Coach Tips: Russian vs American Kettlebell Swings

Introduction

Today we're going to talk briefly about kettlebell swings, more specifically the difference between an American swing and a Russian swing.

Russian vs American Kettlebell Swing

We’ll now start to unpack the main difference between the Russian Kettlebell Swing and the American Kettlebell Swing.

Russian Swing: We're only taking that kettlebell to around hip height.

American Swing: We’re taking the kettlebell overhead.

One of the common faults that I see from people, is treating their American swing like it's a Russian swing.

It's where we have this big arcing C shape from the hips overhead, and that's going to go wrong either by going too far overhead, or not being able to repeat the next rep as efficiently. 

So, let's look at the two movements. Russian, we're going to go shallow through the hips, punch to around hip height, delay that hinge until the kettle reaches the crease of our hips.

Whereas American, we're going all the way up overhead, and it's a much shallower arc from hips to overhead. 

So, this is what I want you to think about next time you're hitting them. When we do Russian, we're trying to press away from us. When we're doing American, we're trying to pull out of the hips, more vertically, so that we can press overhead and then go through the next cycle of your reps.

Conclusion

This comprehensive breakdown has broken down the main difference between the American Kettlebell Swing and Russian Kettlebell Swing. Both movements play a role in our functional training programme, functional bodybuilding programme and Hyrox training plan. If you want to support your training, be sure to check out our range of protein powders, such as our micellar casein, plant protein, and whey protein powder.