all posts post new thread

Kettlebell Defending the Swing

Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)

T.o.m.

Level 3 Valued Member
Greetings. I'm enjoying a book, Pillars of Wellness, by Dr. Matt Chalmers, which has some great advice regarding health, nutrition, and fitness except for one thing: attributing to the kettlebell swing a high risk of disc degeneration. I will paste his quote below, and I invite everyone's help in debunking
this reasoning. My guess is that he's basing his theory on what can happen when swings are performed improperly. Since I'm not conversant enough in biomechanics to identify the flaw in the reasoning, though, I wanted to invite comments from experts here on the forum, as well as from those who have been doing swings for decades and can speak from personal experience about the condition of their spine.

"Kettlebell Swing. There is probably no other exercise I tell people to avoid more than this one. This exercise violates the rules of lifting, which are that you must be slow and controlled. If your reps are slow and controlled, you can stop whenever you want. You cannot stop a kettlebell swing. In fact, I often tell people that the number one way to know if you’re not lifting properly is if you are swinging the weight instead of lifting it. If you do a hip pop and then let go of the weight, it would be less of an issue. When you catch the weight, too much force goes into the lower spine and pelvis, which can cause discs to wear down over time and develop issues. Just because you don’t “feel the pop” when you are doing this exercise does not mean that it can’t contribute to an injury or degeneration."--Dr. Matt Chalmers, Pillars of Wellness.
 
To me, this is very much a function of what you are training to do.

Trying to learn to throw a punch? Slow and controlled is probably not what you want.

Throw a baseball? Nope, slow and controlled isn't going to cut it.

Put away groceries? Yeah, stick with slow and controlled.

Absolutely, any sort of power training comes with health risks. I think that is undeniable.

It is also a risk to your health to be a 70-year-old grandparent and not be ready when that beautiful 2 year old grandchild wants to give you a flying jump hug.
 
I can totally see how the swing would give someone problems down the line, especially when over tensing or really exploding with the bell. All that explosive locking and tensing can't be sustained forever.

At the same time though, it's use it or lose it. I'd much rather use it with a little bit of risk than lose explosiveness all together...
 
If you look at where the forces develop in a swing, it is almost impossible to develop a high level of force in shear or even offset compressive if it is done correctly.

At the very bottom is where the movement is slowest. In reality, only the KB moves quickly, the practitioner not so much.
 
This exercise violates the rules of lifting, which are that you must be slow and controlled. If your reps are slow and controlled, you can stop whenever you want.
And who exactly made up these rules? What is the justification? Hard to "defend" the swing (or anything else) when the argument is a pure proof by assertion. Also, even accepting this framing, what does "stop whenever you want" mean, exactly? There are many "slow" lifts that doesn't allow you to easily bail, such as back squat or bench press. Are these bad too?
 
There are 2 generic categories of weight lifting - grinds and ballistics. It sounds like Dr Chalmers is not familiar with ballistic lifting which is done safely with a lighter weight than a grind. Doing a grind in a ballistic way with a grind weight would invite injury. With correct form and carefully selected weight, ballistics can be done safely.

It sounds like Dr Chalmers is referring to the poor form "squatty" swing or a poor form swing where the user attempts to shift the load using the arms rather than hip hinge.
 
I’m not being uncharitable here but the amount of doctors that seem to want humans to have the physical robustness of a chocolate bar is frankly quite worrying and patter like this, I had hoped had died out a long time ago but clearly not. One only need look at all the machines in a gym designed to actually remove strain from exercise (the mind boggles) and attitudes like the good doctors, though alarming aren’t unique.
 
Not a direct quote from Dr. McGill but :

Prof. Stuart McGill is considered the World’s number 1 leading authority on back care. He has found that muscular strength isn’t anywhere as near as important as lower back endurance. High rep Kettlebell Swings are the perfect answer to this.
Prof. Stuart McGill has found that learning to brace the core is more effective for spinal health and longevity than the classic “hollowing” or pulling navel to spine. He defines “bracing” as symmetrical stiffening of all the muscles surrounding the spine. This is exactly how you should be holding your torso during the Kettlebell Swing.

“Learning to hip hinge is paramount for both injury prevention and optimal performance”

– Dr. Stuart McGill, professor of spine biomechanics

And there are a lot of Youtube videos out there with Dr. McGill explaining the whys and hows.
 
I’m not being uncharitable here but the amount of doctors that seem to want humans to have the physical robustness of a chocolate bar is frankly quite worrying and patter like this, I had hoped had died out a long time ago but clearly not. One only need look at all the machines in a gym designed to actually remove strain from exercise (the mind boggles) and attitudes like the good doctors, though alarming aren’t unique.
Being a doctor doesn't really count for much in the real world. They only seem good at prescribing drugs. That's it.

While I will add "machines designed to remove strain" is just incorrect. They are designed to provide strain in a specific movement pattern to target specific muscles.

But the medical community is massively political. We've seen many examples of this during the pandemic. The most noticeable example is the "Joe Rogan Covid Protocol" having members of the medical community throwing their toys out the pram despite the imperical evidence that this method works.

I think a lot of things become political and fast. If you don't support our way of thinking then you need to be doxxed and cancelled.
 
Last edited:
Being a doctor doesn't really count for much in the real world. They only seem good at prescribing drugs. That's it.

While I will add "machines designed to remove strain" is just incorrect. They are designed to provide strain in a specific movement pattern to target specific muscles.

But the medical community is massively political. We've seen many examples of this during the pandemic. The most noticeable example is the "Joe Rogan Covid Protocol" having members of the medical community throwing their toys out the pram despite the imperical evidence that this method works.

I think a lot of things become political and fast. If you don't support our way of thinking then you need to be doxxed and cancelled.
Well by their very nature if they are designed to target certain muscles they must by some extension remove a certain amount of strain. If you’re sitting or being braced or are having the role of stabilisers etc removed then you are removing strain. I don’t target certain muscles a train movement and I personally feel that largely lifting machines appeal to the “it looks expensive it must be good” mindset. As many have observed aswell it allows gyms to fit more folk in with minimal time showing them anything productive. I’ll give the lat pull down props and a machine I once saw that mimicked rope climbing and killed the grip but as for the rest of them, unless someone is badly injured they mostly would be better melted down into more pig iron. So we can agree to disagree.
 
Being a doctor doesn't really count for much in the real world. They only seem good at prescribing drugs. That's it.
Well, let's not go nuts... when I'm actually sick or hurt, I'm going to the dude/lady with the medical degree, not the internet. I'd say it's the consequence-free nature of the internet that's the problem here, not doctors...
Well by their very nature if they are designed to target certain muscles they must by some extension remove a certain amount of strain. If you’re sitting or being braced or are having the role of stabilisers etc removed then you are removing strain.
I agree that this is the case most of the time, though I can suppose there are some machines that, rather than taking stress away, instead force you into a movement where you can't apply your stronger muscles, to force the weaker target muscles to do the work; say, the curl machine that forces you into a strict plane where you can't cheat the weight up with the shoulders or hips. There's a place for that kind of stuff, I suppose... just not in my gym. :p
 
"Kettlebell Swing. There is probably no other exercise I tell people to avoid more than this one. This exercise violates the rules of lifting, which are that you must be slow and controlled.
These aren't rules. There's an entire sport based on around the opposite of slow (weightlifting - the snatch and the clean and jerk) as well as types of training (plyometrics, dynamic effort).
In fact, I often tell people that the number one way to know if you’re not lifting properly is if you are swinging the weight instead of lifting it.
Swinging on purpose and swinging because you're too tired or using too much weight are very different. This is much like round-backed deadlifting. If you are round-backed deadlifting because you can't deadlift otherwise, it could be dangerous. If you're round-backed deadlifting because you are training to stone-load, that's different. This just illustrates the idea that things done accidentally out of weakness are not the same as things done purposefully.
 
Well, let's not go nuts... when I'm actually sick or hurt, I'm going to the dude/lady with the medical degree, not the internet. I'd say it's the consequence-free nature of the internet that's the problem here, not doctors...

I agree that this is the case most of the time, though I can suppose there are some machines that, rather than taking stress away, instead force you into a movement where you can't apply your stronger muscles, to force the weaker target muscles to do the work; say, the curl machine that forces you into a strict plane where you can't cheat the weight up with the shoulders or hips. There's a place for that kind of stuff, I suppose... just not in my gym. :p
I’m going to paraphrase Brooks Kubik here and say “after I have murdered myself with overhead presses why would I then target some obscure muscle for aesthetic purposes”. I’ll also add another Kubikism. Over your lifting career you can increase your strength often in the hundreds of percentage range. However your recovery abilities maybe increase by half. All these inferior things do is eat into recovery. If I just squatted until I puked in my mouth a little and it took me 10 minutes to get off the deck. Sitting on some padded thing that lets me do whatever to my legs is superfluous. That’s my 2 cents and I’m unlikely to change my mind on it. If some poor bugger has took a stroke or whatever then there’s a place for it, possibly but I’m not a fan.
 
Well, let's not go nuts... when I'm actually sick or hurt, I'm going to the dude/lady with the medical degree, not the internet. I'd say it's the consequence-free nature of the internet that's the problem here, not doctors...

I agree that this is the case most of the time, though I can suppose there are some machines that, rather than taking stress away, instead force you into a movement where you can't apply your stronger muscles, to force the weaker target muscles to do the work; say, the curl machine that forces you into a strict plane where you can't cheat the weight up with the shoulders or hips. There's a place for that kind of stuff, I suppose... just not in my gym. :p
Schwarzenegger firmly put the size of his arms down to cheat curls. Lol which involves pretty much a clean with the hands supinated. That’s the exact opposite and again you know, what’s the point of a bicep having maybe a wee tiny more bit of a bump on it thanks to some machine? Lol does that extra tiny wee bump make you a better arm curler? Probably not. Does it add 5 reps to the chin-up? Probably not. So you know. It’s superfluous. Arthur Jones credited the best arms he ever saw on a dude who did dips and chin-ups as detailed in Mr Furmans “Armour of War”. If people want some obscure wee muscle to pop out for whatever reason good on them. I’ve no idea why they would but more power to them.
 
Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)
Back
Top Bottom