Hit some Swings
Cool picture, isn't it?
I love to do kettlebell swing for my conditioning. My body gets well trained by it, and I feel great after training.
I think a range of hip motion is the most important thing for MMA fighter. Kettlebell swing trains hamstring too. I mean pretty much every part of my body. I am focusing on explosiveness when I make a snap-on hip.
I use 32k. I can go for heavier, but I want to keep good form and explosiveness,so I guess this is good weight for me.
MMA is filled with explosive bursts that last anywhere from 5-15 seconds. After those bursts, the fight might go back to some standup where fighters will be throwing jabs, leg kicks and fakes to set up take downs, etc.
So how can you program the kettlebell swing for this type of energy expenditure?
I thought you’d never ask!
Brandon Hetzler has done some great research on the kettlebell swing. His studies utlizing the force plate tell us that swinging a kettlebell that is roughly 30% of your bodyweight is ideal for power production on the concentric part of the swing.
For more info check out: http://scienceoftheswing.blogspot.com
It is essentially an alactic capacity program based off of the 2-handed swing.
The goal with this program is two-fold:
Maximum power production during the swing phase
Maximum relaxation during the rest phase.
If your goal is strength, feel free to use a heavier bell, but just realize that you might not be able to implement the same volume in your program. If you try this with a beast, you will regret it.
