The Power Swing.

The background for my new business cards :))

I talked a little about this new method of training the swing and snatch that Tracy and I developed during an HKC trying to troubleshoot a candidate that could not reset his hips very well after the first rep. He could do so well at the start of the hike pass but then would stay too upright for the his subsequent swings.

I fixed that by having him replace the bell on the ground for each and every rep after that, as a muscle memory drill and it worked. I just thought of it as another good cue to use with a student but Tracy took the ball and ran with it creating all kinds of new ways to program it for her classes.

Being a powerlifter at heart I quickly realized that here was a way that I could get away without doing so many reps per set, lift even heavier AND not only keep the speed and power levels up but INCREASE them.

This was a way to train the swing for SINGLES and make it even harder than rep sets. The pure essence of Hardstyle, if you will.

" We choose Power over efficiency. Striving for max acceleration in the quick lifts and max tension in the grinds".

This IS the definition of RKC Hardstyle and here was way to really train the swing and snatch for max acceleration.

Tracy called the technique simply : Hike, Swing, Park" as it describes what to do perfectly. But the more I have trained them the more I want to call them Power Swings, as this perfectly describes the intent of each and every rep.

It immediately reminded me of training box squats WSB style. The reason WSB squats onto boxes instead of free squats is that sitting on the box deactivates the stretch reflex, which really helps one coming out of the bottom of a squat strongly.

The same reason touch and go benches are easier than paused benches is that the pause (somewhat) diminishes the stretch reflex and makes the lift harder. Pausing on a box before standing up requires one to overcome way more inertia and teaches one how to increase their starting strength, rate of force development as well as speed strength.

AND you can use less weight and get more results. Nice.

The Power swing does basically the same thing for the kettlebell swings BUT I've found I can actually use MORE weight in each set, although for significantly less reps. Getting more with less, sounds good.

Because I get to re set up before each rep and make sure I am in the perfect start position it feels very safe as well.

I talked to Pavel about this and he said he guessed it would require 35 % more energy to do the same work than if done with the stretch reflex engaged! That's a lot. PLUS you get the extra benefit of all that static strength in the bottom position.

This is detailed in our new DVD that Dragon Door is producing on Master the Hardstyle Kettlebell Swing but here's what it looks like:

You can apply the same techniques to the snatch as well. Here is my last set of 5's with the 24 kg:

The DVD should be out before we know it.We've seen the rough cut and man we are proud already !!

Starting each set from a dead stop is NO JOKE.
Enjoy

The workout:

7:30-8 am stretchout( REALLY needed this. Got serious Multiple DOMS from the tues, wed and thursday workouts,lol) Plus I did not stretch out as seriously as I needed to afterwards and things are tightening up fast. Especially the lats with all those swipes.

No worries just have to stretch them out but my stretch work is a workout many times holding poses for 3 minutes plus!

I'm not always in the mood :))

8am

One arm swings

16kg x5/5+5 transers x 2 sets

20 kg x5/5/5

24 kg x5/5/5

28 kg x5/5/5 x 5 sets

32 kg x 5/5 x 3 sets

This went very well and the weights felt light even though my arms were still a bit sore and tight.Nice to play with the two pood again.

Power snatch

16 kg x5/5

20 kg x5/5

24 kg x5/5

man there is not much volume there but it kicked my ass! and nicks too.it just makes it so easy to try to accelerate each and every rep maximally ( concentrically). I make sure to keep the one arms using the stretch reflex to train that too.

I plan on moving the lifts around on this day to make sure I don't favor one form of ballistic development over the other. it will create a natural periodization. I almost started with the two hand swing but tried to "stay on schedule", i.e. what I wrote down earlier. Mixing it up according to what is most fatigued makes more sense.

Power Swings

24 kg x10

28kg x8

32 kg x6

36 kg x 5

40 kg (!) x 5

Nice! this was the first time I have swung the 40 in ages and it was strong. I stopped there from either doing another or more sets or going up because the bell speed was slowing down at the end of the set and that's the cue your power output is going down. Plus I was tired,lol

Tactical Pullups

3,3,3,3

12 kg on foot x 1/2

wow.I've been working with a client that's going to Level 2 in Hungary with Tracy and I and I will be teaching the tactical pullup at the cert and have been thinking that since I can press again perhaps I can do pullups again without locking up my shoulder.

This day seemed like a good day to put them and they were easy. I really focused on my hollow position with toe flexion and pulled with the elbows in touching the neck at the top. Still need way more shoulder extension to get to the collarbone but it's a good start.

Put the 12 kg bell on my toe just to see how it felt and it felt hard! Man, I could feel every flexor muscle in the front of my body tighten up as I pulled. Half way is a good enough start and I want to workout up to 5x 5 before I start adding more weight.

This getting better stuff is FUN! It's 12:34 now as I write this and I already feel way recovered. Nice.

datsit;))