I think it was Pavel Tsatsouline that said:

To press a lot, you must press a lot.

This has certainly held true for me. I do not, by any means, consider myself blessed in upper body push strength. Gaining strength in this class of movements is traditionally hard for me. Horizontal pressing strength takes a while to build, and vertical pressing has seemed to be impossible to become better at. Before embracing the press a lot to press a lot philosophy I had tried what felt like everything. Historically, I have tried high volume, high intensity, concurrent periodization, high variety, low variety, high set count & low rep count, low set count & high rep count, mixes, mashes, and the list goes on and on.

So what got me to my to increase my press from barely budging the 24kg kettlebell to doubling the 32kg?

press

The timeline

This is not a shortcut. It took me over a year to get to this point. However, I also think the amount of time taken has a lot to do with the amount of experimentation I did. I started working towards this in December 2019 and finished March 2nd 2021. The story listed below is mostly, but not entirely complete and lacks some detail in regards to what I’ve done and tried.

The start

In December I started doing the Total Tension Complex by Pavel Tsatsouline, my first kettlebell program. It was great and brutal; it clubbed my lungs, and took my press double kettlebell press at 16kg from a solid pyramid of 6 reps to a shaky pyramid of 9 reps (for instance, a pyramid of 3 reps is 1-2-3-2-1). I finished this program sometime in February. I think it was during this time I was first exposed to the press a lot to press a lot philosophy, marking a new era for my pressing.

The pause

In February, I did some more kettlebell pressing. This was discontinued in March 2020 with the onset of the beloved coronavirus. I did basically no training in March, and did some light training outside in April. Then I got some kettlebells of my own and began training with them at home.

The continuation

I consider this my first real onslaught towards my pressing goal. This phase consisted of training 3x per week and gradually increasing volume. I began with 10 sets of 1 rep with my double 16kg kettlebell and progressively worked up to 10 sets of 10 reps. When my shoulders were begging for it I would reset and do a workout of 10 sets of 2-3 reps. There was just one crux. Despite doing double 16kg kettlebell presses for a 10x10, I still could not press my 24kg once, neither when doing single or double kettlebell presses. What the hell? I thought I would pretty much be guaranteed to press it by this point.

Getting the 24kg

Realizing that my progress in volume had come with diminishing returns in strength progress, I decided to change strategy. I knew that the single kettlebell press is easier for most people, but I had not been practicing this movement, I had been practicing the double press. Maybe I could perform a single 24kg press if I actually started practicing the movement? This is what I ultimately did. I again progressed volume, but with the single 16kg press instead of the double. This strategy proved successful and after a fairly short time I could muster a 24kg press on each arm. From here I began mixing up my training, still doing 10 sets, 3 times a week, but some of my sets were presses with the single 24kg. I still could not muster a double 24kg press, but I bridged this gap by doing a fairly wonky method (figuratively and literally). I bridged the gap by doing single kettlebell presses, 24kg in one hand, and one of my other, lighter bells in the other (for instance, pressing the 24kg while holding a 16kg in the rack position on the other side). This forced me to minimize my “body english,” (beneficial, non-pressing, body movements such as leaning). This way, I eventually learned to press both my 24:s at once.

24kg and beyond

I tried to employ my previous strategy with the double 24kg press. I started with 10 sets of 1 rep. I managed to get this up to 10 sets of 3, and a few sets of 4 reps. Overall, I would say that this method had suited me well, but in time, I became stuck. I had experienced similar issues with plateaus at 16kg, but this time I would not be able to bust the plateau. Week after week passed and I never could get 10 sets of 4 or one set of 5. I think this is sometime around fall.

The part where I’m lost

This part is brief in text, but longer in time. I spent about a month exclusively doing arm isolation exercises everyday for whatever reason. It was kind of fun, but I’m not in a caloric surplus so it was probably somewhat of a waste - building no muscle and gaining no strength. On the plus side, my shoulders got some rest. After my brief stint of arm isolation training, I moved on to push pressing double 24:s. I don’t think this was the most terrible thing, but it certainly was not great either. Historically, my push press has low carryover to my press, and this time was not an exception. I did this for a few weeks.

Getting serious again

It took some time, but I did at some point at the end of fall realize that it was time to take things seriously again. I took a serious look at my previous training history, my successes and failures, and tried to piece together something that would work. Here are some relevant things I realized:

  • I need plenty of specificity. I have never really accidentally gotten good at something.
  • I need intensity (high weight relative to my strength). If doing 10x10 at 16kg couldn’t make me press 24kg once, how can I expect any reasonable strength gains if I’m not frequently pressing with 24:s?
  • I can’t just bomb myself with volume and all-out effort sets because I plateau hard after a while.

In the end, I decided to try a high-frequency approach to training (I had been curious to try it). I trained 6 times per week, three of them were with my 16:s and the other three were with my 24:s. All sets but one each week were sub-maximal in effort. I carefully measured out the volume so that each week constituted a reasonable amount of work.

On my third week of this program I finally hit a set of 5 with my double 24:s! Progress at last. I stuck to the program for around 6 more weeks but I could simply not beat 5 reps.

Greasing the groove and getting my 32kg press

I felt that my previous strategy had something right about it. I mean, I had in fact hit a new personal best, but I had also plateaued yet again. I considered the possibility that I was just greedy for progress, but in the end I decided that I thought I could achieve better results. It was at this point that I concocted the plan that would finally lead me where I wanted. This plan was formulated to address a few new points I had realized:

  • High frequency pressing seemed to work well for me. It took me to a new personal best and kept me there.
  • I was still plateauing! Shit. No amount of varying the sets and reps seemed to bust me out of it either.

Enter greasing the groove, yet another fantastic creation by Pavel. The main concept is simple. Strength is a skill. Skills need practice. Strength work is generally tiring. Avoid tiring to be able to practice more and get stronger. In practice, this means doing an exercise multiple times a day, every day, with at least 45 minutes to an hour between sets. In every set you do about 50% of your max reps. So, for instance, if you can do 10 presses, you would do 5. This is not set in stone, you might want to do fewer reps depending on your intensity, frequency, and recovery.

My plan basically consisted of two things:

  1. Grease the groove with the single 24kg press for two weeks.
  2. Grease the groove with the one arm push up (OAP) for two weeks.
  3. Rinse, repeat.

Wait, what? One arm push-ups?

Yes. As it turns out, variety is a great way for me to prevent plateaus, and two weeks is a good choice of interval length. This way, I feel that I get to improve in an exercise on almost day-to-day basis, and just as my progress starts to slow, I switch exercise. The two weeks away from each exercise is still a short enough time that I feel like I almost start where I left off as well. Moreover, it also turns out that I get great carryover from the one arm push up. I feel that it strengthens all relevant muscles, while still being dissimilar enough to the kettlebell press as to let my body recover and reset. It also teaches proper tension in the body, a skill that is also essential for pressing.

With this method I took my single 24kg press from a best of 4 reps to 8 reps, a great improvement. I could still not budge the 32kg, but doing some eccentrics and push presses with it had convinced me that I could press it soon. I did two overload training sessions where I did waiter’s walks (walking with a weight overhead) and front rack carries with my 32kg kettlebell. After that I had a bit less than two weeks of OAP training, followed by some single 24kg pressing, before I spontaneously decided to try pressing my 32kg kettlebell right after lunch. It was a great success, and now I can finally say that I can press my 32kg kettlebell.

In some parts of Russia, pressing a 32 kg kettlebell is a rite of passage from boyhood to manhood.

- Pavel Tsatsouline