Let's Get Bent!

On Friday August 6th I had the honor of receiving a lesson on the Bent Press and Clean & Jerk with Master RKC David Whitley.  These are two techniques that I will be tested over when I attend the RKC level II certification in 2011.

The Bent Press is a very unique lift that requires flexibility and a high degree of mobility in the thoracic spine.
It is essentially an old-school lifting technique that allows you to get a lot of weight overhead with one arm. The idea is clean the weight to your shoulder then hinge at the hips, lowering yourself under the weight until the loaded arm is straight then simply stand up. The finish position looks identical to the end of the press. Once learned it is possible to perform a bent press with significantly more weight than you can with a one arm press. In my case I can get approximately 25% more weight overhead with the bent press than the one arm press, and I am convinced that as my technique improves I will be able to bent press even more.

The Heaviest Kettlebell I own weighs 40kg/88lbs. I have performed the bent press with this particular bell many times, but until August 6th I had never attempted heavier. Under advisement of "The Iron Tamer" (Master RKC David Whitley) I performed a Bent Press holding two kettlebells in one hand and set a new personal best of 96lbs using a 32kg/70lb kettlebell combined with a 12kg/26lb kettlebell. I was successful on my second attempt. While I have performed one arm presses with two bells in a single hand, I had never considered using two kettlebells in one hand on this particular lift, probably because the bent press is difficult enough without the added difficulty of gripping and balancing two kettlebells in one hand.



Since it only took two attempts to successfully bent press 96lbs I was confident that I could go much heavier with practice. Using the technique taught by David Whitley, on Saturday August 14th (one-week latter) I attempted 106lbs and succeeded. I succeeded again on August 16th and captured it on film.



I'm excited to keep practicing this lift and see how far I take it.
Thanks, Iron Tamer!

Visit David Whitley's website