I did 100 Reps of Snatch and All I Got was this Video

A few months ago I went to Salt Lake City to take part in the Strong First Kettlebell Level 1 certification. It was a great experience and I met a lot of really cool people, learned a lot of things and threw around a lot of iron. I think I did about a thousand swings on the first day, and then on the second day my hamstrings were like the grinches heart in that they grew two sizes that day.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little intimidated going into it. I mean, I can throw around weight like no ones business and I can hold my own in a lot of different physical challenges, but my big worry was my back holding out and not exploding across the room, and just simply surviving. My only real consolation for the weekend was that I wound up standing instead of sitting or lying on the ground in order to not cause some serious discomfort through my SI and low back. Aside from that, I was able to participate in almost everything thrown at me. The only thing I had to bow out on was the last workout of the weekend, as my back decided to become consistently tighter and tighter following the skills testing, letting me know it was getting prepared to head off into the Salt Lake desert at any point soon, with or without me.

When it came time for the skills portion of the certification we had to show competency of the major lifts and also complete a 100 rep snatch test with a 24 kg kettlebell. And complete it in 5 minutes.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqyixwqiCag’]

Why this was a necessary test is beyond me. It’s called Strong First, not Cardio First. Anything more than 5 reps is, by definition, not strength training anymore. Anything remotely close to 100 reps is both unnecessary and gross.

That being said, I still had to do it. The main test was abysmal. I was dead tired and had no  snap in my hips after being slowly filleted by copious volume. On a good day I have no snap in my hips, as my team leader pointed out, “You’ve got some slow glutes!” It’s an obvious fact, big white Canadians don’t have to move too quickly, so our glutes get slow, yet incredibly supple and responsive to the touch.

I hit 90 reps, passed out for a moment, considered giving Pavel a Stone Cold Stunner for coming up with this crap, and then hobbled my ass back up north where things make sense in order to train as much as possible and put in another effort of mediocrity.

(Note: This was at the Vancouver Olympics Closing Ceremonies. It all makes sense now, doesn’t it?)

Now while I’m sure a lot of people thought I would be pretty pissed and do what I could do to get that test finished within a few days of returning home, I decided to launch Post Rehab Essentials V.2.0 the day after I got home, which pretty much was a full time job on top of my full time job that week as it was.

Since then, I’ve been busier than usual with clients, but in an effort to re-gain some sanity I’ve cut back on my hours at work a bit, and with the nice weather I’ve been able to get some cardio biking to and from work with the crazy Edmonton traffic. Outside of that, I’ve realistically only had about 2-3 hours to work out each week, which has limited me to my ability to get optimal results from any training program to help me reach that goal.

May turned into June, and as it usually does, June turned into July. Time was working against my favour, and I figured if it was going to happen I would just have to knuckle down and get it done.

Yesterday was that day.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLpt107JNVU’]

Admittedly, from about 30 on they were pretty ugly and the tape was ill conceived. Hopefully I never have to do that again, but I know that if I ever have to do it again I’ll have a good shot of completing it then too.

I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there who can do this test with only one arm, and a few who could do it without even breaking a sweat and then go for a 10 mile ruck sack run afterwards. I don’t care. I managed to get through it, so I’m happy about that.

Part of the reason I wanted to do this certification was the physical challenge. Since I used to be a competitive athlete who was broken down by injuries, I’ve always still harboured that old competitive desire and urge to push myself in any way I could. There’s a lot of doors that have been slammed in my face, but I can still go through as many of them as possible that haven’t been closed. The challenge of this course was one that was doable, slightly outside of my normal comfort region, and something that would benefit me as a professional in my ability to help coach others. It was a win-win.

If you’re going to challenge yourself, go after it hard. If you can only muster 2 hours a week to train, make them quality hours of training. Work with purpose towards a goal, and it will fall.