Introducing, The “Transitional Swing”…

What is a one-legged kettlebell swing?

A couple of weeks ago, Brett Jones wrote an article for StrongFirst that opened with this line: “What is the sound of one hand clapping? A philosophical riddle on par with: what is a one-legged kettlebell swing?”  Of course, this got me thinking about how we transition our athletes into a single leg swing, and how many different variations we have tried over the years that have failed (and there have been many).

Of course, this led me to the deeper question:

Are single leg swings just a form of variety, or are they a necessary part of a swing progression?

The answer depends on the context. In last weeks article, I discussed the needs of athletes versus non-athletes. To clarify, there is nothing wrong with being in the non-athlete class. By “Athlete” I don’t mean in mindset, I mean in training. To be in the “athlete” category, the first question I will ask is when do you compete? If you don’t compete, there is no second question. If you do compete, the next question is how much time each week is dedicated to skill work (in your sport)? If you can’t tell me, then I have my answer. Being in the “athlete” category does not mean someone is better or gets better/more advanced training; all it means is that we have more attributes TO train and that we have to train these attributes in a manner that they see carryover in their sport all while making sure they are physically and mentally able to train in their sport every day.  I am NOT an athlete anymore, I just train them. (It’s like in Cars 3 when Lightning comes in for a pit stop and puts in his new protege – Cruz Ramirez.)  This also means that I can have a hard workout that takes me a LOOOOONG time to recover from – it won’t keep me from training the skills my sport needs.  Doing that to an athlete is counterproductive, but I’m not an athlete (anymore).

If you train athletes, progressing into a transitional (Single leg) swing is vital for their training success – all land-based sports require some level of competency in transitioning from asymmetrical stance on one side to asymmetrical stance on the other; or in other words RUNNING. I explain why I no longer believe single leg stance is a posture of the NDC in last weeks blog [link here] and when we release Volume 4 in the NLMS, you can read A LOT more details about this concept.

The Vanilla Swing

Going from the vanilla swing (symmetrical stance, 1 kettlebell-2arms; SS1KB2A) to a transitional swing can be accomplished in 2 ways:

1. You just figure it out.
2. You follow an NDC (NeuroDevelopmental Continuum) progression that honors the principles of movement acquisition.

The short-term solution is to just move to one-leg and start swinging. Go for it; do all the one-legged swings you want. The long-term solution will take you on a journey of further mastering the swing strategy. To get to our final destination, we need to ensure several subtle components that allow the transitional swing to occur – learning these components are where the growth comes from, not the transitional swing. These components are:

• A Symmetrical Finish Archetype in the lower body and symmetrical Front Rack 1 Archetypes (I’m using the Archetypes Kelly Starrett has implemented and popularized in his work.)
• An Asymmetrical Deadlift Archetype in the lower body and symmetrical hang archetypes in the upper body (the asymmetrical DL Archetype is an addition I rolled out in V3 of the NLMS.)
• Asymmetrical Upper body via the 2 kb variation of the swing.
• Medial/Lateral weight shift emphasis in the swing.

We often hear that it’s about the journey, not the destination; this is a GREAT example of that saying. Here, as we progress from our SS1KB2A swing into our transitional swing, we have to learn and develop several new components that the SS1KB2A alone does not develop – and these attributes are what we can utilize with our athletes to see a carryover into their sport.

That being said, even those of us that are in the non-athlete group can benefit from developing these attributes; we just won’t see any changes in our sport, since we don’t have a sport to see changes in.

How to move away from the Vanilla Swing:

I’m going to break this progression down into 3 stages, and this week I’ll go over stage 1 (hey, I’ve got to keep you engaged on my website – my entire self-worth comes from how many views this website receives every day!) Like I said before, you can jump right into doing single leg swings, but this progression will teach you how to master the transitional swing – you choose.

In stage 1, our goal will be to master each arm working independently during a swing. We will establish a symmetrical finish archetype with the arms independently in the Front Rack 1 archetype.
To accomplish this, we need 3 kettlebells: the one you usually do your swings with, and then 2 bells that add up to this. For me, I will be using a 24kg bell and 2-12kg bells for this progression.

The progression:

1. Vanilla deadlifts
2. Vanilla swings
3. Symmetrical stance, 2kb-2arm Deadlift
4. Symmetrical stance, 2kb-2arm swing
5. Symmetrical stance, asymmetrical load 2kb-2arm deadlift
6. Symmetrical stance, asymmetrical load 2kb-2 arm swing

 

With this progression, we are essentially getting each arm work independently while staying in a symmetrical stance. This is as asymmetrical as we can make while staying in a symmetrical stance (each arm is doing the same thing, BUT doing so independently while each leg is doing the same thing BUT with a lateral weight shift occurring at the deadlift (squat 2) archetype. Essentially, we have begun our journey into asymmetrical swings; we are breaking symmetry to create asymmetry. To do a transitional swing, we MUST have competency in our asymmetrical lunge archetype on each side. This is what allows our transitional swing to occur. More often than not, when people go directly to the old school 1-legged swings and run into problems, it is because they made to big of a jump in the NDC. There are 2 principles of movement that this violates: simple to complex and slow to fast. When we jump straight to fast and more complex (1-legged swing) from fast and complex (SS1KB2A Swing) what do we expect – that is a monumental jump in movement competency. It’s literally about baby steps.

In Conclusion

You have one week to get good at this progression. Focus on gaining competency at each stage; doing each step on the left side and right side should be/feel the same. If they don’t, fix it. If you can’t fix it – post a question or comment below or a post a video and tag @MovementOutlaws in it, we’ll help.

Next week, we will master stage 2 and get closer to doing a transitional swing. If you are impatient and want the short-term payoff just go straight to the 1-legged swing, but you will miss out on experiencing the journey of mastering the overall swing strategy.  You choose.

Enjoy!