Kettlebell The swing
- Thread starter Anna C
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Baron von Raschke
Level 3 Valued Member
H Anna. Your videos have always been the best teaching tools I have for showing my wife the swing. You seem to have exactly the camera angles I'm looking for, and the slo-motion in this case was big help. I'm the last person who should be critiquing your form, so I'm going to pose this as a question instead. A while back Brett Jones wrote an article on the "perfect swing" and it seemed to boil down to shoulders-above-hips and hips-above-knees as being the only points that everybody should aim for. Vertical shins are difficult to achieve, depending on body type, for example. In this video it looks like your shoulders get very close to hip level or even below when you are at the very bottom.
Is that something to shoot for, getting that low? My wife is a long ways from getting that low but right now I'm happy with her being in the shoulders-above-hips and hips-above-knees category.
Thanks, and great video, very instructive!
Is that something to shoot for, getting that low? My wife is a long ways from getting that low but right now I'm happy with her being in the shoulders-above-hips and hips-above-knees category.
Thanks, and great video, very instructive!
Great question, Baron. No, I wouldn't say it's something to shoot for, getting that low. Wherever that optimum loading of the hamstrings and glutes happens at the backswing, that's where to be. It's pretty low there, because of the heavy weight (lower than I would be with 24kg for example), but it's still a springiness, a "compressing the spring" at the bottom as Al C. calls it. When low shoulders become too low is when the bell is pulling you down and you're just sort of dipping with it, not getting that compression and loading of the hinge at the bottom.
Also worth mentioning, and Steve F. pointed out to me, the springiness and power return also comes from the arms. When you stretch the chest forward at the bottom and reach back with the hands, you get a rubber-band like effect from the arms too. Like Pavel says in S&S pg 26, "stretch your fingertips and sternum as far apart as you can. Reach back with the former, and forward with the latter. Remember this stretched and loaded sensation and note where your hands and thus the kettlebell would be. This is where you will actively guide the bell to from now on."
Also worth mentioning, and Steve F. pointed out to me, the springiness and power return also comes from the arms. When you stretch the chest forward at the bottom and reach back with the hands, you get a rubber-band like effect from the arms too. Like Pavel says in S&S pg 26, "stretch your fingertips and sternum as far apart as you can. Reach back with the former, and forward with the latter. Remember this stretched and loaded sensation and note where your hands and thus the kettlebell would be. This is where you will actively guide the bell to from now on."
Frank_IT
Level 4 Valued Member
Miss @Anna C: perfect form as always. This should be shown to people who intend to start swinging, or that swing for a while but want to fine tweak their movement.
@Baron von Raschke, I'm not Anna and I don't mean to teach you anything, but if I may speak my opinion, here it is:
- grat job having your wife swinging a kettlebell, that's what I've been trying to do with many people but I still have bad luck;
- look at second 13 going into 14: this is the right position for the hike, actually, this is the perfect position fro the hike (some say perfect form doesn't exist and I agree, but Anna comes very close in everything I've seen her do);
- don't worry too much about vertical shins, unless you (or your wife or anyone else) don't raise the hips at the bottom of the swing, therefore making a "pendulum" movement. That's wrong because you're either not controlling the bell, compensating the movement because you may have some posterior chain weakness (use a lighter bell in this case) or other problems that are better dealt with an SFG in person or, at the very least, via distant coaching. Otherwise a little shifting forward of the shins is nothing to worry about, in my opinion (especially if you go really down with the shoulders, as you noted in Anna's video).
I hope and think that Anna will explain it better and eventually correct any foolishness I may have said.
EDIT: I see Anna already stepped in!
@Baron von Raschke, I'm not Anna and I don't mean to teach you anything, but if I may speak my opinion, here it is:
- grat job having your wife swinging a kettlebell, that's what I've been trying to do with many people but I still have bad luck;
- look at second 13 going into 14: this is the right position for the hike, actually, this is the perfect position fro the hike (some say perfect form doesn't exist and I agree, but Anna comes very close in everything I've seen her do);
- don't worry too much about vertical shins, unless you (or your wife or anyone else) don't raise the hips at the bottom of the swing, therefore making a "pendulum" movement. That's wrong because you're either not controlling the bell, compensating the movement because you may have some posterior chain weakness (use a lighter bell in this case) or other problems that are better dealt with an SFG in person or, at the very least, via distant coaching. Otherwise a little shifting forward of the shins is nothing to worry about, in my opinion (especially if you go really down with the shoulders, as you noted in Anna's video).
I hope and think that Anna will explain it better and eventually correct any foolishness I may have said.
EDIT: I see Anna already stepped in!
Great input, Frank, thanks!
Ah yes the vertical shins... another interesting topic. I agree, here's no need to maintain vertical shins, but a cue to keep them "near vertical" sometimes helps to avoid squattiness and make sure the hips are the main feature of the movement. Possible that mine could be more vertical for optimum position... interested in any opinions on that.
Ah yes the vertical shins... another interesting topic. I agree, here's no need to maintain vertical shins, but a cue to keep them "near vertical" sometimes helps to avoid squattiness and make sure the hips are the main feature of the movement. Possible that mine could be more vertical for optimum position... interested in any opinions on that.
Al Ciampa
Level 7 Valued Member
Damn nice body comp these days, lady! Keep it up.
Baron von Raschke
Level 3 Valued Member
Thanks Anna, I had a feeling it had something to do with the heavier bell. In earlier videos you posted with lighter weights you didn't seem to get your shoulders quite that low, and it was especially noticeable in slo-motion. When I'm coaching my wife I like to stand so I can see her in profile, like your camera angle, and I try to superimpose your swing on hers in my mind while taking into account that she's not as strong or mobile as you so her limits are much lower. That profile view provides the most feedback to me in terms of her technique, in my opinion. Many of the biggest cues (proud chest, straight back, hips-above-knees, shoulders-above-hips, attempting to keep shins vertical, sitting back not down, shoulders pulled down) can be seen from that perspective.
I myself understand the springiness feel at the bottom that you shoot for, but that's a hard concept to convey to someone else in a rapid movement with a heavy weight. When they're focusing on not launching the kettlebell through a wall, a coiled spring feel at the bottom takes a distant second in importance, lol. So I tend to rely on the visual cues for now and check that her body is in the correct range at the limits and the cues I mentioned above are followed.
Baron von Raschke
Level 3 Valued Member
Frank, I'm always open to advice and your input is welcome. Thanks for the compliments on coaching my wife, though you really have to compliment her for wanting to learn it and having to listen to me. She has some lower body injuries from a high school running career that have caught up with her in her late 40's, and from all I've been learning about swings the last few years from ETK and S&S, the swings seemed like the perfect exercise to get her strong while not exacerbating her injuries (arthritis in her knees, possible torn tendon in her foot). She's been able to do them (and KB deadlifts) pain-free, so it seems like a good choice.Miss @Anna C: perfect form as always. This should be shown to people who intend to start swinging, or that swing for a while but want to fine tweak their movement.
@Baron von Raschke, I'm not Anna and I don't mean to teach you anything, but if I may speak my opinion, here it is:
- grat job having your wife swinging a kettlebell, that's what I've been trying to do with many people but I still have bad luck;
- look at second 13 going into 14: this is the right position for the hike, actually, this is the perfect position fro the hike (some say perfect form doesn't exist and I agree, but Anna comes very close in everything I've seen her do);
- don't worry too much about vertical shins, unless you (or your wife or anyone else) don't raise the hips at the bottom of the swing, therefore making a "pendulum" movement. That's wrong because you're either not controlling the bell, compensating the movement because you may have some posterior chain weakness (use a lighter bell in this case) or other problems that are better dealt with an SFG in person or, at the very least, via distant coaching. Otherwise a little shifting forward of the shins is nothing to worry about, in my opinion (especially if you go really down with the shoulders, as you noted in Anna's video).
I hope and think that Anna will explain it better and eventually correct any foolishness I may have said.
EDIT: I see Anna already stepped in!
She's too shy for me to post a video on this board but we have an SFG not too far from us, it's just a matter of finding the time to get there.
Can you please elaborate a bit on what you said regarding the "pendulum" movement that you said is bad? Thanks!
Thank you for that, but we know, there is no perfect swing! It's ALWAYS a work in progress. Even if there's a perfect one for one person, it's not perfect for another. And what would be perfect for me today will probably not be perfect a year from now.
So I guess if I were to give any advice to anyone relative to fine-tuning swing form, it would be this: Seek the right feeling of the swing, not to match a particular body position. Seek the loading feeling, the tension in the plank, the explosiveness of the upswing. The rest will figure itself out. Of course, that's after the basics of "shoulders-above-hips and hips-above-knees", etc.
Thanks, Geoff! I am actually wondering now if I'm going a bit low the backswing, haha. I will do some more experimenting.
Thank you VERY much, that's always nice to hear.
I like barefoot! But the gym requires shoes... I love these Merrell Vapor Gloves with Vibram soles.
It is, yes. And you can see in this video from almost 3 years ago, I had a lot less of it then. It just takes time to develop, as I mentioned yesterday in the thread about progression. A lot of it comes from tendons, from what I understand... and this develops more slowly than muscle fiber.
One way I've been experimenting with in teaching the ability to find that springiness is playing with the bottom of a jump. Like a depth jump, but you can do it without jumping down. Focus on the way your body loads up at the bottom. Practice "throwing" your body down into the jump so you can reverse the power to explode back up. That's sort of what you're looking for.
I'm sure Frank's going to answer better but maybe he means the straightening of the legs on the backswing, as with a GS swing? A GS swing has different objectives and therefore different technique.
Steve W.
Level 7 Valued Member
+1.
+1.
The "pendulum" is a GS style of swing. Much more fluid and "soft" than hard style. Hard style emphasizes power; GS emphasizes efficiency -- using the least amount of energy necessary to move the bell. The GS pendulum style seeks to interrupt the passive swinging of the bell as little as possible. In practice, this involves straightening the knees and lifting the hips on the back swing, and then rebending the knees and dropping the hips at the beginning of the up swing. In hard style, it's a straight hinge -- hinge on the back swing and extend on the up swing.
Here's what it looks like:
Baron von Raschke
Level 3 Valued Member
Oh wow, thanks Steve. That is a completely different swing than hardstyle. Is that a legitimate style of swinging? It just looks so opposed to the SF technique that I'm used to, like it's designed for a swing marathon and not a sprint. Back to @Frank_IT 's comment about the pendulum, I think I now know what he meant. On occasion I'll see my wife get a bit lazy on a swing and not sit back enough which she'll compensate for by bending at the waist more. Basically that lazy swing will be more of a straight-leg swing with minimal knee bend. On those occasions I remind her (after she completes her set, not during) to remember to sit back, sit back, sit back. That's why I have her do KB deadlift drills first to grease the sitting back/hinge groove. There might be a bit of fear with her sometimes, that if she sits back too far the kettlebell momentum in that same direction at the bottom of the swing will cause her to fall backward. Bending more at the waist may make her feel more secure but again, practice tends to iron those fears out and replace them with confidence in her own strength.
Frank_IT
Level 4 Valued Member
Exactly what @Anna C and @Steve W. described and showed, @Baron von Raschke!
Straightening the legs or looking like a GS swing. A GS swing (sometimes called half snatch here in Italy) or any other movement you might find in both styles has different purposes, like Anna and Steve said, and different body mechanics: it works wonders for the sport, but it's to be avoided in hard style. I'm not going into much detalis for this one because all I suspect are things I came up with my very limited knowledge of the movement in StrongFirst and ignorance of the GS style, but I'd say the main reasons you want to avoid a "pendulum" (let's call it like that) are:
- if you watch the forward lean for both swing and snatch in GS, you'll noticed is uncomparable with hard style (just look at the difference in this two videos between Anna's and the man's in the clip), and keeping a neutral spine while packing the shoulders and straightening the legs would require a level of flexibility I think not many people have - the most dangerous thing you might do in a balistic kettlebell movement is lose your neutral spine;
- because in hard style you load the posterior chain far more than GS, you want maximum thightness while exploding back up, and that position isn't the best one (the armstrings are almost in tension if you mix the styles, and they have to suddenly contract while heavily loadad: it looks like a call for snaping to me);
There are a lot of other things I feel but can't express in words, so, again, anyone able to do it better than me is welcomed to!
Also, notice that GS emphasize single hand movement, I suspect because of it's history and because the mechanics are not very suited for double hand works (see how the guy in the video lifts his foot on the up swing, for example: this is quite difficult and not very safe to do even in GS). Elbow bend and torsion and not fighting the rotation are the other two aspects I find hard to incorporat on a two hands swing.
Straightening the legs or looking like a GS swing. A GS swing (sometimes called half snatch here in Italy) or any other movement you might find in both styles has different purposes, like Anna and Steve said, and different body mechanics: it works wonders for the sport, but it's to be avoided in hard style. I'm not going into much detalis for this one because all I suspect are things I came up with my very limited knowledge of the movement in StrongFirst and ignorance of the GS style, but I'd say the main reasons you want to avoid a "pendulum" (let's call it like that) are:
- if you watch the forward lean for both swing and snatch in GS, you'll noticed is uncomparable with hard style (just look at the difference in this two videos between Anna's and the man's in the clip), and keeping a neutral spine while packing the shoulders and straightening the legs would require a level of flexibility I think not many people have - the most dangerous thing you might do in a balistic kettlebell movement is lose your neutral spine;
- because in hard style you load the posterior chain far more than GS, you want maximum thightness while exploding back up, and that position isn't the best one (the armstrings are almost in tension if you mix the styles, and they have to suddenly contract while heavily loadad: it looks like a call for snaping to me);
There are a lot of other things I feel but can't express in words, so, again, anyone able to do it better than me is welcomed to!
Also, notice that GS emphasize single hand movement, I suspect because of it's history and because the mechanics are not very suited for double hand works (see how the guy in the video lifts his foot on the up swing, for example: this is quite difficult and not very safe to do even in GS). Elbow bend and torsion and not fighting the rotation are the other two aspects I find hard to incorporat on a two hands swing.
Frank_IT
Level 4 Valued Member
I see you already posted this very thoughtful post! I like it, and many props again for the dedication with your wife!
Cheers from Italy!
@Anna C, nice work. You are I are, ballpark, the same size, so I know what swinging that weight feels like.
A suggestion for an experiment, and at the risk of stating the obvious: we use a combination of our strength and displacing our own body mass to keep from falling over backwards when we swing a kettlebell behind us. Try altering your body position a little so that you come a little more forward at the knees, a little lower at the hips, and a little more vertical in the torso at the backmost position. The idea is to put more of the load into your hips and have them do more of the work, and have your hamstrings do a little less.
This is something I play with in my own heavy swings, and when I get it wrong, I have, indeed, lost my balance, but it's still worth playing with. (I haven't fallen over backwards, just had to shuffle my feet.)
-S-
A suggestion for an experiment, and at the risk of stating the obvious: we use a combination of our strength and displacing our own body mass to keep from falling over backwards when we swing a kettlebell behind us. Try altering your body position a little so that you come a little more forward at the knees, a little lower at the hips, and a little more vertical in the torso at the backmost position. The idea is to put more of the load into your hips and have them do more of the work, and have your hamstrings do a little less.
This is something I play with in my own heavy swings, and when I get it wrong, I have, indeed, lost my balance, but it's still worth playing with. (I haven't fallen over backwards, just had to shuffle my feet.)
-S-
Baron von Raschke
Level 3 Valued Member
Thanks Frank!
Well, yes and no. Consider the bottommost position of three lifts - good morning, deadlift, and squat, and in a continuum, examining shoulder position in relation to hip position. Shoulder is higher than hips is squat, in DL they're closer, and in GM they're in a line. I think what I'm suggesting is closer to a squat but it's also closer to a deadlift. One cannot, however, have vertical shins at the back of a heavy kettlebell swing like one can have in a barbell deadlift because of the position of the weight - your knees must come forward somewhat at the bottommost position.
This isn't a particularly simple discussion - hope what I said makes sense. It's also not a particularly simple thing to swing a 40 kg kettlebell at your size, either! It's all a system, and when you move or adjust one thing, with a heavy weight, everything else will change, too, or you'll lose your balance.
-S-
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