reckonerKettlebell swing
A hinge you do fast. You hike the bell back, stand up hard, and your hips throw it forward to chest height. It is a hip exercise with the glutes working harder than the low back2, not a squat and not a front raise.
Snap the hips, let the bell float.
- Pattern
- Hinge
- Trains
- Glutes, hamstrings
- Kit
- Kettlebell
- Loading
- A weight you choose
- Reckoner prescribes
- 3 sets of 8 to 12 reps at RPE 8
- Progression step
- 2 kg once the top of the range is clean
- Skill
- Technical
- Recovery cost
- Moderate
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Lower back
Muscles worked
How to do it
Set the bell a step in front of you
Feet a little wider than hip width, bell on the floor about a foot ahead of your toes. Starting it in front gives you room to hike it back with momentum rather than lifting it cold. Hinge, take the handle in both hands, and tip it toward you.
Hike it back between your legs
Pull the bell back high between your thighs like a football snap, forearms against your inner thighs, back flat. The hips go back and the knees bend only a little: this is a hinge2, and the hike is what loads it.
Stand up hard
Drive your hips forward and stand tall. The bell floats up to about chest height because your hips threw it, not because your arms lifted it. At the top: glutes tight, ribs down, legs straight.
Let it fall and hinge again
Let the bell swing down and hinge as your forearms meet your thighs, so the next hike starts on its own. Waiting until the bell reaches you keeps the hinge in the hips rather than in a back reaching for the bell. To stop, let it swing back one last time and set it down in front of you.
What goes wrong
Squatting the swing
A deep knee bend feels like using the legs properly. The bell travels low and the hips stop doing the throwing. The swing is a hinge: hips back, knees soft, shins close to vertical.
Lifting with the arms
Pulling the bell higher feels like more work done. The shoulders end up doing a front raise. Your arms are ropes. If the bell stops at chest height, that is the right height.
Leaning back at the top
Overfinishing feels like a strong lockout. It is your lower back bending once the hips have nowhere left to go. Stand tall, squeeze the glutes, and stop there.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, from 16 kg, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 x 8 at 16 kg | More reps 8 → 9 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 2 | 3 x 9 at 16 kg | More reps 9 → 10 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 3 | 3 x 10 at 16 kg | More reps 10 → 11 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 4 | 3 x 11 at 16 kg | More reps 11 → 12 repsYou finished every set with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7) and room left in the range, so the reps climb before the load does. |
| 5 | 3 x 12 at 16 kg | Deload 40% of sets offFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| 6 | 2 x 12 at 16 kg | Load up 16 kg → 20 kgYou hit the top of the range with three reps left in the tank (RPE 7), so the kettlebell weight goes up 4 kg to 20 kg. The weight went up, so the reps come down to eight. You are now working 8 to 12. The lighter week is over, so this is back to three sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
What does the kettlebell swing actually build?
Strength and spring in the legs. Six weeks of swings twice a week raised half squat strength and jump height in young men, about as much as jump squat training did1.
What weight should I start with?
In that six week study, men under 70 kg swung 12 kg and heavier men swung 16 kg1. If you have never swung, start lighter than that and get the hinge right before the bell gets heavier.
Will Reckoner put this in my plan?
Not by itself. The way Reckoner reads effort and decides a lift has stalled was built around slow lifts, and a swing is fast, so the engine never chooses it for you. You can still add it by choosing it, and it is loaded on the kettlebell rack's own steps. Lower back is recorded against it.
Similar movements
Reckoner has no other movement in this swap group.
Sources
- Lake and Lauder, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2012. Kettlebell swing training improves maximal and explosive strength twenty-one young men over six weeks of twice weekly training with a 12 kg bell under 70 kg body mass or 16 kg above it, raising half squat one rep max and vertical jump height with no significant difference from jump squat training. Over five years old, and still the trial that measured it
- McGill and Marshall, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2012. Kettlebell swing, snatch, and bottoms-up carry: back and hip muscle activation, motion, and low back loads seven men swinging a 16 kg bell, with the swing a hip hinge pattern and peak activation about 80 per cent of maximum in the glutes against about 50 per cent in the low back extensors. Over five years old, and still the study that measured it