Kettlebell Swing Quotes

High-repetition kettlebell swings are known to help significantly with back tightness and pain. Why? Because kettlebell swings with light weights force your core muscles to stabilize your spine while simultaneously providing a stimulus for the back to become stronger under load.

doing the perfect kettlebell swing alone is superior to 99 percent of the sophisticated strength and conditioning programs out there.

1. She switched her breakfast to a high-protein meal (at least 30% protein) à la the Slow-Carb Diet. Her favorite: spinach, black beans, and egg whites (one-third of a carton of Eggology liquid egg whites) with cayenne pepper flakes. 2. Three times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday), she performed a simple sequence of three exercises prior to breakfast, all of which are illustrated in the next few pages: One set: 20 two-legged glute activation raises from the floor One set: 15 flying dogs, one set each side One set: 50 kettlebell swings (For you: start with a weight that allows you to do 20 perfect repetitions but no more than 30. In other words, start with a weight, no less than 20 pounds, that you can “grow into.

The easiest way to learn the swing is based on a method developed by Zar Horton: Stand with the kettlebell directly between the middle of your feet. Bend down and do deadlifts (head up,

As with all weight training, breathing is very important in kettlebell swings. This is covered more later, but basically the rule is to exhale on the lift phase, that is, as the weight being boosted and is swinging up. Inhale as the weight drops back down.

The two handed kettlebell swing is the foundation of all kettlebell exercises. It is very dynamic, involving swinging a heavy weight in a five foot arc, quickly repeated. The quick and continuous movement is very different in look and feel than most strength training. It offers an extremely quick way to be gaining, in just a few seconds, heart healthy cardiovascular exercise along with a body shaping muscular workout.

The exercise is also ballistic, which comes from the Greek, to throw.  In the kettlebell swing you do indeed then throw the weight upward, (while holding on to and guiding it), meaning you have to generate force quickly, challenging your rapid-growing fast twitch muscles.

The kettlebell swing involves holding the kettlebell overhand with both hands, swinging it behind and back through the legs in a hiking football motion, and then swinging up and out in front, powered by a snap of the hips. The swing momentum slows and stops with the kettlebell up at shoulder level, and then you guide it down again through your legs as you hinge forward.

This single exercise, when repeated enough, provides huge benefits in fat loss, muscle gain and cardiovascular conditioning.  Perhaps more than any other exercise, the kettlebell swing helps you slim down, pack on muscle and give your heart a healthy workout. This is why an entire book is devoted to it and to helping you do the swings that will revolutionize your fitness, strength and endurance.

Swinging the kettlebell tones the core and the muscles of the posterior chain, such as hamstrings and glutes. The swing replicates natural work movements of which we used to do a lot more, such as shoveling. The basic lifting motion is part of everyday need, such as lifting a child or hefting a bag of groceries.

The basic core kettlebell swings at the heart of your new fit and fierce life require some planning and execution. Healthy as they are and quick as they build muscle and fitness, kettlebell swings require effort. The benefits don’t come for free, but from hundreds of kettlebell swings each day.

In terms of preventing the sitting diseases, getting up out of the chair many times daily to do the exercise is one of the key benefits. Whichever your choice of 12, 8 or 6 sessions a day, you have to get up and actually do them.

Doing one 12 minute session, then sitting all day would be less effective in combating sitting metabolic disorders. Short sessions are better than other ways, too. A heavier kettlebell can be managed when swinging for minute and a half, versus 12 minutes. A 12 minute, 432 swing session would require a lighter weight than a 90 second exercise.  Muscle growth would be less robust with the lighter weight, although the 12 minutes at lighter weight makes for great endurance training.

Day 1: military press, row, squat, leg raise Day 2: pushup, YTWL, swing Day 3: Original Strength resets galore (breathing, neck nods, rolling, rocking, crawling)

A typical mistake is setting the kettlebell down sloppily, with a rounded back and the weight on the toes, following a hard (and often perfect) set of swings or snatches. Don’t! Mentally stay with the set until the kettlebell is safely parked. Lower the kettlebell in a way you would if you were planning to do another rep. Then let go, and only then relax.

Ripped calluses are manly, but since they make you lose training time, try to avoid them when you do your quick lifts. It is elementary, Watson—you must gradually build up the volume of swings, cleans, and snatches to let your skin adapt. You may want to sandpaper your kettlebell’s handles, as kettlebell sport competitors do. Remove the paint and smooth out the iron. Unlike presses and other grind lifts, swings, cleans, and snatches call for a loose grip. “Hook” the handle with your fingers rather than gripping it. Try to lift in a way that minimally stretches the skin on your palm. Figure it out. Load the calluses at the bases of your fingers as little as possible; let the kettlebell handle glide from the “hook” of the fingers to the heel of the palm and back in a manner that does not pinch the skin at the bases of the fingers. Do not let the calluses get thick and rough. Russian gireviks soak their hands in hot water at night, then thin out and smooth out their calluses with a pumice stone, and finally apply an oily cream or a three-to-one mix of glycerin and ammonia. I hang my head in shame to be giving you metrosexual skin-care advice. Speaks Brett Jones, Senior RKC, who gives his hands the double abuse of kettlebell lifting and extreme gripping feats: “Go out and get Cornhuskers Lotion and use it several times a day. This lotion is unique in that it is not greasy and actually toughens and conditions your skin. At night you may want to use a product that penetrates and moisturizes in a different way. Bag Balm and other heavy (oily) lotions can be used at night and can best be absorbed if you put them on before bed and wear mittens, socks or specially designed gloves available at some health and beauty stores. [Brett, I will take your word for it.]

I dare you to find a single exercise, kettlebell or not, that delivers more benefits than the kettlebell swing! Senior RKC instructor Steve Maxwell, a Brazilian Jiu-jitsu World Champion, has flat-out stated that doing the perfect kettlebell swing alone is superior to 99 percent of the sophisticated strength and conditioning programs out there. The swing is exactly what its name implies: a swing of a kettlebell from between your legs up to your chest level. The arms stay straight but loose; the power is generated by the hips. The motion is akin to the standing vertical jump, except the energy is projected into the kettlebell rather than being used to lift the body.

To make sure you’re swinging without using your arms, attach a lifting strap or very short rope [or a towel] to a kettlebell... “Try a few swings. If you’re driving the weight up with your hips, the bell, rope, and arm should all be in one line throughout the rep. If you’re using your arms, your hands will rise up above the strap and bell.

WORKOUT #1 1. Double arm swing to warm up. –x20 2. Military press (strict). –x10 3. Clean and push press. –x10 4. Cleans. –x10 5. One arm side press. –x5 (each side) 6. Overhead one arm squats. –x10 7. Lunges. –x20 8. Sumo deadlifts. –x20-50 9. Wrestler’s bridge press. –x10 10. Turkish get ups. –x5 (each side) 11. Janda or Ab Pavelizer situps. 12. Chin up ladders. –alternate with a partner. The circuit is done with no rest between exercises for one set of the above repetitions with kettlebells that weight about 23.6 kilograms or 52 pounds each. The workout is under 15.00 and I attempt to lessen the time every workout. Zack and Steve Maxwell are ready to take on their kettlebells.

You can think of the snatch as a clean to the point above your head. Do not even think about taking it on until you have mastered one arm swings and cleans! Stand over a kettlebell, your feet about shoulder width apart, your weight on your heels. Inhale, arch your back, push your butt back, and bend your knees. Reach for the bell with one hand, the arm straight, while keeping the other arm away from your body (initially you may help yourself by pushing with the free hand against your thigh but it is considered ‘no class’ by most gireviks). Swing the bell back and whip it straight overhead in one clean movement. Note that the pulling arm will bend and your body will shift to the side opposite to the weight. But you do not need to worry about trying to do it that way; just pull straight up and your body will find an efficient path in a short while. Do not lift with your arm, but rather with your hips. Project the force straight up, rather than back—as in a jump. You may end up airborne or at least on your toes. It is OK as long as you roll back on your heels by the time the bell comes down. Dip under the K-bell as it is flipping over the wrist. Absorb the shock the same way you did for cleans. Fix the weight overhead, in the press behind the neck position for a second, then let it free fall between your legs as you are dropping into a half squat. Keep the girya near your body when it comes down. As an option, lower the bell to your shoulder before dropping it between the legs. Ease into the one arm power snatch because even a hardcore deadlifter’s hamstrings and palms are guaranteed to take a beating. Especially if your kettlebells are rusty like the ones I trained with at the ‘courage corner’. It was a long time after my discharge before my palms finally lost their rust speckled calluses. Unlike the deadlift, the kettlebell snatch does not impose prohibitively strict requirements on spinal alignment and hamstring flexibility. If you are deadlifting with a humped over back you are generally asking for trouble; KB snatches let you get away with a slightly flexed spine. It is probably due to the fact that your connective tissues absorb shock more effectively when loaded rapidly. Your ligaments have wavy structures. A ballistic shock—as long as it is of a reasonable magnitude—is absorbed by these ‘waves’, which straighten out like springs.

Twice a week, a hard 12 minutes of the U.S. Department of Energy “Man Maker.” The Man Maker is a painfully simple workout that was devised and implemented at a federal agency’s academy by Green Beret vet Bill Cullen, RKC. Its template is simple: alternate sets of high-rep kettlebell drills—swings in our case—with a few hundred yards of jogging. Do your swings “to a comfortable stop” most of the time and all-out occasionally. Don’t run hard; jogging is a form of active recovery. Senior RKC Mike Mahler prefers the jump rope to jogging, another great option.

TASK: CLEAN Condition: Pick up a kettlebell, swing it back between your legs as if for a swing, and bring it to the rack in one smooth movement. Then drop the kettlebell back between your legs and repeat the drill for reps. The clean. Standard: 1. All of the points that apply to the swing, minus the straight-arm requirement on the top. 2. Don’t dip your knees when racking the kettlebell. 3. The kettlebell, the elbow, and the torso must “become one” on the top of the clean. The shoulders must be pressed down. 4. The arms must stay loose, and the hips must do all the work. 5. The kettlebell must travel the shortest distance possible. 6. Unacceptable: scooping; banging the forearms; stressing the back, elbows, wrists, or shoulders. Ladies should not hit their breasts with their arms or the kettlebells for health reasons.

TASK: KETTLEBELL SNATCH Condition: Snatch a kettlebell for repetitions with one arm and then the other. Standard: 1. All of the points that apply to the swing, (see pages 44-45) minus the requirement to keep a straight arm. 2. Pick up the kettlebell, swing it back between your legs, and snatch it overhead in one uninterrupted motion to a straight-arm lockout. The snatch. At the lockout, the arm must be level with the head or behind the head. 3. Catch the kettlebell softly without banging your forearm or jarring your elbow and shoulder. 4. At the lockout, the arm must be level with the head or behind the head. 5. Maintain the fixation for a second with the arm and legs straight and the feet and body stationary. 6. Lower the kettlebell between your legs in one loose, uninterrupted motion without touching the chest or the shoulder, and snatch again.

Dr. John Porcari, leader of the study, said, "So they were burning at least 20.2 calories per minute, which is off the charts. That's equivalent to running a 6-minute mile pace. The only other thing I could find that burns that many calories is cross-country skiing up hill at a fast pace." That's 1200 calories per hour y'all. And that doesn't even include the afterburn. I knew kettlebell training was awesome, I didn't know it was that awesome. But it totally explains the results people get. Read about the study in the January/February 2010 ACE FitnessMatters

Increasing workout frequency is going to increase your after burn.  By doing a workout every day, you can effectively raise your resting metabolic rate all of the time.

The way it works is you follow the 21 day program.  You'll do a kettlebell swing workout EVERY DAY for 21 days.  If you miss a day, you take a few days off and start over again at day one.  To complete the challenge, you must do 21 days consecutively.

Day One:  10 Minutes (200 calories burned+EPOC) -•- Beginner: 30-60 *walk/jog 3:00 or until warmed up 0:00-1:30 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 1:30-3:00 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 3:00-4:30 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 4:30-6:00 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 6:00-7:30 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 7:30-9:30 • 30 seconds swings  *walk 3:00 or until cooled down -

Day Two: 5 Minutes (100 calories burned+EPOC) -•- Beginner: 30-30 *walk/jog 3:00 or until warmed up 0:00-1:00 • 30 seconds swings / 30 seconds rest 1:00-2:00 • 30 seconds swings / 30 seconds rest 2:00-3:00 • 30 seconds swings / 30 seconds rest 3:00-4:00 • 30 seconds swings / 30 seconds rest 4:00-5:00 • 30 seconds swings / 30 seconds rest *walk 3:00 or until cooled down

Day Three:  5 Minutes (100 calories burned+EPOC) -•- Beginner: 30 swings / 60 rest *walk/jog 3:00 or until warmed up 0:00-1:30 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 1:30-3:00 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 3:00-4:30 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 4:30-5:00 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest *walk 3:00 or until cooled down

Day Four: 15 Minutes (300 calories burned+EPOC) -•- Beginner: 30-60 *walk 3:00 or until warmed up 0:00-1:30 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 1:30-3:00 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 3:00-4:30 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 4:30-6:00 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 7:30-9:00 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 9:00-10:30 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 10:30-12:00 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 12:00-13:30 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 13:30-15:00 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest *walk 3:00 or until cooled down

Day Five: 5 Minutes 100 calories burned+EPOC) -•- Beginner: 30-30 *walk 3:00 or until warmed up 0:00-1:00 • 30 seconds swings / 30 seconds rest 1:00-2:00 • 30 seconds swings / 30 seconds rest 2:00-3:00 • 30 seconds swings / 30 seconds rest 3:00-4:00 • 30 seconds swings / 30 seconds rest 4:00-5:00 • 30 seconds swings / 30 seconds rest *walk 3:00 or until cooled down

Day Six:  5 Minutes (100 calories burned+EPOC) -•- Beginner: 30-30 Swings / Plank *walk 3:00 or until warmed up 0:00-1:30 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 1:30-3:00 • 30 seconds plank / 60 seconds rest 3:00-4:30 • 30 seconds swings / 60 seconds rest 4:30-5:00 • 30 seconds plank / 60 seconds rest *walk 3:00 or until cooled down

Getting up out of our work chair, say once an hour, to do 90 seconds of kettlebell swings may well serve as the perfect preventive behavior to the onslaught of metabolic sitting disorders. Don’t let your chair and car seat disable you; fight back with kettlebell swings!

It’s no secret that kettlebells were standard equipment for Eastern Bloc strength athletes and old time strongmen—they are excellent for swings, laterals, rowing and a variety of throwing-related movements.

The clean draws its name from the requirement to bring the weight to your shoulders in one ‘clean’ movement. Pick up the kettlebell off the floor, the same way you would for the one arm swing. Note that the starting position for all the pulls, swings, cleans, and snatches is identical. Swing the kettlebell back and then immediately toward your shoulder.

Although the kettlebell swing is great for firming and shaping the arms, they don’t do the main work of lifting the kettlebell. The arms are relaxed, straight or slightly bent during the swings. Lift the kettlebell with a pop through your hips, not your arms. Your arms, forearms and hands will get plenty of exercise just guiding the weight, especially as it drops. No muscle group should feel any specific strain; your muscles groups should be working together.

The entire swing takes less than two seconds; my natural rhythm is 36 swings per minute, about 1.6 seconds per swing. This pace delivers 72 swings in two minutes. 54 swings in about 90 seconds is the basic goal of this book.

The great news is that this perfect exercise is open to nearly everyone, of all ages and physical conditions. The motion is natural and replicates (and assists in) many daily activities. The intensity of the exercise is directly controllable by how heavy a weight is swung, and for how many swings.

For the young and healthy, kettlebell swings offer a quick and easy way to gain peak physical form and conditioning. Perhaps more than any other single exercise, kettlebell swings build both endurance and strength. For people at mid-life kettlebells swings help keep off fat, build functional muscle and prevent sitting disease. Seniors have in the kettlebell swing the means to maintain vitality, prevent loss of mobility and fight wasting away from loss of muscle and bone by building new muscle and bone. Don’t act your age; keep yourself young and strong with kettlebell swings. People carrying too much fat often have too little muscle. The kettlebell swings help with both aspects, quickly dropping fat while rapidly building calorie burning muscle tissue.

Some people beginning kettlebell swings may start with no weight. Just doing the swings with your hands holding an imaginary weight is a great way to start and develop good form. The box squat where you squat back and down over a 20 inch box is another zero-weight exercise that helps strengthen muscles and prepare you for kettlebell swings. Swinging no weight or very light weight offers virtually everyone the opportunity to gain the benefits of kettlebell swings. Overweight individuals or those who have not exercised for a period are wise to get a feel for the swings with no weight.  Alternatively, a kettlebell of five pounds (2.3 kg) offers new users the feel and form of the weight and handles to grip.

Although training intensity can be reduced with lighter weights, especially at first, for full strength and endurance benefits you should eventually be swinging a fairly heavy weight for your minute and a half mini-workouts.

This book asks quite a lot of you in your quest to be fit and fierce. Twelve minutes of exercise, though astoundingly short in terms of the benefits they provide, is still not trivial. You are swinging a heavy weight for dozens, even hundreds of times a day. There had better be a pretty good reason why. There is! The kettlebell swing, with its mix of cardiovascular effort and fat-burning, muscle-building, strength-training may well be the best single exercise! Your kettlebell swings reward you, per swing, and per minute: • You look better! Fat loss, muscle tuning, body shaping, booty toning and posture improvement benefit your appearance, just as they improve your endurance, strength and health. • Your body is reshaped rapidly and muscles strengthened by your swings. Flab on your arms is replaced by functional muscle. Flabby thighs become sleek. • Your training makes you smarter. Well, at least helps you think better. Your swings flood your brain with fresh, oxygenated blood and top it off with a dose of testosterone. • Your general physical abilities improve markedly. You are better able to move, to carry things, to pick up kids, to play sports, to make love, to respond to emergencies with strength and endurance. • Your swings help your posture, allowing you to stand tall. The posterior chain, so well worked with kettlebell swings, includes the key posture muscles. • Your training makes your butt look smaller! Actually your butt becomes shapelier, as the gluteal muscles in the buttocks are key lifters of the kettlebell. You strengthen and shape you entire posterior chain. This focused exercise lifts, firms, tightens and highlights these assets. Each swing makes your butt look better! • The kettlebell swing may be the most effective single exercise for your heart. Swinging the weight rapidly brings your heart into the training zone.

Your kettlebell exercises strengthen your bones and fight osteoporosis. • Kettlebell swings are great for the back and can help overcome back pain and immobility. • Kettlebell swings are the fastest exercise. You can go from sitting to full exertion in seconds and be all done in little over a minute. • With your daily workouts, you will be fierce. And why not? You are slimmer, harder, taller, smarter, fitter, and your booty be bad! The twelve minutes are not done at once. As a matter of fact, eight sessions, each 90 seconds long may be optimal for exertion and spacing for maximizing metabolic risk protection.  Eight sessions has you exercising frequently throughout the day, in quick, easy sessions. Well, quick at least. Your twelve minutes is roughly the cardiovascular equivalent of running an eight minute mile pace for a mile and a half in 12 minutes. A moderate daily aerobic workout is a key component of nearly any health regimen.  It is very good for your heart health to raise your heart rate and respiration with cardiovascular exercise on a daily basis. In many ways, the first minute and a half of running a long distance is the most difficult part of a run, as the body shifts from rest to intense exercise. In this same way, the 90 second kettlebell swings are quite intense, as your body adjusts from no-load to heavy exertion immediately. Kettlebell swings represent a type of interval training, a short burst of intense exercise. Twelve minutes a day of kettlebell swings build muscle.  Muscles, generally, are a good thing, helping us be athletic, protecting us from injury, burning lots of calories and basically looking good. Twelve minutes per day is a very short time to build muscle, compared say, to a construction worker doing demanding physical labor all day. The construction worker will be well muscled, but not necessarily better than yourself, because you are harnessing the weight training effect with your kettlebell swings. You can build significant muscle size and strength with just these few minutes each day, while not having to spend the entire day in hard labor.

Experience and science agree that kettlebell training develops a wide range of attributes: strength and power, various types of endurance, muscle hypertrophy, fat loss, health, and more. The kettlebell swing has been known to improve the deadlift of elite powerlifters—and the running times of high-level long distance runners. This is what gireviks call “the What the Hell Effect.” The kettlebell defies the laws of specificity.

Two Arm Kettlebell Swing Start Position—Stand one foot behind kettlebell, grasping KB with both hands, loading the hamstrings with a good athletic posture Execution—Throw KB in a 'hiking' motion between the legs maintaining a good athletic posture. This loads the body. Then triple extend the hips, knees, and ankles in an explosive manner. At this time, the arms should serve as a tether, only guiding the KB to about eye level. The height of the KB is dictated by the explosiveness of the lower body. Return—Lower the KB by using gravity to control the KB back into the athletic position with the KB high in the crotch (ie. a witch on a broomstick)

​I always start the swing by standing a foot behind the bell. This helps to drive the bell behind the hips as I stand up for the first swing. Once the bell is behind my hips, I drive my hips forward and swing the bell out away from my body. The upward motion is only due to my arms being attached to the bell.

Week Mon Tue Wed Thur Fri Sat Sun 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 2 1 2 4 1 1 2 1 1 2 When we count swing reps, we add the number of times the kettlebell has gone up and pay no attention to what the arms do. So, on one-arm swing days, do 10L—rest—10R—rest x 5. On two-arm swing days, it is 10T x 10. You must have guessed that “L,” “R,” and “T” stand for, respectively, “left,” “right,” “two-arm.” Set Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 One-arm swing day 10L 10R 10L 10R 10L 10R 10L 10R 10L 10R Two-arm swing day 10T 10T 10T 10T 10T 10T 10T 10T 10T 10T

the swing, the arms work on the negative, the hips on the positive.

Kettlebell deadlift. The kettlebell deadlift primarily targets the posterior chain (lower back, glutes, and hamstrings). It is an excellent companion to the kettlebell box squat and additionally helps teach proper hip-creasing mechanics, creating an important foundation for the classical kettlebell exercises (e.g., swing, clean, snatch). With the kettlebell on the ground, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart with the kettlebell just in front of you (see figure 7.9a). Keep your chest lifted as you sit back with your hips until your hands can reach the handle (see figure 7.9b). Grab the handle with both hands and stand up by pressing your feet into the ground until your body is fully upright (see figure 7.9c). Repeat by sitting back to lightly touch the kettlebell to the ground. Do 10 controlled repetitions with a light weight and then repeat with a more challenging weight (e.g., women start with 8 kg [18 lb] for 10 repetitions and then use 12 kg [26 lb] for 10 repetitions; men start with 16 kg [35 lb] for 10 repetitions and then use 24 kg [53 lb] for 10 repetitions). This basic exercise teaches you to keep your center of gravity aligned vertically over your base of support. It is important to have control over your center of mass because kettlebell training involves such dynamic movements. A strong and stable base will keep you safe when swinging the kettlebell. KEY PRINCIPLES Crease at the hips instead of bending at the waist. Maintain a neutral spine and slightly arched lower back. Legs can be bent or straight depending on the desired training effect. Straight legs will recruit the hamstrings more and bent legs will recruit the quadriceps more.

Single swing. The single swing is the foundational movement of all the classical lifts. Within this exercise, you will find many of the universal principles and unique aspects of kettlebell training, such as inertia, pendulum grip endurance, and anatomical breathing. The swing needs to be mastered before moving on to the other classical lift exercises (e.g., clean, snatch). It cannot be understated: All other kettlebell lifts build upon the foundation of the swing. To perform this exercise, stand with the feet hip-width apart and with one kettlebell on the floor in front of you (see figure 7.10a). Sit back with the hips (think box squat) and with one hand, grab the handle with the fingers (see figure 7.10b). Thumb positioning for the swing can vary depending on the individual and the training goals. There are three options: Thumb forward, which allows for faster pacing due to minimized motion (creates a shallower downswing) and seems to be more comfortable for those with shoulder tightness because there is no rotation at the shoulder during this position. Thumb back, which provides better grip endurance by distributing some of the stress from the forearm to the triceps and creates more of a momentum-based movement because of the spiral nature of this variation (thus, there is a greater range of motion to reduce and produce force). Neutral thumb, which distributes stress more equally along the grip, arms, and shoulders. Next, keep the shoulders back and chest lifted as if you are going to do a deadlift, and as you begin to stand, swing the kettlebell between your legs (see figure 7.10c). When the swing reaches its end point behind you, stand up completely, extending the ankles, knees, hips, and torso (see figure 7.10d). Sustain this pendulum swing through the duration of the set. When performing this exercise, use one or two cycles of anatomical breathing (a cycle is defined as one exhalation and one inhalation). There are two variations you can use: Exhale at the back of the downswing and inhale during the upswing (one breath cycle), or exhale at the back of the downswing, inhale, exhale as the kettlebell transitions from the horizontal to the vertical plane at the top of the forward swing, and inhale as the kettlebell drops again preceding the next backswing (two breath cycles for every one swing).