Metronome? Ever heard of Target? – Building a cheap Cadence Clock for your Kettlebell Snatch Sets

So are you one of those people that just can’t count very well when you workout?

Can’t keep track of your rounds in a AMRAP? Can’t count in your head or out loud for that fact on Tempo lifts? No chance of keeping up with your Reps in a Tabata?

Well then you may have some issues with the coming Cycles, cause well theres gonna be a lot of counting. It’s all gonna be pretty simple though, 20 Snatches a minute, 0ne every three seconds. Just keep adding three to the clock as you watch it go. Oh and remember to breath correctly, and have proper form on your snatch, correct hand positioning, full fixation, did I mention remember to breath? What if you also have someone Coaching in your ear, counting gets hard.

Seems like a lot when you put it like that doesn’t it?

Well you could get a metronome or an expensive gym clock thats all set up for you. Or you could just do what Flavor-Flav did.

You do know who Flavor-Flav is right? 

He was the guy that was smart enough to know a cheap clock can go a real long way. I personally agree with Flav, why buy something expensive when you can get it for cheap.

When I traveled out to Russia something I found interesting was watching all the World Champions at the Kettlebell Sport camp I attended lift. Not just because they were amazing lifters cause they were. But because the best guys in the world would come up and set a clock down in front of the platform for whom ever else was lifting and that was all they needed. Just a ghetto no frills clock.

Now usually when the Club trains for kettlebell lifting we look at it more as a task completion type of thing. Meaning we know what we have to get and we usually get it done as quickly as we can. But let’s take Roo’s World record in the kettlebell Jerk for example. Just blitzing it out would have been a bad thing. She would have hit her reps I know that (cause let’s face it she a bad ass), but she wouldn’t have done it in her hour time frame she was training for. So what did I do? I trained her on a Clock. Just like this little Gem we picked up at Target for 3.99. Three Dollars and Ninety-Nine cents, I really love target, the little arrows were probably like a buck. So for about five dollars we’re in business.

So what do you with said 5 dollar assortment of  engineering marvel. It’s really simple, you start setting arrows to the cadence of your set. This helps to eliminate the counting aspect, well as long as your holding your cadence. This is just how I trained Roo for her record set. As sure as the sun will rise ever three seconds your going to perform a snatch. Do you have to worry about math? No. Do have to worry about counting 14, 15, 16 reps in your head? No, no you don’t.

All you have to do is stick the mantra “Breath and Lift.” When you do that then your not worried about numbers. You can think about your breathing. You can think about your hand positioning. You can listen to your Coach giving you advice. Would I suggest having a couple clocks? Yeah couldnt hurt, never know when a funny rep scheme might show up or you may just be having a off day and know you can’t hold your designed 20 Rep per Minute pace. Which can honestly happen. This Cycle is going to be like the worst game of Wack-A-Mole you’ve ever played in your life. But instead of hitting some pop up puppet with a mallet at a arcade your gonna perform a Snatch every time that second hand hits an arrow. And not to give you guys nightmares but there are gonna be A LOT of arrows each minute.

Five dollars to keep yourself on track isn’t a bad investment. Twenty Reps a minute how hard could it be right…

Posted by: Z