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

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@Chapman thank you for the clarifications.

I still think the location we discussed is probably the most cost effective solution. The main problem is the size of the device, I realize the R&D costs to shrink the size down will be substantial. What I envision as far as the application of the PUSH device and kettlebells is being able to simply move the small magnetized device from bell to bell quickly and efficiently by placing it under the handle. This would work for most bell styles and would not require the purchase of specific bells.

Programming could be specific to the snatch, swing, press etc. simply by employing a sub-menu selection under a kettlebell selection from the main mode selector. Programming as you know is constantly in a state of adjustment and improvement so the main problem to be solved IMHO is the device size..
 
(see Jason Hettler interview on Pacey Performance Podcast, number 175, for instance)

Thank you for providing that link. That's one great resource. Listened to a few podcasts from the archive and have a playlist ready for some long summer dog walks. Really, really good quality insight into strength and conditioning without any mention of coconuts and chia seed yoga hot pants. Much appreciated.
 
I've been mulling over the uses of the PUSH band since the inception of this article and thread and the question I can't figure out is: you get a PUSH band. It shows your trainee's power drops off at Rep 6 or 7 very reliably. Being fairly new, she is one-arm swinging the 12 kilo bell. Her stated goal is to attain the Simple standard.

How do you progress her?
 
I've been mulling over the uses of the PUSH band since the inception of this article and thread and the question I can't figure out is: you get a PUSH band. It shows your trainee's power drops off at Rep 6 or 7 very reliably. Being fairly new, she is one-arm swinging the 12 kilo bell. Her stated goal is to attain the Simple standard.

How do you progress her?

Great question... decrease reps to set of 5 and increase rest between sets. 20x5 in my experience is far better than 10x10 most of the time. Remember in S&S to not rush the sets and fully recover between to maintain optimal (not max) power. The PUSH Band/App will tell/show you this.

On another note, perhaps some time increasing the deadlift would also move this along as well.
 
Team,

Joining late to the party! My name is Chris I am the resident sport scientist and strength coach at PUSH. I am happy to answer any questions regarding the PUSH band. It has been interesting to dive into this thread, and I think there are a few general themes I can address to start. Let's begin with the biggest one I see reading this thread + a second topic as it coincides with it:

1) Tech adoptive vs. Tech adverse coach/athlete + HR monitoring

There seem to be two categories people are grouping themselves into - there are a decent amount on here who aren't into the concept of integrating tech into training and very against it, and a decent amount who are into it and supportive. This is to be expected, especially when introducing something new into a current model (in this case tech into a non-tech paradigm). It is also not surprising to us at PUSH as we have seen this during the 5 years we have been on the market (although we are seeing it less and less every year). We cut our teeth pro-sport and NCAA S&C strength and conditioning world, but now our biggest market is private training facilities as they see it as a way to engage more clients and differentiate from other facilities and trainers, all while tracking their progress while going paperless.

We consider ourselves the like the garmin, power meter or catapult for the weight room. We measure the external and total system mechanical loading (velocity, power, force, work, etc.) by using an inertial motion unit (accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer) combined with Newtonian physics (fancy math). Whereas heart rate is the internal response to exercise, for say running, distance, speed/pace and elevation are the external load. They are not interchangeable, although can be surrogates of one another depending on the situation. These are all objective measures, while RPE and questionnaires are subjective. In an ideal training scenario, you look at external, internal and subjective to get a full picture of training.

You will not find a top performing runner, cyclist or endurance racer who doesn't monitor both external loading and internal responses in today's world. Why not bring the same mentality to the weight room I would ask those of you who are against tech? The gym is one area that arguably all humans and athletes should be spending time in regardless of sport, event, goals, fitness, health etc... No one forces runners to buy a garmin watch or cyclists to by power meters, as here there is no obligation for SF coaches and members to get a band. So those of you who aren't into tech can still train, run, cycle, lift etc. without any tech, and I'd argue the majority of people at the participation level do this. But if you goal is to get better, how are you measuring and informing that improvement. If you goal is the be the best, you need to look for ways to train better and train smarter in order to maximize gains, minimize fatigue/injury in order to increase performance.

While training velocity and power have been around for a long, long time, Velocity based training (VBT) was innovated in the modern sense in mid 1990's. Somewhat affordable commercially available tools (such as Tendo and Gymaware string pods) becoming available in the early 2000's. One of the modern pioneers (there are many) Dan Baker, an Australian football league S&C with the Brisbane Broncos for over 20 years, had one of the first commercially available machines in 1993 began doing research and modernizing the training methodologies now that he had the ability to quantify velocity and power in the weight room. Another pioneer of modern VBT (dynamic method/conjugate for powerlifting) who didn't use tech, Louie Simmons (Westside barbell), is another person we have been in discussions with as he is looking for ways to quantify velocity to take his methods to another level as he sees value and a need for it. If you want to know more about VBT training in general, Dan's work is rather easy and actionable you can use the PUSH band in a more traditional S&C sense, check out the manuals he has written for us here: Free VBT Guide by Dan Baker

The early adopters of VBT initially, and PUSH more recently were coaches who were into tech and wanted to quantify all aspects of training. I was an early adopter VBT, having spent nearly 10 years at the Canadian Sport Institute training olympic athletes I got a tendo device in 2007, myotest in 2008 and gymaware in 2010. However these systems came with a lot of manual labour and headaches. When I saw the birth of PUSH and what they were trying to do, I was super intrigued because it was 1/10th the cost, smaller and more portable, more versatile in what it could do, and a lot of the heavy lifting was done by the software and app.

The S&C world has changed a lot over the past 5 years, and now you can't find a pro/NCAA team who doesn't have some sort of VBT tech. 10 years ago only pros runners had garmins and and pro cyclists had power meters, now everyone who competes at your local race has them. It comes down to what your goals are, what you are willing to invest in to be better, and what has proven to work. In the S&C space VBT has proven to work. Given the direction SF is heading with strong endurance, there is a place for PUSH to measure and monitor what you are doing. Further, as tech advances and costs come down it becomes accessible to the masses. This is what PUSH has done for the weight room.

HR monitors have been around much longer, and have been rather inexpensive. However the same argument could be used with HR. Heart rate correlates highly with RPE, so I could easily argue to those using HR why buy an HR monitor if you are against using other tech, why not just use RPE? Being independently objective versus human perceived subjects are not the exact same. Same in the weight room. There is always a more low-tech and cheaper option, and always a more accurate, more costly option for quantifying training. Unfortunately, the human eyes, as free as they are, are not good sensors for measuring velocity, power and their derivatives, so unlike RPE we cannot even guestimate the values in the gym based environment. As a quantitative biomechanist at the University of Toronto we have done a lot of this work, and it's surprising how bad trained coaches, physios, trainers and the like are at inferring information from watching humans move. This is where tech can help.

Now I am generalizing, but from what I have seen the tech adverse group tends to be of an older generation (>40 years old), and has gotten to where they are without the help of tech, so they don't feel a need for it. They can continue to achieve their goals regardless of it. There is also a group that didn't grow up with tech, so they aren't comfortable using it. Then there is the tech adoptive group who tend to be <30 years old, grew up surrounded by it, looking at screens for feedback, quantifying and gamifying everything. I'm 35 so I grew up in a generation that straddled these groups, with minimal tech as a child, but during my social formative years was exposed to the explosion of tech, so I completely get both groups.

What we are seeing in the S&C world, is the young group is growing rapidly as the older group is retiring and moving on. And the older group who is still practicing is having to adopt the methods of the younger group because most of the people they work with are from the younger generation, and feel if you aren't using tech or measuring stuff that you aren't current with the time, forward-thinking, etc. While this may not be the case now with respect to KB training and SF methodology, we are seeing it in every other facet of fitness, from orange theory to peloton. However it doesn't mean we need to lose our belief is sound fundamentals that we can always come back to and rely on, but instead, find new ways to enhance them.

This is where I commend SF for being open-minded and forward-thinking as they see an opportunity to improve on what they do by utilizing a tool that has proven itself in the athlete strength world. It will take years to develop and refine how it will be used to achieve best outcomes, but there are immediate ways to start incorporating that can have an impact. Send us your ideas on things you want to see or potentially measure. For example, we can already track work completed or tonnage lifted. Both of these metrics are used in the long-term planning of training, and it is large and quick increases or prolonged decreases in these that tend to lead to soft tissue injury. So with yourself or your clients you can get an accurate strain measure and you don't have to write anything down. That saves you time and hassle, all while being better planned and smarter about training.

If you are a coach who cares about bringing more clients to your business, if you care about educating SF methodologies to the masses, or if you care about capitalizing on every advantage possible to be the best, adopting tech might be something you want to consider at some point down the line. Like anything new, the innovation cycle will always have early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Tech, in general, is here to stay, and it is a way to reach new people and younger generations, so for the tech-adverse, perhaps give it a spin before you throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I got excited about the PUSH product after seeing it on the StrongFirst website and ordered one right away. I didn't notice that it only has an app for Apple IOS. Since Android is so common I just figured the product would work with the hardware I have. It's a little disappointing. Will an app be available for people who use android?
 
I've been mulling over the uses of the PUSH band since the inception of this article and thread and the question I can't figure out is: you get a PUSH band. It shows your trainee's power drops off at Rep 6 or 7 very reliably. Being fairly new, she is one-arm swinging the 12 kilo bell. Her stated goal is to attain the Simple standard.

How do you progress her?

As per the below post by CMarker, some power drop is expected by the time we reach the 10th swing, if using a challenging KB. This has also been discussed at another thread, were most of us found that in order to keep full power we have to limit to about 7-8 swings. I think that this power drop at the end of the set is fine and it is even desired by the design of S&S, in order to achieve some hypertrophy and endurance along with power.

So the short answer would be: Progress S&S as prescribed in the book, since the power drop is expected.


Great points Bryant. 10 swings is about the maximum amount before power drops off. The closer we are to 8 or 9 seconds the closer we are to maintaining power over the set (due to the energy systems changing; squeezing the last few seconds out is tough). We start seeing a bit of acidosis at 10 swings (which has some other benefits; as we see more hypertrophy in our 10 swing protocols), but 5 swings is a great sweet spot for maintaining 90% power over the set.
 
I've been mulling over the uses of the PUSH band since the inception of this article and thread and the question I can't figure out is: you get a PUSH band. It shows your trainee's power drops off at Rep 6 or 7 very reliably. Being fairly new, she is one-arm swinging the 12 kilo bell. Her stated goal is to attain the Simple standard.

How do you progress her?
I'm going to say that it would depend on whether you plan to follow S&S as a program or just adopt the Simple standard as a goal to be attained by any means necessary.

If the former, I think the answer is inherent in the program itself -- just follow it.

For a normal working S&S bell size, I would expect some power drop off on the last few reps of each set (I see @Oscar already commented on this above while I was writing this). I've always felt that S&S is not a pure A+A program. Each set is a slight push beyond, but only a slight push so as to allow sustainable effort over 10 sets, and sustainable day to day recovery. My experience with varying set lengths is that 15+ second sets have overlapping, but different benefits than shorter sets (such as 5 swings).

Perhaps, theoretically, pushing into a power drop off might have an increased recovery cost, but the S&S program is predicated on 10x10 swings allowing for sustainable daily practice and recovery, so what is the practical effect of that increased cost? Would there be some benefit to normalizing the power output to be even over 10 reps based on feedback from the PUSH band? Maybe, but again, would it be really significant?

There are lots of ways to cook this kind of KB ballistic interval training, and the Strong Endurance braintrust seems to be hard at work designing variations for different purposes. I've experimented on my own with different variations and feel like I have a decent subjective feel for a number of approaches. But S&S is already it's own defined thing. You can separate the S&S goals from the S&S training program if you value them in themselves (IIRC @Bill Been started a previous thread about this) and train for them in whatever way you think is optimal, but I look at them more as checkpoints within S&S training template than as separate objectives.
 
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Let's say she's going to attain the Simple standard and then move on to other things. She's not on Simple & Sinister as a long-term training approach.
 
I got excited about the PUSH product after seeing it on the StrongFirst website and ordered one right away. I didn't notice that it only has an app for Apple IOS. Since Android is so common I just figured the product would work with the hardware I have. It's a little disappointing. Will an app be available for people who use android?

Hey Robert, I had the same question.. Given answer is at the bottom

Anthropometry is study of measuring the shapes and sized of the human body. We can accurately estimate (enough for our purposes) bone lengths based on height and weight. People fall into a normal distribution with respect to shape and size. Again because we use a gyroscope this is secondary, we can measure the absolute and relative angles the band is at with orientation and angular velocities.






We tried this spot, with pro grade/competition bells it didn't work as the wrist would hit it with larger users in rack position and snatch catch.



100% we can easily modify the algorithms for the bell and its movement. It was more the fact that a novice user or a bad rep, where say grip or wrists aren't tight, the bell can have extra rotation on the swing (think of the bell flipping towards your face a bit on a swing). This would increase the average velocity and power, but would be a false increase because its the bell and not the user, and due to non-ideal technique. By being on the arm we avoid this, and measure the speed/power the user is creating.



We had android 3 years ago. The problem at the time were there was too many different android phones and you had to develop for each differently. Since then Android development has come a long way and the phone offering has pruned quite a bit. We are currently working on android and it is slated for release in 2018 (exact timing TBD).
 
I got excited about the PUSH product after seeing it on the StrongFirst website and ordered one right away. I didn't notice that it only has an app for Apple IOS. Since Android is so common I just figured the product would work with the hardware I have. It's a little disappointing. Will an app be available for people who use android?

Android will be out by end of year. We used to have android about 3 years ago but there were too many many phones to develop for and we couldn't offer the quality experience we are known for in our app. Android development has come a long way and the phone offering has pruned down. Hence why we are currently working on Android development. If you haven't already you can reach out, send back and get a refund since you cannot use it at this time.
 
Updating an thread from a few months ago, I realize - because I've just listened to Podcast #11 - for anyone short on time, I recommend you go to the 20-minute mark and listen for just over a minute.

"... for a rate of force development, ... which is arguably one of the biggest keys for athleticism, the kettlebell was the best tool for the job."

-S-
 
Here’s the relevant conclusion from the paper they’re citing:

“Maximum strength improved by 9.8% (Half Squat 1RM: 165-181% body mass, p < 0.001) after the training intervention, and post hoc analysis revealed that there was no significant difference between the effect of Kettlebell and Jump Squat training (p = 0.56). Explosive strength improved by 19.8% (Vertical Jump Height: 20.6-24.3 cm) after the training intervention, and post hoc analysis revealed that the type of training did not significantly affect this either (p = 0.38).”

Not sure what data he’s using to draw the conclusion you quoted.

Plus, his definition of “Impulse” is not correct. Plus, “power” is always a calculated value and speaking of it as if you can directly observe it can be misleading, although it’s unintentional. Plus, no attempt was made to Volume Match the two training modalities, so we don’t know if Jump Squats are really awesome and you don’t have to do many of them at all, or if Kettlebell swings are really horrible and even doing a bunch of them will only match a small amount of Jump Squats.

Finally, measuring some quality that good athletes express in quantities above mediocre athletes does mot necessarily validate that quality as a training goal, nor does it shed light on how that athlete came into such an abundance of it.

I got this from one of the podcasters’ response to a comment under the article:
Kettlebell swing training improves maximal and explosive strength. - PubMed - NCBI
 
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