Pavel Tsatsouline - Kettlebell Simple & Sinister

KETTLEBELL

SIMPLE & SINISTER

BY PAVEL TSATSOULINE

Published by StrongFirst,Inc.

9190 Double DiamondParkway Reno, NV 89521, USA
www.StrongFirst.com

Editor:Laree Draper - www.ontargetpublications.net

Photography:Ralph DeHaan Photography - www.ralphdehaan.com and
Teal Tree Studios, Inc. - www.tealtreestudios.com

Design:Rachel Darvas - rachel.darvas.sfg@gmail.com

Libraryof Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tsatsouline, Pavel

ISBN 978-0-9898924-0-7

1. Strength training. 2.Fitness. 3. Physical education and training.

2013 Power by Pavel, Inc. All rights reserved.

Nopart of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever withoutwritten permission by the copyright holder, except in the case of briefquotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

DISCLAIMER

Theauthor and publisher of this book are not responsible in any manner whatsoeverfor any injury that may occur through following the instructions contained inthis material. The activities may be too strenuous or dangerous for somepeople. The readers should always consult a physician before engaging in them.

The author would like to thank the following ladiesand gentlemen
for their suggestions:

Michael Castrogiovanni, Andrea Chang, RonFarrington, Steve Freides, Eric Frohardt, Dr. Kristann Heinz, Dan John, RobLawrence, Jeremy Layport, Geoff Neupert, Mark Reifkind, George Samuelson,Alexandre Senart, Mark Toomey, Chad Waterbury, David Whitley, Fabio Zonin, aswell as a dozen gentlemen who chose to remain anonymous.
A special thanks to Brandon Hetzler and Nikki Shlosser.

Table of Contents

If a kettlebell were aperson, it would be the type of a guy you would want [on your side] in an alleyfight.

Glenn Buechlein, powerlifter

The kettlebell is an ancient Russian weapon againstweakness.

Called girya in Russian, this cannonballwith a handle has been making better men and women for over 300 years. Inimperial Russia, kettlebell was synonymous with strength. A strongman orweightlifter was called a girevik or a kettlebell man. Strong ladieswere girevichkas or kettlebell women. Not a single sport develops ourmuscular strength and bodies as well as kettlebell athletics, reported Russianmagazine Hercules in 1913.

Kettlebells are compact, inexpensive, virtuallyindestructible, and can be used anywhere. The unique nature of kettlebell liftsprovides a powerful training effect with a relatively light weight, and you canreplace an entire gym with a couple of kettlebells. Dan John, Master SFGand a highly accomplished power athlete, famously quipped, With thiskettlebell in my bedroom I can prepare myself for the Nationals.

Since I introduced the Russian kettlebell to theWest in 1998, it has become a mainstay in the training of champions in sportsranging from powerlifting to MMA to triathlon. Elite special operations unitshave made the kettlebell an integral part of their training. They havediscovered that kettlebells deliver extreme all-around fitnessand nosingle other tool does it better.

Experience and science agree that kettlebelltraining develops a wide range of attributes: strength and power, various typesof endurance, muscle hypertrophy, fat loss, health, and more. The kettlebellswing has been known to improve the deadlift of elite powerliftersandthe running times of high-level long distance runners. This is what girevikscall the What the Hell Effect. The kettlebell defies the laws of specificity.

Russian kettlebell power to you!

Competitivesophistication (rather, complication masked as sophistication) is harmful, ascompared to the practitioners craving for optimal simplicity.

Nassim NicholasTaleb, Antifragile

This program is as simple and sinister as the kettlebellitself.

I owe its name to a U.S. counterterrorist operatorwho used it to describe my system. I have been refining it ever since, makingit even simpler while keeping it sinister.

In the XIV century, William of Occam of OccamsRazor fame gave the best training advice: It is vain to do with more what canbe done with less. The Simple & Sinister program (S&S) has beenruthlessly pruned down to only two exercises, known to deliver the widest rangeof benefits while being simple to learn and safe when properly executed. Theprogramming is foolproof.

Simple & Sinister is what Russians call ageneral preparation program.

S&S will prepare you for almost anything lifecould throw at you, from carrying a piano upstairs to holding your own in astreet fight.

S&S will forge a fighters physique, becausethe form must follow the function.

S&S will give you the strength, thestamina, and the suppleness to recreationally play any sportand play itwell.

If you are a serious athlete, S&S will serve asa perfect foundation for your sport-specific training.

If you are a serious lifter, S&S will buildyour strength, rather than interfere with it.

Simple & Sinister will achieve all of the abovewhile leaving plenty of time and energy to do your duty, your job, practiceyour sport, and have a life.

WhatS&S is not.

This is not a program to maximize any one attributeor performance in a particular event. If your goal is to press the heaviestkettlebell possible, to do 1,000 swings non- stop, to deadlift a record weight,or to win a championship race, S&S is not what you are looking for. That iswhat specialist programs are forand they should always come after afoundation of general physical preparation has been laid. Otherwise you willonly see short-term gains, you will fail to reach your potential, you might gethurt.

The majority of people, with the exception ofcompetitive athletes at or above the high-intermediate level, do not needspecialized training of that sort, and will get the most benefits with theleast investment of time and energy from a powerful generalist program likeS&S.

Hereis the S&S plan in a nutshell.

There are only two moving parts, the swing and theget-up. No other exercises offer as many all-around benefits in such a tightpackage. To build a superman, slow movements and quick lifts are required,taught Bob Hoffman of York Barbell. The get-up is the ultimate slow lift; theswing is the ultimate quick lift. The Yin and the Yang, both bases covered.

Andrey Kochergin, a Russian Special Forces vet andfull contact karate master, likes to use Asian terminology to classifydifferent types of breathing and muscular contractions. He explains that Yinbreathing is used during wrestling, grappling, footwork, and some blocks. It isa steady, even breathing, punctuated by forced diaphragmatic exhalations duringexertions. This describes the kettlebell get-up to a t.