This program was developed by one of my coaches Scott Sonnon who’s background is in the Russian martial art of Sambo. He traveled to Russia  and studied martial art and exercise science there. This program has become a big part of my own self training. I have always been looking for better methods of training. I sensed that my standerd muscle endurence training, I learned in the military and the weight training that I learned in different gyms around the country was lacking. I alway felt the my back was not as strong as it should be and I felt very inflexible eventhought I stretched and could do 80 sit ups in less than 2 minutes.

When I became a personal trainer, I started to learn about functional training, core training, yoga, and pilates. I also had been training in martial arts since 2001. In 2006, I met Pavel Tsatsouline and the kettlebell. I was very interested and found allot of weak and sore areas this different type of training. Swinging weight is different than just pressing, pulling and lifting weight in a gym. I suffered some small but painful training injuries while learining how to lift kettlebells. In 2008, I went to a Steve Cotter certification and was certified by the IKFF in kettlebell lifting. At that certification Ken Blackburn warmed us up using what he called joint mobliity exercises. They felt great, like nothing I ever felt before. The joint mobiliy was different than yoga, pilates, static stretching, or dynamic flexibility. I really could see that this was something that would help change the way I train and deal with some of my tight sore areas. The only problem was that when I returned, I could not remember any of Ken’s exercises.

So I started to look on the internet and found out about Scott Sonnon. At that time, I heard about the clubbell, a weight that looks like a baseball bat. I signed up for Scott’s CST certification and bought a 10lbs clubbell. In Febuary of 2009, I took my first CST and did not pass but went back in August and did pass. I have taken 3 CST course, 2 TACFIT and 2 Kettlebell course. CST takes a health first approach to exercise rather than an extreme results approach which I am finding is better for long term results and pain free joints.

There are 3 parts to CST, joint mobility, clubbell swinging, and yoga poses.  Next week I will discuss each part of CST.

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