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

My bumpy road to simple...

Sometime around 2013-2014 I had a few great years in my business. I did some big events and had some great years financially. However... after doing some tests on my health I realized it was not as good as it used to be. I was in my late 30s... I guess at that age you cannot continue the same lifestyle as in your 20s without consequences.

As I am a bit of a nerd, instead of starting training, I started doing research on the best way of training. I bought 4-hour body with Tim Ferris and he talked about kettlebells and the magic exercise the swing.... I bought a 14 kg and 20 kg. Tried it for a while, got some result but never built a habit.

Later, when Pavel was on Tim Ferris, I got motivated again. I bought the book Simple & sinister and liked the program. 14 kg was pretty easy so I bought a 16 kg. It was not too heavy and after a few weeks I went up to 20 kg. I followed the program and when I could do 20 kg one hand I bought the 24 kg. The 24 kg felt really heavy!!! I was pretty consistent and started to notice results. But it seemed as always when I got closed to doing all 100 with one arm something happened. I got sick, I went on a trip and fell off the habit, summer came (at that time I was living in Dubai but spent the summers in my home country Sweden with no kettlebells). Motivation came and went.
When motivation was low Pavel came on Joe Rogan and got me inspired again...

After some up and down with the 24 kg, I finally started to get ready in early 2020. One of my clients asked if I could take a group from Dubai to Stockholm (my home town). We stayed in a luxury hotel and as I went to the gym I was praying they would have kettlebells as I was on a role again... they did and they also had 28 kg!!! So I decided to try the 28 kg and it was ok. Back in Dubai I ordered my 32 kg and started with 1-2 sets with the 32 and rest with the 24. The 32 felt sooooo heavy!!!!

The motivation was high and I kept going. Average 3 -4 times a week.

In April Dubai decided to do a lockdown. We were not allowed to go out, only for shopping. I was so happy and grateful that I had my kettlebells!!!! My wife and I did a plan to survive the lockdown. For me it was increasing the time I meditated and the amount of times I did KB. During April- May I averaged 4-5 times and slowly moved to simple...

Since everyone was looked down kettlebells was very popular. I sold my lighter once for a very good price!!!

In May my wife lost her job. My business was events, team building and motivational speaking. Which of course crashed due to covid restrictions. We decided to move back to Sweden. We had 3 weeks to get rid of everything...
I made a deal with the guy that bought my 24 kg that he would buy my 32 kg just 2 days before I was leaving Dubai... I kept going and reached simple 3 days before I was leaving!!!! It was a great feeling after all these years. I sold my lovely 32 kg and moved to Sweden.

After a couple of weeks of no training in Sweden, I started with my 24 kg in august. I had now invested also in kb for our place in Sweden so I had two sets. In September 2020 I bought a 32 kg and went back to the road to simple. After a couple of months of consistent training, I again reached simple and did it for a few weeks.

Now I do kb workouts 2-3 times a week. Still love the workout and the principles.

Results? I have lost a lot of weight, added muscles and feel a lot better. Better energy and also many times I experiences the WTF effect in other sports. I play something called floorball (innebandy) which is like landhockey. I feel my stamina is much better after doing kb.
2021 i got so many comments: wow you lost weight. My goal for 2022 is to get at least 10 comments - wow you look fit...
My experience is that I need to do it at least 3 times a week for results. I also combine with intermittent fasting and have cut a lot of gluten in my diet.

Question to other people that have reached simple:
- what did you do after? Did you buy a 40 kg or did you just continue with the 32?
- If you just continued, did you add any more exercises? How many times a week do you do it?
- my main goal is health and energy. Are swings and TGU the exercise I can do for the rest of my life? Or should I mix something up?

This forum has been a great motivation for me also so thank you, everyone.
Oskar
 
This is a great thread for motivation. I’m almost at timeless simple. Swings I can do all with 32 x 1H, and some with a 36. Getups are are dragging, at 24kg x 5. I can do them, but it’s taking a bit longer to “own” it enough to even think about 32kg getup’s. Have added low volume clean and press, ( I really enjoy it and will move onto The giant, or Strong next ) which I’m sure is helping.
 
This is a great thread for motivation. I’m almost at timeless simple. Swings I can do all with 32 x 1H, and some with a 36. Getups are are dragging, at 24kg x 5. I can do them, but it’s taking a bit longer to “own” it enough to even think about 32kg getup’s. Have added low volume clean and press, ( I really enjoy it and will move onto The giant, or Strong next ) which I’m sure is helping.
Perhaps you could mix it up with the KB-SF (BJJ) course?
Same raw ingredients of goblet squats, swings and TGU; different recipe.
 
Perhaps you could mix it up with the KB-SF (BJJ) course?
Same raw ingredients of goblet squats, swings and TGU; different recipe.
Thanks Pete, I have already bought both The Giant and Kettlebell Strong, and really like the clean and press so will follow those up first. You really can’t go wrong with kettlebells I think !

Or did you mean to help move my Getup progress along to finish S&S?
 
This is a great thread for motivation. I’m almost at timeless simple. Swings I can do all with 32 x 1H, and some with a 36. Getups are are dragging, at 24kg x 5. I can do them, but it’s taking a bit longer to “own” it enough to even think about 32kg getup’s. Have added low volume clean and press, ( I really enjoy it and will move onto The giant, or Strong next ) which I’m sure is helping.
it was the same for me when I moved up. the swings were easier than the get ups. Hang in there, you are almost there!
 
Thanks Pete, I have already bought both The Giant and Kettlebell Strong, and really like the clean and press so will follow those up first. You really can’t go wrong with kettlebells I think !

Or did you mean to help move my Getup progress along to finish S&S?
I meant to improve your get-up from a different angle:)
 
I bought this book shortly after it came out, and have followed the program on and off ever since as a filler or down time between other blocks of training. For some reason at the end of November I took it up again and decided to be a little more serious about it. For about two months followed the workout more or less as described in the book, gradually transitioning from a 24kg to 32kg bell, two handed to one handed swings, etc. The past couple weeks I started alternating days of S&S and grinds (BU C&P, pistols, and pull-ups).
I was able to do the TGUs to the standard almost right away, but conditioning for the swings was lagging. The past few weeks(with the exception of a week of vacation at the end of January when I didn’t have access to a 32kg bell) I’ve been hitting “timeless” a couple times a week, but with looong breaks in between sets of swings lol. Today I felt curiously good during my warmup, so I set the timer and went for it. When the swings went down with a minimum of fuss I knew I was golden. TGUs were progressively easier after the first ones, as I regained my breath.
 
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In September of 2019 I decided that I wanted to lose weight and get back in shape. I’m 5’11” and was about 230lbs and hadn’t been working out for a couple years after a nasty CrossFit injury. I cleaned up my diet and began going to the gym 3-4 times a week. I was mostly rowing and doing barbell workouts with a sauna session afterwords, but on weekend would swim and hit the steam shower. I dropped about 20lbs and was getting stronger and then the pandemic hit in March.

I had read Simple and Sinister outline and was interested in the program so I purchased the book as well as 16 & 24kg kettlebells. For the next year this was the only workout I did and followed the program strictly, eventually acquiring a 32kg bell and dropping another 20lbs of body weight. I was able to complete “Simple Timed” in late April 2021 and felt great, strongest I had ever been. I would recommend the program up to this point to anyone looking for a good baseline of strength and mobility, nearly every aspect of my life improved.

Since I was still enjoying the program and have no intention of joining a gym again, I figured I’d keep progressing towards “Sinister”. At this point I dropped down to 4 days a week and bought a 40kg kettlebell. I began running a 5k on the weekends and worked my way up to doing all 100 swings and 10 getups with The Bulldog. I was doing timed deload days with the 24kg on Fridays, and found myself requiring more sleep and food. On December 31st 2021 was was able to complete S&S within the timed parameters with the 40kg bell. My breathing was not as graceful as I’d like during the last 3-4 sets of swings but it was a big enough breakthrough for me to go ahead and buy a 48.

I’ve since been incorporating the 48 into hard style S&S twice a week with a deload on the weekends of timed S&S with a 32kg. My current plan is to continue to progress and hopefully achieve Sinister at the end of the year.

I haven’t lost anymore weight, but have gained a lot of muscle and definition so the fat must be burning. I’m much stronger than I look, as this program doesn’t seem to focus on hypertrophy but gives a very good core strength and has made me better at every physical task I attempt. I’ve gotten comments on several occasions about how strong I am when I handle heavy items with ease. Life is better when you are strong, you can work half as hard and accomplish way more. I’m even thinking about attending a SFG this year.
 
Pete, I've just bought the BJJ course - how would you go about mixing it with the S&S program ?
Hi Bill
Short answer is that I probably wouldn't.

But I do martial arts twice a week and am busy with work on the house most weekends so personally err on the side of trying to avoid over doing things.

There's two parts to theBJJcourse;
i) "Beginner to Intermediate' (and on to Advanced) which is based on A+A version of S&S, and
ii) LCCJ single or double bell..

I ran (i) last year for about 8 weeks and then straight into 10 week step cycle with 36 kg. The two seemed to complement nicely. I could imagine rotating those two options for blocks of 6 to 10 weeks indefinitely.

For (ii) I have avoided swings but programmed in some TGU.
Last year I did single bell LCCJ with 6 to 12 sets of TGU on 3 to 4 separate days. It seemed okay albeit that I probably reduced these some weeks due to work.

This year I've been doing double LCCJ and have found the recovery much harder. Last week I hit 30 sets of C+J+C+J+C and did no TGUs.

I am interested whether Pavel offers any insight on combining LCCJ with other programmes in the coming weeks but, depending on recovery, I would recommend;

a) two week rotation; A,B,A then B,A,B of A = LCCJ and B = S&S, or

b) Mon LCCJ, Tue S&S, Thu LCCJ, Fri S&S

Hope this helps... interested what others might say...
 
Hi Bill
Short answer is that I probably wouldn't.

But I do martial arts twice a week and am busy with work on the house most weekends so personally err on the side of trying to avoid over doing things.

There's two parts to theBJJcourse;
i) "Beginner to Intermediate' (and on to Advanced) which is based on A+A version of S&S, and
ii) LCCJ single or double bell..

I ran (i) last year for about 8 weeks and then straight into 10 week step cycle with 36 kg. The two seemed to complement nicely. I could imagine rotating those two options for blocks of 6 to 10 weeks indefinitely.

For (ii) I have avoided swings but programmed in some TGU.
Last year I did single bell LCCJ with 6 to 12 sets of TGU on 3 to 4 separate days. It seemed okay albeit that I probably reduced these some weeks due to work.

This year I've been doing double LCCJ and have found the recovery much harder. Last week I hit 30 sets of C+J+C+J+C and did no TGUs.

I am interested whether Pavel offers any insight on combining LCCJ with other programmes in the coming weeks but, depending on recovery, I would recommend;

a) two week rotation; A,B,A then B,A,B of A = LCCJ and B = S&S, or

b) Mon LCCJ, Tue S&S, Thu LCCJ, Fri S&S

Hope this helps... interested what others might say...
I’m not sure I see the benefit of blending the two. If you have the mobility for double LCCJ, you are getting a lot of the benefits of swings and TGU in a single movement plus a host of other athletic improvements . If you want to work them in, it might make more sense to just follow the program and do them in blocks rather than trying to blend the two programs into one.
 
I’m not sure I see the benefit of blending the two. If you have the mobility for double LCCJ, you are getting a lot of the benefits of swings and TGU in a single movement plus a host of other athletic improvements . If you want to work them in, it might make more sense to just follow the program and do them in blocks rather than trying to blend the two programs into one.
My motivation for (b) was that Geoff Neupert's Strong and One are programmed together as an option, i.e. C&P and swings.
 
Halfakneecap, I am curious, How do you program the C&P sessions in with the S&S sessions ?
Bill, now I am doing The giant 3.0, and just doing getups on my off days, and not doing swings. 24kg getups is starting to feel more comfortable, and I think C&P will only help the getups, I also really like C&P!. I thought about continuing S&S as written, but then thought that I would just keep doing getups til I hit simple, while doing C&P.
 
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