Funnily enough I started it more as a replacement for my morning yoga sun salutation due to some wrist hassle that prevented me from doing downward dogs. In fact, now I see it as a support for my windsurfing activities J
Having done ETK in the morning prior to work for 12 weeks 4 weeks PM, 8 weeks RoP all with a 16kg bell (24kg for the pulls) with zero warm up due to time constraints I can say ETK delivers:
- In week 5 I tried the BMF and finished in 12:07 min with not having given everything. However, I certainly do not feel like semi-mutant as for me the hindu squats felt more like active rest compared to the swings. Am I doing something wrong?
- In week 8 I could both do one wobbly OAPU as well as one solid Pistol, and this was totally out of range before starting out that felt great and impressed my kids…who have now started with swings and TGUs.
- Test in week 9: C&P 24kg 5/5, SN 16kg 107/5min.
- I have all sorts of new small visible muscles on the side of my torso and my back/spine feels really stable. An ellbow pain from falling off my son’s skateboard has vanished without a trace.
- Even though I only learnt from DVD and youtube I think my form is OK as I have never had any pains or soreness from KB training (apart from the day after test day J). Its really all in there if one looks closely and repeatedly.
- The active arm flexibility (being able to keep my arm next to my ear for presses and SN) has improved a lot even without warmup/stretches like halos and pumps during RoP. I am almost there without any stretching. Maybe that is due to the bells offset centre of gravity working the joint?
I have now just started the RoP again at 3×1,2,3 with the 24kg. The ladders were hard but I could finish in good form. The snatches on the first light day were a different matter: I could only do about 5 each side before the form went south and I had to revert to high pulls. Having read on the forum that normally the presses are more of an issue when going up one kettelbell size I did not expect that, especially when compared to when I started with the 16kg where the felt difficulty level of C&P versus snatches was about even.
Any ideas on how to fix that, or is this normal and I should just continue and see how things are coming along?
Hopefully this longish report is of interest to other newbies that are thinking of starting, but Pavel said post your results. I am still VERY keen to see how things are going to proceed, as I could not wait to buy the 32kg for my pulls and that thing certainly does feel heavy. (No, I did not snatch it out of the box 
)
By the way: 42Y, 182cm, 75kg
