Octogen Strength Coach – Don Stevenson

A short video of Sydney Strongman Societys Saturday training sessions

And a video from the recent SSS Novice Comp on the 4th of April

As promised below the new “Kettlebell Power Secrets 2 – Advanced Training” DVD is almost finished and I’m opening it up to pre-orders.

The new DVD covers all of the advanced kettlebell exercises that I use in my training and with my clients. I haven’t padded it out with novel crap that you’ll never find a use for, just hard hitting drills that will have an immediate impact on your fitness.

Here are a few things that will be covered

Kettlebell swing variations, kettlebell juggling, kettlebell band and chain combos, kettlebell remedial drills and stretches, double kettlebell drills, new kettlebell core drills.

There are also tips on different types of kettlebell interval workouts to push your fitness to a higher level and bonus footage from some stuff I’ve been shooting with CrossFit Sydney and my strongman training.

To celebrate the launch there is a pre-order discount price of $29.00 but as soon as the first DVD ships (on April 6th) the price is going up to $39.00

As well as the pre-order special on the new DVD I’ve also put all our other DVDs and products including gymboss timers and personalised programs on sale for a limited time.

To order the new DVD and get the specials on our other products go to the following page.

DVD launch sale page

So far this year we’ve run 2 Kettlebell instructors workshops and I’m now in the process of booking dates and venuse for another series of workshops all around the country for the rest of the year.

The plan is to get to all the major capital cities like last year but also if there is enough interest to get to a few smaller cities and towns so if you’ve got a group who might be interested in doing a 3 hour kettlebell or olympic lifting workshop or an instructors course please give me a shout at fitness@octogen.com.au and we can arrange something for you.

Ok, it’s been a while since I updated the blog mostly because I’ve been flat out with workshops and shooting lots of video.

Andrew and I have been shooting more stuff on the Glute Ham Raise including our latest short video on how to work up to doing full GH raise.

If you are any sort of athlete then you REALLY need to be doing these to strengthen your posterior chain and tie all your core work together. The problem for most people is that they lack the strength to do even one proper GH raise.

The following video should fix all of that as we show you several steps to doing full GH raise.

Ok I hope everyone had a good break over Christmas. I had a bit of time off (thus no posts for over 4 weeks!) but got stuck into training and a few new projects as soon as the new year started.

So here is whats coming up in 2009.

#1 – I got a brand new video camera for Christmas and I’m getting the hang of the editing software so look out for heaps of new videos and DVDs. I’ve teamed up with Andrew Cattermole from CrossFit Sydney and we are now taking a half day each week to shoot videos of Olympic weightlifting, strongman training, CrossFit workouts, Kettlebells and heaps more. I’ve included my first new video here. This shows a few of the ways I warm up before my strength sessions. (excuse the music, it seemed like a good idea at 2am while I was editing it)

#2 – I’ve just launched the “Octogen Insider” system that gives people access to 6 full monthly programs for various goals updated monthly with new programs and exercises. This system combines most of the elements of our fully personalised programs at a fraction of the cost and we are offering a 30 day trial for just $1.

#3 – Last year was a complete write off for me in terms of serious training. A hernia operation, two bad chest infections and tons of travel made training hard and competing in anything impossible. This year however I’ve recovered and reprioritised and have just entered the NSW State Strongman show to be held on the 27th and 28th of June. Stongman is really taking off in Australia and I’ll be helping wherever I can to promote the sport.

#4 – Also coming this year is the 2009 World Masters games. With 28 sports and more competitors than the Olympics it’s going to be a huge event for Sydney and somehow I got “Volunteered” to run the Weightlifting Competition. 500 athletes and over 100 officials and volunteers for 8 days!

#5 – Other stuff. Over the next few weeks you’ll hopefully see a switch to a new blog format plus a new kettlebell specific website coming soon.

#6 – As usual I’ll be running workshops and instructor courses around Australia and there is also talk of a New Zealand workshop but i’ll keep you posted.

Here is the second video that shows how our online coaching system works.

In this video I’ll show you all of the features that you get with one of our personalised programs including access to your program online, exercise videos and diary functions and more!

Insider Video #2 – Online Coaching System

Here is the first of two videos that i’ve put together to show you how we put together personalised strength and conditioning programs for our clients.

Just click the link below

Insider Video #1 – Visual Coaching Pro

Ok so you may have noticed that over the last three weeks I haven’t posted anything to the blog or sent out a newsletter. This isn’t because I’ve gotten fat and lazy or taken a holiday (I wish!)

Rather it’s because since the start of November I’ve been running around like a madman running some private kettlebell instructors courses, an olympic weightlifting coaches course and refereeing at the innaugural Ozstrongman nationals in Brisbane and as I type I’m getting ready for my final interstate trip of the year to Perth.

So therefore I’m doing a bit of a bulk update tonight.

Two more articles from the archives of Contact Magazine.

Article 5 – September 2006 – CrossFit

Article 6 – December 2006 – Summer Workouts

Over the past few years of training people with kettlebell and CrossFit methods I’ve noticed something.

Even though from session to session these workouts are highly varied and challenging, quite often when athletes are given a workout they’ll mentally start to break it down and pace themsleves. Conserving energy in one area in anticipation of a harder exercise thats coming up. For example a good runner might ease off on the run because they know that a set of 30 burpees is up next.

The other day while training a group of three clients (all of them experienced in my regular training methods) I thought i’d try something slightly different.

After a warm up and a brief kettlebell strength workout I laid out their conditioning for the day.

1. Set out on a lap of the oval
2. As each individual arrives back at the start point they will be given a mini workout to complete before heading out again on the next lap
3. The mini workout will be different for each client, each lap.

Examples of the mini workouts that they ended up doing.

A. 20 burpees + 100 situps
B. 10 burpees + 10 double clean and jerk (kettlebells) x 3 rounds
C. Boxing for 4 minutes
D. 20 m sprints with a burpee at each end
E. 10 pushups + 10 alternating split jumps
F. 20 kettlebell snatches + 20 pushups x 3 rounds

This workout turned out to be one of the hardest both physically and mentally that the group have done. At the end all three of them looked like they were about to collapse!

So if you want to spice up your workouts and introduce an element of unpredicatability I suggest getting a friend (or enemy) to write out say 3 – 6 little mini workouts and stuff them in an envelope then head out to the park or gym and start pulling stuff out at random and hammer through them as fast as possible.