I haven’t got round to posting for a while, so there will be a couple in quick succession! 
One important date in any girevik’s 2013 calendar was February 9th which saw the Scottish Open kettlebell sport championships at the Scottish Kettlebell Club’s home; Hillington Park Gym. This was the inaugural competition under the banner of the recently formed Girevoy Sport Union and set the standard for other GSU competitions to follow. The fantastic organisation, before and during, and the standard of the gym itself were testament to the effort of Scott and Abigail. I only hope we at Manchester Kettlebell Club can put on as good an event in Manchester in April!
It was great to see the standard of the competitors becoming so high, and that wasn’t just because we had two Russian world champs there! The competition attracted lifters from the UK, Ireland, Germany, Denmark and, as I mentioned, Russia. Whilst I have only competed in the two competitions and spectated at one more, it is clear that the standard of lifting in the UK and Ireland is increasing rapidly and there are some great lifters out there in Europe too. The number of male competitors lifting 28′s and 32′s and women lifting 16′s and 20′s was impressive – and for me a little intimidating as I took the platform for the first time with the 28′s.
I’d taken the debatable decision of jumping from the 20′s up to the 28′s after the Irish championships last year and although my training had gone OK I had only managed 7 minutes on jerks and about 6 minutes on snatch before the competition so I was concerned it would all go pear shaped on the day. Fortunately it didn’t and I set a pb on both the jerk and the snatch, holding on for nearly 9 minutes and 50 reps jerk and for 91 reps on the snatch. I was pleased with the jerk set even though I only got 50 reps because I felt strong and comfortable all the way to about 7 1/2 minutes – at which point it all fell apart! Even though 91 reps was up there with the other competitors in my category on the snatch, I was actually a little disappointed because I was limited entirely by my grip, more work to do there. After watching the videos of the event Steve has identified a few improvements I can make to my technique so I will be trying to put those into practice over the coming weeks.
The one grumble I did have about the event was that my bodyweight category was merged with the category above. Whilst this definitely made for a better competition, I had weighed in right at the bottom of my bodyweight category (just 200 grams over the lower bodyweight category at 78.2kg) which left me competing against someone nearly 16kg heavier than me. I think I should have dieted down before the event perhaps!
Of course no post about the event would be complete without recognition of my team mates! My brother in law Mykie completed a staggering 225 reps on snatch with a 20kg kettlebell – well done Mykie! And Russ set PB’s on both 2x 20kg jerk and snatch to bring home a gold! Our coach Steve, despite struggling with injuries over the last couple of months, managed to last the full 10 minutes on 2 x 28kg jerk and complete a great snatch set afterwards.
The videos of my sets are below. They also show my coach Steve, I am on the left as you look at the video. Hope you like the pink “Jerk” t-shirts, I’m not sure this what Primark had in mind when they designed them
Mine and Steve’s jerk set:
And the snatch set:
It’s comforting to read this Rich as I’m still struggling to make 10 mins snatch with 12kg and only 30/30 secs for both snatch and jerk with 16kg. Changing my form has affected my 16kg snatch ( I find old hardstyle easier but won’t last a full set doing it this way) and is ripping up my hands.The 14kg gives me a good medium, I managed 2 min/2min black snatch with this last week. But can’t compete with 14kg unfortunately..