Will S&S work the chest and biceps?

[hunter101]

@soldierofgod1988 Exactly.

In December 2021 I just did high volume heavy (for me) presses and swings, every day, making things ever so slightly more difficult each day, and got a good deal better at both.

 

[lfedora]

@jesusrules1978 Do pushups/dips for chest, chin-ups for biceps and lats. A lot of people say S&S is not sufficient to cover all the muscle groups and is too low of volume. After a while I was won over to their side and switched instead to DFW Remix. But S&S is totally fine for a challenge.

 

[saved_by_grace82]

@jesusrules1978 It’s a solid minimalist program and hits about as many muscles as possible with just two exercises. You definitely can and, if you want to, should add a couple of exercises to round it out.

 

[loudindie]

@jesusrules1978 No you don’t have to go outside the canonical workout to target these muscles. As per s&s 3rd edition, do some curls at the bottom of your prying goblet squats. I’m at the 40 kg and I can do about 2 curls with that weigh, which has made me plenty strong (by minimalist standard). For chest, do a floor press at the bottom of the Turkish get up at the start of each rep. If you want, you can do a few extra ones on your last reps on each side. This has made my chest adequately strong.

I do think s&s is really insufficient for development of the lats, which are very useful to have strong to avoid injury with all the swings and to lock down the shoulders during the get up. Accordingly, the only way I truly diverge from s&s is by doing a set of a few rows on each side after the end of my swings, squats (with curl at the bottom), and tgu’s (with floor press at the bottom).

With this one addition, I do think s&s is a very complete minimalist program for strength acquisition.

 

[darienjames]

@loudindie Are you doing 2 curls at the bottom of each squat? I just do 10 (24kg) at the 1st and pry for the rest.

I'm obviously new to it, but my lats have noticeably grown in the 6 months. It hasn't translated to pull-ups ito volume, so I do pull-ups & push-ups on my off days.

 

[loudindie]

@darienjames No just prior to the first one in each set of 5 squats. I’m doing like 3-5 curls total in the entire workout, but with the 40 kg. Very minimalist but my biceps are much stronger than if I wasn’t doing that.

 

[shinystar]

@jesusrules1978 Arms: Grab a towel and do some towel curls with a kb. Depending on the kb, you can also hoist it above and do triceps extensions.

Chest: Do a Close-Grip Bench press with a kb.

 

[dawn16]

@jesusrules1978 It will but not directly. Just throw in some bar dips or push ups.

 

[darienjames]

@jesusrules1978 After doing only S&S for 4 months, coming from a bout of BW training, I had lost no push-up strength/volume when I tested. I did grow my upper chest, which is hit with the TGUs.

If you do the whole thing, including the warm-up, you do hit biceps and quads with the prying goblet squats. I've modified it a bit by doing all the curls on the first squat and increasing from 5 to 10 per set over time. Previously, my max bicep curl 1RM was 17.5kg. Testing this week, I did 2 with a 20kg, so it does work.
I'm also aiming to do the positive part of the squat as explosively as possible. There was no noticeable increase in my squads, but maintaining well.

After 6 months, my forearms, shoulders, and lats have noticeably grown.

I think most of the criticism comes from people who are after a hypertrophy based program, which S&S is not. Some of it also comes from people who don't know/follow the prescribed warm-up either.

 

[raptureready2go]

@jesusrules1978 Anyone have link to the program?

 

[jesusrules1978]

@raptureready2go It’s a book by Pavel. But the basic gist is 10 sets of 10 kettlebell swings (usually one-arm but mixed with occasional two-handed) followed by 10 sets of 1 Turkish get up. You should do it almost every day. You’ve mastered the “simple and sinister program” when you can do the swings in 5 minutes and the get ups in 10 with a 32 kg kettlebell

It doesn’t feel like an overly strenuous workout (and that’s by design), but I’ve been very impressed with how strong my core, back, and shoulders feel after practicing for a couple weeks already. But like I said, I feel like my chest and arms could use a little extra work

Sorry to the pros if this was oversimplified or if I got anything wrong. I’m new lol.

 

[raptureready2go]

@jesusrules1978 Thanks for the info. I’ll look more into it.