American Kettlebell Club Blog

First I’d like to thank Chris Hoffmann at AIM Sports Medicine for offering his gym for the L.A. Certification. He bailed us out of a situation when one of our Coaches had a family emergency and cancelled hosting our event at the last minute. We had a large turnout and even though the gym was narrow (space in LA is a commodity!), we managed to make a lot of people happy based on the feedback we’ve been getting.

If you are in the LA area, don’t hesitate to stop in and see Chris. He’s a professional Trainer and a super Kettlebell Coach, but he is also well educated in body/deep tissue work. I know first hand because Chris helped me with a situation on Training Day that Sunday. See, the day we arrived I spotted a 48kg bell on the floor of his gym. Valery said, “you wanna try??”. I had never seen a 48kg that wasn’t within the specs of our Pro-grade bells before. Now, I’ve tried the 40kg of the same manufacturer and didn’t like the unbalanced feel, but I had 1 Arm Jerked a 50kg in Greece (same dimensions as our WKC bells) with success, so I wasn’t worried. That wasn’t smart… Maybe it was the cross country flight and 2 hour drive in LA, but I didn’t warm up and when I cleaned that big thing it sure felt heavy! My legs were dead… I dipped for a Jerk and tried to launch it up, but it wasn’t happening. I got it about 3/4 of the way up and back down it came. I didn’t set it down before trying another attempt. Another mistake… This time I managed to almost get it locked out, but it rolled over and came inward, and in trying to support it I tweaked my shoulder. I didn’t say a word at the time, but you just know. Later that night Valery said “you aren’t happy?”. I said no. He said “you have no legs”. I said “thanks, I think I hurt my shoulder a little”. He said “you should have warmed up”. Don’t you just love hindsight?

3 lessons learned…

1. Warm up well
2. Don’t use other people’s bells
3. When it really feels heavy and your first attempt is ugly, don’t try for another!

On Sunday I wasn’t totally out of the game. I managed to do some work with 24kg in the 1 Arm LongCycle (100 reps / 10 min. 1 Switch) but it was aggravating just knowing that “rope” was in there limiting me. I began asking Chris about deep tissue work, ART etc. I told him what I did, where it hurt and he took me over in the floor for about 5 minutes and proceeded to squeeze it out in various ways. The next day I felt as if someone had taken a baseball bat to my entire shoulder, but underneath that pain I could tell the sharper pain was already less intense. Over the next few days I began to feel it less and less, so in 1 week’s time I felt much better and am ready to go back to my typical program. Thanks Chris!

Eric Liford, Editor
American Kettlebell Club

Those in LA can find Chris Hoffmann at:

AIM-Sports Medicine
2407 N. Sepulveda Blvd.
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266