patterner
Level 5 Valued Member
Hi guys, I'm patterner (though my mom called me Chris, unless I was in trouble). I've been lurking for a little bit, but after reading Bonkin's intro, and getting a lovely reply to a comment on one of the YouTube videos, I thought I'd chime in with my own story.
I'm 42. I was always in ok shape (not weak, but not strong) when I was a young'un, but over the last 15 years or so have seen the scale number creeping up and up and up, til I topped out at 302 in April of this year. I decided enough was enough, and three before my birthday I decided to do something about it. I dieted pretty hardcore (modality was the HCG diet, the real deal with the injections, 500-800 daily calories, and supervised by a doctor) and lost 40 pounds and seven inches off my waist pretty quickly.
As I was getting close to cycling off the diet (they recommend remaining on it no more than 12 weeks at a time), I started looking around for a program both for diet and exercise once I was done. I've done stretches of StrongLifts and Starting Strength in the past, but didn't really want to join a gym (there's aren't any really close to where I live), and wanted a minimum of equipment for simplicity's sake, so I was really intrigued when I started reading about Enter the Kettlebell. I got the book and then started looking around for a program (it's a great book, but the programming is a little light, especially for the program minimum) that followed it's principles, which led me to Anthony Diluglio's workbook.
I was so weak when I started, that literally couldn't get through an entire cycle of the warm ups! Some of this was because I started on the last couple of weeks of my diet, but I was also super unconditioned. I worked my way up to being able to finish one cycle of the warm up, which I hit about two weeks after I'd finished the diet phase. Once I could do one cycle of warmups, I started with the timed swings and get ups with a 12kg bell, as described in EtK. My first swing workout was a disaster! I think I got one set of 20, and another set of 15 in the 12 minute time limit! The next day's get ups weren't much better, with me getting two singles on my left side and three on my right in 5 minutes with the 12kg bell.
After that, I had to recover for a week! I was sore, weak, and demoralized, but I came back the next week, and did better. Got in two cycles of the warm ups, and was able to get three sets of 20 swings in, and four singles on both sides in the get ups. I followed that program for the next month and got up to the full three cycles for the warm ups and up to six sets of 20 for the swings within the 12 minute time limit. I also worked up to doing five get ups on each side within the five minute time limit, I was a beast....with a 12kg bell.
It was around this time that heard about S&S. I bought it, read it, then read it again. I bought a 16kg bell, and immediately switched over to it for my swings, dropping back down to the five sets of ten as recommended in the book. I kept up the 12kg TGUs, but started working the 16kg in to that and within a few weeks was using the 16kg exclusively!
I bought a 24kg bell! I started working this into my swings pretty quickly, and ran into my first problem. I had completely switched over to the 24, and had started swapping out my 2h swings with 1h swings, and I managed to lose focus on a couple of reps on the left side (my strong side, as opposed to my stronger side), and I pulled something in the lat area (chiro thought it was maybe one of the rib origin points). I waited a week, but when I started up again, I was still in pain, so I took a two week layoff.
I've now been back at it for two weeks. I rolled my swings all back to 2h swings with the 16, and I've started working the 24 back in (up to sets 16 24 24 16L 16R) and taking it a LOT slower this time. My TGUs are coming along as well. On monday this week I got my first pair of singles with the 24! I just bumped up to two pairs in this mornings session (so 16 24 24 16 16). It's amazing how light the 16 feels now after the singles with the 24.
Anyway, as of this point, since I stopped my hardcore diet, I've dropped another 6 pounds (I monkeyed around with diet for a bit before I settled on an intermittent fasting routine/keto routine that seems to work well for me), and my waist has shrunk another 2.5 inches, which makes me feel like even if the weight isn't going down super fast, my body comp is heading in the right direction, and I credit S&S with a lot of that, so thank you Pavel and StrongFirst!
My progress thus far has really shifted my goals away from just trying to find something to do to keep the weight from coming back, to really wanting to be *strong* for the first time in my life, which is why I haven't gone back on a hardcore diet cycle yet. I'd rather lose more slowly and get strong faster!
Anyway, this thing turned into WAY more of a wall of text than I wanted. I'm hoping to start up a workout log here, and I hope that I'll meet some of you at a class some day!
Thanks for listening to me ramble!
crr
I'm 42. I was always in ok shape (not weak, but not strong) when I was a young'un, but over the last 15 years or so have seen the scale number creeping up and up and up, til I topped out at 302 in April of this year. I decided enough was enough, and three before my birthday I decided to do something about it. I dieted pretty hardcore (modality was the HCG diet, the real deal with the injections, 500-800 daily calories, and supervised by a doctor) and lost 40 pounds and seven inches off my waist pretty quickly.
As I was getting close to cycling off the diet (they recommend remaining on it no more than 12 weeks at a time), I started looking around for a program both for diet and exercise once I was done. I've done stretches of StrongLifts and Starting Strength in the past, but didn't really want to join a gym (there's aren't any really close to where I live), and wanted a minimum of equipment for simplicity's sake, so I was really intrigued when I started reading about Enter the Kettlebell. I got the book and then started looking around for a program (it's a great book, but the programming is a little light, especially for the program minimum) that followed it's principles, which led me to Anthony Diluglio's workbook.
I was so weak when I started, that literally couldn't get through an entire cycle of the warm ups! Some of this was because I started on the last couple of weeks of my diet, but I was also super unconditioned. I worked my way up to being able to finish one cycle of the warm up, which I hit about two weeks after I'd finished the diet phase. Once I could do one cycle of warmups, I started with the timed swings and get ups with a 12kg bell, as described in EtK. My first swing workout was a disaster! I think I got one set of 20, and another set of 15 in the 12 minute time limit! The next day's get ups weren't much better, with me getting two singles on my left side and three on my right in 5 minutes with the 12kg bell.
After that, I had to recover for a week! I was sore, weak, and demoralized, but I came back the next week, and did better. Got in two cycles of the warm ups, and was able to get three sets of 20 swings in, and four singles on both sides in the get ups. I followed that program for the next month and got up to the full three cycles for the warm ups and up to six sets of 20 for the swings within the 12 minute time limit. I also worked up to doing five get ups on each side within the five minute time limit, I was a beast....with a 12kg bell.
It was around this time that heard about S&S. I bought it, read it, then read it again. I bought a 16kg bell, and immediately switched over to it for my swings, dropping back down to the five sets of ten as recommended in the book. I kept up the 12kg TGUs, but started working the 16kg in to that and within a few weeks was using the 16kg exclusively!
I bought a 24kg bell! I started working this into my swings pretty quickly, and ran into my first problem. I had completely switched over to the 24, and had started swapping out my 2h swings with 1h swings, and I managed to lose focus on a couple of reps on the left side (my strong side, as opposed to my stronger side), and I pulled something in the lat area (chiro thought it was maybe one of the rib origin points). I waited a week, but when I started up again, I was still in pain, so I took a two week layoff.
I've now been back at it for two weeks. I rolled my swings all back to 2h swings with the 16, and I've started working the 24 back in (up to sets 16 24 24 16L 16R) and taking it a LOT slower this time. My TGUs are coming along as well. On monday this week I got my first pair of singles with the 24! I just bumped up to two pairs in this mornings session (so 16 24 24 16 16). It's amazing how light the 16 feels now after the singles with the 24.
Anyway, as of this point, since I stopped my hardcore diet, I've dropped another 6 pounds (I monkeyed around with diet for a bit before I settled on an intermittent fasting routine/keto routine that seems to work well for me), and my waist has shrunk another 2.5 inches, which makes me feel like even if the weight isn't going down super fast, my body comp is heading in the right direction, and I credit S&S with a lot of that, so thank you Pavel and StrongFirst!
My progress thus far has really shifted my goals away from just trying to find something to do to keep the weight from coming back, to really wanting to be *strong* for the first time in my life, which is why I haven't gone back on a hardcore diet cycle yet. I'd rather lose more slowly and get strong faster!
Anyway, this thing turned into WAY more of a wall of text than I wanted. I'm hoping to start up a workout log here, and I hope that I'll meet some of you at a class some day!
Thanks for listening to me ramble!
crr
