Walking Swings

[Greg Everett]

Mr. Jason C. Brown and his kettlebell circus. Good stuff to mess around with as always.

http://www.kettlebellathletics.com/K...ingVideos.html

[Ron Nelson]

Signed up for his newsletter. Looks like solid stuff.

. . .and it's free.

[Steve Shafley]

Hah. I just gave him some shit for sending 3 emails about a teleconference with him and Zack Evens-Esh in 4 days. I think he might have manually unsubscribed me.

Regarding walking swings:

What's is the benefit of doing these instead of swings? Just to switch things up?

I can see that they might be a nice progression for complexity of movement, but sometimes adding complexity without a clear reason for doing so isn't worth it.

How many sessions of walking swings have you done in the last 4 weeks?

Is this something you have your clients do on a frequent basis?

[Rick Deckart]

Hmm, personally I would not use such an exercise, instead I would either combine running 400m in 5K or even better in one mile tempo with 20--25 KB swings (doing a couple of rounds of the complex) or simply swing more weight, that is, do double KB swings.
I agree with Steve on this one, complexity is good if there is a good reason for it, and with walking swings I don't see the reason.

Regards,

Peter

[Craig Cooper]

C'mon, somebody's got to be able to think of a functional application of this

[Steve Shafley]

Craig, that's not one of them Bulgarian wresting bags in your avatar, is it?

The whole discussion of the role of variety in exercise movement selection is probably one worth having.

[Catherine Imes]

Walking swings be it lateral or just regular walking swings are a good coordination drill. Swing step/swing step. It's not that hard, but adds a little variety.

Also, they make a good group drill for Workshops, Boot Camp type classes, or even just something to do outdoors to add variety.... .Do walking swings 20 feet, drop do pushups. Do walking swings 50 feet, do Sandbag thrusters, ect...Just a creative variation.

If you've got a field or a track you can do them for distance. I don't consider them complex if you've mastered the basic swing. Just a little coordination challenge and can be a butt kicker.

All that being said, I don't ever do them in my workouts and my workouts are very KB centric.

CI

[Greg Everett]

I straddle the line on this one. I agree that there may not be an direct function translation for the movement, but that's true for many movements most of us accept as functional (e.g. snatch, hanging leg raise, evil wheel). I do like them though simply for the sake of variety--if you're a KB purist, it's just another way to not go nuts doing the same movements over and over again without really compromising the benefits of the swing.

[Ron Nelson]

Sorry, I just like free newsletters.

Actually, I'll try most things once or twice as long as they're not going to hurt me in the long run. I liked the walking deadlift idea posed by Chad Waterbury (although, knowing the S&C world, he got it from someone else), but I don't do them all the time. Just when I want to mix it up, have a little fun, and have people stare at me in the gym. Sort of like when I'm doing waiter's walks with 85# around all the benchers.

I doubt I could do a walking swing in a 24hr Fitness without causing widespread panic. (side note; one time I was blasting through a Fran workout and some dude is watching me with the weirdest look. He comes over when I've finished and asks what the hell I was doing swinging a 55lb dumbbell around. He thought I had lost my mind and was trying to hurt myself, but had terrible aim)

[Craig Cooper]

Greg - I couldn't agree more. I think that adhering too rigidly to purely functional exercises is extremely limiting. When, however, does something escape the realm of functionality and become useless, compromising results? BTW, why are the Snatch and Hanging Leg Raise not functional?