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Kettlebell Swings in the morning, getups at night?

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Smile-n-Nod

Smile-n-Nod

Level 5 Valued Member
I've been learning the S&S system for a few weeks (first time ever with kettlebells). Due to real-life time pressures, I find myself doing swings in the morning and working on get-ups in the evenings. Does splitting the two exercises like this diminish the overall value of the program?
 
IMHO, doing swings first and separately from the rest of your lifting enhances the effectiveness of the program. It's what I try to do every day. My ideal template is something like

Stretch
Walk
Swing
Break to get some work done
Other Strength Training.

-S-
 
It does, but not enough to worry about it. If you can swing it ;) skip the warm-up sometimes and group the swings and get-ups together (shouldn't take you longer than 20 minutes). Maybe alternate this with splitting the swings in the morning and get-ups at night like you've been doing.
 
Hello,

@Steve Freides
Steve Freides said:
doing swings first and separately from the rest of your lifting enhances the effectiveness of the program
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I admit that this strategy gives you more energy to your get ups because you can rest all day (if you have not a physical job). It will make you more productive to a certain extent.

However, my question would be :
working GU just after swings oblige you to work even more on endurance. Do not you think that a split would reduce this "additional work" ?

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
[SERMON]

Any time you can arrange to be fresher for any strength training, it's a good thing. If you're looking for additional work, do more getups - seriously, or go heavier, or something along those lines.

It is one of the myths of strength training that getting tired makes you better, when the truth is that practicing while fresh makes you better. Endurance - the approach S&S takes to the swing has never struck me as endurance training but rather special training that improves health, endurance, and strength through the repetitive performance of ballistic exercises with ~20RM weights.

Perhaps that's too subtle a distinction for some but it seems perfectly clear in my mind, in which "endurance" is something of a bad word. I dislike the idea of starting any exercise less than as fresh as possible.

[/SERMON]

JMO, YMMV.

-S-
 
Smile-n-Nod said:
Due to real-life time pressures, I find myself doing swings in the morning and working on get-ups in the evenings.
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Totally o.k. to do so, in my opinion.

Steve Freides said:
IMHO, doing swings first and separately from the rest of your lifting enhances the effectiveness of the program.
Click to expand...
Currently, this is kind of what I do. I am not doing "Simple and Sinister", but do it, as I do some get ups and some swings. They are fairly separated from each other, with no pressure by time in any way. I am getting lots out of it.

pet' said:
I admit that this strategy gives you more energy to your get ups because you can rest all day (if you have not a physical job).
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yes.
Steve Freides said:
Any time you can arrange to be fresher for any strength training, it's a good thing
Click to expand...
+1.
 
@Smile-n-Nod - as others have said, there's nothing "wrong" about splitting your practice, or, as you've asked in another post, taking long breaks between swings, or having problems running.

However, looking at your posts as a whole in your different threads, I wonder if all these are related and you're not trying to do too much too fast. They may be your body's way of telling you to slow down and look out for the long haul- which is where all the progress is. For a beginner, there's nothing wrong with sticking with the 5 sets of swings and doing partial getups for several weeks, you'll get plenty of base work in that way and build a good foundation for faster progress later. It's smart to avoid running, particularly if overweight, until you've walked around 10 mi./wk at a 15min pace (comfortably) for a month or so. If you're getting serious about getting in shape, think long term and consistency. Make sure your practice is leaving you feeling "recharged" and fresh and you'll want to stick with it long term. If you have to delay practices and push things back cause you're not fresh, you'll be much more likely to flame out. Good luck!
 
Matts said:
I wonder if all these are related and you're not trying to do too much too fast.
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Maybe, but I don't think so. I can do swings with much less rest, but sometimes other things get in the way.

I'm an engineer and I like to understand the "why" of things, not just the "what". I've been learning a lot about exercise and nutrition recently, and since I sometimes have to take breaks between sets, I started wondering if taking breaks that are too long will reduce the effectiveness of the sets.
 
Smile-n-Nod said:
I started wondering if taking breaks that are too long will reduce the effectiveness of the sets.
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That depends on what effect you are trying to achieve. For S&S' stated purposes, I believe your best to do all your swings together, rest as long as you can, and do all your getups together.

-S-
 
Steve Freides said:
Endurance - the approach S&S takes to the swing has never struck me as endurance training but rather special training that improves health, endurance, and strength through the repetitive performance of ballistic exercises with ~20RM weights.
Click to expand...
In my fairly recent experience, after about 1 1/2 years of S&S only, I started to add in some Maffetone LSD type training on a rowing machine and found I was not in very good shape in terms of endurance; my HR would quickly go above training range at fairly low work output. Also, I just would feel "over done" and sort of generally beaten up by actually trying to stay in MAF zone. I trained at about 10-15 BPM below the bottom of MAF every other day for several months and now can comfortably cruise at top of or even a bit above MAF for 30 minutes or more
 
As @aciampa would agree, I think, if you want to be good at an LSD activity, you need to train in that activity at least some of the time, and regularly.

I think the S&S training is best thought of as GPP, and it gives you a better base to build on in either endurance or strength or anywhere in between but, to keep with the foundation/house analogy, a foundation isn't a house, it's a foundation, and you still have to build your sport-specific house, even if you consider your sport something 'general' like LSD running.

But for those without a sport, S&S can be all they need for general health and strength, and that's a great thing, too.

-S-
 
Steve Freides said:
[SERMON]
Click to expand...
This is my new favorite markup tag :)

Steve Freides said:
IMHO, doing swings first and separately from the rest of your lifting enhances the effectiveness of the program.
Click to expand...
I hadn't thought about splitting out the swings and get-ups. A good tool to have in the toolbox. On the way to Simple, I was having troubles with my forearms being slow to acclimate to combined stress of heavier OHS and TGU. For a while I could do heavy OHS, or heavy TGU. But not both in the same session. Splitting them out by morning/evening could have been a good workaround and reduced my time to Simple. Perhaps if I decide to Sinister I will play with this approach.

This forum is the $hit!

Great post, @Smile-n-Nod.
 
Hello,

The Nail said:
For a while I could do heavy OHS, or heavy TGU. But not both in the same session. Splitting them out by morning/evening could have been a good workaround and reduced my time to Simple
Click to expand...
In addition to the training split, another strategy can also be worth considering : it is possible to wave the load. Then, you can hit some heavy days, and then some light days.

However, these are solutions to be experienced to be sure the stick to you and permit you to progress. Some folks will wave, some others will split.

As long as you progress the sustainable way, without exhaustion and without injury, while keeping fresh, you are good :)

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
Program minimum approach could be good too when weights get heavy. You can do swings on monday, get ups on tuesday and so on. It reduces also training time pretty much. Is it good or bad? It depends. :)
 
pet' said:
In addition to the training split, another strategy can also be worth considering : it is possible to wave the load. Then, you can hit some heavy days, and then some light days.

However, these are solutions to be experienced to be sure the stick to you and permit you to progress. Some folks will wave, some others will split.

As long as you progress the sustainable way, without exhaustion and without injury, while keeping fresh, you are good :)
Click to expand...
yes.

Sauli said:
Program minimum approach could be good too when weights get heavy. You can do swings on monday, get ups on tuesday and so on. It reduces also training time pretty much. Is it good or bad? It depends.
Click to expand...
also yes.

These are essential approaches, when weight gets serious. For my rule of thumb it gets @ handling 1/2 bw and beyond. It will lead to issues, to be thinking to must doing 100 swings and the ten get ups with a fixed weight and thinking to must do that on almost any day.
 
Steve Freides said:
It is one of the myths of strength training that getting tired makes you better, when the truth is that practicing while fresh makes you better.
Click to expand...

That's a hard one to break, along with "I'm so sore I can't move. That means I'm getting stronger". Several people approached me and asked "how do you train?". When I said Fresh. Frequent. Flawless. I felt them opposing the idea and dismissing it "'cause you need to get tired to get strong" and "doing just 10 deadlifts is not enough for anything..."
 
Splitting up the two is completeley ok and even beneficial. The smart folks above already gave you sime solid advice and I can only repeat this. The fresher you are before each exercise the more progress you will make.
Everybody should start thinking training and forget that terrible "all ou" "no pain, no gain" "balls to the walls" approach ...
 
Shahaf Levin said:
That's a hard one to break, along with "I'm so sore I can't move. That means I'm getting stronger". Several people approached me and asked "how do you train?". When I said Fresh. Frequent. Flawless. I felt them opposing the idea and dismissing it "'cause you need to get tired to get strong" and "doing just 10 deadlifts is not enough for anything..."
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I'll give an example of the opposite of "I'm so sore I can't move":

I haven't been doing ab work, but a couple of days ago, I did a very small amount of an exercise I'm familiar with as part of a 'variety' day, so no deadlifting or overhead pressing. I did standing wheel rollouts on an incline board, which I know from past experience is a good starting point for me when I haven't done this movement in a while. I did exactly 2 reps, videotaped them both, watched the first one after I did it, improved my form on the second one, and that was it.

I "felt my abs" the next day, but not in a bad way, and all the rest of my lifts felt stronger - I felt like I'd woken up my abs a bit by my brief session the previous day.

This is but one example of skills-based training. I cycle ab work in and out of my training and, since I have a competition cycle coming up in about 2 months, I'll probably keep some ab work in my training until then, then put it to rest while I use my abs in my deadlifts and elsewhere.

-S-
 
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