Why We Don’t Go Overhead a Ton on Swings

Overhead swings are a fine movement and one that we do utilize from time to time. To help explain some important stuff about overhead, let’s first explain why we like the traditional Russian kettlebell swing first (the one that goes to shoulder height).

• Very Effective – Trains the total body in a head to toe, coordinated manner. Even muscles you think you aren’t using like your chest, abs, and calves. It truly gets everything.
• Strengthens the Anterior Core – Most kettlebell movements either transfer force through the core (swing, snatch) or require the core to be braced with peak tension (squat, press, Turkish get-up). This has a very positive impact on injury proofing the athlete and building resiliency.
• Builds Power and Strength – Explosive, high speed development of fast twitch muscle fibers.
• Strengthens the Lats and Glutes – The two most universal muscle groups in human movement. Our main bell movements focus on these two.
• Builds Grip Strength – Your grip and CNS are closely linked. The stronger your grip, the more motor units you tend to activate and the stronger you will be on your other lifts.
• Builds the Posterior Chain – The kettlebell swing builds the entire posterior chain, head to toe, in one unbroken movement. This has a very positive effect on our posture and combats the effect of sitting all day.
• Teaches Violent Hip Extension – An important skill to learn, the kettlebell swing teaches it quite well.

So, the reality is this movement is fine. It doesn’t need anyone to make it any better. But, some asshole one day came along and said, “This would be better if you went all the way up overhead” and thus the following benefit was added:

• More Lats – Increased ROM will always lead to more muscle activation.
• Increased Energy Expenditure – Same thing. Use more muscles, burn more calories.

However, this benefit occurs with two very, very important trade offs.

1. You have to go lighter – So yeah, you’re getting more ROM but at a lighter weight than an Russian swing. So is that really better?
2. Tough on the shoulder – The end rage is attainable for very, very few people without running into potential issues if chronically overperformed. Most often, folks end up compensating in their low back to achieve on overhead bell position so we like to be real careful of dosing.

We do plenty of things overhead. Presses, snatches, pull-ups, slams. We don’t really need to bastardize a great movement and add it to the list of things that go up overhead. It has its benefits, and we’ll dabble in them from time to time, but this is why we like to keep it traditional much, much more.

For all of these reasons, we like to prescribe swings at about a 10:1 ratio of traditional to overhead.

-Dave