Fedorenko's Courses Downunder

Valery Fedorenko teaching in Australia for the first time

Valery Fedorenko came to Australia for the first time last week to run the World Kettlebell Club Strength & Conditioning and Sport Coach certifications in Melbourne.

With 14 people doing the courses we had a decent sized group, but also one small enough that Valery could spend time with everyone and give each person individualised advice. 

People flew in from several different states to take up the opportunity to work with Valery, and we even had a Kiwi in the mix!  This is really exciting because it means we have a great network of trainers now who are ready to impart good information to improve lifting standards over here (and in New Zealand too of course).

The quality of lifting at this course was really good, everyone who attended had already spent time working on technique and throughout the courses improved significantly.  It's rare to see everyone at a kettlebell course snatching with decent form!  This will be a great boost for kettlebell lifting in general, as well as kettlebell sport in this country.



Valery did an incredible job of honing in on each person's weak points and gave very practical, simple advice to improve (and brutally honest advice, down to how many kilos of weight to lose to get a better rack position for some!).  Valery also provided free fashion advice, particularly to Antoni Stojak who got plenty of hairstyle advice.


Valery with a captive audience

In fact, Valery's sense of humour was without doubt one of the highlights of the weekend.  There was a great deal of laughter (always good to break up the pain of the timed sets) and no one was spared, not even Valery himself.  At one stage he said, referring to someone with a more muscular physique "this is what you need to look like if you want to be a personal trainer, right?  People look at me and they think 'eh look at this guy, what does he know?'."

That's probably one of the things that's most impressive about Valery, though.  To look at him you'd never know what he is capable of, but he can pick up a 32kg kettlebell and do a 5 min snatch set on one arm when he's jet lagged and has a cold and make it look like the easiest thing in the world.  Part of Valery's trip here involved some movement analysis in the lab - this is the first time this sort of study has been performed on Valery so stay tuned for the results!

There were two successful rank attempts during the course, with Scott Carroll and Cherie Richards (from Invigorate Health Club on the Sunshine Coast) getting StrongSport 40kg Long Cycle and Rank III Long Cycle respectively.  These were beautiful sets to watch and both very proud moments for kettlebell sport in Australia.





We also showed just how hard Australians are prepared to work - a quality that will hopefully serve us well in kettlebell sport in the future!  There was an incredible amount of volume lifted over the weekend, Nick Efthimiou made a rough estimate of 1000 overhead lifts for each person over the weekend. 


Our hard working trainers

Everyone worked incredibly hard not only on getting through the sets, but also on implementing technique advice.  It was wonderful to see how much everyone's lifting evolved over the weekend.  Sore hands, aching bodies and tired brains didn't stop anyone from putting in a huge effort.

The detailed knowledge of technique and training protocols provided by Valery, combined with plenty of time to practice the lifts, enabled everyone, no matter what level, to get a great deal out of these courses and to leave feeling inspired. 

Valery seating his new friend at the dinner table

The weekend finished with a dinner, where the Sunshine Coast crew presented Valery with his very own boxing kangaroo!  It was wonderful to be able to forget about lifting for a while and get the chance to relax, eat and socialise with the man himself.

Valery even tried some Australian beer (Little Creatures Pale Ale) with his fish and chips at a Carlton pub - so he definitely got an authentic Australian experience during his short stay.

Now that we have a great new group of coaches, it's time to really start growing kettlebell sport in Australia and ensuring that we do it with a solid foundation of excellent lifting standards.  The next step will be to hold the very first Australian Kettlebell Club competition later in this year (details will be announced soon!).  We also hope to bring Valery out here again next year, possibly with the addition of a sport camp for the die hards...

A huge thanks to eveyone who attended the World Kettlebell club courses - you guys were amazing.

(This is the only group photo I have from the courses and it has a Mr Hikaka giving Valery bunny ears!  Haha.)

See the video below for some highlights from the weekend.  Excuse spelling/grammatical errors in the videos, I was pretty tired when I put them together...