CHAPTER 4:
A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming a Man Among Men

One of this book’s challenges was getting a Comrade to do enough work on the basics—pulls and presses. How can one stay on a steady working-class diet of borsch when a Communist Party cafeteria buffet is available?

It is easy to start seeing the variety as an end in itself and lose focus in your training. Since telling an American to stick to plain vanilla exercises is about is realistic as ordering a kid to ignore a candy store, here is a plan that will keep your training targeted while enabling you to have fun with new exercises. Not surprisingly, it was made in the USA.

In his 1939 book Weight Lifting, Bob Hoffman wrote, “For the man who is really ambitious and does not indulge in hard physical work. . . a training system of five days a week will bring best results.”

The above schedule for Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday is the classic heavy-light-medium system applied to the primary lifts (for you, the pull and the press). You might ask, “Why bother with easy and moderate workouts—why not go balls-to-the wall every time?”

Most complex phenomena are cyclical. Almost a century ago, bedridden accountant Ralph Nelson Elliot spent years analyzing the fluctuations of the stock market. He learned that the downsizing of the market is not a problem but a “constructive correction” that allows the market to reach a new high. The low point of a constructive correction will be followed by “an advancing wave.” This is how every complex system, from Wall Street to your body, operates. Lower valleys tend to be followed by higher peaks and vice versa. That is why Russian lifters constantly “wave” their training loads. Refer to my book Beyond Bodybuilding if you want to learn more. For now, all you need to know is that the junk pile of iron history is littered with the bones of lifters who tried to prove the law of cycling wrong.

On Tuesday and Thursday, instructed Hoffman, “a greater variety of exercises are practiced—those that have been omitted on the real weight lifting days.” Keep the intensity low on the variety days. A variety day allows you to practice—literally practice; have fun rather than get smoked—anything you like. The variety days are perfect for working on what Marty Gallagher called “in-between strength,” the angles and ranges of motion not addressed by traditional pulls and presses. Do get-ups, windmills, and bent presses; juggle kettlebells—challenge yourself with any of the many moves from the DVDs produced by me and my senior instructors. As long as you stay on the ball with the scheduled pulls and presses. And as long as you keep the variety days easy. Not light, just easy.

Obviously, you can push the schedule forward as many days as you want. Weightlifting meets are held on Saturdays, which is why Bob Hoffman planned the heavy workout for this day. York Barbell grad Bill Starr had his football players go heavy, light, and medium on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, respectively. Applied to the RKC Rite of Passage program, this works as follows:

You can also rearrange the schedule to make the heavy day fall on Wednesday or Thursday, the days you are at your strongest according to Russian research:

Feel free to skip your variety days, but never skip a heavy, light, or medium press/pull day. Push it forward a day if circumstances force you to, but don’t miss it. If you are tired, suck it up. If you have no time, skip a meal to make time. If you are traveling, bring your kettlebell with you. I know many servicemen who have taken their kettlebells with them to war, so whatever excuse you may have is lame.

The hostess at a party asks a Russian whether he will be drinking vodka or whiskey. “And tequila!” is his answer.

The bodybuilding “intensity” and “volume” camps engage in a silly, navel-contemplating argument over whether working harder or doing more work is more important. When you are seeking strength, the answer, of course, is both.

Volume is measured in kilos or pounds; it is the total weight you lift in a workout.

Intensity, depending on the event, has many benchmarks, from pounds lifted per minute to the athlete’s heart rate. When the event is about brute strength, there is only one definition: intensity, quite simply, is the average weight lifted in the workout. Your call whether to measure it in kilos, pounds, poods, or percentages of your one-rep max. As long as it is heavy.

Effective strength building demands doing a lot of reps per workout with a heavy weight. One of the simplest ways to meet this paradoxical requirement is the technique Russians call “the ladder.”

Pick a kettlebell you can clean and press—a clean before each press, that is—roughly five to eight times. C&P it once with your weaker arm, switch hands and put it up with your stronger arm. Rest. Two reps. Another short break. Three reps. Then start over at one.

Do three ladders, for a total of 18 repetitions, the first week; add a ladder the next week and a ladder the week after. Five ladders, total 30 reps. You will stay with five ladders from now on.

Although the top “rung” of each ladder, especially the last, should be tough, you must not fail! Never train to failure! If you want to know why, read Power to the People! The Party is always right.

The fourth week keep the number of ladders at five, but now try to work up to 4 reps. In the beginning you might only do one (1, 2, 3, 4) ladder and four (1, 2, 3) ladders. It is fine. Don’t struggle with the top-end sets; improve without maxing out. Stay with it until you get 5 x (1, 2, 3, 4)—50 quality repetitions and almost no sweat!

You may have guessed what you are supposed to do next when you are ready: 5 x (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), or an awesome 75 repetitions with a heavy kettlebell! As before, do five ladders and patiently work up to five rungs in every one of them.

Take a couple of days off and test yourself with a heavier kettlebell. You will be impressed with your strength. Then start the process over with the heavier one.

If vodka is the intensity and whiskey is the volume, then tequila is the density. Density is about getting more work done in less time. It can be measured in shots—I mean pounds—per minute.

For our strength-building purposes, it makes little difference whether you have taken 15 minutes, an hour, or a whole day to do your five ladders. In 1915, Hercules magazine reported how Dr. Krayevskiy trained George “the Russian Lion” Hackenschmidt: “Lift weights, medium size ones, for singles for 2-3 hours twice a day, in the morning and evening, everyday.”

Lift heavy and stay fresh. “Grease the groove,” to use The Naked Warrior terminology.

Building muscle is a different ball game. The complex science of muscle building can be summed up with a simple instruction: get a pump with a heavy weight. And that can only be done with compressed rest periods.

Either extreme of rest between sets—less than a minute on one end, and 10 minutes and more on the other—will make you strong for different reasons. Extremely short breaks will make you stronger by building muscle in the tradition of Charles Staley’s EDT (edtsecrets.com). Extremely long breaks will make you stronger by improving your skill of strength in the tradition of my GTG program from The Naked Warrior. Medium breaks will give you a mix of muscular and neural adaptations. This is why I have not specified how long you should rest between your sets in this book. Why complicate?

The above progression applies to your heavy day—Saturday in Hoffman’s week. When it comes to presses, “to limit” refers to a hard ladder workout, when you try to top your last heavy day.

In the “moderate” or light workout on Wednesday do the same number of ladders—five, but finish two rungs below your “tallest” ladder of the heavy day. Let’s say on your heavy day you did 2 x (1, 2, 3, 4, 5); 3 x (1, 2, 3, 4). So on your light day, Monday, do 5 x (1, 2, 3). You have accomplished a 50 percent reduction in volume, 30 versus 60 reps, and you don’t have to work as hard because you stop at three reps instead of four or five.

On the “more vigorous than Monday” or medium day, stop one rung below the heavy day. In our example that would be 5 x (1, 2, 3, 4). You get a moderate 10-rep, or roughly 15 percent, reduction in the volume, and while it is not a walk in the park like the light day, it is not a killer like the heavy day. Medium is predictably in between.

Another example: If you are climbing (1, 2, 3) ladders on the heavy day, do 5 singles on the light day and 5 x (1, 2) on the medium day.

This heavy-light-medium ladder plan is as simple and reliable as the Kalashnikov assault rifle. Somewhat boring, but that is your problem; deal with it. Someone has made an observation that lawyers tend to be a lot more successful in strength sports than artists. Because the former can deal with the boredom of repetitive but necessary tasks. Think about it. What are you looking for in your strength program—strength or entertainment?

THE RKC RITE OF PASSAGE PRESSES SCHEDULE AND PROGRESSION

Monday – Easy presses: ladders 2 rungs lower than Saturday

Wednesday – Moderate presses: ladders 1 rung lower than Saturday

Friday – Hard presses: ladders to limit

SATURDAY (HEAVY DAY)

1. Reclean the kettlebell before each press.

2. Start training with a kettlebell you can press 5–8 times, recleaning before each press.

3. Don’t rush between sets and ladders.

4. Start with 3 ladders of (1, 2, 3) reps. The second week do 4 ladders; the third week do 5. Stay with 5 ladders from now on.

5. When you can do 5 x (1, 2, 3), keep the number of ladders at 5 and work up to 4 reps.

6. When you can do 5 x (1, 2, 3, 4), keep the number of ladders at 5 and work up to 5 reps.

7. When you can do 5 x (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), advance to a heavier kettlebell.

MONDAY (LIGHT DAY)

1. Reclean the kettlebell before each press in the beginning. When you have developed solid technique, do one clean and multiple military presses from the shoulder.

2. Do 5 ladders 2 rungs shorter than on Saturday.

WEDNESDAY (MEDIUM DAY)

1. Reclean the kettlebell before each press.

2. Do 5 ladders 1 rung shorter than on Saturday.

You will make even greater gains in your upper-body strength by adding pullups to your routine.

Use the same sets and reps that you use for your presses and alternate sets of presses and pull-ups: press left, press right, pull up, press left twice, press right twice, pull up twice, press left three times, press right three times, pull up three times, etc. If you are not strong enough to do that many pull-ups yet, stick with the same number of ladders but use fewer rungs for your pull-ups. For instance, you might do 5 x (1, 2, 3, 4) presses and only 5 x (1, 2) pull-ups. On the other hand, if you can do 10 consecutive body-weight pull-ups, weigh yourself down to 5-8RM. If you don’t have a special belt to hang a weight on, hang a kettlebell on your foot, Russian spec ops style, and you are in business.

Use a bar tall enough to enable you to hang with your body and legs stretched out. Always start from a dead hang and pull high enough to touch your neck or upper chest to the bar. Control the descent and go all the way down until your elbows are straight. Pause before the next rep. Don’t swing or kip. Anything less did not count as a pull-up in my unit.

You may change the type of pull-up you are doing every time or once in a while: overhand pull-ups, overhand thumbless tactical pull-ups, underhand chin-ups, ring chin-ups, towel pull-ups, wide-grip pull-ups, and so on. Just remember the heavy-light-medium principle.

Pull-up power to you!

Strength and conditioning don’t play by the same rules. Here is your conditioning—swings and snatches—workout.

Do your high-rep kettlebell pulls on the same days as the presses, after the presses. Your workout is prescribed in minutes, like the USSS snatch test, not in reps. Take a page from Dan John’s book—pick up a pair of dice and test your luck. “Snake eyes” mean 2 minutes; a pair of sixes means you, lucky dog, will be doing your snatches for 12 minutes. You get the idea.

Follow the same time-tested heavy-light-medium template. On Saturday, your heavy day, go all-out with swings. See how many perfect reps you can crank out in the time frame your pair of dice has dealt you. Do as many or as few reps per set as you wish, set the kettlebell down whenever you must, just drive hard. You are becoming a better man.

Monday is the light day. This is the snatch day. Roll the dice again, and do approximately 50–60 percent of the reps you could do if you went all-out.

Wednesday is the medium day. Swings again. At 70–80 percent of an all-out effort. Don’t be pedantic about the numbers. Close enough is good enough. The key word for this workout is “moderate”—as one of my students put it, “to a comfortable stop.”

Let’s say on Saturday you drew 5 minutes, went all-out with swings, and did 100. On Monday your dice rolled 10. You did snatches with your pedal only halfway to the metal, 75 reps. Wednesday is the medium swing day. You rolled 5 minutes again and did 70 swings. Keep a good record. Here is how you should log these workouts:

Sw 24 kg x 100/5
min H Sn 24 kg x 75/10 min L
Sw 24 kg x 70/5 min M

THE RKC RITE OF PASSAGE PULLS SCHEDULE

Each pull day, roll a pair of dice to determine the length of your round, 2–12 minutes

Monday – Easy snatches: 50–60% of what you could do in the allotted time if you went all-out.

Wednesday – moderate swings: 70–80% of what you could do in the allotted time if you went all-out.

Friday – Hard swings: as many as you can do in the allotted time.

It is your call when to move up to a heavier kettlebell.

Given that the snatch is one of your goals, you might find it strange that it is practiced only once, and on the easy day to top it all off. This is done for two reasons. First, your shoulders and elbows are not conditioned to handle a lot of snatches in your first year of kettlebelling. Don’t worry, easy snatches plus hard swings and presses will equal great snatch numbers on your test days. And second, the Rite of Passage program has a lot of presses so your shoulders will be smoked by the time you get to your pulls. And snatches, as you may have noticed, involve the shoulders a great deal. So not only will you be doing snatches at half effort, you will do them after the easiest press workout of the week. And if you find that even on the easy day your snatch form is deteriorating, finish the workout with high pulls.

If You Have Tweaked Your Shoulder or Elbow

As you know, it’s your fault. Too much, too soon, or too sloppy.

Use your judgment regarding a shoulder or elbow tweak. If it is a minor ding that does not require medical attention, do swings instead of snatches on the light day and replace the presses with five minutes of get-ups, RKC Program Minimum style, until you have “pumped the injury through,” as Russian lifters say.

Now for the kettlebell “rounds,” a boxing term appropriately applied to kettlebells by Anthony Diluglio, RKC.

Elite Russian gireviks train by minutes rather than sets and reps. (Don’t kid yourself that you are elite; you will be doing the same for a different reason.) Like ladders, timed sets are foolproof and flexible. Routines that prescribe a stretch of time to pack with work—rather than a number of sets and reps to shoot for—are naturally adaptable to different fitness levels. This is what Steve Maxwell, Senior RKC, and Anthony Diluglio, RKC, do in their kettlebell classes. Victims of different fitness levels can follow the same workout, no problem.

A beginner might do 50 snatches with a 16-kilogram kettlebell in five minutes and be smoked. Senior RKC Steve Cotter, a mutant, did 110 reps with a 32-kilogram kettlebell in the same time frame and was just as smoked: “Very intense, I got jello legs and a chest-beating heart rate.”

Sometimes one workout does fit all. Besides, a timed workout gets me off the hook for specifying your sets and reps. Here is what Steve Cotter has done: “30/30-rest, 10/10-rest, 10/10-rest, 6/4-time up. Total 110 reps in 5:00. . . . I put the bell down for the rest. After the first set, the rest was only about 15 sec; each subsequent set a little longer. My strategy is to try to get at least 60% of the total reps 2:00 into the test. If I get to 80 total reps by 3:30-3:45, I know I can surpass 100 reps, which I consider a baseline for my current conditioning level. For progressive sessions, I will try to up the reps at the 2:00 mark and then go by feel/focus from there. Next time, I may go 32/32 and 12/12 for the first 2 sets (giving me 88 total by 2:00), and then stick with 5-10s for the remainder.”

You will find your pace through trial and error. Don’t worry about hitting the perfect rhythm of work and rest. It hardly exists, and even the best don’t hit their sweet spot every time. Catherine Imes, RKC, put up 94 reps with a 24-kilogram kettlebell in the same five minutes, a performance most men should envy. Still, Iron Kate was not happy with herself: “20/20, 12/12, 10/10, 5/5 . . . I probably could have squeezed out more reps on the first set, but I sprinted through it. . . . I think I finished the first set in just about a minute. I took too much rest between the 10/10 and 5/5 set. Otherwise, I would have broken 100. . . . Next time I will break 100.”

Federal officer Jared Savik, RKC, who has put up an awesome 275 reps, keeps it simple: “just do quick sets of ten-twenty then rest every so often when needed.”

If Your Spirit Is Tougher Than Your Hands

“Anyone involved in kettlebells knows that snatches tear up the hands and torn hands equal less than optimal training,” explains kettlebell sport national champion Jared Savik, RKC, on our forum.

“I‘ve found a solution that forces a little extra grip work, but still allows for 80-90% max rep range. Fingerless cloth gloves! These dandy little buggers allow the kettlebell handle to rotate and not tear up your palm calluses and allow your fingers to catch the handle for a more secure and safe snatch. They also pad the wrist just a bit. If you want to work your grip some more, but don‘t like oven mitts or soap, try the GI surplus green wool glove liners with full fingers. Another excellent and inexpensive tool.

“Many of the cloth gloves on the market have the little rubber traction dots. No problem, as they are generally not right/left specific. I wear mine on the wrong hands so the dots are on the back.”

Don’t suck wind between sets by slumping forward, hands on knees! New Zealander Robin McKenzie, the physical therapist who has saved countless backs by emphasizing back extension and warning about flexion, explains: “…after vigorously exercising, we collapse “in a heap” and slouch badly. During vigorous exercise the joints of the spine are moved rapidly in many directions. . . . This process causes a thorough stretching in all directions of the soft tissues surrounding the joints. In addition, the fluid gel contained in the spinal discs is loosened, and it seems that distortion or displacement can occur if, after exercise, an exercised joint is placed in an extreme posture.”

McKenzie gives an example of how just how vulnerable an athlete’s warm and loose back is to slouching. A distance runner “was pain-free during the event, but was so exhausted by running hard at high altitude that, right after the race, he bent over for about two minutes, his hands on his knees. While doing this, he suddenly had severe pain in the middle of the lower back, pain that did not go away even when he resumed a normal standing posture.” The runner “could not walk a step without sharp pain and . . . naturally assumed that running had caused the pain.” As Rob Lawrence, Senior RKC, would say, “It’s his fault.”

After your pulls, do a few back bends instead of slouching. Place your hands in the small of your back, pointing your fingers downward, and keep your legs straight. Bend back slowly using your hands as the fulcrum, pause for a second, and return to the upright position. Try to bend further with each successive rep. Some shadow boxing or Fast & Loose relaxation exercises are also good to do during your brief breaks between sets of swings or snatches. Just don’t just stand around! Slacker.

If You Have Tweaked Your Back

When you are sitting in the chiropractor’s waiting room, review the safety tips in Chapter 1 and the swing section of Chapter 2. Once you are cleared to train, which could be the next day, alternate light and medium days only for the next few weeks (e.g., Monday—light, Wednesday—medium, Saturday—light, Monday—medium, etc.) until you feel confident to go all-out. And watch your form, Comrade!

Now what about the dice, randomizing the “fight” between 2 and 12 minutes? The Russian science of periodization teaches that while the athlete should stay with an exercise for a while without changing it, the workload, intensity, and volume must be varied from workout to workout. Effective training is “same but different.” The exercises remain the same, but their intensity and volume are always different. “The workload must fluctuate like a sea wave: up and down, from glass calm to a storm,” stresses Oleg Chelischev, a kettlebell lifting coach at a Russian military college. The dice will take care of that, from the “glass calm” of the snake eyes, to the “storm” of a pair of sixes.

Two to twelve minutes does not sound like a lot—until you try it. Note that the famous Tabata conditioning protocol—twenty seconds of intense effort alternated with ten seconds of rest eight times—is only four minutes long. “Only” four minutes long. Mind you, Comrades who have done it never say “only” again.

Enough resting now. As Jared “275 reps” Savik, RKC says, “Suck it up!”

Jane Fonda called. She wants her workout back.

Wussy, long, low-intensity cardio workouts belong in the past, with leg warmers and mullets. The new prescription for a power-pump heart and great body comp is interval training, brief and intense.

“In the belief that they are building a stronger heart, many people increase the duration of exercise as they become more capable,” explains cardiologist Al Sears, MD, author of The Doctor’s Heart Cure. “Your heart already has the ultimate endurance challenge—it must beat all the time, even when you’re sleeping. Instead of working longer, strive to make your heart learn to pump more blood faster and harder for a short period of time.

“As your level of fitness improves, you need to decrease the duration of your workout,” insists Dr. Sears. “In other words, you cover the same distance in shorter and shorter times.” After a sensible and progressive build-up, Doc recommends an interval workout that lasts only 10 minutes! It has five 30-60 second spurts followed by 1-2 minute active rest breaks. The workout starts out at the intensity level of 5 on a 1-10 scale and wraps up with a niner!

“Note that the workout starts out at 5! Doc Sears is our kind of guy, who understands that life rarely affords the luxury of a warm-up: “When you are out of condition, it takes several minutes to get your breathing and heart rates up. As your physical condition improves your body gears up for exercise more easily; . . . exploit this capacity to gear up faster by increasing the challenge quicker.

“You will train your body to respond more quickly by increasing the pace of exercise sooner in each progressive workout. Don’t start at full throttle, but over time, train your body to respond to the exercise load more quickly. Your body adapts to the increasing quickness of the demands of your exercise by improving the quickness of your response.

“Why do this? This is the natural state of exercise. Whether a predator or prey, in the wild creatures must be able to accelerate to 100 percent capacity in a single heartbeat. Humans have lost this ability to accelerate, somewhat recently. More to the point, this is also the very best way to be prepared for and avoid disaster from sudden increases in cardiac demand that cause heart attacks.”

Every month or two on a Saturday when you feel great, test yourself with the RKC Rite of Passage drills.

C&P

Loosen up with a few swings and get-ups if you wish. Test your press first. There is no point in repping out with the kettlebell you have been doing ladders with. You are training for brute strength, and doing more than five reps with a lighter kettlebell is not going to help your powerful cause. Test with the next size up kettlebell, the “heavy” one. If you have pressed it in the past, go for a C&P rep record, as long as you stay in the 1–5 rep range.

Start with a few easy singles with your “ladder kettlebell.” Rest for 5 minutes, and press it for 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 reps; then, without setting the bell down, repeat the test with your other arm. When you top five repetitions per arm, it is time to move up to this kettlebell in your weekly ladders.

If you have never pressed the next one up and have doubts that you can do it today, save it for another day. If you feel that you can absolutely, positively press the heavy one, do 2–3 loaded cleans with it for confidence, rest for five minutes, and go for it!

Clean the kettlebell with one hand, and pause motionless with the kettlebell racked long enough to make sure you will not be using the momentum generated by the clean for the press. Your fist must be below your chin.

Press with your knees locked and with a minimal back and/or side bend. The bend is difficult to judge, which is why the C&P has been eliminated from both weight lifting and kettlebell lifting competitions. You are on the honor system.

Your nonworking hand must be away from the body or rest on your hip. You may not push off your thigh or knee to assist your cleans.

Lock out your elbow completely and pause motionless.

Lower the kettlebell to your chest and then between your legs. You don’t have to lower the kettlebell slowly; you may drop it with minimal resistance from your arm, and you may bend your knees.

Without taking extra swings and without letting the kettlebell touch the ground, reclean it and continue.

When you have done all of your reps with one arm, switch hands when the kettlebell is down between your legs, without setting it down.

Chalk is allowed. No lifting belts, wrist wraps, gloves, straps, or other assistance equipment may be used.

If you have pressed the kettlebell formerly known as heavy, give yourself a cookie. Five minutes later, go from heavy to hard: the USSS snatch test.

SNATCH

Use your sense. If you are not ready to go the full 10 minutes with perfect form, pick another timeline, say 5 or 3. And if you have been swinging and snatching a 16-kilogram kettlebell, test with a 16, not a 24.

Start your kitchen timer and watch weakness leaving your body. Every rep must be perfect! Stop if you are getting sloppy! Or else.

Uniform

Competitors shall be neat in their appearance and wear long pants; a tucked-in T-shirt, and military, SWAT, or hiking boots. The clothes must be clean and pressed, and the boots must be clean. The dress code will be strictly enforced.

Trouser belts, if worn, must sit low on the hips and not assist in stabilizing the spine. No lifting belts, wrist wraps, gloves, straps, or other assistance equipment may be used.

Use of Chalk

Competitors may use lifter’s chalk to improve their grip. The equipment will be cleaned with a solution after each competitor’s turn if necessary or if requested by the next competitor.

The One-Arm Snatch

The competitor picks up the kettlebell, swings it back between the legs, and snatches it overhead in one uninterrupted movement to a straight-arm lockout. After fixing the kettlebell in the top position, the competitor lowers it all the way down in one smooth motion. The elbow may be bent, but the kettlebell may not stop on the chest or shoulder.

The snatch may be performed with or without a knee dip at the overhead lockout. The competitor is allowed to place the free hand on the hip (but not on the thigh) and move the feet. However, the competitor must stop all movement when fixing the weight in the top position. The elbow and the knees must be straight..

On each attempt, the judge will announce the repetition number or "no count.” A repetition is not registered if the competitor failed to lock out his elbow or knees or press out the kettlebell to the finish, or if he touched the platform with a knee or free hand.

The competitor is allowed to switch hands at any time, as many times as he chooses.

The competitor is allowed multiple swings between legs when switching hands or before another snatch.

The competitor is allowed to set the kettlebell down on the platform as many times as he chooses.

Two minutes before his attempt, the competitor is called to the platform. A ten-second countdown is given-10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1- and is followed by the "Start” command.

The competitor is allowed 10 minutes for his attempt. The referee announces every minute. After 9 minutes, he announces 30 seconds, 50 seconds, and each of the last five seconds.

A competitor is forbidden to talk during his attempt in this and other lifts.

When the competitor has quit or committed any rule violation warranting termination of the set, the judge commands "Stop” and announces the number of properly performed repetitions.

Special Rules and Penalties

If a competitor uses profanity or displays unsportsmanlike conduct during the execution of a set, a penalty will be assessed on that set. The penalty will be the deduction of five repetitions. For repeat violations during a competition, the competitor may be fully disqualified at the judge’s discretion.

FOLLOWING ARE THREE SAMPLE TEST DAYS

Girevik A is doing his presses and swings with a 16-kilogram kettlebell. His shoulders are not yet stable enough to go the full 10 minutes. His test day might look like this:

Swing 16 kg x 10 per arm
Get-up 16 kg x 1, 1, 1 per arm
C&P 16 kg x 1, 1, 1 per arm
Loaded clean 24 kg x 3 per arm
C&P 24 kg x 1 left, 2 right (personal records or “PRs”)
USSS snatch 16 kg x 122/5 min (PR)

Girevik B is training with a 24 and has pressed a 32 for a single. He has good shoulder flexibility, stability, and endurance.

C&P 24 kg x 1, 2, 2 per arm
Loaded clean 32 kg x 2 per arm
C&P 32 kg x 1 left, 3 right (PR)
USSS snatch 24 kg x 150 (PR)

Girevik C has already C&P’d a 32 for 5 and has been doing his ladders with it. He is working on pressing a 40 but does not think he can do it yet. So he does not bother pressing at all on this test day; he has done 190 snatches and he wants 200.

USSS snatch 24 kg x 203 (PR)

We have a man here! Girevik C will continue his quest to press a 40 and set a new goal in the Secret Service snatch, 225 reps—a number that will place him among the special operations elite.

THE RKC RITE OF PASSAGE TRAINING PLAN SUMMARY

Monday Light

1. Easy C&Ps or MPs: 5 ladders 2 rungs lower than on Saturday.

2. Easy snatches: roll a pair of dice to determine the length of the round, and do 50-60% of what you could do in that time if you went all-out. If your form is about to deteriorate, switch to high pulls.

Tuesday Variety (optional)

Do whatever you want and take it easy.

Wednesday Medium

1. Medium C&Ps: 5 ladders 1 rung lower than on Saturday.

2. Medium swings: roll a pair of dice to determine the length of the round, do 70–80% of what you could do in that time if you went all-out.

Thursday Variety (optional)

1. You may do any one, two, or all three of the following options.

2. Do 5 x 5 loaded cleans alternated with 5 x 1 get-ups with a kettlebell heavier than the one you are doing ladders with. Rest for a few minutes between sets.

3. Do 2-3 sets of 5–10 swings and/or 2–3 sets of 1–10 snatches with a kettlebell heavier than the one you are doing timed sets with.

4. Do whatever you want and take it easy.

Friday Off

Saturday Heavy

1. Hard C&Ps: 5 ladders to limit.

• Start training with a kettlebell you can press 5-8 times.

• Do ladders of (1, 2, 3) reps. You are done for the day when you can’t get 3 reps.

• When you can do 5 x (1, 2, 3), keep the number of ladders at 5 and work up to 4 reps.

• When you can do 5 x (1, 2, 3, 4), keep the number of ladders at 5 and work up to 5 reps.

• When you can do 5 x (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), advance to a heavier kettlebell.

• Don’t rush between sets and ladders.

2. Hard swings: roll a pair of dice to determine the length of the round, and do as many swings as you can in the allotted time.

3. Every 4-8 weeks, replace the regular Saturday workout with a press and snatch test.

Sunday Off

With the exception of the timed sets, all the sets and reps specified are to be done with each arm.

Stay with this routine until you can one-arm press half your bodyweight and snatch a 53-pounder 200 times in 10 minutes and become a man among men. It has been said that the strength of a man’s character is defined not by the intensity of his emotion but by its duration. It does not matter how hard you are training your snatches today if you quit a month down the road. And switching to another workout is quitting, period.

Straight and narrow, no fooling around. Friedrich Nietzsche would have made a strong girevik: "Formula for success, a straight line, a goal.”