ETK week 1 report

So this was the first week of ETK. I started it Monday, and in my blissful ignorance I wondered about skipping the first couple of weeks, on the basis that (a) my cardio and general fitness is pretty damn good and (b) I had already been kettlebelling for a while. Ha! After 12 minutes of 20 swings, 1 min recovery I was gasping for air and wondering how the hell people who have never picked up a kettlebell before go straight into this programme. To be fair, I think I was not really recovering properly- I was finding the 1 minutes intervals harder than the swings at some points. Having re-read the workbook I realised that I'm used to going all out on exercises like jumping jacks and mountain climbers, so really wasn't recovering properly. Of course the whole point is to get perfect technique on the swings and work hard at those; the in-betweens should actually get my heart rate down, not up! Well, duh, I know it's obvious :-) Anyway - I did the workout again today and really made the effort to hold back in the recovery periods and watch my HRM to ensure my heart rate dropped. Much better. Still found the last couple of sets of swings hard going, but was happy with my form and technique. I'm using the 12 kg, and while I can manage swings with the 16, I don't feel ready to move up to this yet for the number of reps I'm doing. My plan is to repeat the whole programme with the 16kg in the future when I'm stronger.

Then it was onto TGUs. Now these are supposed to be done on different days, but due to my hectic exercise schedule (since last Friday, as well as the ETK workouts: 2 half day bike rides, 2 classes taught, 1 run, 2 hours of combat/jam practice and plyo drills) this is just not practical for me. In amongst that hectic schedule I have no desire to spend 10 minutes warming up just for 5 minutes of TGUs. So have been decided to do these straight after the swings. Anyway, I started off on Monday with several naked ones as I've struggled with these. But I seem to have improved so went on to use the baby 6kg kettlebell. Today, I used the 6kg for the full 5 minutes. Dave and I watched each other do our first 2 reps so we could critique each others technique and happily he seemed to think mine was ok. Yay! Next week I will have a go at going up to the 8kg. I think the shoulder stability is what's holding me back rather than core strength. Towards the end of the 5 minutes I was finding it hard to keep my elbow locked out and really feeling it in my shoulders. Mind you, on Tuesday after the first workout my obliques were killing me - it hurt to breathe! - so obviously they were working too!

All in all I'm very happy with my first week of ETK and looking forward to the challenge of week 2 :-)