Entering club 200 24kg Snatch came rather quickly but it didn't take away from the enjoyment. My left hand was slightly injured so I experimented with a few grip variations. None of them worked. I also skipped the back swing knee extension while on the Left which didn't help either. On the other hand - my right - things felt pretty smooth ( 114 Reps ). And this is what I'm celebrating. Perhaps the Left could learn from the Right and one day I can go above 220.
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 9, 2014
Earthing, Sunbathing and Snatching
Naked, barefoot kettlebell snatching in the sun delivers energy as Nature originally intended. Connecting to the Earth and the Sun is the ultimate performance enhancement drug. If it doesn't alter your mechanics you'll sure get an advantage. Snatch is a fine candidate to try it on.
Three minutes later... Grip was exhausted.
Sep 2, 2014
Snatch - Daddy's Perfect Match
Once I sensed the joy of fatherhood everything else went south. Not exactly. I really wanted to save my kettlebell lifting passion. It used to keep me sane, or should I say happy.
The challenge was to find something minimalistic and still be competitive. Training for hours wasn't an option. I needed time - time to be a father, time to work, time to be a husband, and maybe time to be a social animal. So I needed to train at home and not longer than half an hour a day. I needed also to be quiet. Shaking the house every time I did a Long Cycle or a Jerk set wasn't the best baby sleeping aid.
And...
Enlightenment struck - snatch did match all of my needs and more!
Snatch is a silent, whole body exercise, which trains all systems. It doesn't tax the body metabolically as much as the other two movements ( Jerk and Long Cycle ). I only need to put one kettlebell above my head and I can use my mitochondria a lot more to generate energy efficiently. Snatch even taught me to train less. If you are into high performance, then you know how important it is to be specific. If you want to be a good "snatcher", you need to snatch. To illustrate better, I'd say if you want to be Paganini, you ought to play the violin, you can't be playing the piano instead. Mastery requires specificity. Look at Nature closely and you'll see my point.
A perfect match once more! Snatch's bottleneck is the grip. Hands get sore and inflamed in less that half an hour of intensive work ( you've got to pick up a heavy bell ). I can't continue to be specific even if I have the whole day. So no guilt for not training longer.
Another big concept is the technical difficulty. The better your technique the less tension on your grip. Coordination becomes as important as physical preparedness. Fascinating. I can "cheat" and improve if I find a way to make it easier on my grip. Probably this is the reason I see elite athletes snatch so differently. They are all trying to alter the mechanics to find an edge over the others. Finding the better mechanics raises the game even higher.
So I am snatching now, and it's perfect for a daddy, who isn't as young as he would like to be, and who want's to play competitively and have no regrets.
Enlightenment struck - snatch did match all of my needs and more!
Snatch is a silent, whole body exercise, which trains all systems. It doesn't tax the body metabolically as much as the other two movements ( Jerk and Long Cycle ). I only need to put one kettlebell above my head and I can use my mitochondria a lot more to generate energy efficiently. Snatch even taught me to train less. If you are into high performance, then you know how important it is to be specific. If you want to be a good "snatcher", you need to snatch. To illustrate better, I'd say if you want to be Paganini, you ought to play the violin, you can't be playing the piano instead. Mastery requires specificity. Look at Nature closely and you'll see my point.
A perfect match once more! Snatch's bottleneck is the grip. Hands get sore and inflamed in less that half an hour of intensive work ( you've got to pick up a heavy bell ). I can't continue to be specific even if I have the whole day. So no guilt for not training longer.
Another big concept is the technical difficulty. The better your technique the less tension on your grip. Coordination becomes as important as physical preparedness. Fascinating. I can "cheat" and improve if I find a way to make it easier on my grip. Probably this is the reason I see elite athletes snatch so differently. They are all trying to alter the mechanics to find an edge over the others. Finding the better mechanics raises the game even higher.
So I am snatching now, and it's perfect for a daddy, who isn't as young as he would like to be, and who want's to play competitively and have no regrets.
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