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Other/Mixed Swings and Crawls - The 'true' program minimum?

Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)

JR47

Level 5 Valued Member
On a recent thread (about OS resets) I saw swings + crawls suggested as the true program minimum and this idea captured my imagination.

I'm thinking long sets of A+A swings, then crawling for time, but am open to suggestions.

Has anyone tried this? If so, what was your programming / results?

And, even if you haven't tried this, do you have any ideas / suggestions on best programming?

(Outcome would be: highest level GPP + overall health and longevity.)

All genuine replies welcome.
 
(Outcome would be: highest level GPP + overall health and longevity.)
Those are tough things to quantify, the third one especially as we'd have to wait until members of the control group, well, die and see if any of the experimental group were still alive.

All kidding aside, your idea sounds fine, why not just give it a try if it interests you? Commit to it for a period of perhaps a month or two and see how you feel at the end, perhaps test a few things then and see if your strength and/or endurance for some things has gone up or down or stayed the same?

-S-
 
Those are tough things to quantify, the third one especially as we'd have to wait until members of the control group, well, die and see if any of the experimental group were still alive.

All kidding aside, your idea sounds fine, why not just give it a try if it interests you? Commit to it for a period of perhaps a month or two and see how you feel at the end, perhaps test a few things then and see if your strength and/or endurance for some things has gone up or down or stayed the same?

-S-


As always, your suggestions are pretty much perfect. Thanks, Steve
(And: will do)
 
IMO a program minimum is doing the minimum amount of exercises which will help you reach your goals. It can be 2 or 10 exercises.
So it always depends on what do you want to achieve or improve.
As previsouly mentioned, if it's something you are interested into doing, let us know how it helped you :).
 
For 2 exercises as minimum we have of course swings and get ups. Get ups being a variety of positions/postures/exercises in one exercise.
Then swings and presses too of course.
And swings and crawling.

You can combine some of those into one kb exercise....the snatch.

You could argue that crawling is movement dominated that is actually moving from a to b. So that adds a dimension missing from get ups and pressing.

Combining swings and crawling....to evolve into horizontal force production and contralateral movement in one exercise you arrive at running.

If you then combine an explosive movement with a slow movement you have easy slow aerobic and maximum velocity sprinting.

Yes, biased thinking from a biased sprinter and runner.

Do the lot for ultimate minimalism!
 
The term "program minimum" means you look for the least amount of exercises to be done which covers most of your fitness needs.

In fact, some of us here got that with a single exercise like the double snatch or a combo move like the clean and jerk..

The swing+getup (and other iterations) were recommended as they are more entry level
 
The term "program minimum" means you look for the least amount of exercises to be done which covers most of your fitness needs.

In fact, some of us here got that with a single exercise like the double snatch or a combo move like the clean and jerk..

The swing+getup (and other iterations) were recommended as they are more entry level
Excellent description.
For some folks their fitness needs might be covered by walking. (Pretty minimum)
Others might require a veritable arsenal of exercises to cover all their needs.
And others still (maybe many of us?) fall somewhere in between the extremes.
 
I've come to love swings + crawling (and especially swings + targeted rocking). I'll just call it swings + OS lol

I've gotten more out of swings + OS than swings + TGU, but comparing TGUs to the entire OS system might be unfair. TGU manages to hit spinal mobility qualities that OS addresses with rolling, but I don't feel crawling really provides.

However, in terms of raw strength, conditioning and tying the body together (without trying) I've gotten much more out of crawling than TGUs. I can do a solid 20 minute block of swings and crawls that blows up my strength and conditioning in ways TGUs never could because you can't do high volumes of TGUs or do them under fatigued conditions. I always felt like swings worked my posterior chain and TGUs didn't address the front of my body at all: it mildly worked the legs and strained the shoulders. In comparison, crawls hit my quads, chest and triceps in ways that TGUs never could. I even think crawling works the shoulders better than TGUs. Especially backwards or backwards up stairs.

Swings + crawls just feel like the most complete workout I could possibly get with just two exercises. And it hits my needs (S&C) better than the traditional program minimum: I've never felt my squats or horizontal pushes improved much from TGUs, but they definitely saw some pretty big improvements from crawling.
 
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Those are tough things to quantify, the third one especially as we'd have to wait until members of the control group, well, die and see if any of the experimental group were still alive.

All kidding aside, your idea sounds fine, why not just give it a try if it interests you? Commit to it for a period of perhaps a month or two and see how you feel at the end, perhaps test a few things then and see if your strength and/or endurance for some things has gone up or down or stayed the same?

-S-
100%

What you'd ideally have is a bunch of identical twins. Who's lives are exactly the same with the exception that 1 set of twins does this and then we see which twin dies first. Run an indepth post mortem.

That's ultimately how you can prove this programs effectiveness for longevity.
 
100%

What you'd ideally have is a bunch of identical twins. Who's lives are exactly the same with the exception that 1 set of twins does this and then we see which twin dies first. Run an indepth post mortem.

That's ultimately how you can prove this programs effectiveness for longevity.
I don't mean to be overly harsh - there is, I'm sure, evidence to support concepts we know about, e.g., the improved health at the cellular level is good for us, and it's largely the reason why I follow a Q&D-like schedule with my kettlebell swings. But part of the point I was trying to make was that there _are_ good programs for this, and if one chooses to invent one's own, then we're looking at the identical twins scenario - or similar.

Life is too short to reinvent the wheel just because you can't explain why round things roll.

-S-
 
Check out Andy Galpin twin study. Not longevity but muscle fibre.
One twin was an endurance runner for some years, the other couldn't be arsed.
The former had large amounts of type 1 muscle fibre....the other didn't. Not surprising really but the non exercise twin had more fast twitch than the endurance twin....which is interesting.
Some interesting twin studies too on astronauts (Kelly twins) where one twin was on the space station, the other stuck here on earth. Huge amount of data...pitched at adaptive responses to zero gravity but from memory the findings had implications for health generally and ageing, telomere comparison etc. and every biomarker.
It'll be on NASA somewhere, that is the full study but it has been published and discussed here and there.
 
I've come to love swings + crawling (and especially swings + targeted rocking). I'll just call it swings + OS lol

I've gotten more out of swings + OS than swings + TGU, but comparing TGUs to the entire OS system might be unfair. TGU manages to hit spinal mobility qualities that OS addresses with rolling, but I don't feel crawling really provides.

However, in terms of raw strength, conditioning and tying the body together (without trying) I've gotten much more out of crawling than TGUs. I can do a solid 20 minute block of swings and TGUs that blows up my strength and conditioning in ways TGUs never could because you can't do high volumes of TGUs or do them under fatigued conditions. I always felt like swings worked my posterior chain and TGUs didn't address the front of my body at all: it mildly worked the legs and strained the shoulders. In comparison, crawls hit my quads, chest and triceps in ways that TGUs never could. I even think crawling works the shoulders better than TGUs. Especially backwards or backwards up stairs.

Swings + TGUs just feel like the most complete workout I could possibly get with just two exercises. And it hits my needs (S&C) better than the traditional program minimum: I've never felt my squats or horizontal pushes improved much from TGUs, but they definitely saw some pretty big improvements from crawling.
How are you doing these? Do you do a single block of swings, then a single block of Crawls? Or are you supersetting them? (I.e. one set of swings, one block of crawling, repeated.) Also, what are your tests like? Talk test?
Enquiring minds want to know ;-)
 
How are you doing these? Do you do a single block of swings, then a single block of Crawls? Or are you supersetting them? (I.e. one set of swings, one block of crawling, repeated.) Also, what are your tests like? Talk test?
Enquiring minds want to know ;-)
I'm doing them EDT style: so I'll do a set of swings and then a couple of laps around my living room / hallway / kitchen. At the end of 20 minutes I'll add up the swings and laps. On an easy day I'll do the talk test and not worry about numbers, but on hard days I'll do everything I can to get more work done than last time.
 
I don't mean to be overly harsh - there is, I'm sure, evidence to support concepts we know about, e.g., the improved health at the cellular level is good for us, and it's largely the reason why I follow a Q&D-like schedule with my kettlebell swings. But part of the point I was trying to make was that there _are_ good programs for this, and if one chooses to invent one's own, then we're looking at the identical twins scenario - or similar.

Life is too short to reinvent the wheel just because you can't explain why round things roll.

-S-
Oh definitely. Mitochondrial health, health markers when we do our bloods are beleived to have a high correlation to longevity.

I personally notice I feel better when my health markers are at the top of the reference range, while having my test levels as high as possible.

But I still agree with your original point that to TRULY see is to run such an experiment. I don't think you were being remotely harsh. Just maintaining high standards.

Until then we can only theorise.
 
Check out Andy Galpin twin study. Not longevity but muscle fibre.
One twin was an endurance runner for some years, the other couldn't be arsed.
The former had large amounts of type 1 muscle fibre....the other didn't. Not surprising really but the non exercise twin had more fast twitch than the endurance twin....which is interesting.
Some interesting twin studies too on astronauts (Kelly twins) where one twin was on the space station, the other stuck here on earth. Huge amount of data...pitched at adaptive responses to zero gravity but from memory the findings had implications for health generally and ageing, telomere comparison etc. and every biomarker.
It'll be on NASA somewhere, that is the full study but it has been published and discussed here and there.
Twin studies do have massive value IMO. But are difficult to perform.
 
I'm doing them EDT style: so I'll do a set of swings and then a couple of laps around my living room / hallway / kitchen. At the end of 20 minutes I'll add up the swings and laps. On an easy day I'll do the talk test and not worry about numbers, but on hard days I'll do everything I can to get more work done than last time.
This is super helpful. But what does 'EDT' mean?
 
I can do a solid 20 minute block of swings and TGUs* that blows up my strength and conditioning in ways TGUs never could because you can't do high volumes of TGUs or do them under fatigued conditions.

Swings + TGUs* just feel like the most complete workout I could possibly get with just two exercises. And it hits my needs (S&C) better than the traditional program minimum: I've never felt my squats or horizontal pushes improved much from TGUs, but they definitely saw some pretty big improvements from crawling.
Where I bolded and starred, I'm assuming you mean "crawls?"

Not trying to be nit-picky, just trying to clarify.

TGU manages to hit spinal mobility qualities that OS addresses with rolling, but I don't feel crawling really provides.
One of the great things about crawling is actually how versatile you can be with it. It only "doesn't provide spinal mobility qualities" if you keep your torso stiff. You can add a degree of lateral spinal flexion to it as you move forwards or backwards, and this actually mimics what should happen in the gait cycle. In crawling, the spine will flex towards the side of the arm that is planted as the other reaches forward. It also undergoes a degree of rotation during the gait cycle. A more global degree of mobility can be worked by advancing the degree of motion the body undergoes while crawling.

Since OS is popular around here, other, more advanced crawling variations don't get as much attention. A word about them, though: they are somewhat analogous to different size bells in the TGU. Baby and leopard crawls are very easy to do a high volume of, and are quite accessible, so the most people will be using them. If you are looking for your crawling to translate to pressing, for example, they may help, as the torso stays mostly "straight," mimicking what the shoulders and "core" do in a press. However, there are other variations that may also assist the press (see below).

Baby crawling is the easiest, most accessible form of crawling. If need be, it can be regressed to rocking variations. Then you'd do leopard, then "spider man," THEN I would work in incline/decline crawling and crawling with pushups integrated. At the high end of crawling difficulty, I would place low lizard crawls and incline/decline lizard crawls.

So a rough "progression" could be:
-Baby crawls
-Leopard Crawls
-Spiderman crawls, loaded crawling, straight arm lizard crawls
-Incline/decline crawls, crawls w/pushups
-low lizard crawls
-incline/decline crawls

So all this is just to say that if one gets proficient at leopard crawling, they can probably introduce more complexity to it to reap further, wider ranging rewards. They don't have to though. They can load crawls instead, if it suits them better.

Referencing the video below:
Just to repeat it, since this kind of stuff (imo) unfairly gets bashed.... this is NOT where one starts!!!! This is after all the other stuff. If the baby crawl is a 12-16kg bell in the TGU, then incline/decline lizard crawls are like using the beast for TGU.

What I find interesting is that we know that training a muscle at longer lengths can increase strength throughout the full ROM. So what happens if you are also teaching the muscles to coordinate and manage your center of mass under load, at longer lengths? Check out the depth experienced in the shoulder girdle! Also, here's your comination of dynamic core stability (stability NOT meaning "stiffness"), pressing strength, spinal and hip mobility .... all in one move.



Link to video of lizard crawls on stairs:
 
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