The Dragon Door Family Comes Together at the Inaugural Health and Strength Conference… assion. Dedication. Intensity. Brilliance. Integrity. whine about how other supposedly less-skilled individuals Inspiration. Commitment. Drive. Power. Spirit. are getting more customers and more attention than they Creativity. Innovation. Grace. Energy. Generosity. deserve. Rolando Garcia III did a brilliant job knocking P Care. Humor. Flexibility… that delusion on it head, with his Intrinsic Excellence Dragon Door presentation. Perceived value and its commensurate rewards These are the words that jump into my head as I think are earned by application of a specific set of competencies. Publications presents back to the remarkable gathering of Dragon Door authors, Implement Rolando’s advice and you will have all the success HardStyle leadership and enthusiasts this past August, at our inaugural you can handle as a trainer… www.dragondoor.com Health and Strength Conference in Minneapolis. The RKC was strongly represented by excellent Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Dr. Chris Hardy gave the keynote on the subject of the presentations from Andrea Du Cane and Max Shank. The Stress Cup and how it impacts our training. Few folk out PCC leaders Al and Danny Kavadlo were their usually John Du Cane there train with a proper understanding of how multi- inspirational selves…Strongman and Neuro-Mass author sourced stress needs to be factored in to optimize your health Jon Bruney gave an impassioned and thought-provoking Editorial Editorial Assistant Dennis Armstrong Art Direction & Design Derek Brigham www.dbrigham.com Dragon Door Corporate Customer Service Dennis Armstrong, Tammy Drury, call 651-487-2180 support@ dragondoor.com Orders & Customer Service on Orders: call 1-800-899-5111 Dragon Door Publications corporate address: Dragon Door Publications 5 County Road B East, #3 Little Canada, MN 55117 and strength gains. The doc’s advice in this arena was golden session that pushed the envelope on advanced strength and worth the price of admission alone. Chris’s Strong training methods…Mike Gillette demoed his excellent Rings Medicine co-author, the magisterial Marty Gallagher, gave of Power program…and the “Jersey Boys”—and two of my an extraordinarily moving presentation on the fundamentals favorite guys—Zach Even-Esh and Phil Ross gave high- of absolute strength training, then the duo finished the octane, high value talks… conference with an eye-opening demonstration of advanced strength methods employing the CrossCore 180 device. Thanks to each and everyone of them for making the conference such a massive success! A special highlight, for me personally, was watching our Mental Muscle author Logan Christopher, coach RKC Look for details of the next, 2016 Health and Strength Team Leader Katie Petersen from a previous PR of 2 reps Conference to be announced shortly… in the one-arm push-up to…get this…7 reps! And using ONLY mental training tips. Mind-blowing, to say the least… Yours in friendship, strength and health, Many trainers are legends in their own minds—and John Du Cane Visit the Dragon Door website today. CALL: 1•800•899•5111 24 HOURS A DAY 2 www.dragondoor.com Visit: www.dragondoor.com ORDER NOW 10 Reasons You Should Train with an RKC— And Take Full Advantage of Your Kettlebell’s Transformational Power… By Lori Crock, RKC Team Leader An online fitness magazine caught my attention 4. REGAIN recently when the headline read, “The Problem FOUNDATIONAL with Kettlebells is …” MOVEMENt – being A able to move well is The article explained that the problem is there are not something we never enough certified kettlebell coaches to match the interest in stop learning, teaching kettlebells at the average gym. The result is poor technique and practicing with our and injuries resulting from no understanding of how to do own training and with the movements and lifts. our students. Movement always comes before strength. A certified But there are plenty of Russian Kettlebell Certified coach will challenge (RKC) coaches out there who can not only keep people their students to address safe, but help them reach the next level of fitness. whatever issues present with the FMS or other Here are my 10 reasons why movement assessment lift and carry and ongoing mobility work to reach goals. tool. Some foundational movement improvements I highly recommend the book, Master the Kettlebell for you should hire an RKC-certified realized with RKC coaching include: squatting, lunging, more information about RKC methods and programming. reaching, hinging, lifting, carrying and single-leg balancing. kettlebell coach: 8. INTEGRATE WITH OTHER FITNESS PRACTICES – programming at my gym is 80-90% 1. TRAIN SAFELY – at all of the RKC certification 5. ACQUIRE A NEW SKILL – when people inquire kettlebell-focused. This will vary among certified events, safety is the number 1 priority. You will use about kettlebell training I compare this to learning a kettlebell trainers of course, but programming kettlebell kettlebells safely or you will not be using them at all. A skill like golf or skiing. It takes time and practice to get training along with barbells, TRX, Crossfit, yoga and the certified coach is a representative of the RKC community really good at this. But even in the first month, under the martial arts works and yields great results in terms of and we are responsible for keeping our clients safe and direction of a certified coach, students can become skillful building strength and resilience. safely progressing in their kettlebell skills and mobility at the key lifts. They can take this skill with them into the rest of their lives … into any gym, home, on vacation or at work. 9. ADDRESS WEAKNESSES AND ASYMMETRIES the office. The kettlebell is a handheld gym, so this is a skill – an RKC certified coach will teach you single-arm and that they can use often in varied environments. 2. GET STRONG – our certification prepares us to two-arm movements and lifts. With the single-arm design programs to get our students stronger using kettlebell training especially, weaknesses or asymmetries smart, proven hardstyle technique that yields results. An 6. UNDERSTAND YOUR BODY TO PREVENT may become apparent. An RKC is trained to address/ RKC has learned and practiced numerous regressions INJURY – there is absolutely no way to train with improve/eliminate imbalances to prevent injury and and progressions to address movement challenges and kettlebells and not learn something new about your body increase performance–and refer someone to a medical adapt the skills to different fitness levels. For example, in terms of posture, breathing and muscular-skeletal professional when someone has pain or seriously if a student is struggling with the swing, we have activation. A physical therapist friend said that he had dysfunctional movement. multiple methods to address issues such as a lack of hip no idea about the power of the latissimus dorsi until he started using kettlebells. Understanding how and when mobilization, squatting or hip pop timing issues and so on. 10. LEARN FROM SOMEONE WHO IS A COACH to engage and use the lats and other key muscles, such FIRST – the RKC program focuses on making us good as the glutes and hamstrings, is something that many 3. MOVE WITH POWER AND PRECISION – kettlebell coaches. RKCs enjoy training with kettlebells, life-long exercisers have not paid much attention to. This people sometimes ask me, “How long before I get really but we know the power in this is teaching the art of safe, understanding of how and when to engage muscles and comfortable with the technique?” That will depend on efficient kettlebell skills to our students. We love to share use the biomechanical match breathing can take one’s many factors, but RKCs teach you to move with power our passion and we take pride in being RKC. We work physical training to a new level. and precision on Day 1. There is no short-cut for perfect hard to uphold the high standards set before us. Our technique and we keep working with our students, their certifications are physically and mentally demanding and anatomical structure, their former injuries, their goals 7. TRAIN WITH GOALS IN MIND – there is nothing we ask instructor candidates to take their preparation very and so much more to help them to achieve strength and random in our training methodology. This is training to seriously months in advance. RKCs recertify every two movement efficiency. get strong and to move better using a variety of ballistic years and we have a community of coaches that support movements and grinds, upper and lower body, push, pull, each other. 24 HOURS A DAY CALL: 1•800•899•5111 Find an RKC instructor today. ORDER NOW Visit: www.dragondoor.com www.dragondoor.com/instructors/ 3 How to Lead, Survive and Dominate Physically—And Reengineer Yourself As “The Complete Athletic Package”… SUPERHUMAN POWER, MAXIMUM SPEED AND AGILITY, PLUS COMBAT-READY REFLEXES— USING BODYWEIGHT-ONLY METHODS Explosive Calisthenics is for those who want to be winners But Explosive Calisthenics doesn’t just inspire you with the and survivors in the game of life—for those who want to be the dream of being the Complete Package. It gives you the complete Complete Package: powerful, explosive, strong, agile, quick and blueprint, every detail and every progression you could possibly resilient. Traditional martial arts have always understood this want and need to nail your dream and make it a reality. You, the necessity of training the complete package—with explosive Complete Package—it’s all laid out for you, step by step power at an absolute premium. And resilience is revered: the joints, tendons, muscles, organs and nervous system are ALL “The first physical attribute we lose as we age is our ability to conditioned for maximum challenge.