Kettlebell First Rite of Passage Training Session

[LoneRider]

Just finished my first stab at the Rite of Passage today. Being in the active duty Army I do participate in unit PT. This morning it was an easy run for me.

Today's session was the light day for Rite of Passage, and by the book I went with this:

KB Clean and Press at 24 KG for 3x1
Pullups were done too.
KB Snatch at 24 KG, 60-70% effort (more or less) in 8 minutes (per roll of the dice).

Having achieved Simple before this I noticed some What the Hell effects today:

• Press for singles felt relatively easy (the Turkish getups helped tremendously here), as did the clean (I attribute that to one arm swings at 32 KG).
• I pulled off 84 snatches in 8 minutes at 24 KG. I went for that 'think of a contractor' mentality with S&S while minding the pull back and punch up (to not bang the crap outta my wrists). I wasn't rushing, I went for maximum power on the snatches, while remaining fluid and vicious. I had a Gym Boss app timer on my phone telling me when each minute passed.
  • I went for sets of 5-10 reps, going for that same pull back, punch up, crack the whip sort of form.
  • I also believe the Turkish getups at 32KG really stabilized my shoulders for such a feat.
  • I've never trained snatches, and the last time I tested snatches for reps was at 16KG in 5 minutes at the Tactical Strength Challenge in 2011 where I got 106 repetitions.
• More an observation, I recognize why we are recommended to achieve Simple before attempting ROP (aside from strengthening of the shoulders). All the ballistics of this program are basically one giant Beyond the Interval session (incidentally S&S recommending not attempting to go beyond the interval until one trains with 32 KG as a matter of routine for a male trainee is quite sound advice).

Thanks for creating such awesome programming Pavel.

 

[Kozushi]

Three cycles of C&P and pullups or one? A ladder of 1,2,3 for C&P each time?

I do one cycle of a ladder of 5 for ROP every day before my S&S workout. Lots of fun and it's making me progress faster at S&S. The pullups with palms forward is a big help in particular for grip strength for the heavy swings. The C&P is a good warmup for the swings and TGU. The snatch test stuff looks crazy. I haven't done much of that yet! I'll challenge myself some time.

 

[User 4484]

The C&P is a good warmup for the swings and TGU.

That´s interesting. When I did RoP I was pretty much exhausted from the clean and press half way through the program til the end. TGU´s after that would for certain lead to big risk of injury for me, thats why I did them on variety days.

 

[Kozushi]

We all have different bodies. I do think that doing a cycle of ROP first makes the S&S a bit more challenging, but at the end of it all I've got one solid workout, and I'm progressing faster.

Contrary to popular belief S&S does in fact have squats and presses - squats are a necessary warmup before the swing, and the first movement of the TGU is a floor press; however, the C&P is too efficient a way of getting strong to neglect it, for me. I'm having a harder time selling the snatch to myself as the overhead aspect of it seems to be covered in the TGU and the C&P and the pulling aspect in the swings.

 

[LoneRider]

Three cycles of C&P and pullups or one? A ladder of 1,2,3 for C&P each time?

Do 1 Clean and Press and 1 pullup, three times. As it's the light day, and my heavy day is 3 ladders at (1,2,3) and then next week heavy day is four ladders to same, then the week after is 5 ladders of same for heavy ladder. Then I'll start working to go up a rung or two in two more weeks. As stated in the book.

 

[Kozushi]

Yes, interesting. I'm doing a ladder of 5 every day with the 24 so as not to overdo it for my S&S with the 32. The ROP is a super efficient way to get in shape FAST!