Swiss Squat to Press

Tim Seinen

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing a man who was born and raised in Switzerland. At the lucky age of 18, he was conscripted to serve a mandatory 2 years in the military – as was the custom of his country. One of the exercises that he was “abused” with works perfectly well with my tool of choice. Although their military did not have Kettlebells to work with, the rocks they found worked just as well.

Start by placing the Kettlebell onto one of your open-faced palms– let’s start with the right. Use two hands if your not comfortable with juggling the bell into position – like a 2 hands assist for a clean. Now you have the bell in the “racked” position. Start by taking a deep breath, and slowly lower the bell into a parallel position with the ground. Lock your elbow into your stomach, and squeeze the bell as hard as you can. Slowly start to squat down, using your other hand for balance – be sure to look at the weight.

Once down, breath sharp and shallow through the nose, take a quick breath, and then grunt, pressurize the abs, and come back up. It helps to start your pressurizing with the glutes. If you take more time on the bottom, it will require more of a whole body “flex” to come back, as you will loose tension. Keep coming up, and when the bell is waist high, start to turn the bell as is you were going into a “Waiter’s Press”. Keep pressing up, and make sure the alignment in your body is correct. Keep your hips under the weight, intense flex of the abs, and push through the base of your palm. Make sure that your shoulder does not come up, by this I mean that your shoulder should not shrug. One way to combat this is to think of “pressing yourself away” from the weight.

Again, a quick breathe through the nose, start to “pull” the bell down. Never just yield to the weight – it will set you up for injury. Engage your lat muscles (a lat shelf), your biceps muscles, and with keeping your hips kicked over, pull the bell back into position for another repetition. Make sure to use a weight that you can already press. The bell on flat hand, is a little wobbly and requires more control.

 

For those of you who like it dangerous, throw in a complete windmill at the top. Go slow! It will require a cool head. If you feel that your going to loose the weight, or if your shoulder is not going to hold up, vigoursely push the bell away from you, and let it drop. There is no sense in getting hurt while practicing with Kettlebells. Another option is too use two kettlebells, one in each hand. Same principles are still applied, yet the working of both sides of your body at once is always a challenge. You can thank the Swiss for this one. Enjoy!