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Kettlebell "Enter the Kettlebell" Questions

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Kozushi

Kozushi

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I ordered and read "Enter the Kettlebell" coming from mainly an S&S background and I have a few questions:

1. Is ROP better than the full S&S programme, or is it an alternative? If so, what is better about it (or worse)???

2. If snatches are hard on the shoulders and not to be done often anyhow, why bother? Why not just stick with swings as in S&S?

3. If you're doing plenty of swings anyway, why bother with the clean before your presses, as the clean is just a lamed swing? Why not just do military presses in ladders or sets without the clean involved after each rep? The book says that dispensing with the cleans in between (and only doing sets of presses) actually gives you more muscle mass anyhow - and isn't this a major point of weightlifting?

4. Pullups (I love them - been doing them since youth!) - can these be added to S&S in the way ROP prescribes without overtaxing the body?

5. Would this kind of workout be an acceptable (albeit slightly simplified) use of the book's knowledge for a more or less daily workout: swings (10X10 as in S&S), military presses (5X5 ladders or similar), pullups (something like the military press ladders)???
 
I'll give my answers, but I'm sure more and better will be coming...

1. Define "Better." Alternately, "Better for what?" The decision to take S&S to Sinister vs. doing the ROP is dependent on your goals.

2. Snatches, the Tsar of Kettlebell Lifts, are in my opinion much like Swings Deluxe. They do more--or at least, different--than straight up Swings. You do both. Swings as foundation and bread & butter, and Snatches as a powerful addition.

3. Because (goals again) putting on mass is NOT necessarily the goal of Kettlebell lifting. I like strength training. I don't need to be bigger; I always want to be stronger. Do what best fits your goals.

4. Sure. 2x5 after TGUs. Or however works for your ability and recovery.

5. Short answer: no way you can sustain ladders as a daily practice. At least not 5 rung ladders, unless you are WAY under-'belled. But it sounds like you might should look at Easy Strength and/or Even Easier Strength.
 
I don't know if these are better than @Swann 1 , but I'll throw my hat into the ring.

1) It's an alternative, but only once the swing and TGU are in a good place. Both will make you very strong and good at real life stuff, but ROP really benefits from the foundation laid by the PM or S&S (good hinge pattern, resilient shoulders). If you have a good TGU and a weak press, maybe you should switch to ROP.

2) I think Al C. said something along the lines of, "Everything the one-hand swing does, the snatch does better." Great, so let's all do the snatch. But the snatch can be hard on your shoulders, especially if your technique isn't dialed in. Alright, so let's not do the snatch all the time, and make sure that our technique is good when we do. Keep in mind, S&S/PM are "intro" programs (albeit ones that you could stay on indefinitely), so the movements need to be somewhat forgiving. The snatch and press can do terrible things to you if done incorrectly, the swing and TGU won't punish you nearly as bad.

3) In ROP, the Clean and Press is a whole body strength and conditioning movement, and is the main course of the program. Most people have stronger hips than shoulders, though, so the swing/snatch is tacked on at the end to make sure you hinge pattern gets a little extra attention. Just doing sets of presses w/o cleans is not recommended until you already have an excellent press. My advice, don't worry about this until at least your second time through ROP.

4) Maybe. S&S is made to be run along side other programs. The more intense the other program, the less you do S&S. Start a pull up program (preferably something minimally taxing, like GTG or an Easy Strength approach) and pay attention to how your body responds. If your swings suffer because your grip/back are suffering, then ease off of something.

5) To quote @Steve Freides from this thread:

One thing I keep wanting someone to try is the Rite of Simple & Sinister - do your swings as prescribed by S&S, then on 3 days/week, do the presses as prescribed by ETK's Rite of Passage. Take as much of a break as you want, need, and can in between the swings and presses.

A second option for the Rite of Simple & Sinister would be to separate the press and swing sessions by 6 hours or more, in which case you could do the presses first.

I think both of these are approaches worth trying but I am not aware of anyone who has done either, including me.

-S-

Or you could do ROP, but do you swings S&S style (sets of 10, with plenty of rest between sets). Maybe use three dice instead of two since you'll be resting more. However, your power production on the swings would be diminished, so don't get mad when your swing progress slows down.
 
1. Not better or worse. Just different. A road that seems good to many is to do S&S until simple, and then ROP. See S&S as an improved Program minimum, which was considered the entry point to ROP in the original book. As written above, it all depends of your goals!

2. You can still do light snatches to work on technique. Last time I ran the program, I was swinging 32kg one-handed and 40kg two-handed, but snatching only 16kg. Very light indeed, but a good way to improve technique before snatching the 24kg (which I had never done at this point).

3. If I remember correctly (have to check the book again), we are supposed to clean everytime to learn how to get tight before each press.

4. Personal opinion: I would not do it. In ROP, you can (only can) add them in your ladders. If it fatigues you too much, you may miss a press. Big deal. You just lower the bell, reduce the pullups for next time and go on. If you insert pullups between your getups, you increase muscular fatigue. I like to start a getup when I am 99% sure I will do it (failing like a professional a getup with a 32kg is not as comfortable as it is with a press). I would avoid any kind of additional muscular fatigue at this point. But you could add "Grease the groove" pullups.

5. Daily? I doubt it. Last time I did ROP, I put the press first, as it is the meat of the program. M-W-F Heavy-light-medium. Then I would do S&S style swings with 32 kg on Monday and Tuesday (variety), light snatches on Wednesday, Heavier but two handed swings on Friday (40kg 2 handed being easier to me than 1 handed 32kg), and did weighted/unweighted pullups in-between the press ladders. My Monday session would ressemble your program suggestion: Up to 5 ladders of 5 rungs of presses with pullups in between : 75 reps per arm, up to 75 PU/CU near the end of the round, some of them weighted, 8kg and 16kg. Then 10x10 32kg one-handed swings. No way I could have done that more than once a week. And it took more than 90 min!
 
Goals are different. ROP is a pressing program with the goal of working up to a 1/2 BW one arm MP, and 200 snatches in 10 minutes. I think the press part of ROP is much more effectively designed than the snatch part.

Since ROP has a snatch goal, of course the program will include snatches. Personally, I love the snatch and don't think it is hard on the shoulders with good technique. They are harder on the hands, and generally will require that you go down in bell size. With the high press volume of ROP, adding a lot of snatches on top of that is an awful lot of overhead volume. So limiting the amount of snatching in ROP is as much a compromise based on the rest of the program as it is a reflection on the snatch as an exercise.

Cleaning before every press gives you more practice cleaning, since a good clean is essential to a good press, and also accommodates a higher volume of presses, since you get a short break between reps. This is why consecutive reps without recleaning can be more suited to hypertrophy -- more uninterrupted time under tension and accumulated local fatigue. All those cleans also give you "bonus" hinge reps.

Yes, a hybrid program of S&S swings and ROP press ladders (nicknamed "Rite of Simple & Sinister," as mentioned above) can work fine (especially if you are not immediately pursuing the ROP snatch goal) and can incorporate pull ups. There are a few ways to cook this.
 
Snowman said:
5) To quote @Steve Freides from this thread:

One thing I keep wanting someone to try is the Rite of Simple & Sinister - do your swings as prescribed by S&S, then on 3 days/week, do the presses as prescribed by ETK's Rite of Passage. Take as much of a break as you want, need, and can in between the swings and presses.

A second option for the Rite of Simple & Sinister would be to separate the press and swing sessions by 6 hours or more, in which case you could do the presses first.

I think both of these are approaches worth trying but I am not aware of anyone who has done either, including me.
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I've been doing something similar to the second option above and it works well. I find that real, explosive S&S swings do take away from my press if I press right afterwards, so I have been doing swings some mornings, then presses and deadlifts in the afternoon. This works.

-S-
 
Both are good programs. The ROP is the program that made the most dramatic effect on me personally. I followed it religiously for over one year, dropped a pant size went up a shirt size, dropped my resting pulse and achieved a half body weight press (beast). No extra bells and whistles, just the ROP and as the weights increased I dropped the variety days. I have toyed with doing the ROP again starting with a 40 and hopefully progressing to a 44 and doing my swings ala S&S on off days but then that deviates from the original intent. It is minimalism at its best. I hear concerns over no squatting, deadlifting, curls, benching, etc. but can tell you this much....from doing the ROP coworkers and family members remarked to me that "hey you've been lifting again" ....one kettlebell and an optional pull-up bar and excellent results. Can't beat it in my honest opinion.

The ROP is what got me hooked on KB training as prior to doing it I thought they were "ok" tools to use but wasn't sure I'd be interested in doing them long term.
 
We must also ask, "better for what?" As a general purpose strength and conditioning program, S&S is the clear winner in my book. The ROP is a pressing program with a conditioning component, IMO.

-S-
 
Lots of wisdom being kindly shared here! Thank you all so much!

Steve: why would someone choose a pressing programme over an all purpose strength and conditioning programme? Is it for appearance, as the book says the press makes you look like a Greek statue? Is it because it feels better than TGUs?

All:

I was working mainly with the 32kg on the S&S programme although progressed to two handed swings with the 40kg eventually. It took about 4 months to get to that point although I wasn't able to go to 40kg for the TGU at all and not to do single handed swings with it either, yet. Trying out ROP for the first time yesterday, I felt that I needed to downsize to 24kg for both the C&P and the snatch. (Does that seem reasonable???) I could handle both exercises well with the 24kg, and certainly felt and I think looked afterwards like I had gotten a great, healthy workout. I like the fact we can pause a bit at the top of the snatch, and that the clean movement gives us a bit of a rest before pressing again, let alone the fact that the clean is a decent way to help exercise the entire body in the movement, it being a bit of a "big pull" movement. It makes sense, reading the posts above, that the ROP programme is really at its heart a clean and press programme, with the snatch filling in the gap left by the clean being a little less than ideal for the "big pull" movement. It looks like people here see the pullups as very optional. What I might do is to do them at a different time of day. I like them; they're fun and not bad to add in, but it would seem that they can tire you out for the ROP movements.

I would like to come up with something of a daily base routine, although the book promotes a varied routine. S&S is a daily routine, so I wonder if ROP could be done that way too? (Sure, sometimes do more or less when needed, of course.) Would the 5X5 rule work then, for both the C&P and the snatches??? Would that be a worthwhile "Programme Daily"??? Would I progress with that?
 
@Kozushi Great poll thank you. My vote is for ROP as in my personal experience the amount of pressing volume really sets the stage for increasing your overall strength base. As we all know, the larger your "cup of strength", the more skills you can fill it with.

I also feel that the 2 programs can provide different outcomes based on goals. If you want to become an SFG Instuctor then going through the ROP is a must.

If you are a general fitness enthusiast then S&S makes more sense as the overall wear and tear is far less as there is no real practical reason for you to practice the snatch.
 
@Kozushi, no single program is right for every person and at every time. S&S will lay an excellent foundation for anyone to do another sport or activity, and once learned it scales back nicely and therefore co-exists with other activities very well.

One would choose a pressing program because one wants a better press, or if there is a reason one cannot do S&S.

-S-
 
While I can appreciate all the Zen koan-like responses of "it depends on your goals" and "better for what," I'll go ahead and be a rogue and say I like ROP better. I like pressing and snatching so it's a good fit. Keep in mind that ETK was written several years before S&S. Since I became interested in kettlebells in the early 2000s, I read ETK and did ROP well before S&S came out.

My understanding from having read ETK is that it was designed to be a "general" strength and conditioning program. I'm pretty sure I remember reading something from Pavel about sports specific programs. He said that for a high level athlete who has an experienced coach, the coach will take care of designing a "sports specific" S&C program. For us amateurs who like to dabble in a sport, we have no business trying to cobble together a sport specific program and are better off with a well-designed general S&C program. I'm pretty sure that Pavel wrote this in ETK about ROP but I don't remember where. I took this advice to heart. Unless you're a powerlifter or weightlifter, strength is a general adaptation. Skills are practiced on the field. It's hard to beat a program of presses, pull-ups, and swings as a general program. The built-in variety days allow for sports practice or extra leg work such as squats and/or deadlifts.

S&S is certainly a simpler general program and probably easier to recover from during intense sports training. But I would still recommend ROP for someone needing a general program.
 
The purpose of the clean before the press in ROP isn't for "extra conditioning." It's to make the press stronger. Cleaning the KB causes your body to store tension. If you press immediately after the clean you can make use of this stored tension to have a stronger press. Pavel explains this in the book. In my experience this effect is real. I've even noticed it when doing a barbell overhead press, which is why I like to always clean the bar before the first rep as opposed to pressing from the rack.
 
Steve Freides said:
@Kozushi, no single program is right for every person and at every time. S&S will lay an excellent foundation for anyone to do another sport or activity, and once learned it scales back nicely and therefore co-exists with other activities very well.

One would choose a pressing program because one wants a better press, or if there is a reason one cannot do S&S.

-S-
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In other words, S&S would be the default programme of choice. I see. :)
I think the fact that I can manipulate a higher pood bell with S&S over the press and snatches of the ROP curriculum means my body is simply handling more weight through S&S and that in and of itself has to be a good thing.
 
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Does anyone have a standard daily ROP routine that they could share with me? I'm wondering if the programme can work like S&S where you have a standard number of sets and reps. I'm thinking of trying to work with a traditional "five sets of...", 5X3 at first, working up to 5X5 and maybe try the ladders every so often.

Alternately, does anyone use S&S as their daily workout but adds some ROP moves onto or into it?
 
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MikeTheBear said:
While I can appreciate all the Zen koan-like responses of "it depends on your goals" and "better for what," I'll go ahead and be a rogue and say I like ROP better. I like pressing and snatching so it's a good fit. Keep in mind that ETK was written several years before S&S. Since I became interested in kettlebells in the early 2000s, I read ETK and did ROP well before S&S came out.

My understanding from having read ETK is that it was designed to be a "general" strength and conditioning program. I'm pretty sure I remember reading something from Pavel about sports specific programs. He said that for a high level athlete who has an experienced coach, the coach will take care of designing a "sports specific" S&C program. For us amateurs who like to dabble in a sport, we have no business trying to cobble together a sport specific program and are better off with a well-designed general S&C program. I'm pretty sure that Pavel wrote this in ETK about ROP but I don't remember where. I took this advice to heart. Unless you're a powerlifter or weightlifter, strength is a general adaptation. Skills are practiced on the field. It's hard to beat a program of presses, pull-ups, and swings as a general program. The built-in variety days allow for sports practice or extra leg work such as squats and/or deadlifts.

S&S is certainly a simpler general program and probably easier to recover from during intense sports training. But I would still recommend ROP for someone needing a general program.
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I also like pressing and snatching. They both remind me of my beloved combat sports movements and fights.

Hahaha, in my case I got into this stuff in January this year and it was therefore with S&S, so that's the thing I feel familiar with. I'm worried that if I switch to ROP I'll be less strong and fit.
 
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I'm a complete newb here, but the S&S program is basically the equivalent of the program minimum in EtK, so I would think you'd want to hit that standard before the ROP.
 
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