I went to see Delaine Ross in Atlanta on Thursday. Delaine is a Senior Instructor with Strong First and owns Condition Kettlebell Gym. We met online because we are both moderators of the Whole30 Forum and this was our first meeting in person. She will be teaching the day-long Strong First kettlebell class I am attending in Peachtree City on January 19, but I wanted to get a few tips in advance so I scheduled a Functional Movement Screening with her and was pretty sure she would show me a few things in the course of things. I was not disappointed. I passed the FMS, although it took several tries on some measurements. What I really appreciated was several corrections/changes to how I perform get-ups. In celebration, I jumped to doing all my getups today with the 16 kg kettlebell. By the way, Delaine is as nice in person as she is online and her gym is a dream environment for training.

I also modified my swing pattern by shifting from 5 one-handed swings on each side to 10 for a total of 20 one-handed swings per effort. This meant I did 10 two-handed, then 20 one-handed three times and then finished with a final set of 10 two-handed.

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

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

Two-handed swings
24 kg kettlebell – 4 x 10 = 40 reps, 2080 pounds

One-handed swings
24 kg kettlebell – 3 x 10 L/R = 60 reps, 3120 pounds

Get-ups
16 kg kettlebell – 5 x 1 L/R = 10 reps, 350 pounds

Total weight: 7650 pounds

I am following the template from Pavel Tsatsouline’s new book Simple and Sinister. My strength has increased each week since I started. Part of that is from doing a modest amount of hard work five days per week and part of that is surely the particular work that I am doing – goblet squats, halos, swings, and get-ups.