Jeff Martone has done a series of videos recently on the Crossfit site demonstrating kettlebell exercises. I have already pointed to the Turkish Get up tutorials.
Here he takes the basic kettlebell swing (which I showed him demonstrating here) overhead, into what Crossfit call an American Swing.
The basic swing taught by Pavel and others sees the kettlebell stop at around shoulder level, what Crossfit call the Russian swing. Their contention - explained in this article (pdf) - is that:
When we swing the kettlebell to overhead, the American swing, we nearly double the range of motion compared to the Russian swing and thereby double the work done each stroke. For any given time period, the power would be equivalent only if the Russian swing rate was twice the American swing rate.
One thing I've noticed is that if you do a swing with a dumbbell, for me the natural end point is with the bell overhead, possibly received with a slight dip in the knees or even a split stance. That is how the old time strong men like Grimek performed the lift in competition. Remember this video?
Ross shows what I mean 3:05 into this video:
Comments
A friend described it this way: if you were just muscling the weight up, slowly, without momentum, then yeah, a doubling of the work required might be true. But since momentum is a large part of the swing, while you might need a slightly stronger initial effort to get the swing going, you don't need 2x as much.
So, where does the ideal spot lie? I have no clue. I do think that it's safe to say that the overhead swing isn't a doubling of the work required to get the weight straight out in front.
Dave - it is similar but I think there are differences e.g. in the RKC style snatch there is a definite bend at the elbow as the arm goes past horizontal.