Unstructured C&P training

[imsome]

I've trained with kettlebells for probably 14 years at this point, off and on. I've run RoP a few times but the volume seems to beat up my shoulders a bit. Reading and listening to Pavel over the years he's talked about how the Russians will do "a lot of sets of 3, 4, and 5" or something along that line... My question is, had anyone done any training with doing just that? Kind of intuitively training cleans and presses with a somewhat heavy bell?
I've done a couple workouts already where I did S&S style swings (10 x 10) but then doing something like a cluster set of 5 total reps each arm of C&Ps to 20 reps (with a 25 kg bell) and it feels pretty good and it works my shoulders. My goal would be to add a cluster of 5 periodically and just add volume until I feel like I can go up a bell.
Does this sound like a waste of time or what?

 

[darienjames]

@imsome Swings and C&P both works roughly the same posterior chain muscles, with swings just doing more grip and C&P shoulders/upper chest and triceps. I'm not convinced they pair that well.

I've run S&S exclusively for the past 6 months and am pretty happy with shoulder gains, not withstanding the fact that you don't expect 5x TGUs to do very much.

My shoulders get irritated rather easily with heavy shoulder work, and I've had no issues with S&S. As an example - I recently tried to "grease the groove" with pull-ups and did about 15-20 on my first day cumulatively. My left shoulder was sore for about 2 weeks after.

 

[belovedsone]

@darienjames

I'm not convinced they pair that well.

yeah, I've sort of come to the same conclusion myself, I just feel like I'm overworking the posterior chain when combining them. Squats seem to be a much better pair.

 

[1008]

@belovedsone Especially if you’re doing front squats as kettlebells force you to do. Loads the quads a lot more and gives hips deep rom that you don’t get from hinge.

 

[belovedsone]

@1008 Exactly, everything feels more balanced doing DFSQ, you hit all the bases.

 

[darienjames]

@belovedsone I reckon that's why Pavel has the goblet squat/bicep curl combo in the warm-up. I've just increased the volume of curls to 3x8 and will work up to 3x10 before swapping it out the 24 for 32kg.

 

[hunter101]

@imsome For a few years I followed my own method. EMOM I'd do a somewhat easy set each side, until I'd done 100 reps. For example, it could look like this:

• 10x5, 8x4, 4x3, 3x2

Next workout I'd shift a couple of reps to an earlier set. For example, it might look like this:

• 1x6, 8x5, 9x4, 6x3
• 2x6, 6x5, 11x4, 4x3, 1x2

The workouts would sometimes be decently long, but never super difficult.

Once I could press a weight for a few sets of 10, I'd start converting sets of 10 to 10x1 with an 8kg heavier bell:

• 2x10, 4x8, 4x7, 1x6, 2x5, 4@24
• 10x1@32; 1x10, 6x8, 4x6, 2x4@24
• 1x2, 8x1@32; 1x10, 2x9, 2x8, 4x7, 2x4@24

Once I got to the 40kg bell, it got too heavy to do reps on both sides in the same interval.

This method got me to a 48kg press. I didn't use it for C&P, only press, but I see no reason it wouldn't work for C&P too.

Part of what made it work for me is that I'd eventually get to a point where the first 1-3 sets were pretty tough, but the subsequent ones were easy to moderately hard.

For no workouts were there ever any doubt that I'd make all reps, and I absolutely could've done more. On the other hand, I could do this on a daily basis - and 365 days of slight progress will absolutely add up.

 

[roseprince]

@hunter101 Thanks for posting that Lenny, your methods Look interesting

 

[yakapo7]

@hunter101 Nice! This looks like it could be fun for single arm pressing work. Just to clarify: you would do 100 reps total between both arms or 100 reps per arm?

 

[hunter101]

@yakapo7 100 both sides!

As I said, few sets were very hard - which means it'll sometimes take a while. I may make sense to start with 50 reps while you build up and then add like 5 sets of 2+2 every few workouts.

A set of 10+10 will often end up taking like 40 seconds, so you'll get some bonus conditioning on top! I always get out of breath when I haven't done it in a while.

Good luck

 

[yakapo7]

@hunter101 Niiiiiice! That is some volume! Indeed- if you want to press a lot, you must press a lot. Love it.

 

[hunter101]

@yakapo7 Hell yeah.

My pressing just kind of morphed into it. If your technique is lacking to any degree, this should fix it right up.

I pressed every day in December 2021 with no shoulder issues. People always assume high volume and frequency training will inevitably go wrong, but it worked out fine for me.

 

[cavitill]

@imsome Doing lots of low rep clean and press sets may be good (people sure do love Geoff Neupert's™ The Giant™ around here) but's definitely not how Russian kettlebell athletes train. Not that anyone is obligated to use kettlebells like a Russian, Pavel certainly never advocated for that.

 

[veevalaveeda]

@imsome Run "The Giant" from Geoff Neupert if you're interested in a purely C&P program

 

[imsome]

@veevalaveeda I've seen that program referenced on here a few times. I'll check it out. Thanks!

 

[revrog252]

@imsome Either buy the giant, or just come up with a progression plan for C&P. The giant is a Dbl KB program. I could run the weight, but it hurt my lower back after the 2nd week. I went back to singles and just started with the 16kgx5 reps x 10 sets and then went to 20KGx2 reps for 10 sets until I could do 5reps per set, now I'm currently at 24KGx3 reps for 10 sets. I'm working my way up to 5x10 with the 24 and then I'll try doubles again. I messaged Geoff on Instagram about the injury issues and that was his suggestion.

 

[imsome]

@revrog252 Nice, thanks!