S&S - how long did it take you to do the 100 swings in 5 min w/ 24 kg?

[pearlgrl13]

Howdy y'all. Long time lurker, first time poster here. Seeing all your posts gives me so much motivation. This is genuinely the most wholesome community on Reddit.

For reference, I'm 30M, 80 kg.

After several rounds nds of DFW, ROP, and the wolf at 12 kg, I came back to S&S in May. Started at 16 kg, and quickly progressed to the 24 kg at beginning of June. I have an adjustable bell, so I worked up in 2 kg increments each week after starting with 16 kg.

I've been going at the 24 kg for about 3 months now, with 3 sessions of S&S/wk. After I've done S&S, I'll usually run 5x5 double c&p with 16s and farmer carries as a finisher. On off days I'm doing 5x5-8 pull ups, dips, and squats. I also cycle, jump rope, Ruck, and play tennis at least 2-3x/wk for additional cardio.

I feel like I'm stuck on hitting the 100 swings in 5 mins. Right now I'm timing out at about 6.5 mins and am gassed. Grip and form feels pretty sloppy reps 60-100 if I'm really pushing for time. Surprisingly, the get ups are no problem.

Feel like it is taking an eternity to hit 5 mins on the 100 swings with 24 kg. How long did it take you? What were things you incorporated into your training that helped you break through an S&S platuea? Any suggestions to refocus my training to break through this plateau?

Thank you all for the suggestions and happy swinging!

Edit: typos

 

[navyservant53]

@pearlgrl13 In the latest version, you don’t do the timed test until you are comfortable doing all sets with the 32.

 

[pearlgrl13]

@navyservant53 Interesting! Honestly, my heaviest bell is a 24 kg and I don't intend to get a 32 kg anytime soon. Just wanted to hit time at the 24 kg and move back to more C&P centric programs. Will keep this in mind for when I eventually get that 32 and go for simple though

 

[villianmade]

@pearlgrl13 The target time is 5 minutes. 10 swings normally take 15 seconds. Thus, for timed intervals, you could do each set on the half-minute.

 

[jackier293]

@pearlgrl13 I did S&S for several months when I first got into kettlebell training and I never timed my sessions. I would rest until I felt ready to go with the next set.

At the end I was doing all 100 swings one handed and 10 getups with the 40 kg. I did 3-4 sessions a week. Timeless is the way to go.

 

[tutorman]

@pearlgrl13 You're only supposed to push 1 workout every week or 2 weeks before you hit Timeless Simple, this is called a jolt. If your grip and form are feeling sloppy, you probably simply need more practice while pretty closely to fully rested (talk test or even longer). To me it doesn't sound like it would be a cardio issue, but an efficiency issue currently. For me it didn't take long at all to achieve, but I had a previous background in lifting, so 24kg as a hinge is very light.

TL;DR: practice while having more rest, and you'll probably improve faster.

 

[pearlgrl13]

@tutorman I think this might be the ticket. I started really pushing for time and keeping a clock running the past month and a half and feel like I've made little progress. Reflecting back on it now, I feel like when I was just taking my time and resting between sets I made greater progress. Thanks for the thought!

 

[samkruger]

@pearlgrl13 I seem to remember someone saying that they would work up to a higher weight timeless before attempting timed Simple.

 

[ngie]

@pearlgrl13 That’s great progress so far! In our experience with completing the sinister challenge, we didn’t actually train that layout. It’s a great option for many reasons, but if you’re looking to hit the benchmark of simple and/or sinister there’s lots of ways to get there.

We found a short block of 8-12 weeks of higher volume sets can be very helpful.

We’d do up to 300 reps per session in sets of 15-30 reps. However the rest is long (3-5mins) between sets to limit fatigue. We’d also only do this a maximum of twice a week.

Strength work would be on separate days and relatively low volume.

Perhaps it could help you hit that next milestone!

 

[pearlgrl13]

@ngie Holy cow that's a lot of volume! This is a great idea though, and something I haven't tried. I've been pretty religious about sticking to the 100 reps/workout, but maybe I ought to give this a try for a while.

I'm curious, what do you consider 'relatively low volume' for strength work on off days?