With changes happening constantly to the RKC curriculum people often worry about how to get in shape for the three day event. Like with most things, people often lose sight of the big picture and instead worry about small detail.
For instance, in cycling you can buy a bike that is so light and delicate these days as to feel like nothing in your hands. Frames and wheels can be carbon, seat rails titanium to save more strength and even the drink bottle cages can be carbon to save more weight!! So what do riders do? They focus on making heir bikes as light as possible. Or, they could watch their diet more closely and ride more. Have a think about what makes you a better cyclist – lighter bike, or stronger legs?
And so it is with the RKC. The most recent changes really have zero impact at all on how you should prepare for the event. As I wrote in this article here for Breaking Muscle strength is the key element that ALL athletes require. Yet even when the event in question is one run by the RKC School of Strength people somehow forget that strength that is specific to their event is the number one quality to train for.
Looking at the Breaking Muscle article, in particular the final paragraph, it speaks about how once strength has been gained in general terms that it is vital to use workouts that specifically allow strength to be built using the same motor patterns required for the event. In cycling and running terms this usually means to get out in the hills and do some hard efforts to build specific strength.
But how do you do that for kettlebell training?
About a year ago I wrote another article, this time for Dragon Door on using the De Lorme method. What makes the De Lorme method so interesting is that it has inbuilt increases in intensity, just like running up a hill that was getting steeper and steeper. So, taking this a step further, once general strength has been built, we can easily use the De Lorme method as our “hill” training pre- RKC.
(NB if you’re wondering how much strength is needed for the RKC you’ll need to be able to press, squat, swing, etc. snatch weight bells for between 5 and 10 reps. Until you’ve reached those numbers you haven’t yet reached sufficient general strength levels and will be better on a plan like Rites of Passage from Enter the Kettlebell).
For a man who will be tested on a 24kg bell here is a sample press SPP workout –
- Clean and Press 16kg x 5
- Clean and Press 20kg x 5
- Clean and Press 24kg x 5
- Repeat other hand.
Perform 3-5 times through each hand, resting 2-3 minutes between both hands. E.g. perform all fifteen reps on your left hand, repeat on the right, then take a 2-3 minute rest before starting with the left hand again.
If you’re looking to do this workout practicing your ballistic movements perform sets of 10 reps –
- Left Hand Swing 16kg x 10
- Left hand Swing 20kg x 10
- Left hand Swing 24kg x 10
- Repeat other hand.
Generally, for ballistics we can use double the number of reps we can safely for grinds such as squats and presses. Otherwise, follow the same format as before – perform all reps on both hands, rest 2-3 minutes and repeat for 3-5 times through.
If you’re really getting beastly and the bells are just flying up, try another De Lorme/ Realistic reps inspired solution –
- Press 24kg x 5
- Press 28kg x 3
- Press 32kg x 2
- Repeat other hand.
This has much more strength bias than the first variation, yet still follows the framework. I would aim to get through this five times on a press biased workout, giving a total of ten reps at my peak weight as per Dan’s recommendation in Easy Strength. A good way to structure this might be to pair it with a ballistic, in Pavel’s classic grind + ballistic fashion for kettlebell training (also seen in his Fast Tens program).
Don’t forget, if you’re Australian and thinking of attending the RKC, the single best preparation you can have for this course will be attending Dragon Door Australia’s RKC Preparation Workshop series. Check out kettlebell courses for more info.