Is there any downsides to replacing swings with cleans?
There is upside and there is downside, depending on your goals.
The clean requires you to dial-in the amount of force you need - that can be a good thing. OTOH, I see a lot more bad cleans than I do bad swings, which you could see as a good thing or a bad thing for the clean. It's also a comment on the fact that I don't teach the clean as well as I could, something I am working on and will continue to work on. One could say I need to clean up my teaching of the kettlebell clean.
My biggest complaint with kettlebell cleans is people going heavy and using a shoulder shrug. My preference, as a teacher, is to focus on using hip drive and no shrug when cleaning kettlebells, and switching to a barbell if you need to shrug.
That said, and in the interest of true confessions
, I have done kettlebell cleans heavy and with a shrug when I wanted to do front squats with a pair of heavy-for-me kettlebells - not a great choice, IMO, but at least it was one clean and multiple front squats. I avoid cleans for reps with weights that require a shrug.
But then again, a dead clean or hang clean almost requires a shrug - I generally don't teach those to my students except to mention them and try them once or twice, rarely if ever to return to them for my general population students.
-S-