At some point in your training for the RKC things are really going to suck. Your hands will hurt, your muscles will scream at you and quite likely you will feel like having a little lie down for a while.

But that’s ok. In fact, if you don’t go through that there’s a very real chance that you won’t make it through the day. Because there’s no way on earth you can actually prepare yourself for twenty-three hours of training.

People who are experienced athletes already know this. You don’t run marathons in training for a marathon. Likewise you don’t allow yourself to get knocked out deliberately in training for the possible chance of being knocked out in a fight.

Instead you train to make sure that your form is dialed in so that when you’re fatigued it is your default setting. When your body has learned via thousands of repetitions to do it right every single time, you know what it will do under fatigue? It will do it right every single time.Learning to do it right while fresh is crucial to having the skill there when it counts. As we used to say on the race track, if you can’t do it slow, you will never do it fast.

And that’s where most people have RKC preparation wrong. They just worry about the skills test, or maybe the snatch test. While those two tests certainly should have your attention, the fact is you’ll have to get through two whole days of training prior to even get to the testing!

So your plan needs to include a way to get the body through the rigors of the first two days and still test well. I’ve written quite a few posts on the physical details of RKC Preparation, and there are many more by people like Brett Jones that are all useful too. And while some of the physical training will get you used to higher work loads at some point you need to embrace the suck.

This isn’t my expression, rather it belongs to World Ironman champion Chris McCormack – a very smart guy who has often beaten opponents who are more talented through his smart application during races.

Let me illustrate the point –

I get up early every day. I much prefer waking early, getting some work done and then hitting my first session of the day, doing some more work and then getting the second session in. But there are days when doing that second session is just really hard work.

Take last week, for instance, when it was raining cats and dogs and I had to go for a ride. Now, I could have succumbed and rode comfortably inside on my trainer, however, real strength on the bike is gained outdoors and a session in the rain does wonders for your mental toughness.

As I was getting ready I kept telling myself that I didn’t want to go. I told myself this while I was getting dressed, putting on all the extra layers I need for a ride in the rain. I told myself this as I filled my water bottles. I even told myself this as I walked outside and the first drops of rain loudly exploded on my water proof jacket.

By the time I got about ten minutes from home I was pretty soaked. And all the while I had this internal discussion going on about how I didn’t want to do this. But then realization struck! I clearly did want to do this. I had made the effort to suit up in my rain gear and then ridden out my driveway and into the rain and the cold. No one made me do it. So even though part of me said I wasn’t keen, quite obviously a much bigger part of me did want to ride.

And so it is with the RKC. At some point your hands will hurt and your spirit will weaken. Yet you’ll probably still turn up to train and if you do then it’s clear that you do want to be there! That you are prepared to go to the RKC and do the hard work and suffer however much you need to in order to complete the course.

Embrace the suck.

This will happen during the snatch test too. You’ll get to about fifty or sixty reps and it’s going to get monumentally harder. But here’s the thing – it won’t be any harder physically at one hundred than it was at sixty. Your mind will tell you to quit, to give up, to put the bell down. But if you embrace the suck you’ll know that you can keep going. Break the reps down into manageable chunks and just keep getting them out and before you know it you’ll be done.

If you don’t embrace the suck…well, you’ll rest the bell on the ground, take your sweet time and barely be out of breath when the timer goes at the five minute mark and you’ve only done eighty reps. I’ve seen guys fail with ninety-seven reps. At roughly three seconds per rep that’s ten seconds less rest he would have needed to take over the five minutes. Would you even notice that? If he’d just embraced the suck he would have passed.

It’s no surprise in today’s soft world that we’ve lost the ability to endure suffering. Most of us wouldn’t last a day a thousand years ago – just too soft physically and mentally. Training can help you learn to embrace the suck. There are sessions that will make you wish you were dead. In endurance sports anyone who has done VO2Max training will tell you that those are the sessions that make you question quitting your sport. But you get through them and then, while you’re racing the pain doesn’t seem anything more than what you’ve become used to so you persevere.

Training is as much mental as physical. The RKC is easily as mental as it is physical. I’m yet to see anyone just cruise through the whole weekend. Big guys suffer with their cardio. Little guys suffer with their strength. Girls get beaten down by the heavy weights. Hands get torn. At some point everyone will question why they’re there.

Embrace the suck. One rep it. No matter what, just tell yourself that you won’t quit on this one rep. You’ll do this one and see how you feel. Then do the next one. You can quit later, but right now, just get that one rep. And keep getting them all weekend long. After a while something pretty cool happens – you quit noticing the fatigue. You just do it. Your tolerance for suffering increases.

And that’s why for the Australian RKC I created a special training program just for those going to the RKC. It’s got loads of technical work in it, but there’s a ton of stuff that comes just from having twenty years of experience at getting people ready to perform in any event they choose. These sessions are built on having been to sixteen different RKC events over the last three years – I know what is needed both mentally and physically and will make sure you’re ready to embrace the suck when it comes.

If you’re committed to the RKC you should be committed to being in the best shape you can be. Go here for full details on our RKC Preparation Series. Don’t risk your training to inexperienced or unskilled trainers. Dragon Door Australia has the highest ranked and most experienced RKCs in Australia and are the nation’s leading source for kettlebell training and advanced functional strength training.