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Kettlebell Practice frequency: 5 or 7 times a week?

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Oscar

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Hi all,

For the last 14 days I have been doing S&S every day. Instead of days off I have done light days, but no days off at all. Before this period I was practicing about 4-6 days a week, whatever life permitted, but not every day like now.

I have noted that in order to recover from day to day and feel energetic I had to reduce the intensity of my practices, now that I´m not taking days off. Before, when I was averaging 5 times a week, I could go a little heavier since I had more recovery. This makes sense, since the weekly volume of practicing 7 days is 40% more than 5 days.

Here below are the passages of the book that refer to frequency:

"You will start by training every day, taking an occasional day off when your body insists, or when your schedule puts you in a crunch."


Tsatsouline, Pavel. Kettlebell Simple & Sinister (Posición en Kindle883-884). . Edición de Kindle.

It may seem strange to recommend training without days off when the goal is storing energy, but moderate daily training will keep the muscles’ fuel tanks topped off, while making tissues resistant to microtrauma and almost soreness-proof. It is the ticket to being always ready.

Tsatsouline, Pavel. Kettlebell Simple & Sinister (Posición en Kindle1344-1346). . Edición de Kindle.

Additionally, a while after the book, Pavel wrote the following article, referring to a training frequency of 5/week. From Simple to Sinister: Waving Volume on S&S. Following passage from the article:

"The first step is identifying your monthly volume. Note that the “month” I am referring to is not a calendar month but a block of four weeks. S&S is intended to be practiced daily but most people end up doing it five days a week. For swings, the numbers then add up to:

(5 days x 100 reps = 500 reps a week) x 4 weeks = 2,000 reps a month"


I´d like to know what weekly frequency have the forum members used, and to what results. Also, I wonder if practicing every day is actually beneficial, or if one or two days off a week is actually good in order to improve recovery.

 
Earlier 5-6 days in a 3-on/1-off style.
Nowadays I can't train on the weekends anymore and go for 5 consecutive days (Mon-Fri).
I like the 5 consecutive days better, because on friday I can do my once-a-week glycolictic session and really let it rip. I feel those hard friday sessions + the two rest days afterwards are very beneficial overall and I've often made jumps in my performance after the weekend.
 
Had my best progress with around 4 to 5 sessions per week.

Now, I think I always went too heavy right from the start and did not ever really follow the way it is advised in S&S.

Here is a distribution of reps per calendar week of 2017, except this week.

2017-12-28%20reps%20per%20week.png


When I started swinging the 16kg a year ago, I should not have started with 100 reps per session in total. Should have increased the reps slowly and then keeping the sessions per week constant at 100 reps.

Something I did with the 24kg, where I have changed from 10 sets with 10 reps to 20 sets with 5 reps each.

Since me and my ego likes swinging the 32kg with two hands the most. I am trying the following per session now: Always 10 sets, starting with 1 rep per set. Then increasing the reps per set until I am at 10. At some point switching to the 1 handed version. This is the plan for 2018. Not sure if it makes sense though ... Or I do my thing with 16kg, 10 sets of 10 reps and follow the book by the letter.
 
I liked daily training for S&S and I did it for squats for a little while. For me it inspires confidence more than anything. That said, I rarely do daily training just out of logistics and goals. Something like S&S is a great daily training program (logistics especially) but I often have work capacity objectives that I prefer to train with longer duration and volume and lower frequency.

Actually, there are plenty of successful train everyday programs - some up to max effort lifts. There is another thread regarding Bulgarian methods recently also. Recent popularity of the Bulgarian methods I think can be given to John Broz. I think the first article will inspire confidence in your approach to daily training.

John Broz Article
Cory Gregory Article
Travis Mash Article
 
been working on Simple since start of June 2016. Sidelined for almost 3 full months Feb to April this year with a fractured hand. Pretty much back to where I was where I left off pre injury (female here...one handed swings at 20kg all sets, getups at 16kg at the moment, guessing that will reach Simple by end of the year or early next year)

Looking back at my journals at home, I think I make better progress with no less than 4, preferably 5 days a week. I do note tiredness when I do 4 or more consecutive days in a row...that is the pattern I have seen. I have really noticed this with heavier bells. I think what would be ideal in my case and I am going to experiment with is something like 3 on, one off, two on, one or two off.

I have the book on Kindle app and not available at the moment, but is there not a quote saying that if you do not have heavy days, you need no light days to recover, or something like that? So should we not be doing this almost daily,like the book says? That always makes me wonder.

I do try to pay attention to my heartrate (roughly, do not have a moniter), and don't sweat it if my swings take 13 min-15min for example, as long as I feel good....that time will eventually start to shrink, I have seen it. When it naturally falls to about 8-10ish min or so and I am feeling good, I have seen from past experience I can test my time and pass. I also try to just "take it easy" most days like someone previously mentioned, and one session a week go a titch harder, not test levels, mind you, but like @Kettlebelephant mentioned push the envelope a bit.

Thanks @Oscar for bringing this topic up! Looking forward to other replies...
 
Oscar, a little math - figure out a way to multiply your training volume by its intensity. I think you'll find out that, even going a little easier on your 7-days-a-week schedule, you're still getting more done overall.

You could, e.g., multiple each swing by the kettlebell weight and get a number for each schedule, so, e.g., 24 kg x 500 swings (100/day) = 12000; 16 kg x 700 swings = 11200. So if going to 16 kg for everything in order to manage 7 days is what you require, then I'd say not to do it. If, OTOH, you can keep some volume of 24 kg in there, then 24 kg x 300 (3 days worth) swings = 8000 and 16 kg x 400 4 days worth) swings = 6400, which totals to 14,400, which is more work getting done.

There are many ways to look at this - hopefully the above gets you thinking.

-S-
 
To add to Steve's comments, also consider the other side of the spectrum and doing less reps (sets of 5) at the higher weight to sustain more frequency (7 days). While the training volume load is lower (350 x 24kg = 8,400) the intensity number of lifts (INOL) would be similar.
 
+1 for what Steve said.
Total weight lifted over X amount of time needs to be considered, not just reps or sets over that time period.
 
@Steve Freides , @Kettlebelephant and @Bro Mo, thanks for your feedback. This is exactly what I have been doing. I have made a table where I calculate the "workload" for each session (below). My short term target is doing the 100 swings with 24 kg, so I have assigned this to be a a workload of 100. I have found that I can recover daily with a workload of 64, equivalent to 64 1HS with the 24 (with a lighter day every 4th day, more or less).

upload_2017-12-28_17-13-7.png

I can indeed put a bit more total work per week by practicing 7/week. However, its not a lot more than I would if I trained 5/week, since the daily load would be higher. So this is what last week training looked like for me:

- Average workload 61.6 x 7 days = 431 weekly workload (equivalent to 431 1HS with the 24).

On the other hand, if I had more days to rest, I think I could do as follows:

- 80 1HS, 24 kg x 5 days = 400 1HS (or a workload of 400).

So the total per week is not that different, and I would be working "closer" to my goal of 100 1HS with 24. I wonder which of the two alternatives works better.


I have the book on Kindle app and not available at the moment, but is there not a quote saying that if you do not have heavy days, you need no light days to recover, or something like that? So should we not be doing this almost daily,like the book says? That always makes me wonder.

Yes, just read the book today and this is what it says. Following this line of thought, I should just do a workload of 64 every day and progress from there, with the occasional light day or day off.
 
IMHO, it's worth allowing yourself time to adapt to the more frequent lifting schedule. Don't forget that you can take a day off here and there, e.g., the simplest compromise would be lifting 6 days a week instead of 5 or 7.

-S-
 
Oscar, a little math - figure out a way to multiply your training volume by its intensity. I think you'll find out that, even going a little easier on your 7-days-a-week schedule, you're still getting more done overall.

You could, e.g., multiple each swing by the kettlebell weight and get a number for each schedule, so, e.g., 24 kg x 500 swings (100/day) = 12000; 16 kg x 700 swings = 11200. So if going to 16 kg for everything in order to manage 7 days is what you require, then I'd say not to do it. If, OTOH, you can keep some volume of 24 kg in there, then 24 kg x 300 (3 days worth) swings = 8000 and 16 kg x 400 4 days worth) swings = 6400, which totals to 14,400, which is more work getting done.

There are many ways to look at this - hopefully the above gets you thinking.

-S-

@Steve Freides In how far is time as an additional parameter important?

When I have changed my interval time (work + rest) from 60s to 90s, I could do more sessions per week. My legs were not so tired. Or maybe it was just that I got used to the overall workload because I kept going with the same weight?
 
Personally, I found I had to start taking days off when I started doing 32kg TGUs.

On a more recent run in which I did the Sinister swings in about 4:30, I never did more than 4 days a week, though I was running the other 3. I think I could've handled more swings, but not more TGUs.
 
I do try to pay attention to my heartrate (roughly, do not have a moniter), and don't sweat it if my swings take 13 min-15min for example, as long as I feel good....that time will eventually start to shrink, I have seen it. When it naturally falls to about 8-10ish min or so and I am feeling good, I have seen from past experience I can test my time and pass.

I noticed the same thing - once I am doing swings in the manner of "every minute on the minute" and do them comfortably with hardly any sweat, it means the test goal is near even though I practice for a time which is twice as long as the test.
 
Started doing it last year but it interfered with my other activities (aka messing around according to @Neuro-Bob *lol*) and I made bouldering my priority. But if I would 'only do' kb I would try this programme. But perhaps you meant sth else?!
From Simple to Sinister: Waving Volume on S&S
Elli, that program looks good, but for the time being, before reaching simple, I think I can do okay with a simpler program as included in the book. In my case, I dont think reaching Simple will require a sophisticated plan, just to do swings and TGU. This is the program I quoted in the OP mentioning that Pavel talks about 5/week. I´ll leave the program to progress beyond Simple, if I plan to do so.

@Tobias Wissmueller thats a good looking log. Did you keep an Excel file?

IMHO, it's worth allowing yourself time to adapt to the more frequent lifting schedule. Don't forget that you can take a day off here and there, e.g., the simplest compromise would be lifting 6 days a week instead of 5 or 7.

Steve, this sounds like a good salomonic compromise. I guess anything between 5-7 days a week works fine for different reasons. I took a day off after 14 days in a row and when I came back the TGU felt a lot easier (possibly related to changes in technique as well though).

After this day off, I´d like to do another long run of non-stop days, if life permits. I think this teaches the body to recover from day to day, and when you eventually take a day off you come back really recovered and strong. I´ll see how it goes. This passage from the book comes to mind:

"Prof. Arkady Vorobyev explains that incomplete restoration training stimulates the recovery ability; your body literally has to learn how to recoup faster... or else. Those who have served in the military can relate. You got sore after your first day in basic training, but you persisted— as if you had a choice— and kept up with the daily grind of pushups and runs, and finally you could handle it. If you were given the unlikely choice of PT-ing only when you had totally recovered, you still would have been stiff, sore, and a sissy."

Tsatsouline, Pavel. Kettlebell Simple & Sinister (Posición en Kindle1347-1351). . Edición de Kindle.


Thanks all for the replies!
 
@Tobias Wissmueller thats a good looking log. Did you keep an Excel file?

@Oscar, yes, it is all in a big table per exercise. Therefore I have three tables: one for the swings, one for the getups and one for cycling.

Then I plot things like
- reps * sets
- reps * sets * weight
- (reps * sets * weight) / time

It is just fun, because I don’t need any numbers telling me that my practice should be more consistent ROFL
 
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