Kettlebell KB Swings and Feed Forward Tension (lesson from Lamar Grant)

[Bauer]

Hi everybody,

yesterday I stumpled upon some nice vids of Lamar Grant (because an intervew with him was linked here on the forum). There are a lot of interesting points about hihs DL style, but I was particularly interested in his initial descent.



So today I paid hommage to him during my S&S session and focused on getting tight while slowly descending to the hike position during my swing setup. Wow! I need to exeriment some more with it, but today my swings were really powerful from the very first rep, and continued to be crisp and strong. Of course I did not pretend that I would be going to break a DL World Record, but you get the idea.

Before I had paid little attention to the setup for my swings. At least not to getting tight. I had focused on my stance and my breath, and usually also on folding at the hips. But little did I know about the power of feed forward tension for ballistics.

It rememinded me that @Brett Jones advocates getting tight before even getting down. However, I find that I prefer the Lamar Grant style, ramping up tension while getting down (and not already at the top).

How to Get Properly Loaded in the Deadlift and Swing | StrongFirst

Since the deadlift begins with a concentric movement, our approach and set-up is what provides us with the opportunity to create an eccentric load.

www.strongfirst.com

 

[Brett Jones]

Spending time to find what is "ideal" for you in your DL, Swing etc...is time well spent.

 

[Alexander Halford]

Applying tension at the setup, aka "loading" is an interesting topic.
There's different techniques and approaches, the principle works very well.
What matters more to me, is a tension degree and time spent before the actual exercise, because strong isometric effort consumes energy. While it's less sensitive for the 1 rep lifts, I'd think twice before strongly ramping up for 3-5 seconds before the set of 10 reps swings, for example.
I personally like to spend no more than 2 seconds for applying tension before the ballistic exercise.

 

[Bauer]

What matters more to me, is a tension degree and time spent before the actual exercise, because strong isometric effort consumes energy.

That is actually the reason why I didn't bother hitherto. But today I was surprised to find that it actually helped. But, I think, only because of ramping up the tension slowly, spending only little time with "hard pre-tension".