Tag Archives: Kettlebell

Kettlebell lifting Dublin

Build Bulletproof Shoulders With The Turkish Get Up

The Turkish Get Up is possibly one of the most fun things you can do with your clothes on.

And if done well the benefits are far reaching.

I use it with my guys mostly for the shoulder health aspects, not necessarily the core strength that most people talk about.

While we are supporting the bell in an outstretched arm, we move our body around underneath it, we take our arm from straight out in front of us, to out to the side and eventually overhead.
All under significant load (you do use load on your get ups don’t you…..?)

If we keep our neck long and our thumb angled so it points slightly rearwards, the loading through our scapula (shoulder blade) is a very real thing, which means the muscles that control that scapula are working very hard as we go from lying down to either sitting or standing.

Now there’s a lot of words there, and I could write a lot more, but instead I invite you to watch this tutorial video instead.
It’s about 10 minutes long, but should answer most of the questions we get on the Get Up:

Turkish Get Up tutorial from Dave Hedges on Vimeo.

In my old Kettlebell Workshop series, the Get Up featured in Level 2.
I’ve had several requests over the last couple of months for more details on the Turkish Get up and on Kettlebells in general.

I think it’s time to dust off the old workshops this year.

In the next few weeks I’ll announce a Level 1 & 2 Kettlebell Workshop, which will give you everything you need to know about:
Level 1 – Swing, Goblet Squat, Press
Level 2 – Turkish Get Up, Clean

These workshops are open to everyone from absolute novices to experienced coaches.

Be sure you’re on the mailing list to get the announcement.
Until then, here’s the manuals I mentioned:

[products tag=”kettlebell”]

Regards

Dave Hedges

kettlebell, strength

Your Chance to Train with A World Renowned Strength Coach

Leave a comment

You have to have been living under a rock to not have heard about the value of kettlebell training for martial arts.

If you train at Wild Geese Martial Arts, you’ll be familiar with the extensive set of kettles behind the squat rack at the end of the room. You should also be aware of Coach Dave Hedges, WGMA’s resident Strength & Conditioning coach who is always willing to help out our competitive fighters by using these tools.

You may not know that Dave has a coach he learns from.

A man who is also an accomplished martial artist, who knows the body, is known for incredible feats of strength, power and mobility.

A man that BJJ legend Xande Ribiero has recently hired to prepare for his next BJJ cometition.

A man who will be in Wild Geese next month to run a short workshop on his training methods.

Who are we talking about?

Non other than Steve Cotter.

DSCF1834-701476

Here’s a video clip of his presenting some of his methods:

And here’s a clip of him and his business partner, Ken Blackburn teaching a workshop. Jumo to 3min 20s to see Steve really show off!

There’s a reason he’s one of the worlds most popular and sought after coaches.

Tickets are on sale now for May 21st in Wild Geese.

Get yours

Eventbrite - Steve Cotter Dublin Workshop

Wild Geese.

Personal Training Dublin, Strength and Conditioning

Can you survive the Lunges Of Death?

Leave a comment

Wild Geese Fitness members enjoy a good bit of variety in their training, Kettlebells, bodyweight, barbells, sandbags, strength focus, endurance focus. Just plain old variety.
But in order to ensure that progress is being made we have a few benchmark tests or challenges that we throw out every now and again.
Usually these are either a max effort lift, max repetition set or a timed challenge.
It’s the time challenges that really get everyone going, they seem to create the most competition and camaraderie then the other challenges.

One such challenge was on todays menu, feel free to try it out for yourself, see how you get on.
I’ll be honest, it was set by a different crew, but we put our own spin on it. The video below is the original post from Smitty over at the Diesel Crew, he uses a 50lb Bulgarian bag and lunges the length of a football field.
Here at Wild Geese Fitness we have the metric system, no Bulgarian bags and no football pitch. So we use 90 meters (98.4 yards) which just so happens to be 6 lengths of the training floor, I put a medicine ball at the turn around points to ensure nobody cheats. In place of the Bulgarian bag we hold a Kettlebell in each hand, most opting for a suitcase carry which really does a number on your grip!

50lb = 22.7kg, so most of our guys and girls hold a pair of 12kg kettles (24kg = 53lb!), although most have since stepped up to 16’s (70lb), 20’s (88) and one or two (myself included) have even used 24kg bells (53lb).
Last time I did it with a pair of 24’s it took 5 minutes dead and left me limping for about 5 days!

So if you’re up to taking the diesel challenge, even if you’re doing it Wild Geese style, watch this video, or talk to any of our regular members, then grab a stopwatch and a weight and away you go.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlMxZyacKYI&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Regards

Dave
www.wg-fit.com

Kettlebell lifting Dublin, Strength and Conditioning

15 minute challenge

Leave a comment

I’ve been getting a lot of cautious interest about the Lunchtime Fitness training sessions that I’m running at Wild Geese.

After all, what can you possibly do to get fit in 30 minutes? I mean seriously, thats what Curves claims up the road and nobody ever gets results there!

So when one of our fighters turns up the other day and says “I’ve got 15 minutes, what have you got for me?” I set him to work and grabbed my camera.

The following is one round of the circuit I set him, the second I think. He manged to get half way through his 5th round before the buzzer went off and he hit the showers and returned to the office.

Watch the vid, thry the circuit and respond with your total, remember it’s the max number of rounds in 15 minutes:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffx_UQL0kU8&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

The circuit is as follows:
Clean & Press x 5
Bodyweight Rows x 10
Swing x 10 L/R
Squat x 20

Ensure the weight you use is heavy.
It’s not about quantity of work, it’s about quality.

Regards

Dave
www.Wg-Fit.com

kettlebell, Kettlebell lifting Dublin, Personal Training Dublin, Strength and Conditioning

Level 1 Kettlebell Workshop – Lifting for Lia

Leave a comment

On the 2nd Feb a group of fighters and fitness enthusiasts all gathered together at Wild Geese HQ for a Kettlebell Basics workshop.

It’s something I had been promising for a while, but as I’m so busy, often forget to arrange until too close to the date.

This time though it was different.

Our resident Kickboxing coach, Ronan McSweeny, had actually requested that I run a workshop as he’d seen me using them, had a go and thought, this could help.

So he put word out amongst his crew and then said “Dave, need to run a workshop”

Who am I to argue with the Irish, 4 Nations and World Full Contact belt title holder?

We set a date and I got to work.

The result was a cracking afternoon with attendance from a wide range of people, Kickboxers, Brazillian JuJitsu players, Mixed Martial Arts fighters, fitness enthusiasts and our intrepid Judo Coach.

There were one or two cancelled late on but have since paid up and one or two who handed over cash even though they knew they wouldn’t be in attendance.

Why would they do such a thing?

Because all the money raised on the day was to be donated to the Lia Stem Cell Fund (www.liastemcellfund.com), I’ve written about this poor girl before, but please click the link, you’ll find a whole heap of info on fundraising events and even instructions on how to donate directly into the fund.

We raised a little over €200 on the day. Future workshops will raise even more.

But back to the day….
After a joint mobility warm up participants were taken in detail through the three foundation movements in kettlebell lifting, the Squat, the Swing and the Press.
Over a 2 hour period the gathered crowd learned, listened, asked questions and practiced these drills until each and every one of them had a thorough understanding of the hows and why’s of the methods taught.

This all culminated in a short workout using the same 3 moves.

I’ve since decided to call the workshop my Level 1. I will be expanding on this with further workshops until the participant has enough knowledge and experience under his or her belt to become a certified instructor.

Unlike any other certification I’ve seen, the completion of the workshop does not guarantee a pass. I will expect you to teach a seminar or class of beginners (including myself) before the title of Coach is bestowed upon you.

It is a title that can and will be rescinded if misrepresented.

At Wild Geese we take our reputation very seriously.

That said, I will be running another Level 1 workshop on the 7th March, between 12 and 2pm.

Cost will be €20 per head, all going into www.liastemcellfund.com

To book your place either email me on info@wildgeesema.com or drop me a line on 087 672 6090.

You can also book me to run a workshop at your own club/gym/venue. I’ll still donate the cash.

Regards

Dave

kettlebell, Kettlebell lifting Dublin, Personal Training Dublin, Strength and Conditioning

Warm Ups

Leave a comment

Warming up.

Not something I’ve ever been really good at.

So what right have I to write a post about it?

Simple. Just because I hate doing the warm ups, I force myself to. I wasn’t always this way and I’ve had the injuries to prove it.
My philosophy was always to start doing whatever I was going to do but at a nice easy pace and slowly ramp it up.

What this meant was I’d jump onto my mountain bike and be in top gear standing on the pedals within 100 meters. I’d tie my shoes on for a run and as soon as I was out the front gate I’d be at full tilt.

I wasn’t much different when it came to lifting.

As I got a little older, I started to wonder why the knees, hamstrings and back were always at me. And then one day BANG!

There goes the back. One misaligned Sacroilliac joint and one herniated disk. 6 months of having to warm up to merely get my sock on.

Now, I warm up for everything.

But how do you warm up? there are so many conflicting stories and evidence that it’s difficult to make heads nor tails of exactly what to do.

Over the years I’ve reached the conclusion that a warm up should be quick and simple. It should tell you how your body is performing today, does it need special attention in any particular areas and is it rested enough to go hard in the days training.
In other words a warm up is not merely a thing you have to do before the meat of the program, it is more like a systems check.

Are the shoulders tweaking? Warm them up more, or maybe leave out pressing today.
Is the hip stiff? Spend longer mobilising, perhaps even stretch.

Learning to listen to the body is a vital skill.

So how do we warm up?
Simple, take a 10-15 minute time slot and break it down. Start by elevating the body tepmerature, skiping or jogging is good here. Then mobilise each and every joint, start with the major joints, the hips and shoulders. Move to smaller and smaller.
Then get active. The following video is one of my most effective warm up routines.
It’s5 minutes of kettlebell work.

I’d already spent a few minutes skipping. This was followed by:

Hand to Hand Swings – warm the hips and hamstrings, elevate temperature
Kettlebell juggling – Wake up the nervous system and boost hand eye coordination
Over head Squat/Windmill – Open the chest and shoulders, stretch the hips
Circular Cleans – Great for the shoulders, gets them nice and warm, also loosend the waist.
Halo’s – For shoulder mobility and core activation

That just about hits all the bases, but the proof is in the pudding. The day I filmed this I hit 2 new PR’s in my strength program. Now thats a good warm up!

Here’s the vid:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muU21UpjejI&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Let me know how you get on

Dave

And Don’t forget, on the 7th Feb I’m running a Kettlebell Basics Workshop in aid of the Breaking for Lia fundraiser. You’ll get a full joint mobility session at the beginning as your warm up!

home workouts, kettlebell, Kettlebell lifting Dublin, Strength and Conditioning

Kettlebell Basics Workshop – 7th Feb

Leave a comment

IKFF & IUKL-IKSA Kettlebell Coach Dave Hedges will be teaching the basics of Kettlebell lifting.

This compressed 2hour workshop will cover:

  • The Kettlebell Swing
  • The Press and variations
  • The Front Squat

No experience is necessarry to participate in this workshop.

Numbers will be limited to ensure quality of instruction. The cost of the workshop will be €20 (discounts for WGMA members) which we will donate to the Breaking For Lia fund in accordance to this post :http://bit.ly/5egGuv

  • Location: Wild Geese Martial Arts (see http://www.wildgeesema.com/ for map to location)
  • Date: Sun 7th Feb Time: 1600 – 1800hrs
  • Cost: €20, discounts for WGMA members.
  • All procedes will go to the Breaking for Lia fund (http://bit.ly/5egGuv)

See you there