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Kettlebell Swinging for time: more short sets or less long sets

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Manuel Fortin

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I concentrated on strength this year. I am happy with the results as I can now do sets of 10 db kb squats with double 24, press the 32 and easily tgu 36. I am sure that if I had a 40 I could tgu it. This is in addition to good barbell results.

However, my conditioning is now bad and I gained about 5 pounds. It's time to concentrate on losing a bit of fat and upping conditioning. In want to use swings for now, and maybe snatches later. For many reasons, I prefer swinging 3 times a week, so S&S is probably not the best program. I started a month ago the swing program in A Science-Based Plan to Prepare You for the SFG Level I and SFG Level II with one hand swings.

I can strongly swing the 32, but my conditioning is not good enough for sets of 10 EMOM. I have been doing sets of 7 EMOM and can do 20 minutes of then breathing exclusively through the nose.

Finally, the question. Would I be better to do sets of 10 for the same duration, for example next week 22 min on the long day, with more rest, or keep doing what I am doing and when I think I gained enough conditioning, reset the program with 8 reps, then 9,...

I would prefer to stay with the 32 as it also has a strength component. Currently, the 32 gets up enough so that on all reps, my arm is horizontal at the top. However, if the consensus is that swinging the 24 for sets of 10 is better, I am open to switching weight.

The goal is to be able to do the simple standard but training swings 3 times a week. These days, the only other lower body training I do is 3 sets of 5 gb squat with the 32 before my swings and easy strength deadlifts earlier in day.
 
Hi,
There are different ways to approach that one - my preference would be to add a rep to every fourth or fifth set so it would go 7,7,7,7,8 and repeat four times and slowly add in more sets of 8 for example 7,7,7,8,8, until hitting all 20 mins and then continue up with 9. If time is no object then add a minute or two each week.

Good luck however you choose to go about this,

Ian
 
Manuel Fortin said:
I concentrated on strength this year. I am happy with the results as I can now do sets of 10 db kb squats with double 24, press the 32 and easily tgu 36. I am sure that if I had a 40 I could tgu it. This is in addition to good barbell results.

However, my conditioning is now bad and I gained about 5 pounds. It's time to concentrate on losing a bit of fat and upping conditioning. In want to use swings for now, and maybe snatches later. For many reasons, I prefer swinging 3 times a week, so S&S is probably not the best program. I started a month ago the swing program in A Science-Based Plan to Prepare You for the SFG Level I and SFG Level II with one hand swings.

I can strongly swing the 32, but my conditioning is not good enough for sets of 10 EMOM. I have been doing sets of 7 EMOM and can do 20 minutes of then breathing exclusively through the nose.

Finally, the question. Would I be better to do sets of 10 for the same duration, for example next week 22 min on the long day, with more rest, or keep doing what I am doing and when I think I gained enough conditioning, reset the program with 8 reps, then 9,...

I would prefer to stay with the 32 as it also has a strength component. Currently, the 32 gets up enough so that on all reps, my arm is horizontal at the top. However, if the consensus is that swinging the 24 for sets of 10 is better, I am open to switching weight.

The goal is to be able to do the simple standard but training swings 3 times a week. These days, the only other lower body training I do is 3 sets of 5 gb squat with the 32 before my swings and easy strength deadlifts earlier in day.
Click to expand...

If your goal is conditioning, I would recommend fewer sets of higher reps than the other way around. I would suggest trying the swing routine from ETK's Program Minimum: 12 minutes of swings with easy jogging or some other form of active rest between sets.
I found that performing these sets EMOM worked quite well for me but you don't have to do it that way and 12 minutes is just a good starting figure: As your conditioning improves you can look at extending it to 15 minutes and beyond, however I'd recommend being able to perform solid sets of 10 repetitions on the minute before going for longer time.

If you're currently swinging the 32kg one-handed, I'd also recommend two-handed swings as a regression before trying a lighter kettlebell.
 
Manuel Fortin said:
Would I be better to do sets of 10 for the same duration, for example next week 22 min on the long day, with more rest, or keep doing what I am doing and when I think I gained enough conditioning, reset the program with 8 reps, then 9,...
Click to expand...

I would say the second option, "keep doing what I am doing and when I think I gained enough conditioning, reset the program with 8 reps, then 9,"

It all depends on what you mean by "conditioning." If you want to peak your glycolytic work capacity, then go with @Chrisdavisjr ideas. If you want more A+A endurance (the idea behind the Science-based program you quoted), then what you are doing now is more in line with that.
 
Manuel Fortin said:
I can strongly swing the 32, but my conditioning is not good enough for sets of 10 EMOM. I have been doing sets of 7 EMOM and can do 20 minutes of then breathing exclusively through the nose.
Click to expand...

You could probably get through Geoff Neupert's "Swing Season" workout from Kettlebell Express. You do these 3x a week. Set your timer for 20 minutes and do EMOM. The whole swing season workout lasts 60 days. Here is the first month's worth:

DELETED: Sorry, this was copyrighted stuff. Will ask Geoff if I can re-port.

Since you can do 7 reps EMOM, it would make sense to bump up to 8 reps EMOM. As you can see, during the first month the reps are waived. If you do all 26 workouts you would finish at 21 reps EMOM.
 
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@Manuel Fortin I have used this very program with great results. In fact I have been running it twice this year for 1H-swings. First time 10x on the minute with 32 and the second time with 40.
Although getting in 10 reps was not a problem, I think you can keep on doing 7 reps. You def will be stronger next time.
And here is another suggestion (I encourage you to try it out, it will probably work): do 5reps with one arm, then on the 6th rep catch the bell with the other hand and do 5reps again. That way you would be doing 5+5 every minute on the minute which is not 10 per arm but the total volume is the same and I think it will help you progress.
 
I would look for programmes by Tracy Reifkind. The swings workouts from #6 or 7 on are a good progression from 2H to 1H swings. She has all the workouts on yt.
Just my two cents...;)
 
Manuel Fortin said:
However, my conditioning is now bad and I gained about 5 pounds. It's time to concentrate on losing a bit of fat and upping conditioning. In want to use swings for now, and maybe snatches later.
Click to expand...
Do those 5 pounds really matter much? If so, have you looked into changing your diet?
 
Thank you to all who responded.

@Ian V That's a good idea. I had thought of increasing session length until I am able to do about 10 sets of 8 and then resetting the program, but adding a rep here and there and keeping the sessions at a length that seems reasonable looks even better. I even implemented this advice once, but in reverse when I started the program. On a day I was feeling "off" a bit, I was starting to have difficulty in recovering between sets and without thinking cut one of the sets short at 5. I was then able to do a few more sets of 7, until I had to do one more set of 5. So, I did almost the program as written, except that two of the sets were reduced by 2 reps.

@MikeTheBear I may have that program hidden somewhere as I bought Geoff's retirement package last year. Sets of 21 EMOM? I doubt I could ever do that with a 32. I'm only doing sets of 7 now. That would triple my work capacity.

@Marc The limiting factor is conditioning in my sets, not strength. I may give it a try, but doing 5+5 will probably be too much work in the same set to recover for now. Maybe 4+4...Did you try it yourself and see a difference between a set of 10 and a set of 5+5?

@StanStan Pants are getting tighter... So they do matter. I am not obese, but most of my family is, so I have to pay a bit of attention to weight.Women weighing 220-250 pounds and men over 250 are common, and these are sedentary people, not bodybuilders or powerlifters. I hardly ever use a scale, but when clothes started being tighter, I used the scale to validate my feeling. It's time to be a bit more careful. The holidays are counter intuitively a good thing as I have a desk job, so I tend to move more when I am on vacation.

To anyone who suggested higher reps, I don't have any need for that kind of conditioning these days as I don't practice any sport requiring it. Those are good suggestions though and if I ever get back to playing a sport (I used to play rugby and water polo), then one run of 4-8 weeks through one of these programs would probably be a good start after a long lay off. I am more interested in the A+A approach. I did S&S for 8 months a few years ago and it did very good things to my body composition and blood pressure. I am borderline high pressure and while doing S&S, I got back well within accepted values.
 
Manuel Fortin said:
@MikeTheBear I may have that program hidden somewhere as I bought Geoff's retirement package last year. Sets of 21 EMOM? I doubt I could ever do that with a 32. I'm only doing sets of 7 now. That would triple my work capacity.
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I agree that it seems very daunting. But it will take you two months to get there and Geoff says it's possible in that time frame.

Perhaps several of us could do this and have a "support group." I only posted the first 13 workouts because I don't what the forum policy is on posting copyrighted material even if it's only a portion. But if @Steve Freides says it's okay I can post all 26 workouts.
 
All the times I've improved my body composition significantly, I was doing 4-6 sets of 20seconds on, 40seconds off of some form of cardio sprint after my strength training or 3 Rounds of 4-6 sets with 3-5 min rest between rounds if doing as stand alone. From that logic, I would say, lighter and faster has something to do with it.
 
MikeTheBear said:
I don't what the forum policy is on posting copyrighted material even if it's only a portion. But if @Steve Freides says it's okay I can post all 26 workouts.
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The policy of what copyrighted material can be posted is governed not by the rules of this forum but by something called the Fair Use Doctrine. My non-lawyerly understanding is simple - you cannot post all, most, or even half of anything that is under copyright without permission from the copyright owner. You may post a portion for the purpose of commenting on it, but that's all. You can quote from a book that you're reviewing, you can post an example if you're reviewing Geoff's program, etc. While the law may differ from place to place, the underlying sentiment is basically the same everywhere. You may quote a little but not a lot of something that is under copyright because it is the copyright owner's property and therefore up to them to decide how it gets used. If you disagree with copyright laws and/or Fair Use, that's your right, but everyone is obligated to respect those things on our forum.

I am not aware of the first 13 workouts being posted here but if that's the case, we should almost certainly take them down because that's far too much to be considered Fair Use unless Geoff has said it's OK.

I am not a lawyer, and this post does not constitute legal advice or a legal opinion on my part or the part of StrongFirst.

-S-
 
@Manuel Fortin Yes, I tried it when I first started to use the 40kg KB about 1 year ago. For me 5+5 was easier than 10 in a row. Ultimately I could switch to 10.
 
@Steve Freides I didn't know if Strongfirst had come up with a policy based on the Fair Use doctrine or not, which is why I asked. I am a lawyer and somewhat familiar with copyright law, but I am not Strongfirst's general counsel so can't provide you all with legal advice. I tend to be somewhat aggressive with the Fair Use doctrine. The doctrine allows copyrighted work to be used for educational purposes, and the point of this forum is to answer questions and educate each other.

If people here are interested in doing a swing challenge based on Geoff's Swing Season workout I can obtain his permission. I will start a separate thread to gauge interest.

I will voluntarily remove the first workouts that I posted.
 
I am a patent agent and am not a specialist in copyright, but I know enough to also think that the original post could arguably be considered within "fair use". The program that was mentioned is only one program in a whole book, so only a small portion of the book has been reproduced. It's also very simple as it's basically do swings EMOM 3 times a week and wave the load. Once you said that, and nobody can have a monopoly on swings with waving in the load, you basically have the program. Whether you write out the first 13 workouts or not, it doesn't really matter, especially if you write the end point of 21 reps per set. It's just like someone writing that S&S is " 10 sets of 10 1H swings with enough recovery in between sets to pass the talk test, followed by 10 TGUs". Nobody would consider that to be copyright infringement. If you really want to avoid any problem, you can say for the swing program do 20 sets EMOM of 10H swings, start at 8, increase by 1 rep per set each session, go back XX steps every YY session (if that's the format).

Note that I don't say that people should post details of programs that are found in books they bought, but from the legal point of view, I am far from convinced that the original post was copyright infringement.

Like others have said, this is not legal advice.
 
Manuel Fortin said:
It's also very simple as it's basically do swings EMOM 3 times a week and wave the load. Once you said that, and nobody can have a monopoly on swings with waving in the load, you basically have the program. Whether you write out the first 13 workouts or not, it doesn't really matter, especially if you write the end point of 21 reps per set.
Click to expand...

Not a patent attorney but remember dealing with some patent cases back when I worked in legal publishing. What you've described is the doctrine in patent law that something is "obvious based on existing art." Technically not a copyright doctrine but your analysis is still very relevant, at least IMO, in the fair use context. I would say that posting one workout out of 49 on a forum to create some interest in a challenge is fair use. And we are giving Geoff credit. If anything this would create interest in buying the entire ebook. But I sympathize with a cautious approach.
 
Gents, even if limited to just 1 portion of 49, I personally think it is good practice to ask the author's permission (even if not a legal requirement) before republishing it on a public space. Overly cautious, perhaps, but polite at the very least. Thank you!
 
Geoff's Swing Season program has already been shared on this site in Pavel's blog article How to Get Good at Programming.
 
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