Introducing
I’m Stefan Schwitter, 38 years old and a former professional wrestler. I did wrestling for seven years and was in 13 different countries. Wrestling was already my absolute career aspiration as a child. I then launched my own fitness and relaxation concept “Zenmove” in Zurich in 2016. I still run it today with a very good team. Privately, I break Guinness World Records – I’ve already broken one record and the next one is coming up, for 24 hours of kettlebell swings. I’m really looking forward to it, but I’m also a bit nervous. My previous record was with kettlebell swings. Moving as much weight with a kettlebell as possible in one hour. For my next record the bar is already very high – it is still a kettlebell swing, but for 24 hours – so in a way it is an ultra marathon in this discipline. I was so fascinated by it because A, it’s for 24 hours, the spirit or the mental has to be extremely there and B, how I function there fascinated me from the beginning. That’s why I set my sights on the record and have been training for it for about a year.I came up with the idea because I already hold the hour world record and have always said to myself, “yes, if I break this hour record is enough for me”. But because I still have the sportsman and athlete in my genes and need challenges – both in my professional and private life – I said to myself, okay, if there is to be an improvement, there has to be a big one. This was then the next discipline, to set my sights on the kettlebell swings world record over 24 hours and to put it into practice.
Preparation
My physical preparation consists of a workout almost every day. I have four different kettlebell swing workouts with different cadences. The smallest and shortest session is 20 minutes and the biggest and longest session is 1.5 hours. I try to “overpace” these sessions so that I get the feeling of kettlebell swinging and can continuously improve. On the side I follow my own concept “Zenmove”, where I stimulate all muscles within 12 minutes. This is very important because I always have the same mechanical sequence when kettlebellswinging. This way the other muscles can still do their job and support me during the swing. That’s why Zenmove training, which I do twice a week, is crucial for me.
Mental preparation is very complex. There is no way to say that’s exactly what I’m doing. I don’t look at a candle for ten minutes as a focus exercise. Nevertheless, the word meditation is crucial for me in my life. I have been involved with it since I was seven years old. This meditation is part of my life and I get an inner calmness from it, which is very crucial and encouraged by it. It’s almost the most important thing for the 24-hour record attempt. No matter how tired your body is, your mind has to be able to keep supporting you. Therefore, you have to be very very strong mentally.
The mental state you are in is crucial. The body gets more and more tired, and when the body gets more and more tired, what your mind does with that information is crucial. If you are already groggy, and you notice that your grip is weakening, but you still have twelve hours to go, then how calm you are inside is crucial. Otherwise you lose even more energy because you stay with the bad. But how can you carry your body over this period and this distance so that you can hold out until the end. The mental aspect is decisive here.You have to be convinced when you do something like that. People usually say to me, “you’re not quite normal”, which is kind of true. You have to function over this 24-hour period, which is quite impossible for the mind because there has to be continuous performance over the period. You don’t sleep and there’s no long break in between. I have the conviction to do it. I’ve done a lot of athletic things that were questionable and sometimes dangerous. Dangerous in the sense that I shouldn’t be doing any sport now, but I’m breaking a record on the side. I simply know that this is how I perform. I always perform best under pressure. But I put this pressure on myself, which is also apparent with regard to the 24-hour record.
Early preparation is crucial so that I can approach this record with a certain amount of confidence. I’ve never done 24 hours in a row before, which is not absolutely necessary for this record. A twelve-hour window shows me what I really need to prepare for. You can’t compare it to a 100m sprint. A marathon is also something completely different – but both are running. It’s the same with kettlebell swinging. The strategy is much more sophisticated because there are many more escape routes. What if I can’t do the first phase as I planned? This is followed by plan b or the contingency plan, which I have already put together. The whole strategy actually has to be completely covered from the beginning, how I want to approach and implement this record. Then there is the eating strategy, how I take care of my body during the run, what I do during the breaks. I am still working out these points in the final phase.
Strategie
Strategically, all the possibilities in the world are open to me. I only see the 24-hour record. There is a huge number behind it, which I have to break down for myself. The question is, with which ball will I make the record – for me it is the 32kg ball, the beast – but the previous world record was made with the 24kg ball. There are two very different strategies behind this. To break the record, I would tend to have to do five swings every minute, continuously for 24 hours. But this does not correspond to my plan. I will always work for an hour and do a clean 13 reps every minute to be on the safe side. There are also certain guidelines that are set by Guinness and have to be approved by judges afterwards. I will always do one hour of swings, one hour of rest, one hour of swings, one hour of rest. This is my basic strategy, which I have seen from the beginning. If you are on the ball too long and your hands come undone, there is no contingency plan anymore and the record is screwed. This must not and should not happen! That’s why I work for an hour and then take a break for an hour. But I have to be able to keep up the pace.What will happen? You can imagine this like a battery that is continuously emptying. The body also loses an extreme amount of salt, the brain and mental focus will also decrease more and more because it is a huge and long record. That’s why the breaks are essential. It’s not about being able to lie down for an hour. Because if I fall asleep there – I discussed this with a brain researcher – my brain could send out completely different waves afterwards and it could be fatal for the rest of the course. So I have to make sure in the breaks that I don’t fall too low, but still come down to a certain level. I also have to mentally include and target these points. This is a large part of the strategy, besides which I also have to balance the water and salt balance, supply the brain with sugar but not overpacify it and thus do the right thing at the right time.
The right kettlebell
What is important for me in kettlebell training is that I know the ball. All balls are different, even if they don’t look very different at first glance. I have also tested different balls in this course. It has to sit well in my hand. I have relatively small hands and can therefore grip the ball well. The little finger has to have a place. What I have noticed, however, is that there is an extreme load on the fingertip of the index finger. I only noticed this during my twelve-hour attempt. The current record holder still can’t feel his ring finger – six months after the record, the finger is still numb. I only realised this now, that I have to include everything. I have to have a good relationship with my ball, so to speak. I couldn’t do it with just any ball. The ball and the grip are crucial.Of course, there are 100 different kettlebells on the market. I got the hour world record with a kettlebell that didn’t suit me and I shouldn’t have done it that way. When I prepared for the 24-hour record, I knew that I had to work with the best ball. I need a completely different alignment for that. So I ordered a ball from cross equip and was extremely satisfied. The ball fits very well in my hand. For example, the hollow kettlebell with the hole at the bottom doesn’t suit me because I have no room for my little finger. It would be fatal to work with this kettlebell. But the 32kg Competition Kettlebell suits me perfectly and I will try it. I hope I can go all the way with this kettlebell.
Cooperation with cross equip
I am really happy that I now have the partner “cross equip” at my side, who provides me with this wonderful location, in which I will also do my record attempt. It was always important for me to have a high room for my record attempt, as it will take place in August. I also found a cool person in Felix and had a good exchange. He supported and advised me well on the choice of kettlebell. I hadn’t held a hollow kettlebell in my hands before, so I was able to try it out for myself to see whether it would fit or not. The equipment and also the support are crucial and therefore I am very excited and looking forward to this partnership, the record, and all who will be there.
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