BONUS Lessons from the IKO 2021 World Championships

Welcome to the platform podcast. This is a special bonus episode where we debrief on the IKO World Championships at the 2021 Cali Open hosted by the Orange Kettlebell Club and sponsored by Kettlebell Kings. It was the 10th anniversary of the Cali Open and hosted entirely online and live streamed on the Kettlebell Kings YouTube and Facebook channels. Thank you guys so much for blazing the trail and putting on this virtual event. It was such a great time and I know it took a ton of work to sort through all the technical difficulties as well as manage the logistics. Very much appreciated. In this episode, I talk about the results, the incredible members of my team were able to achieve this weekend as well as some of the lessons learned from this unique experience that you can take with you to your next event, be it online or in person. Say October 9th at the Twin Cities Kettlebell Open here in beautiful Minneapolis, Minnesota. I hope to see you there. I also want to take a second to say that I am incredibly grateful that you listen to this podcast. If you haven't already, please be sure to leave a rating and review of the platform podcast in your app of choice and support my work by supporting our sponsors whose links you'll find in the episode notes. And if you want to step on the platform and competing kettlebell sport, please reach out to me. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club or email me at Twin Cities KettlebellClub at gmail.com. Now let's step onto the platform. I welcome in to the platform podcast for a quick debrief on the events of the IKO World Championships 2021, hosted by our friends at Kettlebell Kings and hosted by the Orange Kettlebell Club. So first off, shout out to Jay Perkins, Chad Price, Aaron Gayet from Kettlebell Kings for sponsoring the event and running a lot of the logistics behind it. John Wilde Buckley and Jason Dolby from the Orange Kettlebell Club for putting the event on. This was the 10th annual Kali Open, which is super, super freaking cool to have a kettlebell, a kettlebell event that's been going on for over a decade now that we managed to keep going in some pretty challenging circumstances. This is really freaking cool. So big props to you guys. It was really, really fun. It was great to hear. The commentary, I really enjoyed that. It was really fun to hear you guys' expertise on the different techniques and hearing you guys give feedback about the different lifters and live while the lists were going on was really cool. It was really fun. My kids actually came downstairs. I had the live stream up on my TV downstairs. You know, on YouTube streaming live on my on my big screen and so the kids were like, is that kettlebell on TV? And I was like, yeah, it is. It's the wave of the future. So that was that was really cool. Then when I was watching replays of one of the flights that I was in, they could see me on the TV and they're like, hi, daddy, trying to talk to my recording, which was super cute. But it was super, it was super fun. What a great weekend. Really, really awesome. So again, thank you guys. I know this was a unique challenge. You guys were leading the charge here on being the first, as far as I'm aware, being the first people to really put on a large scale, coordinated live streamed kettlebell competition with 100 plus participants. I got to watch somebody lift in India, which was pretty cool. You know, people lifting from the UK, Chris, Chris guy was in one of the one of the flights that I was in, you know, so getting to lift with one of the, you know, lift virtually with one of the best best lifters in the UK, you know, as he's crushing my ass and jerk. But you know, as me against me, anyway, so I don't care like Chris is a beast. So, you know, but it was just, it was just super fun. I had so much fun. And I really, really enjoyed it. So thank you guys so much. I appreciate all of the effort. I know you guys put in so much time and a lot live streamed from like, you know, eight or nine o'clock in the morning until, you know, late into the evening the first night and then, you know, into the afternoon at least on the second night. And making sure people from all over the world had an opportunity to lift and be inflexible with the rules, letting people lift with what they had on hand because they couldn't be not everybody has access to kettlebell kings, kettlebells, you know, you know, just letting people lift with what they had and really making it inclusive. Okay, I tip the cap to you, even though it's a stocking cap, I tip my cap to you guys, really, really appreciate it. So that was kind of the biggest, the biggest thing. Thank you. And thank you to all the lifters and to all the teammates and to all of this fucking amazing community, man. I love the kettlebell sport community so much. It the kettlebell people are the best people, like, seriously, I have never found a community of people that are so welcoming, so fun, so engaging and like, people I become friends with so easily, even, even just virtually, like over distance and social media and what have you, like, I still, you know, you get to know people very, very quickly and they're welcoming and encouraging and open to giving feedback, taking feedback. Encouraging one another, like, I just love it so much. So just thank you to everybody for being a part of this. It really, like, made my weekend so much so much better and like kettlebell sport has made my life so much better. This is my passion. Like, I love it. And the reason I love it so much is because of the people. I've just met so many amazing and wonderful people in this sport that I cannot, I cannot express gratitude deeply and adequately, I'm not articulate enough to, to adequately express how much the sport means to me and how much this community means to me. So from the deepest depths of my heart, thank you to everyone who is part of this community. And to those that aren't part of this community yet. What are you waiting for? The water is, the water is nice. The people are even better. So get your ass in here and come enjoy the, enjoy the fun of kettlebell sport. It really is, it really is a lot of fun. So, so moving forward to some other lessons this learned this weekend. Well, first, second, I guess, I have to give recognition to my team. The, the twins, they just kettlebell club had five lifters competing this weekend, not, not including myself. We had five lifters lifting this weekend. And they all fucking repped out. I am so proud of my team to everybody that competed. They did so well. I'm so proud to have them, you know, wearing our shirt, lifting under, lifting under our club. They have been super consistent in training. You know, so in no particular order, Jay, Emron, Greg, Anora, Audrey, all kicked ass this weekend. It was, it was just, just great to be able to see you guys get on the platform and show the results that you've earned in practice and seeing you in practice over and over and over again. You know, seeing the results that you've put in the work that you've put in to get to get a chance to go out and, and then put your skills on display. And the thing, the thing that I think I am most appreciate about all of my athletes is to a fault. They are perfectionists and they want to do better. They want to do the best that they possibly can, you know, I, I, I was, I had the privilege of coaching Emron here in the Twin Cities in person at the athlete lab, which is going to be our host for the, to Twin Cities kettlebell open here in October. I did change the name from invitational to open because I want it to be open to all. It's not an invitational. The invitation is anybody who wants to lift. So it is not an invitational. It is an open. So it's open to all. There is no prequalification. So I'm going to change the name. But I had the privilege of coaching Emron here at the athlete lab. And he was super pissed, super pissed at the end of his very first competition long cycle set because he did not finish the 10 minutes, which has been something that we have emphasized in practice. I always talk about finishing the time, managing your pace to finish the time, making sure you finish the time, etc. And not not giving up on sets, finishing the time. And he was flame and pissed because he made it to nine minutes and like 45 seconds. He didn't finish the full 10 minutes. He brought the bells down to outside his frame. After he like did a clean a jerk and on that jerk, he locked out his right arm, but his left arm failed him because he just had given everything his body could give at that point. And wasn't able to lock out the left arm, brought him back down, had him outside of his frame outside of the rack position. And I was there with him in person. I told him just to put them down. No, I want to finish the time. I was like, no, put them down. You have no more reps in the tank. Like, it's okay, just put them down. But so I love the fact that he didn't want to quit. He didn't want to put the bells down. I literally had to yell at him to put the bells down because he was done. He couldn't get another rep that would have counted. And he was only going to risk injury by continuing on, but he did not want to give up. Right. And, you know, my other, my other athlete here in the Twin Cities, you know, one of my other athletes here in the Twin Cities, Greg Anderson is in the legends division. And he's already a CMS and he's been kicking ass since he stepped into this game. But for this competition, we moved up from the 16 kilo bells to 20 kilo bells. And he's been doing a lot of training actually on 24 kilo bells, 24 is 22s, 20s. But for this competition, we were going to go with the 20s. And he, you know, he did, he did well in the snatch. I think he got 165 in the snatch with the 20 kilo. And then, and then he came back, you know, and he just, his grip just just gave out, you know, which is not uncommon when you move up by four kilos, you know, it's not uncommon to have your grip failure. So he couldn't quite finish the time, just couldn't just couldn't keep the grip going. And then he, and then he, he did really well in the long cycle today. And just again, had the grip go out, couldn't, couldn't fully finish the time. And he was not happy with his effort, you know, which I'm happy with this effort. I'm proud of him. Any time you give everything that you can give, and it's just physically something gave out your grip, your triceps, your chest, your quads, whatever, right, you just, you couldn't finish the time. Like, if you leave it all in the platform, then say, lovey, right, that's, that's, that's all I can ask of anyone, right. Right is to show up and push themselves to their physical capability. That is, to me, what this sport is all about. And like, you know, but Greg was Greg was upset, just like him when Emron was upset that he couldn't, he couldn't finish the time and, you know, he didn't feel like he, he showed his best capability today. And, and, and maybe it wasn't his best, maybe it wasn't his best capability that he's shown over the past, you know, like nine months that we've been training, but it was the best he could have done today. And, you know, he didn't quit. He just couldn't go any, any further, you know, so I'm super proud of him. Jay Martin, my Alaskan assassin up in Fairbanks literally pushed himself to the brink of passing out. He was seeing the wizard and was doing long cycle, holding pace 10 with the double 16s again in his first competition and managed 80 reps in long cycle in his first competition. And I had to put him down before he passed out on the platform and again was pissed, but he did so, so well. So super, super proud, super proud of all of those guys. They, they pushed themselves super hard and did really, really well. And I think, you know, they all achieved, they all achieved ranks. I'm not sure what all the ranks are. I've got to see where what the final results come in at. But, you know, to come in, especially the guys. Coming into their first competitions, Jay and I'm going to come in and achieving rank your first time is awesome. And then Greg just setting himself up for, you know, advancing further, because he's already, he's already CMS. He can't go any higher. You couldn't go any higher than that at the 16 kilo weight. So we had to move up to the 20s to move up at all in rank. And, you know, he's, he's putting in work. So, you know, it's, it's back to the, it's back to the grind for Greg, you know, working on technique and you know, we've got notes on on technique improvement that we're going to focus on. But I know he's, I know he's just itching to get back to work because Greg's a grinder. He just, he loves to work. And he just wants to, he just wants to get better. So I'm super, I'm super proud of all those guys. And then, you know, my ladies, a Nora with her, her first competition ever And coming out and, and she was, she was targeting, she was targeting, but I think 150 snatches and, and, and, and banged out like 165. And then she was, she wanted, she wanted 60 65 on long cycle and manage to get 70. So she finished, she finished the 10 minutes on both of her sets for the first, for her first competition. That is incredible. She did a great job managing pace and was just super smooth and controlled and she fought through the tough moments in her head and kept, and kept going. I was just just super ecstatic with, with her performance. She did so well. And she was really nervous, which is normal, especially in your first competition. But, you know, she had all sorts of, I had more faith in her than she had in herself coming into this because that's kind of the way it goes sometimes right other people believe in you more than you believe in yourself. And, and she did, she did just awesome. And then last but not least, of course, is Audrey, she fucking crushed it this weekend. Like, she crushed it. She was a rock star on her jerks came in and executed plan a, if you listen to my podcast on Friday about, you know, how we go about strategy, like, she came in and executed plan a to the letter and even beyond. She exceeded the pacing prescription that we had for her set and came in and just kicked the fucking shit out of her jerk set. Her technique was super, super solid, just stacking stacking bones over top of one another, you know, on rails straight up and down, nice and relaxed, nice and steady, driving the bells with her legs all day. She looks so, so good. And she pushed pace at the end, finished strong. She just she just crushed it and then came in and executed the plan again on snatch and was nice and smooth and hit all of the numbers that we needed to hit and exceeded the numbers that we needed to hit her goal was to hit rank one and she hit rank one by and blew it out of the water by like 40 points. So she just came in and crushed it. So super proud of her too. She did she did fantastic and just executed the plan to a tee. You know, which as a coach, that's all you can ask for is people that are pushing themselves doing their best listening to your instruction and executing to the best of their ability on that day, pushing themselves to their limits. So, you know, as a coach, I am super, super fucking proud of all of my athletes. And to have my team come out and have, you know, six lifters, including myself, I think we had the most active lifters of any team in this in this event. I'm not sure I'll have to check on that with, with the organizers, but, you know, either way, it's not important. But, you know, for it to be a good team effort and have everybody come out and show out really while I was, I was super, super proud of everybody and really, really happy with the results that we put forward. So, as far as myself, believe it or not, even though I make a podcast and I talk into a microphone, I don't like talking about myself that much, especially when it comes to my successes. And failures on the platform, but I, I feel okay about my weekend, like most people that do this sport, I'm probably my own worst critic. My plan A on, on jerk was to come in and execute a 14 RPM, a 14 RPM plan. 12, 12 in the first two minutes, and then 14 until minute eight and then, and then up to, up to 15 or 16 in minute nine and then a full on sprint with, you know, 20 plus for, for the last minute and to average out to 14 RPMs with 140 total, that did not happen, but I was prepared. There was a lot of, there was a lot of mad scrambling to actually get back in time. I was actually out delivering girls co cookies with my daughter in the morning. So I scrambled to get back to my house and time and get and get all my stuff on and ready to lift. So I actually did that lift almost completely cold. I had just been coaching Audrey. She was on the flight before me. So in lieu of warming up, I was coaching her, which is my priority always. My athletes are more important than myself. So I didn't, I didn't really get much of a warm up in and I still managed to finish the 10 minutes. I fought through. I had, I had the commentators going in my ear the whole time, which had not been the plan. I had honestly not planned on listening to the commentators as I was lifting. I had, but I had my music playing through my earbuds through my computer, which is what I normally do when I'm coaching the team by a zoom. But the, the way I have it set up the. I can hear the audio from my lifters in their various zoom channels, as well as, as well as the playback from my Spotify. So I could hear the commentators commenting on my set while I was lifting, which was a little, a little unnerving at first, but it gave me a couple of fun moments. You know, to hear, to hear John Buckley, you know, say, you know, like, oh, you really need to sync up your heel stop with your under squat and your exhalation, you know, it was a nice cue for me in the middle of my set to remember that that's what I should be doing in jerk. So that was nice. And then, you know, towards the end, he said something about it being, you know, time for my mental test, which, which my, my best friend and fellow teammate, Tom, he could tell on video that I, my technique tightened up, my posture got better, my form tightened up. And like I had to power through at that point because it was like John, John Buckley had thrown down the gauntlet and I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to fold. So that was, that was actually kind of cool. But, you know, I ended up, I ended up needing to back off pace in order to, in order to keep, to keep moving. You know, so I wasn't able to, I wasn't able to hold a 14 RPM. I actually went from 12, you know, I went from 12 and then I actually backed off. I think I actually came out at 10, because I knew I wasn't warmed up, so I adjusted my plan. I actually think I came out at 10 and I think I just stuck at 10 for a while. I checked in at halftime and I think I just stayed at 10 again. And I might have, I might have even slowed down a little bit more than that after halftime. I can't recall. I'll have to check the film, but I think I actually slowed down a little bit, a minute, six and seven. And then I started picking up pace towards the end and then, you know, two minutes left when Buckley said it was time for my mental test. I think I, I think I cranked out like 14 and then 19 in the last minute finishing with a flurry, which was great. And that's, that's always how I want to finish. But total, total 109 there was good. And then snatch was closer to plan A, but I had planned on, I had planned on a 180. I was going to plan an 18 RPM pace on that my left side didn't hold up. I didn't hold up to that scrutiny. So I ended up having to go to survival snatch sooner than I wanted to. And, and fell a little bit off pace there and then try to make up for it on, on the right side, but I actually, because of the differential clocks going with the online competition and like I didn't get my clock quite synced up exactly with theirs. I actually ended up sprinting. And then I went in at 9, instead of minute 10, with my right hand, I went from, I went from being at like 16 or 17 RPMs and then I think I busted out 20 or 21 in the ninth minute only to realize that all of the other lifters were still lifting. And my time had not, my, my judge hadn't told me that my left was over. So then I, so then I had to, I had to finish out on my right side. So I, I, I backed off from sprint pace. And I think I finished with 14 or 15 in the last minute, but you know finished out and got got 168 on that, which was, which was fine. But, you know, I was, I was fairly happy with that. It was, you know, rank two, rank two in the Biaf one under target, but still, still solid. But the, the only thing that I'm upset with with myself this weekend really is today. And that's, that is fairly simple, fairly simple explanation. I gave myself permission to put the bells down after five minutes in long cycle today. The story behind the story is I was in scheduled for flight 10. I was ready to go, had gotten warmed up and had coached, had coached my athletes, you know, up to that point and was, was ready to lift didn't get a, didn't have much time to get a warm up in. I got a little bit of a warm up in and was ready to go and got like 40 seconds in to my set and my camera flopped over on my tripod because I had my laptop as my camera feed to the judge so that I could see the judge on a bigger screen. And my camera, my tripod attachment that was supposed to hold my surface, I apparently did not have screwed down tight enough or maybe it got loose when I showed the judge my weights. I don't know what happened, but whatever, like 45 seconds into my first minute, my camera went from being facing me to facing the floor. And so I had to stop my set, like, you know, about a minute in reset my reset my camera and all that and the, you know, the organizers graciously bumped me from set from flight 10 to flight 12. So I had some time went and regrouped, but I had a lifter Greg lifting in the flight after me. I was watching his flight and then came and jumped back in to go to flight 12. And because of the way the first minute had felt in my head, I had said, well, you're pretty sore from yesterday, you're cold. And all the excuses, right, all the reasons why, you know, I wouldn't be able to finish the 10 minutes or why it might be dangerous for me or, you know, yada, yada, yada. And some of those are, some of those are legitimate. I had some hand damage from, from the snatch, but I've, I've long cycled through hand damage before that's, that's just fucking kettlebell. So that's no big deal. But, you know, soreness, this is the first time that I've done a full 10 minute triathlon. So I don't think I was fully prepared for how sore my triceps calves and quads were going to be from the jerk and snatch the day before. So I was pretty sore today to be honest, but I went into it. So as a result of that, I rather than targeting 80 are, you know, 80 reps and eight RPM, which is what I kind of been hitting pretty consistently in practice on the long cycle. But based on how my body felt today, I was like, I'm going to back off and I'm going to go a nice slow and steady six RPMs. You know, one rep every 10 seconds and hold that for the first five minutes and check in at halftime and see how I feel. And if, if things don't feel good at halftime, then, you know, if I only do five minutes, that's okay. And because I gave myself that mental permission prior to starting the set to stop at five minutes, I stopped at five minutes. And I'm frankly fucking pissed at myself for that. I could have gone deeper into the set. I'm not sure I could have finished the 10, frankly. I will never know because I didn't push myself to do so. I probably could have finished the 10. If I had gone into it with the mentality of, I'm going to finish this 10 fucking minutes, no matter what, I'm going to finish the triathlon, I'm going to do the full triathlon, no matter what, I'm finishing all 10 minutes. Had I gone into it with that mindset, I probably would have finished. Because I was mentally weak and gave myself permission to put the bells down after five minutes. My brain gave me all sorts of reasons why I should put the bells down after five minutes. Because I tore my hand, true, true. The blood blister I developed in my snatch ruptured. So I definitely had hand damage, but wasn't enough to stop me. I was still, you know, according to everybody that was watching my set, I still look comfortable. I didn't feel comfortable. I couldn't find any rest in the rack position because my chest and shoulders were so was still they pumped up pretty quick and checking the heart rate after the after the readout on the set, like I was, I was over thresholds from for basically four of the five minutes, I was, I was, I was in zone five of my heart rate zones. So definitely the, the days previous lifting, meant that on the third, the third set, my heart rate spiked right away, you know, pretty quickly. And I'm sure the false start before and, you know, all of those things probably probably didn't help matters. But still, nevertheless, what pisses me off is I didn't push through, I gave myself permission before I even picked up the bells to stop prior to the prior to the final bell. And unsurprisingly, when I got to five minutes, my brain was like, okay, that's good enough. Don't hurt yourself. You've got a ripped callus, a ripped blood blister, your shoulders, sore, your chest is sore. Yadda, yadda, yadda, you could hurt yourself. Blah, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, all things coming from the mind that were only partially true, but I could have at least pushed deeper into the set, if not finished the set. Had I pushed to where my grip failed, like Greg did, or had I pushed to where my heart rate failed, and I was about to pass out, like Jay did, or pushed to where my tricep failed, like Emron did, I would be more proud of my own effort on the long cycle, but I didn't do that. So, I am a little disappointed in myself, but with that said, I will also acknowledge that I finished the full 10 minutes in jerk and snatch, so that's a full by affluent, so that's good. Sorry, taking a drink there, and I did also finish the five minutes that I gave myself the mental permission to finish in the long cycle. So that's also good. And as it turns out, my rep total calculated out made my output exactly 9,000 kilos. So I have a nice round number to attack for my next time doing the triathlon. 9,000 kilos of output is definitely a personal best for me, as far as output within a single meat, so that's great. It's not the highest rank I've achieved because I've achieved higher ranks when just focusing on one or two events, but it is the highest rank I've achieved. I've achieved going for triathlon. It's the first time I've done a 10 minute triathlon. I've done a five minute triathlon before with the 24's, which was fun, and I did really well with that, but, you know, as Dennis Vasilov likes to say, or he told me when he was coaching me that kettlebell sport is 10 minutes, so five, five minutes is not real kettlebell sport. I didn't say at that, that's the sink clear, that memely, but that was basically that was my take on message, if I wasn't doing 10 minutes, I was playing at kettlebell sport. So, but anyways, enough about my, my own struggles mentally, but the lesson I looked, the lesson I learned from that, and that I think anybody can take from that is don't give yourself mental, permission to stop before the time is up. Don't give don't don't tell yourself, well, so long as you get to X, you'll be fine. Right. Then it's OK, right, because this is now the second time with double 20's on long cycle that I've stopped short of the 10 minutes because I hit an arbitrary mark that I had in my head going into it ahead of time. And last time I did long cycle with double 20's, I knew that the mark I was shooting for was 64 reps in order to achieve rank, the rank that I was going for, and I did that in eight minutes just just just over eight minutes. That's 64th rep because that was the number I had in my head, and I knew that I couldn't achieve a higher rank than what I had just achieved, even if I finished the full time, my head I had given myself permission to put them down. And so I did. You know, and now the same thing this time, so, but just in a different capacity, right. I said, you know, at five minutes, you can put them down. If it's not going well, that was the equivocation I gave myself in my head, like if it doesn't feel good, but that was just bullshit, because when does long cycle ever feel good. It very rarely feels good, at least for me, maybe, maybe David Cohen can argue with me that, you know, it feels good for him, because he's Lucy Goosey, Lee Spaud, and you know, has a supple Irish joins lubricated by Jamison and Guinness can't wait to, can't wait to celebrate with you on St Patrick's day, by the way, David. But anyways, don't give yourself mental permission to quit before the time is up. Don't give yourself an arbitrary benchmark to shoot for because you'll find it really hard to drive through that arbitrary benchmark once you've hit it. You know, and it's different if you know that you need, you know, if I can get, if I can get 160 snatches, because I've already got my score and jerk on by Apple and I know I need to hit at least 160 snatches to get my rank. Okay, like I understand that you definitely want to know that going in so that you have your strategy. That's not what I mean. I mean, the, I mean, the like giving yourself permission to stop after that point, you know, which was a mistake I made as a younger lifter, and now again, a mistake I made as a more veteran lifter by giving myself permission to stop before the time was up. That was definitely a lesson I learned another lesson that I took away from this was that you, you know, when we talked a little bit about it on the podcast on Friday, you need to adjust for your elevation of excitement over baseline. Because it's really important to as much as we want it to feel like practice and we want to go into it mentally, being like, hey, it's just another set. It's just your, your body's just going to do what you've trained it to do. That is true right into a degree, but we also have to acknowledge that our baseline level of excitement is going to be higher, which means that we're going to we're going to burn through energy faster. And so I'll use myself as an example, my typical resting heart rate like right now sitting here making this podcast is between 65 and 75 beats a minute when I am warmed up for kettlebell after I've done my my warm up and it's time for me to start my first my first set. But I'm typically in the like 95 to 110 range depending on sleep hydration caffeine intake stress level, all of those things right, but, you know, in general, I'm in the 90 to 110 range after I after I warm up when I first pick up the bell, you know, I'm either in zone one or below for my heart rate. Now looking back at the data from today, when I first picked up the bells for long cycle in my competition set, my second go round, my heart rate was already at 117 before I had done a single rep, I was in zone two for me. Before I had even done a single rep, I was in zone two now, maybe that stress from the previous day from all of the volume from before, maybe that stress from having a false start and going in flight 10 having to miss going, you know, watching Greg's lift watching Bobby lift in that flight and then going and then going and trying to trying to lifting it, maybe that's why but even even my jerked in snatch from the day before my heart rate at the start of those sets. It was over what it normally would be going into practice so my baseline level of excitement was higher starting biological excitement was higher starting than it would be during a practice so what that means is it makes sense that even though I fairly consistently hit 14 RPMs in training on jerk, it makes sense that given my level of excitement. And stress that my heart rate responded very, very quickly and even at a slower pace, I had to slow my pace to have the same level of endurance that I normally have in practice right so it makes sense to me now looking looking back on it that you might need to you might need to even taper off for longer than you think or even just just manage your expectations. It's about what your output is going to be or you can try and do a better job of managing your excitement on on comp day. And that's a lesson for me, maybe maybe it's different for me than other people so I don't want to have, I don't want to have that bias where that I assume my own my own experiences is the same as everyone else's. So I would love to hear more feedback, more data about more anecdote, at least about what your experience was but for me, the general level of excitement was higher which meant I had to slow my pace down and I think that was the same for my athletes as well, which is why I think it's a solid takeaway from this from this weekend but I don't want to assume that our experiences representative. I think it's just important to take that into consideration when you're going about your strategy and as well as when you evaluate your performance because it's one thing to look at your performance and expect that you are going to perform at the same level that you perform that in practice. I was consistently hit 12 RPMs in practice last week or the week before like leading up to the competition, how close to the competition. It's one thing, if you consistently hit 12 RPMs or the last three months, sure, then that's probably a reasonable expectation that you're going to be somewhere pretty close to that or that your average is going to come out to that. But if it's only been the last couple of weeks and like you're peaking up to that, well you're probably going to regress to the mean a little bit what's the what's the average RPMs that you were able to sustain for your training cycle for longer duration sets and that's the other thing you can't look at what was the pace you were able to sustain on a five minute set. That's not the same right it gives you a benchmark you know your coach your coach should be able to look at that and say okay that gives me an idea of what we need to do for 10 minutes that because it's a non linear. It's a non linear curve so you know if you're able to sustain 10 RPMs for a five minute set you know you might need to dial back to seven for you know i'm talking long cycle here. You might need to dial back to seven for a long cycle for 10 minutes that or at least that's where you should start and you can always go faster right so taking that just baseline level of excitement and taking that feedback and really working on that. You know that was that was really a big a big lesson for me in this and then watching so many lifters from around around the world another another takeaway I had from from all of this and seeing so many different lifters. So many different lifters was you really need to find your technique because bio individuality is very much a thing and that is something that I've always believed in but this to this weekend just further reinforce that there are sound principles of efficiency that translate but there is more than one way to develop an efficient technique especially with the number of moving pieces that we have in the independent. We have in the independent variables we have in kettlebell sport with the the load being independent in each hand if you're doing two bells or in one hand when it's unilaterally loaded there are so many things pronation supination extension flexion you know they're the angles the degrees there there are just so many moving parts. If to me it's like very analogous to a golf swing there are a lot of ways that professional golfers get square to square on a golf ball and hit a golf ball long ways and accurately everybody swing is a little bit different and it depends on their own biomechanics there are principles that translate across but there's more than one technique there are a lot of different swings and you have to build the swing that works for you. So it's kind of the same thing in kettlebell sport and you know figuring out what your strengths and weaknesses are as a lifter and leveraging your strengths to get your best performance addressing your weaknesses to then level up your performance is I think the next is the next piece and continuing to. You know to address those weak points until you're a cyborg like Dennis was still live in 90 reps on the double 32s on long cycle in flight 12 thanks for making the rest of us look like slap ass is Dennis but you know that's what happens when you're a terminator from the future sent to do kettlebell sport I think it was it was awesome to see Dennis crush yet again. I mean he he bangs out 90 reps on long cycle like like the rest of us bang out half that many with weights you know half that weight so he's just he's a machine but anyways let's that's neither here nor there Dennis being a machine is not a takeaway from from this meat that's that's been a well established and well known fact for a long time but yeah so. Finding your own style is super super important working on understanding your pacing strategy and adjusting it for for competition environments is super is super important understanding that that practice and competition are two different animals you know obviously you want to simulate you want to simulate competition as much as you can in practice but being. Just understanding and ready for the fact that things aren't always going to go to plan is super important and then. Another takeaway for me was introducing adversity into your practice routine I think is a good strategy for being ready for things like this and what I mean but like this I mean like. My own example of my tripod flopping over in the middle of my set and needing to stop and then wait another 15 minutes and then do a second round right. That wasn't great showing up to my house back from delivering Girl Scout cookies you know literally 20 minutes before I had to step on the platform and needing to coach one of my athletes so having no time for a warm up not ideal right but knowing that I have an introduced variables of unpredictability and difficulty into my training makes me more mentally prepared for. That losing your clock is an easy one that you can do in practice right so training without a clock sometimes or knowing that you're going to do your you know give yourself a five minute set that you're going to do and only set your clock for two minutes so that it turns off after two minutes right and then you have to. By feel the rest of the way and stop after you hit a certain rep number and then you can put the bells down and see how close did you get to actually go in the full five minutes right things like that doing mismatching weights doing training with different bells taking your bells outside and training outside when it's cold or hot or whatever. There's any number of ways you can introduce difficulty into your into your sets and into your practice but intentionally introducing factors of difficulty sometimes so that you have to build mental resiliency because that is a super that is a super huge part of this game and more often than not even the best run competitions. There's going to be something that goes awry for you your meal or your drive in or your flight to the you know to the city that you're competing in or whatever there's just going to be something that likely makes it challenging your judge your chalk your whatever again any number of factors so introducing some difficulty into your training to help you potentially embrace. It's back from and handle the difficulties that you're going to experience in in a competition yeah I think that's another I think that's another huge one but yeah that's that's all i'm going to say for tonight this was really just kind of off the top of my head lessons as I've as I've been watching all these sets and going through all that going through all this weekend and watching so many so many sets and coaching my athletes. Those are those are some of my lessons from from this weekend i'm going to reflect some more and i'm going to watch more film i'm going to get with my athletes but this was again a great weekend i hope you guys enjoyed it i hope you did well i hope you are proud of yourself for the way that you showed up on the platform and if you're not are you being too hard on yourself because. I know the psychological profile of this sport and we tend to be perfectionistic we tend to be people that do not give ourselves a lot of grace so if that's you and i'm betting it probably sounds a lot like you, if you're listening to this podcast then. by all means take your notes about what you can improve but make sure you taste some champagne to and not just vinegar celebrate the things that you did well I had my best total output of all time as far as tonnage i finished two 10 minutes sets. You know I had a solid rank two by athalon my athletes came out and kicked ass we had fun we did we fucking did a kettlebell competition in the middle of a global pandemic god damn like that's fucking awesome i'm sorry i'm cussing a lot tonight but. But you know i'm pretty excited about that so i hope the hope people are offended by that but. If you are you're probably not listening to this podcast anyways so um yeah. Thank you guys very much i can't wait to see all October 9th here in the Twin Cities at the athlete lab in little Canada, which is right off of. 35 E and 694 and 35 W is like literally equidistant from downtown Minneapolis and downtown Saint Paul an awesome like 6000 square foot facility we're going to have the owner Kate on the podcast coming up soon we're going to talk a little bit more about her background and the facility and all the things so more things coming but. Thank you all very much I hope you guys had a great weekend i'm going to go. Get some rest because i'm tired i lifted the i lifted a decent amount this weekend so i'm sure y'all are tired too but good job it was great to see people out there and if you didn't get out there tonight i hope to see you on the platform in the future so thanks be well. Thanks be well peace thanks for listening to this episode of the platform podcast i'm Jordan kundi right if you have a question please email me at twinsities kettlebell club at gmail.com follow us on instagram and facebook at twinsities kettlebell club on twitter at tckb club online at twinsities kettlebell club.com and please help us grow our reach and give us a review on apple podcast spotify stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts until next time.