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Kettlebell Is simple and sinister all you need?

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Steve Freides said:
And that's the point several of us have tried to make. S&S plainly describes who and what it's for, and yet we continue to have "is S&S enough?" discussions. It's enough for the things it says it's enough for, including but not limited to being enough for people without other athletic goals.
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I believe this statement should be the conclusion for this thread.

And if Steve let me take this from the book, if some one new to the forum want to check this thread.

It’s promise is:

Simple & Sinister is what Russians call a “general preparation program.”
✓ S&S will prepare you physically for almost anything life could throw at you, from carrying a piano upstairs to holding your own in a street fight.
✓ S&S will forge a fighter’s physique, because the form must follow the function.
✓ S&S will give you the strength, the stamina, and the suppleness to recreationally play any sport—and play it well.
✓ If you are a serious athlete, S&S will serve as a perfect foundation for your sport-specific training.
✓ If you are a serious lifter, S&S will build your strength, rather than interfere with it. Simple & Sinister will achieve all of the above while leaving plenty of time and energy to do your duty, your job, practice your sport, and have a life.

What S&S is Not
This is not a program to maximize any single attribute or performance in a particular event.
 
Ege said:
I believe this statement should be the conclusion for this thread.

And if Steve let me take this from the book, if some one new to the forum want to check this thread.

It’s promise is:

Simple & Sinister is what Russians call a “general preparation program.”
✓ S&S will prepare you physically for almost anything life could throw at you, from carrying a piano upstairs to holding your own in a street fight.
✓ S&S will forge a fighter’s physique, because the form must follow the function.
✓ S&S will give you the strength, the stamina, and the suppleness to recreationally play any sport—and play it well.
✓ If you are a serious athlete, S&S will serve as a perfect foundation for your sport-specific training.
✓ If you are a serious lifter, S&S will build your strength, rather than interfere with it. Simple & Sinister will achieve all of the above while leaving plenty of time and energy to do your duty, your job, practice your sport, and have a life.

What S&S is Not
This is not a program to maximize any single attribute or performance in a particular event.
Click to expand...

As a “serious lifter”, I’m not sure I can say S&S built my strength in terms of making my barbell lifts go up.

I certainly got better at KBs.

With double KB work, I can answer more affirmatively that they’re good for maintaining my barbell strength and getting some double unilateral work in.
 
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Ege said:
I believe this statement should be the conclusion for this thread.

And if Steve let me take this from the book, if some one new to the forum want to check this thread.

It’s promise is:

Simple & Sinister is what Russians call a “general preparation program.”
✓ S&S will prepare you physically for almost anything life could throw at you, from carrying a piano upstairs to holding your own in a street fight.
✓ S&S will forge a fighter’s physique, because the form must follow the function.
✓ S&S will give you the strength, the stamina, and the suppleness to recreationally play any sport—and play it well.
✓ If you are a serious athlete, S&S will serve as a perfect foundation for your sport-specific training.
✓ If you are a serious lifter, S&S will build your strength, rather than interfere with it. Simple & Sinister will achieve all of the above while leaving plenty of time and energy to do your duty, your job, practice your sport, and have a life.

What S&S is Not
This is not a program to maximize any single attribute or performance in a particular event.
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there seems to be some confusion here about the question.
I don’t think anyone is saying it wouldn’t be an appropriate program for a time. I’m saying it isn’t appropriate to spend 20 years hammering away at 10/10 swings 10 getups using step loading. Eventually you need to change it up. (Seems like there is a strong suggestion in the book to do this exact thing after reaching timed simple)

But end of the day, your life. Try it and see. Either way we all end up with the same result.
 
@Ege, I had posted pretty much the same quote from the book a few posts ago. That quote is the answer.

-S-
 
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TedM said:
Thanks everyone! It's been fun.

Kinda like hanging out with a bunch of wealthy people arguing about whether it's more amusing to go on Safari for two weeks or go back to the pied-à-terre in Paris.

Either one is a 1% experience.
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I'd rather hunt people.
 
I had always assumed the exercise selection in S&S was just as much due to the specificity of how kettlebells perform swings and TGUs as anything else. If you’re selling a new implement/training style to the public, you write a program that can’t be easily replicated with other implements and is unique enough to catch attention. It’s part of the marketing.
 
Hrungnir said:
I had always assumed the exercise selection in S&S was just as much due to the specificity of how kettlebells perform swings and TGUs as anything else. If you’re selling a new implement/training style to the public, you write a program that can’t be easily replicated with other implements and is unique enough to catch attention. It’s part of the marketing.
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I don't know the full story, but apparently there is some connection in the lineage to the old RKC program minimum.

And then the RKC schism happened, StrongFirst was created, older content / concepts got tweaked and renamed.
 
Bradley Duggan said:
Even if you didn't particularly like working out.
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With everything people have said in this thread (most of which has been very insightful, though I should declare my allegiance to the ‘no’ contingent), I feel that the key to the OP’s query that hasn’t really been adequately addressed is the qualifier above.

If you don’t like working out but you can tolerate daily S&S practice, you’re going to be much better off than someone who does nothing. In which case, stick with it by all means.

On the other hand, if most of your experience with exercise has been S&S - and this has led you to conclusion that you don’t like working out - then perhaps you’ve boxed yourself in too much or too soon. In this case, it would be prudent to explore other kettlebell programs or other modalities entirely - which you’ll do if your goals include strength, fitness, wellbeing, etc. Perhaps you do like working out after all but you simply haven’t found what you enjoy.

As for me personally, I didn’t touch S&S until 13 years after I started kettlebell training and in my ‘baseline’ first session, Timed Simple was no issue. So I did it for a little while but realised I enjoyed the rest of the oeuvre so much more; I had no desire to use swings and getups to get better at swings and getups when everything else I’d enjoyed so much had brought me to the Simple standard without the minimalism.

It’s just not for me, but it’s not suggested it should be for everybody anyway. It’s a very fine program if you enjoy it and it brings you what you’re seeking!
 
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Tom Flint said:
the rest of the oeuvre so much more
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I remember my first run at kettlebells consisting of snatches and bent press.

My first snatch was a 2 pood bell.

(back when we still called them that)

And it was rugged, but the bell went up to where it was supposed to.

I was younger (although not young), more impatient, and putting way too much power, and not enough technique, into the lifts with bells that were heavy enough to be a bit physically challenging, but waaaay too heavy for a newbie learning skills and technique.

So I sniffed at these "doorstops", as Rippetoe refers to them, and walked away for half a decade until S&S came out, decided to give kettlebells another go, but with a little more patience to acquiring skills the 2nd time around.

After rebuilding the basics, I learned I liked double KB C&P/J + squats a lot more than swings and getups.

I never really did do much more with the bent press, though. I still do it (and ye olde windmill) on variety days from time to time, but I use it more like 'weighted yoga' than a strength move.
 
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But compare S&S to doing nothing is quite skewd.

Lets say that you follow the simple modality of Kboges One set of squats, Push-ups and Pull-ups a day

Thats also a minimalistic training done daily with low entry level (exercises can be scaled), 2-3 reps shy of failure with little time investments.

People seem to get cought in a contextual bias. Want to run better? S&S. Want to fight better? S&S. Ad infinitum.

Perhaps a steady diet of basic bodyweight movements which help you move your body in space is better for?
If I remember correct @Pavel Tsasouline endorse Convict Conditioning and even wrote the foreword in the book.
 
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Stefan Olsson said:
But compare S&S to doing nothing is quite skewd.
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Yes I used that comparison for economy of language but I also don’t think it’s out of the realms of possibility that the first organised program someone has adopted is S&S, especially if that person has not gravitated towards any other form of training because they ‘don’t particularly like working out’.

When that hypothetical person stumbles on the SF forum and discovers S&S, they may well think, ‘OK, perhaps this is a good way to start exercising properly’ - which leads to the six pages of discussion we’ve had here.

I’m not opposed to minimalism at all (I’ve done the Giant, for example, and loved it) but if someone doesn’t think they enjoy working out - which was the entire crux of my point in my previous post - maybe they’ve landed on the wrong minimalist program for them.

Maybe the other minimalist program you’ve described there is better suited to their tastes (though I believe the lack of anything explosive is a drawback for someone doing only that program).
 
Tom Flint said:
Yes I used that comparison for economy of language but I also don’t think it’s out of the realms of possibility that the first organised program someone has adopted is S&S, especially if that person has not gravitated towards any other form of training because they ‘don’t particularly like working out’.

When that hypothetical person stumbles on the SF forum and discovers S&S, they may well think, ‘OK, perhaps this is a good way to start exercising properly’ - which leads to the six pages of discussion we’ve had here.

I’m not opposed to minimalism at all (I’ve done the Giant, for example, and loved it) but if someone doesn’t think they enjoy working out - which was the entire crux of my point in my previous post - maybe they’ve landed on the wrong minimalist program for them.

Maybe the other minimalist program you’ve described there is better suited to their tastes (though I believe the lack of anything explosive is a drawback for someone doing only that program).
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Did not mean to point you out on it. Was just a general feeling from following the thread (y)
 
Thanks what is GPP
Ege said:
Power to the people.

A program from Pavel T with two barbell moves. Deadlift and Press.

From a novice perspective, I can say, what S&S is for KBs, PTTP is for Barbells, by nature it is to increase strength. It is not a GPP program.

Then you have Naked Warrior, a pistol and a push up w BW.

:) one or all of them might be enough for some one or not :))) based on the spirit of this thread.
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