Kettlebell Swing form check

[Oscar]

Hi all,

I would appreciate if you could give me some feedback on my swing technique.

These swings are with 24 kg, which is the weight I'm trying to progress to. So it's s rather challenging weight. Swings with both hands are in the same video.



A few things I'm not sure I'm doing right:

- breathing. I exhale immediately after the forward thrust of the hip. Should the exhale be during the thrust?

- shoulder packing.

- with my right arm, the arm is quite bent at the top of the swing. Is this right?

- my knees are tracking out of the feet a lot. This doesn't look that natural to me. Maybe close my knees a bit?

Thanks!

Oscar

 

[Tobias Wissmueller]

- with my right arm, the arm is quite bent at the top of the swing. Is this right?

In my understanding the arms should be straight.

When the bell goes up, the upper arm disconnects from the rib cage and when it goes down you start the hinge when the arm connects again with the rib cage.

It must be quite exhausting for your biceps to swing like this?

 

[TravisS]

I noticed that as the bell starts to descend... you upper body starts to lean back before your hips hinge... not sure that it will cause any issues but just something I noticed. Try holding a solid vertical plank.

 

[Ryan Toshner]

Hey @Oscar ,

These actually look pretty decent...

Breathing is good.

Knees are fine.

Shoulders are "packed"... although -- as @Tobias Wissmueller said -- your upper arm should disconnect from your rib cage at the top. "Upper arm disconnected from torso" is NOT the same thing as "unpacked shoulder".

A simple drill to feel the difference: Make a fist & hold your arm in front of you (like you just finished a punch) so that your knuckles just barely touch a wall (this is "upper arm disconnected from torso"). Now step back 1-2 inches... just enough so that your knuckles are no longer touching the wall. Without rotating your torso, reach towards the wall with your arm so that your knuckles touch the wall again (this is "shoulder unpacking"). When you swing, you want the former. You don't want the latter.

Also, a subtle detail based on what you said about your hips in your first bullet point... It's true that our hips come forward as we stand up from the bottom of a hinge, BUT -- and that's a big "but" -- it's usually significantly more helpful if we visualize our hips coming up instead of forward. Imagine jumping, except driving through the heels instead of the toes. You should notice a lot more power. Try it and let me know what you notice...

 

[Marc]

Overall, I would say it looks pretty good just some fine tuning required.

Breathing: it looks like your doing it right. Exhale sharply (hissing) on the top of the movement after the hip thrust. Lock your abs and glutes at the top of the movement and breath in about 2/3 of your lunge volume through your nose on the way down.

Hip hinge: maybe try to sit back a little bit further and actively and agressiveley sit back rather then letting gravity take over. Then aggressivly reverse the move.

Arms: actually you are supposed to keep your arms straight. However this is mainly to ensure your shoulders stay packed. As long as you keep your shoulders down and back aka packed I would say there is nothing wrong with bending the arms a bit. (In a clean or snatch you have to bend your arms).

Stance: keep a confortable stance. I personally have my feet pointed to the sides only slightly. The most important thing is to track your knees over your feet so that they point in the exact same direction. The knees must follow the same direction in which the big toe is pointing!

Dude, what an awsome place to do your swings!

 

[Steve W.]

@Oscar,
+1 to all the prior responses.

The basics (timing, body position) look good. BTW, even though the recent article about documenting Sinister specifies a 45 degree camera angle, I feel I can tell the most from a direct side angle.

Breathing is fine. Especially as the bells get heavier, I think it is important to think of FINISHING the hip drive strongly, rather than starting it strongly, so exhaling more toward the end of the hip drive is appropriate.

I advocate keeping the arms straight. As others have already pointed out, shoulder packing does not have to entail keeping the upper arm pinned down to your side at the top. Enjoy the float and let that arm go. The danger in bending the arms is that letting your arms get pulled straight under partial tension on the down swing is a recipe for elbow tendinitis. It's possible to avoid this by keeping the arm relaxed as it is pulled straight or actively straightening it and locking the elbow on the decent. However, IMO this is an unnecessary extra moving part to potentially go wrong and best avoided to begin with.

Knees don't look bad, but you might experiment with stance width and foot turnout to find the most natural and comfortable tracking. As a starting adjustment to try, I would consider moving your feet a little closer together, wiht maybe a hair more turnout. I would not worry or consciously think about how your knees are moving; use stance adjustments to fine tune your knee tracking.

I noticed that as the bell starts to descend... you upper body starts to lean back before your hips hinge... not sure that it will cause any issues but just something I noticed.
Try holding a solid vertical plank.

I noticed this too. With a heavy bell, you do need to counterbalance the drop instead of letting the bell free fall in front of you with vertical alignment. However, you don't want to lean back by hyperextending the spine; instead maintain STRAIGHT planked up alignment, even if you are inclined slightly back beyond vertical. Depending on body weight, this most likely won't be necessary up to at least 24kg.

Hip hinge: maybe try to sit back a little bit further and actively and agressiveley sit back

Yes, go back to your KB deadlift and focus on keeping the bell back between your heels. This forces you to really sit back. Note how this bottom position feels and make that feeling your target for the bottom position of your swings.

 

[Oscar]

In my understanding the arms should be straight.

When the bell goes up, the upper arm disconnects from the rib cage and when it goes down you start the hinge when the arm connects again with the rib cage.

It must be quite exhausting for your biceps to swing like this?

Thanks Tobias for the feedback. My arm is straight at the bottom of the swing, when the movement should be more taxing, so I assumed that the bent arm wasnt too demanding on the arms. However, I just remembered this entry on my log a few days back:

"Also, in the afternoon doing kiteboarding, my arms felt pretty tired. That's a bit odd since neither s&s nor kiting are taxing on the arms."

Maybe this bent arm issue is indeed targeting my biceps more than it should. Thanks for noticing.

I noticed that as the bell starts to descend... you upper body starts to lean back before your hips hinge... not sure that it will cause any issues but just something I noticed. Try holding a solid vertical plank.

I hadnt noticed this, thanks. I dont know either why its happening. I´ll pay more attention to it and try to keep the plank.

A simple drill to feel the difference: Make a fist & hold your arm in front of you (like you just finished a punch) so that your knuckles just barely touch a wall (this is "upper arm disconnected from torso"). Now step back 1-2 inches... just enough so that your knuckles are no longer touching the wall. Without rotating your torso, reach towards the wall with your arm so that your knuckles touch the wall again (this is "shoulder unpacking"). When you swing, you want the former. You don't want the latter.

Also, a subtle detail based on what you said about your hips in your first bullet point... It's true that our hips come forward as we stand up from the bottom of a hinge, BUT -- and that's a big "but" -- it's usually significantly more helpful if we visualize our hips coming up instead of forward. Imagine jumping, except driving through the heels instead of the toes. You should notice a lot more power. Try it and let me know what you notice...

Ryan, thanks for the very thorough reply. I have tried the wall drill and see what you mean. I´ll work on fixing the extended arm.

About the cue of the hips coming up: I didnt know that one, I´ll give it a try. I try to picture the swing as a long standing jump and I think its the cue that works better for me.

Overall, I would say it looks pretty good just some fine tuning required.

Breathing: it looks like your doing it right. Exhale sharply (hissing) on the top of the movement after the hip thrust. Lock your abs and glutes at the top of the movement and breath in about 2/3 of your lunge volume through your nose on the way down.

Hip hinge: maybe try to sit back a little bit further and actively and agressiveley sit back rather then letting gravity take over. Then aggressivly reverse the move.

Arms: actually you are supposed to keep your arms straight. However this is mainly to ensure your shoulders stay packed. As long as you keep your shoulders down and back aka packed I would say there is nothing wrong with bending the arms a bit. (In a clean or snatch you have to bend your arms).

Stance: keep a confortable stance. I personally have my feet pointed to the sides only slightly. The most important thing is to track your knees over your feet so that they point in the exact same direction. The knees must follow the same direction in which the big toe is pointing!

Dude, what an awsome place to do your swings!

Thanks Marc, summer has come to Argentina and working out at the pook in the morning is awesome!

I thought I was sitting back, but I´ll try the drill suggested by @Steve W. to sit back a bit more.

@Steve W. as usual thanks a lot for your feedback on technique. I´ll try the KB deadlift to sit back more, and also to reduce the stance width.

Thanks all! I´ll post another video in a while for a follow up

 

[Robert Noftz]

Hi all,

I would appreciate if you could give me some feedback on my swing technique.

These swings are with 24 kg, which is the weight I'm trying to progress to. So it's s rather challenging weight. Swings with both hands are in the same video.



A few things I'm not sure I'm doing right:

- breathing. I exhale immediately after the forward thrust of the hip. Should the exhale be during the thrust?

- shoulder packing.

- with my right arm, the arm is quite bent at the top of the swing. Is this right?

- my knees are tracking out of the feet a lot. This doesn't look that natural to me. Maybe close my knees a bit?

Thanks!

Oscar

I was being super picky and trying to think of something to improve on your form but it is difficult to do. It looks like you are doing really good. I thought of one thing that others have addressed. It's the arm arm bend at the top of the swing. The directions I have read allow for a slight bend at the elbow. I wonder if yours is bent just a little too much? Sometimes it looks like your upper arm may still be next to your side.Maybe some other people with more experience would think it is acceptable. It almost looks like your swing is trying to be a clean.
I was being picky when I said this. Overall the swings look great. I included a Strongfirst video about testing standards in case you have not seen it.

 

[Oscar]

@Robert Noftz thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. I also feel I´m doing quite well, thank you.

The bent arm is something I will address. In addition to all the feedback given on this respect, I think it can also be related to lack of power. If I put more power in the swing, the KB will probably be projected forward more, therefore requiring an extended arm at the top of the swing. Even if my swing is decent at this stage, I should always try to improve it.