Kettlebell meet

[fa_jing]

Today was Chicago's first Girevoy Sport championships. Two events were contested: the 2-bell jerk and the 1-bell snatch. Competitors could choose to compete in either the 24KG or 32KG catagory for the bells. There were also weight classes for the competitors.

My results were 28 jerks and 22/22 snatches, at 188 lbs. in the 24KG class. I have nerve damage in my left wrist which affects my snatches. For this reason, I will be switching over to another event in the future: long cycle Clean and Jerk.

Competitors showed up from St Louis, Denver, Montana, Minnesota, and Philadelphia. 19 competitors in all. This sport is taking off. It's definitely club-level here in the States, but it's lots of fun.

[rubthebuddha]

sweet. maybe soon it'll grow into the smaller areas (like my town). seattle has a club/publication already, so's i hoping so.

i gotta admit -- when i first read that post, i thought it said "a two-ball jerk" instead of two-bell, and i cringed a wee bit. :D

[Ford Prefect]

Cool. I just got a couple 24 kg kb's and played around with them for the first time today. The overhead squats were a lot harder with the KB's than with 110 lbs on the bar. Had trouble doing a 2 kb snatch too. I did barbell work before the kb stuff, so that probably had something to do with it since I snatched and overhead squatted... ;)

[fa_jing]

For the double snatch, dip your knees at the top, and go around your wrists, not over.

Recently I OH-squatted the 2 x 24Kg for 8 reps, as well as OH squatted 2 x 32kg for one rep on another occasion. Also, the day after the comp we had a seminar with Steve Cotter- I one-arm OH squatted the 40kg bell. This is the first time I learned the correct form for the 1-arm OH squat. I still can't snatch the 40kg.

Also at the seminar, after 2.5 hours of ballistics, I hit a new PR of 2 reps MP on my weak side with the 32kg. Mr. Cotter did a terrific job of showing us how to engage the lat in the Russian press.

[Ford Prefect]

Thanks. I have the form down. I just had to struggle a little bit, which I wasn't really accustomed to since I could long toss the 16kg kb's. ;) I think I'm going to get the 32kg kb's in a couple weeks and give them a try. Don't think I could double snatch the 40's, but ya never know.

[Ford Prefect]

**** Fa jing. After my regular barbell oly workout today, I decided to have my own little KB meet. I used the 24kg KB. I was able to snatch more than your 22, but you said problems with your wrist prevented you from more. I didn't get past 14 clean&jerks though. I can press alot more weight than that, but my endurance just wasn't there. I hit a wall at 11 and had to really struggle to put up the last 3 reps. I'm impressed with your 28. It was also a good workout just farmer's walking the kb's from my gym locker to the basketball court about 75 yards away. ;)

[fa_jing]

:) Thanks Ford. Few things - you are supposed to wait a least 1/2 hour between the C & J and the snatch.

you did this AFTER your Oly workout - uh uh. While training for this event, a week before, I did an exhausting 1 hour workout of 20 sets of 5 with Long Cycle C & J. I then pulled off a set of 1 x 20 jerks, but it was very difficult. You want to do just a couple sets of 5 or some windmills to warmup. Usually Jerk is contested before Snatch.

you said you just got the 2 x 24kg. It takes 2-3 months of learning to get the competition jerk form down. It isn't straight up and down like the Oly version. You arch your body and flip the bells up off of you chest as you kind of snap your chest foward, then go right into the dip. The bells need to be over your hips at all times. Pavel himself showed us the correct form when he was here in Chicago last August. Check out this animation:

http://www.girevoysport.ru/jerk.gif

There are some other clips floating around on the web
For instance, here's a Long-cyle clip http://www.kettlebellsport.com/cj.avi

Kettlebell meet results for all of 2003, as well as the Chicago competition can be found at

http://www.kettlebellsport.com/EventPageKettlebellSport.html

Here's the Russian ranking system:
www.stormloader.net/setnewfocus

As you can see, the top KB lifters in the US are scrubs compared to the Russians and former Soviet Bloc nations.

;) @ double-snatching the 32's....if you can you're a stud.

[Ford Prefect]

Thanks for the info. I did it right after the oly workout, but I didn't have that intense of one. I just did a few sets of clean & jerks and the 3 circuits of weighted dips, curls, deadlift all in the 1-2 rep range (not my 1-2RM). Nothing too tiring. I did the snatches first and followed up with the clean&jerks about 3 minutes after. ;) Oops.