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Kettlebell The Fallacy of the Heavy Kettlebell Swing

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watchnerd

watchnerd

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I thought this was a thought-provoking article regarding KB swing programming and training effects:

People want to go heavy.

Everywhere.

Naturally, we approve of this as the efficacy of such a mindset gets results. Indisputable, sexy, athletic results.

However, one exercise where we want to be careful to not get too far ahead of ourselves is the beloved Russian kettlebell swing. Often, folks are so eager to enjoy the feeling of increasing their swing weight, we leave potential gains on the table we could have achieved had we swung a bit lighter.

So what we want to do is foc—.

Wait, huh? Leaving gains on the table by going too heavy?

Before you dump the tar and feathers on us, let me explain.

We train the kettlebell’s strength benefits by focusing on explosive power and reaching hip extension at peak speed, not through maximal load and see-sawing back and forth like the pendulum of a clock completely driven by momentum.

You don’t want to gradually arrive at hip extension, you want to explode there, which is why we’re not fans of Russian swings for conditioning. You want to keep it its home of training the power system.

We have deadlifts, squats, lunges and you name it for raw, brute strength. The kettlebell swing exists to be swung with aggression. There is nothing smooth about a proper Russian swing. It’s abrasive. It’s violent. It’s Gary Busey.

To be truly strong and athletic means you posses raw strength (i.e. deadlift), power (i.e. Oly lifts), and explosiveness (i.e. box jump, kettlebell swing). This explosiveness, or burst, is a very critical part of it all and the kettlebell swing is one of the few movements that isolate it effectively.

When you ignore burst, you dissolve the benefits of the swing like pouring a bottle of water into a perfectly good Scotch.

That’s what we mean when we say going too heavy can leave gains on the table.
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More at:


The same logic certainly applies to the clean and snatch, as well.
 
Well, the title seems provoking, but I agree with the content and the conclusion:
"So, continue to challenge yourself and continue to go heavy on the swing. Always challenge weight and reach your potential with the swing. Just make sure you are always swinging the kettlebell with peak explosion and in full control of it throughout the concentric and eccentric phase of the movement."
 
Seems this is what the PUSH Band could quantify objectively. I'm sure i cheat when it comes to power drop off sometimes when Id planned on doing sets of 10 but the power just isn't there that day.
 
Nate said:
Seems this is what the PUSH Band could quantify objectively. I'm sure i cheat when it comes to power drop off sometimes when Id planned on doing sets of 10 but the power just isn't there that day.
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Yeah, PUSH does a pretty good job, although you may have to play with placement a little to get consistent data across multiple runs.

As long as I put the sensor close to the top of the handle, I get fairly consistent data.

Stuffing it in the hole at the bottom of a comp bell, however, lead to crazy variability when I tried. Which isn't really surprising given the physics.

And, yes, it can be pretty damning to watch power droop a lot faster than the standard 'talk test' might make you think.
 
Well, I have mixed reactions to that article.

I've made the point before that given a swing to a consistent height (or in a snatch or clean where the end point is consistent because the height of the lockout or rack is always the same), power is proportional to bell size. So in that sense, heavier is better.

But in actual training, I think there's a line between a weight you can use aggressively in good form, and one that's a struggle (where "struggle" can take various forms). And I do find that training with a bell where I can be aggressive and in control is more sustainably productive, doesn't leave me feeling beat up, and is subjectively just more fun and enjoyable. On the other hand, it's easy to get stuck in a comfort zone, so there's some judgment involved in when and how far to test or push the boundaries; what's a sensible stretch and what's a misguided reach.

Some things in the article I disagree with:
--KB ballistics should be "abrasive" and "violent," and not smooth. KB ballistics should be powerful, but I've found over the years that smoother is often more powerful (more powerful based on the subjective feel of snatches and double cleans flying up easier, and objective measures like a swing going higher or being able to maintain a faster cadence in a program like VWC). Whereas "violent" may feel "harder," but isn't necessarily more powerful. For instance, if you start your hip drive too early, while the bell is still moving backward, you will feel a more abrupt yank on your grip and arm and feel like you are putting more force into the bell. But actually, you are just wasting hip power on braking the backward movement of the bell that could have been used to power the bell forward. It's like trying to stop a moving car head on and then push it back instead of pushing a car from a standstill. If you were more patient and let the backswing complete, and then put all the hip drive into propelling the bell forward, the swing would be both smoother and more powerful.
--KB ballistics should not be done "for conditioning." First of all, there are lots of protocols that emphasize repeated power production (A+A, Q&D), which could certainly be considered "conditioning." But I also interpret this statement as meaning that KB ballistics should never be done at less than maximum power, and should never sacrifice power for more continuous reps or total volume. However, I think there is a lot of value in stretching out set length, or dialing back the volume control a little to accumulate volume over a session. IMO, with cleans and snatches, there's not much benefit to using more power than necessary to get the bell(s) to the rack or the lockout, and doing so requires counterproductive technique adjustments. If you want to get more aggressive with cleans and snatches, you do it on the drop.
--The "Stop" and "Floating" (flipping) bell tests. IMO, purposely aborting a rep as a test to see how well you can control the bell is just stupid. It's potentially dangerous and completely unnecessary. And the bell flipping up at the top of a swing is not at all a function of a powerful hip drive, but purely of whether and how abruptly you are using your arms to limit the height of the swing. IMO, it is part of good form to NOT have any bell flipping at the top or in the hole, and to have the bell be an extension of the line of the arm at all times.
 
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Steve W. said:
--KB ballistics should not be done "for conditioning." First of all, there are lots of protocols that emphasize repeated power production (A+A, Q&D), which could certainly be considered "conditioning."
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This was definitely a weirdly worded one.

I interpreted this one to mean if you need to pick what quality you're trying to maximize.

Max power training isn't going to be great conditioning training, and vice versa.

GS, on the other hand, is great conditioning, but GS athletes have no reason to be maximally explosive.
 
100% agree with the article. For most men, a 70 or at most an 88 is the max weight they should use before the kettlebell is controlling them. I would rather have someone knock off 20 explosive swings with a 70 then 5 sloppy swings with a 106 that they can barely get up to their crotch.
 
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I haven't read the posts on this thread, @Steve W. Nails a lot of this.

Controlled violence can describe the intention behind the hip drive. At the the SFG cert they had us practice dialing the tension knob but not losing the intention behind the swing.

Certainly true about snatches and cleans, however the challenge that many people have is they don't drive enough and the they don't load their hamstrings enough and dip out of the back swing. It took me a few years to really get down to those refinements.

Catching the snatch at the lockout and catching the bells in the rack takes a lot of stopping power too. Technique and practice, over and over and over.

For swings, I enjoy switching it up with my working bell 32 kg and a bell down 28 kg.
 
He's right, in that we want the swing to be powerful.
We don't want it to be a speed-grind.

There are a lot of guys out there on Instagram right now swinging heavy bells that they just aren't ready for, basically doing a speed grind. They need to go down a few bell sizes and own their power.
This annoys me ;)

On the demo videos in the article, on the 'good' swing the Athlete is 'over lat-ing' the bell. Yes the lats should be engaged in the swing, but intelligent lats know when to 'dial down' on the float.

The author is an Onnit certified KB instructor and is talking about the Russian Swing, yet seems to have taken the Hard in Hardstyle (Russian swing) too far. Tension is only one side of the performance coin, you can only have power if you also have relaxation.

With regards to using swings as a power technique or a conditioning technique, we can do both.
 
Colin Stewart said:
He's right, in that we want the swing to be powerful.
We don't want it to be a speed-grind.

There are a lot of guys out there on Instagram right now swinging heavy bells that they just aren't ready for, basically doing a speed grind. They need to go down a few bell sizes and own their power.
This annoys me ;)
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Reddit kettlebell sub is rife, as well.

I just watched a guy doing 90 kg swings to his belly button level.
 
watchnerd said:
Reddit kettlebell sub is rife, as well.

I just watched a guy doing 90 kg swings to his belly button level.
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When I swing my 48kg , I'm focusing on getting up to shoulder height. And I usually get it in the second or third rep of 5. It's a good day when it comes up to shoulder height on the first rep.

With my 32kg bell I can easily overshoot eye level, and induce over speed eccentrics and get a lot of loading in the repeats.

But I can not help commenting, the 48kg is more difficult to swing to shoulder height. 5x5 with the 48k bell is more than enough for one day.

In light of some of the improvements that continue to come working with the 48kg sporadically, I plan on getting a 56kg bell. Before I thought I'd never benefit from it. Now I know I will.

So, I suppose my attempt to reconcile my experience to the article is :

maybe it's the case for most practicioners that the heaviest swings should be viewed as a side dish, in programming. Not the main course.

Not doing them at all might under-serve a goal of increasing strength.
 
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Adachi said:
But I can not help commenting, the 48kg is more difficult to swing to shoulder height. 5x5 with the 48k bell is more than enough for one day
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Naturally, the 48 kg is more difficult.

But whether it's actually generating more *power* than the 32 kg bell is hard to know without instrumentation and measuring.

For me, when I've measured using PUSH:

--For dead-stop cleans from the floor straight to rack position (no back swing), my power output scales up to my max 2 x 40 kg bells

--For swings, my power output peaks at 2 x 32 kg bells. 2 x 36 or 2 x 40 generate less power, for me, because the acceleration is declining faster than the weight is increasing.

So in my case, 2 x 36 or 2 x 40 swings are definitely more difficult than 2 x 32, but they're not more powerful.

This means that 2 x 40 kg is a "fast grind" for me, not a power training tool.

Is there a reason for me to do a "fast grind" with a kettlebell?

I'm not sure there is. I could get analogous results by doing high reps of 80+ kg Romanian Deadlifts with a barbell, but it's more time efficient to just go heavier than that.
 
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watchnerd said:
So in my case, 2 x 36 or 2 x 40 swings are definitely more difficult than 2 x 32, but they're not more powerful.

This means that 2 x 40 kg is a "fast grind" for me, not a power training tool.

Is there a reason for me to do a "fast grind" with a kettlebell?

I'm not sure there is.
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This is an incredibly interesting programming hypothetical.

Am I better off not touching the 48kg bell when the 32kg bell is the peak power bell? That is to say is there no reason to do a fast grind? Maybe the step loading prescribed in S&S is a place where this can be considered.

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In the step loading protocol, in appropriate doses, the practicioner takes on the heavier loading of the bell which is maybe only a little bit beyond his reach.

Maybe we're measuring the power of the swing by the height of the float divided by the time it takes to reach the float, multiplied by the weight of the bell.

(H/T)W . Maybe we can approximate relative power output this way.

In which case maybe there could be times when swinging the next bell size is by definition a fast grind, with lower power output. Maybe there are times when swinging the next bell doesn't fly as high or as fast as would define it as a larger power output event than the smaller bell size in that step load.

Maybe we can agree that going all in on basing our programming around handling the largest bells that we can't manage to express max power with is less than optimal.

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But is there a reason to swear them off entirely ? Maybe.

I reckon the dose makes the poison. I agree that the much larger intensity barbell loading for slow lifts is superior by definition. But the question of what implement is available is preeminent to any programming question.

If, and only if, the practitioner has the heavier kettlebell, and does not have a barbell and plates, I would of course advise sampling the heavier bell from time to time in smaller doses.

If they have a barbell and sufficient plates I would, of course, suggest that they leave the fast lifts to the kettlebells and reserve the barbell for slow lifts, as I believe there are several practical conveniences which dictate this configuration as being an optimal modality selection.

Feed strength with Barbell work, and feed power with kettlebell work. Easy programming decisions to my mind's eye.

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I suppose I would argue that the heaviest swings do not present zero benefits, but can be sub optimal as a primary mode of training.

I think that an occasion which would necessitate fast grinds is when the next bell size up is what you got.

Again. The poison is probably in the dose. How heavy, how much, how often? With respect to what other options?
 
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Great thoughts here. The nuance that we not be naming is there are training cycles of different focus and adaptation periods as you progress in your training. Again, I haven't read the article, however conceptually humans like either/or and it's not usually the case.

Heavy A+A power repeats with heavy snatching, the bell simply cannot travel as fast as a bell sized more for Q&D application.

What may not be max power right now, may change over time.
 
Adachi said:
That is to say is there no reason to do a fast grind?
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There are reasons to do a "fast grind" for:

--hypertrophy

--power endurance sports (rowing, cycling)

Are KB swings the best tool in the tool chest for fast grinds, though?

A hypertrophy specialist like a bodybuilder would probably say that their TUT isn't as high vs the alternatives, e.g. repping out on a leg press.

And a power endurance athlete would probably say they're not as good as sport-specific tools, e.g. a rower doing 500m sprints on the erg.
 
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