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

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Looks like a neat gadget to me. It's a little pricey, certainly, but it's cool. I find it very hard to objectively assess my own performance (or even accurately count my repetitions) while focusing on maintaining solid swing form: Having external, objective feedback would be a wonderful advantage.

The analogy is really replacing analog gauges (talk test, going by feel, RPE, etc) with external digital ones...
I don't really see it as a replacement for any of these, but rather an addition to or possibly a means of 'calibrating' your own perception of power output to a measurable value.

Not that I'd rush out and buy one; if somebody gave me $239.00 I'd probably spend it on more kettlebells. If somebody gave me a PUSH armband, I'd definitely use it though*, and I just know I'd spend ages fiddling around with colour schemes for the graphs and charts that would inevitably start to appear in my training log. I do love graphs and charts.

*They'd have to give me an iPhone as well, though; I don't see anyone being that generous.
 
It is amazing what some people will complain about. If you are doing S&S just to exercise, then no, you probably do not need it. Being able to test your daily readiness with just 5 quick squat jumps or being able to test vertical jump in seconds justifies the cost for me. It would be a really helpful tool for dialing in your training.
 
I've been looking at the various HRV products on the market and I think that this type of measuring tool would provide me with cheaper, and more valuable information than the PUSH thing. Certainly different information, but for me- knowing how hard I could push myself on any given day would be good. Being able to monitor heart rate and HRV at the same time, low cost, it's a no-brainer. And if I wanted charts and graphs...the sky's the limit.
 
From the Wiki on Heart Rate Monitor: As "intensity training" became a popular concept in athletic circles in the mid-80s, retail sales of wireless personal heart monitors started in 1983.

The HRM has been around for 35 years, and isn't considered a fancy tool, rather it's one we're used to hearing about and some of us are used to using.

The wrist-worn accelerometer will, in a few years time, also be a tool we'll be used to hearing about. It won't be consider the opposite of "low-tech," it'll just be a tool that some people will choose to use and others won't.

A tool is just that, a tool. You pick your own tools, and StrongFirst has given you another tool choice. Not everyone tries every program StrongFirst creates, not everyone attends every workshop we offer (I do - we offer education of such high quality that I don't want to miss anything), and not everyone will use a wrist accelerometer. Use it, don't use it - up to you. If the minds here at StrongFirst - and they are, as we've all come to realize, brilliant, creative, thorough minds - think it's a tool worth talking about, I'm all ears.

Just my opinion, and your mileage may vary.

-S-
 
I remember when HR monitors were a popular subject on this forum, I went & bought one used it religiously, then occasionally, then rarely, now not at all, partly because I don’t think I need it partly because I just couldn’t be bothered. I like to keep things as simple as possible, hell I once had a routine that consisted solely of moving a pile of rocks from one side of my yard to the other. That’s why I was attracted to Pavel in the first place, all the research & thinking had been done for me. Follow simple instructions use minimal equipment no gadgets required & get big results. So I was a bit surprised to see that StrongFirst is now selling a gadget. Not saying I’m for or against, cause it’s way above my pay grade, just saying surprised. In saying that I’ve noted no one is saying it’s required or even necessary, as Steve mentioned just another tool for the box take it or leave it. But it does feel a little at odds with my perception of what StrongFirst was all about, strictly just my opinion so no need to jump all over me.
 
Soon there will only be robots swinging KB's (with inbuilt accelerometers), so I guess the PUSH device makes sense....:0
 
I think it could be a useful tool for someone who wants to get the best results they can without burning themselves out. If I can find a way to get better results and still leave myself with energy for the work day it is worth it to pay a couple hundred bucks. I learned some potentially useful information from Brett Jones' article and the Push will probably give me a better reading on a decrease in power than just going by feel. $239 isn't much for something that can help me perform better.
 
I agree, to some extent- with Robert Noftz post. Where I part ways is the $239 price tag for an item that will tell me when I should stop training. With all due respect, my wife already tells me when I need to 'stop playing with those kettlebells and come inside for dinner!"
 
Will the 'wrist worn accelerometer' ever become a tool that everyone uses? I highly doubt it. There is not enough usage for the 'average humanoid' for this to ever become a standard training tool. Even if the cost for the device was $19.99- the cost/benefit analysis does not work out. Remember, I am not attacking the SF initiative of bringing 'new tech' into the market- it's just that the 'Push' gadget quite simply does not add anything that the humble heart rate monitor or the more hi-tech HRV apps already provide. But, once again- full credit to the SF sales division for trying something new. Hey, the 'Senior Management Vodka & Pickles Budget' needs feeding!
 
To you maybe, it’s all relative.
To some $239 is a huge amount to spend, especially on something not essential.
This.

I'm not judging anybody for buying the thing. You're adults with your own money and can do whatever you want with it.
I just question the need for such a device for people like you. I read things like "performing better" or "optimizing recovery"...
You won't reach a certain goal (e.g. Sinister) with this thing that you wouldn't be able to reach without it.
You will also don't prevent overtraining, because it will keep you just at the fine edge before going into overtraining that you otherwise wouldn't recognize or something like that.
240$ (and soon probably 300$ again) is a hefty price and I'm 100% sure that spending that money on 1 or 2 sessions with a nutritionist to really dial in your nutrition or spending it on better curtains to make your room darker when you sleep or buying a more ergonomical chair for your office or whatever will do more for your performance and recovery than that thing "telling" you to stop maybe 1 or 2 sets earlier in your training session.
If you've got everything covered (perfect programming, optimized nutrition, optimized stress management etc.) and still want that 0.5% increase in performance then yes go for it, but that's not you. Like I said in my earlier post, that's the people competing at the highest level (e.g. olympics). So your money is probably better spend elsewhere.
 
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Why not put this thing on the kettlebell itself?

For that matter, give it a magnet and vibrate or tone function to free you from your phone. When you're $250 in and you still need to use your phone or your KB doesn't work right...?!

I can definitely see it for a PT as it gives you one other thing to convince your client they're getting for their $ "Wow, your top end increased 10% this month, way to go!"
 
I have nothing against technology, and can actually see where this device could be useful.

My comment was partly an attempt at tongue in cheek humor, but I had a non-facetious point as well. If you (speaking generally of the organization, not necessarily Brett as an individual) profess a belief in "low tech," enough to include it in a mission statement in the biography of the founder, then it seems to me you should take it seriously. Low tech is low tech. IMO, an expensive electronic device (and one that isn't directly a training implement) doesn't qualify.

The bio for Pavel you refer to isn't a mission statement but a description of the development of some of his (SF) methods - these are two different things.

So what is holding to your principles and what is being "imprisoned" by them? If you find your stated principles imprisoning, then get new ones you can hold to.

Principles guide but allow progression - that is what I mean.
Your perspective of the new tech being against a principle of SF (which it isn't) is your confusion here.
Your insistence we can't look at the band due to it "violating" a principle is an example of being imprisoned.

Pavel's genius is synthesizing research, reverse engineering proven practice (high concept), and delivering them in the most accessible way possible (low tech). It's baked into the StrongFirst mythology that Pavel has created. If you're going into space, you can spend millions building a pen that works in zero gravity...or you can use a pencil. Easy endurance? Sure you can use a heart rate monitor...or you can run with a mouthful of water.

Fact or Fiction?: NASA Spent Millions to Develop a Pen that Would Write in Space, whereas the Soviet Cosmonauts Used a Pencil

If research shows that pushing until velocity decreases has undesirable effects and you want to avoid them, can you do that in a good enough way without an expensive high tech device? Are there subjective markers you can pay attention to? Is there a simpler, low tech, alternative? Can you program to avoid the drop off in velocity (such as shorter sets and more rest)? Is your philosophy to jump on the newest gadget (even a legitimately useful one) or to get a similar result without it?

I have been pleasantly surprised by what I have learned from the PUSH band - even though I have a pretty high level of body awareness and experience. It helped me learn more about my ballistics etc...
We do not "jump" and have been researching and applying this for quite awhile.

Again, I have nothing against accelerometers or heart rate monitors. If StrongFirst (or any individual) wants to go in the direction of exploiting these technological devices, I have nothing against that either. But there should be some self-awareness about it being a change in direction for StrongFirst, and there shouldn't be rationalization about why it isn't.

Just going to simply disagree with you here. There is no rationalization and the addition of the band is not a change of direction.
 
Steve W.
Answers in the quoted section in bold

Brett, we obviously disagree on a few things here, which is fine and I won't comment further.

However, the link you provided to the story about the myth of the space pen should not be directed toward me. This is a story that Pavel uses and included in one of his books, which is why I referred to it as an example of the "StrongFirst mythology that Pavel has created."
 
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Many seem to have a problem with the price. I am a patent agent and I have seen hundreds of inventors trying to commercialize something. What I finally understood is that starting from an idea to get a finished product requires a lot of efforts. If you do the work yourself, you want to get paid for your efforts. If you hire people, you need to pay them. Also, as soon as you have custom plastic parts, you need molds to manufacture them in large quantities. Molds are very expensive. I could probably throw together something that looks and works a bit like the PUSH device for swings in a weekend for 50-70$. There are boards that include Bluetooth and accelerometers available commercially for that kind of price. However, I would not be anywhere close to something that people would buy. Just getting some presentable software would require at least a few weeks of work for an experiences programmer, if not months, depending on how sophisticated the software is.

I see that this is a chicken an egg problem. You need to sell a lot of devices to make them cheap, but you need to sell the device for a lot to recover your expenses initially, and you will not sell a lot at that price. If this catches on, I can see the price point slide down to 100$ easily, maybe less, for similar devices.
 
I can't resist weighing in on this any longer....
Strong First is a pretty cool place. We all 'hang out' here probably more than our spouses and bosses would like. There is a ton of education to be had here... for free! The SF articles, the knowledgeable instructors that contribute to the forum. The knowledgeable participants that contribute to the forum. It's all good stuff, and it's all free!

At the end of the day however (as far as I know anyway) SF is not a non-profit organization. They are a business. Business run on profit. At some point a business needs to charge for their products and services to remain in business.

It's up to the individual of course to determine the value those products and services provide to them, and if they are willing to pay that price or not.

Is this device priced at a fair market value? I don't know. I have taken a SF course. Was it priced at fair market value? Yes, and then some!
 
Offwidth, that is exactly how I look at it. My RKC 48KG Kettlebell was $300 + shipping 12-13 years ago. Currently, I use it 3-4x week on Swings, Get Ups, Military Presses and Bent Presses. Not sure of the product life cycle for the PUSH Band, but I can't imagine not using it for every pre and post test for Strong Endurance protocols, Simple and Sinister or AGT training sessions. It was worth the investment for me.
 
I actually welcome the initiative (and this discussion)
A few more points on data...
In order to be of any practical use data collection is only useful if it is
- clear what is measured
- repeatable (and the more objective it is regardless of external influence the better)
- well understood
- and, the above leading into this, actionable

The push band (and comparable products) is very good at the first 2!
It is a clear metric, and very objective. it measures performance output rather than input (HR suffers here for example as it is not an objective output but rather an input metric that is influenced by many factors).
Just like power for cyclists this makes for an excellent metric, it is repeatable, not prone to influences, and thus is ideal to use as a comparison and objective progress/training measure.
You can easily look at 2 workouts and compare them. You can also easily use it to create direct training goals and measure compliance against them. A change in the data over time clearly indicates something (HR again doesn’t, you need to correlate it to other metrics like speed, time, distance etc in order to infere conclusions).

Promising so far!

It is much less clear on the latter 2 points.
Well understood: above I said a change indicates something. So, what is that something?
HR is hands down one of the best studied, used, analysed etc metric there is for sports performance (where applicable of course!)
Cycling power is getting there, and after years and years of research and practical use/experience is very well understood and has revolutionized cycling training even for amateurs.
If you have the means to measure something, you need to know what it tells you, what momentary and long term increases and decreases mean, what causes it etc.
There are numerous new data points that make an entry, but gravely suffer from not being understood (running dynamics for example, or now running power. We collect the data in very high resolution but noone yet knows what it means or what to do with it!
This is where accelerometer data for power sports is in its early stages also, and especially in areas like KB ballistics! Other than possibly telling you that you might want to stop a set (based on an arbitrary % drop that might or might not have relevance to something), what else does it tell you?

This all leads to the most important one: actionable!
1) you need to be able to plan your training using the data (why collect it otherwise?). Now if this is not well understood yet, how do you plan? How do you define levels, zones, targets etc if noone really knows what makes sense for which goal/sport?
Why do you want achieve a certain level, why cap it, and how do you get there? How do you increase your max, and why? How do you increase aberage over a time period, and why?
2) it needs to be directly available to be able to react. The push band app seems to beep and buzz but how do you actually train with it? All you can do is review but there is no current good way to react (other than having a coach tell you).
If your training plan says 20x5 reps at 85% of vMax how do you know if you hit that target during each rep, or way above, or way below, etc?

All of that is a bit of a problem right now, as there is no body of work established that tells you what to do, there are no known succesful test strategies and segmentations (normally metrics are tested frequently to establish a variety of maxes, so what is that strategy for kb ballistics?)
Essentially it beeps when you should stop a set, based on a guess on when that should be

I think it is a very good initiative, and I think SF are uniquely positioned to fill in the bidy of research, IF it gets structured scientifically etc.

In many years we might not hear of it again, or we might train with it extensively (as cyclists do with power meters)
At the moment, we’re not there yet!

One additional point, the data resides inside its own ecosystem... in order to be even remotely useful it needs to feed into a full data set and be correlated with other metrics. More work for the platform developers!

Loooooong post, sorry for that
 
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Is this device priced at a fair market value? I don't know. I have taken a SF course. Was it priced at fair market value? Yes, and then some!

Fully agreed!
Coming from endurance sports where very marginal improvements come with 4-digit prices (try and buy a carbon fiber slightly more aero wheelset for a racebike... a single wheel costs 4-digits easily) I don’t think it is even expensive!
However does it add any value? That remains to be seen
 
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