RKC Weekend Part 2: The Certification

Missed Part 1? (Getting to RKC)…read it first.

So I left off on Friday morning after the flexed arm hang (5 pull ups for guys)…no problems there. I love me some pull ups.

After a quick mobility complex we got together with our teams. Here was my team…team Hull. (Everyone was awesome!)

The whole day is a blur of swings (pretty heavy swings by the way), lying on our stomachs listening/learning and trying to grab snacks when we were allowed breaks. We also learned the clean and the press that day. A whole day of working out and eating…sounds like my perfect day, right? We started at 8:00am and didn’t end until nearly 7:00pm. Still sound good?

I went back to my hotel room and demolished my dinner from the night before, chowed on some more snacks and passed out reading my manual. I woke up a million times, but of course when my alarm went off the next morning I was not ready to get out of bed and once I did boy oh boy did I hurt. I took a hot shower and got dressed.

Day 2 was a lot more of the same, but we were outside instead of in a school gym. I only got the chance to put on sunblock once because we had very short breaks and I choose going to the bathroom over reapplying. Here’s a photo from mid-chew of me and my buddy Liz at lunch (thanks Candice) which is why we both have silly faces. I should have noticed the rudolph nose at this point.

We were dirty and disgusting (and I was a burnt) by the end of the day, but it was great to be out in the sun getting fresh air. The weather was perfect. We learned turkish get ups, squats and snatches. We also did a lot more swings, but if you are at all familiar with the RKC you probably could have guessed that. I went to the RKC team dinner that night. It was nice to meet a few other people that weren’t in my group and we had some yummy food. Then I passed out again.

Sunday (day 3) I woke up all kinds of nervous. I knew I had the snatch test in the bag since I was using the 12K (and had been training with the 16K), but I was still a little worried that people would be really picky with technique, that I would do something really dumb or that I would get a really hard victim.

The weather was stinky again so we were inside on day 3 with limited room to spread out. After a short team meeting and quickly running through each drill, we got right into the technique testing. We lined up and were tested on one exercise at a time. After getting through the 6 exercises (swing, turkish get up, clean, press, front squat, and snatch), we moved on to the snatch test. Three people from our team went at once. I was in the second group of three and finished in 3:40 or so. It was so cool watching everyone and supporting all of my team mates. Almost my entire team nailed it although a few were realllly close to that 5 min mark. Hopefully it was our cheering that got them through the end. It’s kind of hard to explain the snatch test to those who haven’t been there…it was really inspirational and emotional to watch everyone complete this portion of the testing. I wanted to cry every time someone finished!

After testing we had a marketing lecture and ate some lunch as the victims showed up. (People from the area can sign up for a free kettlebell session and can get discounts on kettlebells, books, DVD’s, etc.) I ended up being paired with a really nice guy who had never trained with kettlebells before. We worked through the hip hinge and progressed to two hand swings. At the end, I gave him a 10 minute workout that included swings, farmers walks (stopped these because it was too crowded!), pushups, deadlifts and planks. He said he was really glad that he came because he had no idea just how much went into the kettlebell swing. He also said that he could see how people would get hurt if they didn’t have proper instruction (he’s right!). I felt really good about his progress in the limited time that we had and it made me even more excited about training new clients.

Right after training the victims we had our grad workout. Generally this is a really tough workout, especially because your body (and your hands) are pretty beat up from the weekend. Thanks to my preparation (with the help of my great coach) and the fact that I really watched what I ate for  a few weeks to get my weight low enough to test with the 12K, I was actually feeling pretty good even after a whole weekend of training. We ended up using a bell lighter than our snatch size for the workout which was a 10K for me. The workout wasn’t so bad, but I could see how it would have been really challenging for those with heavier weight!

We went back to the gym after the workout and waited to find out if we passed. I met briefly with my team leader and assistants and they let me know I PASSED. 🙂

Sunday night we went to dinner again, but honestly at that point I was really missing my little man (and my hubby) and couldn’t wait to get home. Four nights away is about two too many for me at this point. Monday I flew home (uneventful again thankfully!) and after running through the grocery store I went straight to daycare to get CJ. He sprint-crawled right over to the door and gave his momma a big fat hug. I missed him so stinkin much.

If I had to sum up the RKC in a few words I would say that it was tough, awesome, exciting, nerve-wracking, tiring and energizing all at the same time. (Maybe that was more than a few words.) I’m really happy I did it and I feel really proud of myself for accomplishing this goal, especially so soon after having a baby and with everything else we have had going on this past year.

Words of advice for those who are planning to attend an RKC in the future?

Prepare! Start training several months or even a year before the certification. Work with an RKC to check your technique. Follow a program and work with heavy bells so that lighter bells feel easy. You will do a ton of swings in 3 days. Increase your volume and take care of your hands as the certification approaches. Then back down the week before and get some rest to take care of your body. Bring snacks…lots of snacks. Enjoy it and take it all in. Realize that you are not the only one who is nervous…everyone is! If any of you are planning to attend this certification in the future and want some help/guidance please feel free to reach out.

Thanks to everyone at the RKC, especially my great team (Team Hull!) for an amazing weekend and thank you to all of my friends, family and blog readers for your continued support during my journey to the RKC! 🙂