Hinge, hike, and snap your hips to float it up.
The power is all hips snapping, not your arms lifting, the bell should feel weightless at the top.
The swing is a ballistic hip hinge, the hamstrings load like springs as the bell hikes back between your legs, then the glutes fire to snap the hips forward and float the bell to chest height. Your arms never lift the weight, they just connect it to the hips, which is why swings build explosive posterior chain power instead of shoulder fatigue. It earns its place as the signature kettlebell movement, equal parts power work and brutal conditioning depending on how you programme it.
You are squatting or lifting with your arms instead of hinging. Push your hips back with a flat spine, keep the bell close on the backswing, and let the hip snap do all the lifting, the back should just stay braced.
Chest height. If the bell floats there weightlessly off pure hip drive, the rep is perfect, muscling it higher with your arms adds nothing except shoulder fatigue.
Both, depending on dose. Heavy low rep sets build hip power, high rep intervals like every minute on the minute turn it into some of the best conditioning you can do with one piece of kit.
