Using RESETS to take performance to the next level

Categories: Stories Mar 03, 2016

It was early 2013 when I heard of Original Strength from Geoff Neupert's Kettlebell Secrets newsletter; he was explaining how it was a game-changer for him and how it will be the same for anyone who uses the system. Taking his word on good faith due to my success with Kettlebell Muscle, I bought the kindle edition and began reading and slowly using the resets.

Initially, I just started by including a few resets in my warmup routine which slowly took place of the foam roller (doesn't seem like much but any of the more knowledgeable OS coaches will tell you that I unknowingly was doing something right)

Fast forward a few months, more and more people started crawling and I still kept doing only minimal crawling.  Then one day, I saw something that caught my attention. One of my friends and mentors, Ric Garcia posted a photo of him doing double bottoms-up pistols.He also mentioned that crawling helped him unlock that said movement.

I got intrigued. I got crawling more.. To my  surprise, my first "a-ha" moment came. I nailed a double 30 pound bottoms-up pistol. I also discussed how doing crawls in a zigzag motion helped me unlock that feat (I talked about it in the OS blogpost: "a new frontier called play")

Fast-forward to 2014 and I still kept doing  OS resets but my second "a-ha" moment came in the form of experiencing how OS can truly help restore and rebuild resiliency.

I hurt my shoulder from doing too much overhead pressing without preparing my body for both the intensity and volume I had planned. Fortunately, soon enough, Tim Anderson posted a video on the OS youtube channel on how to commando rock and that it helps with a winged scapula. Without any hesitance, I immediately tried it out. To my surprise, in a few days, my shoulder started to feel better so I kept on commando rocking. I managed to regain my shoulder health and even got stronger than before as I managed to press a 32kg kettlebell with less effort than before and even unlock a 40kg bent press...

Last year came another big "a-ha" moment. I signed up for the strongfirst bodyweight instructor course. I heard in a podcast Geoff nailed his One Arm One Leg Pushup using crawling.

I quickly put crawling (along with bird dogs and prone cross crawls) under the microscope and noticed one thing. The stability required for these movements are the same as the one arm one leg pushup. So it must be a matter of building reflexive strength and the skill will re-appear since I have done it before.

So, by focusing my "performance" aspect of my training on those resets and just practicing one arm pushups, I surprised myself during the testing segment of the weekend by nailing the pushup without using any feed forward tension or power breathing easily.

Forward to today, I still continue to use OS in my training and that of my clients, and I have also finally gotten to attend a pressing reset workshop (another story for another day) and all I can tell you is this: OS is definitely a game changer, it is the hare, not the tortoise but by constant application of the resets, you unlock a lot of awesomeness.

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