achieved Simple Standards Feb 2015-here's my story:
summary (if you dont want to read the War and Peace version below) achieved Simple Standards after 1 year of focused training in S&S, with a good fundamental base of swings and TGUs for 2 years leading up to my S&S training.
general bio:
50yrs old, weight fluctuates between 190lbs-210lbs, height 5'6", played college sports at 175lbs, so i could afford to lose 15 to 30lbs. diet fluctuates between Warrior to EEUS (eat everything under the sun) lately i have been on the latter with great success though it's tough to consume so much. have a desk job where i stare at a computer 10hours/day aka death sentence, train in the morning, 530am, before slogging into work, train 5-7days per week.
was a barbell junkie/gym rat in HS, college and through my early thirties until family life and work absorbed all of my time and i made the unconscious choice of taking 10 years off from training. my barbell days consisted mostly of bodybuilding type routines though i did spend a good amount of time on presses, deadlifts, squats and cleans - enough to get decent numbers for a clean amateur in a consistently overtrained state - bench 365, dead 520, squat 475.
Started back into exercise in early forties, did a lot of trail running, mountain biking and open water swimming. started to lift things in the woods; logs, rocks, until i yanked my quadratus trying to pull a big root from the ground - stopped just about everything - worked with PT, got back to being able to walk without too much pain.
in Nov 2011 read Enter the Kettlebell and started working with kettlebells. Started with 24kg and program minimum, spent a year working on technique with 2H swings and TGU, intrigued by the 48kg TGU hurdle, so i made that my goal.
Bought a 32kg at beginning of 2013 and through out 2013 did the PM with the 32 and also did the 10,000 swing challenge, all 2H w the 24 and i did my own made up TGU challenge performing 500 TGUs in a month with the 32, always looking to improve technique in both lifts.
At end of 2013/beginning of 2014 i read S&S and started using the new minimum routine in S&S. i had never performed any single hand swings, so it took a while getting use to, back down to the 24. found transitioning to 1H swings with the 32kg to be very difficult, so i bought a 40kg in August 2014 and started to mix in 2H swings with the 40kg alongside my 1H swings with 24kg. Also started using the 40kg for TGU every other session. Within a month of this the 32kg 1H swings became manageable. it took a couple more months until about December of 2014 before i could even complete all of my swing sets with the 32kg, wasnt watching time, but it took roughly 10 minutes to complete 100 1H swings w the 32kg at this point.
during most of 2013 and still today i have been dealing with numbness and pain in the left shoulder and down the arm, working on trigger points in the scap area has helped calm the pain and discomfort for chunks of time, but at end of 2014 i made a concerted effort to work with a PT to fix it, got very close to 100% by Jan 2015 and the swings just fell right into place. felt very good with the 1H swings with the 32kg and started working in 1H 40kg swings. Within 2 weeks of adding the 40kg swings the Simple Standard was achieved.
Once the Standard was achieved i worked on moving into the 40kg for everything - TGUs have always been easier for me than 1H swings, so i had been doing 40kg TGUs very consistently and basically daily since receiving that bell. As i was working through the 40kg in the Summer of 2015 i became intrigued with KB Strong, mind you my goal is still to perform TGUs, 5 per side with the 48kg, but i dont have a 48kg bell and i do have two 24kg bells, so i began a modified KB Strong/S&S routine which i am working on today.
For the first two weeks i used the Simple Standard as my warm up to my modified KB Strong routine, so i would do 100 1H swings w the 32kg in 5mins and 32kg TGUs 5 per side, which takes about 7:45mins, then i would do Dbl C&Ps with the 24kgs for 10 sets of 3. Goal here was getting use to the Dbl C&P movement. This worked great for 2 weeks, then i started feeling some elbow issues coming on, so i dialed everything back and at the same time got involved in some home projects which needed to be completed before the winter months hit us in the NorthEast - fixing the cement foundation of the steps leading up to my house and then bricking them over. fixing the steps took 4 full days (Sat/Sun, Sat/Sun) of mixing cement and laying cinder block (im a complete amateur and it was bloody hot out) and i trained only 2 days/wk during the two weeks it took to complete. then took a vacation on beach, didnt touch a bell, but did morning workouts on the beach, sprints, broad jumps, slow burpees, planks, sun salutes. got back from beach and started up again with daily practice of sets of 10 1H swings per side with the 32kg, 5 TGUs per side with the 40kg and 3 sets of 5 Dbl C&Ps with the 24kgs did that for 2 weeks last wk of Aug, first week of Sept, then started to lay bricks over the newly fixed steps. this work is tough for me, so i trained only 2 to 3 days per week the past 3 weeks and did mostly TGUs with occasional sets of swings. now i get back to my swings/TGUs/Dbl C&Ps routine until i decide to purchase the 48kg bell (soon) and meet my TGU goal - it's been a great ride!!!