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Kettlebell "I Achieved S & S Simple! Here's My Story"

This might be in the book and I may have missed it.

Can you move up in weight for one movement and not the other? Say it takes you 9 mins to do your 32kg swings but you can do the TGUs in 8 mins after 1 min rest. Can you go heavier with the TGUs while waiting for the swing time to decrease? I'm not in this situation, just curious.

Yes.

"When you reach the 1:1 work-t0-rest ratio in one of the exercises -- 100 total swings in five minutes; ten total get-ups in ten minutes -- and can do this strongly almost any day, move up in weight in that exercise. Gradually replace your current training weight with a heavier weight, one set at a time. Go at your own pace; solidify what you have achieved before going further." (S&S page 90, "Simple & Sinister Summarized").
 
That wasn't what I meant

Obviously my jedi mind reading techniques are faulty today. From what you wrote that is how I took the question. The only thing I didn't add was that you would stay with the 32K on swings while you worked up in weight on the TGU.
 
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When I lived in Santa Monica, California July 2014-July 2015 - I thoroughly enjoyed practicing Rite of Passage on the beach. I'd practice the clean & press with pull-ups of the same rep scheme. I heard a rumor that Mr. Tsatsouline would make appearances at the beach to perform pull-ups. I kept my head on a swivel to see if I could spot him - but no luck. Maybe he saw me trying my luck with the money bar rings.. and went to a different pull-up bar..haha!
Instagram photo by Rob Rob • Jul 5, 2015 at 6:25pm UTC

Back to the program - I'd often lose track of time "playing" on my variety days & on my Saturday Heavy day. Maybe I was dancing around on the beach claiming to be practicing the fast & loose drills. This time was great. However with the anticipation of our first son being born - I knew soon the luxury for leisurely stretched out sessions would soon be gone. But that was future Rob's problem - back to the beach!

Then I was attending the PlanStrong event in March 2015. Pavel just so happened to have copies of Simple and Sinister. Sounds pretty simple - I'll take it! At the time the PlanStrong stuff seemed like I was trying to read pictures in Neo's Matrix - so I read S&S.
Instagram photo by Rob Rob • Apr 29, 2015 at 4:18am UTC

My son was born in April of 2015. After a couple weeks I started S&S. It was pretty cool - we'd put our son down for a nap & then my wife and I would practice couples S&S. Normally I probably would have the inclination to go for it with the bigger bells faster than Coach would want me to. But in this situation the sleep disruption and the fact that we were on the second floor I had to own each bell (if I banged a bell on the floor, my wife would yell, "Neighbors!").
Instagram photo by Rob Rob • May 2, 2015 at 9:10pm UTC

I mainly practiced from May to July with the 24kg. Then we moved and I got a garage - no pesky neighbors. After a couple weeks of playing with the 32 - got the Simple goals. Part of me wanted to go for the Sinister Goal - but I was itching to practice some of the PlanStrong stuff. I am sure I'll go back again.
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Just got the male simple goals 20 mins ago, first time testing. Got 100 1 handed swings in 4:50, 10 TGU in 9:07 with 1 minute rest in between (and this was after a tough boxing training session the day prior, my shoulders/legs still felt fatigued!). Been on S&S since mid December 2015 when I couldn't even do a TGU or OHS with 16kg!! Significant strength improvements, can almost hold a handstand with barely any practice, run 1 mile in under 7 minutes. I think if I was starting S&S again, I would take more time and be patient with OHS before moving up the weights (I was impatient and did way more 2HS with higher weights).

Had some friends over last weekend whom I hadn't seen in almost a year, got multiple compliments on my derrière, and I'm quite confident taking my shirt off on the beach.

It's been a fun ride, I think I'll be starting ROP with 16kg next week and build up to ROP with 32kg before jumping on the "From Simple to Sinister" train.
 
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Well after a long road, I achieved Simple!!!

I started around Nov/Dec last year with the 16kg, got to the point where I was doing ~half my swings with 1 arm (all with 32) and 1-2 get ups with the 32 then went back to overhaul my technique. Was getting close around April, then cut back due to baseball season. Did sessions whenever I could to still get adequate rest, and kept up where I was and even got better. 3 weeks ago finally was able to commit 4-5 days a week to it and it came really quick!

I completed swings in 4:50, then get ups in 9:10. I was worried I wouldn't make get ups, as the swings were taxing - I usually did A+A style swings practicing, and only really "challenged" myself 2-3 times. The fastest I had done swings prior was 6:20. But, I did it. Very proud of myself to say the least, especially since I weighed in at 69.2 kg's directly before - almost half my bodyweight!!!

Next up - ROP/snatch practice with the end goal to press the 24kg 5x on each side, and put myself in a good position to challenge the snatch test. Currently only able to do 1 pure good rep on my left arm. Starting with the 20 kg for the program.
 
Congrats to all you folks that completed the Simple goal. Please know that you are providing fuel for the fire for those of us beginning the journey and it is much appreciated when you post about this.

Thanks!
 
Everyone, if you posted about your achievement of Simple in this thread, StrongFirst would very much appreciate you taking the time to post a review of S & S on Amazon.com.

Some links to make this easier for you are below.

Kindle Version:
http://www.amazon.com/Kettlebell-Simple-Sinister-Pavel-Tsatsouline-ebook/dp/B00GF2HP9G

Book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0989892409/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

-S-
Yes, I wrote a very nice review on Amazon months ago. I really appreciate your excellent work. I can't wait to get the ROP book so I can experiment with that routine also, I suppose it has its own charms, but the S&S made me a Hercules pretty darn fast!
 
It's been a good month - SFG1 cert in mid-September that I previously wrote about, and this morning I hit the simple goal in 15:10 (so there is no confusion, that includes the 1 minute rest between 1HSw and TGUs). I enjoy the bare bones simplicity of it all. I will keep working on it to better own it, but it won't be the focus. I think I'll be mixing it in with a M/W/F program as a tonic for the off days.

On to the next challenge.
 
@jyork, congratulations to you! Please post a review on amazon.com if you haven't already.

-S-
 
On 13 September 2016 I achieved Simple from Simple and Sinister, as posted here.

I have been on the program off and on since 2014, having gotten derailed by one injury in June 2014 (bodysurfing accident where I bruised a muscle in my lower back) and a near six month tour of duty in the Republic of Korea (where we didn't have 24KG and 32KG kettlebells) from April through October temporarily. During the latter 'derail' I ran some hardstyle kettlebell work built around the two kettlebell clean and jerk and one kettlebell snatch with 35 lbs and 45 lbs kettlebells.

In November 2015 I went back to running Simple and Sinister twice a week concurrent with a 2x/week barbell program built around Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 program starting with a 24 KG bell for both lifts and from the very beginning, which meant 5x10 two handed swings and 10x1 Turkish getups. And below is how I got to Simple:

  • Starting at 5x10 for the first two weeks for my swings I brought it up to 10x10 the next week.
  • Then I worked dilligently, but not rushing, to get to one arm swings. I started advancing to one arm swings four reps at a time (2 left and 2 right), slowly upping the numbers every couple of sessions until I was at 24KG one arm swings for 10x10.
  • I didn't even think about timing swings or getups until I got to one arm swings.
  • At some point in January I got to getups to standard and then I started slowly introducing 32KG getups into my training one pair of sets at a time, e.g.
    • Getups 10x1: 24R-32L-32R-24L-24R-24L-24R-24L-24R-24L
    • I would increase the number of sets every second or third session or so.
  • In the spring of this year I finally got my 10x10 one arm swings at 24KG to five minutes or fewer and then I began to do 32KG swings.
  • I followed the same game-plan as above, except I did this with two arm swings. So I started by replacing two sets of one arm swings at a time with two arm 32 KG sets.
  • Once I got to 10x10 swings, two arm swings, at 32KG I followed the replacement plan in the second bullet until I was swinging 10x10 for one arm swings.
  • I started timing my sets in September and then finally got to standards.
My next plan is my intent to tackle the Russian Kettlebell Challenge Rite of Passage with the following goals of:

  • 200 or more snatches at 24KG in ten minutes or fewer
  • Press a 40 KG Bell 5x per arm (as 40 KG is half my bodyweight, or closest to it)
 
Did the program minimum a few years ago and never really followed S + S. Did the 32 test a couple of years ago, passed.

Been doing the Rite of Passage with a 32 for the past month can get all the reps, need to invest in the 36 because I can't press the 40 kg.

Today was a variety day. I did some backup presses with a slow eccentric w/ the 40 and decided to do one arm swings. Set my timer and went for 100 one hand swings. Never done this with the 40 before. Finished in 2:47. My hamstrings were jelly and my heartbeat was 185. Good stuff. Then finished with 10 getups in 7:30 with the 40. I might want to become Sinister sometime in the future after all.
 
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