Western Movement
Posted by Gray Cook
Do You Favor a Specific Style of KB Swing?
Written by MobilityWOD FMS
Today we bring you part 2 of 5 of MobilityWOD's conversation with Gray Cook.
We regularly see athletes performing swings overhead without the requisite thoracic and shoulder capacities to be able to maintain positions of high integrity. What we normally see are internally rotated shoulders, bent elbows, overextended lumbar, and forward head on neck tensioning compensation. Yes, you can swing this way (I personally think the overhead swing tells us a TON of information about an athlete both when they are fresh and when they get tired….) but it creates several problems. First, the terrible shapes and patterns that the athlete are reinforcing with the poor movement just ghost/reinforce dysfunction in other domains (like doing anything overhead…). Second, when that compromised overhead KB shapes lends itself to a terrible start for the next swing cycle. I mean who wouldn’t want to be overextended and disorganized at the shoulders and elbows before breaking the fall of heavy piece of iron.
Needless to say, what if I did have full overhead capacity and solid spinal mechanics?
Which is better, the Western American style kettle bell swing or the Hardstyle swing popularized by Pavel Tsatsouline through his previous work with the RKC and currently with StrongFirst?
To hear Gray's answer please follow the link below.
