What is the purpose of the kettlebell swing?

All versions of the Kettlebell Swing are awesome.  I’m a huge fan of swinging kettlebells.  After I earned my first kettlebell certification, I heard about a challenge that Dan John had people go through.  It was 10,000 swings over the course of a month.  I figured if 10,000 in a month was good, then 25,000 swings as quickly as possible was even better.  Of course, I turned this into a challenge; sadly, only 1 person accepted.  To keep things fair, each day we just had 20 minutes to do our swings. The first to 25,000 won.  It took 6-weeks to get there.  By the time we got to 24,000 total swings, we were tired of doing swings and just wanted to get it over with.  So, we devised a brutal bonus day – unlimited time.  BUT, the session was over when you stopped swinging.  Unlimited hand switches, but the bell could not stop moving, and it could not touch the ground.  We each did our set of swings separately – so that neither of us died, we were a bit “competitive”- and we both took 45 minutes to hit the wall.  I did 2,000 swings before I had to set the bell down.  Sarah did 2,000 and 1.  As I was trying figure out what has hurting more -my hands, by erectors, my lungs, or my pride- at minute 46 I didn’t want to touch another kettlebell EVER again.  Pavel gave our challenge a mention in his most recent book, Simple and Sinister (page 85).  In hindsight, I’ve often wondered what was the purpose of this brutal endeavor?

Since 2009, every person I have trained has done swings.  Lots and lots of swings.  I’ve made the swing the cornerstone of our ACL rehab program – there is no better way to teach jump mechanics without having to worry about jump mechanics (hey – you will only swing once with knees that collapse together before you get enough feedback NOT to do that again.)  I’ve made the swing the cornerstone of our post-surgical rehab program – there is no better way to tie the shoulder to the trunk dynamically.  I’ve used swings as a way to train my endurance athletes that are sidelined with injuries for prolonged periods of time.  Anyone that wants to increase their vertical jump will get very familiar with swings.  But, the standard, 1 kettlebell, 2-arm swing has its limits; and those limits are reached REALLY quick.

If you are new to swings or are just looking to incorporate swings into your training as a GPP tool (General Physical Preparedness) then the 1 kettlebell, 2-arm swing needs to be the center of your universe.  It is fundamental, and it needs to be mastered.  Everything about this swing makes it the easiest version to learn and the easiest to build up enough volume to Master.  There is a difference between mastering a swing and doing a perfect swing.  Perfection is “the action or process of improving something until it is faultless or as faultless as possible.”  It is an endless journey.  Mastery is something that is achieved on the way to perfection.  The definition of Mastery is “comprehensive knowledge or skill in a subject or accomplishment.”  Mastery of any task means that you can perform that task in any context.  Mastering a 2 arm swing means you can do the following:

• Swing any size bell with no change in technique.  You can swing a 10# bell, and it will look EXACTLY like you are swinging a bell the is 25% of your body weight.
• You can dial up (or down) the force of your swing.  Every swing doesn’t need to be a maximal effort, and there is a “minimum” point where you are no longer swinging.  You should be able to adjust to any point in between.
• You can swing the bell to any height.  At a maximum, a full overhead swing is one end of the continuum.  The minimum height of your swing is determined by arm length.  To find this stand up and let your arms hang straight down to your thighs, this is the minimum height you can swing the bell to while hitting full hip extension.  Between your mid-thigh height and full overhead is your range – and you should be able to manipulate the height of your swings to anywhere in between there.  (Here is an article that discusses the overhead swing in more detail.)

Those 3 are expressions of the swing that you need to be able to do to display mastery of the 2 arm kettlebell swing.  It goes without saying that the technique remains solid with each rep.  So, what is the solid swing technique?  Well, it depends which organization you want to follow; each has their own subtleties when it comes to their expectations.  Had I written this before February of this year, I’d link to the StrongFirst website and say that their way was the only way (Don’t get me wrong, their way is what I consider the Gold Standard if you want to learn how to safely get into training with kettlebells.  I direct anyone wanting to learn the basics of kettlebell training to StrongFirst – even after leaving the organization.)  But, the truth is, their way isn’t the only way.  If you look at all the various ways the swing is taught, we can reverse engineer it back to some very simple non-negotiable characteristics that EVERY organization includes in their instruction.  It really comes down to 2 non-negotiable points:

1. A spine that does not change shape during the execution of the swing.  Meaning, there is no flexion/extension or rotation of the spine at the bottom of the swing, at the top of the swing, or in between the top and bottom of the swing.
2. The hips do almost all the work. The swing is a hip dominant exercise.  There will be some degree of knee flexion, but the hips dominate the force production of the swing.

Beyond those 2 cornerstone attributes, everything else about the swing is negotiable.  How you breathe, where you look, your arm position, feet position, and other key points all are details that have an impact on the actual performance of the swing, but each lag behind the spine and hips.  If the spine is flexing/extending while someone is swinging a bell, having a discussion about their bent elbows is misplaced precision.  As long as the spine stays stable and the hips are driving the swing, we can discuss the importance of the other details; there is no discussion on the importance of the hips and spine.

Here is the last component to mastering the swing – showing mastery in the presence of fatigue.  Not only do you need to be able to maintain a stable spine and use your hips to generate the force you need to show that you can do that over an extended period of time.  So, what is that metric?  Depends on who you talk to, but since I’m writing this, I’ll tell you my minimum expectation: 25 swings with 25% of your bodyweight.  That’s it.  Now, repeat those 25 swings at the top of every minute for 20 minutes.  You end up getting 500 total swings.  Once you can hit this, we are ready to progress your swings.

You’ve Mastered the 2-Arm Swing, Now What?

Great question.  My answer is going to be a question: What are you training for?  Here are the most common answers:

1. For a Kettlebell Certification.
2. For Fitness.
3. “I just like to train.”
4. To get better at my sport.
5. I read an awesome article on swings and wanted to swing.

If your answer is #1, I’m going to progress you into a 1-arm swing and then transition into teaching you the kettlebell snatch (it is a transition, they are not the same).  At that point, we are going to do A LOT of all three, while we toughen up your hands.  If you answered #2, #3, or #5, then we likely will also progress into doing a 1-arm swing, but we won’t go much further.  If you are proficient in the 2 arm swing, and you are proficient in the 1 arm swing, then we can mix in enough variety for these goals.

But, if you answered #4, our journey has just begun…

Sport is Asymmetry

I write and explain this in a lot of detail in Volume 3 of our New Language of Movement Series.  For the purposes of this article, the point that I need to make is that asymmetry isn’t a bad thing.  The human body is not symmetrical in design, it is a design referred to as imperfect symmetry.  Symmetry in structure has a purpose that we see displayed in several places within nature – most importantly, locomotion and as the foundation of asymmetry.  Look at how you are sitting/standing right now while reading this – is the right side of your body positioned the same as the left side of your body.  Asymmetry is actually a sign of progression and a more complex organism.  If you are thinking of all the times you have heard “asymmetry leads to injury,” let me address that.  First, show me the research to support that claim.  Second, asymmetry is the wrong word to describe the real risk factors for injuries (compensations, irregularities, and not meeting minimum human movement standards).  The definition of Asymmetry is “having two sides or halves that are not the same.”  From a posture standpoint, many of our postures are asymmetrical, meaning what the left side of the body and the right side of the body are positioned differently.  Think half kneeling:

The front side leg and the back side leg are not doing the same thing, making this an asymmetrical posture.  If asymmetry leads to injury, half-kneeling must be bad?  Right?  What we really mean is half-kneeling on the right needs to be the same as half-kneeling on the left.  They need to be equal.  If there is a difference between left side half-kneeling and right side half-kneeling (an irregularity), then we have a problem.

If an asymmetrical posture is asymmetrical, is that a good thing?!?!   A double negative?

Digression back to the swing.

What does this have to do with a swing?  Simple.  Sport (and life as well as occupation) occurs in asymmetrical postures.  We do need to strive to keep the irregularities between these asymmetrical postures as minimal as possible, but the human body is not designed for perfect symmetry.  That being said, for us to see a transfer of training effect from the gym to the real-world we need to better address the needs of our athletes/clients/patients.  Doing 2-arm swings (symmetrical stance, coordinated weight shift) is a great starting point, but this version of a swing has very little direct transfer over to anything other than powerlifting, Olympic lifting, the standing long jump test, and the vertical jump test.  Why?  Because those are the only expressions of symmetrical power creation in sports.  I’m sure I missed one or two on this list, but the bulk of athletics require the ability to generate and control power asymmetrically.  I want to be very clear – I’m not saying 2-arm swings aren’t important, but I’m saying that they do have their limits and that for athletes there is a further progression that can be followed to see a better direct carryover.  If we aren’t talking about training athletes then the 2-arm swing and the 1-arm swing will address everything that needs to be addressed in most GPP training programs.

The beauty of this is that there are A LOT of ways to swing a kettlebell while honoring the 2 swing cornerstones if you are willing to explore.  Furthermore, these progressions (not variations) begin to train the attributes that athletes need to improve to improve the skill of their sport.  What progression am I talking about?  Simple, the progression based on the rules established during the neurodevelopmental continuum (NDC).  Specifically, the ones that apply to the swing are:

• Symmetry before asymmetry.
• Asymmetry before transitions.
• Simple to Complex.
• Slow to Fast.

The Foundation of all Swings – The Deadlift

Once we have established a 2-arm, 1-kettlebell swing, we have displayed a symmetrical, but simple, ballistic (fast) expression of hip extension  That begins with a 2-arm, 1-kettlebell deadlift.  Every progression of swing we utilize for athlete begins with the slower and even simpler variation in the form of a deadlift.  We are able to progress through our stance variations in a manner that follows the NDC – symmetrical stance, asymmetrical stance, and then a transitional stage.  You will notice that I omitted single leg stance.  I did.  We don’t believe “single leg” is actually a developmental stance.  We do believe that people can stand on one leg and do all kinds of things, but when you look at the development of human movement competency where to we see a static single leg stance?  Seriously, where?  What we see is a transition that occurs on one leg that connects asymmetrical stance on the left to asymmetrical stance on the right to asymmetrical stance on the left… That is called gait. Do it slowly, and its walking; do it fast, and it is running.

When we see the expression of people being on one leg during work, life, and sport it is as a transition.  There are some exceptions – figure skating and martial arts.  But, even in ballet, dance, and gymnastics (where we see a TON of single leg “stuff”) it is rarely statically displayed; single leg stance is occurring with the purpose of getting from point A to point B.

Digression Back to the Swing. Again.

So we are back to the swing again.  Every variation of the swing we teach evolves from a deadlift that is exactly the same as the swing.  All a swing is, is a ballistic deadlift.  Therefore a deadlift must just be a really slow swing.  We progress through the following in the lower body:

1. Symmetrical Stance.
2. Asymmetrical Stance Right and Left.
3. Transitional Stance Right and Left. (With this, we actually move our base of support.)

In the upper body, we follow a similar but different progression.

1. Symmetrical Grip.
2. Asymmetrical Grip.
3. Transitional Grip. (With this, we move the bell between hands.)

In Conclusion

The purpose of swinging a kettlebell for an athlete is to get a direct carryover of an athletic attribute into their sport.  The most basic attribute that we can discuss is the ability to asymmetrically generate and absorb force.  No matter how we swing the bell, we have to continue to honor the stable spine and dynamic hips that make a swing a swing.  And, we have to follow the rules that are established within the NDC. Otherwise, we are just randomly mixing in variations of swings, not progressions of our swings to make our athletes better.  Regardless of how advanced you want to make your swing, that only happens if you have displayed mastery of the foundational 2-arm swing.  To do that – find a StrongFirst instructor.