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Kettlebell TGU vs Waiter's Walk?

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There is no "vs" to be had here. Both are excellent assistance for strength. The bottoms-up clean, without carrying, is an excellent exercise, as is the bottoms-up press. I like both in sets of 5-8 reps with a bell only slightly lighter than I would press. The rack carry is also excellent. Look up the Cook Drill - overhead carry into rack carry into suitcase carry.

Asking which is better is like asking whether it's better to squat or to deadlift - both are good, some people do only one, some people only the other, and each has its place in many training programs.

-S-

Almost any full body resistance exercise is an excellent assistance for strength, broadly speaking.

But when looking for training specificity, as opposed to GPP, it's helpful to ask "what is this move best at training?". We all only have so many hours in a day, and when creating programming, there are trade-offs.

The Cook Drill was mentioned above, as well. I agree that looks interesting and will give it a try.
 
But when looking for training specificity, as opposed to GPP, it's helpful to ask "what is this move best at training?". We all only have so many hours in a day, and when creating programming, there are trade-offs.
Everything mentioned here is generally good for just about anyone. If your question is sport-specific, that's best asked to your coach. If you are looking for a StrongFirst-certified coach with expertise in your sport, I am happy to help you find someone, e.g., we have StrongFirst-certified coaches who are actively competing weightlifters - I think you mentioned that you do that.

-S-
 
Everything mentioned here is generally good for just about anyone. If your question is sport-specific, that's best asked to your coach. If you are looking for a StrongFirst-certified coach with expertise in your sport, I am happy to help you find someone, e.g., we have StrongFirst-certified coaches who are actively competing weightlifters - I think you mentioned that you do that.

-S-

Yes, my questions are mostly specific to training for Olympic weightlifting, so coaches who compete in that sport would be helpful.
 
Yes, my questions are mostly specific to training for Olympic weightlifting, so coaches who compete in that sport would be helpful.

I may be able to help with this as we do quite a bit of both things at our facility (kettlebell training with StrongFirst methodology as well as having a team of athletes who compete in weightlifting). We also are fortunate to have a great physical therapist who sees patients out of our facility and incorporates our equipment (mostly kettlebells) into the rehab process.

As a general statement, you will see all methods mentioned previously in this thread performed in our facility, and that holds true specifically with the weightlifting team. If you want to know which will get you the best bang for your buck in the spirit of training efficiency and in order to avoid diminishing returns you will need some sort of needs analysis. Here are some examples:

1) People who are seeing our physical therapist for shoulder pain /injuries tend to be recommended a lot of bottoms up work. I will not speak to why since I am not a clinician, but anyone who has familiarity with the work of McGill, Cook, etc. will probably be familiar with why.

2) People who can maintain reasonable rib cage / trunk position while trying to go overhead but seem to lack true shoulder mobility also get recommended a lot of bottoms up work

3) People who seem to lack overhead stability as a result of inability to maintain a strong rib cage / pelvis / trunk position tend to get "carry" variations that can get loaded heavier like rack carries or overhead carries

4) Most of our weightlifting team performs traveling lunges with one (or sometimes even two) kettlebells head overhead as these seem to offer fantastic carry over to the receiving position and recovery of a split jerk. Use good judgement on weights (especially if you do doubles) as these are usually quite hard at first. One of our lifters who has jerked 140+kg struggled with a single 16kg on these.

5) People who seem to generally not have any major limitation overhead (and want to keep it that way) generally will do whatever variations they can load heavy, since their system seems well prepared for it and their primary objective is to continually improve their body's ability to stabilize heavy load overhead.

Hope that helps :) My own 2-cents as well is that if you do NOT see overhead mobility or stability as a limiting factor in your weightlifting, then probably a small amount of TGU will be sufficient for what you're looking for. If you DO see overhead mobility and/or stability as something that is a high priority for you to improve, then do a needs analysis of what exactly you are lagging behind in, and pick a training exercise to complement that.
 
I may be able to help with this as we do quite a bit of both things at our facility (kettlebell training with StrongFirst methodology as well as having a team of athletes who compete in weightlifting). We also are fortunate to have a great physical therapist who sees patients out of our facility and incorporates our equipment (mostly kettlebells) into the rehab process.

As a general statement, you will see all methods mentioned previously in this thread performed in our facility, and that holds true specifically with the weightlifting team. If you want to know which will get you the best bang for your buck in the spirit of training efficiency and in order to avoid diminishing returns you will need some sort of needs analysis. Here are some examples:

1) People who are seeing our physical therapist for shoulder pain /injuries tend to be recommended a lot of bottoms up work. I will not speak to why since I am not a clinician, but anyone who has familiarity with the work of McGill, Cook, etc. will probably be familiar with why.

2) People who can maintain reasonable rib cage / trunk position while trying to go overhead but seem to lack true shoulder mobility also get recommended a lot of bottoms up work

3) People who seem to lack overhead stability as a result of inability to maintain a strong rib cage / pelvis / trunk position tend to get "carry" variations that can get loaded heavier like rack carries or overhead carries

4) Most of our weightlifting team performs traveling lunges with one (or sometimes even two) kettlebells head overhead as these seem to offer fantastic carry over to the receiving position and recovery of a split jerk. Use good judgement on weights (especially if you do doubles) as these are usually quite hard at first. One of our lifters who has jerked 140+kg struggled with a single 16kg on these.

5) People who seem to generally not have any major limitation overhead (and want to keep it that way) generally will do whatever variations they can load heavy, since their system seems well prepared for it and their primary objective is to continually improve their body's ability to stabilize heavy load overhead.

Hope that helps :) My own 2-cents as well is that if you do NOT see overhead mobility or stability as a limiting factor in your weightlifting, then probably a small amount of TGU will be sufficient for what you're looking for. If you DO see overhead mobility and/or stability as something that is a high priority for you to improve, then do a needs analysis of what exactly you are lagging behind in, and pick a training exercise to complement that.

Thank you, very insightful!
 
I may be able to help with this as we do quite a bit of both things at our facility (kettlebell training with StrongFirst methodology as well as having a team of athletes who compete in weightlifting). We also are fortunate to have a great physical therapist who sees patients out of our facility and incorporates our equipment (mostly kettlebells) into the rehab process.

As a general statement, you will see all methods mentioned previously in this thread performed in our facility, and that holds true specifically with the weightlifting team. If you want to know which will get you the best bang for your buck in the spirit of training efficiency and in order to avoid diminishing returns you will need some sort of needs analysis. Here are some examples:

1) People who are seeing our physical therapist for shoulder pain /injuries tend to be recommended a lot of bottoms up work. I will not speak to why since I am not a clinician, but anyone who has familiarity with the work of McGill, Cook, etc. will probably be familiar with why.

2) People who can maintain reasonable rib cage / trunk position while trying to go overhead but seem to lack true shoulder mobility also get recommended a lot of bottoms up work

3) People who seem to lack overhead stability as a result of inability to maintain a strong rib cage / pelvis / trunk position tend to get "carry" variations that can get loaded heavier like rack carries or overhead carries

4) Most of our weightlifting team performs traveling lunges with one (or sometimes even two) kettlebells head overhead as these seem to offer fantastic carry over to the receiving position and recovery of a split jerk. Use good judgement on weights (especially if you do doubles) as these are usually quite hard at first. One of our lifters who has jerked 140+kg struggled with a single 16kg on these.

5) People who seem to generally not have any major limitation overhead (and want to keep it that way) generally will do whatever variations they can load heavy, since their system seems well prepared for it and their primary objective is to continually improve their body's ability to stabilize heavy load overhead.

Hope that helps :) My own 2-cents as well is that if you do NOT see overhead mobility or stability as a limiting factor in your weightlifting, then probably a small amount of TGU will be sufficient for what you're looking for. If you DO see overhead mobility and/or stability as something that is a high priority for you to improve, then do a needs analysis of what exactly you are lagging behind in, and pick a training exercise to complement that.

Pure gold!
 
In addition to the rich posts of @Steve Freides and @Tony Gracia :

Carries are a bit different than TGU in that they load the gait pattern to a stronger extent than the TGU does. The gait pattern and contra-lateral movement is so central to our design that it seems to be beneficial for about everyone to train it.

Check this interesting article of Tim Anderson (founder of Original Strength) on how he prepared for the Kettlebell Certification of Pavel's old company without kettlebells: Original Strength and Kettlebells | Original Strength

As you can see the central part of his training seems to be to load the gait pattern with carries or crawls (to be fair, he mastered the KB moves years ago and he does high volume hindu pushups and hindu squats).

I fnd the OS performance grid might be helpful in this context:
Performance Grid | Original Strength

OS_Performance_Chart.png
 
In addition to the rich posts of @Steve Freides and @Tony Gracia :

Carries are a bit different than TGU in that they load the gait pattern to a stronger extent than the TGU does. The gait pattern and contra-lateral movement is so central to our design that it seems to be beneficial for about everyone to train it.

Check this interesting article of Tim Anderson (founder of Original Strength) on how he prepared for the Kettlebell Certification of Pavel's old company without kettlebells: Original Strength and Kettlebells | Original Strength

As you can see the central part of his training seems to be to load the gait pattern with carries or crawls (to be fair, he mastered the KB moves years ago and he does high volume hindu pushups and hindu squats).

I fnd the OS performance grid might be helpful in this context:
Performance Grid | Original Strength

OS_Performance_Chart.png

I really liked that chart until I got to "Machine Squat"....;)
 
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