Maximizing Performance of the Kettlebell Swing

The kettlebell swing is a fantastic movement for the hips and hamstrings…. if done correctly. Improved speed, power, and vertical jumping ability can be yours through the mastery of this motion. Perform this powerful exercise without the proper foundation of movement, and you might find yourself unable to bend over and pick up that shiny nickel you spotted out of the corner of your eye, lying there on the sidewalk. If you are one of those athletes that move correctly and master the bell, your pulling motions will improve, and you will become a better athlete. If you missed it before, the benefits of the kettlebell swing can be summed up in my previous article: “Eccentric Overload Methods for Jumpers” . They include:

Kettlebell swings will provide a direct, velocity oriented training stimulus to the hips and hamstrings.
The swing is an excellent tool because the eccentric part of the movement can be performed faster than the speed of gravity. This allows for high ground reaction forces and acute increases in power output such as vertical jump height.
Kettlebells swings and snatches can help teach athletes a powerful hip hinge and explosive breathing patterns.

This second article in the series will cover everything you need to know about how to perform the hardstyle kettlebell swing. First off, the video below represents a standard kettlebell swing. A great movement, but it cannot be performed correctly without the right prerequisite movement patterns.

Prerequisites to the Swing

In order to really benefit from the swing, you must meet a few prerequisites. The first is that you know how to “hip hinge”, and hold a proper plank (preferably RKC). The hip hinge is a basic human movement that involves loading the posterior chain as the hips displace backwards into flexion. More simply put, it is bending at the waist without bending your back. With the use of proper teaching tools, many athletes catch on to this movement fairly quickly. So how does an athlete know if they can hinge correctly and are ready for swings?

The simplest way to check hinge form is to use a dowel rod and a wall. In the videos below, the use of a dowel rod and a wall are used to develop the correct patterning in this area.

Using the dowel to keep the spine in neutral

Using the wall to develop the hip hinge

You will notice that in the second video, Mark mentions to make sure you have that hinge pattern down before you start deadlifting or swinging. I completely agree. In my own work with athletes, and in the course of teaching fitness classes, I make this pattern a priority. I use these two patterns, and eventually a combination of them (using a dowel rod while you sit back to the wall) to help develop this pattern quickly and effectively. Once you have the hip hinge down, the next step is to learn to do it correctly with external loading, which would involve lifts such as the Romanian Deadlift. For athletes that struggle, try a single leg RDL first, before moving to the double leg version, as this can actually be easier to teach!

Another movement athletes need to be familiar with prior to doing swings is a standard plank. As strength coach Dan John has said, “every exercise is a moving plank”. Why? The reason is because the plank teaches athletes how to develop tension correctly, engaging the glutes, abs, and pelvic floor. When it comes to planks, the RKC plank is an exercise that can’t be beat. I strongly encourage the RKC over the standard version as it develops the tension we are looking for when it comes to explosive full body movements. The world record for holding a standard plank is well over an hour, and obviously, doesn’t require a whole lot of tension to be built. To be explosive, we need to learn to build explosive tension! Check out the video below on how to do an RKC plank properly.

Bret shows us Pavel’s RKC plank with Kellie Davis

Loaded Variations

Once an athlete has mastered the hinge and the plank, they are now ready for the loaded variations of this type of movement.

In performing a swing, an athlete should follow these steps:

To get the swing started hinge back and “hike pass” the kettlebell between your legs. You want to “attack the zipper” or “hit yourself in the crotch/genitalia/nuts, only to duck them up out of the way at the last second”. Don’t excessively bend your legs and swing the bell below your knees. This is the #1 difference between a bad swing and a good swing. Driving the bell below knee level will result in a lot of extra torque on your back and a severe loss of power through the hips and hamstrings. If you are proficient at the hinge, keeping the bell tight should be a lot easier.
Inhale on the way down and forcefully exhale to reverse the movement. Think of yourself as a karate master and give it a good audible exhale. Think of the loud exhale a karate master gives as he breaks a bunch of bricks/ice/boards/etc with his bare hands.
When reversing the movement, project your hips forward and contract your glutes hard. The kettlebell swing is also about building and releasing tension. At the moment you forcefully exhale, tension is quickly produced and then released. Don’t think so much about driving the hips up, or your will probably bend your knees too much. Drive the hips forward!
Swing the bell up to a position parallel to the ground and then bring it back down. A fitness movement that shall not be named advocates swinging the bell up above your head, but this destroys rhythm and the posture of the movement. Get it right, get it tight!
Once the bell is at a parallel position, accelerate the bell down with your hands, attacking your zipper/hike passing/etc., rather than passively letting it fall.
Repeat steps 2-5 for the desired amount of repetitions.

Could you tell what is wrong with a swing?

For some coaches, the kettlebell is merely a “novice replacement” for the Olympic lifts, but I think that they can fully contend with a lot of the benefits that the O-Lifts have to offer. (Don’t get me wrong, I love Olympic lifting, but they are not the end all-be all… and neither are kettlebells) Performed properly, the hardstyle swing is a force to be reckoned with, but you can really crank up the training effect with some advanced variations. If you are already familiar with Olympic lifts, you can use the swing to improve eccentric power AND enhance your cleans and snatches.

Advanced Kettlebell Swings

There are three primary versions of the swing that can be tweaked for more power, and they are also shown above in the video.

Banded Swing:

The banded kettlebell swing is a great tool to really push the speed envelope on swings. The problem is that many people start doing banded swings before they can do regular swings correctly. Search through various videos available on the internet and many of them involve far too much bending at the knees and bringing the bell lower than they should. They also don’t seem to embrace the concept of using the band to “power down” the bell on the eccentric portion. Make sure you have a good handle on hip hinging and swinging before trying this variation.

In the video above, I am using a green “medium” band (which is quite difficult), but for most purposes, you are going to want to use the light/red bands or lower. For the purpose of the video, it was the only band I had sitting in my office, and one I would not normally use, but it does a good job of showing how tight and fast the motion is. Combine these swings with other hip dominant work for a nice complex effect in your training. Examples would be combination with deadlifts, cleans, snatches, overhead shot throws, standing long jumps, or another similar movement.

Swing with a “Power Jumper”

The second demonstrated exercise is the swing with a power jumper. I would typically prefer the banded swing to this variation, but if you happen to have a kettlebell and a power jumper, this is a nice alternative. The power jumper, like the jump stretch band, brings the athlete into a rapid eccentric decent, and improves power and ground reaction force.

Partner Assisted Swing

The easiest of these three variations to perform is that of the partner swing. The partner swing involves a partner pushing down on the bell once it reaches a parallel position. This is not only nice as a powerful variation of the real movement, but it can also be a nice teaching tool to help athletes learn the proper mechanics of the swing. Having a partner present to push the bell down will make sure that you aren’t swinging too high and are making sure to give negative speed to the bell on the way down. I would actually recommend the use of these partner methods as part of the teaching process.

Weight, Sets, and Reps

When it comes to the practicality of the bell, it is important to know what kind of weight, sets and reps they should be using.

Weight

In regards to the amount of weight that athletes should be looking at using for swings, Brandon Hetzler, RKC, gives a great answer. “My research and experience has indicated for the 2 hand swing a KB of 28-30% of the individual’s bodyweight is optimal. Heavier, and the movement slows down too much, too light and the load won’t be enough to stimulate the desired change.” We need to remember that the kettlebell swing is about force production and need to be treated along similar lines as a plyometric exercise, as we want to develop maximal power.

Sets, Reps and Frequency

There are a lot of ways to skin a cat. Just look at the myriad of ways to train the squat or clean that exist. There are many ways to incorporate the kettlebell into training, and a lot of it depends on how big of a chunk of your training it is taking up. I would say a safe and conservative method would be to get 2-3 sets of 5-10 solid reps in prior to the main lifting segment of your workout.

Looking at Brandon Hetzler’s philsophy: “As far as sets and reps – anything over 10 reps and the quality of the swing decreases to less than optimal, so sets of 10 or less are ideal. Typically, I begin with 3-4 set of 8 quality reps (we might do a total of 6-8 sets to get those quality sets in. I will progress to 5-6 sets of 8-10reps for my high level athletes. Traditionally, we swing during every training session for every athlete. This will range from 2-4 times per week depending on each athletes schedule.”

Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with doing swings each training session. The movement is relatively low impact, and sets and reps can be manipulated on a daily basis. If you want to teach athletes a good hip pop in a hurry, the kettlebell swing may be one of the fastest working tools you can use to get this accomplished. In doing swings each day, you probably wouldn’t want to do a banded or partner swing every single day, but you could certainly bang out a couple sets of 10 easier reps on a lighter training day. Of course, simply performing them to complement your other explosive training a couple of days per week would work out fine as well.

What if I don’t have any kettlebells?

In my opinion, a dumbbell is the next best thing. Unfortunately, the way you hold a dumbbell isn’t going to work the best, and the unique way to grip a kettlebell gives it a nice advantage for these movements. If you don’t have a kettlebell, just go with a dumbbell until you can buy/find/make a kettlebell. I wouldn’t
recommend substituting anything bigger than a dumbbell for hardstyle swings because it makes it difficult to “attack the zipper” with something that has a lot of volume. You might not be able to get out of the way in time…..

Conclusion

With that said, get out there and give it a shot! Remember, training is a lot more than muscles, it is about teaching skills. The kettlebell is an awesome tool to teach athletes some very important skills, helping them become faster, explosive, and dominant on the field. It is a wonderful tool to have in your training toolbox, and I strongly believe it will help you become a better athlete or coach.

Brandon Hetzler’s wonderful website on kettlebell training can be found here:
www.simplykettlebells.blogspot.com

Also thanks to Bret Contreras for his instruction with the RKC plank, Tony Gentilcore for demo’ing the dowel hinge, and Dan John for being the man when it comes to “all things swing”.