I read Pavel Tsatsouline’s new book Simple and Sinister over the weekend and decided to start the S&S workout on Monday. Pavel convinced me that doing 100 heavy swings would be more effective at building strength and endurance that 400 lighter swings, so I jumped from the 16 kg kettlebell to the 24 kg bell and cut my swing volume radically. I attacked 10 sets of two-handed swings aggressively and they were over so quickly, I began to wonder if I would truly make progress with “so few” reps. The next morning, the soreness in the muscles of my upper back/lower neck told me that the work was plenty effective. There was not enough pain to slow me down, but enough to let me know I was on the right track.

My old workout was taking about 23 minutes. The S&S workout, including the “warmup” took me about 41 minutes on Monday, but I got it down to 34 minutes by Wednesday. The warmup feels like a serious workout to me. That may be because I am tighter than the average snare drum, but the warmup portion is taking me 20 minutes.

The last part of the S&S workout is get-ups – 5 left/5 right. My right shoulder felt kind of tweaked on Monday, so I did the get-ups with no load. I used the 8 kg kettlebell starting Tuesday and plan to continue with the 8 all week. On Monday, I will probably test using the 12 kg bell for some of the get-ups. My shoulder has improved every day, but I want to give it time to get to a good place before going far with loading my get-ups. I did some get-ups with the 16 kg bell last year, so I do have some experience under a heavier load.

My current S&S program

Prying goblet squats
16 kg kettlebell – 3 x 5 = 15 reps, 525 pounds

Goblet squat curls
16 kg kettlebell –3 x 5 = 15 reps, 525 pounds

Strongfirst Hip Bridge – 3 x 5 = 15 reps

Halos: 16 kg kettlebell – 3 x 10 = 30 reps, 1050 pounds

Two-handed swings
24 kg kettlebell – 10 x 10 = 100 reps, 5200 pounds

Get-ups
8 kg kettlebell – 5 x 1 L/R = 10 reps, 180 pounds

Total weight: 7480 pounds

I experimented with some one-handed swings during my Thursday workout: One set of 10 Left/10 Right and several sets of 5 Left/5 Right. The sets of 10 revved me up aerobically a bit more than I wanted. The sets of 5 are probably a safe place for me to work for now, but I will probably wait for next week before I do them for all 100.

The get-ups are challenging. To make sure I do not over-stress myself, I have stopped doing pull-ups, push-ups, or any other exercises. I am hoping that when I test myself in a few weeks, I will have held my recent abilities well even without working the specific exercises daily.