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Kettlebell Way to tell when power drops in swings; any guesses?

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Smile-n-Nod

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The StrongFirst Facebook page announced that SF will soon present a way to make it easier to tell when power begins to drop during a set of swings. No mention of whether this is a product, a course, or something else.

Anybody want to guess what this is? (If you already know, don't let the cat out of the bag.)
 
I am relatively aware of my body's power output-and I can tell when my swings for from 'Crisp' to 'Good' (at this stage I usually stop) and then if I am pushing it, I can certainly tell when my swings descend into 'Ugly-Style'. I remember reading an author who described the difference between 'hardstyle' and 'drinky-bird' swings- when the 'crispness' is gone- all that is left in the back and forth of the 'drinky-bird'.
 
Without being too "techy", my guess would be mouth breathing, or longer time period to get to certain heart rate before continuing. Accelerometer would be the best guess, but would be hard to implement with general population....
 
Just guessing but I’d bet money it’s some type of accelerometer. If you know the mass of an object and how fast it’s accelerating then you can measure the force. So if this device (if it is a device) could give some type of signal (tone, beep, etc) to tell you when the force is dropping then you would know when to stop the set. May the force be with you.
 
My initial thought was force plate. But that's just because it was already on my mind (after hearing about some crazy isometric forceplate something or other that Ben Greenfield does). After considering a little further, an accelerometer does seem much more likely.
 
The StrongFirst Facebook page announced that SF will soon present a way to make it easier to tell when power begins to drop during a set of swings. No mention of whether this is a product, a course, or something else.

Anybody want to guess what this is? (If you already know, don't let the cat out of the bag.)
I have no idea what it is but I am looking forward to learning about it. I would like to have a tool that could show me how much power I am generating on the swings and when it is starting to fade. It could be a very useful tool.
 
Just guessing but I’d bet money it’s some type of accelerometer. If you know the mass of an object and how fast it’s accelerating then you can measure the force. So if this device (if it is a device) could give some type of signal (tone, beep, etc) to tell you when the force is dropping then you would know when to stop the set. May the force be with you.

Plus you would know time so you would have work. (Horsepower or watts)
Additionally you could log and graph over time
 
Or one could just swing their KB's...
Using a heart rate monitor while practicing S&S has been a good experience. One of the things I found it that I was fairly close on the talk test. Sometimes I thought I was taking it too easy and the sessions were taking too long, but I found that they were very close to the kind of sessions that Pavel recommended in Simple and Sinister. I attempted to keep my heart rate between 60% and 80% most of the time. There are peaks over 80% when doing sets of ten on the swings and peaks over 80% for a short time when doing getups. Occasionally my heart rate would go below 60% when resting but the majority of time it was between 60% and 80%.
Using the heart rate monitor has helped educate me about my perceived exertion levels and heart rate. It has also helped me when I wanted to have some sessions where I stayed below 80% all the time. When I have some sessions I really push it hard, I can observe that as well.
Using the heart rate monitor has helped me refine my sessions and understand what I am doing at particular times.
I suspect that some kind of device to help track power output could be put to similar use. It could help refine practice sessions when the practitioner wants sessions that focus on a particular characteristic of performance. If you are training for max power output then it doesn't make sense to do swings when exhausted and the power output is low. Some kind of acceleramator device can teach you when to stop a set and rest and help dial in how much rest you need before you start again. If you want to do a glycolytic slow grind occasionally, perhaps you could compare the power output.
The device could help the practitioner honest and educated about what is occurring. It is sometimes easy to fool yourself. I guess it depends on what the people at Strong First come up with. I look forward to finding out more about it.
 
Yeah, I hear you and totally agree.
For me, I've been in this game long enough that I have a pretty good handle on perceived exertion. I typically have very good correlation to my HRM when I use it.
I used to track a lot of this stuff pretty closely and enjoyed doing so. Like many of us (I suspect) I wanted to eke out as much from my training as possible, and not waste time and effort. Even more so since I did (do) a lot of event based training. At the end of the day however... (at least at my stage in life) I'm not entering the Olympics, or the Tour de France. I find even for my climbing training; that directional fitness gets me there and then some.

But like you, I am totally interested in what may be on the horizon....
 
The StrongFirst Facebook page announced that SF will soon present a way to make it easier to tell when power begins to drop during a set of swings. No mention of whether this is a product, a course, or something else.

Anybody want to guess what this is? (If you already know, don't let the cat out of the bag.)
I read the new article about the device. It looks like it should be very useful. I ordered one. It should be very useful for helping in the design and application of intelligent practice sessions.
In his article Brett Jones mentioned some interesting research into the relationship between the decrease of velocity in an exercise and the time it takes to recover from a practice session.

Data for the Data-Averse | StrongFirst
 
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$239 US Dollars! $299 is the usual price.... Wow. I find the device interesting- but not for that kind of money. Some of the data presented in the linked article is painfully obvious (at least to me). I'm not being mean- but I am not surprised that doing more reps/sets results in longer recovery times.....I do like the concept of the device- but, for me- I think I'll stay quite content practicing and improving on my 'autoregulation' as prescribed by Geoff Neupert. Having said that- Joel Jamieson has a very interesting system called 'Morpheus'-based on heart rate variability and recovery. I am putting asides my pennies for this one. http://trainwithmorpheus.com/-- if I did have spare capital floating about, and I could claim back as a business expense- I might buy the PUSH device. But do you need two of the bands for two handed swings??
 
When I read the thread I was instantly thinking of the Push device, but I really wouldn't have guessed that SF would utilize it.
Way too expensive and IMO not needed. Who cares if your power drops off in the last two sets?
That's the kind of stuff for people who got 4-10th place at the olympics who want to medal in the next one or the 30 years old NFL receiver who wants to squeeze out the last bit of performance to get that last high paying contract.

But do you need two of the bands for two handed swings??
One is enough. In the article it's mentioned that for 1H-Swings you have to switch sides between sets.
For 2H-Swings both arms move at the same speed, so it will give accurate readings, despite measuring on only one arm.

@KIWI5
I came across the Morpheus device, too. At first I thought it was interesting, but a good amount of the data that is used comes from things like FitBit. You know those wrist devices that track your sleep, HR, steps etc. Those are notorious for giving wrong readings.
I don't think that the Morpheus thing is wrong, but it still gets some of its data from other devices that we know are off a lot of times. If it's fed with flawed or wrong info it simply can't give out correct data, despite its internal programming and calculation being correct.
 
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"Pavel founded StrongFirst, the “school of strength”, to bring “low tech/high concept” methods of achieving high performance and resilience to men and women from all walks of life, not just elite warriors and athletes."​


Oh, well...

From the AK-47 of exercise equipment (The AK-47 of Exercise Equipment | StrongFirst) to the iPhone of exercise equipment.
 
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From reading the research, I'm still not sure about this device - you could just as easily build your plan on number of %RM reps/set.

Density changes in the muscle type 2b could easily be from overall size differences just as happens with mitochondrial density - both tend to shrink in powerlifters as overall mass increases.

More volume at the same load required more recovery and built more mass than training with less volume. I guess you could use this to train at higher or lower velocity based on your goals. Interesting...

It would be nice to see the research papers the quoted outcomes were taken from to get a feel for absolute vs relative changes.

Also depending on accuracy, couldn't you put this thing on a spiked neck collar and have it monitor torso speed - no need to change arms and its ready for burpees too.
 
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