Ep. #467: Pat Flynn on How to Get Started with Kettlebell Training

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So again, if you appreciate my work and if you want to see more of it, please do consider supporting me so I can keep doing what I love, like producing podcasts like this. Hello, Michael Matthews here, back with another episode of muscle for life. Welcome Now, if you are a regular listener around these parts, you have heard me talk about many things related to training, like how to squat, how to deadlift, how to bench press, how to overhead press, why you should be doing all those things, how to break through plateaus, how to use different rep ranges and how to deload and on.

But something I have not talked about before is. Kettlebell training. And that’s not because I think it is without merit. It was really just an unintentional oversight. And that’s why I invited Mr. Pat Flynn back on the show to break down kettlebell training for beginners. Now, why Pat? I didn’t even know this until I did the previous episode that I did with him, which was on Random things, religion, politics, culture.

Turns out though that Pat was once the youngest person ever to pass the Russian Kettlebell Certification. And he’s been into kettlebells seriously for a long time now and has coached many people over the years on how to properly use them to lose fat, build muscle, and get stronger. And so in this episode, Pat delivers a fantastic kettlebells 101, including his favorite exercises for gaining muscle and improving conditioning, how to do those exercises properly, how to program kettlebell training and more.

All right, let’s get to the interview. Mr. Flynn has returned. Welcome back, my friend. Oh, it’s always a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, Mike. Absolutely. So we’re here to discuss if God trains with kettlebells, dumbbells or barbells, right? 

Pat: I wasn’t prepared for this. With all the dogma in the fitness industry, apparently God probably does have an opinion on this stuff.

It’s just a matter of who’s got the right religion here, right? 

Mike: Yeah, that’s actually a good way to look at it. I like it. You have the three religions. You have the, of the kettlebell training, you have the barbell training and the dumbbell training. 

Pat: Yeah. And then you have religious pluralism. They’re all true.

They’re all good. 

Mike: Yeah. We are here to talk about kettles though, just for everybody wondering where this is going to go. This one is going to be about kettlebells, but we are going to do another episode. We’ll work out the timing exactly, but we both got a lot of good feedback on the previous episode that we did on religion.

Culture. And we talked about memes, all kinds of random stuff. And a lot of people liked it and we enjoyed it. So we’re gonna make that a regular thing. And we were just talking before this. And we’re thinking that a discussion about Jordan Peterson would be fun. And some of his ideas and some of the common criticisms that are leveled at him.

And I think we both actually, Pat and I both have our own, I don’t know if I would say criticism is maybe a bit of a harsh word, but things that don’t quite jive with me. 

Pat: Not 

Mike: to just launch 

Pat: into that conversation now, and we must show temperance this time, but I think he’d be a good starting point to discuss various philosophical worldviews.

And some of the feedback, like I said, I got tons of great feedback on that last episode and it was an absolute blast. I look forward to continuing that conversation, but some people mentioned that they thought I was maybe a little too harsh on Peterson. And I hope that certainly wasn’t my intent. And I think that there’s a very interesting kind of global philosophical discussion that we can have that’s very probing and searching and interesting that we could start from the standpoint of Peterson.

So I’m just going to put that as a teaser right now. And we’re going to force us to get back to the main point. Conversation if possible, 

Mike: which is kettlebells. Here we go. We can do it. That’s right. Yes, we can. So I think a good place to start our current discussion is question that I most commonly get regarding kettlebells is what is it good for?

Should I be doing it? I obviously hear from a lot of people who are doing a lot of barbell and dumbbell training. And they’re wondering, should they be incorporating kettlebell training into that? And if so, why, and then how, and then we can go from there. And then there are also quite a few people who are currently not doing any barbell or dumbbell training, then they’re wondering, okay, they have these, they see it as three different disciplines, which one should they choose?

And as far as kettlebells go, does it make sense to do only kettlebell training and why and so forth? 

Pat: Okay. Yeah. A lot there. I think it might be helpful just to. Give a little background. Hi, first got started training with kettlebells, which was actually through martial arts. So I have trained Taekwondo for a while and I competed in college and it was one of my, one of my coaches now, very close friend of mine who saw my training routine.

I was doing a lot of traditional barbell and body weight training, nothing too stupid at the time. I was getting results. It was preparing me well for my sport. And that’s how I got introduced to kettlebells. Both my bare knuckle boxing coach and my Taekwondo coach were using these. Primarily, and I think this is how we can start to answer the first question as a conditioning tool.

Now, the key to keep in mind there is a lot of conditioning is always sport specific, right? But there’s generally gaps that can be filled and conditioning was a gap for me and kettlebells really helped to fill that gap. To the extent that, I certainly lost matches in my competitive taekwondo career, but I don’t think I ever lost a match because somebody was better conditioned than me.

I lost a match because I was slower, dumber, not as technically proficient, but I was generally in better shape, and kettlebells really helped with that in terms of pure work capacity. And now I like to think of kettlebells as a Swiss army knife. Can do a lot of things, can do a lot of things pretty well.

Maybe can’t do any one thing the best, and I think that’s the fairest view to look at kettlebells, and if you’re coming from a generalist perspective, if you’re not somebody who wants to be a hyper specialist like that’s in the world of any one thing, then I would venture that the kettlebell can, do most things for most people most of the time.

Is it the only thing that you’re going to want to train with? Probably not. There’s better tools for various jobs and getting things accomplished. But if you’re looking for a lot of utility, if you’re looking for a lot of mileage, bang for your buck, whatever cliche you want to throw out, a kettlebell, a series of kettlebells a set of kettlebells, you can do a lot with that in terms of strength, mobility, hypertrophy if you have the right intensities.

Conditioning, even flexibility training. It’s a very versatile tool. It’s a very generalist tool. And I think that’s the best way to frame the approach. 

Mike: That makes sense. And cause there’s two different, again, there’s I see this as two different paths of thinking. There’s maybe we start with, again, I think we’re most of my listeners are going to be, and that’s going to be that they are in the gym probably three to five days a week.

Let’s say they’re putting three to six hours a week into their training. Most of that’s going to be resistance training. And probably all of that currently for most of the people is barbell and dumbbell training, what kettlebells have to offer. And if that means we get into specific exercises, that might make sense.

But what do kettlebells have to offer to those people? I think it’s an easier, more obvious answer if it’s okay, somebody is not currently doing any sort of resistance training. Can kettlebells be useful? Yes, of course. Yeah duh. And there’s probably overlap there between the exercises even of okay, so let’s say, and even to get more specific, a lot of the people following me are doing some form of, there’s quite a bit of strength training.

There’s some bodybuilding stuff as well. And some. Accessory exercises, if you will, a lot of the people are going to be doing squats and deadlifts and bench presses and overhead presses, some sort of variation of these things, and they’re going to be primarily interested in increasing whole body strength and so forth.

So how do kettlebells fit in for those people? 

Pat: Yeah. So let’s just take it exercise by exercise. I think if you’re already strength training and you have kettlebells available to you, where can kettlebells fit into somebody into a program where somebody who’s already strength training I don’t think it’s going to replace any of the big classic barbell moves, like just quite frankly, like you’re not going to replace bench press with kettlebells.

You’re just never going to be able to get the same amount of load. Same thing with back squats, same thing with deadlifts. Dan John actually has a good way of thinking about this. When it comes to a piece of equipment, you think what’s the killer app here? What does this thing do? Really well. And in terms of those big fundamental foundational, multi joint resistance exercises, the barbell has classically been used and considered to be the king for a good reason, right?

And I don’t certainly wouldn’t want to advance the claim that, Oh, once you get kettlebells, you’ll never need a deadlift again, I hear people say that. I think it’s just the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Kettlebells on the other hand, some movements like the swing can do a lot. 

Mike: All you have to do is deadlift with a barbell and load it.

Seriously. And then try to do some sort of version of deadlifts with kettlebells. And you immediately know ah, nah, this is not the same. 

Pat: Yeah, exactly. But if you look at the exercises like the swing now we’re on the other end of the force velocity curve, right? So now we’re filling some gaps and now we’re doing something interesting.

And people can say yeah, we could, it could do that with barbells. We could do cleans or snatches, right? With barbells. But I would argue for most people anyways, those are pretty technical exercises. And the swing is going to be a lot more accessible and we’re going to be able to do the power development, really get a lot out of the hinging movement, do a lot of good for building the hamstrings, the glutes, the low back, but the pretty low technical exercise.

So there’s one and we can use a swing. It’s very important to remember that, it’s just not the tool itself. First off, when we’re considering any tool, we have to know how to use a tool properly, which comes down to proper technique. A hammer is no good. It’s very little use if you hold it upside down or backwards.

But secondly is, are you actually. Programming effectively. So I don’t want to put that aside because that’s important, right? Are your variables finely tuned? Are you approaching this intelligently? But in a general sense, kettlebell swings can help with power, strength, conditioning, and even muscular development of the posterior chain, not in replacement of deadlifts, but as something that could be intelligently fit into an exercise.

That’s the into a program, excuse me. And that’s the Classic kettlebell exercise that most people are familiar with. And there’s a lot of ways you can cook the swing and there’s a lot of ways you can get utility from the swing as a replacement to the barbell. No, as a both. And yeah, I think there’s something worth investigating there in terms of strength.

I think there’s two and possibly hypertrophy. I think there’s two exercises that are at least worth looking into with kettlebells and that would be double clean and press. So if you enjoy overhead, pressing shoulder development, upper peck development, that’s a place where the kettlebell actually can have a lot of mileage because chances are.

Not a lot of people are probably pressing the two heaviest kettlebells at their gym. If you are and you need to go onto a barbell, so be it. But generally, since it’s not as fixed as the barbell, I found that it’s easier to get into that range of motion with kettlebells than a barbell.

So that is a possible alternative, I think. Front squats with kettlebells are different than front squats with barbells because the load is a little bit lower. So it actually more closely resembles a Zurcher squat. So it actually has a different effect. Then your traditional barbell front squat, you won’t be able to do as much weight with it, but I think you’re going to get some different kind of benefits from it.

So between double clean and press front squat kettlebell swings. And then of course, if you’re willing to do, if you are doing single leg exercises, kettlebells can be used and swapped in easily for things like Bulgarian split squats. I think that’s a great exercise that kettlebells can lend themselves to.

And then you always see people doing Turkish get ups. I actually don’t program or use a lot of Turkish get ups, at least not heavy Turkish get ups, but that’s certainly a viable option as a full body strength exercise. So that’s a buffet of potential options for people who, you’re already using barbells, you’re already using dumbbells, okay, where could the kettlebell possibly fit in?

There’s kind of a starting list. 

Mike: Yeah, it makes sense looking at the kettlebell exercises as the, maybe not the first exercise in your workout. Again, most people listening, the first exercises in most of the workouts are going to be big compound movements in less, there are some five day programs, of mine where it is an accessory day.

Like you’re taking a rest, you’ve done some heavy squatting, you’ve done some heavy deadlifting. Now we’re going to do some shoulders, for example, really just going to work on shoulders and triceps or something. But if it’s a heavy pull day, for example, and you’re starting with your deadlift, of course, that makes sense.

Cause it’s the hardest exercise to do requires the most effort. And then maybe swings would come later in the workout. It could be, 

Pat: yeah, exactly. That’s perfect. 

Mike: There’s also a conditioning element to that too, right? 

Pat: Oh yeah, 

Mike: certainly. We’ll get there with programming, but a couple of the exercises I just want to throw out there that I actually personally prefer kettlebells on, I was going to say is the Bulgarian split squat.

I prefer just cause it’s, they’re easier to hold. They’re more comfortable to hold than heavier dumbbells. And lunges for the same reason, kettlebell lunges are less awkward than dumbbell lunges. And there’s also the goblet squat, of course you do that with dumbbells too, but that’s another option. Another type of squat that you can do unless there’s something that you, some reason why you don’t like it, but I think it’s a good basic squat.

If you, it’s not, again, it’s not going to replace your. Barbell back squat, but it is a viable exercise. 

Pat: It is, and it’s a good learning tool as well. The goblet squat really reminds you of where your hips should go in a squat. And there’s a reason that Dan John invented it. No, I didn’t know that. He does.

And he’s very adamant about making sure that he maintains his right to being the inventor of the goblet squat. I think he’s got a very strong claim on that. Too bad he can’t trademark it or patent it. I know he’s got a whole backstory. It’s actually really funny and interesting, but it was a pedagogical tool for him.

I shouldn’t bring out words I can’t pronounce. Is it pedagogy or both? I’m going to look at it. Heard it both ways. We can look it up. I’m sure people are severely uninterested, but now we need to settle it. He would use it both as an exercise. That’s good in its own right. It teaches you a lot about what your hips should do and have to wrestle that weight out in front of you.

And that’s a good exercise by itself, but certainly a good learning tool. to lead up to more intense squatting movements, front squats, back squats, et cetera. Now the pattern in the goblet squat is different than the back squat, because in the back squat, your hips are going to hinge a little bit more, but it’s always good to just understand the nuances and mechanics of any squatting pattern.

Like it’s just going to carry over and you’re going to be able to draw those distinctions more clearly. So whether you’re using it as an exercise. Yeah. By itself, because you can get a lot of mileage out of the goblet squat, or you’re using it to refine other movements. It’s definitely worth 

Mike: paying attention to.

Yeah, I agree. So it’s pedagogy or pedagogy, but that says, especially British. So I was wrong in both counts and you were right. 

Pat: All right. They’ll chalk that one up to luck entirely. I don’t even know where that word comes from. Sometimes words just pop up and you’re like, I’m going to run with that one.

And I don’t even know if it means what I think it means. This is too pretty of a word to not throw out right 

Mike: now. You nailed it. Bullseye. Awesome. Let’s talk programming then. Swings. Let’s start with swings. How do you do them effectively and how do you progress on them effectively? 

Pat: We’ll talk technique first and then we’ll talk programming because the answer to the programming question is always programming for what?

So there always needs to be some type of context there. 

Mike: Yeah, I guess I suppose actually on the technique. I was thinking, people probably just look at videos, but if there are any helpful tips or cues that you like to share, that can always be helpful. Even if you are watching a video of somebody doing it, that’s different obviously than when you’re doing it and the thoughts that you have.

And sometimes you think you’re doing what in the video, but you’re not doing it. 

Pat: Yes. Yeah. And people learn in different ways. Sometimes you see a bunch of videos and you don’t really get it and then you just have it verbally explained to you. And then finally it clicks or vice versa. So it does help to come at it from.

multiple angles. So the swing, as I generally teach it, I’m not saying that there’s certainly not other ways you can do the swing as primarily as a hinging movement. So it should mimic a deadlift, at least in a certain respect, where the hips are going back, not necessarily down. So the hips will generally stay above the knees, but below the shoulders, we’re stretching the bow of the posterior chain.

And we’re really trying to generate as much power production from the hips as possible. So we’re making that bow very taut and then we’re projecting the force outwards. So it’s great glute exercise. Great for the hamstrings, the low back has a tremendous conditioning effect, especially if you start to, you don’t even really have to go high reps with it, I would argue that if you’re really putting oomph into your swings, you’re going to be huffing and puffing with just five to 10.

Really good rep. So it has a metabolic hit. It has a utility for increasing power production strength. So you’re getting a lot out of this very simple exercise. Some of the key points to keep in mind are, like I said, it’s a hinge. You want to try and, keep a neutral spine, that crown to coccyx alignment, the positions with a lot of kettlebell moves, where you’re going to be safest are also positions where you’re generally going to be strongest.

And then, a kind of way to think about it is if you imagine a broad jump. I think this is a good visualization for people, if you were to jump for distance, you would naturally wind your hips back and then slam them forward. So don’t think about jumping up with the swing. I think a lot of people want to throw the kettlebell up.

I would say in order to get the most out of what the exercise can do. And again, I’m not saying that if you squat your swings, you’re doing it wrong or dangerous, or you’re in some type of deep level of heresy. That’s fine. But if you really want to, get the most out of it from a posterior chain exercise, think about launching your force forward.

out in front of you. And I think one of the best visualizations here is just imagine you’re doing a broad jump, but you’re not actually leaving the ground. 

Mike: Makes sense. If you were holding a ball, like maybe the size of a, an eight pound medicine ball, and you had to granny roll it as far as you can throw it is a similar.

Pat: Yeah. Like how I bowl. 

Mike: Yeah, exactly. A similar ish kind of movement as well. 

Pat: Yeah. Hopefully without like completely rounding your back and sticking your head between your legs. 

Mike: That’s how you bowl. That’s a bit strange. 

Pat: I have videos of the kettlebell technique, but not my bowling. But yeah, I have tons of stuff on YouTube.

If people want to just actually see this kind of in slow mo and from multiple angles, I have all the technical breakdowns of the exercises there. 

Mike: And I’m assuming they can just search Pat Flynn and voila, 

Pat: search Pat Flynn, kettlebell. Otherwise we’ll get that smart income guy. I 

Mike: already forgot about him.

That’s true. 

Pat: Yeah. Fake Pat Flynn. We want real Pat Flynn. So yeah, put kettlebell afterwards. Hey, 

Mike: quickly before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say. Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life fitness, Twitter at muscle for life and Facebook at muscle for life fitness. Cool. All right. So that’s the technique on the swing. Now let’s talk programming.

Pat: Sure. If you want power, add more weight, do fewer reps. If you want conditioning. Cut the weight a little bit and do more reps. It’s, pretty simple, straightforward stuff. And if you’re on a general training program, there’s probably going to be instances where you can accommodate both for good reason.

So we can provide more context of how this might go. One thing, especially if we’re talking about flexibility, fat loss and conditioning and burning calories, then I think the field is a lot wider open. If we’re talking about hypertrophy and strength training, then we have to be a lot more precise.

Make sure we’re getting the most out of this and we’re not wasting calories, right? Because it’s metabolically expensive, kettlebell training. So unless our goal is weight loss and fat loss, I would argue the kettlebell is better suited for training. For that if we’re trying to get a good metabolic hit in a fairly short order of time, things like kettlebell complexes can be a really powerful tool.

But if we’re training for strength two days a week, something like that, maybe you have a lower rep, heavier day, and you have a higher rep. Volume day. I think people are going to get a lot out of that in terms of both aesthetics and performance. 

Mike: And what do you mean exactly by lower and higher reps?

Maybe we should just give some standards of here’s a normal rep range. And here is for, let’s say 130 pound woman or 140 pound woman here. This would be considered good. And for 180 or 90 pound guy, this would be considered good. Like where should people generally be looking to start? And then what are they going to be doing a bit more specifically?

And then what’s a good milestone to work toward? 

Pat: Sure. So imagine, say you even have two deadlift days a week, or maybe you even have one, but you just want to do two days of swings a week. I don’t think that would be a terrible idea, even if your goal is strength and hypertrophy. So you might have one day where you do three to four sets of, say, five ish reps.

Two ways to focus on increasing strength. One is, of course, to increase load, but also to increase speed, or how quickly you move that load. And the kettlebell swing invites both opportunities. In a very obvious manner, because it’s a ballistic exercise. So I don’t want to say that you necessarily have to use a certain heavy weight, but if you’re going for a really heavy day, you need to focus on slamming those hips forward as aggressively as possible.

Like you’ve got a lot of really pent up, let’s just say you’ve been repressed for a while. Just imagine that you’re just trying to produce as much force as possible. It’s coming 

Mike: out of your eyes and ears. 

Pat: Yeah, exactly. You’re angry. And just it’s, you get what I’m saying. We don’t have to go into details, but whatever that emotional state is, you need to bring that to your swings.

You’re trying to put that kettlebell through the wall in front of you. Sometimes it will be very useful to actually use a more significant weight with that. Men say you’ve been doing this for a while, maybe somewhere between a 32 and a 40 kilogram kettlebell, something like that. Women, maybe somewhere between a 20 and a 32 kilogram, there’s always ranges.

And it’s always going to depend how much experience people have, you want it to be significant where you really have to put a lot of oomph behind 

Mike: it. What about set intensity? Cause take weightlifting, take the bench press. My general recommendation for people is to end one or two reps shy of technical failure, which is that I know you know this, but for people listening, if you’re not familiar with that term, it’s the point where your form starts to break down.

So if you were going to absolute failure where you can’t move the bar anymore, you could still get another rep or two. But it’s that sloppy rep where you can feel your form starting to go. That’s technical failure. And I don’t recommend that you push to that really with compound exercises, I just recorded a whole podcast on this.

So I won’t go all over it all. I won’t go too into it here, but on the compounds every so often, if you’re trying to do a rep max or like a one RM test or something like that is understandable, I don’t recommend that as a normal, Oh, when you’re deadlifting every week, just deadlift until your form starts to go to shit.

It’s an easy way to get hurt. So instead I’m recommending that people. And they’re working or they’re hard sets, generally speaking. If we’re talking about a bicep curl at the end of your workout, it’s not that big of a deal, but especially with the heavy compounds, a rep or two shy of technical failure.

So how does that translate to something like a kettlebell swing? 

Pat: Yeah, I would say it translates exactly because especially with these ballistic exercises, we don’t really, we want to maybe run up close to the guard rails of failure, but we do not want to go. One, we’ll be programming sloppy technique and two, we might just snap in half.

So always leave a couple reps in the tank. Certainly if technical failure starts to occur, if it’s time to set the kettlebell down, and at that point, if we’re really doing it for power production, anyways, you got to ask what’s the point? In going beyond technical consistency, and it’s hard to really come up with a good answer of why anybody would want to do it in that context.

So I’m completely same page with you there, Mike. 

Mike: Yeah. There are arguments that are out there for why mostly related I’ve seen around muscle contraction, but anyways, that’s another discussion and I break it down and it was just a monologue podcast that I recorded on it. There’s research that indicates that, yeah, pushing to the point of absolute failure does not seem to be any more effective than ending a couple reps.

shy of it. And then there’s the practical point of, okay, if we’re talking about a triceps press down, that’s not that big of a deal. But if we’re talking about the barbell back squat, squatting with any amount of weight to absolute failure regularly is guaranteed. Fuck you up. It’s 

Pat: guaranteed. Yes. Yeah. And I have so many friends that have the back surgeries to prove that exact very point.

And I would say same thing with these sort of aggressive ballistic exercises. Again, we’re not even talking necessarily hypertrophy here. That will definitely be a defining effect. But we’re really talking about power production. We’re hitting the other end of that spectrum. So if you’re getting the technical failure, chances are your power production has already petered out at that point anyways, right?

Mike: Yep, absolutely. Okay, good. So that’s set intensity. And so if we’re talking about rep ranges, then it sounds like it’s just the standard. Okay. If you want to get strong, you got to be in the. Four to six, somewhere around there, or even, in some cases, heavier, whatever makes sense to do a two rep. That seems a bit random.

I don’t know. Yeah, 

Pat: No, I think so. You can do bladders. I think ladders certainly make a lot of sense with kettlebell training. So you might have, here’s a kind of cool way that sometimes I program it. You have, imagine you just have kind of three kettlebells set up in the chain, right? And you have one that’s really heavy.

It’s just an absolute monster. You have one that’s medium and you have one that’s light ish and you just cycle through those for a number of sets. So when you’re at the really heavy one, it might just be a set of two, but that’s a great power effort. And you cycle off to the lighter one.

You grease a group of the technique, but you’re also recovering and you go to the moderate ones. You have a kind of undulating intensity through the workout itself. So yeah, you can definitely, you’re resting between each, you could rest between each or rest at the end of the cycle, either can be advisable.

Just depending again on the kind of greater overall context. 

Mike: Yeah. I’d say if you’re trying to increase strength. Power hypertrophy, you’d probably want to rest a little bit into each just because your intensity and your volume is going to suffer if you’re just going from one to the next in the same way as it would in any barbell exercise.

If you don’t rest, you’re turning it into more of a metabolic thing. 

Pat: Yep. Yeah. With you there. And then if you do want to do more of a conditioning thing, on another day very. A basic but effective protocol, especially for increasing something like VO2max, would just be 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off.

And here I would actually say try to find a weight where you can hit a certain rep range with, somewhere between 8 to 12 reps per cycle. Maybe even a few more with the swing or one arm swing. But you could just as easily do this with something like high pulls or snatches, kettlebell snatches or high pulls.

And there it might be more strictly like 8 to 12 reps per 15 second cycle. That’s a great little just conditioning workout that you could run that for 15 minutes. If you’re feeling a little sassy, maybe you go upwards of 30 minutes. So that would be a kind of same movement, but contrast in terms of purpose of two ways that you could plug kettle bells into your training and get some unique benefit out of it.

Mike: Makes sense. And what about progression? Just straightforward double progression where, and if anybody’s listening, not familiar with that, it’s what’s in my book. Basic programs, bigger than you’re stronger for men, stronger for women is you’re working in a given rep range. Let’s say it’s four to six.

So let’s say it’s eight to 10. When you hit the top of the rep range, it could be one set, two sets, three sets, really depends on how you want to program it. But the point is you have to hit the top of your rep range for. One to three sets, you then go up and wait simple way to progress. Is that also how you normally program kettlebell progressions or do you prefer a more linear where you’re saying, okay, here’s our training block.

Here’s a training cycle and getting more specific in terms of you’re going to start out with, there are different ways to go about this, but one way that I prefer to periodize my training, and this is what’s going into this new second edition of. Beyond bigger, leaner, stronger, my intermediate book is okay.

You’re going to start your training block with higher volume, lower intensity, and then as you get deeper into your training block, that’s going to reverse where the volume is going to come down, but the load is going to go up. 

Pat: I’m with you there. I tend to take a wavy sort of staggering approach to progression.

I think that tends to pan out a little bit better than straight linear periodization. At least for the heavier strength and power stuff in terms of the conditioning stuff, it’s interesting because for like strength. You want efficiency, right? Like you want to get as efficient as possible to get stronger, but in terms of keeping yourself conditioned, you actually want to seek a certain degree of inefficiency.

So that kind of becomes a different consideration. Now you can increase inefficiency by increasing intensity. That’s certainly one way to do it, but it’s also a possibility where certain variety or specialized variety could be introduced as well. But to the first point, yeah, I’d say I’m on the same page as you there.

Mike: So I’d say for people probably starting out, you could keep it simple and just follow a double progression of what I was just mentioning, where find the weight that you can start with and that you can successfully perform the exercise with good form in the given rep range. It hit the top of the rep range for could be one set.

That’s an aggressive progression. It could be two sets. I would say that’s like a milder progression and three sets would be a very conservative progression. But anyways, regardless of what it is, hit the top of the rep range for a given set of swings and then move up in weight. 

Pat: Yeah. Thanks for filling in the blanks there for me, Mike.

Appreciate it. 

Mike: I got your back. 

Pat: That’s very sensible. That’s good. I tend to be more conservative in my programming these days. A lot of just because of the populations that I tend to work with and the stupid things I’ve done over the years, even in my own programming. But yeah, any of those would be feasible 

Mike: and viable options.

Cool. And you had mentioned variations, like you mentioned a single versus double arm swing. What’s the story there? 

Pat: Yeah. So one is just, you have one hand on the kettlebell versus two hands on the kettlebell, but there’s a few nuances. 

Mike: That’s what you meant. Mind 

Pat: blown, right? 

Mike: No, like why, which one is instinctively people are like it’s one better than the other.

Which one’s best? 

Pat: No, they’re just different, right? Yeah. I know everyone’s what’s the best? What’s the ideal? What’s the one weird trick? They’re just different, right? So with a two hand swing, you’re naturally going to be able to use more weight because you got two, freaking hands on the kettlebell, right?

So that’s going to lend itself more naturally to just a overall higher intensity. The one arm swing will give you additional benefits to grip strength because the grip’s going to be challenged more, but now it also has an anti rotational effect because the kettlebell is trying to turn you, rotate you.

So it’s, it brings that element in. So neither better nor worse, just different. And depending on what you want to do and what you’re going for, both or either or could make sense in your programming, but they’re just options on the table. 

Mike: Cool. And are there any other variations that people should know?

Pat: Kind of going up the chain of the hinging movements, we have cleans. Kettlebell clean is cool. And the thing about the kettlebell clean, and then from there, the kettlebell snatch, even though there’s an argument to be made that the clean is sometimes more difficult to learn than the snatch for people, I’m somewhat sympathetic with that.

So the swing teaches force production. It also teaches force reduction. What the clean and the snatch do is they teach force redirection, right? The kettlebell wants to go in a certain direction. Now we have to say, And we have to bring it back to some other location, right? So with the clean, it’s going to be in the rack position where the kettlebell rests on the forearm.

The form is pinned against the rib cage. And this is an important exercise to learn, even as an intermediary exercise, because it’s from the rack position that a lot of other kettlebell exercises are performed, like Presses, for example, or front squats. So just to be able to get the kettlebell in that position with good technique, the kettlebell clean is how to do it, but it’s a good exercise in its own right, for the reasons I’ve mentioned, like heavy double kettlebell cleans.

Again, really nice power development exercise, really great for the posterior chain. You’re also getting the lats involved, the traps, the round voids, even the biceps to a certain extent, they’re not the primary movers of the exercise, but they’re certainly involved. So it’s now starting to incorporate a greater number of muscle groups.

So yeah, those can make sense certainly in a lot of different programming instances. And then the snatch is where the kettlebell lands completely overhead in the locked out position. So again, it’s introducing forced redirection. It’s a great conditioning exercise. It’s cool. Cause you can really get a nice cadence with it.

So it works really well for that type of protocol that I talked about before. If you’re just going 15 seconds on 15 seconds off and you’re trying to train more aerobic capacity, the snatch is a really good exercise for that because you can get a pretty smooth tempo and cadence and you can lock out at the top.

Whereas a swing, it’s more continuous, it’s more aggressive. So I would say that the swing is probably better towards the more aggressive anaerobic types of conditioning protocols where the snatch can really spread out the reps. You can set a tempo, a pace, so you can fill some aerobic conditioning gaps there.

So again, neither better nor worse. And this is probably the most like unexciting conversation people ever heard with kettlebells. The thing in the kettlebell world is people like get really attached and dogmatic, and that’s always been a little. Distasteful to me it’s exercise. 

Mike: I haven’t produced so little content on kettlebells.

I haven’t attracted them, but I didn’t why? 

Pat: It was, I think it started with the nature of how kettlebells became popular with the original, which was my original certification, the Russian kettlebell challenge, I was actually the youngest person to ever pass the Russian kettlebell challenge back when it really just used to be a giant hazing weekend and it was very militaristic.

And, people go back and forth of whether that was a good thing or not, and the expectation was that you were going to fail. And if you didn’t do everything perfectly and pass your snatch tests and use a certain amount of weight very like machismo and in certain respects. And I think that fostered a very peculiar and somewhat unproductive attitude around a piece of exercise equipment 

Mike: kind of cross finish.

Pat: It 

Mike: sounds 

Pat: like. Yes, very much and I always enjoyed what I learned at these certifications that from a technical standpoint, they were very helpful to me. But I never bought into the kind of the dogmatism that came with that. And they were always just, I remember this is years ago. It has fizzled out.

Mike: The dogma is that kettlebells are the best. They’re superior to everything. If 

Pat: Like Russian training secret that nobody’s ever heard about, it’s gonna solve all your problems. This is what’s gonna help you set every record in the world and all the great Russian athletes that we’ve never heard of.

That was their secret and stuff, just like bombastic marketing claims like that, that I think again, led to certainly a lot of, a number of people having the wrong expectations of what kettlebells can do, but just a very weird attitude, especially online back in the days, remember when forums were all the thing before everything switched to social media, it has fizzled out, I think, because people just realize that position was logically unsustainable, trying to argue that the kettlebell was the best for that, any other piece of equipment. I just don’t know how you could even entertain trying to make that case, but there’s a remnant of that attitude that still around, but it’s certainly gotten better. So yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that you’re not as familiar with it, but anybody who’s been in the kettlebell world, that’s listening to me, I’m sure they’re nodding their head.

And Dan, John and I just had a long talk about this the other day. I, one of my podcasts, cause he’s obviously very involved in the kettlebell world and he’s always tried to battle against that and say, Hey, we need to be a lot more reasonable here. 

Mike: Interesting. Today. I learned T I L. 

Pat: Yeah, it’s actually not that interesting, but it’s unfortunately something that I have to constantly battle against, to come up against, because it’s still this assumption that people have, and then they get a little upset when they see me, who, I’m a pretty big influencer in the world of kettlebells, but I don’t hop on board with all the claims that are made about kettlebells, so for some people, I’m a disappointment, that wouldn’t be the first time. You’re a kettlebell Uncle 

Mike: Tom, man. 

Pat: Yeah, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that Pat Flip let somebody down. But, I just want people to have the right expectations. We’re coming in with the expectation that, Okay, most of your audience is already training. They’re probably already doing pretty well.

Could they add kettlebells and benefit from it? Sure, yeah, I think so. Do they have to? Nah, they probably don’t have to. Is it gonna solve all their problems better than anything else? No. Absolutely not. It is what it is. I think where they become more interesting is for people who are looking for a place to start.

They want some type of a time efficient anyways, way to get in general, good shape. Maybe they like working out at home. They don’t have a gym membership. Maybe they don’t want a gym membership. Maybe they just have a small room or garage gym and they have a couple of kettlebells, maybe some bodyweight equipment.

Then I think the conversation changes and you can put together a really good kind of General fitness plan. I couldn’t be the best at any one thing, you’re going to be able to do most of the things that you want to do really well. You’re going to be able to lean up. You’re going to be able to put on some muscle.

You’re going to gain strength. You’re going to be able to increase your ranges of motion and control through range of motion and flexibility. Like you can get a lot of mileage out of it. Candlebells can be more or less exciting depending on where you’re coming from. 

Mike: It’s also, it can be something new, which is just inherently more interesting and can make your workouts more fun.

And that’s the argument that I’m working on what’s going to be a chapter in this new book. And I’ll probably put it up on Legion’s blog too, because it’s good information and why not? I’ve never had anybody complain that some of the books chapters are up on the blog, but on periodization, I think it’s one of the arguments, a good argument for periodization is it just makes your workouts more interesting, especially.

She if you’ve been grinding the iron for many years, there’s a point where, and even someone like me who is, I’m a very robotic person, or I can be a very robotic person with my routine and just keep doing the same things every day and not complain about it and not even feel bored about it. I just do it because I know why I’m doing it.

I don’t even think about it. But I think. For better or worse, that’s just the way I am. And it’s been great in my work. It has caused problems in other areas of my life though, like relationships, for example. So I’m not trying to say that I’m a complete uber mench, but even for me, that periodization has helped in that regard, which just makes my workouts a bit more interesting, makes me a bit more, anticipate my workouts a little bit more, look forward to my workouts a little bit more.

So incorporating some kettlebell stuff into your workout program can have that effect too. 

Pat: Yeah, ubermenture, you’d make Nietzsche proud, but also you’re right in the sense that, you can have the kind of quote unquote ideal program on paper, but I’m with you, Mike, I think like you got to consider these psychological factors when you’re programming, because we are dealing with people after all.

So things like variety and excitement factor and interest factor, I really do try to consider these when I’m putting together my various programs, because I know that these are things that are important to people and can help increase adherence. Now, the key is not to. Focus on them so much that you lose effective programming.

So there’s a balance that has to be had, but I’m glad you brought that up because I think it’s something that often gets overlooked where people will make this very monotonous, very robotic program that some people, some very disciplined, dedicated people can follow. But when you zoom out and look towards the general population, I think it is helpful to consider a lot of these psychological factors in programming as well, 

Mike: especially with intermediates, people who are beyond the newbie gains phase, beyond the honeymoon phase.

Where in the beginning, and this is why my programs for men and women in my beginning books, bigger than you’re stronger and thinner than you’re stronger. It’s pretty simple. It’s pretty straightforward. You are changing exercises up every eight weeks or so. And there is some basic periodization, even how you progress.

There’s a little bit of periodization. But I’m not too concerned with trying to make the workouts overly interesting because in the beginning, your body is so responsive to the training that alone is, people of course are amazed when they are finally seeing real changes in the mirror and in the gym.

Stronger, they’re gaining weight or losing weight according to their goals. And their clothes are fitting tighter. They don’t give a shit how quote unquote monotonous workouts are. They are looking forward to every single workout every day. You remember that period. I remember that period, but eventually that comes to an end and now progress slows down considerably and you have to work even harder to make less progress and that’s the period where it matters more in terms of the psychological effect.

And just to comment a little bit further on that, just. Put it in simple terms, if you’re not really into, let’s say, you’re just dragging yourself to the gym and you’re going to force yourself to do the workout and you’re not just going to phone it in, you’re going to get in there and you’re going to work.

Chances are you do that often enough, those workouts are not going to be as high quality and your training is not going to be as high quality. As it would have been if you would have genuinely actually looked forward to your workouts, maybe not as much as in the beginning, because now you reality has set in and you’re like, okay the fun has come to an end, but I can still enjoy myself.

But if you would have at least looked forward to your workouts and been like, Hey, this is going to be interesting. This is something a little bit different. Even if it’s just a different exercises that you’re gonna be doing or different rep ranges that you’re going to be doing. And that. It can have a pretty marked effect on just how you perform each set, how much you focus on each set, how much intensity you bring to each set.

And as the weightlifting game is it’s a battle of. Of inches, right? It’s a battle of reps. If you’re just trying to gain, you’re trying to gain reps and it takes weeks to gain a few reps. And then you can parlay that into a little bit of extra weight on the bar. And then you got to fight with that for weeks and weeks.

And because that’s the nature of the game, the little things start to matter more as you move into your intermediate phase and beyond. 

Pat: Yeah, and I think it’s good to put some, because it is such a grind, and you think of any other skills that you’ve worked hard at in life, I think of music, and that’s a, an area for me that I would certainly think that I’m well past the beginner phase, so it’s really a grind to get a little bit better now takes a lot of work.

So incorporating elements of play in various challenges keeps me really interested. And creativity as well. That’s a whole different aspect and this is something actually came to be known for in the kettlebell world or my kettlebell complexes, which are if you’re into smokers or finishers at the end of a workout, which could be used either for conditioning or even, hypertrophy effect as well.

A lot of people gravitated to me because I had these pretty creative, really challenging Almost dreadful kettlebell complexes that people could use to for the last five, 10 minutes of their routine, really give themselves a very thorough thrashing. And they like them because they’re fun, they’re creative, they’re different.

It was something that you could like, Oh boy, am I going to be able to get through this at the end of the workout? So it was something psycho, if nothing else, it’s something psychologically interesting. Now, I think there’s a lot of other benefits aside specifically metabolic benefits from kettlebell complexes.

But if you would go to my YouTube channel, I have this series called. I bet you can’t do this workout. And that’s exactly what it is. It’s these kind of creative, interesting, fun. They’re not pointless or random, but they’re what they are. They’re just kettlebell complexes. You can figure out how you want to fit them into your programming, how, or whenever it makes sense.

But I found that they really just get people excited. And, that’s something that you certainly do have to do the beginner phase before you start reaping all those newbie gains. What’s something I can do just to intrigue somebody, and promising efficiency or feel good workout or good sweat can help that.

But absolutely what you’re talking about, Mike, is once you get past the beginner phase and it starts to become this long slog, In any area of life, but especially fitness, you need to start thinking of other ways that, okay, I need to stick with what’s tried and true and effective, but at the same time, I don’t have to suffer through an exceedingly boring, monotonous routine.

And I’m like you, I can do that for the most part, but I do try to introduce elements of creativity, play, fun, and variety as well. And it’s interesting you brought that up because I think it’s something that’s often overlooked. And it’s a shame. I think that there’s a lot that could be done in terms of helping people increase adherence and get better results if these things were considered in programming.

Mike: I agree. And this whole topic is top of mind for me, because I am working on this new book where I’m talking about all these things. And recently I finished up a chapter. Or setting expectations. I don’t have the final name of it yet, but I think it’s cute. The more for less method. I think I mentioned this to you.

And so I’ve been building that chapter out, but setting these expectations, cause that’s the summary is it’s time you’re going to be doing a lot more for a lot less. And you need to know that. But Hey, we can still make it enjoyable and you can still look forward to your workouts and you can still enjoy your workouts.

I think just as much as when you were a newbie or at least something comparable to that, but we have to recalibrate expectations in terms of what you’re going to get out of it. And we also, I talk about this and this, it’s important to recognize when whatever you’re doing is no longer working. And that applies even to my stuff.

So I’m putting in perspective of. The books that I have out there, this book exists in a first edition. The second edition is going to be quite different, quite a bit better, but my programs that I’m most known for. And I’ve said this since the beginning are meant for beginners or people who are new to proper weightlifting.

So that can be broken down in a number of different ways, but a simple way to think about it is a guy. Who. Who has yet to gain his first 30, 30 ish pounds of muscle. That’s who my stuff is for a guy who’s already done that. He’s probably already done more or less what I’m talking about in bigger, leaner, stronger.

He’s probably already gotten pretty strong on his compound lifts and he’s already gotten familiar with the good accessory exercises and put in quite a bit of volume into his other muscle groups. He’s probably already there. And for women, probably just cut those numbers in half. So woman who has gained her first.

15 to 20 pounds of muscle or so is probably already, she might learn some interesting things in thinner, leaner, stronger. But as far as the training goes, she’s going to be like, all right this is what I’ve been doing for a while now. This is how I got here. So what do I do next? And it’s important to recognize though, that When you get to that point where it’s like, what got you here is no longer going to get you to where you ultimately want to go.

And to segue that back into what we were talking about, to make it at least a little bit relevant, making your workouts more interesting and just plainly more fun is one tool that becomes. Useful and relevant that you didn’t really need when you were new, because again, at least this is my experience working with a lot of people just simply making progress, how quickly you make progress in the beginning makes even quote unquote boring workouts.

Fun. 

Pat: Yeah. All disappointment, as they say, arises from, 

Mike: we take starting strength, right? Yep. Sorry. Sorry to cut you off. But starting strength in quote unquote, boring programming, five by fives and barbell stuff and whatever. How many people love it though? Because that’s their first introduction to real training that actually produces a result.

Pat: Yeah. And yeah, all disappointment comes from improperly set expectations. I think it’s really good that you have this very clear distinction of who your books are for and, who might be beyond what’s in your books. And I think we have to say the same thing about kettlebells, right? If some like professional powerlifter calls me up, he’s Hey, I’m interested in kettlebells, what can they do for me?

I’m going to say probably not much, quite frankly, probably not much. Like maybe we could fill some gaps in some places, there’s stories of certain powerlifters. Forget who it was, it might’ve been Donnie Thompson or something like that, where he said he added kettlebell swings and it helped him because it filled some type of gap, right?

That’s about as much as it’s going to do for somebody who specialized like that. 

Mike: And that was probably to address something very specific for him, right? He was probably trying to get a little bit more bar speed or off the ground or something. 

Pat: Exactly. Yeah. It has to be something like that. And is that possible?

Yeah, it’s possible. Is it to be expected? Probably not. But if the conversation is somebody calls you up, Hey, Pat, I haven’t really worked out much. I don’t like going to the gym. I don’t have a lot of time. I’m busy. And I’m just looking for a way to get in better shape, a way that’s going to be interesting, practical.

Simple isn’t going to require a lot of upfront investment. What do you recommend now? We can have an interesting conversation of where I think kettlebells could be of enormous utility. It always comes back to one. What is the context? Who’s the person we’re talking with, where are they at and what are the expectations, and then you tie that all into everything that we’ve just said.

All of these are topics that we could. I think are important and probably should be discussed at length, the psychological factors of programming or, and the expectations coming into exercise and, if there’s anything else that people leave from this conversation, it’s, I hope that if they go use kettlebells, the expectations I have given are exceeded, right?

In the sense that if I made all these bombastic claims and they go and they do my workouts and they’re like, yeah, that didn’t work. really do anything. Probably don’t want anything to do with kettlebells anymore. Probably don’t want anything to do with Pat Flynn anymore, but now if somebody is intrigued and they go and do a set of swings and they get a good sweat and I feel that little bite between their thighs that you get after, swinging a cowboy first times.

Oh, Hey, that was fun. That was pretty good. That was cool. Maybe I’ll think about. Incorporating this, long term in my programming, I feel I’ve done my job at that point. 

Mike: Said. I like it. The only other question bouncing around in my head is, are there any other technical points on any of the other exercises you recommended that you think we should touch on before wrapping up?

The swing is, and then the further, I guess you almost say, Progressions or of a swing, like a clean, you probably would want to get good at the swing first before you’d go to lean, right? And the same would go for the snatch. You’d want to get good at the swing first before you go to the snatch.

But the other exercises you’d mentioned, anything technical that you feel should be touched on, or are they just pretty straightforward in that they’re. kettlebell versions of the dumbbell exercise or the barbell exercise that everyone’s familiar with. You know what I mean? 

Pat: Yeah. They’re similar, but they are different.

And that’s why I wrote that little like introduction to kettlebells ebook is to go through some of the kind of like the most fundamental kettlebell techniques. So I talk about the swing and all the points that we’ve discussed the one arm swing and the additional nuances there, with a clean, a few technical details, keep a loose grip on the kettlebell.

If you grip the kettlebell too hard, it’s going to tear your calluses. You’re just going to have bloody hands. It’s going to slow the rotation. You’re going to bang your forum. So you got to learn to keep your grip. Tight enough to hold on to the kettlebell, but loose enough that it can rotate freely.

Some cues there, think about zipping up a big coat. You want to try and keep that kettlebell close to your body on the way up. And you want to think really about clinging to your hip rather than your rib cage. Start putting your arm through the kettlebell sooner than you think to make that move as efficient as possible.

And I would just carry that advice over to the snatch as well. Get your hand through the kettlebell. Sooner than you think, like you’re trying to race the kettlebell to the top, you’re keeping your grip loose, on the way down, make sure that you’re pretty aggressive with it, you want to think about throwing the kettlebell actively.

Here’s a cue that sometimes freaks people out, but you want to think that you’re playing chicken with your zipper, right? You’re just throwing the kettlebell at your zipper, and then at the last second, you want to move your hips out of the way. If you move your hips out of the way too soon, then the kettlebell is going to yank your shoulders, it’s going to pull your back, you’re not using your hips to reduce force.

Close to the body. Loose grip, play chicken with your zipper. Those are the kind of highlights with the snatch. Turkish get up has about six or seven steps, depending on how you break it down. That’s probably too much to go into all of them now, but I have the pictures and videos in the ebook. It’s all about the kind of stanchion of support.

You want to make sure that everything is lined up from the kettlebell to the ground through your body throughout the exercise, because you’re really relying as much on skeletal structural support to lift the weight overhead as you are just pure muscle strength. So that’s why the stages are what they are to make sure you have that sort of balance.

Structural integrity through the exercise to move as much weight as possible. Goblet squat, basic kind of squatting reminders here. You want to think about pulling your butt between your legs. Elbows should come inside the knees. They shouldn’t rest on top of the knees. You want to try and keep a nice long, tall spine, just basic squatting mechanics there.

And the nice thing about the goblet squat is just since you’re holding the weight out front. It acts as a nice counterbalance. It really helps you to get into a deep range of motion. So those are all the highlights and the ebook, which I launched just a few weeks ago, it did really well. It’s currently sitting right behind this annoying book called thinner leader, stronger.

Mike: That’s scam artist, 

Pat: Amazon. And as soon as we get that guy out of the way, we’ll be a little higher on the charts. Yeah, it’s scam artists in this, but Hey, we’re both ahead of Tim Ferriss. So that’s good. 

Mike: But anyway, the darn thing is a buck. That could be another discussion. 

Pat: Yeah, we’ll put him in the queue.

I interviewed him years back. He was one of my original guests, but I’ve lost all contact since. But here nor there. Yeah, it’s only a buck. And what it is, it’s literally what it says. It’s introduction. So I go through the core techniques. There’s videos, written descriptions, pictures, very simple.

The whole thing is a whopping like 36 pages. So let’s talk about expectations again. And then there’s a simple starting program. So if you’re new to kettlebells or you want to return to kettlebells Polish your technique and get a kind of good general sense of How kettlebells can build general physical preparedness.

That’s all in there as well. And it’s on Amazon introduction to kettlebells, a minimalist guide by yours truly, Pat Flynn, real Pat Flynn, not fake Pat Flynn. 

Mike: That should actually be your author name on Amazon. Real Pat Flynn. 

Pat: I should have made it Patrick Flynn. 

Mike: Just one word, 

Pat: real Pat Flynn. 

Mike: The first name is real Pat.

And then the last name is Flint. 

Pat: Yeah, but that’s it, man. We’re fighting each other on the charts here in the exercise and fitness books. This no meat athlete cookbook is crushing us right now at number one, 

Mike: which category you’re looking at 

Pat: exercise and fitness, bestsellers and top paid exercise and fitness.

I had this stupid little ebook at number one in three categories. And we held that for about a week or two. And then it’s sunk down a little bit. 

Mike: I don’t even know what this Matt Frazier, I guess he’s probably some celebrity vegan guy or something. 

Pat: Pavel’s new book is up there right now on my screen.

You’re seven, seven and nine. I’m now 11. I just refreshed it. I actually dropped it. You just went up in the past. Refresh it. Dang it. And the for our body 13. Yup. 13. And then there’s Pavel’s other kettlebell book, simple and sinister. And that, I would recommend that as well for anybody who’s interested in kettlebells.

It’s all swings and get ups. So talk about a really bare bones program. I wouldn’t recommend following just a two exercise program. For like your entire life, mine is going to be a little bit more robust again, not saying better, just different. So it’ll introduce a few more exercises. And I think cover a few more angles.

Pavel really takes the minimalist angle and he really focuses just on the swings and get ups there. But good. Pablo is a good resource for sure. 

Mike: He needs to find a better cover designer. 

Pat: I should offer the services of my Fiverr designer. 

Mike: Actually, you can’t even read the title of his new book. 

Pat: Yeah, if you like mine, that cost me all five bucks.

Mike: At least you can read it. It’s 

Pat: just just obnoxious and it looks like an old Nickelodeon poster, doesn’t it? 

Mike: I like the, Abstract kind of fractal art at the top. 

Pat: I have no idea what that is. I’m just like, okay, cool. We’ll run with that. What does it symbolize? I have no idea.

Some like postmodern nonsense, think about it. Yeah. What is the meaning behind this? It’s a content inside the accounts, right? 

Mike: Yeah. So we talked about the book, but let’s tell everybody where they can find you. Otherwise your website, your social medias, stuff like that. 

Pat: Oh, sure. Yeah. So if you actually want to just a bunch of kettlebell workouts with no programming structure, which might be interesting for people, you can get on my email list at 101 kettlebell workouts.

com. That’s the numbers, one zero one kettlebell workouts. com. And I have a big collection of just literally 101 different kettlebell workouts. So if have the kind of a conditioning slot in your programming, this would be just grab and go things you could easily plug in. My website is Chronicles of Strength and my podcast is the Pat Flynn show.

So there you go. 

Mike: Awesome. I look forward to the next one. Sounds good. Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider supporting my sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, which produces 100 percent natural evidence based health and fitness supplements, including protein powders and protein bars, pre workout and post workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more.

More. Head over to www. legionathletics, that’s l e g i o n athletics. com now to check it out. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout and you will save 10 percent on your entire order and it’ll ship free if you are anywhere in the United States. And if you’re not, it’ll ship free if your order is over a hundred dollars.

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