Bringing the focus back…

Justin brought the sexy back,

now Pavel has brought the focus back.

In our world of strength we push the issue of; Patterning, Drilling, and Rep-ing. This being done until the pattern is no longer feed fwd thought process but the automatic “go to” movement, so the exercise can be done when fresh or dog tired without diminishing safety.  A simple example would be the Swing.. This movement ,” simple in its complexity, yet beautiful in its simplicity, ” is a BIG Bang for your buck movement. So much so it is called the “Center of the Kettlebell Universe”. Swings are the Foundation of many programs, we have 10000 Swing Challenges, we see 1000 Swing days, throughout the year and other great challenges.. But the question comes, from those Swings is How many are solid Swings? How many of those 1000/10000 Swings are just mailed in? In our world of Patterning we tend to get lazy and just let the body take over. I’m guilty of this myself, been there done that..

 But now, enter  “Simple and Sinister”. Pavel’s new book on what else, the BASICS.. He takes our beloved Program Minimum, adds a few warm up tweaks, flips it around then calmly demands FOCUS. Gone are the get what you can get done reps in “X” time.. Now your limited, 10 sets of 10 solid Heavy, Hardstyle/Strong/Pavel Swings anyway you want for 100 total quality reps. You notice right from the cover, Pavel’s free hand is used in the single hand Swing. It’s not off to the side, it’s tense right in front of him. You can see the irradiation being used to produce “Total Body Tension” in that Swing. FOCUS.  Patterning is great, but without focus they just become, reactions, add focus, they become intentions, intentions lead to more. More; strength, power, fat loss, cardio, flexibility, mobility. And isn’t that what we want?

Now the Get Up gets knocked around a bit as well. Gone are the time of just getting up. Now the heavy weights come out. I believe it was Jeff O’Connor who I first heard say ” We use light weight for corrections, but heavy weight corrects you’. Get Ups with heavy weight really grab your attention. You will focus on owning each position when there is a heavy iron Bell over your head.

And of course where would we be without a test to find baseline?

5 minute Swing test. As many Heavy one arm Swings in 5 minutes. Switch and rest as much as you want.. As you move through “Simple and Sinister” program you will see this number go up…

I recommend it..