Welcome to the Platform Podcast!

Welcome to the platform podcast. I am your host Jordan Kunde-Wright also known as coach Jordan head coach and founder of the Twin Cities Kettlebell Club. Thanks for being here. So, who am I? Well, I am a father, a husband, a kettlebell coach, a certified personal trainer, a certified nutrition coach, and a lifelong learner. But more importantly, I am someone who has tried and failed numerous times to lose weight and also tried and successfully lost a lot of weight and been successful at keeping that weight off now for over a decade. I was a athlete growing up, but also kind of a chubby kid, my entire life growing up. I got teased a lot both in middle school, even before middle school and grade school, then into middle school where I developed some wonderful eating disorder behavior experiment with anorexia and bulimia both really obsessed with trying to keep my weight down. So that I wouldn't get made fun of which really didn't help because then I got made a made fun of for not eating or eating just salads at lunch. So, you know, middle schoolers are cruel, but I didn't know that at the time I just really felt like I was doing something wrong. And then in high school, I went the other direction and decided to experiment with body dysmorphia and really try and make sure that if I was going to be big, I was going to be big and strong. Fuck if I wasn't big and strong, I made it a goal to break every weightlifting record in my high school, which I'm not sure if I did or not, but at the time I was definitely the strongest kid in my high school. I'm not sure if any of my weightlifting records stand, but that doesn't really matter. I built myself up to about 260 pounds of mostly muscle and managed actually to get myself a combination football slash academic slash choir scholarship to a small Christian university in permanent Illinois, which I will not endorse by saying the name because it wasn't a great experience for me. And I actually ended up transferring away after one semester, but I did get my football scholarship or I did get my full ride. And yeah, that was okay, but I did go on and play three more years of college football and did three years of choir in college as well. I also played rugby and did track and field and was was moderately healthy by college standards, at least I drank a lot and smoked a lot of weed and parted with my friends, but I also made the Dean's list and did a lot of other things on campus. So I was generally, generally a pretty happy and healthy guy until midway through my senior year playing football, I herniated a disc or two discs in my low back and started pop and bike it in to be able to continue to play football. And with about two games left in the college football season, I took myself out at halftime of game after I lost feeling down my left leg and didn't want to get anybody playing behind me hurt no concern for my own health, of course, but I was very concerned for my quarterback and my running backs. And so I took myself out at halftime of the eighth game of my senior year of college football and never played another snap of football in my life. Which after playing for 14 years is quite a mind fuck and sent me into a spiraling depression where I ate and drank like I was still practicing every day and playing football games on Saturday and proceeded to just get fatter and fatter and fatter. And then after college, I took a high stress job and smoked and drank and ate and eventually ballooned up to well over 350 pounds. I don't know the exact weight because I stopped weighing myself. I was so disgusted by what I saw in the mirror every day. So I don't know exactly how high I got, but I know it was over 350 pounds and I would probably guess that it was somewhere closer to the three 70s, three 80s at the worst point of it. But I also was fortunate to meet my now wife in college, my last semester of college. And because of that, I decided I did not want to be a fat fuck at my wedding and got very serious about losing some weight. And I was fortunate to discover kettlebells and really be able to transform my life. I successfully lost over 100 pounds, 60 or 70 of which I lost before our wedding. And then I continued on that path for another six months after that. And I actually got down to as low as 217 pounds, I think is the lowest number I ever saw on the scale as an adult. And I have now kept that weight off for over a decade. That was back in 2008 and 2009. And now it is 2020. So I guess it's been 11 years now that I've kept I've kept almost all of that weight off. I fluctuate, of course, like any normal person up and down a little bit. But I've really been successful at sustaining my weight loss over the course of a long period of time. And I really have kettlebells to thank for that, as well as just fitness and nutrition in general. So I do have quite a bit of personal experience with this journey. And that's part of the reason I decided to make this podcast. And the reason that I founded the Twin Cities kettlebell club, our mission is to help improve the lives of others by helping build sustainable healthy lifestyles. And to bring kettlebell sport into the mainstream of America. Now, if you're like most people, you know what kettlebells are because you haven't been living on an island or under a rock somewhere, but you probably have no idea what the fuck kettlebell sport is. So I'll give you a quick primer kettlebell sport is a strength endurance competition typically performed in 10 minute sets where you lift two or one kettlebell, depending on the event for as many repetitions as you can within that 10 minute timeframe and compete against other people within the same age, gender and weight classes you to achieve ranks. And you can, the ranks are very much like belts in martial arts. You achieve various ranks through performing a certain number of reps in a specified time period with the specific weight of kettlebell. But within a competition, you can win an event, you could also win the meat by being the best overall lifter in your age and gender and weight class, or you can just be the best overall lifter period typically done by a coefficient of total pounds lifted divided by the body weight of the person who lifted those pounds. But anyways, it is a strength endurance competition across three lifts jerk snatch and long cycle, which are very, very challenging and the thing that I love about kettlebell sport really is that is the hardest fucking thing I've ever done physically. It requires strength endurance flexibility power mobility good technical technique toughness mental focus mental grit and really is just really, really rewarding because it's so hard. The first time I tried doing kettlebell sport, I did a double long cycle set with 24 kilo kettlebells and made it about six minutes in with very few reps that would have counted in competition. But I was very green and very cocky because at that point in my life, I was a pretty strong power lifter and Olympic lifter and I thought well, I can bench press almost 500 pounds and I can squat 600 pounds so how hard can it be to lift these to 24 kilo kettlebells for 10 minutes. Well, it turns out it was really fucking hard because I was not conditioned for it at all. I had no technique. I had no concept of pacing and I made it about six minutes in and was just going balls to the wall as hard as I could right out of the gate and completely hit my anaerobic threshold and then went past that and had to put the bells down and proceeded to go outside and violently throw up. So naturally I was hooked and had to come back for more. So that was back in 2008 and I got my first kettlebell sport certification from Catherine Ims and Bethesda Maryland back then. And then in 2009, I opened my own gym here in the Twin Cities and brought in Valeria Federico and Catherine Ims from the World Kettlebell Club to come do a certification at my gym and I got certified in kettlebell sport as a as a strengthening coach for kettlebells as well as getting a judge certification for the World Kettlebell Club. So it has now been, I guess, almost a decade for me or over a decade for me since I got my first kettlebell sport certification, which makes me a pretty OG in the kettlebell sport world, but it is it is a fantastic undertaking for anybody for anybody who's serious about improving their health in the shortest period of time and being able to continue it for an extended period of time. I can't, I can't think of a better modality than kettlebell sport, you will see people competing well into their 60s and 70s. In fact, in my first competition at a sanctioned event, I went up against, well, not against, but I was on the platform at the same time as Jerry Gray shout out to Jerry, he's a legend, who at the time was in his 60s. We were both doing a snatch set with a 16 kilo kettlebell and despite me being 40 years his junior and almost or probably a hundred pounds heavier than him, he beat me by two reps on a kettlebell snatch set. And I wasn't embarrassed by that because it was my first time doing a sanctioned competition set, but it was humbling for me for sure because Jerry is a very good lifter, but I was very surprised to see that a guy who was that much older than me could could outpace me over the course of 10 minutes. If you can lift into your 60s and 70s and still be competing on the same platform as people in their 20s and 30s, this is definitely something that I would consider pretty good for longevity and for wellness. And because kettlebell sport taxes so many different energy systems and so many muscle groups, it's great for coordination, it's great for flexibility, it's great for strength, it's great for cardio respiratory endurance, it's great for power generation, it really is a phenomenal application for any athletic endeavor because it is a total body exercise. All three lifts are total body exercises and they really are very they translate very well functionally to other lists, so there is no better modality that I would rather do than kettlebell sport. So that is kind of the intro into what is kettlebell sport. I've given you a little bit of background or maybe a lot of background I guess on who I am and why I care about this and some of my history. But this is just the intro podcast I promise this won't always be me just blabbing into a microphone the whole time. I plan on having guests on this podcast. So who will be my guests it's going to be other kettlebell coaches like myself and athletes so even people who aren't necessarily coaches but people who are high level competitive athletes and not just in kettlebell sport. I would love to bring in people who are power lifters Olympic weightlifters marathon runners, etc. Because there's always something to learn from other modalities of training and program design the principles of program designing good program design translate across different disciplines and you can always learn something from from people who practice a different discipline than you. And it's so functional to bring in people with a different perspective but who are also physically active and pursuing high level performance. So different different coaches and athletes as well as experts in nutrition you can't you can't get into high level performance and weight loss and fat loss and sustainable lifestyles without talking about nutrition. I mean it's super super important. I love food I love cooking I love making good food but I also love being healthy and finding that balance and coaching people on how you can make nutrition fit in your life. I'm a father of two I work a full time job for an AI company so I work you know 50 hours a week in my full time job as well as coaching you know three four days a week and doing this because it's my passion so making making nutrition and fitness fit your life is a passion of mine I think it's super important that we figure out how to make it work for for people and that we're realistic about what that is. That is and building sustainable habits is really my fundamental approach to creating lifestyles that work to move you towards your goals and obviously since I as I just mentioned I word for an AI company I am a data nerd I love tracking data and iterating and really seeing what objective feedback we can get as well as a subjective feedback of just how do you feel. But the more data I can get my hands on the better I feel so we're going to get into some of that nerdy shit as well and talk about how we do program design periodic phasing loading parameters. You know all sorts of things we're we're going to get into conjugate training heart rate training a number of topics and I'm going to bring in other people who are experts in those areas and pick their brains and talk to them about what their history is and the things that have worked for them. I also want to get into mindset and talking to people who really know about the psychology of performance I was a psychology major in college so I have always been a little bit obsessed with how the mind works how to optimize performance. What what makes people tick and I think that physical performance is always limited by the mental side and it's something that is incredibly fascinating to me as well as something that I am trying to harness and perfect myself and get better at because it's it's just an aspect that I feel like differentiates champions from people who just show up as well as how there are phenomenal phenomenal athletes who are also a bunch of different other things in their day to day life and yet they can show up and perform at an incredibly high level on the platform and I think that comes down to a lot of mindset a lot of their personality but those are skills that can be honed and developed which I firmly believe and it's one of the things that I feel like is neglected. We talk a lot about how we can train our body how we can train how we can dial in our nutrition but we don't talk about how we can sharpen our mind and improve our mental practice and improve our mental focus so that we can optimize our performance both in sport and in life. So mindset is something I'm really excited to get into more as well as well as talking business and entrepreneurship because those those things translate as well might even get into some politics because I'm in Minnesota it is June 12th which means we're just coming out of massive social unrest and protests and riots here in the Twin Cities as well as across the country. After the murder of death of George Floyd excuse me at the hands of the police in police custody so I'm not going to ignore those things because those things are also important they're they're honestly more important than then then then the kettlebell sport training or nutrition or mindset but that that's the point of this podcast but I'm not going to ignore those things because I think it's super important to talk about it doesn't have to be. The focus of this podcast it's not the focus of this podcast but when there are salient issues that are coming up in the world we're going to discuss them because I'm not going to pretend like they're not going on and I feel like that's an important that's an important distinction as well so. And finally I'm not only going to have experts on the podcast I want to bring in people who are regular people who have struggled with weight loss been significantly overweight like myself and people who are still struggling as well as people who are succeeding. I really want to I really want to make this a forum that that welcomes people of various perspectives you don't have to be a nutrition coach you don't have to be you don't have to be a kettlebell sport coach or a CrossFit athlete or any of those things to have a valid perspective in fact we can often learn best from from our peers and people who we really identify with and people who have had the same struggles as us so I also want to bring on people who are who have struggled and have overcame and are not professionals in the nutrition or fitness world but they're just regular everyday people who have other full-time jobs but have valid insights to share on how you can live healthier things that work for them and maybe advice that they can give from their own personal journeys and share a little bit from their personal experience. So there it is that is episode one the introduction to the platform podcast I really want to thank you for being here if you're hearing this hi mom or anybody else who happens to be hearing this thank you very much for taking the time to listen I really hope that this becomes something that is valuable for you increase an impact for you please feel free to reach out give me feedback on how I can be better. I genuinely want to hear how I can make this more impactful for you guess that you think I should connect with topics you want to hear discussed so my email is Twin Cities kettlebell club at gmail.com you can hit me up on Instagram we are at Twin Cities kettlebell club you can follow me on Facebook at Twin Cities kettlebell club as well or follow me on Twitter that is at TCKB club and yeah thank you so much for listening. The the motto for our club is Voska Ella Duh which is Norwegian for grow or die so shout out to my to my man Greg Anderson my first athlete here in the Twin Cities that showed up on a regular basis at the club to train with me that that is a motto he turned me on to and he showed up with a shirt with it one day and it it really struck a chord with me and it has it has become the club motto it's in our it's in our logo now and it will forever be a part of of my mantra because that's really what I'm all about improving every day and and continuing to grow and progress and show up and be better for ourselves so that we can go out and make an impact on those around us and be the best versions of ourself so grow or die baby let's let's get after it thank you for being here love y'all and thank you very much for listening.