Sunday, November 8, 2009

The Miracle (or Voodoo) of Z-Health

Over the past 2 weeks I have developed a nagging pain in the right sacro-illiac joint related to jerking. The pain was not felt during the lift itself, but almost immediately after completion of the set. Not sure how to address the problem, I was beginning to get concerned. That is when I learned Brad Nelson was coming to town. Actually, Amy Dudley, RKC II, hosted Brad at her gym Better Bodies of Medina. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to work with Brad who is not only a Senior RKC, but also an advanced Z-Health practitioner. Now I have dabbled with Z for sometime, doing R-phase, Neural Warm Up, and I-phase drills on my own, but it wasn't until my RKC cert that I really appreciated that Z is so much more than a joint mobility program. There is actually a therapeutic application to Z that I was able to witness first hand since Zacharriah Salazar was one of my assistant instructors at the cert. Throughout the cert weekend, I watched Zacharria use his Z-Health skills to fix many attendees aches and pains including both myself and a close friend. This made me hopeful that Brad might be able to help me not only get rid of my right SI pain, but also improve my performance in kettlebell sport.

I knew I was in for an interesting session when he and Amy started laughing as they had me walk the length of the gym. "You are so F'ed up" was the comment I received. However, after several simple drills, he had me moving noticeably better and low and behold my back pain had disappeared!!! I have been given a prescription to work on 5 simple drills performing 3 reps of each movement 3 times per day. Based on my results in the inital hour of work with Brad, you can bet I will be incorporating these drills into my daily routine. Now that my pain is better, I am anxious to see if there will be an improvement in my GS performance.

Thanks Brad and Amy!

1 comment:

Renee Yorkievitz, RKC said...

Brad used you as a great example of the wonders of Z! So glad you are feeling better. Shannon from AKC (Chicago GS comp) attended today. Great guy!