Transforming Fitness with Kettlebell Training with Alex Salkin

Full transcript

Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness. Free to Find, I'm your host, Anthony Amen. Join me today to take a dive into the whole of Health and Fitness. We're learning, overcome diversity to take the back of our fiction and see Health and Fitness in a whole new light. Today, guys, we're going to bring on an awesome guest for you. Like always, I'd like to make viewers have awesome guests. But this episode we're going to talk about that piece of equipment in the gym that you always look at and you go what the heck is that and why don't want to use it. I really like talking about kettlebells different kind of kettlebell training and I think we found a great guy to talk about that on for today. So that's where they're doing. Welcome to the show, Alex Salkin. Alex, it's a pleasure to have you today.

The pleasure is all mine, especially because you have such a great name and a great town that your gym is located in Mount Sinai. Your last name is Amen. This is a divinely inspired podcast.

I'm very, very pleased to be. I should just change it to that divine fitness.

Why not, dude? You would crush it. You're probably crushing it as it is, but think about that. People are going to be like it's Mount Sinai. It's divine, I got to be there. My results are going to be out of this world.

Yeah, Then I lost it when I went to Stony Brook. Then at that point it's like what does that have to do with anything?

You got to, yeah, you got to. You really will have to redefine the health.

What are you talking about me? We're going to talk about you, so why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got into the fitness world and what got you specifically into Kettabels?

Well, I'll give you kind of the 30,000 foot view of my origin story, which is, I would say, interesting, but it's not as cool as, like the Iron man origin story or Spider man or Spider man he gets bit by a spider. Next thing you know, he's got these superpowers. For me, I was, you could say, a mild mannered youth, in that I was a bit shy, reserved, kind of like, didn't have a ton of self-confidence. I wasn't like a complete shut-in, let's say, but physical activity was something that I liked. I really was ambitious to try to get good at, but I could never really figure it out. And so, for instance, I was never really picked last for team sports in school growing up, but it was like almost last. You know, they would get like the really athletic kids to be the captains of teams and then they'd be like, okay, we need to start picking people.

So they started with the best, so you were the guy that was always picked before me. I would have watched him go. Stop putting a second to last.

Exactly I was. Yeah, I was like usually third to second to last. Even if one of my friends was picked, they'd be like okay, I got to get good people on the team. I'll get Alex in the middle maybe, so that he feels a little bit better. So that was kind of like my athletic upbringing. I did do gymnastics as a kid and I really liked it. I had a lot of fun. I think what I liked about it was that it was more like individualistic and there wasn't competition so much. It's like here's how you do roundoffs, here's how you do the pommel horse. And you know, I was between the ages of, let's say, maybe four and eight and it was just a fun time. It was like a physical activity to have a good time with. It was not, you know nothing, competitive. So I was really kind of scrawny, gangly, unathletic, weak, uncoordinated, still very handsome, you know. But I was not blessed in the physical fitness department, and so much so that I remember there was there's one incident that really stands out from high school. We were doing weight training in the gym at the high school. I went to Millard North High School, which, by the way, was the home of Eric Crouch, who was a Heisman trophy winner and so everything was like the whole gym was like decked out. We had, as Jersey was in, like the main thoroughfare in the high school. I think his likeness was emblazoned upon the gym wall, if I recall correctly. So you know, people were very, very proud of him. We had produced some very good athletes and one of the kids who was on the football team at the time I think this was my junior year and he was like a sophomore, but he was like twice my size, just naturally huge athletic, everything like that. We were bench pressing and to him the weight that I was about to bench press was evidently so minor that he didn't feel the need to spot me because he was my designated spotter. And so, you know, I lowered the weight to my chest and I couldn't lift it up and I looked over and he was talking to one of his friends by the dumbbell rack, so I kind of like slowly rolled the barbell down to my hip so that I could put it on the ground, and then our gym teacher, this guy named Mr Chavez, who was massive, I mean you want to talk barrel chested? This guy was like double barrel chested, you know, and he shouted at him. He's like Aaron and like everybody, stopped what they were doing and looked over at us. He's like you're supposed to be spotting him. What are you doing? Only like a hundred decibels louder than what I just said. And Aaron's face turned like beat red and but I felt the most humiliated because Everybody was looking at him. But then they had to see what weight it was. He had to lift off the floor to put back on the bench. I don't know if he used both hands for it, it was just one hand, but again it was like the weight on there was probably the equivalent of a broomstick with a bagel on each end. It was really not not a whole lot. So you know, it seemed like this kind of embarrassment sort of followed me and it's not like there was nothing that I was good at, but it was always stuff that I kind of didn't think I didn't realize actually had any significance, like badminton, for instance. I could crush it at badminton. I could. I do two on one and smoke people. If I had known it was an Olympic sport, I might have begged my parents to like get me badminton lessons so that you'd be talking to a gold medalist right now, but you know that ship has sailed. That was quite a few years ago. So that was essentially kind of like my upbringing, my origin story, and I was still interested. I believed, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, that there was something that I could do to prove that that physical fitness was something that I was capable of, of Engaging in and succeeding in. And after high school I got into Muay Thai Thanks to a friend of mine who we got obsessed with. This movie called on Bach the Thai warrior. It's a great movie. If you like martial arts movies with like no names but like incredible action, awesome movie. You have to, you have to check it out.

That's my notes.

It's a, it's a must, it's yeah on Bach Ong space. Be a K, I think, or be okay, that might be it, but in any case, we found out this, this martial art that the the actor Tony Jha was was using, was Muay Thai. And, as it turned out, in Omaha, nebraska, there is a school, mick Doyle's martial arts center, and and Mick was a two-time world kickboxing champion who specialized in Muay Thai, and we were spellbound because it was like 2006,. You know, like UFC wasn't the way that it is now, muay Thai was not as as easy to find. Same thing with Jiu Jitsu and you know all these other things. So we started training at his school and you know. And then I started getting into other things, like you know, lifting weights, and it was mostly the bodybuilding type of stuff and I didn't really feel I connected with it, but I was able to be consistent with it. And then eventually a friend of mine introduced me to Kettlebells and I had no previously. He had talked about him like crazy. Previously I had no real interest in them. It seemed like a unique thing. I just didn't really, didn't really see the benefits. So he called me over to his house to do a workout and I was just immediately hooked. I was like this is what strength training supposed to be like, because it was like these full body movements. It wasn't just, you know, stand in place and then you do a bicep curl or Sit in a machine and you know, as though you're some sort of like a heavy machinery operator and you're, you know, moving some stuff around. It was like you're in the real world moving some real weight around, and that was my first real experience with that. And so from there it was like I just got obsessed and never looked back and my focus then became getting better and better at Kettlebells and then eventually adding other things like calisthenics and natural movement training and stuff like that. So the origin story for me was going from scrawny to brawny and Took a very long time to get to that ladder category, but so far it has worked out alright.

That's. That's a great story, man, I feel like and maybe it's just me but everyone who's in the fitness world now Was always like last pick, second to last pick. You never see the people that were the most athletic growing up, getting into the fitness, what they're reserving, something like best job or something.

Totally. Yeah, I remember you know, and good to that, you know, good for them. It's certainly nothing wrong with that. But I I think that it seems more and more nowadays that because when we were growing up, fitness and strength training and Sports and athleticism, these were things it's like you either get it or you don't. Because there was no, there was a lot less information available, and if the information that was available didn't Resonate with you or, you know, didn't click, it's like, well, that was your chance and you blew it. So I guess you know better. Better, take up knitting, or you know.

They lost me yet. Yeah, we have to do swimming for in high school. It's like who wants to swim for first period, second period and then be wet and smaller chlorine the rest of the day.

Yeah, and worse, who wants to wear a speedo. You know, with a bunch of other dudes and speedos. It's like, even if you find swimming fun, like you're not gonna live that down among your friends. They're gonna be like, oh dude, you're hanging out with a bunch of dudes with speedos. It's like they find everything they possibly can do it like just make it so that you've either got to make a sacrifice with. You know whether you're going into Second-period class looking like a complete mess and being still soaking wet from swimming, or just no physical activity whatsoever. I'm fortunate I never had to swim in in high school.

I know people who did yeah, they didn't have a, was always way too cold Middle of winter. You're like why do I want to do this?

Yeah, it's like. What better way to get people interested in sports than by making it as unfun as possible?

Yeah, yeah. So what is it, kettlebell? I mean that's, I know what it is, but I want you to explain what it is for those like some that may or may not know the perennial question.

Well, a kettlebell is like a big iron ball with sort of a tea kettle handle, and it is a weight that has a really, really long pedigree and you know most people associate it with being, we'll say, pioneered in Russia. But the fact is, is that even long before that there are, we'll say like, elements of kettlebell training that go back to, like ancient Greece, china, things like that. They didn't look quite like they do now, but it has a very, very long history. Just a big sort of awkward weight with a handle on it. And you know, on the one hand you've got, let's say, a dumbbell craze, which is think, something that sort of came around a little bit later. But the kettlebell as it is now, we could say, has its origins in We'll take the, the sort of the main line thinking into like Russia, in, like the 1700s. The first time that the word kettlebell in Russian, which is girya, appears in a Russian dictionary is in 1704. Just to give you an idea of like how long ago you know, this weight sort of became I don't want to say codified, but we'll say like in the form it more or less exists in now just a big sort of awkward weight with a handle on the top of it and, basically, what's really great about kettlebell training is that it's the essence of in my opinion, it's the essence of real world strength training, meaning you've got an awkward, unwieldy weight that you have to move through free space and I think barbell training and dumbbell training are awesome. I think that, especially if you like them and you really identify with them, you know, and they get you good results you should certainly use them. But I think one of the things you could reasonably say is maybe a drawback to them is that they're very, very well calibrated. Everything is sort of I don't want to make it seem like they're perfectly balanced.

I think that's kind of what you're looking for. If you put your right in the middle of the fulcrum, it's easy to hold, stabilize, no matter what the weight is.

Exactly, and that's no knock against it. That's one of the benefits of it, because, you know, with a dumbbell or a barbell or what have you, it's going to allow you to lift the most amount of weight because you can manipulate those variables. And to some degree that's also true of a kettlebell. But with the kettlebell, because of its sort of awkward shape thick handle, offset, center of gravity it makes stuff like presses and squats, as well as a variety of ballistic movements, very, very easy to do and very ergonomic. When I say easy, I don't mean all of a sudden you're going to be lifting, you know, 10 times as much weight as you would with a dumbbell or barbell, but it makes it pretty clear how your body is supposed to be moving while moving this weight, whereas to some degree I think with dumbbells and barbells, due to their design, you kind of have to move your body around the weight in order to make it work, as opposed to moving the weight around the natural movements of your body. And I think kettlebells kind of work a bit better for that. But some of the benefits of them include you can just use one weight and you can reasonably expect to get in a really, really productive and time efficient workout. Dan John, who's a very famous coach and his strength coach track and field coach he was, I think he still holds the American record for the master's weight pentathlon has equipped that with one kettlebell in my bedroom I can train for the nationals. So it's something that really has a lot of diverse qualities to it that allow you to train everything from explosive power to slow movements again, like squats and rows and the presses and things like that, as well as complexes, which I think are a bit easier to do with a kettlebell and safer to do with a kettlebell than maybe dumbbell, barbell, things like that. So, in essence, what we might say is, if you just look at what it looks like, it's just this big ugly cannonball with a handle, but what it gives you is the ability to train explosive movements and through high rep lifts like we'll say, high rep ballistic lifts like swings and snatches and things like that, in a way that's safer than with dumbbells and barbells. It allows you to use a weight that has that sort of awkward and uncalibrated feel to it that a lot of real world tasks are going to have, and it's a lot of fun. To be very honest with you. I mean, I think that's why people get obsessed with kettlebell training is because it's just a blast.

I love using kettlebells. I love the unbalanced feeling of it and I like the fact that, personally, my bodybuilding and lifting heavy weight is. These are kind of behind me at this point, so sticking more to like calisthenics and higher rep ranges kettlebells are awesome. For that, I mean doing a shoulder press with a kettlebell is 10 times better feeling than with a dumbbell.

Big time, and I think you know part of that is that again, it's like the shape of the dumbbell requires you to sort of move your body in a position to accommodate the weight, as opposed to allowing the weight to just be accommodated to whatever your structure is like.

Yeah, I really couldn't agree more. We're going to jump real quick into talk about what we have to offer at F2 Consulting Guys, if you're looking for fitness and financial freedom, keith and I are partnered together to come with F2 Consulting. So I'm going to sit with you, go over all your health goals, come up with what days of the week you want to work out, use the equipment you have around you in front of you. On top of that, we're going to set nutrition goals. We're going to go through setting more active routines based upon what you need to do, whether it's walk more, sleep better, get more fiber in your diet, whatever that may be. On top of that, keith is going to help you with financial goals. So if you're looking to get out of debt, you're looking to really figure out how much money to do in need for retirement. All of that kind of stuff plays a burden, especially on entrepreneurs. All we think about is our business, our business, our business, and we never focus on ourselves. So we came together to say, hey, we're going to help entrepreneurs that are so overwhelmed with their business to really bring in their personal life, because if you don't have your finances and you don't have your health, you're going to fail. I mean, if you burn yourself out and get sick. I've been there. It is not fun. So you need to take care of yourself, both financially and through your fitness and through your diet. So if you're interested, please reach out at fitbodiesfatwolletscom Again, that is wwwfitbodiesfatwalletscom. Ask words consulting. If you're listening to this podcast, we're offering 10% off to everybody who listens, so go check us out, guys. Let's hop back into what we're talking about with kettlebells and I'm going to ask you a fun question what is your favorite movement?

Wow, that's a very good question. My favorite movement with a kettlebell, I would have to say, be the kettlebell swing, and Part of it is because it seems like it can be fit into almost anything else that I'm doing, and not only Not interfere meaning, you know, detract, let's say, from my other fitness and and and health goals but it actually just seems like it always enhances it. You know, it's got a relatively low amount of fatigue. That it that it foist upon you obviously some fatigue, but it's just a blast, and you know what I like lifting heavy, like any other red blooded American male. So it's easier, I think, to lift heavier with swings on a more regular basis than it is, let's say, with like presses, which I think also or a blast and a half. So, yeah, I'm gonna go with swings, but if I had to have a runner-up, if I had to have a runner-up, I would go the completely opposite direction of like the foundation and I would say that double kettlebell, clean and jerk is amazing. It's okay, yeah, again, night and day difference in terms of like the complexity involved in these two things. But double kettlebell, clean and jerk is my jam. I like it a lot.

All right. So let's kind of break that down and bring it back a couple steps. If I'm listening to the show and I'm like, wow, I now learned what a kettlebell is and I learned with the foundations over, where do I start as a consumer, I'm looking at the kettlebells on the rack at my local gym and I'm just All right, now, what? What do you think the first, best, safest movement, I guess, would be for somebody who's never used them before?

This is a very good question because one of the issues. I want to tell you a funny story. Many years ago, my my coach and mentor and friend, scott Stevens he's the guy who taught me the kettlebell kung fu. Starting 15 years ago, he and I teamed up and we were doing some workshops and seminars at local gyms for people who wanted to learn how to use kettlebells, because it was just kind of starting to catch on around this time and I I got certified 13 years ago, so this was maybe about 12 years ago or so that this was going on and we went to this one place that locally that did Like body transformations and stuff like that and they used kettlebells as a part of it and the owners and the instructors are like we want to learn how to do stuff like snatches and clean and jerks and stuff like that, which would be the equivalent of somebody going into your gym and saying like, hey, yeah, you know, I've heard weight training is really good. Can you teach me like the, the Olympic lifts? It's like, dude, you're gonna need to learn a lot of other stuff before you get started throwing a huge, unwieldy weight overhead. So we had to try to. You know, bring them back. We, like we, would love to teach you those things. Let's work on this stuff now. So the first thing to keep in mind is that that cool stuff you see, like throwing a kettlebell over your head and you know Flash and a smile at the camera that will happen. But you need to have a good foundation first, and so, without question, the first thing you need to know how to do is just pick it up off the floor safely. And if you know how to deadlift which is a big, scary sounding term, but it's basically just picking something off the floor in a way that's safe for you biomechanically and that it also sits well with your, your particular structure, so you have to kind of figure out the best way for you to you know Follow the rules of lifting something off the floor safely. That would be the first place to start Really doesn't take a ton of time. It does often take a good source of information. So, whether that is with a trainer that you're working with one-on-one, or Maybe somebody you're working with online, as they, as they, view your technique, or maybe you're learning it from a book, or whatever the case may be, you want to at least have a good source of information to get you the right idea of how to lift it. That would be number one, because it's obviously if you're not lifting off the floor, then you know nothing else is gonna happen. The other thing is I would say this is very underrated movement, but I'm sure you'll back me up on this loaded carries are great because you can lift an appreciable amount of weight with them. You can lift one kettlebell, you can lift two kettlebells, you can put in a variety of different positions, you can go for time, you can go for distance. The nice thing about it is that it allows you to kind of get used to the idea of training with a kettlebell, well, also learning what your body does when it's moving from top to bottom. You know many people come in and they're used to stuff like bicep curls, tricep extensions. They're used to working, like, you know, one muscle group.

Can I stop you there for a second? Yeah, yeah, just, I really like that and I'm gonna emphasize why. Like I'm sitting here thinking about practicality, which is something you mentioned a lot during this episode. Doing a bicep curl, how can you really do that in real life? Like doing a tricep extension, how often you really do that? Have you bench press things in real life? But how often do you have to go somewhere, pick something up and move at a distance? All the time that's like what we do outside of the gym is, um, I'm doing hard work and I'm picking something off the floor and I'm moving it somewhere else and I'm putting it down Like that's way more practical solution to get right, then a bench press or Anything like that. So, yeah, but I do love that a lot.

Yeah, and you know I'll add to that too. Think about all those things you're gonna do in real life. It's yard work, or, you know, picking up, you know kid who skinned his knee on his, on his bike, or something like that. It's gonna be an uncalibrated and awkward weight, and so knowing how to operate under those conditions is huge, huge benefit for you, right? And I think that if you start with easy stuff like that meaning when I say easy I don't necessarily mean in terms of effort, but rather in terms of the learning curve that it takes to to get to learn these things it makes a tremendous difference in what you're able to accomplish later on down the line. Now, obviously, once you've got the proper technique for stuff like deadlift, ie Just picking the weight up off the ground Learning how to do the kettlebell swing is very important. Kettlebell squats are also, again, something that can typically be learned relatively quickly and you can. You can modulate them for whatever your ability level is, whether it's, you know, your legs aren't yet very strong, so use a lighter weight, or you don't yet have the mobility, so you use just whatever range of motion you can manage. Similarly, with upper body movements like overhead presses, rows, things like that. I think these are the most approachable and most important movements. These are the ones that are gonna lay the foundation for other cool stuff, like Turkish get-ups, clean and jerks, as we mentioned earlier snatches. You know the cool stuff that people post on Instagram with you know heavy metal music in the background, or whatever the case may be.

Yeah, I'm not posting with my one pound kettlebells like some snatches here, watch me now.

No, I do sometimes, but like it purely, is satirically.

Yeah, I gotta say one of my. I don't even know if it's a real kettlebell workout, but doing push-ups off kettlebells or grabbing the handles, yeah, and you're trying to balance using the kettlebell base so much fun.

Yeah, and what's nice about that too is, you know, sometimes when you're you're training somebody who's got the right amount of ambition, you know they're really focused, but maybe the wrists aren't ready to do push-ups on the ground. Doing them on a kettlebell handle not only allows them to Avoid having to, you know, completely extend the wrist while they're still working on that mobility, but you can in many cases even fire up a lot of the other muscles in the arms and shoulders that you're not going to get, at least not immediately, by just doing push-ups as we would normally do them.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, let's talk about a kettlebell swing real quick. I think that's your favorite movement and a lot of people's favorite movements. I know Personally a lot of people do it wrong. So what do you think? Is that one or two biggest mistakes people make when doing swings?

Well, the first one is that a lot of people are really not using their hips as much as they should. And when we say hips, you know most people think of like the hip joint. So I want to clarify I mean specifically the glutes. So what we want is more of what is called a hinge, or you're kind of folding at the hips. I like to tell people it's like imagine you're trying to do a long jump and Many cases this gets people to swing right off the bat. I'm like just imagine you're gonna jump from here 10 feet that way and they naturally just put their hips back, kind of like they're drawing back a bow, and then they're like okay, that's exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. So that's the first one, because a lot of people, what they do is they see a movement and they approximate it with what they know. You can think about it like if you're learning a foreign language and you don't know the exact word for something, you you kind of try to approximate it with the words that you do know. We do the same thing with the language of movement and Very often what you need to be told is something that you do know, that you don't realize, that you know. Again Like a long jump and you're able to connect something that you have experience with with something that you're trying to learn Very often. That'll fix it and it'll prevent you from doing like squatty swings, where your your hips are more going down as opposed to back Right. So that's number one. Number two is people are not really used to ballistic movements, and when I say ballistic, what we mean in particular is that there's an element of momentum to them. You know, most training that we do in a gym or at home we're told you know, don't race through it, don't rush, you want to do it slowly, and so on and so forth, which is very often very good advice. But you kind of have to flip the script a little bit with the ballistic lifts because they're supposed to be done fast, you're supposed to be done with a lot of momentum. So you know you'll get people doing kind of squatting and then you'll get people who are not moving fast enough. So in order to get the kettlebell to where they see it, you know it's like, okay, it's it about chest height. Naturally, they just think I need to lift it with my shoulders and there it's maybe not necessarily dangerous, but it's certainly not getting them what they think it's going to get them and they're. They're not really getting out of the exercise what they're supposed to be, which is explosive lower body power. You know the cardio vascular hit that comes with it as well. So I would say those are the two really big ones.

I think you know both of them. We have different minds. When we explain how to do a kettlebell swing with the hip hinge, I go dirty instantly and people go, oh, okay.

Oh yeah, yeah, I try to keep things clean, not because I don't find the other way effective or funny, but because sometimes you know the blushing that occurs on their face.

I got it. Got their blood pumping a little bit here in it, so like I can't wear it on my track, maybe in all the wrong places. Yeah, it's fair enough. And then the shoulder thing is huge. I see so many people think it's a shoulder workout and they're just trying to lift it as high as they can with their arms and it's like no, no, please, please, stop that's momentum doing that. That's not supposed to be you lifting it up like a front raise, going all the way up. Yeah, so I do love that. So I kind of want to ask you just in general, because I know this is like a very specific topic what are some key takeaways you would give specifically to kettlebells, for maybe someone that's not a beginner but now is more into working out. What are some dos and don'ts you can just help them out with?

Well, the first thing is that I would not fall into the trap of treating the kettlebell like it's only a good for hit workouts. Now, obviously it has that ability, but I think a lot of people they kind of they'll either do one or two things, they start way too fast and they jump into stuff that they shouldn't be doing, and then they just always have crappy technique and they don't get to that intermediate stage. The other one would be that you want to keep the basics as a part of the menu by all means, but you don't want to limit yourself to the basics only. Like I have the saying that a perpetual if you're a perpetual beginner, you'll never be a winner, because at the beginning you have to sort of restrict yourself to just the foundational stuff, including not necessarily doing a lot of variety, but just really focusing in on those bare bones basics. And then, as you get better, you've got a much bigger canvas to work with and so learning other movements again. This is my perspective personally. I know a lot of my colleagues would disagree, but I think that the core four kettlebell movements are swings, military presses, goblet squats and rows. And a lot of my colleagues would say, no, it's swings and get ups, but the get up is like 14 steps. You wouldn't tell somebody. Okay, first we're going to learn the swing, two movements. Okay, you know, hip back, stand up. Now we're going to learn an entire flow and you have to balance this kettlebell over your head and if you drop it it's going to cave your face in. It's like I would leave that for the intermediate stage personally. So I would say that that would be a good time to start exploring new movements, but still treat them like skills. You don't want to necessarily fall into the trap of. I got to give myself the hardest possible workout each and every time. If you focus on the intention behind the movement so power generation for the ballistics, and generating an adequate amount of tension with the slower movements what we would call grinds like squats and lunges and presses and so on and so forth you will give yourself a really good foundation to start working toward advanced stuff like snatches, clean and jerks, bent presses and other crazy things like that. But the first thing you got to keep in mind is you sort of have to shift your mindset so that you open up to other exercises but you still want to maintain that mindset of practice over working out, meaning just trying to get a sweat. There's nothing wrong with that per se. But kettlebell training and I would say maybe weight training in general it really is very skill based. And if your goal is just to burn calories, well then just doing, let's say, just workouts or not having any specific plan or program or that sort of a thing, that's a very good approach. But if your goal is that you want to get beyond that intermediate stage and you want to get to, let's say, the more advanced exercises or some really heavy stuff, you still have to maintain the skill focus and I think a lot of people lose sight of that.

I love it. And, alex, I want to just start wrapping this show up. Someone asked me the final two questions. I ask everybody. The first one is if you were to summarize this episode in one or two sentences, what would be your take on message?

Summarize this episode in one or two sentences, I would say the kettlebells are an excellent tool for those who know how to use it, so find somebody who can teach you how to use it, whether in person or online, but you want to find a good source of information.

Love it. And then the second one, the easy question how can people find you get a hold of you, learn more, take it away?

Well, I would say, probably the best way to kind of get the ultimate summary into my mad methods is to go to my website, nineminutechallengecom. You could go to alexsalkincom, it's the same thing, but nobody knows how to spell my name. Nobody knows how to pronounce it Again, it's like it's sort of this esoteric spelling, so I never send people there because they end up God knows where. But nineminutechallengecom, which is named after my nine minute kettlebell and bodyweight challenge, which is, as the name implies, it only takes nine minutes to do, and it's designed to be done in conjunction with your regular training as opposed to separate from it. And it's based around the most under-trained, underutilized strength movement pattern, which is your gait pattern or your walking pattern. So the movements that you'll find in there are movements that you can learn in about 30 seconds, and we talked about people who want to get started with kettlebell training. You know what is it that they should do? One of the movements in there is loaded carries, as we discussed earlier. Another one is crawling. A lot of people really underestimate the power of crawling for their body and what it's able to do for their strength, their stamina, the resilience. I get people all the time telling me. They feel better tied together. One guy from Canada told me that he was just like beating the crap out of his sparring partners in mixed martial arts and they had no clue what he did. Like what are you doing? Like what, what changed? And he tried to explain to them. He's like I've started crawling and I'm carrying weights. You should try it. They're like I forget about it, you know. So don't underestimate it. It's very, very powerful. Even if you don't intend to wail on anybody, it's good to be able to. I would say so. All you want to do is lift heavier and feel really good. So nineminutechallengecom you can get your own free copy and that's the number. Nine minute challengecom, and it's all yours.

I love it. Alex, thank you for joining us. Thank you, guys, for listening to this week's episode of Help Fitness your Defined. Don't forget, please hit the subscribe button and join us next week as we dive deeper into this ever-changing deal. I don't remember, but this is medicine Until next time. Bye.