This post Chinese New Year, we would be revamping our website and programs.

There would not be any technique classes offered nor special classes. In stead there would be bootcamp style workout classes. And there would be multiple levels of skill so that even if you have no experience, you still can participate in the class with the advanced skill athlete.

Technique work would be available as personal training as well as all other programs.

Customized semi-private classes are still available for technique and training.

Watch this space!

Regards

Herman

As i have mentioned elsewhere, individual joint movements are the ABCs of movement, compound movements are the words. Get your ABCs right and your words would improve.

Anyway, there are people who want more specific exposition on the benefits of kb lifting (and SnC in general) so here goe

We would look at the benefits in terms of the 7 Key Components of Structure in Circular Strength Training (CST).

Kettlebell moves are mainly divided into:

Pulls: swing, clean, 1/2 snatch, snatch

Pushes: press, push press, jerk

For videos of the movements, please go here.

I hope that is beneficial to you. Of course we can go into more specific exercises like the Turkish Get Up, but these are not from the kettlebell Classic Lifts. You can do them with sandbags, which gives a more difficult challenge than using a solid weight.

Are you free to move?

Are you in pain and looking to get rid of your pain?

Are you in high performance sports and looking to improve your performance?

Come now for this joint mobility session. Discover pain-free range of motion through the Intu-Flow(R) Longevity System, a simple exercise programme that can be done in minutes.

Intu-Flow® produces pain-free, energized results faster than you ever thought possible! Referred to variously as ‘yoga in motion,’ ‘tai chi without the fluff,’ or ‘hi-tech Qigong’, Intu-Flow® is a powerful Key, unlocking the door to:

Deep Relaxation

Whole Body Tension Release

Increased Focus & Concentration

Heightened Sensory Awareness

Enhanced Joint Mobility

Superior Athletic Performance

Bioenergy Amplification

As an easy to perform meditation, Intu-Flow® is available to everyone, young and old, men and women, without years of arduous study or injury producing excess. These exercises have helped thousands of busy people, from all walks of life, get Intu-Flow® every day.

A flowing, intuitive harmony of basic, biomechanically efficient movement, structural body alignment, and simple breathing, Intu-Flow® is an exquisite synergy of modern scientific health research and ancient somatic wisdom; an easy to learn, do-it-at-home, playfully fun way to superior health that does not involve weekly classes or regular expenses, year after year. The results are both immediate and profound; once experienced, Intu-Flow® helps you feel so good, your day will not feel complete without it.

Getting Intu-Flow® is easy, but far from superficial. Simple and user-friendly, nothing fancy or complex, it teaches you to maximize your health, throughout your day, with each breath. Combining the best from both Eastern and Western traditions, Intu-Flow® is a delightful daily journey into pain-free movement and healthy longevity. More often than not, the most effective approach is the simplest approach.

Intu-Flow® produces pain-free, energized results – without struggle, and with only a few minutes a day.

FREE ENTRY! BY INVITATION ONLY.

Date: 23 Jan 2010
Time: 3-5pm
Location: SOHO @ Central, 8 Eu Tong Sen Street, Singapore

If you are coming, please:
-Be on time (this session is in a private access area)
-Stay until the end of the program.

To register, SMS <Free to move, your name, your guests’ names> to Herman at 96406544.

See you there.

Herman Chauw
Your Personal Trainer
www.hermanchauw.com

Hey guys and girls,

The season of giving is here. And i and going to give you special discounts if you take action now.

Special Discounted Class fees:

1 session – $20

4 sessions – $67.5

8 sessions – $126

12 sessions – $162

16 sessions – $180

Unlimited entries:

1 week – $54

2 weeks – $104

3 weeks – $144

Usual discounts: Student discount (10%), repeat client discount (10%) and referred client discount (10%) apply in addition to these prices.

These prices are valid only for new sign ups this month and expiry date is 31 Dec 2009. Clients who have existing sessions may also sign up for new sessions at this rate.

Thanks and regards.

————————————————————————————————————————————-

End of Year Sale Part II

Hey guys and girls,

I am also giving you special rate for customized classes and personal training.

Group Classes:

-$90 per session (for non-profit organisations)

-$18 per person per session subject to a minimum of $100 (profit organisations or semi-private groups)

Personal Training:

-$90 one session

-$360 five sessions

-$630 ten sessions

Usual discounts: student discount (10%), repeat client discount (10%), referred client discount (10%) applies in addition to these prices.

These prices are valid only for new sign ups this month and expiry date is 31 Dec 2009. Clients who have existing sessions may also sign up for new sessions at this rate.

Thanks and regards.

I have emailed you several times about kettlebells, now listen to the military guys themselves speak. Pick up kettlebells now.

But are they really expensive? Let’s analyse.

Buying the equipment or buying the benefits

There are people who buy exercise machines like treadmills, stacked weight machines, Osim iGallop etc. Which cost a lot more than kettlebells. Why don’t they think these are expensive?

When you buy a piece of equipment, are you buying the equipment or are you buying the exercises that you can do with it and the benefits of doing those exercises?

A treadmill is just a machine made up of metal cogs, electrical wires and some other stuff. I don’t think you want to buy a treadmill for the sake of the material it is made up of. Some people won’t even bother what is the mechanism of the treadmill. You buy a treadmill because you want to run on it and you perceive that running on it is worth buying the equipment. When you buy a treadmill, you only buy running.

A painting is just a piece of canvas with some paint on it. The cost of the material is cheap. Why do people buy paintings at high prices, much more than what the material cost?

A DVD is just a piece of plastic, but can cost >USD30. A DVD-R cost just a dollar, plus minus. If you think some exercise instructional DVDs are expensive, why don’t you just buy a stack of DVD-Rs?

A kettlebell is just a ball of steel. When you buy a kettlebell, you buy the swing, clean, press, push press, jerk, snatch and many more exercises that you can do with it. A kettlebell only cost <SGD$200, a lot cheaper than treadmills or other exercise machines. With the many exercises that you can do with it, ask yourself again, is it expensive?

A lot of people compare kettlebells with dumbbells and say that with the same amount of money that can buy them a kettlebell, they can get a rack of dumbbells. That is true, but you can do a lot more exercises with a kettlebell than a dumbbell. You can do all dumbbell exercises with a kettlebell but not the other way around.

Will you grow out of them

If you think they are expensive because you will grow out of them someday, you are wrong. My first kettlebell is a 16kg. I have been training with kettlebells for 3+ years. Until now there are exercises that are challenging for me with the 16kg, like the bottom up press. Heck, there are exercises that are challenging for me with 8kg and 12kg, like juggling.

You will grow out of dumbbells but you don’t grow out of kettlebells.

Check out Valery Fedorenko, Master of Sport in Kettlebell Lifting, doing 2006 reps of push press with a 16kg, a beginner’s weight.

Space saving

Which one takes up more space? A kettlebell or a rack of dumbbells?

Buying a kettlebell saves you space, buying a rack of dumbbells spends you space. I would rather save space than spend space.

Convenience

A kettlebell is portable, a rack of dumbbells is not portable. In case that you want to go outdoors or bring your equipment elsewhere for training, a kettlebell is much easier to transport than a rack of dumbbells. Bringing that one kettlebell allows you to do all the exercises that you can do at home at whatever location you choose.

If you want to do all the exercises that you do at home with your rack of dumbbells elsewhere you need to bring the whole rack along. I don’t think anybody in their right mind will do that. You can bring along one dumbbell, but that means you can’t bring the other exercises with you.

Conclusion

The same thing can be said of ClubbellsTM or any other product or services in the market.

Ask yourself again, is it expensive? You are entitled to your own opinion. If you still think it is expensive, the one losing out is you.

I want to bring to your attention “active recovery”. Which means that healing comes from within the body. Specifically i want to talk about motor skills practice. This is a most important factor in rehabilitation that is lacking.

Movement is highly specific. If you want to perfect a movement, you have to practice it perfectly many times over. Surely passive recovery methods bring pain relief. But it is temporary. When the patient goes back to his normal life, because his motor skills have not been corrected, he keeps getting himself injured and the pain comes back. So he goes to the physical therapist again and again without actually getting better overall.

Why is motor skills so important? With proper technique in all movements, all activities, the body is using its available resources efficiently. With improper technique there is abnormal wear and tear which cause degeneration and pain.

You think you know how to move because you have been doing it all your life? You cannot be more wrong. Have a look around, how many people know how to squat properly? How many people know how to deadlift properly? If they know, why is it that back pain and knee pain are so common? Why is it that weightlifters and powerlifters can do these movements with heavy weights (some of these athletes are riddles with pain but that is another story)? How many people know how to run properly? Why is it that people keep getting knee pain from running? The problem is not the movement, the problem is how you do the movement.

I function primarily as a “movement coach”, not as a “rehab therapist”. There are enough people out there giving fish to their clients. I want to teach people to catch their own.

Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime.

Want to catch your own fish? Start with daily joint mobility and basic motor skills.

Most of these advices are given either because:

-People really do not know what they are talking about.

-People do not want to spend time teaching clients proper technique, which is absolutely important for a safe and effective weight training program.

Or a combination or both.

1) Squats hurt your knees

I have heard this many times and the people who say this are people who do NOT do the squat as an exercise. However on the other hand, there are people who squat heavy and do not get knee pain.

What’s the catch? If you squat wrongly, as a lot of people do, knee dominant style, you WILL get knee pain. If you squat properly, you won’t get knee pain.

2) You must not let the knees go beyond the toes in the squat

For beginners, this advice probably is not bad, especially if they squat knee dominant. However this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The truth is that in all normal activities involving knee flexion, your knees WILL go beyond the toes. When you walk, run, jump, climb stairs etc. All involve getting the knees beyond the toes.

What is the catch? It is the hip angle or hip action. If you get your glutes activating properly in the squat, the knees are well protected. Some coaches teach that the most important knee (and ankle) stabilizers are the glutes.

3) You must not squat below parallel, or partial squats are safer than full squats

Another advice of similar type to the above. If your squat technique is poor, partial squats probably are safer than full squats.

But surprise of all surprises, the forces in the knee joints are lower in the full squat than in the half squat. Full squats activate the hamstrings and glutes more than partial squats. Which means better knee stability.

Oh by the way, if you squat fully, you can’t help but get the knees beyond the toes.

So we already have 3 points about squats, it is no wonder that so many people shy away from this excellent exercise. If you want to improve your squat technique, please come for my squat class.

4) Deadlifts hurt your back

Related to the first post. Most people equate deadlift with bending down from the spine. They can’t differentiate bending down from the waist (ie spine) and bending down from the hips.

Take a look at this diagram to know what is the waist and what is the hip:

Bending from the waist is dangerous, but not bending from the hips. In the proper deadlift, the hips is where all the action of the movement takes place. The hips are designed to do this, not the waist.

If you want to improve your deadlift techqnique and prevent back pain, come for my deadlift class.

5) Overhead lifting is dangerous

I don’t really know what people mean when they say this. Probably they are thinking of a missed lift and that it is difficult to get yourself out of the way of a falling bar/dumbbell.

But the truth is, it is much safer than the commonly done bench press. Assuming you lift in a safe place (ie not cluttered with equipment, not have people walking past you when you train, with an empty space where you can dump the bar), it is very easy to escape from a falling barbell. Just see a weightlifting competition to see how the lifters do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDKYYOp5YYI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

On the other hand, if you miss a bench and do not have any spotter nearby, you are in for a tough time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65xb52D3Yw4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

Lying down on a bench, there is just no room for you to react if you drop the bar.

One reason why common gyms do not allow you to dump the bar is because they are more concerned with the flooring and equipment than your safety. The floor can be repaired, you only have one body to last a lifetime. So please please please dump the bar if you miss an overhead lift.

Ok, here’s a hilarious one. But the point is still the same. Better than having the bar dropped on your chest or throat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv7S4P9i5j0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

6) Overhead lifting hurt your shoulders

Another false advice from well meaning people. It is true to say that if you lift overhead without the proper shoulder and elbow alignments, you will hurt your shoulders.

The proper way to lift overhead whether with barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell or clubbell®

is to have the shoulder packed into its socket, activating the shoulder depressors (lats and rotator cuff) and the elbow must be locked when getting into the overhead position. Hence the term lockout.

Furthermore, overhead lifting is a good way to maintain mobility and stability and improve strength in the shoulder girdle.

Check out this video on the proper form of the press:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfa3aWI-O4s&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

Come for my classes if you want to learn overhead lifting properly.

7) You need to wear cushioned shoes to absorb the impact of _____________(insert any activity here)

Cushioned shoes definitely feel comfortable. However they give you a false sense of security by giving you the impression that they protect your joints better than uncushioned shoes or barefoot.

Do you know that there are sensitive pressure sensors in your feet? Through feedback, the body recognizes signals from these sensors and activate your muscles accordingly. Cushioning alters the pressure distribution on your feet and confuses your nervous system. Resulting in abnormal muscle activation, causing more damage to your joints.

Shoe manufacturers also want you to know that the more expensive the shoes, the more technology they put into shock absorption. So you would do well to avoid these shoes. Save your money and joints.

Proper pressure feedback to the body also increases force production or strength, that is why in weightlifting and powerlifting shoes are non-cushioned.

If possible, do your activities barefoot. But of course it is not feasible to be barefoot all the time. Here are good shoes with little or no cushion for general purpose:

• Ultimate Grappling Shoes
• Vibram Five Fingers
• Adidas Jawpaw

Socks are fine too.

You need to max out every time you train

Initially, if you have no training background, it could feel that you are maxing out every time you train. You’d feel sore and achy for a couple of days after your first few training sessions. This probably gives the impression that you need to do get soreness everytime you train.

However progress is not determined by what you feel (although in some sense yes, but that is another story). Progress is determined by what you can do.

Maxing out every time you train is a sure recipe for stagnation and burnout.

You need to vary of training volume and intensity every time you train to progress. This idea is called periodization.

9) Do not lock your joints in weight training movements to prevent injury to them

This advice may have come from the bodybuilding community, whereby they want to keep the load on the muscles and not on the joints. Not a bad idea, at least it serves their purpose.

However, locking your joints does not cause injury. Have you stood in a parade before. Notice that your knees WILL lock without you even thinking about them. The fact is that locking of the joints is a natural way to save energy from muscle contraction in normal movement. It is proper structure.

Please note also that your joints need strengthening as well as your muscles. So to eliminate the lockout means letting the joints remain weak. I hope that it is not something that you want.

Furthermore, locking the joints adds stability to certain movements, like overhead lifting. Without the lockout, the structure is weak and you need to use more muscular force in the lift. You can also risk injuring your soft tissues if you eliminate the lockout.

10) Explosive lifting is dangerous

This is another advice that is okay for beginners but not the whole truth about movement. Everyday in your life, you have to do some movements explosively, whether running, jumping or throwing or a combination of these.

Whether the resistance in the movement is your body, an everyday object or a weight training equipment does not matter.

Most of kettlebell lifts are explosive, but there are many, and i mean MANY expert kettlebell lifters from Eastern Europe who continue lifting and breaking records past their fifties or sixties.

That’s it for today. I hope you have enjoyed the information i presented to you. Have fun with your training. Please post any questions and comments to singaporekettlebellclub@gmail.com.