Fascinating! I was intrigued at how you have the option of returning to S&S with a heavier bell after achieving the ROP goals. Pressing half my bodyweight would be the 48kg bell - a very distant goal for me now. The 200 snatches in 5 minutes with the 24kg don't sound so bad though for me.
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)???
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.
I'm doing the ROP, but variety days are S&S. So three days (M-W-F) are medium, heavy, light, and two or three days (Tu-Th-sometimes Sa) are swings and TGU. It's a good mix so far. I swing a 24 kg bell on ROP days, and a 32 kg on S&S days. And I didn't have to give up TGU to build my press
Yes, and a nice thing about ROP is you don't have to lie on the ground (and sweat on it - haha!) Would you say that the ROP is "Better" than S&S for getting strong, or just a different way to skin the push&pull cat?Kozushi, you make a valid point however I see it differently in some aspects. WhenI got into kettlebell training I had difficulty pressing overhead due to many years of overuse of the bench press which was very common. I thought the days of overhead work were over for me. After using them through various programs, most of which feature overhead work, my shoulders feel good and strong now. As such I want to continue doing so.
Also, the press done the SF way is really a full body movement. Presses and snatches in my mind exemplify a fullbody push and pull. I think Pavel quoted Bob Hoffman in ETK whom I believe was from York Barbell back in the day as saying something to the effect of pulls and pushes can create a superman.
Whatever works for you, stick with it.
One thing I don't understand is why anyone would want to give up the beautiful full body strengthening benefits of the Turkish Get Up to "progress" to just snatches and presses. Snatches and presses I can't see replicating the TGU's full body development.
A few months? I don't have my training log handy, but I started with 3 ladders of 3 rungs each with 16 kg. My last heavy day was 3 ladders of 5/4/4 rungs with 20 kg. And I've improved every heavy day on my last one. It doesn't seem like it's been too long that I've been following this format, but it has probably been longer than it seems. The medium-heavy-light format does a great job of avoiding monotony.How far into ROP are you?
I'm just trying to decide if I want to switch over to ROP from S&S, although so far I don't think I want to - just adding in some clean and press drills according to some advice found here on these forums.This is a bit like saying "I don't understand why some people prefer the color blue over the color red." I simply prefer snatches and presses over the TGU. Maybe that makes me strange. When I did ROP I always did the pull ups and at least one of the variety days had a barbell squat. So, does doing presses, pull ups, snatches, and squats equal the benefits of the TGU? I don't know. I would say to a large extent they do. If you prefer the TGU, great.