American vs Russian Kettlebell Swing: Let’s Settle the Debate

Update: Aleks Salkin and I recently got on the podcast mics to discuss this most contentious fitness topic. Please listen before reading the article!

American Vs Russian Kettlebell Swing: Let’s Settle the Debate

So we’re back to having the age-old debate of whether a person should perform a kettlebell swing in the atheistic-communistic Russian style or like an honest God-fearing, gun-toting American. Perhaps those qualifiers are unnecessary. Perhaps an exercise doesn’t need to make any religious or political or even nationalistic commitments. But these things sure do make the debate interesting. Otherwise, what do we have to talk about? Biomechanics? Pft. Nobody wants to talk about biomechanics. Come on.

But I suppose we should restrict ourselves to the technical details and leave polemics  aside, at least for our discussion today. Because all we want to know is which style of kettlebell swing — if any — is superior or more appropriate or better, or what.

Here’s what brings this debate back up.

Some guy (who I’m sure is a very nice person!) from Men’s Health said you should never do the American-Style Kettlebell Swing. Ever!

==> https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a27434900/american-kettlebell-swing-bad/

(By the way, gotta love the tail on this URL. “American, Kettlebell, Swing, Bad!” says Hulk)

Well, here’s my question for this guy.

Not even to save a baby panda?

To be fair, I’m not sure if he considered the baby panda scenario — almost nobody considers the baby panda scenario — but he did say don’t ever do it. So I’m just going to assume he hates baby pandas. Men’s Health hates baby pandas. There you go.

That said, it’s funny people are still talking about this. Because I do remember recording a podcast a week or so ago to discuss this very matter, so I just supposed that would be the end of the debate. Pat Flynn hath spoken. What more was there to say?

In case you missed it:

EP 268: Russian vs American Swing, Strength vs Conditioning, Philosophy vs Faith

The short thrust of this gentleman’s argument is that the American Swing (which is the style you see in Crossfit, with the kettlebell launching overhead) is inferior to the Russian Swing (the way you typically see me do it) for various mechanical reasons — people often lack the requisite shoulder mobility, or wind up squatting, rather than hinging, the exercise, etc. Many of his arguments I would agree with, but I’m not sure his conclusion follows that a person should never do the American Swing.

Here’s a response I gave to a friendly man on Facebook (original thread here) who said we should perhaps be asking why a person can’t do certain things biomechanically, rather than ignoring all the things a person is incapable of and treating them like a total invalid rather than addressing their issues.

“These are good perspectives, Will. As coaches, we should constantly be assessing and addressing the movement quality (or lack thereof) of our clients. But with every exercise, what needs to be kept in mind is the intention.

What am I doing this exercise for? The purpose behind the exercise is what should determine how that exercise is performed. For people who want to develop power through the posterior chain and practice a clear hinging pattern, the so-called ‘Russian’ swing makes a lot of sense.

The American swing does tend to get a little squatty. That said, perhaps a person is specifically, and for whatever reason, trying to emphasis the anterior chain in this way. Is that variation then wrong? I don’t see any reason to think so, at least not initially. And surely I can think of at least one reason to perform an American Swing: Competing in Crossfit. While I haven’t taken part in any XFit events myself, they probably wouldn’t count your reps unless you took the bell overhead (correct me if I’m wrong), so you’d just be ruining your chances by performing Russian Swings. So, as always, context is king.

Strong arguments can be made for why an exercise should be performed biomechanically this way rather than biomechanically that way, but many (if not most) of those arguments are entirely arbitrary until we have some clear purpose in mind we are intending to achieve.”

Here’s the point. While I commonly advocate for — and I hate calling it the Russian Swing — but you know what I mean. The swing that goes in front of you and is clearly a hinge. So yes, Russian style. The reason I recommend that style of swing is for all the reasons stated above. It blasts the posterior and strengthens the back and is super fun. You also learn to hinge properly, which is nice.

As for the American Swing, I admit I have yet to find a very useful place for it in my programming. I think there are better exercises if we want a more anterior focus, and if we are really determined to bring a kettlebell overhead because of some deep-seated primal urge resulting from years of unconscious sexual repression (or whatever the psychologists come up with), we can always snatch. There are other ways to relieve ourselves.

I hope this settles it. There should never be any need to have this debate again. We can now move on to more productive and seemly leisures — or actually doing exercise, rather than debating exercise. So I leave you with this: two videos breaking down the kettlebell swing in a way that would make Papa Putin proud.

Strong ON!

– Pat

PS – You can grab 101 free kettlebell workouts here. They’re delicious. And juicy.

==>  https://www.chroniclesofstrength.com/kettlebellworkouts