Episode 192: Top 3 Kettlebell Exercises to Include in Your Exercise Routine: An interview with Mike Kurkowski from The Strength Connection

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[00:00:00] Dr Mike T Nelson: Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. On the podcast, we talk about all things to increase strength, performance, muscle, and do it with better body composition in a flexible approach. Today on the podcast we’ve got Mike Kurkowski from The Strength Connection, and we’re talking all about Kettlebells.

What should you do with Kettlebells? Why they are useful? Especially since the pandemic, I’ve found that clients who had even just a single kettlebell could do a lot more stuff than just body weight alone. I started training years ago when I moved to my own place with just kettlebells was all I had for quite a while.

So we talked about what are some movements you should do? What are some cues you should think? And why it’s good just in general to be strong. And this podcast is brought to you by The Real Coaches Summit 2023. Go to www.realcoachessummitt2023.com and you can come see myself in Vegas along with a lot of other people such as Alex Viada, Dr. Jade, Allie Gilbert, Dr. John, Mike, Andrew Coates, Sam Miller, Stan Eren, and many other people. I’ll be doing a talk there on a metabolic flexibility, which is entitled Fat for Fuel to Get Leaner and Carbs for Performance Master Metabolism with Metabolic Flex. It is is going to be in Vegas, March 6th and seventh.

I believe. There are still tickets available. But go to the website. They’ll have all the details there. The nice part is that is a Monday and Tuesday, so I know that might be a little bit hard for some people to get off. But if you can, if you want to party in Vegas, you can come in. Or if you want to just hang out where it’s a little bit more mellow, you can stay after.

Now the next part is the hotel isn’t crazy expensive either. So go to realcoachessummit2023.com to check it out. No disclosures other than I am doing a talk there and just wanted to promote the word about a great I don’t make any money. There’s no affiliate to link there or anything like that.

So if you are coming to the conference, by all means, please come up and say hi. I would love to meet you and chat, answer any questions you have and just in general hang out. And I like dark beer or dark coffee. Depends on what time of the day it is. So check that out. Hope to see you. And enjoy this conversation about Kettlebells and how to use them.

With Michael Kurkowski, I always slaughter his last name, sorry. From the Strength Connection. Check it out.

[00:03:04] Dr Mike T Nelson: Hey, welcome back to the podcast. We have another mic on the podcast, which is a great name.

So thank you for being

[00:03:09] Mike Kurkowski: here. . Two, two mics on the mic, right? That’s the old,

[00:03:12] Dr Mike T Nelson: that’s right. Yeah. And today we’re talking about strength and kettlebell stuff. And obviously you do a lot of both of those. Yep. How did you get into Kettlebells? I’m always curious because I think we probably have talked a little bit about this in the past.

I think some of our pasts probably overlap in relation to the kettlebell

[00:03:33] Mike Kurkowski: journey.

Sure, yeah. I it was interesting. I got into FMS work first when I was got my first job as a personal trainer. Long story short, I was looking to be a pro baseball player. That was the first goal that I had.

And then got into training from there. And then a good friend of mine got into the personal training world and introduced me to functional movement. And when I was 14, I had a slip metathesis. So I had my femur slip out of the growth plate and Oh yeah, what ha What I didn’t realize was how asymmetrical all of my movements were when I was in my early twenties training.

Because when you’re young, when you’re 20 years old, you don’t feel pain, you don’t feel those asymmetries at all. You can just go through anything. And he put me through, A movement assessment, saw all these weaknesses that I had, some asymmetries, got body back in a balance type work and started knowing kettlebells as a tool.

But then Brett Jones came to the facility that I worked at in Clifton Park, New York, and I believe it was the first ever level two workshop. It was still a very new thing going on, so it was my team. For F M S, you’re saying for F M S? Yeah. And at the time he was with the R kc, he was a master R K C and another young guy just who was a kind of newly minted level.

One R K C was there as well. And I was just ea dropping on their conversation about. Kettlebell stuff, and it was an early morning before day two, and I asked Brett, Hey, can you look at my swing? Just thinking I was gonna show him how awesome my swing was. . And he proceeded to rip my technique apart in seven minutes with a 35 pound kettlebell.

And From there, I got hooked on it and got into Pavel’s work and did the R K C in 2010 in the Dayton’s Bluff Community Center Yeah. There in Minnesota and been there. Yeah. And since then, I, that was the modality of the physical training side that just was always at the top of my mind.

I always liked the aspect of mastering a handful of movements rather than trying to expand my exercise library in my mind. Got the connection of that with the functional movement. Working with athletes was big and got more deep into the strength side. And yeah, that was the early introduction of it.

I was, I felt fortunate Pavo was teaching workshops back then. , so I actually learned from, him himself at that spot. There was, amazing instructors and after that first one it just, it hooked me into the modality and just never turned back.

[00:06:04] Dr Mike T Nelson: Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. I think I might have even ran into you cause I was doing, I think I was an assistant a couple years around that timeframe there.

And Yeah. Did my first RKC there with Pavel and he used to teach in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, which is where I live. I guess the, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but the rumor was he used to teach in an abandoned bank vault. White Bear Lake. So he used to that way if people hear screaming, they can’t hear anything.

Yeah.

[00:06:29] Mike Kurkowski: I dunno. Wasn’t that kind of the old weird story of him and John Duquesne met up when he was teaching at a y like a dive community center supposedly like that. Yeah. Like doing some, like doing like a Russian stretching workout and then they’re like, yes, something’s going on here.

And then the Russian Kettlebell Challenge book came out and Yeah, just I think the, the concept of trying to master something and get better at it was always something that I was into, I was I was probably like a year in as a personal trainer at that time and just kinda learning the ropes.

When you’re young, when you’re a new coach, like you’re just trying to absorb everything. You’re like a sponge. Oh, sure. And having a background in baseball, which baseball, it’s like those little tweaks and techniques like are always the things that can really change a lot. So I was always, I always liked going like that inch wide, mile deep, philosophy and the way that they were teaching it.

I was like, oh, this is something I wanna. To get into a lot more, which was interesting cuz I came back and I was, I worked at a place for many years that really didn’t want to hear much about it. Like they just thought it was a tool, it was a fad. And I was always that kind of outlier who was doing all the weird kettlebell movements on the side.

And it’s oh yeah, that’s just Mike. Just let him do his thing over there. Meanwhile, I was training people that were getting ridiculously strong and getting to their goals by doing this all the time. I was like, yeah, there’s something here. But yeah, met with a lot of resistance at that time.

So it was

[00:07:49] Dr Mike T Nelson: interesting looking back. Yeah. Cause I think especially younger listeners, we got a wide variety of people that are older, such as us, although we’re not really old. And a lot of younger people, and now kettlebells are just a thing like most equipment manufacturers make some type of kettlebell, but I think people forget, like back in the day.

I wanna say for years, dragon Door was the only place making kettlebell. Yeah, you could get maybe some weird GS bells, but they were not easy to get by any stretch of the imagination. And I remember seeing Kettlebells originally through Charles Staley, who had Pavel on podcast or something like that, a video or something.

And so I remember ordering my first set of kettle bells. I was gonna order the RKC ones, but I was like, ah, they’re expensive. I don’t know about this kettle bell thing. So I ordered from some off brand, I don’t even know what the name was, but you got A set in the mail. And so you got a, a 16, a 24 and a 32.

. I was like, oh, this is great. At the time I don’t know anything about kettlebells. And so they, the manufacturer threw all three kettlebells not wrapped together in a big box. So this poor u p s guy almost broke his back, like trying to get it to the door and you open the box and they’re all like half, effed up already and stuff.

And the, I realized then trying to do snatches. So I had a video, that’s what it was, a Tim Larkins showing kettlebell snatches. . And so I would watch the video and I’m like, okay. And I go outta my yard and try it and I literally just beat the crap out of my forearm for Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know how long, I’m like, how do people do these things And eventually I figured it out and then I realized, , the structure of how the handle is and how it’s actually designed makes a big difference too. Yeah. The ones I had were this weird shaped handle. The handle was not ground at all. You could see like a big chunks of where they either C and seeded or just cut it out of the cast or whatever they did.

The handle was not smooth. My hand was like ripped up instantly and I actually stopped doing kettlebell stuff for a while cause I’m like, this is stupid. Why did people do this? This is so dumb. And then it wasn’t until a couple years later, I got back into it and tried a buddys, kettlebells and he showed me how to do it and I was like, oh, this is like way different than what I was doing.

Yep. . I went to my buddy Brad Nelson, who was like one of the first certified R KC people. Oh yeah, I know Brad. . Yeah. A good buddy of mine still to this day. And I remember afterwards going, oh, these are useful. Oh, you can do stuff with them. Oh, this is cool. And. My kettlebells are, shit.

I need new ones. . .

[00:10:26] Mike Kurkowski: That’s funny. I, we had the old like the perform better ones that had such the glossy finish Oh, yeah. On the handle. So they were so slippery no matter how much slipper, no matter how much chalk they had. And it wouldn’t stick to the chalk. Yeah. Like they still had it.

So I didn’t do much more than like snatch, I didn’t do any snatches or anything like that for a long time. Just learned how to swing properly, how to do, Turkish getups, at the time. Or getups, however you wanna, call it from there. But yeah, like when I started to see what.

They were doing with it, with the snatch test and then, seeing a guy like Pavel who’s like that aesthetically just looks like that bond kind of villain type look like you, just had that kind of intimidating look. I was like, yeah, this seems like something that’s interesting.

And then, Sure enough, I remember that day, like when Brett really tweaked my swing technique and I’m like, oh my gosh, there’s a lot more to this than just, moving. It was really a, it was really an eye-opening thing oh wow, I thought I knew a lot of stuff and I don’t know anything.

Like maybe I need to learn more about this. And yeah, just the tool itself is people have asked me, a lot what is it about it? I’m like, it’s just the versatility of it. It’s like I, you can train anywhere at a time. I love going outside and training, like getting out into the fresh air, like there’s a lake by my house that I’m always posting videos and stuff like that on just because it’s has just that nature’s soundtrack.

And then you can go out with a light bell and just play around with movements. There’s like a deeper connection to it than just getting strong or getting lean. There’s a mental piece to it. I feel like there’s like a spiritual piece to it. So yeah, it’s it’s a great tool. I recommend it to

[00:11:59] Dr Mike T Nelson: everybody.

And I think, I’ve recommended kettlebells to people for a long time. Especially if, usually the question is I don’t, especially with Covid, right? It’s yeah, I can do body weight stuff, but after that what do I do? And my recommendation generally is get like a TX or a pull-up bar or go to a park and just buy, a couple kettle bells.

I think if you’re a dude, I don’t know what your thoughts would be. Get a 16 and a 24. I think that’s probably a pretty good starting point. And then if you get past that, get a 32, the old school, one of each size, and then, if you want in between size or doubles or whatever, it depends on what you wanna do.

, even when I travel sometimes down to South Padre, especially during Covid, the gym wasn’t open down there. And due to limited room, because I packed the car full of kite boarding gear, , I didn’t have a lot of room to, to bring much gear, so I ended up just bringing. Two 16 kg kettle bells and surprisingly, if you know what you’re doing, that can be pretty useful. You can do double snatches, double swings. You can put ’em in one hand so you can do rows, which is obviously a 32 then, which is a little bit more realistic For one arm row, you can do a lot of stuff with them. You can go outside.

I would just block down to the beach, take ’em down there. You can do hand to hand juggling type stuff. So I think they’re pretty, Versatile for something that doesn’t have a huge footprint that’s semi affordable for someone who’s just looking to start, or if they just want body weight with a little bit of resistant

[00:13:26] Mike Kurkowski: options too.

Yeah. That I’m I’ve really, over the last just few months really, I’ve realized how powerful it is to use sub maximal loads with things like ballistics. Like you don’t need to go into I started doing snatch work with the 20 and the 24, which, for, my strength level is I can pretty much do anything I want with those bells, but just that sheer technique work on it, like there’s so much benefit, like you don’t need to.

Keep progressively overloading the weights, especially for ballistic type work. And, we had something interesting, Mike, cuz when after I left my first job I joined a buddy and we had a small kettlebell studio here in Saratoga Springs and Thousand Square feet. All basically kettlebells, we did some barbell base work and body weight.

But when Covid happened, nobody knew how long we were gonna be shut down. , we thought it was gonna be maybe a short time. So our team, we actually gave all of our kettlebells out to our members at that. Oh nice time. So they had at least one kettle bell at home so they can still do the classes, do the workouts they were doing.

We built an old online business. But it was interesting cuz it challenged us as coaches to be like, okay, like how do we put a program together if people just have one kettlebell? What if it’s a little bit too light? What if it’s a little bit too heavy for stuff? And it really challenged us as coaches to look at programming a lot differently.

And I think that’s the cool thing about. Kettlebells is if you have one weight, figure out how to use that weight to the best possible, ability and you build strength with it. I think, Brett had a famous line like, put me on a desert island with a 16 kilogram bell and I’ll walk out of it stronger from there.

And I had a g I had a cool conversation with Dan John about that, about just the exploring movement with a lighter bell. If you just had one bell, how many different variations, how many different combinations of movements can you put together in different things? Like I think that’s cool cuz it’s.

Part of the thing that I work a lot with my clients on is not just following a structure, but exploring your own intuition, your own movement as well, that play aspect of strength. And I don’t think we, we don’t do that as much as coaches with a lot of clients. It’s just let them explore and play.

Kind of have that day where you’re just moving for the sake of moving. And I think a kettlebell is a great tool to add into that day. And just challenge yourself in the creative side, not just the

[00:15:46] Dr Mike T Nelson: physical side. Yeah. I used to do that when I teach, when I used to teach more fitness professionals directly.

I used to work for Globe University and they had a two year and then a four year program for personal trainers. And so one of the exercises I would have ’em do would be, Okay, you’re stuck in an elevator and you have to train someone. Go. The students would get so mad at me because I realized they had a gym there.

So we’d go to the gym, we’d show ’em how to do exercises and a lot of the students would just complain of oh, this cable machine’s not very good. We don’t have this piece of equipment. And I’m like, you don’t really need a whole lot. You’ve got free weights. You’ve got more than enough stuff in this gym to train whatever you want.

And so then I started making it more difficult. I said, okay, you’ve got a pull-up bar and a kettle bell and body weight. What would you do? And then I’m like, okay, you only have a kettle bell and body weight. And then it’s okay, you only have body weight. What would you do? Because initially I gave ’em just body weight and they all lost their mind and had, I don’t know, pushups that was like all they could come up with, Cause you realize like they grew up with always having access to a gym. Like the perspective of a trainer is you’re always working in a gym. And this is years ago, even before Covid, but I’m like, If you’re just starting out or if you’re going somewhere, or let’s say your client goes on vacation, like they may not have access to all of that stuff.

And I said, plus, it’s just a good experiment to try to think outside of the box too. So I’ve done that with, some days I’ll get bored and I’m like, oh, I just got one kettle bell is all I have. What would I do? Or I’ve got, a 16 and a 24, what would I end up doing? And you can figure out some interesting stuff in newsflash, you don’t always have to press the same weight on each hand.

Exactly d know if you’ve ever tried putting a 16 in one hand and a 24 on the other hand, and doing like just a seesaw press. It’s more different than you think it is.

[00:17:32] Mike Kurkowski: one. Yeah. And it’s it goes into those things, like working on negatives, working on iso holds, like all those things like add in, like i, we used to do this yeah, grab a couple of light bells, like a couple of sixteens. Okay. Before you press hold that for 10 seconds. All right. Now press hold over for 10 seconds. Now go back, hold. It’s like all these things, start to, to change the intensity of what you’re doing based on the load.

And it is, it’s so many people we have o oftentimes this all or nothing attitude. And clients I think look at this a lot too. If you, if they can’t do exactly the workout that’s on paper, it’s oh, I can’t do anything. Then it’s no, you can do a lot of different things.

Like you can explore, you can play this out. So it’s have that framework but play inside of that framework as much as possible. And I think it’s, yeah, like we, I used to have an array of kettlebells from four kilograms all the way up. Almost, yeah. 92. I think like we had a 92 kilogram kettle bell at my old studio, which I think us and me and Kevin d from Philadelphia, I think we’re the only ones I know that had, those heavy bells.

But then once we downsized, I’m like, okay you don’t have as many options anymore. What can you do to still get stronger? And it’s that’s the I think that’s such the piece that I’m into as a coach now, of just like the creative side of it. How can I make everything, regardless of what hap what’s happening in life, still get stronger, still get a good workout program, regardless of what’s going on.

[00:18:56] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And for program writing, my biggest tip is just write down what are your constraints first. , because everybody has constraints, whether that’s, I can only train so many hours per day or every other day, or I can’t get to the gym, so here’s what I have for equipment or whatever it is. Write all those things down first.

And then do your program. So like when I work with programs, like the first thing I look at is, okay, how often can they train? What’s their timeframe and what do they have for equipment? . from there you just figure out what you need to do. And sometimes you could be like, Hey, if you get a pull-up bar, you could do some other stuff, which would be useful, but here’s what we’re gonna do in the meantime.

Or I’m made the mistake early on, years ago of just writing down what I thought was the ideal or the optimal program, realizing that nobody could do that, no one even understood it. It was way more complicated than it needed to be. And clients would just look at it and just their eyes would glazed over and they would do nothing.

Yeah.

[00:19:51] Mike Kurkowski: Yeah. It’s like you, like I know as a, I’ve been doing this for a long time still, if there’s so much things on like the docket that I have to do, like I’m looking at the whole elephant in there and I start to lose motivation of doing everything. If I know I only need to do a couple of movements, but do them a bunch okay, like I’m ready to roll, I’m ready to do that.

I’ve learned that too over time. Like we’re, there seems like in kettle training, like a very sequential, teach somebody how to deadlift first and then swing, and then you do these movements and I think as kettlebell coaches, we sometimes think that everybody needs to. Do so much of the foundational things first before you can teach ’em how to do a clean and jerk, how to do a snatch and stuff like that.

Now with people, I try and teach ’em those movements as quick as possible. It’s the teaching somebody how to snatch and if they can do it properly with a kettlebell like that requires a lot of different things at one time. There’s coordination, there’s athletic movement, there’s strength, there’s stability.

So it’s yeah, like these things that we used to think were like, like you need to be like at an advanced level or an elite level of movement. It’s no, you can teach anybody how to do these movements if you just do

[00:20:57] Dr Mike T Nelson: it the right way. In forest snatch, like what is the, you say the benefits to people and what is your preferred teaching method for it?

In my case, I ended up doing it not really what the R K C recommends, but I found that if they could do a swing already and they could do just a stationary press overhead, I would have them do a few swings, do a press, press it overhead and then drop it all the way down. tell them to use their hips to get it back up. Yeah. I found that was like the fastest way cuz they would start at the top and I’m like, oh, just get the kettlebell back overhead again. I’m like, oh. And then, trying to figure out the wrist and the hand movement a little bit. But I found that was the fastest, but I don’t know what sort of.

Preferred way of doing it is. And what would be the benefits of a snatch if people are not

[00:21:47] Mike Kurkowski: familiar with it? Yeah, like the first, if I’m gonna teach a snatch, like if they can hinge properly, like still know you can do a deadlift, position, you can do a swing. So you know, to get that float position of the bell.

But then I like to teach a top down. I think that’s the best way. If you cheat a bell up overhead, so you get that ending position at the top, and then you can go through your tension points. All right? Legs are tight, like arms locked. Okay? That’s your starting end ending position.

Because if you can teach somebody how to drop the kettlebell from a snatch position, they’re muscle memory, natural. I think neurology is going to retrace their steps a lot easier than trying to start it from the ground up. So when I’m first teaching that movement everybody has that.

Kind of banging the forearm type. Story probably when they first get it. So if you can teach ’em how to fluently get it, I found when get a good kettlebell snatch, right? It’s riding a bike oh, that’s how it’s supposed to feel. Okay, we’re gonna mimic that as much as possible.

So you teach that in. But as far as training it working technique at the same time, I think the half snatch and the reverse half snatch are even better than just doing regular snatching. I’ve, talked quite a bit with Tim Almond on this and he’s done more with the hardstyle snatch than probably anybody as far as studying it and researching it.

So actually snatching the bell up, dropping it down into the shoulder and then dropping it like a clean and snatching it back up, I found of getting more of. , it’s more of that vertical position, where it’s the difference of force production with a swing, you’re projecting it forward, whereas snatch, you’re going more vertical, the direction that you’re doing is going up.

So that’s the different, there used to be that old saying of, a snatch is just a swing that finishes overhead. , I was like no, it’s not. It’s actually more of, if you drop down into a snatch, it’s gonna actually need more of a vert like a 45 degree angle rather than just more of a hinge position.

So I found by teaching the half snatch, so you drop down to the shoulder and then drop from there. You need to develop more force in snatching it back up because you don’t have the momentum of dropping it from the top. It seems like technique gets a lot more dialed. A lot faster by working the half snatch and then the reverse half snatch.

So the reverse half snatch is really just a clean and press, and then you’re doing a snatch drop. So that kind of screws with your mind quite a bit, I think. Cuz if you drop down like from a snatch position and then you have to go right to a clean, you’re what the heck’s going on? It actually helps dial in your clean technique a little bit more too.

So if you work both of those, then it seems like your snatch technique just falls into that kind of goldilock position a lot easier. I think the snatch is just like anything with kettlebells, everybody’s architecture in their body is a little bit different. So finding the groove that feels best for that individual person is gonna be different if you’re more of hip dominant versus kind of quad dominant.

If your architecture of your body’s a little bit different, it’s gonna look slightly different. But if you get those feelings down, then I think that’s gonna find, that sweet spot for you.

[00:24:53] Dr Mike T Nelson: Very cool. And what are your thoughts on the snatch in terms of there’s, I don’t even know if this is a thing anymore, but competing school of thought where the old school kind of really early way was just create like a big arc, right?

So I’m gonna take the kettle like a swing, but I’m just gonna keep going all the way up. So if you’re watching the video, I’m creating more like an arc versus my goal is to get the kettle bell to go up more vertical. Yeah. And so when it’s going up more vertical, I have to reposition my arm almost underneath.

And when I’m coming down, I’m not just letting it woo, just fall out in an arc in front, I’m actually dropping it down. So I’m almost like cork screwing my arm a little bit and then coming

[00:25:33] Mike Kurkowski: back. Yeah. If you see if you see my technique, if you drop it down, have that cork screw based technique.

, because I think especially for hard style technique, GS people can speak to this probably much differently as far as the technique, but the closer you can keep it to your body, I think the better. Now again, it’s not like a dead snatch position where it’s directly on.

But I think the thing with kettlebells is you always want to, remember is the only thing that kettlebell wants to do is go down. So the farther out the ark is, then the more you have to use and compensate by possibly your back, by your shoulder, something’s gonna pull out the farther away from the bell that you get from the body.

And just like we talked about, like the body’s gonna retrace its steps. So if your drop is far out, you’re probably gonna have it come back, in the same direction. So that’s why teaching the. Kind of the closer position, like that almost. If you see Tim almond’s technique, he almost pulls so close where the bell’s already on his wrist before it crosses his chin, and then it’s almost like in one motion.

Just flows back up. It’s very different. It’s hard to teach, I think, in many ways. But if you’re, if the intention is keeping it close to the body on it, then I think it’s gonna, number one, it’s gonna save your back. So it’s gonna be safer, from there. But again, if you’re looking at the arc, like if I have a client that I’m working with and we’re working on snatch technique, and they’re shooting me videos over, and it seems like their snatch technique is going out, then I go back to the first two exercises that we talked about doing the half snatch, and then the, the reverse half snatch, because I think the half snatch, you have to keep that bell close to your body.

Like you can’t, shoot it out, yeah. Away from you. It’s just not gonna, you’re probably not gonna produce that same force again. If you’re playing with a light bell, then. You can probably get away from, that’s why like with strength work, it’s so interesting cuz you have to find the right bell that challenges you enough, with the technique where it’s not, so heavy from there.

Like for me, like using like a 28 K for like technique work seems like it’s that like perfect, position like the 32, I can get away with it for a few minutes in there, but then I’ve gotta push a little bit harder to really snatch that up with good technique afterwards. So yeah, I think the closer you can keep that bell to your body and and produce that force evenly with, anterior and posterior then I think that’s gonna be the best for.

[00:27:59] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and you definitely see that with swings too, right? The biggest mistake I would see with people teaching was, unfortunately, it was usually with female clients. They would give them like, oh, here’s that four pound cat all bell. Yeah. And they’re just like, . Exactly. Let us know feedback and you can use your arms to move it all over.

Exactly. Found with, he used to do with females all the time is I’d take sometimes a 1620 or sometimes even a 24, depending upon their background and what strength levels they were at and et cetera, and I would just teach ’em how to do swings. So I would air a little bit heavier lower reps instead of going too light, and they would always ask at the end.

They’re like, oh, how heavy is that? I’m like, oh, it’s just a 16. They’re like, oh, great. I remember this. This one lady, this is like her force set. She’s oh, this is only a 16. I said, yeah, it’s a 16 kilogram. She’s kilogram how many pounds is that? I’m like, oh, it’s 35 pounds. She’s I can’t do that.

I’m like, you already did three sets of it. It is the same kettle bill. I didn’t switch ’em out or change ’em or anything. She’s no I can’t do 35 pound and. You did four sets of 10 already. I know, yeah. Yeah. But it was just so funny. She was so adamant that she couldn’t do it even though she had already

[00:29:09] Mike Kurkowski: done it.

Yeah, I know. The swing, the teaching, the swing is always interesting with that. That’s why I think like the low swing is such a good exercise that and what is that low swing is you’re not, like a standard Russian kettlebell swing. You’re getting it up to your chest where the low swing is.

You don’t worry about that. Like maybe the bell might be just coming up to the naval Ah, sure. Or so where all you’re doing is you’re just focusing on the drop back. And just so it helps like that almost slight disassociation of the upper body to the lower, because you wanna really the hips are the engine, like the core is, what’s working it, so it’s just getting to snap the hips, just so you feel that little bit of float.

Go a little bit more. So that’s why like the towel swing, I think is a great exercise. For people to work, of just putting the towel underneath the handle and then just practicing, just getting that hip snap, in there. And then once they get that down and you start to see it float, okay let the bell go a little higher, let the bell go a little higher, let the bell go a little higher.

And then all of a sudden they’re just naturally just swinging from there. But then once they get that, then I think you don’t need to teach them that anymore. I think that’s the thing. Like we, kele ball, it’s just like anything, it’s like you, there’s a feeling that you get as soon as they feel it, and you can see it too.

Be like, okay, that’s the flow. . All right. You feel that? Yes. Okay. Every time you swing a bell, get that feeling. Okay. Work it and then you work it again. But yeah, like those small little kettle bells where if you can just hold it up there Yeah. For like days and days, it’s you don’t need to swing that , you don’t need to swing that bell.

It’s just, it’s not gonna get there. But it’s funny, I used to, I had a, I had an old client, she was a track athlete. She was a referral of mine and she was 13 years old. And she was just strong as an ox and she was easily kettlebell, deadlifting or 80 kilogram, bell.

She was doing it for three to five reps. Nice. Nothing. But people are like, oh my God how heavy is that? It’s oh my she should be doing, that’s yeah. Yeah, it’s fine. Kettle ball deadlift is one of the, probably the safest things you can possibly do for your body.

It’s right underneath, your body. It’s not putting a lot of excess pressure on your back. And it’s yeah, you can get some weight in your hands. This is, strength is something that everybody, should test.

[00:31:14] Dr Mike T Nelson: Any tips for people doing a snatch where it’s coming back like I was early on and it’s just hitting the back of their forearm?

Any tips on that?

[00:31:23] Mike Kurkowski: Yeah, it’s, I think again, starting from the top position and, working on the drop, I think that’s gonna help the most, from there I have a drill that I worked where you you snatch the bell up, but you only pause at the chin.

So it’s the goal is you want to get that bell on the wrist, like before, like you get like to the level of your head. If you do that and you just do that a few times, then you go right back up to, up to the snatch from there. I dunno, like when I do any corrective type stuff with clients, is as soon as they get it, like once or maybe like twice.

Okay. Do it again, then go right back into the movement and the drill. Okay. And then just work it from there. So oftentimes I think, corrective exercise and like changing things and working on technique is something that I think you can also go so far down the rabbit hole with of just doing that.

You need to fix all these different things. It’s no, as soon as you. If we’re working on the technique, oh, it feels like it’s banging on the wrist as soon as we get that down. Okay, feel that. All right, go right back to the snatch. Okay. Did that do it? All right. Get right back into your technique.

Go right back into your training again and work it, and then go back to that again. If it feels like it’s off, okay, go back to that drill and see if it works again, because I think if you find that one that works for your particular client or athlete, whoever you’re working with, and then they know that, okay, that fixes it all right?

If you, if that ever feels like it’s off again, go back to that drill, do it again. And more often than not, then clients are correcting themselves. And I think if you do that, then you know there’s a lot less work as a coach that you have to do of working on these things over and over. And then we’re not enabling people, of thinking like, oh, they have to come to us if anything feels off, like they have to come back to us and we have to fix it.

[00:33:12] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. No, I like that. One of their tips I use, my buddy Adam Glass used to teach up here for quite a while. And so he came over when I opened the gym in my garage and I had a client over and we were teaching him how to do a kettlebell snatch. And you could just hear that horrible noise of your skin moving on the kettlebell cuz he was bringing it up and you could see him clamping down at the top.

But he was using, he was a pretty strong dude and had a pretty heavy kettle bell. So the momentum is raking the bell through his hand. It’s just partially closed. Cause you hear that horrible noise of like his skin being moved across the bell, which is this kind of this Oh yeah. Horrible screeching noise.

And both Adam and I are looking at each other, we’re like, ah, stop doing that. And he’s what? Okay, here’s your cue. I don’t want to hear your kettlebell snatch. And the first time I heard Adam say that, I’m like, this is the dumbest cue I’ve ever heard of my life. And then I realized like it took him like five reps.

He figured it out. I was like, oh, external cue instead of an internal cue. Like it’s a weird thing of like you’re, it’s almost like you’re giving their body permission of what the outcome is, and then you’re letting their brain sort through what is the best mechanism. So that sent me down a whole path of internal versus external cues and a bunch of other stuff, but, It was interesting how a lot of times external cues, just telling them what you want to do, but being more specific.

Okay. I want you to imagine you’re gonna press the bell overhead, but press towards the ceiling, or, do this or do that like you’re giving them. A cue that’s different, but it sounds similar, but you’re allowing their own physiology and neurology to figure out what is the best path to do that.

So I thought that was pretty

[00:34:54] Mike Kurkowski: interesting. Yeah. You’re queuing such an inter, it’s such an interesting topic of going into, I’ve talked with Nick Winkleman before Yeah.

[00:35:01] Dr Mike T Nelson: On my podcast, his whole thesis

[00:35:02] Mike Kurkowski: on external queuing. Yeah. And his whole thing of like he used the analogy for us talking about squats.

Like with you can do the the literal one, which is this is what’s going on. And then it’s like the visual. And then the last one he said is imagine that there’s a snake right underneath your butt and you don’t want it to bite you. So beat the bite. And it’s like that one just clicked and he’s whatever, one clicks right away.

That’s the one that works best for your clients. And. I think that’s something, I don’t know if you did this when you were just getting started, but I used to over cue the crap out of everybody.

[00:35:32] Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh. I used that. I worked with four people. I worked with. They, oh God. . I just vomited internal cues on ’em for way too long and

[00:35:40] Mike Kurkowski: yeah, it was really good.

Yeah. Oh my God. I used to do that all the time. And then it’s the more I found something, one of the things that helped me a lot with snatching, particularly with technique, is just changing the angle of my hand. It’s like all of a sudden just going from like over the top, just to a slight angle to the side.

Oh sure. That just naturally just flew everything in there. Like we talked about that corkscrew. Yep. Position at the bottom. And I actually just did this with a client I’ve been working with recently who was working on snatching and something wasn’t feeling right, and I was just looking at the bottom of their position.

Their hand was straight down. I said, okay, just try this, just turn it slightly to the side. Okay. Every time the bottom position at the bottom of your hinge, your hand should feel like that. Okay. See how that works? And naturally, it just, for some reason, it just put them in their own architecture of pulling the shoulder back so they’re not compensating up with their trap.

, they got that low pull position and then just popped in there. I was like, oh, okay. And she’s oh, is that it? I was like, yeah, that’s it. Just do that. Yeah. , and it’s sometimes it’s, as, we wanna, we love talking about this stuff so much as coaches that we want to word vomit everything out to clients.

When I’ve learned a lot of that from, being a mentee to Brett Jones for so long as economy of words as little words as you need to say, to clients so they can do what they need to do. That is ultimately best. Sometimes we like, try and justify our value of knowing, like speaking out how much we actually know about it.

It’s no, it’s like just with cues and stuff like that. One cue, retest. If it works good, move on. Keep going to the next thing.

[00:37:11] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I wish someone would’ve told me that earlier on, because I realized the less talking I did, the better clients moved. And then I realized, oh, my talking was screwing ’em up.

I wasn’t making ’em better. I was actually making ’em worse for a while. . Yeah. And eventually they got enough reps and they figured it out. So eventually over the long scale they got better. . But it was a weird, I realized I fell into the habit of feeling like I needed to say something even after every rep in order to feel like my position there was justified.

, and so sometimes now I’ll just watch someone I’m like, all right, go. I won’t say anything during their whole set or sometimes even after they’re done. , another tip I got from my buddy Sean Misko, who does a lot of very high level movement coaching, works with a lot of N F L players for years.

Awesome dude. He’s after they’re done ask them what they. , but he’s give them at least 10 seconds to process first and then ask them. Cause and I played around with this, so I would ask them when, immediately after a set, how did that feel? Oh, good. But if you give them time to think about it, they don’t give you the canned response that you want to hear.

It’s no, okay, just take 10 seconds, do a couple breaths. Okay. What did you feel during that exercise? What do you think went on? And then they’re like, ah, this and that. And they’re like, okay. Then I play the game of did what they feel match what I saw. And sometimes I’ll even video them and I’m like, okay, tell me what do you think went well on this and what could you improve?

And then I force ’em to watch the video themselves and see, oh, can you correct yourself off of video? But you give yourself that time to think about it before you watch the video, because most people will be like, I just watched the video. It’s okay. But now you’re relied on the video all the time, not what you’re feeling going on.

So that was like super. Useful to it. I still do that with myself sometimes, cuz you’ve all had like lifts or you’re doing a squat or a deadlift, and especially for me on squatting I’m like, man, that was slow as hell. I don’t know, I think my hips were completely off. You watch the video and you’re like, oh, that looks okay.

And it wasn’t nearly, I thought, oh, interesting. You’re like, oh. So my perceptions off. Oh shit. ,

[00:39:13] Mike Kurkowski: oh I’ve done that so many times too. Especially going into like heavy poles and I was like, yeah. Oh man, that one was like, that must have been. Then I go back to the video that I did and it’s oh, there was no loss of speed.

Everything worked well. I was like, oh, okay. I’ve got more in the tank. I was like, yeah, the perception is, I love what you just said there about that 10 seconds. Just let them sit in the movement for a sec. Take a couple of deep breaths. Yeah. Like I know that too. If somebody asks me that, if they’re coaching me, I want to correct it, right?

Yeah. Like I’m gonna say it right away oh yeah, that felt different. It’s did it really? That’s it when I started doing group classes and teaching groups with these techniques, that was when things changed a lot. Cuz you realize once you go from one-on-one working with somebody and then all of a sudden now you have seven or eight people that you’re working with at once.

Like you need to get very economical with your cues and with your words. Oh yeah. But also I think the other side too is, when we look at technique, and I think kettlebell coaches, we fall into this a lot. I think a lot of other coaches probably do too, but I’ve seen it a lot on this side is you think that good technique means it looks perfect, and it’s no, as long as it’s up to standard and it’s safe, then let the person move.

Oftentimes they just need to get strong. And I’ve seen a lot of people, especially if at the beginning of their journey when ask ’em what have you done before? And they’re like, oh I don’t think I’m doing it right. And it’s like they think that they have this narrative in their mind that they think technique means it needs to be perfect at every second.

Otherwise it’s wrong when it’s no, there’s a gradient, there’s a spectrum of what looks good versus, what’s not. I have a couple of, friends that I follow. Their aesthetic movements just look beautiful. I’m like, if mine looks as good as that, it looks great. But then I see other people who are strong as can be, and their aesthetics are a little bit different.

I equated it to like Yogi Bar, like Yogi Barra had the ugliest swing in baseball, yet he was an M V P. He still had good results from it, from there. So it doesn’t need to look perfect and beautiful in order for somebody to, to progress with it. Get it to standard, make sure that it’s safe.

But after that, let the person get stronger. Let them work within that movement. It’s gonna, it’s gonna flow with their body the way that it’s supposed to. It might not look the same as yours. That doesn’t mean that it’s wrong.

[00:41:25] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And again, that goes back to what is their goal? What are they trying to achieve?

If you’re gonna do, Russian Cuttle GS sport, then , yeah. You at some point, at the highest level, You have to almost contort your body to make sure the bell is moving as efficiently as possible. Because your goal is to do hundreds of reps for many minutes against other people who are doing the same thing.

But if you’re doing it just to get stronger and you’re trying to get a training effect out of it, like you said, I agree don’t do anything that’s completely unsafe, it’s gonna risk injury. Not all your reps are gonna be a hundred percent perfect. Should you strive for that?

Yeah. But if you’re, so to me, like I differentiate that into, if you’re doing it for strength work, you probably need to be a little bit more particular about technique. Yeah. If you’re doing it for conditioning, by definition, the weight is a little bit lighter. You can probably be a little bit more unquote loose with your technique, which, some people in the kettlebell community lose their shit over that. But just watch, go to the R k c, watch the snatch test. Like most of those are, I would say, not beautiful at all. But they met the goal, right? If you’re Exactly, I think it’s 24 kg for a guy in five minutes or whatever it was.

, so again, I think a lot of times we, especially online, we forget what the context is. I remember doing the art case, the the old tactical strength challenge. I dunno if they still have that around. But the one year I thought I would do the elite, which is the max deadlift pull up with the 10 or 20 pounds, and then a kettlebell snatches with the 32. And that was for five minutes. And that was, I think that’s probably one of the most miserable things I’ve ever done in my life. Oh God. It’s brutal. Yeah. I got 63 raps or something like that. It was in the sixties and. I was like destroyed for an hour after I was just, and I know they were absolutely not pretty at all.

But yeah. As a training thing, probably pretty damn effective. ?

[00:43:17] Mike Kurkowski: Oh yes. Oh the tsa. Oh gosh. It is the, it’s interesting, it’s still around Natasha’s. Oh knows. They take Thetas knows have really taken it over cuz Derek I think won it a million and a half times. Oh, okay. Over, because Derek Toner is unbelievable coach, unbelievable guy.

And he’s just a freak of strength cuz I think he did. Like what, 138 snatches with the 32 and five minutes or something? With a 32? With the 32. Oh yeah. He, oh my god. He, what the hell he took he took first place in the elite like so many times, and he was first in every category, like deadlift, pullups, and snatched test.

And if anybody, hasn’t done A T S C before, you do a max deadlift poll, then you do a pullup max, I think there’s a flex arm hanging for the women’s division and then you do a snatch test afterwards and it’s just as many as you can do in five minutes. But what you don’t realize about that snatch test is you’ve just done a max pull of your posterior chain and you’ve just done a serious pull up rep test.

So your grip is much different. So it’s a different snatch test than you had. You have 10, 15 minutes, to recover beforehand. But Yeah, it’s that 32 K Bell. My my old partner Chris Abbott, did that and I think he, I’ve, I remember watching his face just during that and it’s just it’s these, just like these, this cannot go, faster any faster from here.

But it’s funny with technique though, cuz I’ve talked with some GS people on my podcast. Like I’ve talked with Dennis Fassil and Britney Stra, Vandyke and Lorna, and if you’re gonna do one hand switch, 10 minute test and stuff like that, like you gotta have your technique dialed in. Cuz Oh yeah, you can do a minute or two of work, but if you’re doing like that, every little.

Off, off technique issue in there is gonna pop up, over that time. And I just saw Dennis do a video the other day with the 30 K and he did, 220 reps I think in 10 minutes with one hand, geez, switch. So he did a hundred in a row with one hand and it’s just like clockwork like this.

I’m like, this is the most insane thing I’ve ever seen from here. Just as far as the strength, but then the technique that comes in too. Yeah, if you want to go. That route from there. But just like you said, like I’ve witnessed and done 1,000,005 minute kettlebell snatch test.

Before everybody’s technique looks a little bit different, but as long as you’re locking it out at the top, it’s like it counts as a rep. And they tell you that when you assist instructors with this, it’s like we’re not looking for perfect aesthetics. You’re looking for standards.

And I think when you go back and you train your own clients who maybe don’t want to be s f G instructors or R K C instructors, it’s like they want to get lean, they want to get strong, and they want to feel competent in doing something. That’s what I think is so cool about kettlebell training. Is it dims down a lot of the unnecessary BS that you hear from the fitness industry about arguing about all these little things and puts it into, oh wait, yeah, focus on this one modality. If you do that, you’re gonna get really strong. You can get really lean, you can get, you can change your body composition.

Like you can get everything for your joint mobility in here. Like it is a tool that kind of can hit everything in there. Now granted there’s, barbell work, one Red Max. Yeah. Getting up to that. Absolutely. There’s other tools that are great, but as far as just having one tool, if you’re training from home and you want to get everything in there, I don’t think there’s a tool that’s better than the kettlebell.

[00:46:40] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. One of the last questions we wrap up what would your top three kind of kettlebell exercise recommendation? So if somebody says, eh, I’m not training for a sport per se, I just wanna add a little bit more muscle, maybe get a little bit stronger, eh, maybe lose some weight. What would your top three kettlebell exercises that you’d recommend to them?

[00:47:01] Mike Kurkowski: So I would say Clean press. I’ll put those two together in there. , snatch and then actually Kettleball front squat. . I think these, those things say like a lot of times, like the foundational stuff, people’s, like the kettlebell swing, the Turkish getup, I think those are great too.

But if you are looking for really great strength, like I don’t think there’s a better exercise than learning how to military press a kettlebell. Just from the shoulder architecture of it. You need that thoracic extension. You need to have good mobility in order to do that. And then as far as a conditioning tool in there, if you learn how to snatch a kettlebell properly, like I think there’s no better tool from there.

And then I’ll add in the squat just because a kettlebell front squat is. Like you can teach that to anybody. Like you can do a goblet squad, you can do a front squad, and just as far as lighting up your core, if you want to, if you wanna really get a core workout in, add a set of front squats after you do like a bunch of other stuff with the kettlebell I think that’s where I think Pavel’s, return of the kettlebell program is that where once you do like your ladders of five presses at the top of the fifth rung, you do a set of five front squats with the bells that you’re using.

And like you can be a very strong barbell squatter, and you get a pair of 30 twos in there, like that’s gonna give you a workout, for your legs, for your core, for your athletic, just conditioning. I think if you’re gonna, do three things right there, I think

you

[00:48:35] Dr Mike T Nelson: can’t beat those.

Yeah, that reminds me I need to put kettlebell double friend squats. Probably test them out again because it’s , it’s one of those things it’s so effective. You sometimes just don’t want to do ’em again. Cause they’re they’re not fun at all. . Yeah. But I would argue that even a moderately strong athlete, if you take even just 24 in each hand and do, 10 to 15 reps of a kettlebell front squat, that’s pretty taxing.

Yeah. It, and it’s taxing in a different way, I think because of the shape of the bells and the fact that it’s, the load is so much more out in front of you that, like you said, the core stabilization and the other. Things that you might need to work on because it’s really trying to, it’s almost like a zercher squat.

It’s really trying to rip you more forward than what you realize, which I think is

[00:49:18] Mike Kurkowski: Underappreciated. Yeah, if I’m like right now, like I’m doing a lot of like the iron cardio protocol. I dunno if you’ve heard that, but Brett came out with a book called Iron Cardio, which is like the single rep complexes.

So now essentially the original kind of strength aerobics workout was clean press, then squat. So you’re doing a single rep. So you do one clean, one press one squat, drop it down next 30 seconds, do the other side, next 30 seconds, do the other side. So you’re always doing one solid wrap, but then once you do that, then you add a snatch to it.

So you go clean, press, squat, snatch, then alternate. So if you do that, 15 to 20 minutes or 30 minutes or so, like all of a sudden you’re getting 30 to 40 sets of work in all. Oh yeah. Single. All single reps. So you’re dialing in technique, you’re really challenging. Just your overall strength, your recovery as well.

You do a double kettlebell day in there where you go clean press, squat, like. All of a sudden you’re adding a lot of volume in a short period of time of doing it when, and you’re not compromising technique at all. Anybody’s interested in getting, like really dialing in technique like that has been my go-to.

I’ve been doing that for a while. And hypertrophy wise conditioning wise, like these things as far as doing a really simple program and also challenging your intuition oh, I feel like, I’m feeling pretty good today. Okay, I’m gonna add a second rep to this, to this right here.

Okay. I’m feeling a little bit off. I’m feeling a little tired. All right. Clean press squat. I’ll take out the snatch. You can still do a lot of work. So there’s always an avenue that you can go, in my in my business we call it the highway of strength. There’s always a lane that you can take.

Sometimes you need to go cruise control and go in the right lane. Other days you’re feeling really good. All right, it’s, we’re going into the left lane, we’re gonna push it the intensity a little bit more. So that’s been a. Huge breakthrough, I think, in in Kettle Strength.

[00:51:13] Dr Mike T Nelson: Cool. That’s awesome.

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing all your information and everything today. I think that’s awesome. And if, yeah, no doubt, maybe if people have some dusty kettlebells they’ll brush ’em off and use them again. Or if they’re looking for something to travel or other something, that’s useful, that’s different.

Cause I know people like novelty, so I’d rather. Push them towards novelty, that’s gonna be useful instead of half the hair brainin stuff they see on

[00:51:36] Mike Kurkowski: Instagram. . Yeah, no if anybody’s interested too. If you go on my site, mystrength connection.com there’s an ebook I put together called the One Day Strength Challenge, which is actually how to incorporate these kettlebell protocols in the program you’re already doing.

Nice. So if you already are doing a program, you add this in one day a week and it fills in the gaps of what you might not be getting from there. So you can do it as like a standalone program or add it in with all you’re doing. So if you wanna work on your technique, if you want to dust them off, then jump on there.

You can download that and I show you exactly how to add this into already what you’re doing.

[00:52:13] Dr Mike T Nelson: Cool. And what’s the URL

[00:52:15] Mike Kurkowski: for that again? Mystrengthconnection.com

[00:52:18] Dr Mike T Nelson: Great. And if people wanna follow you and find out more from you, where would they do that? Same URL or

[00:52:23] Mike Kurkowski: different one? You can go to yeah, you could check out the site.

You can go to Facebook. I’m pretty active on there. Just Michael Kurkowski check in there. I have a Facebook group called The Strength Connection, which is, the name of my podcast that I have, which you’ve been a guest on, which was awesome. Yeah. Having you on. And there I dive deeper into a lot of the insights from the podcast, things that I’m working on, clients that I’m working with and stuff like that.

And then Instagram is Mike underscore strength connection. You can find me there. So yeah, all the socials, all

[00:52:52] Dr Mike T Nelson: that good stuff. Cool. Thank you so much for all your time today and sharing all the kettlebell wisdom. I really appreciate it.

[00:52:58] Mike Kurkowski: Awesome. Appreciate it, doc. Thank you.

[00:53:00] Dr Mike T Nelson: Thank you. Got it.

Cool. Thank you so much for all the time I gotta take off here. But yeah, I’ll let you know once it’s out and really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks, Mike. Really appreciate it, man. Have a good one. Cool. See you buddy. Bye. All right, see ya.

[00:53:21] Dr Mike T Nelson: . Big thanks to Mike Krakowski for coming on the podcast, talking all about kettlebells. Make sure to check out his podcast, A Strength Connection on Apple Podcast and where all other great podcasts are at. I did a podcast on his show, so we’ll link to that in some of the comments or some of the notes below here, so you can check that out.

Yeah, I would highly recommend you using some kettlebells if you can. Again, it’s gonna be much better than nothing. Of course, if you have access to a full gym, our kettle bell’s gonna be superior, eh, maybe not. Depends on your goal and what you’re trying to do, but I think for a lot of people, as we talked about in the interview, they serve as a really good tool.

Don’t take up a lot of space, and there’s a wide variety of stuff you can do with even just a couple kettlebells. So big thanks to him. Make sure to check out his products and all of his information there. And his podcast coming up very soon is a very cool conference. As I mentioned at the top of the podcast here in Vegas, the Real Coach’s Summit 2020.

Go to www.realcoachessummit2023.com for all of the details. I’ll be given to talk there entitled Fat for Fuel to Get Leaner and Carbs for Performance. How to master metabolism with metabolic flexibility. So you wanna check that one out. I hope to see you there. It’s gonna be a great conference.

Super excited about it. Good buddies are gonna be there. Dr. John, Mike, Andrew Coates, Sam Miller, Stan Efer, Alex Viada, Dr. Jade, Tata, and many others. So check. Hope to see you there. If you do show up, please come up and say hi. I would love to talk to you. Also, as a heads up, the fizz flex certification is coming up.

It will open again in mid-March 2023. So if you’re looking to enhance your recovery, become more resilient, antifragile, and just generally a lot harder to kill once you’ve mastered basic nutrition and exercise. What would you do next? That is the Physiologic Flexibility certification. We cover everything from temperature changes such as sauna, the effect of cold water immersion changes in pH, which covers everything from low intensity aerobics.

Stuff, breathing techniques to a really brutal high intensity interval training you can do expanded metabolic flexibility, looking more at carbohydrates, carbohydrate loading, and then also on the other end if you wanted to do an extreme ketogenic type approach. There actually is a time and a place to do that for a specific context.

And last one is regulation of oxygen and CO2 is everything from different types of exercise, nasal breathing versus mouth breathing, and how do you set them up? So check out physiologicflexibility.com for all the details you can get onto. The wait list there. I’ll let you know as soon as it opens.

We’ve got some exclusive bonus items for you also. So thank you so much as always, for listening to the podcast. Thanks to Mike for being on here chatting all about Kettlebells. If you have time, please leave us a review. Even if it’s really short or whatever stars you feel are appropriate always helps us with the distribution.

To date, we haven’t done any paid advertisement or anything like that, not that I’m against it. So far everything has just been organic, word of mouth. So if you find someone who is interested in this podcast please send it along, share it online. Thank you so much as always for listening. Greatly appreciate it.

Talk to you all next week.