Aleks Salkin, SFG 2 & Original Strength Coach

Salkin all kettlebell drinker you honorable warriors and wielders of the steel the time has come to raid Join us and fight for honor glory and the spoils of battle sign up today for the Twin Cities kettlebell open on October 22nd in person in little Canada, Minnesota or by video submission from anywhere in the world come Fight for your clan or for glory all your own to be told in your saga claim your spoils and may your name ring out forever in the hall of champions sign up today at Twin Cities kettlebell club calm Welcome to the platform podcast where we talk to coaches athletes experts and real people to learn about their approaches to training Nutrition mindset and much more. I'm your host Jordan Kunde-Wright founder and head coach of the Twin Cities kettlebell club And I'm on a mission to help others build sustainable healthy lifestyles before we jump into the episode I want to remind you that this is the final week To register for the Twin Cities kettlebell open on October 22nd hosted by our friends at the athlete lab in little Canada, Minnesota There is also an option for video submissions for participants who are unable to make the trip in person And as you probably heard in the ad read before this intro There are over 2500 dollars in prizes as part of the raffle as well as a cash prize for our best Performers in the competition and whether you do video submission or in person you are eligible for all of those prizes So just go to our website Twin Cities kettlebell club.com for details This episode is part two of my conversation with Aleks Salkin which hopefully you heard last week Really enjoyed talking with him and I hope you are finding the conversation entertaining and Educational If so, please leave us a five-star rating review share with a friend Tell somebody about the podcast Shoot me a note anything to let me know that you are out there listening and that you appreciate what I'm doing And of course if you want help reaching your goals without wasting time Please fill out the coaching interest form linked in the episode notes I help athletes of all levels using my integrated coaching approach You can follow me on instagram facebook and youtube at twin cities kettlebell club or email me at twin cities kettlebell club at gmail.com Now without further ado, let's step back onto the platform with Aleks Salkin It was just that one fortuitous event and he was actually self-taught because he was you know living In here in Omaha at a time where there really were no kettlebell instructors like he had to buy kettlebells Approximate what he was seeing you know by watching videos and he did well enough that he was able to pass The certification in in Minneapolis St. Paul Back in like I think go seven or something like that where they were really made it a point to beat people down like now Yeah, it was it was a crucible as much as anything it was like you had to legitimately be Like I didn't one of the reasons I didn't sign up for the rkc right away was because I was like I don't know that I can pass all of the Especially the like the pistol squad the pistol squad and I was like Yeah, that's a two knee surgeries and you know, it was like yeah, I don't know, I don't know about this Yeah, they've definitely made it much more intelligent because back then it was really like From what I understand kind of like just to see how much punishment they could dish out And that was kind of like you know badge of honor sort of a thing It definitely was like to be able that like they had like actually at one point I don't know if they still advertise this but they did back back in 2006 2007 when I first started looking in or not 2007 2008 when I first started looking into it They were actually advertising what their failure rate was like yeah that the failure rate of their sort like Like that 25% or 30% or whatever of people who try don't don't pass right like yeah, you know And I'm sure they were leaning into the like you know Special forces, you know, like you know everybody wants to be a navy seal But not you know only only five percent of people actually finished the buds right like it was I think they were going for that kind of that kind of vibe to it But like you said it's it's evolved it's evolved significantly since then are you good on time we're at an hour I'm more than happy to keep going if you're good on time I just want to be yeah, I just want to be absolutely I do like to get my beauty rest and I know for the people who are listening at home We are we are burning the midnight oil not really a midnight oil. It's like 10 p.m. Right now, but But yes, this is not past my bed time. So we can absolutely keep going cool I just I just wanted I just wanted to make sure because I have kids you have kids I just wanted to I just wanted to to check with you on you do have kids right? Not yet. Oh, yeah, I thought you thought you said something about having about having kids but I Well, I did it was like in a in like a theoretical sense like the academic sense of having kids Exactly, but one day I will so I I like hearing that you like you have like I have kids you have kids like one day That is absolutely gonna be that is going to be the case and so we're we're putting that under the universe right now so that my My the girl my dreams who has been very slack about getting in touch with me Well, eventually seek me out and we will what's the Instagram handle? Let's start. Let's start with that Yeah, we'll start with that. It's it's a new one Aleks. It's Aleksander Salkin. So A-L-E-K-S-A-N-B-E-R S-A-L-K-I-N. I really probably should have a shorter name. You're on the fall of the fall. You're making an emergency I didn't want to because I had so my old Instagram at my Facebook got hacked in May And my my Instagram was connected with it and whoever hacked that took over my ad account They were trying to you know Who knew your password was kettlebells you bastard. Yeah, I exactly it was password was password. Oh, it was just Yeah, so basically they Did some stuff that ran a file of the Facebook community standards and it's just impossible Like if you lose your account It's like you can have reported hack which is what I did but You know, they've probably thousands of people a day are doing that and they've just got like four or five people You know some other country who were looking at it and they're like Sure, I'll help this guy. I don't like the look of that guy's glasses. I'm not gonna help him Um, they're like oh definitely a Jew. It's not helping that guy. Yeah, exactly exactly. I don't know where they're getting these people But they didn't even look at my appeal because Um, I tried to log in like 40 some days later and there were like too much time has passed they didn't say We have looked at it because I immediately you know reported to this having been hacked too much time has passed since The event you know, you're your your account is permanently suspended. There's no appeal process So it's like wait a minute too much time has passed again. You didn't say We don't believe you we didn't say we look at it. Yeah, the backlogs too big uh And uh go fuck yourself. I'm sorry. Yeah, that was that was essentially what what they said only was not as polite Um, it was there was no no getting in touch with them at all So yeah, my new my Instagram now They used to have like five thousand followers just so the people know that I you know Like when I see the two hundred or whatever it is and now is that it was at one point It was monumental. It was like one of those great cities like you know ancient Constantinople, which is now, you know, shallow what it once was or whatever um So Instagram. Yes, that would be a great place and actually Instagram I am told because the world's biggest dating app believe it or not I could I could see that I could see that where else where else do you do you keep a social media presence? You keep up a youtube channel where can people find you if they want to if they want to if they want to find you Yep, they can find me on youtube. I have uh YouTube channel you just look up Aleks Salkin. You'll find me for sure My name is spelled funny though. It's A-L-E-K-S So Aleks like A-L-E-K-S Salkin if I honestly I thought I was like I was like okay Russian Russian name shortened the Russian version of the name shortened down To be the Americanized version of that so I was I was interested to hear the the whole the whole backstory Yeah, well the backstory about my name is just that my dad's grandparents were Jews from Russia who fled Bizarre nailed it Yes, you had it a hundred percent and so my dad doesn't speak any Russian now his His parents didn't speak any Russian but his grandparents spoke Russian and so he just wanted to keep you know like the The I would say Russian heritage because there weren't Russians per se they were Jews who lived in Russia But he wanted to keep that element of the heritage alive And so I got a very very Russian sounding name Aleksander Dmitry Salkin If I were to go That you could you could lean into that you could lean into that our case that old rkc branding. Yeah, go Brad Come on Aleks. I'm Aleksander Dmitry Salkin. I'm here to crush you crush weakness I should have actually the first time Pablo met me saw my my name tag. This is at the rkc And he said something in Russian and like you know because he saw the the spelling So he kind of like you know looked like this and he leaned back a little bit and like he said Yeah, and I and I know very little Russian. I know how to I know some phrases and I said Yeah, you put me in my apurusky, which means I don't understand Russian And then he looked even more confused Because I said it with like a credible accent. Yeah, I had to explain them basically this story. I told you Like oh, I see Yeah, I've had I've had to do that with like I because I pick up languages fairly fairly quickly. So yeah, I can actually and I pick up accents really really quickly So like I can see that like if I if I'm in minute if I'm in Minnesota for you know a few weeks I'm like, oh yeah, sure, you know, and if I'm up in that word we're talking about how we go We go to the gym and train. Oh wow, dude like the transformation was like a chameleon. I was seen And then I go back to Chicago. It's like hey you you fucking jagged. Why are you driving like this? You know like so I pick up that super quick and that's a super power man. Well It can be but also like when I so when I like work on learning a foreign language I pick up the accent quickly. Yeah, but then I'm like people people ask me they do that where they're like And I have to be like sorry, I don't speak Spanish that well or whatever language I'm speaking and they're like Oh, I didn't know because your accents actually pretty good and I'm like yeah, I pick up the accents quickly But my vocabulary you shit. No, but that's man. You've got the hard part now because it's like the it's usually the The accent that's the hardest for people the vocabulary part is pretty straightforward I think it's just you got to you know Education's hard like it depends on the way it depends on the language like some some language germans Germans faster. Yeah, I have no no desire to learn German because I Well, I mean, I just have no reason to number one, but number two. Yeah, it's like I see like the Daredee Doss and The articles are gendered and they have no there's no logic behind what like and it's just It's like a test that you have to pass to be a native speaker like they're just like they're just like Oh, do you know? Do you know that table is dare and not Doss and chair is Doss and not dare and you're like No, why? And I'm not going to learn German anymore. Yeah, exactly this this language is bullshit. Yeah, exactly. I have to learn it again So I gotta go back Well, yeah, you'll well you know what there's When the show's over, I'll give you some pointers on Uh, a program that I used to learn arabic very quickly. Oh, nice. I think you will enjoy for German. I think you would find it helpful Um, I do actually I do actually like learning languages. I just it's I'm sure probably similar for you It's like where do you find the time? Where do you find the time to practice as often as you need to practice in order to Improve your proficiency? It there are some tricks because yeah, it definitely takes Uh, it takes an effort. That's for sure. How many languages do you do you speak? Uh, well, I can speak Hebrew and Salkin Uh, and speak conversational arabic, but I haven't really spoken it much in the last couple months. Yeah, so Probably pretty rusty and then of course, you know, English. I'm pretty good at it. You do speak English well So English is there is that reasonably good. Yes But um Yeah, not as many as I should given how long I've been interested in learning languages I feel like I should speak a lot more. I think that's you could say that for most people that grew up in America I'm not sure if I should call you an American or or not, but uh, I'm definitely born a br- I mean, I'm telling you I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. That's like born in Omaha. I wasn't I wasn't sure We didn't get into the whole origin story. So it was oh yeah, if you were born in Omaha, or like you know So yeah, like you're Midwest to mid east and back. So yeah, yeah, no, I Uh, I was yeah born in Omaha Like it's about as I feel like the most The Midwestern of all Midwestern cities. I mean, maybe I haven't been to all of them But but it's very similar. I mean, if you've been here, you know what I'm talking about it Yes, it is a very Midwestern city. It is steak and corn and potatoes and football and that's it Bravo exactly. Yeah, I mean, and sports and strength sports and wrestling too actually. I will say like Nebraska takes its wrestling pretty seriously, too They do actually. Yeah, they take and uh, a couple other sports that that people take Kicking ass-based hockey. I was just gonna say they like there's a I think they're I think the hockey teams reason Yeah, University of Nebraska Omaha's is a good good hockey program. Yeah, yeah, they're absolutely They're they're very good. That's that that is true. So all right, so let's Dial back in on your on your kettlebell um philosophy a little bit So we talked a little bit about your background and how you got how you got into it But now as a coach you've obviously been doing it for a while So when did you get your your when did you get did you get rkc or did you just or did you go straight to To strong first? I got my rkc in 2010. So this is like a couple of years before the The rift as it were and Then I yeah, the split the divorce The acromoleus and ugly divorce And yeah, I was in October of 2010 and then I went over with strong first after the after the split And my philosophy's changed quite a bit because you know right at the beginning I think most coaches and understandably so they Kind of do what they're told and that's in a way that's really what they should do because it's like you don't know You know, obviously if you have previous experience as a trainer and then you're adding kettlebells in the certification That's a different story, but you know for me. This was my first foray and they're teaching it all and so Um, I really did a lot of things by the book which was very helpful You know, it was really good to have like a system in place to understand how to progress things to know what to look for But then as time went on I remember in particular I wanted to try to help my mom because she had Various different orthopedic issues and there were a lot of things she just couldn't really do anymore like she You know, she used to like to do You know like a lot of walking and stuff, but she had Knee problem and other things like this. So I was like I'm gonna to see if I can teach her Had a had a swing of kettlebell, but she had a Twisted pelvis and all these other things so I tried to show her how to deadlift and I was like This is just not gonna be safe, you know, like She's probably gonna get hurt So I was like, okay, I'm gonna figure something else that incidentally. This is one of the reasons also that I really went in Full on with original strength was because that was something that actually did help her a lot You know like she could do it safely and she continued to do it and You know, it was it worked wonders for but kettlebells are realized were uh Fantastic tool, but for some people like the standard approach to getting them to doing the stuff that we wanted to do was gonna have a few other steps in front of it and And then even when I was going to have people work on you know some of the the foundational and fundamental movements There were still some things that were just gaps that we're gonna be missing and it's not the fault of the kettlebell It's just you know, that's just a way it goes like there are certain things that the kettlebell is exceptionally good at I know there are other things that you know the kettlebell is just not Necessarily I mean it might be able to do but it's not necessarily the best for so that's the thing it doesn't have to be that's I think that's one of the things that I think we as a community got wrong Early on is because everybody was so enthusiastic about this new tool and people were started started to try and make it like the thing For everything is like no no like this is the best tool. It's all you need for and they would just real off all the things and it's like It's not the best for all of those things and even and even the tool itself is just an inert piece of steel or iron and Depending on how you use it It's the best for certain things and it can be the best for other things like I think it's an excellent tool when you apply a strong first Application to it. It's an excellent tool for rate of force production power output You know contract liability of the of the tissues raw strength It can be really useful for all for all of those tools. Is it the best way to improve absolute strength? No, that's a barbell clearly a loaded barbell there There's no is it is it the best tool for rate of force production You can argue is a kettle is is a hard style kettlebell snatch better than a barbell snatch You can argue the pluses and minuses right But you can't clearly say that the kettlebell is the best for for either of those things when you start talking about Okay, how about rate of force production over time Now you're talking right not where to like you're gonna be you're gonna be in a fight Okay, you've got five minutes. Okay, right like what are the best tools besides from fighting to train you to prepare for that without needing to get Punched in the face. Okay, exactly and kettlebells might be in that conversation But when you try and say it's the best for everything you're You're you're overselling it then yeah, I think that And you know for the people listening this is it obviously not a slam on kettlebells because both you and I are big fans of them But it's like you know for some for instance If I wanted to train my my back, I would want pull-ups to be a part of it You know, I could do rows with the kettlebell. There's no question about it But I you can't do any overhead pulling with the kettlebell is not vertical pull is not a movement you can do with kettlebells You just can't yeah exactly and so this is just an obvious gap and this is you know Where your calisthenics started to come in and I was like okay, this is something that's gonna be very complimentary to the stuff that I can do with the kettlebell But the kettlebell can do best or at least for my crowd because I'm not training athletes, you know, I'm training You know training enthusiasts and in people who want to Look better naked and feel better and you know You've built the strength they didn't have when they were in high school that they always wanted to have and um, and so I found that I needed to come up with sort of like a hybrid approach of kettlebells and calisthenics And then a time went on I got even more nuanced and that was when I started to really go all in on the original strength side of things as well So I would add all of these elements into The training sessions for people so that I wasn't trying to use the kettlebell as a catch-all for the other things that they needed But I could pick the right tool for the job and one of the things that I found is that for most of the people that I train and again This is within my specific niche and then my my We'll say like marketplace as it were These three things solve most of people's problems Again, if you have goals of becoming like a you want to you know become like a physique competitor Are you want to power lift? Well then you need to do those things specifically? You know, there's just no getting around that But and you would probably tell those people I'm not your guy I would absolutely are great. There are great physique coaches out there like I you know You and I have probably had very similar experience I've been like if you want to do hardstyle stuff great I've got a whole list of of of great kettlebell instructors I can point you to that are that are better for you like you want to do gear voice sport I'm your guy you want to do physique competition I'm probably not the person for I'm not the best person for for you to work with right like That's 100% 100% and it's like you know You have to have some intellectual honesty to say that and I think that a lot of people some coaches I think part of it is that they have this mindset Of like kind of scarcity of so if somebody's like well, how can I work my biceps with a kettlebell? It's like look if you really want to get bigger biceps sure you can do curls with a kettlebell dumbbells are just more It's just better made for it. So it's like if you have access to dumbbells I would just do dumbbell curls personally, you know Um, how can you build my how can I build my quads? Oh, okay. Well, that's easy You can do squats and you can do you can definitely do it with barbells you can do it with dumbbells But here's maybe why you might want to learn it with kettlebells Here's why you might want to do it with kettlebells instead of these things So you have to have the ability to say here what your options are here's my opinion of what I think that you should be doing You know to uh, and it's always protect dependent too, right? It's like what do you have access to what are your goals? What's your like there are so many factors that go into like making an intelligent recommendation as a coach That's why it's always hard to make blanket recommendations and somebody asks you like Even even honestly even when they ask me like well, what's the best way to do this and I'm like well that depends What do you what do you have access to like the best way to the best way to build upper body cross country skiing capacity is a cross country ski But if you live in Israel, that might be a problem for you So do you have a skier? Do you have a you know like it's just The context always matters. It's huge. Yeah, and you know The other thing that I would say is that a lot of times you talk about people coming in and they maybe have Expectations that are what's like I want to find the best thing for this sort of the best thing for that and I think a lot of times people are focusing Too much on while I see it on both ends now there's like The optimal like I want I want it to be perfect. I want to start the perfect exercise regimen It's like optimal's great, but there's a small window of time probably where you're actually going to be I had optimal like proper amount of sleep, you know Kids didn't reach up and you know and you now you had to deal with them at three in the morning Yeah, you're eating properly and And then the other side of things is that and you see this a lot in the kettlebell world now is a succession with minimalism and which and frankly There is no one agreed upon a definition of minimalism So a lot of times people just kind of apply their own definition. There's some that I think are really good Like my friend Pat Flynn his approach to it is smart. I think it makes sense Jeff Newpert likewise has a good approach to it And then I see others where it's like well now we're just going to do two exercises and perpetuity and refuse to do anything else And it's like That's probably not going to be the best for you for that's not minimum clinical effective dose That's just minimum dose. It's no longer strictly effective At a certain point it loses clinical effectiveness at a certain point exactly So you've got basically the situation now where and this is where how my philosophy has developed Uh, is you know, there's minimalism where it's like ostensibly you're aiming at the minimal effective dose There's the maximum where you're like, okay, what's my max? I'm going to just see what I can do and then there's optimum which is you know Not too far from max, but it's far enough where it's not going to completely burn you out But what most people need to be focusing on is practical like what is practical like yeah Obviously it would be optimal if you had a pair of kettlebells of every size from eight kilos to 48 kilos If you had I mean, you know, you've got the optimal setup Even I don't you know, I've got like a couple of uh a couple of pairs and it's about matching pairs and two kilo increments from eight to 32 and In competition grade bells But you see you're you're good to go man. You're you're crushing like you've got things set as far as equipment is concerned Yeah, for sure you yeah, you got it man Um, and so people think well, maybe that's what he did to do No, maybe I need to get a whole bunch of them and it's I knew of course, you know, you're shaking your head because you know better You're like if you're getting started, you don't need that and you know get get to adjust get to adjustable kettlebells That that can go from eight to that can go from eight to 32 in in one kilo increments in in just two bells right like Yeah, like that's a no that's a no-brainer, but those weren't available when I started buying You know 20 years or one 15 years ago when I first bought my first pair of kettlebells little weren't a thing Exactly exactly and and so that's that's a perfect point is that you know You if you could get the adjustable ones and if you wanted to get as close to optimal without maximal, you know Equipment investment that would be a great way to do it But a lot of times people have this idea that if they're not doing the bad and actually I don't think you're really really believe it I think they do it because it also kind of gives them a cop out like if it doesn't work out like you know I just I just couldn't work out for an hour and a half every day six days a week and it's like well You didn't you know have to you know So that's a big thing is like what is practical like what is the thing that you can do Because this is the other problem What's the thing that you can do every day or close to every day that is going to keep getting you stronger And it's gonna put more money in your bank account your your body's bank account While taking out of it is a little as possible. So it's like takes out a little bit to invest and then you know You wake up the next I call it the body the body's 401k Absolutely, how do you invest in your body's 401k Exactly so that you're getting a new at ease you're in and you're out and That when people start to focus on that the ironic thing is that they start to get the results that they think that they would have gotten by focusing on optimal And because optimal is often so far out of their range of their time equipment Uh, they're focused their recovery capacity Next thing you know Optimal is suddenly maximal or it's in practice or it's just in practical and so Practicality is huge and the ability to do something it could be anything it could be swings every day could be You know whatever you like to do or it doesn't even have to be swings it could just be some kind of movement All of that stuff is going to go a lot farther for you in a long way And so my philosophy has molded from you know doing Everything by the book which again is not bad is the book is there for reasons start when that's what you know And you like you said you didn't have the experience to that's the thing like you don't have the experience to deviate from the book You state of the book and that's that's good coaching and then as you gain experience You start to be able to generalize principles and start to be able to integrate concepts across Philosophies as you learn more you greet you gain more experience then Then you can start deviating from from the book more and writing your own book At funny you should say that because I've got one right here that I agree Nice Yeah, well well done sir. Yes, I just have the name of it. What's the name of it for those of us listening on the audio Yes, it is the no BS kettlebell and body weight kick start And uh, I didn't include my nickname on there, but you can still see my name by I mean that looks like the Hebrew hammer on the on the cover though, so Yeah, well, you know, I had a I don't know if you noticed to it's got kind of a Star Wars theme to it Oh, I was thinking of he man. I actually went to the he man vibe with with with short hair like that I like that. I have the power. I love I can see that now yeah 100% I told this there's an artist In Italy who is so I have a friend Eduardo who is uh, base player for a very popular band in Italy called Manel War of Steel Actually, they're very popular in Europe now. They're doing like a European tour and he and I met in Israel He was doing a post-doctoral research in astrophysics at Hebrew University And I was trying to learn it just like mostly like most of us. Yeah, no big deal But he had a We had a mutual friend who introduced us because he was trying to learn Hebrew and I was trying to learn Salkin We found that we had a mutual love for swear words and that was what our friendship. I really kicked up but um, yeah, yeah exactly um, so we uh, I've gotten a chance to do a very short tour with his band actually This is in Italy a number of years ago and I met his his lead singer Who's an extremely talented artist and so he's the one who did the artwork on the book and I told him Basically, I was like look, I want it to look kind of like Star Wars So instead of a lightsaber there's gonna be a kettlebell, but it's still gonna be the themes of light coming out You know, and then in the background instead of a death star It'll be a giant kettlebell and then maybe some you know pictures of me doing some of the other exercises He's like I think I understand and so he just blam you know like the next thing I know I've got this like This amazing piece of art. So the main idea is that of course I wanted it to look Not like Not like any other exercise book. I wanted it to look like something like damn. I got to read this thing You know cover to cover right now. It looks like a comic book cover Mean that in the best possible way like it's that was it's visually interesting and yeah It's perfect because that's what I was aiming for you know, not like the stuffy kind of like Well, there's a little little bit of book about the you know like there's Obviously, there's plenty of information about kettlebells. Yeah, it's exactly like Like greased up and like tensing my muscles as hard as I can while the light is focused at 37.5 degrees. I have an eaten in 47 hours. Yeah, that was what I wanted to avoid I just like I'm gonna have somebody draw that appearance so that I don't have to you know Dehydrate myself and you know, shrivel up and what have you? I'm gonna have to do a lot more than that to pull off that look so Kudos kudos to you man. So I I've got I've got a couple more questions. I we've were super long, but I I'm really enjoying this conversation But I do want to ask you because you've got Got multiple pieces to your coaching philosophy, which I love because they're complimentary. It's multifaceted So you've got you've got the the original strength piece You've got the strong you've got the strong first piece and then you also have calisthenics in your background as well And I know that that's something that you're that you talk about so how do you Generalize your approach? So what's your general approach? Like what are people gonna find in your book that that is kind of your general philosophy that that you That you kind of apply and then If you if you can get into a little bit of the the specifics to of how do you customize that when you're working with an Individual client as opposed to putting something out in for general consumption like your book Definitely, I would say the way to look at kettlebells and calisthenics and movement in general is try to find what they do best at And at the very beginning when you're working with somebody you want to aim for the movements that they're going to be that are gonna you know That are going to lay down the best foundation in each of those individual disciplines. So obviously with the kettlebell You know, you don't want to start with the snatch or like the clean and jerk these are a bit more advanced And they're going to take a little bit more work before somebody can adequately do them because there are movements that are less technical Aleks complicated Ketobell drinker the spoils become clear as the time for battle draws nearer Our sponsors this year will be barefoot athletics was giving away six one hundred dollar gift cards pro kettlebell Who's giving away a three hundred dollar gift card a two hundred dollar gift card and a set of magnetic chip weights kettlebell kings Is giving away a one hundred and fifty dollar gift card living dot fit giving away four fifty dollar gift cards Sorenson strong giving away a pair of 1.5 pound Indian clubs with the event logo engraved CK mace works is giving away two custom plate loadable maces or clubs Belovator is giving away two fifty percent off discount codes for a custom lifting belt in addition There will be a five hundred dollar cash prize for the best lifters in the event Sign up today to win cities kettlebell club dot com That I'm going to help them so for instance the swing is a good thing for people to start with and then as they get good at that They can learn like a clean and the high pole and then eventually the snatch Likewise, you know before you're doing you know a bunch of long cycle clean in jerks It's probably going to be a good idea to make sure that you can press and hold the kettlebell overhead To know that you've got the proper overhead mobility and that's sort of a thing So the general philosophy is try to find the exercises that are going to have the best impact that are not necessarily going to have a ton of overlap with other things So it's not like you know doing rows with kettlebells and then doing more rows with body weight It's like you know probably pick one or the other and it'll be easy to learn whichever the opposite one is whenever you need to so The that's the basic approach so for instance Overhead work with body weight training is very advanced with kettlebell training It can be very very essential very basic so like a military press as an example But if you're going to try to have somebody do overhead work with body weight right out of the gate It's like you're risking a neck injury. So you know, you want to try to find the right tool for the right job So for instance the way I see the kettlebell in it's uh And it's most abstract sense is the ability to move an odd object through free space using strength And then with calisthenics, it's the ability to you to move your body through free space with strength So no matter what you're going to need strength in both of these endeavors How you apply it? Yeah, yeah, an element Absolutely strength and control and control perfect I think those those are the things that that unify those two that right both of those because calisthenics are trying to define in like gymnastics Defined by the ability to control your momentum control your your body in space That's true. Yeah, and that's a very good uh very good element to add in because we've all seen somebody who's just knocking out tons and tons of pushups and you're like if you were to be like I will you know do like a couple of slower ones or whatever They would be shaking and rattling and rolling. I mean my first time doing doing long cycle with with 24 kg bells No control plenty of movement through space plenty of movement through space. They were free Free moving all over the damn place, but yeah, not a ton of control That with a ton of control. Yeah, exactly. So that's that's perfect That's a excellent way to put it and I think this is also where the movement side of things comes into play because a lot of times We don't really know what our bodies are are supposed to be doing like you can see it on video Be like that's what I was doing. That's what it looked like You know like you don't even necessarily know what like you you can think okay, where it feels like I'm doing this and then when you see a video You're like oh my shoulder was all over the place. You know I almost flaring out So getting back in touch with what the body is supposed to be doing And this is one of the things that I focused on in the book is kettlebells calisthenics and then the original strength reset Helping you to get that proprioception the sense of yourself in space so that you can improve your control Potentially learn how to do the movements more bit quicker now Obviously for instance, you know some of the movements in there are going to come a little bit more naturally to some people Pushups making appearance in the book, but everybody has done a bastardized version of a push up at some point So the focus is on learning how to do them again with strength and control And Focusing in on the stuff that is not only going to set the foundation for those other disciplines So if you want to go all in and kettlebells at some point really focus on that or all in on calisthenics You should at least have a foundation of allow you to build But then finally making sure that you're not making the mistake of leaving a bunch of stones unturn You know like a lot of times one of the one of the things that I see a lot especially let's say with the calisthenics world Someone's like I want to do like a basic calisthenics program. What should I do? Like I do push-ups sit-ups and squats. It's a great work Everything you see in the mirror and then everything that you can't see you know, you just leave Completely alone. So you're not working your back you're not working your glutes or whatever um And so I try to take the opposite approach and I make sure that every Almost every muscle is being worked in some capacity and focusing in on doing that through The movement patterns that are going to help you to cover as much ground as possible While also making sure that you're not building a bunch of glaring Strength imbalances, which is all too common among people who are just getting started with Either kettlebells or calisthenics or both they kind of just lean toward the stuff that's like the flashy sexy thing And next thing you know, they're like I have my next bother me my shoulders suck, you know like uh, you know Avoiding things that we that we are good at already like it's like oh, I really like the way squats feel So I do a lot of squats like great. Can you do a Romanian deadlift on one leg? Yeah, exactly like oh my god my hamstring is gonna snap They're like could you dial nine one and then keep your finger on the one just in case the set doesn't go well Like no, you need to learn this stuff man So that's exactly how to one foot No, correct It's all that stuff is very important and a lot of it gets overlooked Because people want to just get started they want to just you know hit the ground running as it were and They find something that works and like this is working I'm gonna just keep doing it but then they never branch out and so the idea and my philosophy is to try to get people to get It's really very focused on gpp just get Generally strong as much as you can in a variety of different ways as well as generally flexible Generally condition and then when you want to go all in Let's say you want to do a half bodyweight military class or you want to work up to doing a pull up with you know 24 kilos strap to you or you want to do a pistol squad or something like that Make sure you do a 10-minute your voice sports set Absolutely that's then even better example because like again 10 minutes non stop of snatching means that like you've got to have a lot of things working in your favor And you can't just be like ah, you know what I I I picked up a I watched the gear voice sports set on YouTube with the sound off. I think I got this. I'm gonna try 10 minutes of snatching Facility of dude. He made it look really easy So yeah, he makes it look like he's half asleep when you're like oh, I can't be that hard and you're like 10 reps and you're like now you know what this is gonna be really hard I'm not ready like I was a cyborg pretty sure he's not human Exactly. Yeah, he just he's got pain tolerance like you wouldn't believe So that's the philosophy is that Rather than making the mistake of Zooming in as like Bruce Lee would say on the finger pointing at the moon and kind of missing the missing the point You're really focusing on the moon which is like the principles and how to And not just the principles, but the the expected and result that you're in shape You're resilient. You're strong. You're confident and I think that focusing on the finger is like okay I want that those things but only but I only want to practice these movements I want to limit myself to these exercises. I think it's the wrong way to do that I think it's better for people to get to understand the connection between How calisthenics and kettlebells and movement fit together and work together well and lay down the groundwork for them to You know graduate on the cool stuff like again 10 minutes Dear boy sports that would be a great example I'm not going to say that my book is going to help you to do that because that's that's not the what it's written for But I but it works like like what you're talking about is is what all of like I spend at this point now as a kettlebell sport coach I spend as much time or more time thinking about how do I how do I incorporate all of the other pieces that my athletes need and make sure that they're doing them Because I know that if I if I and this is one thing I've learned as I've gotten more experienced as a kettlebell sport coach is That if I'm only giving them their kettlebell sports stuff and I'm just trusting them to do their their their gpp And do their cardio and do their mobility and all of those things. It's not that my athletes aren't trustworthy It's just that they're fucking liars Yeah, you know, they do what they like to do which is the kettlebell sport stuff which is what they hired me for Uh, yes, but I need to spend as much time asking them and making sure that they're doing their cardio and doing their mobility and doing their gpp and Salkin sure I avoid those pattern overload injuries and and all of those things because That's that's what the job is like that's what One of the things that I tell people I have a lot of like info products for instance and I whenever I'm including stuff like stretches and mobility things in there I let people know if you're not doing the stretching and mobility you're not doing the program. So you can't say Ah, yeah, you know like I just felt kind of burned out or I just felt like I was getting too tight. It's like well Did you do what it said on page, you know, 45 about the you know stretching this or then like oh no, well What do you expect was gonna happen? So I just let them know up front if you're not doing this you're not doing the program You're doing something else. So you have to do mobility you have to do the flexibility work It's crucial. I didn't people do it. They're like oh my god. I feel great. How much better So yeah, they're like I yeah, I have for if I you know, I'm sure you say like if I had a dollar for how many times I've heard Man, I did my warm up and I performed so much better. Oh man I've been doing my mobility and I feel so much better. Oh man I've been doing my cardio. I've been doing my cardio and now my sets are coming back. It's like Yeah, all of these all of these pieces It's it's cumulative rated all it all it all adds up so all right. So I'll do two more questions. Yes, so I was gonna say last question, but I'm I'm a liar. So it's two more questions Turkish get-ups. Yeah overrated underrated or appropriately rated Overrated oh My god, I thank you. I you are one of the first Hardstyle RKC background people that I've heard actually say that that is overrated. Okay elaborate. Why? Okay, the reason obviously But I want to hear your reasoning why the reason why they're overrated is because it's not because they don't have benefits to them And it's not that they're not good for the record for people who are listening I've done get-ups with like a beast before a hundred six pound kettlebell and this is when I weighed a lot less I was like 163 pounds So you can't accuse me of hating the get-up for the same reason I hate bench presses. All right I Good call back. I like it. Yeah, I've spent plenty of time doing get-ups and I like get-ups a lot, but they get They get treated as though they're this like magic pill and what's worse actually is that they get treated like they're a beginner exercise Like conduct a mental experiment. You've got a beginner and you're like okay. I'm gonna teach this person Some movements. So Okay, so you know, let's do for the upper body. Should I do something with um You know really two movements. So there's like let's say military press where you're like rack overhead and then and that's it Or should I do something with 14 movements like the Turkish get-up? Well, I would say the one with two just happened in military press because you want them to get the kettlebell in there Like I used to sell cut-co many many moons ago. I'm sure you know what cut-co Yes, and for those who don't know it's um it is an American Cutlery company that uses direct sales meaning like in-home presentations to sell The cutlery very high-quality stuff But one of the things that the manager would tell us is like look You want to get the cutlery in people's hands because you want them to try it out for themselves You want them to feel how great it is because you want them to have a connection with it and they want them to buy it Um, and you're doing them a favor because it's almost certainly better than all the other cutler that they have So like if you think if you really think it's a good product and you're doing them a favor Let them use it. Let them try it out. Let them you know, and this was in within the You know the confines of a program that we would have to do meaning like uh like a presentation. We'd have to do But that's the same thing with the kettlebell kettlebell training is exciting You're you're flinging around this this piece of iron and you're catching it You know not catching it and it's like it's Flying through midair and you're catching it but rather you're doing a swing and like the kettlebell wants to escape and you're holding on and you're You're doing multiple reps like that you're moving fast with the weight you're feeling strong and feeling confident in the bowl Yeah, you're exactly it's like you're you're commandeering this bull You know down the streets of Pamplona and you know other people who get in the way are just gonna get completely mall That's that's power that you can't buy So you want them to get that feeling so then you're like okay, well You're gonna learn swings you're feeling awesome now. I'm gonna show you uh move that you're gonna suck at for like three months And that's the only thing that we're gonna focus on because because that's just because so and oh and by the way For the first like month you're not even gonna do it loaded. You're gonna have to do it with a tissue So you're gonna take your sweaty gym shoe And you know wave it perilously close to your face Is this gonna make me better at pressing? Oh, no the military presses will do that Yeah, oh, this make me better. It's make me better at squatting. No, the squats will make you better at that Yeah, well, and this is the other thing that I don't like is that again. It's as an example This is a mindset that pervades The kettlebell world and I elsewhere too honestly. It's not just kettlebells. No, it's not just kettle I got a question. I have a Facebook group. I got a question on it Like a week ago and I'm not I'm not calling out the person who asked a question because it was a fair question and it was just again It's an example of a mindset that I don't think is very helpful But he's a good person. He's not I'm not calling him out But he said what would be the best crawling variation to build my biceps? I said none like you know, you can't build your biceps with crawling. It's just not what it's meant for I said what I would do is I would just you know, find a way to do some I mean pull-ups obviously you're gonna be a good option for a lot of people But curls, you know, find a way to do curls if you if you really want to work the biceps. That's just the best way to do it And so there it's like somebody were like I I want to build this house, but I don't want to use hammers or I want to fix the my leaky sink, but I don't want to use a wrench Well, how can I do that with a screwdriver? It's like why are you living yourself with your screwdriver? You know like use a wrench That is that is such a great analogy But it's and it's true. So this is the thing the turkish get up I don't think I would say it's more of an intermediate move because it's not it's not that cerebral But the thing is I would agree with that. It's an intermediate move Yeah, absolutely and and but here's the thing it's like If you look at the get up there are just so many elements to it that you have to be good at to begin with you have to be able to roll over It incidentally original strength has made this a lot easier for a lot of my my people because I have a I have a turkish get up challenge Which has worked for nothing wrong with that there's nothing wrong and just so we're clear like don't hear what Aleks isn't saying We're not saying that there's anything wrong with anybody that wants to pursue a turkish get up goal for its own sake Like there's nothing wrong with turkish get-ups as an expression of strength. They are great as an expression of strength. They are a great Way to express a strength skill, but make no mistake. It is a strength skill If you're looking to build pressing power Do military presses do Russian presses do Do jerks do something that is vertical pressing if you're looking to build the ability to get up off of the ground do it unloaded first right and then work like when we're just like there's functional application and being able to press a lot There's functional application being able to get off the ground There's very little functional application to getting off of the ground with a weight held overhead that doesn't happen in real life It is a strength skill for the sake of a strength skill and there's nothing wrong with that Yeah, just understand that that's what it is Exactly and you're gonna find it a lot easier actually if you do stuff like what we're talking about So like I said, okay, you go with a get-up You know First of all if you can press a weight overhead get-ups will become easier when the time comes because you'll have that strength If you can if you can lunge if you can row because you have to you know roll yourself over on your elbow So there's back strength that's gonna be involved then really you know very similar to the row in that in that sense But a lot of people are starting off and they can't do any of those things or they don't know any of them So even if they can do them they don't have any Physical reference point for them. So to just say okay, they just now do this They have to you know try to intuit putting all these things together Just doesn't really work and doesn't make any sense. So Yeah, I don't think it makes sense to give a beginner the the Turkish get-up to do I think as an intermediate it would make sense or the other thing too is that you can Approach it at the same time you're having people do military presses and you know the other things But approach it from a standpoint of like full-body coordination Movement to get them a better sense of them self in space and then when the time comes then you can load it up But I do think that the the Turkish get-up is very much overrated. I it's great for certain things in particular I think actually great for Really bulletproofing the shoulders. So and again, you can't really do that with a really heavyweight But I think no, but yeah, but from a from a like Me like starting starting in a week when I get back from vacation in Florida like I will do some Turkish get-ups But I will do them with four kilos Like yeah, we'll do them very light and it will just be for and they will be part of my warm-up as part of the like hey Again cross cross neural activation Stabilization getting off of the ground activating all of those muscles is very valuable for that but like For that's going to be part of my warm-up and then I'm going to go into the like okay I'm trying to rehab my pressing strength. Okay. Now I'm going to go up to eight kilos and 12 kilos and do strict presses and jerks and Like snatches things things that are going to help me actually rehab my shoulder Yep, just get-ups are going to help me rehab the stabilization capability beyond that like once I start going heavier like They wouldn't be a safe movement for me to do with the surgically reconstructed shoulder right well I want to do other movements that are less More stable in other positions and less and less strain on on the stabilization muscles in my shoulder Exactly exactly and in the last thing I'll say about the get-up is There are certain kettlebell forums or Facebook pages that you can go on where people talk about their their kettlebell experiences And then if you look at the people who have elected to only do swings and get-ups at the beginning Meaning like they have no other kettlebell experience So they're not like oh, I've done lots of presses and you know all this other stuff now I'm going to do the get-up but they're starting with the get-up in the swing and they stick with it over let's say a year Very few of them end up going up to anything beyond like 24 kilos Um on the on the contrary and I'm not trying to sell any products or anything but I have a Turkish get-up challenge short-term challenge The gentleman from I have a couple stories like this but there's one in particular that I thought was was very useful Um or useful for this example He did it twice in a row and he took his best Turkish get-up from 16 kilos to 32 kilos Um because of the way that I had programmed it it included ways to you know improve the your abilities with the get-up But to do it much more quickly in a more methodical way Not racing through anything, but it's also not overly simplified where it's like just do a certain number of get-up every day There is a time and a place for that and I do think that that kind of approach can be very helpful especially for people who have very busy physically active job Um, but for people who are enthusiasts and they're serious about getting better at kettlebell training in general I don't think any but for instance we'll take the simple and sinister challenge where you do sinister which is um 10 I'm sorry, it's a hundred swings one arm swings in five minutes with uh 48 kilo or a hundred six pound kettlebell and then Five get-ups total per arm so total of 10 between the two arms within 10 minutes with the beast I don't think anybody who's done that least that the best of my knowledge were very few people who've done it I have not already worked up to prior worked up to a half bodyweight military press or more Or done snatches and done all sorts of other things what they're doing is they're going back and they're reinforcing Other habits that they built up after having Worked on their base they work on getting stronger at at dynamic movements like pressing and heavy pull-ups And all sorts of other things and then they go back and they do this and now we talked about before because they have a wider Face to work from their strong and conditioned flexible and mobile in a variety of different ways It's easy to now start building in just one direction because they have a wide enough base So I would caution anybody listening who's thinking about only doing swings and get-ups until they reach an arbitrary number of either of them Um that those can be the centerpiece of your training if you want But I would also add in other things so that you're not hamstringing yourself because Uh if you do that to the exclusion of everything else For a long time it's probably only going to promise you some disappointments Love it couldn't have said it better myself so thank you for saying it You're very welcome now and you don't even have to worry about getting you know the pillage and uh you know having the protesters coming to your door They're all coming to me. So I welcome it. I welcome it It's I and and and the thing that's ironic to me is is I get I get people that come at me from the perspective Oh you hate you hate Hardstyle you hate no no, I don't actually that that's that my first six like so many people my first experiences with bells were Hardstyle like the first piece of kettlebell information that I consumed was enter the kettlebell right like so many other people in the US like so no I don't I don't but what I hate is uh dogma I hate dogmatic thinking that cannot escape beyond its own Conceptualization to incorporate other ideas and accept what you what meets the intellectual standard and reject that which does not You know that's that's where But anyways, I'll get off of my soapbox and I'll give you I'll give you the the question that people that listen to my podcast know is coming Which is um if you could go back and give yourself or or a new person we can you can go either way with it You could give if you give one piece of advice to somebody that's just starting out on their fitness journey um What would that piece of advice be? I would say Look to get good at a variety of skills And don't get too caught up on the details and in this case details meaning like the the movements because again I think there are a lot of people are they're kind of like too Let's say basic camps when it comes to um People's enthusiasm for fitness. There's the dance with the one that brung you you like oh, I love kettlebells So now kettlebells are the only thing I'm going to do and I'm only going to do these exercises And then there's the other people who are constantly bouncing from one thing to the next so they're never actually getting good at anything And I think that if there are if you had a synthesis of the two of those where it's like focus on like a few basic um Disciplines that are interconnected in some way And work on getting good at those and don't let yourself get caught up on saying I have to limit myself to only this kind of exercise like only cardio or only strength training um or only Yoga or something like that If you can find a way to to mix these things or to practice them in such a way where they're all interconnected and complimenting one another you're going to have Much smoother ride overall and you're going to end up with You're going to end up in your destination a lot more quickly so For me at the beginning it was like I went anything you know I'm very much like a very gun-ho person. I decided I'm going to do something and it's like this is going to happen Um, so it was like kettlebells or the balls. I'm just going to do kettlebell training and then I discovered calisthenics And you know, it's not like I didn't know what existed I just didn't appeal to me as much and then when I discovered it I was like okay Well now I want to try to find a way to connect these two and you know And then of course the discovered movement training later and I'm glad I came across it like this because at this point And my mind was opened up enough that I was willing to try out new things and not say Has to be this way. It has to be that way or whatever But over the long run I think what people should focus on doing is that but maybe with a shorter timeline because it took me from Say between 2008 to like 2012 essentially to to get all that but I think that if you find something that you really like Let's say it's the kettlebell Spy all means focus only on the kettlebell at first But be willing to accept other things as they come in So if you're like oh, well, maybe I'll do like a yoga class, you know, or I'll try out this yoga DVD or something like that Maybe that'll help me with my flexibility Be willing to accept those things as they come in and don't say no kettlebell has all I need or no calisthenics has all that I need You know, if you keep an open mind you're going to have a lot better fitness journey in general By not trying to make every need that your body has for a development The burden of one piece of equipment or one approach um mix approach over a long one works better and you don't have to start like that But that should be your focus over the long run Love it. Love it That is that is great advice that is great advice so thank you very much Aleks I really I really appreciate you taking the time We've we've done like two full hours And we've gone we've gone all over the map but I have I have very thoroughly enjoyed the conversation So thank you so much for for coming on the podcast and one more time give people the Instagram handle How do they how do they get at you? Where do they buy the book? Give them the name again, you know This is your your opportunity to give yourself some plugs here man. Of course. Well, I'll tell you this You know, I do post every day on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and you know Stuff like that. So if you look me up if you go on Instagram again, my parents gave me a very funny spelling names Aleksander Salkin You'll be able to we'll put the handle in the show notes too for me and yeah Now and if you want the book the no BS kettlebell on bodyweight kickstart program You can go to amazon and get that but but I would say for most people if you're if my Philosophy or approach intrigues you I have a free Challenge that is designed to be done in conjunction with any other program that you're doing because it's focused around gate pattern movements And these typically pair very well with with you know kettlebell training and calisthenics training It doesn't really get in the way of your training It has a tendency to enhance it. So the challenge is called the nine minute kettlebell and bodyweight challenge And as the name implies it's Nine minutes long and it can be done at the beginning of your workout. So we've got eight minutes where somebody comes up with eight minutes I would be so well. I would really need to get back to the drawing board I'll tell you that much but so far nobody has had the Forsite to do that so I've not yet been put out of business but but it's in this case I wouldn't put out a business because it's a free challenge. So if you've got it if you have nine minutes It's it's a lot of people have told me it's helped their presses it's helped their squats. I had somebody on Instagram Since I've started doing this challenge, I've never felt better. It's very avant-garde movements because again It's more oriented around your gate pattern or your walking pattern So it's got stuff like loaded carries crawling you know a few other things like that and If you go to nine minute challenge.com. That's the number nine minute challenge.com. You get a free copy of it so Just download it and it's it's yours But that's where I would go. That's I'm far and away. I'm most Most active on my email list, but I get I also have The daily post on Instagram daily stuff on YouTube But if you want to put stuff to the test and as opposed to just looking at my you know Boyish good looks, you know, and the professionally shot photos or videos or whatever on YouTube and what have you Yeah, go to nine minute challenge.com get your own free copy of the nine minute kettlebell bodyweight challenge Just try it out for a week or two and see if it helps your workouts feel a bit stronger See if it helps you feel like you're crushing more weakness And if it is and if you do feel all those things send me a note and let me know. Wow. This is the bees knees. I'll be happy Awesome. That is what we call value exchange content motherfuckers. That is great So thank you very much Aleks. I appreciate that. I will check it out Because I I am with you like gate pattern gate pattern reinforcement is that is something that goes Very well with any current regiment that you have Because very few of us are actually training our gate patterns in any Cogent manner. So exactly. Appreciate you sharing that and I really appreciate the time. I hope I hope that you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did and I wish you all the best and If you ever if you're ever venture to the Twin Cities and you want to you want to slink some steel I'm happy to get together and we can We can do some kettlebell sports and crawling some Some presses some get ups whatever you want to do man. I'm I'm I'm game. So I would love to I would love to I'll probably this would be the only time. I'll probably ever wear gloves while lifting Because it's so cold there. I don't want my hand freezing to the It's not that much colder than Omaha come on now. It was 90 degrees today. So I don't know what it was like in Minneapolis It was 72, but okay, so actually that's not that bad because when I was there in September many years ago it was like I felt like it was like 30 or 40 degrees in the morning It was yeah, it was like 57 when I woke up, but you know, we're this is like the beautiful time of year This is yeah exactly. It's like that rare three-week window where it's not a complete tundra, which is no come on now come on now I love like we're not like Ottawa. No, that's for sure No, I love Minneapolis. I haven't been there in probably 10 years So I would love to come and I don't know when And I'm gonna be I can tell you I'm gonna be driving my family to the southwest part of the U.S At some point to go do the national parks out in Utah and stuff and we pretty much have to go through Nebraska So maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe we'll stop by and we'll we'll sling some steel That would be awesome. That would definitely be awesome. I will bring some kettlebells I'm sure you're gonna have a whole tribe of them. Yeah, they'll they'll come with me. They travel You know, I have a problem. You're on dude. You're on if you're an Omaha We're gonna we're definitely gonna sling some steel. All right. Appreciate it man. Thank you so much for coming on I really appreciate it Aleks pleasure was mine. Thanks for having me have a good night You too Thank you for listening to this episode of the platform podcast. We'll be back with a new episode soon Please be sure to leave a rating and review of the platform podcast in your app of choice Support our work by supporting our affiliates and of course if you have questions or you want help reaching your goals Reach out to me until next time. Thanks for listening