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Kettlebell S&S Time Tests and Hapkido Training

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PTench

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This Fall, I started taking Hapkido lessons once a week (and light GTG style practice every day). Have experience with Strongfirst principles and strength training, but this is my first venture into martial arts (37 y/o). I love it and expect it to be a lifelong pursuit.

Have achieved Timeless Simple and am working my way towards the timed standard, can press 40kg with either arm and competently snatch 24kg for reps. I expect martial arts to be my priority, but of course, I want to continue improving strength and conditioning.

Keep doing S&S "by the book" with timed tests? Drop the timed S&S sessions and do 2 "talk test" sessions per week? Experienced/strong enough to do Q&D, or stick to S&S until timed standard? Also have access to barbell.

Thank you for any feedback.

Patrick

p.s. I own Jon Engum's 'Trembling Shock.' It's a wonderful book with lots of great ideas, but more geared for coaches who can control the training than a "do this" book for trainees, in my opinion. Also, I have no plans to fight competitively and practice Hapkido for self defense, health, fun, etc.
 
@PTench, why dont you start your martial art practice plus 2/3 timeless sessions of S&S per week? Do this for a few weeks, see how it goes and adjust as necessary.

You can add more sessions, or timed sessions, depending on your recovery and martial art sessions demand.

What are your constraints nowadays? Is it recovery? Do you have enough time for training and martial arts? Do you want to do more or would you rather do less?
 
You can continue to do any of the above based on your perceived needs for strength and conditioning. When I was actively practicing the martial arts I was executing S&S 5 days a week without issue, but you must determine what works best for you. If you are only actively training once a week I would do S&S or Q&D 3 times a week, and adjust as needed to ensure adequate recovery. Or, practice your S&S twice a week and see how you feel, if that is good add another session until you feel you are where you want to be.

It may take a little experimentation, but you will find the sweet spot that allows you to continue your strength work along side your martial arts training. Listen to your body and don't push too hard.
 
Thank you for the replies. I was doing S&S 4-5 days per week, but now that I am working the 40kg into the mix, it takes longer to recover, both during and between sessions, and that's before I added martial arts.

The dilemma is that my schedule is more conducive to frequent, shorter sessions than infrequent, longer ones. I've found that at least at the beginning stages of advancing weight on S&S, it's hard to avoid much longer sessions with more rest in between them.
 
Thank you for the replies. I was doing S&S 4-5 days per week, but now that I am working the 40kg into the mix, it takes longer to recover, both during and between sessions, and that's before I added martial arts.

The dilemma is that my schedule is more conducive to frequent, shorter sessions than infrequent, longer ones. I've found that at least at the beginning stages of advancing weight on S&S, it's hard to avoid much longer sessions with more rest in between them.

I have had good results with less volume. You could try doing some sessions with 32 by the book and some others with 40 kg limiting to 60 or 80 total swings. You can also do sets of 5 instead of 10.
 
The dilemma is that my schedule is more conducive to frequent, shorter sessions than infrequent, longer ones. I've found that at least at the beginning stages of advancing weight on S&S, it's hard to avoid much longer sessions with more rest in between them.

Man I feel this. My S&S sessions almost never run under an hour. I found I was tired from just the obligation of knowing I had these sessions day in and day out. I switched a different plan for a while because my S&S sessions were just exhausting me mentally
 
@PTench @LejonBrames why such long sessions? To me, simple and sinister is designed to last about 30-40min. If it lasts more, it's too much to recover from from day to day, and it's a pain in the #ss to do it daily. I just dont think it was designed to last that long every single day.

If it takes 1 hour, it is too heavy, and if it is too heavy, you rather have a day rest day in between sessions. Otherwise reduce weight or volume.

An alternative is to do the heavy day once a week with a day of rest after, or to reduce its volume to 60-80% and therefore the duration would return to 40 minutes.

JMO
 
I think a big part of it was the daily training. I probably could have compressed the timing a bit, but I tried to adhere to the 'longer rests' principals, maybe too literally.

My 'working' bell was 20k, a bell I had passed the time test with several times. I was integrating the 24k for swings and get-ups(tho I had still passed the 10TGU/10Min test with the 24k), but in hindsight, this is on me too because I like to spend 60-80 seconds per getup.

It feels tough, and is never too much the next day. I realized that I enjoyed it so much, that maybe I was in a phase where I didn't want an 'easy strength' plan.

Don't get me wrong, S&S is great, but I wanted something a little more 'difficult strength', so I started a plan based on that.

S&S is still my 'park bench' program, and I'll come back to it when I finish the current session of 701A before 701B and after that before Kettlebell Muscle.

I'll also for sure have long stretches back with it(I'd been doing S&S for 3-4 months before last week), but at this moment, I wanted something else.
 
First, congratulations for starting Hapkido. Training such a well rounded art is truly a lifelong pursuit.

I've found S&S to have really good transfer to martial arts training compared to other GPP's I've tried. If you've just started Hapkido, I'd suggest you to focus on the martial art and try not to make any radical changes in your strength training plan. You could just nail 2-3 S&S sessions a week with the 32kg bell pushing towards the timed standard, and use a lighter bell if you feel you haven't recovered adequately. At least for me, a jump in a bell size can be surprisingly taxing, and you want to be as fresh as possible in your MA sessions. I'd assume there are advanced classes in your club for students who have trained for a while, and the training gets more strenuous with more aliveness and sparring, then. I have no doubt that S&S with 32kg bell will keep you fit for such stuff.

I wouldn't move to more challenging strength programs before I was well adjusted to handle the stress from sparring and grappling. Earlier this year, I tried running ROP with 2-3 Krav Maga classes a week, and the workload was way too much: I didn't get any stronger and I felt beat all the time. Now, I'm back to S&S and I feel that my MA training and strength training support each other perfectly.
 
@PTench @LejonBrames why such long sessions? To me, simple and sinister is designed to last about 30-40min. If it lasts more, it's too much to recover from from day to day, and it's a pain in the #ss to do it daily. I just dont think it was designed to last that long every single day.

If it takes 1 hour, it is too heavy, and if it is too heavy, you rather have a day rest day in between sessions. Otherwise reduce weight or volume.

An alternative is to do the heavy day once a week with a day of rest after, or to reduce its volume to 60-80% and therefore the duration would return to 40 minutes.

JMO


@Oscar Per S&S 2.0, I'm on a 3-4 day a week schedule. I think the sessions are just longer at the beginning of a weight jump (especially above the 32) until strength catches up to the new demands. Once the new bell is "heavy-ish" instead of just "heavy," the talk test sessions naturally get shorter because of reduced biological cost of producing the same output. However, particularly since I started martial arts, it's difficult to invest the time and energy in getting over that hump on the front end.
 
First, congratulations for starting Hapkido. Training such a well rounded art is truly a lifelong pursuit.

I've found S&S to have really good transfer to martial arts training compared to other GPP's I've tried. If you've just started Hapkido, I'd suggest you to focus on the martial art and try not to make any radical changes in your strength training plan. You could just nail 2-3 S&S sessions a week with the 32kg bell pushing towards the timed standard, and use a lighter bell if you feel you haven't recovered adequately. At least for me, a jump in a bell size can be surprisingly taxing, and you want to be as fresh as possible in your MA sessions. I'd assume there are advanced classes in your club for students who have trained for a while, and the training gets more strenuous with more aliveness and sparring, then. I have no doubt that S&S with 32kg bell will keep you fit for such stuff.

I wouldn't move to more challenging strength programs before I was well adjusted to handle the stress from sparring and grappling. Earlier this year, I tried running ROP with 2-3 Krav Maga classes a week, and the workload was way too much: I didn't get any stronger and I felt beat all the time. Now, I'm back to S&S and I feel that my MA training and strength training support each other perfectly.


Thank you for the feedback. I agree, the first session adding in 40kg was an eye-opener for me! As long as martial arts is a focus, maybe it makes more sense to progress "loosely" like S&S 1.0 instead of the structured plan in 2.0.
 
One thing that I learned from reading Pavel Maceks training log is to work with variability.
As I understand it, one way could be to start with defining heavy, medium, light (for you, right now).

For example:
Heavy: include work with 40kg
Medium: Timeless Simple
Light: 2H swings with 32 (or work with a lighter bell)
Never repeat one value -- thus you could always flip a coin. Heads: heavier option of the two, tails the lighter option. When you feel off, choose the light option. Every now and then reassess your three values (for example "heavy = 60 % 40kg, 40 % 32 kg, medium = 80 % 32 kg, 20 % 40 kg". You get the idea).

And Pavel Macek has three values for number of sets:
Heavy: 12 sets per exercise (6 per side)
Medium: 10
low: 8

He does all of this seperately for swings and get ups. Instead of flipping a coin you could assign the values to a die roll.

One day could like this. The next day you would need to make sure that you don't repeat a certain condition.
Swings: medium volume (10 sets), heavy bell (include 40 kg)
TGU: low volume (4 per side), medium bell (32 kg)
 
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