I signed up to participate in a research program conducted by StrongFirst months ago without knowing anything about what I would have to do. I learned in early November that I would be following a Lazy Endurance protocol for 6 weeks, training 4 times a week. The killer news was that the training was one-handed swings with a 32kg kettlebell.

I had not picked up my 32 kg (70-pound) bell in more than a year. When I did one-handed swings at all, I had been using a 16 kg bell. The first thing I did when I got the training instructions was to go to my garage and test to see if I could swing a 32 kg bell with one hand without dropping it! I could, but just barely.

I honestly did not think I was strong enough to complete more than a token number of one-handed swings with a 70-pound bell, but the training protocol did not allow men to participate with anything lighter. I decided to start and see how far I could go.

I did it. I completed every swing as prescribed for the entire 6 weeks. I lost my grip and dropped the bell once the first week, and then managed to hold on thereafter.

The goal was to build endurance without losing strength or power by completing 5 heavy swings on the top of every minute for sessions lasting anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes. The protocol allowed breaking long sessions into parts. I broke several sessions into halves and broke the one 60-minute session into three 20-minute sessions.

My hands were a big challenge because I was unprepared for the stress generated by swinging a 32 kg bell day after day and my hand-care was lax. I got a helpful consultation from a StrongFirst Facebook group and learned to tape up properly during the second week. By the end of the third week, my hands were back in good shape and I ended the six weeks with healthy hands.

The weekly demand waved from 400, to 540, to 700, to 280, to 600, to 800 swings.

The plan called for active rest between sets. I dropped to the floor and completed ten 6-point rocks after every set of swings. I think I would have suffered an injury if not for the restorative power of the rocking. Thank you Original Strength for everything you have taught me!

The plan allowed for “training strength 3 days a week” in addition to the “conditioning” work of the heavy one-handed swings. I added a few pull-ups, double front squats, and double presses one or two days per week during the first 4 weeks. I didn’t add anything the last two weeks because I was afraid of using up something I might need to finish. What I found was that pull-ups felt easy after swinging a 70-pound bell for a while and I look forward to testing myself with pull-ups soon.

Did it work? My conditioning as measured by a 10-minute running test improved marginally. I ran maybe 100 yards farther after 6 weeks of Lazy Endurance training. I don’t think StrongFirst will count that as a big success. But this program produced big results for me! I transformed from being a skinny guy who swung a 35-pound kettlebell to a skinny guy who swung a 70-pound kettlebell with one hand 3,320 times in 6 weeks.

During week 6, I realized that I CAN achieve the StrongFirst Simple standard of using a 32 kg kettlebell to perform 100 one-handed swings in 5 minutes and 10 get-ups in 10 minutes. I’m not even close today, but I think there is a reasonably good chance that I can be there by this time next year.

This week I started a new block of training: six weeks of the Simple and Sinister protocol. I am taking it easy with swings this week, doing 100 one-handed swings with a 20 kg bell and 10 get-ups with a 16 kg bell 5-6 days per week. I will start training swings with the 24 kg bell next week and get-ups with the 20.