Grand Slam Journey
This podcast discusses various topics around - sports, business, technology, mindset, health, fitness, and tips for growth. Topics range from what sports have taught us and how we transitioned from a singular focus and pursuit of our athletic goals and dreams to the decision to end our sports careers and move into the next phase of our lives. My guests share how they found their passion and purpose, tips for maximizing potential - holistically - physically and mentally, how they transitioned from one chapter of their lives to the next, and how to drive success in sport, business, technology, and personal life.
Grand Slam Journey
58. Aleks Salkin: Fitness Transformation with Kettlebell and Bodyweight Strength Training
Have you wondered how a simple fitness tool could revolutionize your life? Prepare to be intrigued as we dive into an engaging conversation with strength and movement leader in kettlebell and bodyweight fitness and author Aleks Salkin. We'll uncover how kettlebell training can transcend your fitness level, gifting you with immense strength, stamina, and mental toughness. Aleks's personal journey from a non-athletic kid to becoming a beacon of inspiration for many will leave you in awe and certainly challenge your perspectives on fitness and natural abilities.
Shattering misconceptions around fitness, we delve right into the heart of finding activities you adore as we unravel why fitness isn't just about training. As we dissect the benefits of kettlebell training blended with bodyweight calisthenics, you'll be invigorated with a fresh outlook on workout routines. Aleks generously offers practical advice on approaching fitness sustainably and enjoyably. Prepare to be inspired as Aleks guides us on kickstarting fitness journeys with kettlebells and natural movements, highlighting the importance of small, practical steps and a supportive environment.
Drawing from Aleks's books "The No BS Kettlebell and Bodyweight Kickstart Program" and "Tamers of the Lost Arc," we provide an extensive guide to kettlebell training and beyond that caters to beginners and advanced practitioners. We'll tackle the misconceptions around fitness and highlight the significance of integrating activities you love into your routine. So tune in and get ready for a fitness transformation journey packed with insight, inspiration, and actionable advice. You'll be eager to embark on a personal quest for fitness, strength, and resilience! This episode doesn't just invite you to listen; it's a potent call to action to start your fitness journey today!
Resources:
Alek's website: https://www.alekssalkin.com/
Free challenge: http://9minutechallenge.com
The No BS Kettlebell and Bodyweight Kickstart Program
Tamers of the Lost Arc: Insider Tips on Smashing Y
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A lot of my colleagues will I think correctly say that exercise should be like brushing your teeth. You know, it's something that you just do daily. Well, how many people do you think would brush their teeth if they had to drive 20 minutes to some teeth brushing place, you know, or had their dentist do it for them? A lot of people would not be brushing their teeth. And so one of the things that I think is so great about kettlebell training is not just that it's ruthlessly effective and it doesn't require a lot of time, but that it has some external benefits, such as the ability to take it anywhere you want to go and move with the natural movement patterns of your body, as opposed to locking yourself into a machine or wedging yourself onto a bench and things of that nature.
Aleks:And that's not to say that bodybuilding and powerlifting and things like that are not valuable, because they are, but they don't really speak to everybody the same way. Some people are going to be drawn to those things much more, and those people are going to see great results. But people who are not really drawn to it but they still want the benefits of incredible strength all day, stamina, flexibility, mental toughness, they can have something that's going to be much more convenient, they're going to be much more likely to do it, and when they see that it doesn't take a huge investment in time to give them really what seems to be like an outrageous amount of results in return, it's a no brainer, and I think it's much easier to convince people to stick with it.
Klara :Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grand Slam Journey podcast, where I, together with my guests, discuss various topics around sports, business and technology Three areas that have been part of my life and I'm passionate about, and I figured I'm probably not alone, and so this podcast is for anyone who wants to gain perspective from sports, how to grow your leadership in business and technology or any other areas of your focus. My today's conversation is with Alex Salkin. Alex is a strength and movement teacher who helps clients from all walks of life to achieve their goal of transforming their lives through natural movement and old school time honored strength training strategies. He's also an author of two books. His first book, the no BS Cattle Bell and Bodyweight Kickstart Program, was published in June 2022. It's a great brief book and manual for anyone who wants to dive into kettlebell training and learn about benefits of kettlebell as well as bodyweight movements. His second book, tamers of the Lost Ark, dives more into understanding of some of the ballastic movements around kettlebells and the arc, which I will let Alex explain. He's way better at it than I am.
Klara :Today's conversation is focused on health and fitness. Health and fitness is one of the areas that has been at the center of my life. Ever since I was a kid, this passion has driven me to take in a job at Apple. As a former athlete, I have been raised by sport and my coaches, and so you can imagine how activity and staying fit is essential for my life In. The older I grow, the more I ponder the differences of our upbringing and how something that comes as a second nature to me might not be very natural for others. In fact, that's very much of Alex's story. I was impressed by his journey from not being an athletic kid to now teaching and inspiring humans to get fit and be active. He has an interesting and very grounded and basic approach to things, which I really appreciate.
Klara :If you're someone who's been struggling with finding your workout routine, someone who says you don't have time in the day or you don't have access to the right equipment, or you just don't know what to do Well, this episode might be just the right one for you, and Alex gives some great tips, including resources that you can sign up for and start your fitness and health journey today. If there is one thing I would want to inspire you to have a conversation around during this Thanksgiving holiday is about your health and fitness. What do you currently do to be healthy, stay active and be fit? Is the program or routine that you've created for yourself working for you? And how about your family and friends? What are their health and fitness goals and how can you support each other on this journey of health and fitness? I'm not the one who will tell you the importance of activity. There's many other doctors and research and Mr Google where you can find all the answers. At the end of the day, I find that everyone needs to find their own journey to being the best version of themselves, whatever that means for you. For me, being active and fit is certainly one of the key pillars I have been focusing on and I'm very grateful for my athletic journey. Allow me to understand the benefits and keeping them at the center as I grow through life.
Klara :If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with someone you believe may enjoy it as well. Consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and don't forget to subscribe. With Black Friday coming up, you may also want to check out my links in the episode notes for Noble Cold Plunge and A Sleep. I find both of them have been a great addition to my routine and helping me achieve my human potential. This is your host, clara Egoshova. Thank you for tuning in, and now I bring you Alex Salkin. Hello, alex, welcome on the Grand Slam Journey podcast. Thank you for accepting my invitation. How are you?
Aleks:I am doing great and thank you very much for the invitation. It is great to be here.
Klara :I look forward to diving into Cattle Bells with you and getting fit. You sent me two books that you've written, and so I hope we talk a lot about that as well as your journey to Cattle Bells, because I found it fascinating the last time we spoke. But before we do that, I want to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself, please, to the listeners.
Aleks:My name is Alex Salkin, or, as my friends and colleagues and followers like to call me in kind of a tongue-in-cheek way, the Hebrew hammer. That is my nickname. I'll explain the story about how I even got the nickname, but one of the things that I think is maybe a little bit unique about me in terms of how I got into this field is that, unlike many of my peers, I did not grow up as some sort of like an athletic stud or like the star athlete and some sort of like a sport team, and in school I was the literal opposite in like every way, shape and form and I talk about this a little bit in Tamers of the Little Ball Stark that some of my athletic achievements and quote unquote involved stuff like getting pinned to the bench press in high school, and it was not a lot of weight. I wish my training partner had slapped some more weight on the bar to make it look like at least he was helping me with quite a bit more than I accidentally got pinned with. You know it usually got picked pretty close to last for most team sports. I wasn't particularly fast. He's very uncoordinated. I always liked the idea of being strong and fit and you know, some of my favorite movies growing up were the Indiana Jones movies and the Star Wars movies, stuff where there's like a lot of action and physical prowess that's required, but fitness and sports and stuff like that just seemed like it was sort of a thing that you were either good at it or you weren't, at least for my age.
Aleks:There was kind of like a gulf between what it meant to be physically gifted, let's say, and just like everybody else, and it seemed like there were a lot of the people who went into the field of teaching others or into coaching. They never really had to struggle, and so for them to build the bridge between you know what they could do like I have a gym teacher, for instance, who could bench 300 something pounds I think probably about 160 kilos for the European listeners for like sets of five just crazy strong guy. And you know he would of course have the football players and other athletes lifting weights, but some of them got pretty badly hurt because there were intricacies of learning how to build up to things like that that he just didn't quite understand evidently. And I was fortunate enough to suck at every single sport that I avoided that. You know the horrible injuries that some of my fellow students ended up getting.
Aleks:But you know, as I grew up, I never left behind that dream that I wanted to be strong and I wanted to be fit. And once I kind of started piecing together what the process was to do, that I started, I realized, you know, this is actually something that a lot of other people could do too, because it's not like I was finding some untapped abilities that just previously were unknown to me. It was that I was developing them from where I was. So it's true that I was kind of like, you know, geeky and dorky and uncoordinated and stuff like that, but there was a way out of it. And so I would say my big revelation was in being introduced to Kettlebell in particular, because I did other things prior to that, like martial arts and stuff like that Kind of like as my way of trying to move boldly forward toward being physically I don't want to say imposing, but we'll say like physically capable.
Aleks:And what was interesting with the Kettlebell and particularly, I would say, pavel's approach to Kettlebell training and Pavel being kind of like the godfather of Kettlebell training in the West is that it focused on reverse engineering what the best do, naturally and you know this might be a phrase that maybe you heard from Mark or Tracy Rifkin, because they've been very closely involved in Pavel's system over the years and it was something that I really, really liked and I took to it.
Aleks:It just seemed like it made perfect sense and then I found, okay, this is a great path to helping other people figure out how to bridge that gap themselves. If they were like me in high school or middle school or elementary school, and you know, every time before and in between, this might be exactly what they need. So, in a nutshell, I would say that is me. I would say I'm a reformed, awkward, gangly person who has learned how to take advantage of what God gave me, and my mission in life is to show other people who are just like me how to develop the person within themselves they know is deep inside them, waiting and willing to get out.
Klara :And hopefully we'll dive into especially that, because that sounds very interesting. I do want to touch base on a few things that you said. You said that you were actually a person who had to really learn how to be athletic, and so there's a difference between when you have coaches or trainers that never really had to struggle and it came to them naturally. It's actually interesting and something that I've discussed with Skip on a previous podcast how do you see that actually prepared you to be a better trainer and a coach?
Aleks:Hello, bells in particular.
Klara :I think in general, this is something that I ponder, even reflecting myself on some of the things that come to me naturally versus the ones that I really had to learn, my hypothesis or experience from where I come from. I feel like if there's something that doesn't come natural, you actually have to put in the extra effort and a process in order for your body to understand it and memorize it, and because of that I become better in teaching others how to do it, versus the things that sort of come naturally to me. I was like, oh, I don't really know, I never really thought about it, I just go and do it, that's how you do things. So I wonder if you have a similar experience with it, or even from your field, because you meet with a lot of different trainers and in your book you actually talk about some trainers that are just not teaching people the progressions correctly in one step at a time. How do you reflect on that?
Aleks:I think it's 100% true, and there are definitely things that I found that were harder for me to teach because I was naturally better at them. I would say flexibility and mobility. Those are two things that came more naturally to me and so I actually had to work harder to learn how to teach it, because I didn't have to work as hard to learn how to do most of the stuff. It was the sort of a thing that I just found like Okay, you do this and then that, and then bam, you know, here I'm doing the splits. I mean, I'm simplifying it a little bit, but it's not terribly far off. And what's really interesting is that it seems like that's actually a very common occurrence, because Jack Dempsey, who was at one point, you know, the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, he had a quote I'm going to butcher it slightly, this is paraphrased, but a lot of times boxers, when they're retired, will try to go into coaching boxing, but they don't end up being very successful coaches because to them they can't break down the chain of events that leads to an effective punch, like they know how to do it. They almost can't do it wrong, but because it's been so long and it's been so properly drilled into them In most cases they just can't reverse engineer it, and so there's no guarantee that just because you were a successful athlete means that you will be successful at teaching it. And I think that this is something that I've noticed really for a very long time in I wouldn't say among my colleagues, specifically in the kettlebell world, because I think they tend to be very, very well educated in terms of training people. But certainly in a lot of the other personal trainers that I've seen, you know, many of them go from an athletic background and maybe they competed, you know, maybe they didn't do it professionally, but they competed, and so for them it's hard to build that bridge, like Jack Dempsey talked about, between doing the stuff that doesn't come very hard to them but it's extremely difficult for their students.
Aleks:And so, yeah, I definitely found that, for instance, I became better at teaching strength and, we'll say, movement in general, because these were things they really didn't come naturally to me at all. I wasn't very well coordinated. I really had to milk every single progression and every single step in order to get good at versus mobility or flexibility and things like that, which, just for a variety of reasons that are beyond me. I did not have to struggle with very much, and so if I were to put my students through like a mobility routine or a flexibility routine early on, they wouldn't get the same results that I did and I was baffled, whereas with the strength training stuff, I was able to lead them more effectively and it took, I would say, a lot more time learning how to teach them what I was already good at, versus learning how to teach them what I sucked at and had to work really hard to get good at. So, yeah, 100%. I've noticed that as a very, very common phenomenon, one that I myself have had to work pretty hard to overcome.
Klara :And so, going back a little bit to your childhood, you described a little bit the struggle that you've had Not being chosen as the first, but rather the last. So I'm curious what actually led you from that background to now exercise being your passion and helping other people get fit and improve their exercise, workout routine and kind of health in general.
Aleks:I wish I could say that at a young age like 10 or 11, that I just was like on a mission, like I'm going to make this world a better and stronger place. But it was not the case. It was kind of like a slow and steady progression. So I never really thought about it very much Like I liked the idea of being physically fit. You know, I played outside quite a bit, like outside of my parents' house when I was a kid. There was this big creek so I used to go and explore the creek. So you know I would do physical stuff. I did gymnastics as a very little kid, I want to say maybe between the ages of four and eight, so it's not as though I didn't have like any background in it. But you know I never competed. It was for me it was just kind of like a fun thing to go do. I wasn't doing like iron crosses and backhand springs and stuff like that. It was pretty low level stuff. But apart from things like that, like team sports and other physical activities like that, those were the primary means of physical expression as a kid. You know most kids aren't exercising per se, they're playing sports and doing outdoor activities and things like that and it just seemed like the sort of a thing I wasn't naturally good at and I just kind of accepted that I was never going to be naturally good at it, but I would do whatever I thought was fun or whatever I did enjoy. And then I think over time what it was is like toward the end of high school. I mean, I still was bad at most things but I did find, for instance, that badminton I don't know why, but I was like super good at it. So I guess that's like the one thing I actually did have some preternatural abilities with. I didn't realize it was an Olympic sport, I just thought it was like you know, a gym class sport. And so had I known that it was, maybe I might have like begged my parents to put me in lessons for badminton and then become an athlete. And then now we would be talking as like athlete to athlete as opposed to, you know, athlete to trainer. But I think what happened was just shortly outside of high school. I was probably like 19 years old.
Aleks:I had made friends with somebody from one of my high school classes and he got really into this movie called Ong Bak, the Thai warrior, and it was like a movie from Thailand about this guy. I mean, the storyline doesn't matter that much, it's kind of a crappy storyline. But what was great is that it was like the actor Tony Jha was like this kind of modern Bruce Lee sort of character, but instead of Kung Fu being his main martial art, it was Muay Thai, which I had never heard of before. But it looked brutal, it looked amazing. We were like obsessed.
Aleks:And so Trevor, my friend, I mean he worked at Walmart, this time in the produce section, and so he said he would do stuff like flying knees into like boxes of produce and elbows and stuff like that and they're like produce boxes and it was almost impossible to get fired from Walmart so he could abuse, you know, the produce as much as he wanted and there was. There was nothing they were going to do. But you know, his enthusiasm was so infectious and it infected me and he was starting to look around for Muay Thai classes in Omaha, nebraska, and, as luck would have, it turns out that there was a gym run by a guy from Ireland named Mick Doyle, who was a two time world kickboxing champion and fourth degree black belt in Muay Thai. And this is Omaha, nebraska, in 2006. If you've never been to Omaha, the fact that we have it here now in 2023 should blow your mind. But in 2006, it was like unheard of, like I was just gobsmacked that such a thing even existed. And this was before UFC was the phenomenon that it is now.
Aleks:This was like kind of right, I would say, at the beginning of when, you know, mixed martial arts started getting people's attention. So naturally we went can we try like a class? And Mick was like, yeah, come on in, like Monday evening at six or whatever it was, and, you know, do a class. And we were just like totally annihilated. You know, we were doing this. All sorts of tough conditioning drills, like none of our dumbbell and machine work prepared us for it all. So we were like, yeah, we got to do this. This is amazing.
Aleks:So I think one of the things that really helped me was finding something that I was actually, I wouldn't say, good at, but that I really enjoyed, and I just was hooked and I started, you know, getting really into it. And then I started getting into other martial arts, like Krav Maga, which is an Israeli self defense system, and so eventually I traded from Muay Thai to Krav Maga and I started doing those classes, maybe like three nights a week, and along the way is when I discovered the kettlebell. Because another friend of mine, somebody I went to high school with, actually got him, drew Christiansen. And we did not get along in high school but he was in one of my classes in college Spanish class and for whatever reason you know like are somewhat challenged background, just sort of melted away. We didn't, didn't talk about it, didn't think about it, and he was really enthusiastic about these things called kettlebells and I had heard of them in a book on Bruce Lee's training, because Bruce Lee used to do kind of like a quasi version of the kettlebell swing, essentially, but with a dumbbell handle attachment. So it was like something that fitness companies used to sell back in those days and I remember it was probably late March or early April of 2008.
Aleks:And Drew invited me over to his house to try a kettlebell workout and previously I had zero interest in any of this stuff. I was really only interested in martial arts and that was it. But for whatever reason, I said yes and I went over and I was like mind blown. It was like this is exactly what all that high school, weightlifting stuff should have felt like in my mind, you know, it should have felt like an extension of my normal movements, as opposed to, you know, locking myself into a bench or you know, onto a chair that was attached to a machine or what have you. And so I was immediately hooked and of course, you know I could see the benefit that it would have to my martial arts. But I think, because one of the things that I noticed very quickly about myself is that I seemed like I was much weaker than a lot of my compatriots, and you know, middle and high school, this seemed like okay, this is a great way to get stronger and actually use weightlifting to my advantage, as opposed to just a series of isolated movements and you know bodybuilding type techniques that I had been doing up to that point. And so I became like a full on convert.
Aleks:You know I was doing Pavel's right of passage program, which is a lot of military presses and kettlebell swings. My technique was terrible, by the way. I just want to make that very clear. It did not come easily to me, it did not come naturally, it was just that I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed it enough that I eventually hired somebody to teach me the proper ways of the kettlebell kung fu and little by little my technique was getting better, I was building muscle, I was getting stronger to such a degree that I started getting distracted away from martial arts training and more toward the kettlebell. And so, to answer your question about how I got into the training side of things, it was not by design, you know that I ended up in that direction.
Aleks:But my coach, scott Stevens, whom I'm still in contact with today, even within a few lessons, he said you should consider doing the RKC. That was Pavel's certification back then and I was like I don't know, I don't think I'm cut out for it, I don't think I'm good enough, I don't think I'm strong enough. I mean, they have these super high standards and I would say, ironically enough, the thing that got me to decide to go through the RKC was not any sort of like a training revelation or improvement or progress or anything like that. It was a mental realization that I had and you talked about this earlier, about you know the mental side of things, and I was working as a salesman at the time. Now I don't know if they have this in Texas or not.
Aleks:I would bet they don't have it in the Czech Republic, but there is a company called Cutco and what it used to be was they would go door to door and they sold cutlery, sets and knives and you know other kitchenware and things like that. And nowadays they do it slightly differently. It's done through referrals and you know direct phone calls to leads and stuff like that. And so that's what I did and I was very timid at the beginning but I didn't want to disappoint my manager because he and I got along so great and he really believed in me and he always gave me a lot of encouragement. And uh, I did it for about three months prior to a six month journey to Israel where I lived on a key boots and Studied and worked and stuff like that. So I did it to be able to support myself, because I was not gonna be gainfully employed. They were gonna put me to work but they were not paying me to work I was like paying to be there.
Aleks:But by the end of it, you know, I kind of reflected on all the things that I had done. I mean, in essence, like I would call complete strangers and convince them over the phone to let another complete stranger, me, come over To their, their house with a bag full of sharp knives and they would say yes. When I thought about it, like that was just gobsmacked. It like you know, if I can convince a stranger over the phone to let me come into their house With a bag full of weapons, essentially why can't I do 100 snatches in five minutes with a 53 pound kettlebell? You know, why can't I go through this three-day or deal and prove myself, you know, and prove that I have the ability to overcome all the things that I thought I believed Were just completely counter to my ability level, and so it was that mental realization For my days as a cutco salesman that that made me say I need another Challenge, and this one is not going to involve the Going over and selling knives, which was an enjoyable experience, but I saw it as something that was just temporary kind of at the time, and so I was like I'm gonna go through the RKC and my original plan was I wanted to be a linguist actually nothing to do at all with physical training and Even after I completed my RKC that was still my goal. And it wasn't until a few months after getting my certification that I ended up realizing that I didn't want to, you know, write articles that no one will read, for journals that nobody reads. And I was kind of like In a little bit of a drift in between what I was gonna do next and what I had done up to that point, because I had a profile on the website that was affiliated with the RKC.
Aleks:At the time Somebody reached out to me who didn't live too far away and said hey, I see that you're a kettlebell instructor and I was really inspired by Tracy Rifkin's story of losing 120 pounds with kettlebells and I want to lose weight and I would love it if you could come over and give me some kettlebell lessons. So I was like, sure, why not? I mean, I'm technically, I'm an instructor, so maybe I should just instruct her. And I found that I really liked it and that I was good at it and that I could help People in a way that was more tangible and less theoretical and really, again, I love foreign languages still, so it's not like I gave up my love of languages, but I realized that my abilities were gonna be better used by helping people overcome the things that I had overcome, by showing them the path and kind of showing them how to avoid some of the obstacles that I had to go down, maybe take a shorter path, one that was still going to require a lot of work from them but was not going to be as frustrating and was not going to be as Unknown as the one that I'd perverse over all these years.
Aleks:And so I got a really great sense of satisfaction from helping people who were in a similar situation, just overwhelmed by the glut of information around them and Underwhelmed by the results that they had not really achieved in all of their hard work up to that point. And so eventually I pulled the proverbial trigger and I said this is what I'm gonna do from now on so Cattle bells maybe let's dive a little bit more into that.
Klara :I did have Tracy, Obviously, on the podcast mark as well, though we didn't talk as much cal bells with him, and have to admit, I didn't know how effective Cattle Bells were until I read Tracy's book, and so when I heard about her transformation and read her book, now I add Cattle Bells to my workout every other day, but maybe tell people more about Cal bells in general. What should people know about Cal, about training, and what is it that really attracted you to that? And maybe that's part of your explanation of why Cal bells are so good, because that's what Tracy said right for her is just worked, yeah, and so that's why she stuck with it. So I'm curious whether it's the same for you or you have different insight around it.
Aleks:I would say. Ironically enough, maybe the best explanation Would come from one of my former students, back when I was living in Israel, and he made a made a very Apped comment. He said you know, with Cattle Bells You're not really Encumbered by them, you're freed by them. Because we were training in a park near his apartment Because, you know, his daughter was going to sleep it was like in the evening time and we didn't want to it, didn't want the power breathing and the kettle bell hitting the ground to end up Waking her up. That's just something parents don't want to have to deal with. So we just brought the kettle bell out to the park. We're doing his whatever workout he would have done in his apartment, we're doing instead right there. So he got the exact same quality of Training in in his apartment as he did in the park, as he would have at a gym or any other place. But I think the big difference was that because he had the freedom to train outside, he had the freedom to be able to train anywhere he wanted and get better results than he could have it with a 30 minute commute to a gym Waiting for a bunch of different machines that other people are sweating all over and doing God knows what to.
Aleks:I thought it was a revelation that I couldn't have even said better myself, because he's really the Target of the kind of people that I wanted to train in, that he's the kind of person that I want to lead, to show hey look, even if you move on or you work with somebody else or you do something else, I want you to be able to take these principles with you and and so I think a big thing for me with the kettle bell training is that that, relative to the, the kind of training that I did previously because I did lift weights previously, it was, you know, kind of the thing you were told you had to do. It all seemed very much like it was reliant on having a gym membership and it was reliant on traveling to some faraway spot. You know you had to carve out a huge amount of time in your schedule, not for the workout but to get to the place to do your workout. I think at the time I couldn't have articulated it, but I found it to be very strange because it's like a lot of my colleagues will, I think correctly say that Exercise should be like brushing your teeth. You know it's something that you just do daily. Well, how many people do you think would brush their teeth if they had to drive 20 minutes to some teeth brushing place, you know, or had their dentist do it for them, a lot of people would not be brushing their teeth.
Aleks:And so one of the things that I think is so great about kettlebell training is not just that it's ruthlessly effective and it doesn't require a lot of time, but that it has some External benefits, such as the ability to take it anywhere you want to go and move with the natural movement patterns of your body, as opposed to locking yourself into a machine or Wedging yourself onto a bench and things of that nature. And that's not to say that bodybuilding and powerlifting and things like that are not valuable, because they are, but they don't really speak to everybody the same way. Some people are going to be drawn to those things much more, and those people are going to see great results. But people who are not really drawn to it but they still want the benefits of incredible strength, all-day stamina, flexibility, mental toughness they can have something that's going to be much more convenient, they're going to be much more likely to do it, and when they see that it doesn't take a huge investment in time to give them Really what seems to be like an outrageous amount of results in return. It's a no-brainer, and I think it's much easier to convince people to stick with it. And then, you know, you add on other things such as calisthenics training or body weight movements, and they really end up finding that they've got a complete training system that they can stick with and that they don't really have to try to find excuses not to do because Perfectly good excuse to say I, you know, I don't want to try to navigate rush hour traffic to, you know, to do my workout today, but I don't know what to do at home, so I just won't work out at all.
Aleks:The fact is, there are a lot of people who love gym culture and They'll always be able to get something out of it, but it doesn't really resonate with everybody. I would be an example of that. I like training in gyms, but if my training were either do it in the gym or don't do it at all, I would probably fall into the same trap that many others do. So that's a big thing that I loved about kettlebells, and then it was later on when I learned how to wield the power of bodyweight calisthenics that I was able to really start seeing some very fast progress, because I find that these two Modalities work together extremely well to give you a much more well-rounded workout.
Aleks:You know, with a kettlebell, obviously, if you don't have a kettlebell, you can't do anything like.
Aleks:Even trying to do swings without a kettlebell is Exercise of utility, but you can do movements with just your own body weight.
Aleks:That can help to get you a whole lot stronger and even make your kettlebell lifting a lot more powerful.
Aleks:So for me, the kettlebell is still Central in terms of the external piece of equipment necessary to make it all work. But without calisthenics I don't think it's anywhere nearly as powerful, and so I always try to make it a point to include as much of that as is possible and you know majority of my programs and things of that nature because I want people to be able to Really get the most out of kettlebells, which also involves, on a very basic level, the kettlebell is essentially moving an awkward object in through free space, but bodyweight training is moving your own body through free space, and so these are two essential skills that will help you with almost anything else in life and To some degree or another you can get those with other pieces of equipment. But if it's not convenient or it's not enjoyable or it's done in a way that doesn't help you the way that you would like or potentially hurts you, you're not gonna do it. But kettlebells and calisthenics seem like they can really fit into almost anybody's training.
Klara :Yeah, I feel like you don't really have an excuse not to work out if you just stick with these two, right, including the drive to the gym. What do you describe? That to me, was always the hardest. I think the hardest thing of working out if you're a gym person is the drive to the gym. Once you dare, you're gonna work out, but just to make yourself go there, even if it's 10, 15 minutes for me.
Klara :I'm very time focused person and so if you add that time every day and multiply over a period of week, months, years, you're wasting a lot of time that you could be doing something else. So I totally get it and understand it and I love my home gym. I love my home gym and also say that from a place I actually feel my athletic background has become a big privilege for me, because what I'm realizing now and I actually wasn't aware of that, I don't probably still even recently, maybe a few, three years ago is like what people actually don't like working out. To me it's the complete opposite. I actually feel awful if I don't work out, and I contribute that because exercise has been such a big part of my life, and so if I don't work out, I have to be seriously sick or just lazy person and I judge myself so much so it actually not working out contributes very negatively to my own confidence, which is not probably the best part of it, but it's like the best addiction I have had and I still surprised nowadays how many people just hate the whole working out perspective and actually building it into their day on a day to day basis.
Klara :With actually with the cabels and body weight workout, you can work out anywhere. If you actually want to work out. You don't have an excuse not to like pick burpees, push ups, l sets or set ups. Some of the basic exercises and best exercise you can do is just with your body weight, but people don't do it. So, actually circling back, alex, because you work in this field, inspiring people and trying to keep them motivated to stick to the routine, what do you see are some of the biggest misconceptions or why people don't work out or don't stick with their workout routines?
Aleks:I think some of it is certainly because people think, well, I have to have a gym, I have to have an hour a day to train, you know, because if I don't have a gym membership and I can't train for an hour, I don't see how I'm ever going to make any progress.
Aleks:So a part of it is that they think it has to be a lot bigger time commitment than is necessary. And then I think the other thing is that people get caught up in the external trappings of training. Just to give you an example, a year or so ago I was a part of a Facebook group where there were people who would ask questions about training and how to get fitter and lose some fat and things like that. And there was somebody who, by his own description, he was very overweight, for whatever reason, I think, he couldn't get to a gym setting or something like that, and he was getting a lot of suggestions on what to do and a lot of them I didn't think were very helpful. So what I told him is I was like well, listen, if you're currently doing zero, any amount above zero is going to be, by definition, progress, and so what you should focus on is not so much like the trying to work towards some sense of like emotional accomplishment for working really really hard.
Aleks:So, instead of focusing on the destination, focus on a process. So it's like what I would always have my students do was particularly those who were otherwise going to be sedentary that would say okay, you owe me five minutes of work per day. It could be just laying on the ground and doing deep breathing, maybe it's going to be crawling across the ground, maybe you're going to go out for a walk or whatever. All you owe me is five minutes. When the five minutes is done, you know, you just send me a message on WhatsApp. I had a group for you know, some ladies that I was training and and that's it, and you can go above and beyond, but you don't have to go anything further than that. Long story short. That was phenomenal for them, because they ended up starting to do 10 minutes, 15 and 20. And that just became a part of their daily routine. But I made something that was small enough for them to it was almost easier to do it than not to do it, let's say so.
Aleks:I tried to apply the same thing to this gentleman and I said you could very easily do something as simple as like sit on your couch and then stand back up and do that a number of times. You know, just set a clock for five minutes. Once the five minutes is up, you're done, or you can walk up a flight of stairs you know you can get up and down off the ground, because that's much more challenging than what most people think. And he said something like you know, what I really want is like I just need to get like a stair stepper so that I can track all my stuff and this, and that I'm like man, I am giving you every possible thing that you could do with nothing.
Aleks:You're not.
Aleks:I'm not only am I not charging you, but I'm not telling you to go buy anything, and so I think a part of it is that my assumption is that he's just caught up in the idea of these external trappings of fitness, none of which are a requirement.
Aleks:You know, like, how do you think people got good cardiovascular fitness before a stair stepper or a treadmill? These things are meant to kind of meet you with stuff that your body's already made to do. But I think, on the other hand, because it kind of puts the onus on you like if you know, okay, I could just walk up and down a flight of stairs for five minutes, or I could just get up and down off the ground for five minutes it kind of says the responsibility has already been there with you and the excuse is not that you don't have the equipment, is that you're not willing to do stuff that is already available to you. But then, of course, the other side of that is it's got to be something that you also find enjoyable and that won't hurt you, because plenty of people, for instance, love running, and then they get jacked up running because their bodies aren't prepared for it.
Aleks:They haven't adequately prepared themselves. So yeah, the big part is externalizing what it's going to take to be fit and strong.
Aleks:You know, just kind of avoiding or ignoring the things that they already have at their fingertips. And the other part I would definitely say, is just over an estimating amount of time and energy that it takes to get fit. I have had more luck convincing people to just do five minutes of push ups or squats or hip thrusts or, you know, getting up and down off the ground, maybe crawling back and forth in their living room, than I ever have with anything else. That would be this daunting, you know, sort of like lofty task. So the sooner that people can internalize that and then apply those principles to something that they actually like doing, the faster they're going to make progress. So it could mean going to a gym, could mean buying an expensive piece of exercise equipment, could mean doing stuff that I think is kind of like boring. But as long as they like it and they're willing to continue to do it, their comfort zone is going to expand.
Aleks:And this is the other problem, I think, is that people are obsessed with getting outside of their comfort zone, which I don't know how often you do it. I don't do it very often because you encounter a lot of resistance. It's easier to do something that's in your comfort zone and then let it expand, so that way you're not constantly trying to push against this resistance, that ultimately you're going to lose, because the resistance is always going to push back. So you know, I guess, given all that, if I had to summarize, I would say ignore a lot of what the fitness industry says, because one more rep, bro, it's all you or no pain, no gain, or go hard or go home really only appeals to a very small percentage of people. More people are going to be better helped out by finding something that they enjoy, doing a very small amount of it on a daily or semi daily basis and staying within their comfort zone and then just letting it expand naturally.
Klara :I wonder about the finding something that you enjoy, because I actually do know people that would say don't enjoy exercise at all. And so I wonder if this is a little bit of what our mindset is caught up in, like people keep searching for something they enjoy, and I think the reality is, if you've never really exercised or haven't even exercised not ever you may have, even when you were a kid, played sports or consider yourself athletic but the reality is, if you haven't exercised in at least five to 10 years, whatever you're going to start doing is going to be most likely awful because your body just hasn't exercised in so long. And then it's the same here a linguist if you were going to pick up a language that maybe you may have even been excellent in in a childhood but haven't spoken a word in 10 years, you're going to suck the first conversation you're going to have. And so I wonder if it's like this least resistant path to success and a little bit what you're describing. I actually love starting with the lowest amount of work you believe you can commit to, even if you absolutely hate it, because I think this is where people think of how I'm motivated today. I'm going to start working out on Monday and I want to have this one hour a day, and then day three you realize it's not possible and then you miss a day and the reality goes to zero.
Klara :So I wonder if this beautiful progress you mentioned, pick the least amount of minutes you're able to commit to every day and create a space for that, you will not be able to make an excuse that you didn't have a chance to do it, because if you cannot find five minutes a day for yourself, there's something seriously wrong with that person. I think even Elon Musk with everything he does. I can guarantee you that you can probably find five minutes a day to do some sort of workout. And so maybe if we start with that, you do describe in your book beautifully the Kabul training and the cholestetics. So let's say, if somebody is listening and thinking about, I haven't worked out in a while, I really want to start with a routine. What would you suggest them to start with? Alex?
Aleks:Well, you know, I have a free program on my website called the nine minute kettlebell and body weight challenge, and it is specifically designed for anybody, from raw beginner to advanced, because it focuses on movements that are already natural to the body, that you do every day, namely the gait pattern or the walking pattern, and then learning how to use that basic pattern of the body in kind of different ways. So, for instance, maybe you pick up a kettlebell and you walk with it. You know like doesn't seem like it's very tough, but if you've ever done it before, a minute racks up and you're like, oh my God, I don't know how I'm going to be able to continue.
Klara :Yeah, I actually did those the other day just around my cul-de-sac and it's actually a little bit up the hill and yeah, just go for a walk, take a couple of kettlebells into your hand or even the grocery bags, right, and just go walk for two to five minutes and you will see how heavy it gets really quickly.
Aleks:Absolutely. And but the nice thing about it well, this is kind of interesting too, because you mentioned you hate it, but you still do it, and that's a great part about having a routine is then, when you find things that you're otherwise not as interested in, it's like a little bit easier to make that leap. You know, like, for me, cardio, or I would say what we would call, like the low intensity, steady state cardio. Like you know, walking or jogging and things like that does not appeal to me at all. I did find a variation of it that I do enjoy and that I do on a routine basis, but if I had to start there I wouldn't have continued, you know. So this is a good example of that.
Aleks:The idea, for instance, behind learning how to do stuff or taking stuff you already know how to do, like walking while carrying a weight or crawling across the ground, which is, in some sense, is even more fundamental than walking, because that's what we do in order to build up the ability to walk. So I have a program built around that is very simple and, like I said, it's free. Anybody who wants to check it out can get it at nine minute challenge dot com. But that would be a good place to start. If you're, like I'm kind of curious about kettlebell training and about body weight training and about just movement, it's something that's designed to be number one done with whatever else it is you're doing let's say you're doing Pilates or you're doing yoga or you're doing bodybuilding or powerlifting. It's the sort of a thing that, because you're using natural movements and you're engaging the entire body, you're not going to fatigue yourself, you're not going to end up completely wiped out at the end of your training. You're going to feel more invigorated, and a lot of people told me they say they feel more tied together, so they feel like they have better resilience as well.
Aleks:That's a good place for a lot of people to start, because I think, especially given how many people have no familiarity with kettlebells, ideally you'd want to start them with, like, let's say, the swing and maybe military presses, but then there are issues of coordination and imbalances in the body that I think also need to be addressed, and so for some people, those are great ways to start, and other people, I think the most important thing is to just to get the kettlebell in their hand, get them moving their body in free space in a variety of ways that they're not accustomed to, and then they can start to see and feel the strength building up, the new levels of stamina, their new coordination and their sense of resilience.
Aleks:Then there's a lot less resistance and that's where the kind of the comfort zone expands. There's a lot less resistance for them to say, well, maybe I will try these kettlebell swings or maybe I'll learn how to do a military press or a squat or something like that. It suddenly doesn't seem like it's as far away, because now they've overcome an obstacle that they weren't even expecting to overcome and they're bought in. And so that's like there's an old saying nothing succeeds like success. You know, people need those early wins on the board in order to want to keep going.
Aleks:I don't know if you've ever seen Indiana Jones and the last Crusade.
Klara :I've seen probably most of them. I know there's not the latest one, I know there's the new one that came out, but I'm awful with remembering names of movies.
Aleks:I'll explain the scene then, because maybe you'll remember this was from the. It was the last one of the original trilogy and it came out in 89. But Indiana Jones has to try to get to the Holy Grail and there are all these booby traps and challenges and things like that. And spoiler alert for anybody who's listening, who has had close to 40 years and just has not watched this movie I'm going to give you some spoilers. He's standing at this kind of like stone entrance and then what appears to be, let's say, 30 feet away, there's another stone entrance but there's a giant cavern, seemingly bottomless pit beneath him, and he's got to get from one side to the other. So he kind of closes his eyes, takes a leap of faith, he puts his foot out and his foot hits solid ground and then the camera kind of pans around and you can see that it was just a very cleverly designed bridge that blends in so it looks as though there's nothing in between, but there actually is, and so the only way that you'll actually be able to get to the other side is by taking that leap of faith and just putting that first step down. So once he does that, he sees okay, there's actually a bridge here and he can walk across it.
Aleks:And so that's what you kind of have to do at the beginning is because, even if it's something that you would theoretically be interested in, you do have to kind of take the leap of faith. You have to make a grown-up decision and say I'm going to make a loving decision for myself and I'll make myself do this for a little while, and then it's going to start getting easier. You just have to kind of trust the process. The mistake in trusting the process is like what you described earlier. Okay, now I'm going to work out for an hour every day, six days a week. You know I'm going to eat perfectly. I'm never going to eat another candy bar. It's like you're just asking too much of yourself.
Aleks:So it's the difference between taking that one step versus if he had just done a running jump and tried to leap across, and maybe he hits the bridge briefly but then rolls off. That's kind of what the analogy is. That I would say to people is you know, you've made a good point. There are a lot of people who've never exercised and they've been sedentary their whole lives and so say how do they know what they're even going to enjoy? You do need some early wins on the board, and being able to find something that you enjoy and that you're making progress from is great. But until you get there, you just have to take those little leaps of faith and say I'm just going to keep doing it, hope for the best. If it doesn't work out, I'll try something different. But I would also point out that in a case like this is why it's helpful to have accountability, or like have a friend or a coach or even a Facebook group that you can just check in with and say hey, I did this today and you have people giving you encouragement.
Aleks:The hardest kind of journey is going alone, and especially with fitness, where people aren't going to judge you for the most part. If you're not fit, there are all sorts of reasons to just stop. All the people in your life already accept you. If you're not fit, so nothing's really going to change. If you just decide to quit, they're going to treat you the same as they ever did. So a lot of times changing directions requires some support. So you know, if you don't have a supportive family or you know your friends don't really care. It's helpful to find people who do and cling to them so that you can travel down that path.
Klara :Yeah, I agree, I like it. It helps. I've shared a little bit about my background and actually not working out as more. I'm missing an arm and a leg. I just don't feel complete at this point. But even with that, there's times that sometimes I don't feel like really working out, that. I'm postponing it right, and so just the fact that I have the commitment and we do it together with my partner, I eliminate all barriers. I literally just have to walk out of my house to the garage, and so I feel like if I can't get to work out it myself, I must be the laziest person on the planet, because there's literally not an excuse. I have all of my equipment already, but obviously we talk about even without equipment until you get to some sort of investment and you don't have to start there, there's a lot of things that you can do to start. So with that, I guess, alex, do you think that the kettlebell is the right first approach for people who want to explore and get some of the early wins.
Aleks:I don't think that there's any one tool that is right for everyone. I'm a big fan of the kettlebell, but I don't think it necessarily is going to fit everybody's goals. But I would say that the people who are interested in getting started should start with whatever they have. I've known people who maybe, instead of doing loading loaded carries or farmers carries with a kettlebell, they would do what you described. Maybe with a bag of groceries it could be as simple as park a little further away, carry your groceries to your car and count that as a win. Or instead of saying, okay, well, I want to do kettlebell swings, but I don't have a kettlebell, you can do other exercises that are going to help strengthen the glutes and the hamstrings. So you could do hip thrusts, you could put some furniture sliders on the floor and do some hamstring curls. So I think the most important thing is that people have to be willing to be practical before they try to be optimal with their training. By the way, I've known people who are not huge fans of strength training and they'll only do a bare minimum of it because other things that they like let's say, like long distance running or biking or things like that speak to them more. So I would say that the most important thing is to start where you are. Make an excuse to succeed, because we're all good at making excuses. But if you learn how to make an excuse like, okay, I'll just do five push-ups instead of scrolling through Instagram or doom scrolling Twitter for you know the latest disastrous news or you know whatever it may be find ways to just insert and interject a small amount of movement with the stuff that you already know how to do and just make it more routine. So most people, even if their push-ups aren't great, they know how to do some variation of it. So if they were to make it something that they did, even just one or two sets per day, you know, or every other day, even something that they can commit to and that they don't feel like is the scary, daunting goal for the running up against resistance, that's where they should start. Because if I can convince somebody to do five minutes of exercise a day, even if it's not strenuous, it could be as simple as you just lay on your stomach, you know, rest your forehead on your forearms and do some deep breathing and just relax as much as you can.
Aleks:If you're prioritizing yourself and your physical betterment in some capacity or another, you're going to make some improvements. That's going to excite you and that's going to motivate you. But motivation requires some momentum and it's just up to you to kind of get the ball rolling a little bit and get the momentum built up so that once you start seeing that you're actually making some changes, you're looking in the mirror. Maybe your chest looks a little better, you know. Maybe you've lost a little weight, maybe your abs are kind of starting to poke out. Well, you're not going to be need to be convinced to do five minutes anymore. You're going to want to do six minutes or maybe 10 minutes.
Aleks:You know you're going to be like maybe I will, you know, buy that kettlebell. I've been doing these loaded carries with the five gallon jug of water. Maybe I'll buy a kettlebell and I'll see about doing it with that. Or maybe I'll grab the dumbbell that's been collecting dust in the basement and I'll trade that out. And then if the kettlebell speaks to you and if you find it to be something that you really enjoy, then by all means go for it. If you find that, you just find it boring and you just think it sucks. But you find there's something else that you like better. Maybe you do like going to the gym, maybe like putting a bunch of weight on the peck deck machine and just going crazy. I would take that route At some point.
Aleks:Maybe you'll like kettlebells, maybe you never will. But more than anything, we're living in a society where there's not any real need to be physically fit and physically powerful, at least in terms of our day-to-day lives. But those things are still incredibly important for our longevity and our health and, of course, our quality of life, our ability to influence our children, to make good decisions as well. So, even though I would love it, if I were the president, there would be dip bars and pull-up bars on every corner. We would use the La Sierra High School fitness program, like what John F Kennedy had these people do in in the 1960s, and, of course, there would be a kettlebell for every house. But unfortunately I have yet to run for president and my platform doesn't seem to be very popular.
Aleks:So what I would say is that the most important thing is to find something that you enjoy doing.
Aleks:Don't pigeonhole yourself into only doing certain things.
Aleks:Let your interests blossom and bloom and go wherever they take you. Even though I would love it if everybody lifted kettlebells, I don't think you have to start there. I think you can end up there if that's where your journey takes you. But your own grand slam journey has to be something that actually fits in with what feels true to you and just got to let it roll Like with me. I started off from doing martial arts stuff and just basic bodybuilding training to kettlebells, calisthenics and movement as it is now, and now I'm also kind of getting back into the martial arts stuff that I had left to the side for many years. I'm on my own journey to find things that I find suitable for my own training. I think it's every bit the same as everybody else, so they shouldn't try to conform to any one specific way. But if they are curious about kettlebell training, they can feel free to reach out to me, ask any questions they want, and I will point them in the right direction, even if that means going someplace away from kettlebells.
Klara :And I do want to highlight one more thing that you mentioned. I think it's super interesting and I find it so true the practical versus optimal. I wonder if this is where most people get caught up with actually almost anything because I was just had a friendly conversation with my colleagues. We talked about weightlifting. I'm actually right now on this powerlifting program and you just go up every other day as much as you clear the way to just continue to keep climbing, and so people, oh my God, but you got to know the real technique before you start and you can really injure yourself. I think that's our natural default, right, and I think there is some truth to that if you're not athletic.
Klara :But I also feel like repetition builds the skill, and so the important thing is, if you're not really into working out right now and not skilled in that thing, you're not going to be able to start lifting heavy anyways, no matter what you decide to do, because you just will not have the capability and your body will not allow you to do that. So where were you able to start there and start doing reps, as you mentioned? Trust the process, then through those reps they will actually create some strength and effectiveness and efficiency. Then you can start going up, because even now I'm not a squatter but I squat just because I know it's really important, so I squat every other day.
Klara :It's been a whole process for me to get into this powerlifting workout because it's unlike anything I've done in tennis. So it's more of a test of can I train my mind to push through lifting heavy weight or what heavy weight is perceived as by my brain, because my heavy is very different than powerlifters heavy. But I think it's kind of the process and with everyone like being practical versus optimal, there's so much wisdom in it. I just want to pause on that. Anything you want to add Alex to that?
Aleks:Yeah, building on that, I have this philosophy. I intend to write a book about it one day, called Minimal, maximal, optimal, practical that's my conception of basically what direction your training is going to go, no matter what. I think the mistake is that for many people they try to pigeonhole themselves into just one or the other. So just to give you an example of minimal, it might be like start off with five minutes a day. That will definitely work, I think. Even if you're advanced and you find, let's say, you just moved to a new place and you just had a kid and you just got a promotion, you got a lot more work, well then you might need to move toward the minimal side of things so that you can at least keep that groove in your schedule for fitness, so that it's not getting totally flattened out and you now have no longer have any room for fitness or strength training in your schedule. Maximal, I think, is very easy for youngsters to do because they have very few responsibilities. They go to the gym two, three hours a day and they just sleep eight or nine hours a day, maybe 10. So they're just constantly making gains and there are times and places where you can do that I think, even as an adult, it's conceivable that you might have a season where you can move toward a more maximal approach, where that's really a big focus of your training. Usually it's not a very long time, but that can help to really push you far ahead.
Aleks:And I look at this as being on, let's say, roads that don't exactly intersect.
Aleks:It's like you've got an overpass here and then one going underneath, so there's a minimal and maximal and then optimal and practical going above it. So they don't intersect, but they do kind of cross each other at some point and they're both on opposite sides, meaning like minimal is in one direction, maximal is in the other, but it's on the same continuum, whereas practical and optimal are similarly on the same continuum. You can always make your training more optimal. You can always be like I'm going to just tweak my hand position here just a little bit and maybe I can eke out one extra pushup or whatever it may be. But I think the other danger that people run into is constantly trying to make things optimal, and it's not that it's a bad thing. I think it's actually very helpful. But the problem is is they get caught up with the thinking that they're more used to the minimal maximal thinking wherein they're like well, if I can't do it optimally, I might as well not do it at all.
Klara :Yes.
Aleks:So it's far better to fall back on practical and say, okay, what can I do, as opposed to obsessing over what they can't do, like I've tried to tell people. The ideal situation for driving, for instance, is back out of your driveway. There's nobody going down the street so that you have to wait for, and then you go and you hit every green light and there are no cops around. So you can do 70 miles an hour until you get to where you're headed. You never have to stop at any stop signs or stop lights. There's no old ladies crossing the street that you got to wait for. That's optimal for driving.
Aleks:Yet we don't expect optimal driving conditions. We simply wait for what the conditions are, respond in kind and we still end up at our destination. Maybe there's more traffic, so maybe it takes you three or four more minutes to get to your destination. Maybe one of those days you do just have all green lights. You know the cops are looking the other way while you speed, or whatever it may be. But you can't rely on optimal to get you to where you're going, because if you just pull over to the side of the road every time there's a red light or there's a fender bender that you got to wait to go around, you're never gonna get to your destination.
Aleks:Practical will get you there. Optimal will get you there. Minimal and maximal can both get you there. But practical, for the most part, is what people need to be thinking about and not obsessing over. Oh, I didn't do all the reps that were listed in my workout today, or I was a little tired, so this weight felt a little heavier than usual. And then they get down about it Like training is supposed to be fun. So, for God's sake, stop making it such a drudgery when you don't get your way, and you'll have a blast along the way. But you got to focus on that practical side of things for the most part.
Klara :And speaking of practical, I actually did came to mind how practical your book is the Tames of Lost Ark. Thank you again for sending it over. I haven't tried it yet. I'm gonna try some of the tips for improving my kettlebell form, also with the rings. You did quote Mark Griffin too. Some of the things and tips from Mark, so shout out to Mark. I agree he's fantastic. But anything you would wanna share with listeners around that book what made you write it? What are some of the main points you would like listeners to know about it?
Aleks:Well, the concept behind it is if you're not familiar with kettlebells, we'll kind of just give you a brief overview. You know, everybody's seen people like pressing kettlebells or doing squats with them, and these are a category of movements that we would call grinds, and essentially what it means is that you always have to apply force to the kettlebell in order for it to keep moving. So if you're squatting and then you stop pushing really hard, you're just going to end up stuck in place. There's no momentum that's gonna keep you moving. There's a different class of movements that are very popular in kettlebell training, called ballistic lifts, and these are movements that rely on momentum, so you provide an initial burst of momentum and then the rest of the movement. It kind of builds on that momentum, but it still requires some input from you, and these movements have basically two parts to them. There's the hinge, which just describes, you know, pushing your hips back as though you're about to do a jump. You know, like if you were to jump like, let's say, 10 feet, that's what you're trying to do. That's kind of the hip position you can expect. And then the second part is what's called the arc, and the arc is the path that the kettlebell travels and, depending on the shape of the arc, it's going to determine what exercise you're doing. So they all start with the hinge and then the arc determines whether the movement turns into a swing, a clean, a high pole, a snatch or something like that.
Aleks:And the issue that I discovered years ago actually, because I was just on another podcast a few days ago and I was describing originally my idea before this came in 2018, I was going to make it an article for Strong First, but because I really wanted to use the title Tamers of the Lost Ark and they don't have the same sense of humor that I have, you know, maybe the editor would have been like, okay, that's kind of funny, we'll use it. I was like it has to have this, otherwise it's not going to be perfect. We have this concept called taming the arc or controlling the path. So the idea behind the book is learning how to control the path, because most kettlebell books and manuals and courses that I have found spend a lot of time teaching you how to hinge properly, but then it's kind of a wild west once you get to actually taming the arc.
Aleks:So in the book I teach people how to use their back muscles, for instance, to be able to properly tamed the arc something that people don't focus on a whole lot learning how to trace the movement with, for instance, with gymnastics rings, so that they can actually feel what the movement is supposed to feel like, which is significant because if you're doing something fast, it's really hard to think your way through it. Meaning like, if you think about it, like, let's say, you're sprinting and someone's like you have a coach who's like, oh you know, try to bring your knee up just a little high, like when you're in the middle of it and there's just so much momentum, it's very difficult to make any real changes. It's the sort of a thing that you need to think about before and then feel in your training. So the idea behind it is learning how to feel what proper taming of the arc is and then applying that to whatever exercise you want to get good at.
Aleks:I would say that for people who are familiar with kettlebell training, it would be a very good book to read. I think that if you're a raw beginner I mean like super raw beginner and totally sedentary I think by nine minute kettlebell and body weight challenge would probably be the right step for you because, again, you're gonna learn how to use kettlebells in a way that is very, very quick to learn. It'll take you 30 seconds or less to learn how to carry a kettlebell, and similarly with crawling on the ground. We all did it as babies. Marching and some of the other things that I have in there like these are things that are quick to learn, but Tamers of the Lost Ark assumes that you already have some familiarity with kettlebells, so I would say it may be High beginner or low intermediate, it would be very good for them to learn how to take advantage of the material in there.
Aleks:Otherwise, I have another book called the no BS kettlebell and bodyweight kickstart, which is for people who are already convinced. Okay, kettlebells are my jam, even though I've never trained with them yet. Bodyweight training I'm totally cool with. I'm gonna try that out. That might be a better option for them. But for people who already know like and train with kettlebells and they want to get an added edge on the kettlebell snatch or their high pole or something of that nature, they want to do more reps, they want to lift heavier. Tamers of the Lost Ark will get them there, at least in terms of the ballistics. I don't talk much about the grinds, like presses and squats and things like that. But for the ballistic side of things, the whole idea is Essentially learning how to take these secrets that I have uncovered over time, apply them to your training and then, as soon as you learn how to do that, you can leave the drills to the side and you can just ride off into the sunset Stronger than ever before and making gains like nobody's business.
Klara :Love it and I do again like how you break out the different capital bell lifts and even just the movements in the first book, the no BS kettlebell and bodyweight kickstart program. I think one of the things that I realized as we get more and more sedentary typically in jobs, we tend to forget even the basic things, and so if you observe toddlers how they squat and how they move, they actually have the proper form. So the one thing that really has stood out to me is your focus on having the proper movement and even doing the basic Exercises like crawling right, almost a relearning how we as humans should move our body, which we typically forget with time if you don't do any sort of exercise, and so there was really interesting to me how you go to the basics to allow people To relearn the things that were once natural to us when we're babies.
Aleks:Yeah, I'm glad you like that. I that's one gulf too that I think a lot of people find that once they cross it it's like smooth sailing from there. But one of the issues is people like I want to start lifting kettlebells. You know, they don't move very well through their hips, they don't have a lot of coordination.
Aleks:So when they learn how to get those things back now, they can make some really, really good progress. But if they try to skip it, it's like saying I've never driven a car before, I'm gonna learn how to drive a stick and I'm gonna go directly to the highway. You know, it's like maybe kind of ease your way into it. I Probably have a better time if you do that.
Klara :It's a process and you guide people through the process really nicely. Thank you, alex. Few more questions to end with. There's been a lot going on in the world, including people struggling with find their workout routine service. Leave through Everything that's happening in the world, what would you want to inspire people to be doing more of, or less of?
Aleks:this is gonna sound very, very basic, but I would say taking a walk I don't consider it exercise. I mean, unless you're really deconditioned it's not really exercised, but it's one of those things that has, I mean, all sorts of benefits to it that just can't. We would be here all day if we tried to name all of them. But a lot of people think of walking is just a means to I kind of get it, get them up from my car to the liquor store you know, or get from my car to you know the ATM or wherever it may be.
Aleks:But taking some time to just take a nice long walk really helps you with your mental clarity. It really helps to, oddly enough, just slash body fat off the body without Sweating and breathing really hard and doing a lot of hard work. You know, I remember years ago when I was living in Israel, I used to walk a minimum of four miles a day. It was just because I had places within walking distance but I had enough of them to go to that I could just walk there and I was like just shredded without really even trying. And I noticed that when I walk less and not only do I tend to get, I think a little bit more anxious and have a little bit more We'll say flab around the middle, not a ton, but you know a little bit more than what Instagram would find acceptable at an absolute minimum.
Aleks:Walking is great. It's great for mental clarity, it's great for sneaky way of getting in some physical activity and, regardless of how beginner, intermediate or advanced you are, I have yet to meet anybody who does not make market improvements in their cardiovascular fitness, their overall health and their coordination and all number of other things by walking. So I would say you owe it to yourself to not limit your movement to just your training, but also try to toss in, you know, little excuses to move around just by walking throughout the day. It makes a tremendous difference.
Klara :Yeah, as you Say, that actually the first thing that comes in mind is the walks with my dog, which I love, my dog but one of the things that she actually makes my life better is we go for the walks every morning and evening, and something I normally wouldn't do. So, going back to even what you mentioned a countility part there, sometimes it's the animals that if we have in our house that every morning we get up, we just go out and go stretch our legs for 30 minutes and take her for a walk, and we do the same thing after dinner, which is again fantastic thing to get your metabolism and if you add any carbs just out of the system, it's one of the best things you can do for your metabolic health as well. So I'm grateful for my dog doing the routine, although sometimes don't really feel like it.
Aleks:Exactly, especially when she wants to chase a squirrel. And now the walk has turned into a sprint.
Klara :Yeah, that's actually she likes, sometimes not even a squirrel, but she has these games that she likes to chase ass for fun and she's obviously way faster and she hurts feet. So you're gonna make sure you step right before she gets your foot, otherwise you can face blend straight on the concrete, which also happened once. But it's a fun game for her, obviously because she's so much Faster. So it's a good way sometimes to get some sprints in and trying to add around your dog.
Aleks:Absolutely. I suppose that would be another great thing if you talked about it like the tools that people should look for for fitness. Forget kind of us, just get a dog.
Klara :Yeah, especially the one that likes to chase you. Yes, anyways, thank you so much for your time. I will add the resources To the episode notes about your two books, your nine minute challenge, your website when else people can best reach you if they are inspired by this conversation, want to learn more about your training, calabals or any steps based on the conversation today.
Aleks:I think those are probably the best places to be honest, because I am on social media. But you know, social media can be torn away from you at any second. I lost my original Facebook account last year because some hackers managed to get in and then Facebook then shut it down and then I couldn't get it back, and so you never know. Every same thing happened to my Instagram because it was Connected to my Facebook. So you can definitely find me on the major social media platforms, apart from tick-tock. I've sworn I will never get a tick-tock account. I'm not. You're not gonna see me dancing and doing all these other funny things. But Instagram, facebook, youtube, for sure, linkedin as well. If you search my name, I'll pop up. I have a funny spelled name and a very uncommon last name, so it's probably gonna be me who pops up. So if you look up Alex Salkin, you will find the one and only excellent.
Klara :Thank you so much, alex. Again for a time, I appreciate the conversation and anything else you want to add.
Aleks:No, I want to just say, yeah, we, as I understand, and check that. It's thank you. And that's about the extent of my check knowledge. Unfortunately, I know a few other silly things.
Klara :That's an important one. It is a very important one.
Aleks:Yes, Incidentally, I can mimic the train announcements on the subway in Prague as well. I'll tell you maybe after the episode so I don't make a fool of myself. But no, thank you very much for having me on the show. It was a great conversation. I hope the listeners feel inspired to take some action and crush some weakness and have a good time doing it.
Klara :Love it. Thank you so much Enjoy this episode. I want to ask you to please do two things that would help me greatly. One, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting platform that you use to listen to this episode. Two, please share this podcast with a friend who you believe might enjoy it as well. It is a great way to remind someone you care about them by sharing a conversation they might be interested in. Thank you for listening.