Kettlebell Workout & 5/3/1

Pavel Tsatsouline’s ‘Simple and Sinister’ is one routine I’ve been using 2x/week (I use a four day ‘Beyond 5/3/1’ split).

The program is built around the kettlebell swing and Turkish getup at a relatively modest volume of 10x10 swings and 10x1 getups. The goals for men are to be able to do 10x10 1-arm swings (50 each arm) in 5 minutes and 10x1 getups in 10 minutes. The starting weight for most men is 24 KG for swing and 16 KG for the getup. The goals are divided into Simple and Sinister ones. The simple goal is getting to 32 KG for both lifts for men and the sinister one is doing the same for 48 KG.

Given I’m in the military I have unit level PT I have to do in the mornings. Between that and the relatively modest volume of S&S I get the conditioning I need and Beyond 5/3/1 fills out the strength needs. (I especially love the Joker Sets and First Set Last additions).

I’ve noticed since moving in 24 KG getups my pressing and benching improved because a weak point I had was the lockouts.

I’d advise investing in the book Simple and Sinister if you’d like to learn more about the programming and rationale behind it.