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Kettlebell S&S and minor injuries

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andrewswanson

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background first: I am 29, roughly 100kgs. I have no injury history. I have not taken an FMS in a little while, but when I did I had no movement restrictions. I think my movement has improved since then (just a guess) because I spent 4 or 5 months practicing the drills on Brett Jone's Kalos Sthenos dvd. I trained/competed in weightlifting (olympic lifting) for roughly three years under the supervision of a senior level usaw coach (a couple of my training partners were national level lifters, I was not). With work and deciding to go back to school I transitioned from weightlifting and have been training with exclusively with kettlebells in my garage for 10ish months. I began S&S about 5 months ago. I have experience minor aches and pains on the program. Tried adding in more rest days, but still had same issue. Do you I am just using too heavy of a kettlebell?
 
Since you mention "pain", I know the first priority of this forum is "go get medical clearance and don't take medical advice from online."

That said, here are some potential causes of "minor aches" from training:

How many sessions do you do a week? There have recently been very helpful discussions on this forum about longer rest between swing sets. A heart rate monitor makes a great, objective guide. The idea is to never let your heart rate get over 180 - (your age) + 5. For me, this made the swings alone take about 20 minutes using only 16kg for shoulder rehab purposes. Other's have reported it taking 40 minutes at first just for the swings. On the one hand, this might remove some of the appeal of the "quick" S&S workout, but it really is part of the book that is overlooked. "Start each set fresh". If you are only doing it 3 times a week this probably isn't as much an issue.

If it's not overtraining (and medical issues have been cleared) than it is likely technique. In that case, try posting a video of your swing and getup, or which ever one is causing discomfort.
 
I was training 5-6 days weeks, with long rests between sets (swings took about 15ish minutes). I decided to try 3-4 days a week, still keeping long rests. After still experiencing the same aches and pains I decided to ask the forum. I think I might just be using too heavy of a kettlebell (been using the 32kg). Im not exactly sure what is going on. During training for weightlifting my coach had me on a 5 day a week program, so I assumed I could handle S&S 5-6 days a week but that hasn't been the case. Like I said, I tried dropping the number of sessions to 3-4 and had the same issues. Its the swings (not get ups) that will cause aches and pain in my obliques, lats, upper back.
 
Andrew
Could you post a video of your swing?
 
First of all, you tried increasing rest days, but have you tried decreasing weight?

Thinking outside the mechanical/musculoskeletal box here (because there are others here much more qualified than I to comment on technique, programming and such)...how's your nutrition? How's your sleep? How's your libido? From what I read, you have had a FMS, you've trained with a solid coach, so maybe it's not a weight/technique issue at all. Prior to the KB training, you went back to school. Also, the way I read it, work & school stress made it so you didn't really have the time to do the weightlifting program anymore. Is that the case? Has stress significantly increased? Has your diet gotten a bit worse trying to manage work and school at the same time? Are you sleeping less/getting less quality sleep? Cortisol and testosterone have an antagonistic relationship. If your cortisol is higher because of stress/poor diet, than your T is going to be lower. One way this will show up is that you'll have problems building muscle and recovering as well as you should- poor recovery. Decreased libido or decrease in the frequency of morning erections may be another symptom.

If the aches and pains aren't improving with increased rest/decreased weight, than I would look at what may be possibly increasing inflammation in your body. Pain is a response to inflammation. Some amount of inflammation is necessary- when we rest & recover from this we get stronger. But too much becomes counter-productive, leading to over-reaching and even over-training syndromes. The S&S program itself may not be 'overtraining' but in the context of stressful life circumstances, the body may react to as if it is being overtrained.
 
For some reason I am having trouble uploading a video.

I was thinking of spending the next two months just using the 16kg and if that goes well slowly transitioning to the 24kg. Hopefully that will help me work on form, and also let me body adjust to the relatively new movements. I think my biggest problem was just using too heavy a bell.

Thanks for the help Christa, I think sleep and other life stressors were definitely hindering my recovery.
 
Send me a PM here and I will help you through uploading a video.

-S-
 
Christa makes a very good point about overall stress, nutrition and recovery.

Sometimes it is the biggest key
 
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