My team are training well and training hard towards this years Irish Championships in Kilkenny, all is going well and as I’ve said before in other posts we could be looking a some good results and high numbers come August.

I’m still un-decided as to whether I will use the orange bells of hate (28kgs) or stick with the 24kgs for my Long Cycle attempt in Kilkenny. My results with the 24’s recently have been fairly good, I had a good re-test and hit the numbers planned and my strength seems to be improving, although that is probably down to the fact that I’ve been doing more work with the 28’s, so the 24’s feel moderately ok for 4-5 mins.

I have recently been having the age old problem of my wrists playing up again with the extra weight on the 28’s. My volume has certainly gone up with the orange kettlebells recently and last week it took its toll on my wrists. The pain as the kettlebells land in rack, or even resting in rack or overhead, is somewhat excruciating and makes my practices unbearable at times. I think its an issue with thumb placement on the handle and the strain the extra weight is putting on the muscle. I’ve been releasing the pressure points consistently before, during and after my practices and it seems to be helping. But one bad clean and damn it hurts!
However when I’m working multiple sets at varying weights the issue tends to dissipate with the lighter kettlebells which leads me to believe it’s almost certainly a strength issue. The 28kgs are heavy. The leap from 2 x 24kg to 2 x 28kg is so much more difficult than 2 x 20kg to 2 x 24kg, you can really feel the difference almost immediately. Which as you can imagine after 3-4 mins if your technique isn’t perfect the extra weight really shows up your flaws. Below is a link to a recent Jerk Interval set with 2 x 28kg. I am doing 8 reps in 1 minute with a minutes rest and repeating this 10 times.

My breathing is much better than it has ever been, and my technique is certainly much improved. everyone now and again I think I have it then the next day I slip back to bad habits. I really have to focus on keeping the bells still when coming up from the 2nd dip on the jerk element, even just the slight movement will destroy your shoulders. I also have to work on my rack position a little, though that is more of a flexibility issue than anything else.

So, with regards to the Irish Championships and the weight I will use…..

…..I’ll let you know!