01Foundation
10 hinges with a dowel on your back, head, mid-back and tailbone stay in contact
The eleven tests / Kettlebell swing
Test 04 of 11 · Strength
The kettlebell swing test, and the hinge underneath it
The rule. Two hands. The hips throw the bell, the arms just steer. Bell floats to chest height, spine stays neutral, and the bell never becomes a front raise.
The swing is the cheapest conditioning and hip strength you can buy, and it is also the movement most likely to hurt someone who skipped the hinge. The Foundation rung here is a dowel on your back, not a bell in your hands, and that is deliberate.
The four rungs
Find yourself on one of these.
Your level on this test is the highest rung you can hold cleanly today. Not the one you could hit on a good day five years ago.
02Working
20 swings · 16 kg / 35 lb
03Strong
50 swings · 24 kg / 53 lb · under 2 min
04Standard
100 swings · 24 kg / 53 lb · under 5 min
Where it goes wrong
The two that cost people a rung.
Mistake 01
Squatting the swing
If the knees travel forward and the bell dips toward the floor between the feet, that is a squat with a weight in it. The hinge sends the hips back, not down, and the bell goes back behind the thighs.
Mistake 02
Lifting with the arms
The bell floats because the hips threw it. Arms that pull it up to chest height turn a hip exercise into a shoulder exercise and take the whole point away.
Moving up
How to earn the next rung.
- 01
Dowel on the spine, ten times
Head, mid-back and tailbone all touching a broomstick, hips going back. Ten of those is the entire Foundation rung and it is not a formality.
- 02
Deadlift the bell before you swing it
Pick the bell up from between the feet with the same hinge, twenty times. The pattern is identical and it costs nothing to get wrong.
- 03
Sets of ten, not sets of fifty
Ten crisp swings, rest, repeat. Form breaks down around rep twelve for most people, and a hundred sloppy swings is how backs get hurt.
What this test needs
The kit that helps with this one.
Links go to Amazon and a purchase through one pays me a small commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change what gets recommended. The full list, with what each piece is actually for, is on the gear page.
Before you ask
Two questions that come up every time.
What size kettlebell should a 50 year old man start with?
Sixteen kilos, or thirty-five pounds, for most men. Twelve if you are coming back from a long layoff or a back that has given you trouble. The swing standard is built around a 16 and then a 24.
Are kettlebell swings safe after 50?
Safe when the hinge came first, risky when it did not. That is the whole reason the Foundation rung is a dowel drill with no weight in your hands at all.
Going deeper on this one: One Bell, Three Lifts
Read about itOn the channel
Watch the kettlebell swing tested at every rung.
What Foundation looks like next to Standard, filmed from the side so the form is actually visible. Every one of the eleven gets its own video.