Travel and Strength: TRif's Croation Combo, the workouts

Sooooo......more confessions.  Yes, I did train while I was on my trip.  No I didn't get a chance to train as much as I wanted to, nor exactly as I want to.  I was all full of piss and vinegar about having a lot of time to do what I wanted to but that's not how it all turned out!  I felt weak as a kitten most of the time....I swear kettlebells are heavier in Europe....I swear they are!  I learned a huge lesson about travel and strength, or should I say travel and no strength?  I can't imagine how athletes that compete around the world do it.  Much respect!

I was much busier than I "planned"!  I had no obligation to go to the SFG Cert, much less hang out there all day, for three days straight!  In reality I could have gone out everyday hiking, climbing stairs, kettlebelling, what ever I wanted, but I love deepening my knowledge of training strength and training kettlebells!  I seem to never get enough, so why not hang out and listen, watch and learn (as well as teach and coach, because we learn through teaching and coaching too!)

I trained long and hard the Tuesday morning I left so I didn't have to worry about not getting to my next workout until Friday.  Friday I lead my Power-Ful Swing workout at the SFG CERT (8 min), and went on to complete another 30 minutes of my Sinister Swing (all with the 16kg).  I also did an 8kg 10 min GS snatch set as practice.  The next day, Saturday I tried to complete my full GS practice, a 12kg jerk set (8 min), and a 50+50 16kg snatch.  Which I did, but damn that 16kg comp bell was hea, hea, hea-vy! I got to lead another 10 min swing workout, at the Cert, about 2 hours later.

video #1

Sunday I went to Opatija, so I took the day off from KB's.  Monday Mark and I went for a long hike, and then I did my swing workout in the hallway of our apartment with only the 12kg before dinner (video #1) for about an hour, with some snatches, cl/pr, etc..  Tuesday we climbed hundreds more stairs as Sasa took us into Rijecka to sightsee, no KB's.  Wednesday I got a chance to go back into Rijecka and train at Sasa's gym.  30 minutes of swings (videos #2, #3,#4, 14kg and 16kg) and two GS sets (12kg jerks, 16kg snatches).  Later that afternoon we drove back to Vincenza.  Thursday we went to Venice and walked at least couple/three plus miles.

video #2

video #3

 video #4

Friday I wanted to go to Fabio's gym to train in the morning, but I could tell it just wasn't going to be convenient for him to pick me up, so since I had the two comp bells with me at the hotel I chose to train on my own.  I didn't get to it until late afternoon, but I did get to it.  That was my 16kg two hand swing "bad day" workout (video #5, 30 min)!  I ended up doing a longer workout that included some 16kg clean and press, inspired by the speech Mark was to give later that weekend about the "Renaissance of Strength".  I was working off the ginormous dinner we had the night before at Filo.  Steaks that looked as if they came from a buffalo!  Needless to say I felt soooo much better afterwards and I stayed in from dinner that night!

video #5

Saturday was the first day of the Strength Convention Fabio was hosting and Mark was scheduled to speak on Sunday.  But it turned out Mark also helped Fabio teach 300 attendees how to swing a kettlebell, and I, along with all of the other SFG's (including some of the new Croatian Instructors) were invited to help.  I can't say I did a bunch of work, but I did a few swings and helped out when I could.  Saturday night we had THE most obscene dinner yet!  And I took full advantage, including a doggie bag with dinner for the next night (and still there was a ton of food left!)

Sunday was our last day there and Mark's speech was to be given in the late morning.  (it was brilliant, as usual, and more about that, fingers crossed, in a blog post to come).  We had the last half of the afternoon off and went back to the hotel with a 14kg I was able to "borrow" from the event (and some chalk!!!!!)  My last workout.  30 minutes of 14kg swings (video #6) and two GS sets.  My 12kg jerk set crashed and burned, bad!  My 50+50 16kg snatch felt as if it was going to kill me (damn heavier European bells!).  I just never can say that I felt strong, even almost 2 weeks adjusting to the time.  I could have wrapped it up after my snatch set, but I needed to do something more.  It was my last chance and I had a long travel day starting the next morning.  I did a 10 min 12kg snatch set 100+100. That should have been "easy" for me, but it finished me off, and tore my palm during the last 10 reps.

video #6

Wow, actually looking back at my travel training log I guess I did get some training in!  But if I compared it to what I would have done if I stayed home it was about 50%, not including the thousands of stairs, of course!  I also did some serious eating!

We got home on Monday, I got up early on Tuesday to teach and had a really nice workout, but still not the kind of training I would normally do.  I thought I would do my GS sets later in the afternoon, but that just did not happen :(, I was beat.  I thought I might get to them Wednesday morning, but no, still beat.  Thursday morning?  Nope.  How about that afternoon?  Nope.  Wow, three days late, but finally starting to feel normal again I got back to it first thing this morning!  Yay!  Feeling good and it's time to get back to strength!

The basic swing order for "TRif's Croation Combo" for all of the above workouts is the following:

10 2 hand swings 
+ 10 transfer swings 
+ 5 R/5L one hand swings 
+ 10 2 hand swings 

Here are 6 of video workouts done in a progressive way, building on the first one,  the least difficult to most difficult.  If you were to do all of them, I believe, it's apprx. 1300-1500 swing reps!  

I post these workouts for free for you to use in your own training or if you are an Instructor to lead clients or classes with.  I only ask that you credit me by using the workout title and/or my name as the originator.  If you would like to share any of my workouts, please refer others to this blog post, or to the original video post.  Thank you for all of your interest and support all these years, this will help me continue to share how much I love training the kettlebell swing with all of you.