Last March, I first learned about the Tactical Strength Challenge when I talked to  RKC II  Mike Stehle. The idea of an event where you do Deadlifts, Tactical Pull Ups and a 5 minute kettlebell snatch test seemed intriguing but there was a small problem. I hadn’t dead-lifted in 25 years and I hadn’t done a pull up or chin up since high school. Plus, I was never any good at either of those two things when I did do them. Needless to say the intrigue evaporated.

Go forward to May of this year and I got to spend the day training with Will Williams, Sr. RKC and Dr. Donald  Blake Berry, RKC.  Now, Will is pretty much the King of Pull Ups and so he was able to teach me enough about the Tactical Pull Up that I actually started  included them in my training.

A month later, at the end of June, I helped put together the Delaware Kettlebell Workshop for Dr. Mark Cheng, RKC TL and one of the things we did there was barbell dead-lifting. Hmm…I thought, these feel pretty darn good.

By this time, I was already doing some work with Marty Gallagher and so the next time I saw him we worked on dead-lifting and I was hooked. I remembered that the Tactical Strength Challenge took place every six months so I decided to train  for the September 2009 event in earnest, no matter how embarrassing the results relative to other competitors.

Marty put me on a dead-lifting training cycle that allowed me to begin dead lift training back in July at 185 pounds of load. I have enjoyed my dead-lift training day and was able to dead-lift 325 pounds yesterday. That was a bit disappointing as my PR is 330 but I did my warm up lifts and started the competition at 300 and did that with ease. Followed that up with 325 and again, the bar moved quickly. And then I made my mistake. I let the other guys talk me into attempting 365. The problem was that I didn’t buy into it and lacked confidence. I got in about half way and had to dump it. I had more in me than the 325 but not 365 but I learned a valuable lesson. Stick to the plan. My plan was to feel the bar speed and make a decision about where to go from 325. Key word is decision and I ended up not invested in the number. I can promise that won’t happen again.

After 15 minutes of rest we went to the Pull Up bar. I had a goal of 10 Tactical Pull Ups. A TPU is overhand grip, thumbless, dead hand after each rep and you MUST hot either your neck or lower on each rep. I started out ablaze and was tapping my collarbone. I ran out of steam though and only got 7 reps. The judge said that based on how I started that he thought I may hit 20. I will get 15 at the April event, I can promise that.

Next up, kettlebell snatches. 5 minutes of snatching. Bell can go to the floor and you can have multiple hand switches. My goal here was 110 total. I only got to 100 as I was having coughing issues and had to put the bell down to cough…twice and that was disappointing but I just got over a cold so it wasn’t a total surprise.

I can’t wait to do it again in April. They have it each Fall and Spring and I loved it. I had fun and wasn’t competitive (results haven’t been posted yet) compared to others but I now have a bench mark for the dead-lift and the TPU and know I will be able to post better numbers in the Spring 2010.

Please comment if you are considering doing a TSC in the future(here are the TSC rules, have done one in the past. Or if you want to congratulate me or make fun of me:)

Train Hard,

Sandy Sommer, RKC