Sleep | Kettlebell Sport | Kettlebell Training | Girevoy | Kettlebell Lifting

1 January 2008

Sleepless Nights

By Andrew Durniat

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I sit here in the sauna of the Wooster YMCA consumed by the thoughts of next week. It’s a rest day, one week away from the day I’ll be traveling to Miami, Florida for the World Kettlebell Championships. Stretch, bake on high for 15 min, cold shower and then back to work for the day.

…Sleep, sleep, sleep… You’re not going to do anything unless you get some sleep….

I didn’t sleep much last night because all I could think about was jerks and snatches, find my rest and don’t give up. Keep pushing. I’ll start off at 8 reps a minute and if I feel good at the 6 minute mark, I’ll make the decision to go to 10 reps a minute; sounds good, I’ll do that, now try and get some sleep… Snatches felt good today, 16 reps a minute for 4 minutes on each arm, I can do one more minute. I wonder if I can finish with a 20 rep minute… What’s the snatch world record again? 211? Or is it 221? I can’t remember, but I can get there. I’ve done shorter sets going 20 reps a minute. I’ll start working on 18-20 reps per minute once I’m through next week successfully.

Sleep, sleep, sleep… You’re not going to do anything unless you get some sleep.

I’ve competed in kettlebell sport before; the 2006 World Championships in Ogre, Latvia, and the 2007 US Nationals in Salt Lake City. I’ve been a competitive athlete my whole life; college lacrosse All-American, and AAA hockey since I was 10. Top level competitions are nothing new, so what’s the big deal with this one?

I know I can do well and I have done very well in the past. In Salt Lake City, I became the first American male to go the full 10 minutes in the snatch portion of the competition, maintaining a pace of 12 reps a minute and finishing with 124 total snatch reps. I’ve done that same thing on two other occasions this year and have been training at 128 reps in 8 minutes lately, twice this week (Sunday and Wednesday) and will do it again on this coming Sunday.

My training is rather simple in design: jerk, snatch, swing, squat. Like Valery says, “do the basics better than anyone and the rest falls into place”. I train every other day of the week with sometimes two days off after particularly hard training days.

I’ve been asked what it takes to snatch the 32kg bell for 10 minutes nonstop. My answer is 4 inches. That’s approximately the distance between your ears. It is very much a mental game that you play with yourself.

For me, it is getting into the fourth minute. I crossed a HUGE hurdle this week be completing an 8 minute snatch set at 16 reps per minute by myself, something that had never been done before. My mind kept telling me to “Stop. It hurts. You’re getting tired.” Actually it was screaming at me but you get the point. So first off you need to ignore what your brain tries to tell you. Trust me, its only 10 minutes. You’ll be fine in a moment.

Next, you need to work on your grip. For this I use the often overlooked single arm swing. If you can swing, you can snatch. I regularly do three minutes of swings on each arm at the end of training days. This really seems to tax my grip and works the muscles in my hips and erectors, also needed for the snatch. Through talking with other kettlebellers, I have found that the swing is the first exercise to be deleted from their workouts. Let me revert to Valery’s earlier saying, “do the basics better than anyone and the rest falls into place.” I have found it to apply here as well.

Finally, when you start losing sleep over your jerk and snatch numbers, your probably pretty close to reaching your goal. Then you get to set a new goal to go after.

200 is going to be my new magic number, what is yours?

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