally, to stretch your shoulders and deepen the back bend, keep your hips stacked on top of your knees while you walk your hands forward until you can rest your forehead or even your chin on the ground.

-Address your shoulders with a Butterfly Shoulder Stretch. Again starting in a quadruped position, cross your elbows in front of your shoulders with the tops of your hands pressed against the ground. Stretch your arms away from each other, shrug your shoulders down away from your ears then slowly begin to rock forward until your chest aligns in front of your elbows and you feel a stretch on the outside of the shoulder that is stacked in front.

Following this blueprint may not cure all or any of your ailments, but it will certainly aid in your weekly workout recovery. It is easy to get consumed by the exercises that build strength and conditioning while losing sight of benefits gained by slightly backing off the intensity. Try adding this to your program at least once a week and let me know how it affects your progress.

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About Angelo Gala, RKC / PCC Team Leader: Angelo Gala has been a fitness professional in the Boston area for greater than 11 years. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the NCSA, and has studied the Pranavayu system of yoga under David Magone. He is a Dharma friend at the Sakya Center of Buddhist Studies in Cambridge, MA where he completed a 1 year intensive study of Mangalam Yantra Yoga under the guidance of Lama Migmar Tseten. Go to http://www.dragondoor.com/angelo-gala/ for more info.