First, a fine sequence poster by Dr Tikhonov of Nikita Balagov with explanations for an optimal kettlebell snatch.
And then the bad and ugly.
I am in no way criticizing him. He has to start somewhere. The guy is obviously learning and we might as well learn from him. Goes to show that too light a kettlebell doesn’t give a good feedback of technique. The clip speaks for itself.
When it comes to performance in kettlebells, being smooth and using the body as one unit is of first order!
I want to introduce a friend of mine, Johannes Lierfeld, as he’s made a big effort of turning up for the Århus Kettlebell Cup in March and will come once more to Denmark for the Nordic Kettlebell Cup in September.
He’s an eclectic lifter and he likes to train in some rather unusual places, seeing the terrain and odd things laying around as his privileged toys.
TS: Johannes, please tell us something about yourself!
JL: Well, I am 33 years old, I work as a writer/producer for my own production company – YOUR MOVIE Genre Pool. Besides I teach screenwriting at the university and work as instructor for our partner enterprise PT1 International. This might sound pretty busy, and indeed it is! But for me it´s a blessing because I can make a living out of something I do with passion.
TS: What about your sports background and how you got into kettlebells?
JL: Well, I spend half of my life now engaging in strength sports and can look back to a little bit of a traveling through different worlds already. I started off at the age of 17, doing most likely raw powerlifting. I had no coach, just some equipment I bought, and I worked my ass off in the cellar of my parents. It was a crazy time going for heavy sets on the bench without spotter! When I went to university I started to train boxing, but I wanted to compete in strength sports, so I looked for an association, a place where I can seriously lift, learn and compete. Luckily I found this place – it was the second oldest German weightlifting club, AC Marburg 1888. 4 months after starting to work with the guys I went to my first competition and took 2nd place.
This was the time when bench shirts and all the equipment stuff came up and I went along, always doubting that this is the real way to lift, never getting the results out of the equipment that my opponents gained.
So I focused a little bit more on raw lifting and put up some nice numbers in the raw bench press: 170kg at 90kg (162,5kg in competition) and 165kg at 80kg (160kg in competition).
I still practice martial arts occasionally. I got hooked with the whole grappling game and studied Luta Livre, the brazilian way of submission wrestling. After some really heavy years where I carried around 100kg well-fed kilos I reduced my bodyweight to 80kg again and competed in some local grappling tournaments. To be honest I got in touch with kettlebells at a local grappling tournament where I saw – and touched – those iron bells for the first time.
TS: How did you get started doing kettlebells?
JL: I didn´t know about all the technical aspects at first. My goals and my whole approach where totally wrong: I wanted to lift the biggest bell around (which was 48kg) for ONE time (I didn´t care about reps like most powerlifters). Soon enough I realized that it´s not the challenge to lift a kettlebell ONCE but OVER & OVER!! Since then everything is different: I started to study the particular technique as a science in its own right. I started to work with Russian lifters, and I started to compete where Russian lifters do. There are people who are seeking fame, and there are people who are seeking truth, and I regard myself to belong to the second category. I wanna compete to learn and to know where I´m at. I wanna know the truth about me, haha!
TS: What´s your favourite GS event?
JL: I am not into dogmatism, I challenge myself in girevoy sport and kettlebell strong sport as well as grip competitions (another nice hobby and by-product of working with kettlebells). However, I prefer the press, the jerk and the long cycle over the snatch. I have no official ranking yet but did StrongSport with 32kg biathlon & long cycle (easy) and failed at attempting with 40 kg long cycle at the Århus Cup .
This year I competed in 4 girevoy sport events and won the German nationals in all 3 events I attended. But I know that I can´t stand my ground on international level yet, there´s a ton of work to do!!
TS: What do you think about the growing community of GS enthusiasts?
JL: It´s great! A short while ago, I competed in Turbigo/Milano. It was a great event organized by the amazing lifter, coach and personality Oleh Ilika (MILLE GRAZIE!!) and I met unbelievable athletes like Anton Anasenko or Mattia Amodio. I would be so proud if one day I would be able to achieve half of what they achieved already. Our sport is so great because it´s international, it´s about great people, and it´s about evolving – yourself and the sport!!
Mange tak, Thierry & we´ll see each other in Copenhagen in September!
Here’s a short article I want to share with you that might help you with your training goals. Specially for those of you that train for training sake and never compete in anything…
Returning from the Long cycle comp in Italy in May, I didn’t jump back straight into biathlon training. I figured out there was still lots of time to peak for the Biathlon World cup in November, and so I did a strength cycle. Which means that after the 1st of April I didn’t train much snatch until the end of May. 2 months of void.
I felt so sure that I would rebuild my old number quite rapidly and resume training with 24kg almost straight away… It had taken me 2 months to hit 200 reps with 20kg at the end of February this year, and 1 month later I to hit 143 reps with 24kg.
What a shock when I struggled to do a 6 minute set at 16 rpm with 20kg! Suddenly I doubted my plans…
Then came a shoulder dislocation. I was lucky, could have been worse, I resumed light training after a week. Then came Troy and lack of sleep…
I took regular deload weeks every 3 weeks, and I listened to my body according to how I felt on the day, regardless of my program.
For example, I was supposed to do this snatch test Saturday. But the day before I was too tired to complete my whole jerk workout, so I called it a day and did what I was missing on Saturday. Sunday I relaxed with some light juggling, trying new figures.
A good night sleep also helped! Here it is, 214 reps with 1 switch in 10 minutes.
All in all, it took me 2 months to slowly rebuild and surpass my previous PR with 2okg. I didn’t want to rush it to avoid injuries, and it paid off nicely I’d say!
This leaves me 3 month to hit 180+ with the 24kg, who knows, even maybe 200?
The first mag about kettlebells in English was launched only recently in the USA, and is available at newsagents or mail order for those of us living abroad.
The magazine covers a wide selection of topics from different sources, and is a good read for beginners and more advanced lifters. Like the title suggests, it talks both about GS and fitness.
There are articles from Strong guys like Bud Jeffries and Andrew Durniat, stuff about mobility, training suggestions, success stories and experiences from around the globe, and a great technical article about the Long Cycle and how to vary styles according to strength and weaknesses.
And it even has a 4 page article I was asked to write to help people achieve a better lockout
And then the bad and ugly.
Here’s a short article I want to share with you that might help you with your training goals. Specially for those of you that train for training sake and never compete in anything…
Finally, I settled an old score this morning…
The first mag about kettlebells in English was launched only recently in the USA, and is available at newsagents or mail order for those of us living abroad.
And it even has a 4 page article I was asked to write to help people achieve a better lockout 
