Old Forum Please critique my swing
- Thread starter ryanrbjj
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Mike Lindner
Level 5 Valued Member
Thanks for the post Ryan!
Not to shabby at all sir. I can see the glutes firing when needed and I can see you are starting to find the timing with the movement.
A couple things that jumped out at me right away were the following:
The Setup - Stand a little further behind the bell and focus on getting a good hook grip, engaging your lats so that they "connect" your arms to your body, load the hamstrings up and really hike that bell back. I've read that MSFG Dan John calls it the "Silverback" position.
Neutral Spine - Right at the 0:05 mark you have a little rounding in the back. Revisit your deadlift and keep that spine neutral. Once you get that groove solid, I'd say a couple "dead stop" swings (resetting the bell to the starting point after each rep) should held to enforce that groove even further.
Root your feet - Remember we want to keep the heels, toes, and balls of the feet planted. If you need to do a few hard static stomps before swinging, do it but keep those feet grounded HARD. Like each rep is going to dig you deeper into the cement
Stand up tall son! - What I'm getting at here is that at the top of the swing I'm seeing that chin tuck into your chest with the breath. Tensing the abs during the swing shouldn't produce a chicken neck and you also want to make sure that you are keeping that spine neutral. So when you are doing your Dead Stop Swings like mentioned before, I want you to try to keep the top of your head nice and tall, while keeping your chin off of your chest. (Note: I strained my neck HARD because of this when I first started swinging heavy a few years ago. It sucks. I highly recommend not doing it)
Hope that helps and swing on bud!
Not to shabby at all sir. I can see the glutes firing when needed and I can see you are starting to find the timing with the movement.
A couple things that jumped out at me right away were the following:
The Setup - Stand a little further behind the bell and focus on getting a good hook grip, engaging your lats so that they "connect" your arms to your body, load the hamstrings up and really hike that bell back. I've read that MSFG Dan John calls it the "Silverback" position.
Neutral Spine - Right at the 0:05 mark you have a little rounding in the back. Revisit your deadlift and keep that spine neutral. Once you get that groove solid, I'd say a couple "dead stop" swings (resetting the bell to the starting point after each rep) should held to enforce that groove even further.
Root your feet - Remember we want to keep the heels, toes, and balls of the feet planted. If you need to do a few hard static stomps before swinging, do it but keep those feet grounded HARD. Like each rep is going to dig you deeper into the cement
Stand up tall son! - What I'm getting at here is that at the top of the swing I'm seeing that chin tuck into your chest with the breath. Tensing the abs during the swing shouldn't produce a chicken neck and you also want to make sure that you are keeping that spine neutral. So when you are doing your Dead Stop Swings like mentioned before, I want you to try to keep the top of your head nice and tall, while keeping your chin off of your chest. (Note: I strained my neck HARD because of this when I first started swinging heavy a few years ago. It sucks. I highly recommend not doing it)
Hope that helps and swing on bud!
ryanrbjj
Level 1 Valued Member
Thank you Mike for the helpful and positive advice! I'm glad to hear I'm on the right track. I will work on the setup and drill the dead stop swings. I see what you mean about the neck. I should be looking forward and not down, correct? I noticed in the video before I posted it that my feet rock back and forth. I will do it barefoot next time and try to root my feet harder. Thank you much.
Mike Lindner
Level 5 Valued Member
All good my man!
Regarding where to look, I like to keep my eyes where the wall meets the floor aka the horizon aka......well really straight ahead.
Hope that helps!
Regarding where to look, I like to keep my eyes where the wall meets the floor aka the horizon aka......well really straight ahead.
Hope that helps!
Steve W.
Level 8 Valued Member
Ryan,
In addition to some of the the things Mike mentioned, here are a few things I'm seeing:
You have very minimal movement in the knee. In your setup, you don't flex at the knee enough, which prevents you from getting your hips back far enough, which robs you of power. It also means that you have to get low enough to grab the bell mainly with hip flexion; but even with your torso nearly parallel with the ground (not necessarily bad in itself) you can't comfortably reach the bell without significant spinal flexion, especially in your upper back. Try to keep a bigger, more open chest in your setup, with your upper spine more extended (or at least flat) rather than collapsed forward. Balancing your knee and hip flexion better will help facilitate this.
Then on the upswing, you don't look like you are fully extending your knees. So when your hips extend, your knees are still bent. At the top, your lower leg is inclined forward, and the rest of your body, from knees up, is inclined backward. "Plank up" at the top and stand tall like Mike said. Knees and hips should fully extend simultaneously. As the knees reach lockout, "pull up the kneecaps" by contracting the quads, squeeze the glutes, and brace the abs. One straight line from head to ankles.
A related problem is that you are move your knees forward again at the initiation of the upswing, so you are "scooping" under the weight. This is a fault that can be grounds for failure of the swing form test at certification (or at least it was in the RKC days). Moving the knees forward on the downswing is acceptable as long as the movement stays primarily a hinge and doesn't start to turn into a squat. But the knees shouldn't come forward again on the upswing. Watch your video at half speed (click on the setting icon to select playback speed) to see this clearly.
One thing I disagree with Mike about is setting up further behind the bell. I don't think your distance behind the bell is problematic as much as the geometry of your body positioning.
Hope this helps.
In addition to some of the the things Mike mentioned, here are a few things I'm seeing:
You have very minimal movement in the knee. In your setup, you don't flex at the knee enough, which prevents you from getting your hips back far enough, which robs you of power. It also means that you have to get low enough to grab the bell mainly with hip flexion; but even with your torso nearly parallel with the ground (not necessarily bad in itself) you can't comfortably reach the bell without significant spinal flexion, especially in your upper back. Try to keep a bigger, more open chest in your setup, with your upper spine more extended (or at least flat) rather than collapsed forward. Balancing your knee and hip flexion better will help facilitate this.
Then on the upswing, you don't look like you are fully extending your knees. So when your hips extend, your knees are still bent. At the top, your lower leg is inclined forward, and the rest of your body, from knees up, is inclined backward. "Plank up" at the top and stand tall like Mike said. Knees and hips should fully extend simultaneously. As the knees reach lockout, "pull up the kneecaps" by contracting the quads, squeeze the glutes, and brace the abs. One straight line from head to ankles.
A related problem is that you are move your knees forward again at the initiation of the upswing, so you are "scooping" under the weight. This is a fault that can be grounds for failure of the swing form test at certification (or at least it was in the RKC days). Moving the knees forward on the downswing is acceptable as long as the movement stays primarily a hinge and doesn't start to turn into a squat. But the knees shouldn't come forward again on the upswing. Watch your video at half speed (click on the setting icon to select playback speed) to see this clearly.
One thing I disagree with Mike about is setting up further behind the bell. I don't think your distance behind the bell is problematic as much as the geometry of your body positioning.
Hope this helps.
I miss address some of these things and post another video. I really appreciate you taking the time to help me.ryanrbjj
Level 1 Valued Member
So I shot another video trying to take all the things you guys said into account. The setup, sitting back and flexing my knee more. Digging the feet in, locking the quads out. This set in the video was the final set of Swings. my swing feels WAY more powerful Than before!! Please feel free to critique again and again. I am new to this and am always a work in progress. Thx
http://youtu.be/9gU__OFecBE
http://youtu.be/9gU__OFecBE
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