The Snatch

This post, all about my old friend the kettlebell. A bit of back history, a girl I had in classes has a husband who is a personal trainer. I demonstrated KB swings, snatches, cleans and presses, TGU’s, and stuff a while back. Apparently her hubby (who has never as far as I understand picked up a KB) feels that kettlebells are dangerous, particularly the snatch because of the “risk” of hyperextension.

So, here I am to say that a kettlebell snatch is safe and quite unlikely to cause hyperextension. In fact, in my half hour internet search I couldn’t find one documented (or even commented in passing) case of hyperextension of the shoulder with a snatch. My classmates husband decided he didn’t like them because of a description she gave of the KB snatch. A mere description of an exercise is really not a good way to decide safety. As a former physical therapist assistant myself, I’m a tad disappointed that a person would decide KB snatches are unsafe without any research of a quite well versed exercise. The KB snatch has been around for centuries. I think it’s going on it’s three hundredth year. If they were so very unsafe, I think by now we’d have a quite a bit of evidence to prove that.

Why is a snatch safe? Well, any exercise can be unsafe, just use weight that’s too heavy for you to control (like a guy who did an overhead press with a barbell, dropped it on himself and snapped his upper arm in half). The kettlebell snatch doesn’t  pose much risk of breaking the humerus in the arm. If a person can’t control the bell, the best thing to do is let go of the handle. Unlike other weights, because of the swinging motion, it’s unlikely to drop down onto your arm if you let go. 

In fact, I accidentally let go once and it flew about 8 ft then bounced off a wall and landed on my tiled floor. Being made of iron, yes it did break the tile. But I was unhurt :). 

With the snatch, if the arm were to start to hyperextend letting go is option one. But the chance of hyperextension is nearly non existent in my mind. First of all, when swinging the bell up to snatch it, there is a slight bend in the elbow at the top of the arc. Hard to hyperextend the shoulder when the upper arm is not more than perpendicular to the body. That’s only 90 degree’s of 180 degrees of normal extension. Once the upper arm is about perpendicular to the body, instead of continuing the swing, the arm shoots upward as if punching toward the ceiling. Again hard to hyperextend when the arm is shooting upward and not arcing backward.

So, in closing, the kettlebell snatch doesn’t pose much (if any) risk of hyperextension. So, snatch away 

10 Weeks Today!

Surgery was ten weeks ago at about 11 am. It's so hard to believe that this is me from who I was ten weeks ago! Things are amazing still. Well, of course they are, I can walk again without pain :).

Since week nine only big change, I am allowed to run again. Half mile this week and I can up that by a half mile a week. I did my first half mile last night after work. I tried at 5.0 mph and I was shocked I couldn't do it. Why I was surprised, no idea. I guess just because everything else is going so well I thought I would just fall right back into running. I bumped it down to a 4.6 mph pace at the 1 incline. That I could do. Finished up my half mile with barely a sweat despite the perceived difficulty level. I'll be running a half mile again on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

At the gym I'm up to 20 lb dumb bells as of today. I feel slightly less wimpy now that I can at least squat a total of 40 lbs. But still...

Yesterday also more good things. I was planning on an easy swim since I was working on tearing up my bathroom floor and had some help taking down the rest of the glue over the weekend. The floor is not done, but what I did was hard work anyway. So yesterday was going to be just a relaxing swim. By lap ten of my mile swim I saw that my time was actually pretty decent so figured I'd go for it for my last 23 laps. And I killed my last PR by 29 seconds! Even though for the first ten laps I wasn't even trying :).

I'm really happy with how I feel physically. Emotionally since surgery I am so much happier. Just life seems good again. I wish I would have done this years ago rather than waiting as long as I did.

Now just for everything to align perfectly at work since one position was filled and one is still vacant. I'd just like to be on a general day shift eventually and that at least is looking like it might happen. As long as no one else retires or leaves!

Tabata

Tabata is only FOUR minutes. 4. 

Go all out for 20 seconds, rest for 10. 

Repeat 8 times. Total is only four minutes. 

And OMG is it four minutes of torture! And fun :). 

I downloaded a tabata timer for my phone. I do all sorts of stuff. I have a stepper and sometimes I'll do that during the "work" part. Or I'll do burpee's like I did today. Jumping jacks, mountain climbers, or jumping rope are all good things. Really though, you can do anything that gets your heart going for tabata drills. 

I also use tabata drills for speed training when I run. Keeps it a bit more interesting than just plain old running. 

It's still frozen tundra around here as my aunt called it when I volunteered to have her visit me :). Soon though, it will warm up. And then I can finally run outside again. 

And the kettlebell, yes, my favorite toy. I'm back to the weights again. Two days of kettlebell and back to the weights. 

So, what does my routine look like? 

I do about an hour four days a week.

40 minutes alternating weights/strength training and cardio. I alternate supersets of weights with a tabata drill. or I do intervals. First half 1 min of weights, 2 min cardio and second half 1 min cardio and 2 min weights with pulses and a lighter weight. The last 20 min is cardio of some sort. Most often I ride my bike. But I also have a heavy bag for boxing and I do that too. Or a pole for pole dancing. Or a workout video. 

Today I did weights and tabata and then a TaeBo video to top it off :). 

Liftin' those weights!

I've been doing three weight lifting workouts a week. All with dumb bells.

Each workout is exactly the same except more weight as I get stronger and more pull ups.

All are 2 sets of 10 reps. Rest between super sets is as long as I need. Anywhere from a few seconds to a couple minutes depending on the day and if Baby Muddy let me sleep the night before.

Superset One:
Clean and press from the floor.
Straight Leg Deadlift

Superset Two:
Upright Rows
Squats

Superset Three:
Chest press without incline
Lat pull-downs

Last- as many pull ups as I can do. Currently I'm doing three assisted pull-ups in a row.

I'm pretty weak right now. My pregnancy and back problems have really limited my workouts this past year and a half. It's sad to see what I'm lifting now compared to two years ago. I used to be able to squat at least my body weight, now it's only about half my body weight :(. I'll get there though.

I haven't missed one weight workout yet but I have missed a lot of my cardio workouts. I spun on my pole the other day and barely made it 15 minutes and did ride my bike one day. But I should be doing cardio 2-3 times a week too. I'm hoping the ground outside will get clear of ice soon so I can get running. I have some catching up to do. My other two team members (who run together) are already doing 10k without rest breaks. Since I don't start running for the year till the ground is clear of ice, it might be a couple more months for me before I start running. Our first run is in May. I just hope I can keep up with them!