I've been buried in analysis and proposal writing this past week, hence the delays. If all goes well I will be presenting an abstract at ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine) this May; so keep those fingers crossed. If anyone else is going to be there (talk about planning ahead) please drop me a line and we can talk "shop".
I am off to Z Heath Level 4 in AZ this coming Wed for some more Z Kool Aid. Whooo ha! Can't wait. I am looking forward to seeing everyone there again and learning some great new information.
RKC Wrap Up
Overall, the RKC was awesome!
Honestly, I went into it knowing that I would learn a lot, but figure some of it may go against what I believed (it is good to challenge beliefs). The main reason I signed up was that ALL of the RKCs I have met were top notch and excellent people in all respects; so I knew it must be good! I also have been reading Pavel's work for a long time and I always learned something new from him every time.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that I agreed with almost all of it, and the parts I am still trying to piece together in my mind I will be thinking, experimenting long and hard on for awhile.
From the outside, it would appear that Z Health and RKC are polar opposite, but I don't believe so and I found both of the systems discussing the same thing! Now, since I just did the RKC my experience with the RKC system is extremely limited at this point, but I found the similarities were
both talk about APPROPRIATE tension
relaxation when not lifting
breathing techniques (anatomical vs biomechanical match)
strength is a skill that must be practiced
long spine and proper alignment
the nervous system holds the keys to all of it!
I used to think that RKC was always about high tension and no relaxation, which is not true. Think of tension as a big dial. The closer you are to a 1 RM (rep max), the more tension you will need to lift the weight in a safe manner. Powerlifters are on this end of the spectrum, since the entire goal is to lift as much weight as possible within the confines of the rules. Now if you are doing an exercise with 50% of your max, you will need less tension. Yes, this is an over simplificiation. I think most people would be better off practicing BOTH ends of the spectrum and everything in between. If you lift in a commercial gym, you will know what I mean. Most there (none of the readers of this blog though of course) use too much tension with horrible alignment. Again, it is all about APPROPRIATE tension.
I want to give a shout out to the team leader of our group Brett Jones as he did an amazing job and it was great to be on his team. The assistants for our group Sandy and Brian were outstanding also. Everyone there was highly motivated from the team leaders and everyone participating. A special shout out to all team Jones members and each one of them gave it their all during the entire weekend. It was a grueling weekend with tons of work. I did more KB work in 3 days than I think I've done in the past month. The graduation training session was brutal, but it was nice to know it was the last one!
I highly recommend the RKC system to anyone that is interested.
Please post any comments below about Z and RKC as I think that would be an interesting discussion. I know Geoff Neupert had a few entries on his blog on this topic also. I believe both are talking about the same thing, but how they go about an end result is different.
Rock on
Mike N
