wexford
Level 3 Valued Member
Hi all,
I'm 49. I suffered from frozen shoulder in my left shoulder April 2020 and basically it too my 1 year to get mobility back which I did with a lot of stretching and yoga at home. I started S&S last November. My first kettlebell was 12kg. That turned out to be too heavy to press for the TGUs so I decided to swallow some pride and get an 8kg. I've basically no gym history and have a desk job I'll let that be my excuse. I hadn't done any lifting since I attempted a little in university way back when. Anyway, 8kg got me started. I had to take some time off mid to late December as I pulled something in my back on my left side. Probably bad technique and lifting anything was painful. January, something clicked and I got my back back. Onwards.
My TGU and 1H swings are both currently at 16kg and I'm currently adding 20kg for 2 sets per side on both TGU and swings. So really happy with that. I can already see big differences in my upper body and am really happy where this is going. I'm pretty happy with my TGU form. I've watched a lot of videos and while I can always improve, I feel I'm on the right track and know what I need to work on. I also find the slow movements much easier to concentrate on and identify fixes than with the ballistics where everything moves so fast. Speaking of which, my TGUs normally take me around 1 minutes to complete. If I rush them I can do one in around 40s, but I guess I'm naturally a slow mover and sometimes they can even go over a minute.
I also train for the bike. I do 3 hard 1 hour sessions a week normally. If S&S is on the same day, I do bike in the morning and S&S in the late afternoon. Bike wise, I do 2 or 3 weeks on and then 1 week off where I go easier. My current S&S schedule is 2 days on, 1 day off where the 2 days are 1H swings. So basically not doing the 2H swings at all currently. The first day, I'm usually strong. The second day, I find harder but that's not always the case either. Anyway, weights are going up so maybe everything is fine, but my question is if I'm missing something regarding 2H swing day. Should I do 3 days on where 3rd day is 2H swing and then take the 4th day off or keep things as they are? What should I do for the TGU on that 3rd day if I do that? Down the weights to more of a practice session or keep them up as I'm still getting the rest day? I think rest days have become quite important since reaching late 40s but would like to hear opinions. I know the book encourages me to get the 2H swings in and even use the 2H day as the rest day.
Regarding the 1H swing. I'm still not happy with my form. I find I'm questioning myself a lot. I've watched countless videos on it. It's very hard to concentrate on everything at the speed it happens at and if I concentrate on one thing, the other ones break down. I think the main area is rotation and keeping shoulders down. I find that as I come up my swing arm shoulder is also up and I physically bring it down on top of the swing but I think it needs to be down all the time. I think that might be linked to my free arm going back too far when going down so since yesterday I've been trying to keep the free arm more forward so I can keep my body more square all the time. Does that sound right? So hard to piece it all together.
Looking forward to a good looking swing some day. Onwards and upwards.
I'm 49. I suffered from frozen shoulder in my left shoulder April 2020 and basically it too my 1 year to get mobility back which I did with a lot of stretching and yoga at home. I started S&S last November. My first kettlebell was 12kg. That turned out to be too heavy to press for the TGUs so I decided to swallow some pride and get an 8kg. I've basically no gym history and have a desk job I'll let that be my excuse. I hadn't done any lifting since I attempted a little in university way back when. Anyway, 8kg got me started. I had to take some time off mid to late December as I pulled something in my back on my left side. Probably bad technique and lifting anything was painful. January, something clicked and I got my back back. Onwards.
My TGU and 1H swings are both currently at 16kg and I'm currently adding 20kg for 2 sets per side on both TGU and swings. So really happy with that. I can already see big differences in my upper body and am really happy where this is going. I'm pretty happy with my TGU form. I've watched a lot of videos and while I can always improve, I feel I'm on the right track and know what I need to work on. I also find the slow movements much easier to concentrate on and identify fixes than with the ballistics where everything moves so fast. Speaking of which, my TGUs normally take me around 1 minutes to complete. If I rush them I can do one in around 40s, but I guess I'm naturally a slow mover and sometimes they can even go over a minute.
I also train for the bike. I do 3 hard 1 hour sessions a week normally. If S&S is on the same day, I do bike in the morning and S&S in the late afternoon. Bike wise, I do 2 or 3 weeks on and then 1 week off where I go easier. My current S&S schedule is 2 days on, 1 day off where the 2 days are 1H swings. So basically not doing the 2H swings at all currently. The first day, I'm usually strong. The second day, I find harder but that's not always the case either. Anyway, weights are going up so maybe everything is fine, but my question is if I'm missing something regarding 2H swing day. Should I do 3 days on where 3rd day is 2H swing and then take the 4th day off or keep things as they are? What should I do for the TGU on that 3rd day if I do that? Down the weights to more of a practice session or keep them up as I'm still getting the rest day? I think rest days have become quite important since reaching late 40s but would like to hear opinions. I know the book encourages me to get the 2H swings in and even use the 2H day as the rest day.
Regarding the 1H swing. I'm still not happy with my form. I find I'm questioning myself a lot. I've watched countless videos on it. It's very hard to concentrate on everything at the speed it happens at and if I concentrate on one thing, the other ones break down. I think the main area is rotation and keeping shoulders down. I find that as I come up my swing arm shoulder is also up and I physically bring it down on top of the swing but I think it needs to be down all the time. I think that might be linked to my free arm going back too far when going down so since yesterday I've been trying to keep the free arm more forward so I can keep my body more square all the time. Does that sound right? So hard to piece it all together.
Looking forward to a good looking swing some day. Onwards and upwards.