Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Pat Flynn on Fun & Functional Kettlebell Training

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

What makes kettlebell training so effective for building muscle, gaining strength, and improving mobility? Can it replace traditional lifting? And how can you incorporate kettlebells into your training for more variety and fun? In this episode, I welcome back Pat Flynn. As the founder of Strong ON!, an award-winning author, and a trainer for special forces and professional athletes, Pat brings a wealth of expertise in fitness and minimalist training. In this conversation, he shares straightforward, science-backed advice on using kettlebell training to achieve impressive results with minimal time and equipment. Pat also discusses his new book, Strong ON!: 101 Minimalist Kettlebell Workouts to Blast Fat, Build Muscle, and Boost Flexibility—in 20 Minutes or Less, which offers a blueprint for transforming your fitness routine using just one powerful tool: The kettlebell. In this interview, you’ll learn . . . How to make kettlebell training fun, functional, and sustainable The “Big 6” kettlebell exercises and how to perform them safely and effectively How kettlebell training builds strength, muscle, and endurance Practical programming tips for integrating kettlebells into your workouts The mobility benefits of kettlebell training And more . . . So, if you want to learn how to make kettlebell training fun and functional, click play and join the conversation. --- Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (12:25) Kettlebell Limitations (16:57) Kettlebell Back Exercises (21:25) The “Big 6” Kettlebell Movements (28:17) Benefits of Kettlebell Carries (33:43) Adding Kettlebells to Your Program (38:01) Favorite Kettlebell Complexes (40:47) Mobility Routine Overview (43:24) Simplified Diet Plan (50:58) Importance of Willpower --- Mentioned on the Show: Elevate Bigger Leaner Stronger Pat Flynn Pat Flynn YouTube Strong ON!: 101 Minimalist Kettlebell Workouts to Blast Fat, Build Muscle, and Boost Flexibility―in 20 Minutes or Less

I think kettlebells are a fun training tool, right? They're very dynamic. If you like training with complexes and circuits, they're really well situated for that style of training, but they're versatile enough that you can hit the mobility aspect. You can build muscle with kettlebells. Again, I'm not gonna claim

they're the ideal bodybuilding tool by any means, but certainly you can put the basic muscle building principles into use with kettlebells. So if you're looking for just bang for buck efficiency, something that's a little bit different, doesn't take up a lot of space, I think this conversation might at least intrigue you. Howdy ho, friend, and welcome to another episode

of Muscle For Life. Thank you for joining me today. I am Mike Matthews, your host, and in today's episode, you are going to be hearing from my friend, Pat Flynn, who I welcomed back on the show to talk about kettlebell training. Pat has a new book out called Strong On 101 Minimalist Kettlebell Workouts to Blast Fat,

Build Muscle and Boost Flexibility in 20 Minutes or Less. And in that book, Pat offers a blueprint for transforming your fitness using just one powerful tool and that is of course the kettlebell. And in today's episode, he is going to talk about the kettlebell, what it is good for, what it is not so good for, how to make kettlebell training fun, how to make it functional, how to make it sustainable. Pat shares the big six exercises as he calls them and talks about why each is one of the big six and how to perform each of them correctly, how to do them effectively. Pat is going to talk about

practical programming, so how to make kettlebell training effective, how to integrate it into your existing regimen depending on your goals and depending on your circumstances and more. Before we jump into today's episode, I must tell you about a new mushroom supplement that I'm using every day. And it's called Elevate and it's from my sports nutrition company, Legion. And the reason why I am taking Elevate every day is it is the only naturally sweetened and flavored mushroom supplement with clinically effective doses of

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and we give you your money back. You don't even have to send the products back to us. So go to buy Legion.com slash elevate now, try it risk free. while it can't blip proof your immune system it can't put the brakes on aging it can help you stay healthier heartier and happier. Mr. Pat Flynn I haven't seen you in a while you're much hairier than the last time I saw you. I'm a new man Mike Matthews reborn, reborn from the ashes. Yeah, yeah. I just totally let yourself go for about a year and a half and voila, you too can look like this. All right, yeah.

And then you get another round of reborn when you sheer it all off. Yeah. So I go in these cycles. I'm sure nobody has followed me for that length of time. But if you have, you realize that, I don't know, every five to seven years we grow out all the hair and then we cut it all off. So yeah, you just, you just, and for no particular reason, right? Usually it starts because I just get lazy and I'm like, ah, it

doesn't look too terribly bad and my wife hasn't threatened divorce yet, so we'll just keep going. And then you just get really annoyed with the long hair like all these little things just add up I mean constantly getting in your mouth or just stuff getting stuck in your beard and then I just throw my hands up I shave it all off and then and then I look like you for a while just not as handsome my hair's my hair's getting a little bit long yeah I just let it grow I don't have as much endurance long. I just let it grow. I don't have as much endurance as you, but I let it grow until I've had enough, which in Florida in the summer, I don't last very long.

In the winter, I can last longer. But it's just that where eventually I get sick of the longer hair and it just gets in the way and it feels like not I'm not a claustrophobic person, but it starts to feel it starts to feel oppressive, like the amount of of hair you know what I mean and then I cut it and then I and then I repeat but I don't do the beard just because I mean one I don't actually think I would enjoy the experience and then to getting through that phase that awkward phase of where I'm at now which is just like whatever I shave every so often, let it grow and whatever, getting from that to a beard that is even functional and that isn't just weird and patchy.

And I haven't stuck through that phase. Yeah, you have to commit. So that's my advice. If you wanna do the hair and the beard, you have to be willing to be very uncomfortable and awkward looking for Louis. Cause like even with long hair, there's that weird phase

where it looks like you kind of have a weird bowl cut or something, it's as dorky as anything could look. And my wife was like, what the hell are you doing? I'm like, just bear with me, hon. It's gonna look cool. Just stick with me through this time, I promise you. It'll be worth it. Same thing with the beard.

There's that phase where it's not just awkward looking, but it's super itchy. Yeah, if you just push through, you can do it. But it takes real commitment. So there's a lesson there. I'll let the listeners draw whatever that is for themselves. Like fitness, like kettlebell training, which is actually what we're here to talk about because you have a new book that is coming out, right? It's coming out in a month or so in December. Well, I guess depending when this airs, I don't know. But as of this recording, it comes out in like two weeks,

December 17th, I believe. So not too long from now, yeah. Yeah. Very cool. And it's called Strong On, and it is all about kettlebell training, particularly minimalist kettlebell training. I thought it'd be fun to have you on the show

to talk about fitness for once. I don't think we've done a fitness episode in a very long time because kettlebells are something that I just haven't written or spoken much about. And I do think that they are a great training tool. But like all tools, there are circumstances to understand where it depends on what you're trying to do and how much time you have and your inclinations and so forth. And so here we are to talk about that. I thought

you'd be the perfect guy. Yeah. Well, thanks, dude. Yeah, I appreciate it. So that's right. The book's called strong on and Dan John, the great legendary Dan John, he endorsed it. And part of his endorsement said that like, this is the book that should have been written 15 years ago, right? When the kettlebells were first kind of exploding. So I'm a little bit late, but I guess it's, it's, it's better late than never. I don't think anybody does anybody own that niche, at least,

at least on Amazon, the kettlebell one? I mean, like Pavel. Pat, I was going to say Pavel stuff, but I can't say that I've seen his books in the bestseller lists, at least whatever Amazon they show the top 25. Maybe, I'm sure he's still there,

but there's probably an opportunity. You know, that's a good question. I'll be interested to see how this does, you know, because I'm with a publisher that's put a good amount behind this book. And you know, I pitched them saying like, hey, I think that there's still a lot of life in the kettlebell world and that this could be a real thing. So I guess we'll find out. Right?

And I think there's a lot of value here now to set the expectations for people. And I think this is really important, Mike. You know, I'm not a dogmatist in fitness and religion, different story. But when it comes to fitness, I think that there's lots of viable paths. And if you're like trying to be a powerlifter and have the world's strongest deadlift, then this probably isn't the conversation for you, right? I'm not going to act like the kettlebell is going to replace the barbell or be superior to the barbell for certain efforts. But if you're somebody like me, and what am I like?

Well, I'm a dad of six kids like you, I run my own business, I'm doing a PhD, I'm writing all these books. Like life is hectic. And I don't care about being the best in the world at anything fitness related, right? Like I'm not training to be a figure competitor or a bodybuilder, but I do care about trying to be like as generally physically awesome as I can be, right? I want to be really lean, I want to have visible abs, I want to have a good amount of muscle,

at least the most I can have on like my awkwardly Irish frame, and I want efficiency, and I want little clutter, and I want like the Swiss army knife of functional, I know that's a cliche term, of functional fitness. I think if that resonates with you, then the kettlebell is really worth looking at, and I can help you learn how to use it.

I can teach you the basic moves, I can teach you some cool simple programming, and we can apply all the general principles that you talk about all the time, really well Mike in your book and your podcast podcast of just strength, muscle and conditioning, and just show how to implement them with kettlebell training. So you can have workouts that are not only efficacious, but I think fun. I think it's just fun.

I think kettlebells are a fun training tool, right? They're very dynamic. You can, if you like training with complexes and circuits, they're really well situated for that style of training, but they're versatile enough that you can hit the mobility aspect. You can build muscle with kettlebells. Again, I'm not gonna claim they're the ideal bodybuilding tool by any means,

but certainly you can put the basic muscle building principles into use with kettlebells. So if you're looking for just bang for buck efficiency, something that's a little bit different, doesn't take up a lot of space, I think this conversation might at least intrigue you, to be sure. Let's talk more about building muscle,

which is going to be one of the goals of many of the people listening. And yes, of course, you can build muscle with kettlebells, but can you first speak to some of the limitations? Because if somebody were to come to you and say, I don't wanna be a bodybuilder, but maybe a lifestyle bodybuilder. My number one goal right now is to gain muscle in the right places of my body.

I want to gain muscle really as effectively as possible. Would you recommend kettlebell training to them or would you recommend some other style of training. Well, if you're just about pure optimization, right? Then I would recommend a mixed modality approach, obviously, right? Because different tools are just going to be naturally better suited to particular jobs. And when it comes to building muscle, there's just

going to be certain tools that are going to do certain jobs better than other ones. So having a sort of collection or music. And why is that? Just for people wondering, because I've been asked this before, where people come across kettlebell workouts and they've reached out to me and said, hey, so I'm trying to get as jacked as possible, as quickly as possible basically. And this looks like it could work for that, but am I missing something? Yeah, totally. So I'll give you an idea of where a limitation with,

not to turn people off from kettlebells, but a real limitation of kettlebells. I mean, I think there's several. They're not insurmountable and they're not complete dead ends. But if you're really trying to like build and develop your pecs, kettlebells are a little bit limited, right? I mean, you can do floor presses and stuff like that,

but I just, I honestly don't think they're as good of a tool for that as the barbell or even dumbbells. They're just a little bit awkward. Or even machines, probably. Or even machines, or even machines. So that's something. But look, you can still just do... You can still do that.

Floor press are still fine. It's not nothing. But just acknowledging that if we're talking about pure optimization, this is not nothing, right? So just, but just acknowledging that if we're talking about pure optimization, this isn't probably, this is not the optimal tool for that, right? But then when we look at something like a military press, the kettlebell is great for the military press, right? And like double cleans and presses are fantastic.

So they're gonna, they're gonna hit that really well. Awesome for front squats, double kettlebell front squats. You know, a lot of people, that's going to be... Which is a deceptively hard exercise, I will say. Right, yeah. And Bulgarian split squats, they're great for that. But when we start to look towards the posterior chain, like, I don't know, man, the dead lifting type of moves,

the kettlebell is somewhat limited. Now you can train the ballistic stuff really well with the kettlebells, the swings, the cleans, the snatches. So on the other end of the force velocity spectrum, kettlebells great. But for the heavier, grindier type of stuff, I mean, once you get as strong as an athletic middle schooler, you're going to be beyond what the kettlebell can do for you there. So I will say that the single leg RDL can be challenging. Once you get the balance under control and you actually can load it, I'm

thinking back to with kettlebells, doing challenging sets of, if I remember, 8 to 10 reps, which is well within any sort of normal hypertrophy program, being able to go relatively close to failure. Now, getting the balance was a little bit tricky at first, so then I could actually use enough weight to make it challenging, but once I got over that hump. Yeah, so that's a good example of identifying limitation and getting the most out of kettlebells. And I'm with you, I think practically getting the balancing is like, I don't really do those

exercises. Why? Because I just pick up a barbell, right, to fill that gap. And, you know, that's something that might just be, it could just be as simple as that. It's like, okay, horizontal pushing and some hinging, I'll just do dips or dumbbell, bench press, and rack pulls, and then I can cover a lot of the rest with kettlebells. So no, in terms of, like, if you're looking for sheer optimization, and as you know, Mike, oftentimes we're looking at effectiveness and efficiency sometimes, you know, or optimization,

you know, we might have to spend more, spend more time or go someplace else. Frick yourself to just kettlebell training. At the same time, I think you can still build a good amount of muscle with just kettlebells, right? And there'll be some gaps, but you can still find creative enough kettlebell exercises that will do the job. They just won't do the job as well as some other tools. And what about, you had mentioned the posterior chain, but just so people understand, that's

also including the back muscles. I wanted to ask you specifically about that. So when people, because often, at least in social media, when people talk about posterior chain, they're talking about glutes and ham. Typically what they're talking about. So what about training the back with kettlebells? Yeah, I think there's lots of options and in fact when people first starting to start doing swings and and and cleans and stuff like that I'm sure you've had this experience with yourself or others Mike like it's often the back where they're feeling it a lot the next day So you'll get that again from a lot of those ballistic hingey type of movements and the basics there are the swings the double swings

The one-arm swings. I've got all sorts of tutorials of these on my YouTube channel if people haven't seen these before. But kettlebells are great for rowing too, right? So if you're just looking for a great tool to do really heavy single arm rows with, which is one of my favorite back exercises, kettlebells are awesome for that. Yeah, it's actually less awkward than I think.

It feels a little bit nicer than the heavy dumbbell. I agree. Yeah, I actually prefer kettlebells for it. Yeah, so in some instances, I think the kettlebell is like a killer app. Like, it's as good as any other pieces of equipment. Sometimes I think it's one of the best things for a particular job. And other times, it's not as good as some other pieces of equipment. But for a lot of people it's still good enough. I think that's the realistic picture. But the cool thing about kettlebells is it's just really...

All the fitness benefits you want, if that makes sense, realistically, right? If you're, I like, what was the term, a lifestyle body? I haven't heard that one before. I like that. I'm gonna, the lifestyle bodybuilder. Maybe that's a, that's a new book. Yeah, somebody commented on YouTube. They used the term I hadn't heard before. It was, cause I was wearing like this big baggy shirt.

And then there was a picture of my shirt off and I actually do have some muscle. And there was a term for somebody like me who doesn't look super muscly with a shirt on, but then you take the shirt off and you actually do have muscle, right? I was really I had to like Google it. It was like on urban dictionary but I forget what it is. I'll have to look it up later. It was it was

it was funny. Yeah. Yes. If you remember, please share. That's, that's called that's called a natural a natural weightlifter. That's what that's called. Yeah, yeah, just not doing drugs. Seriously, man, I'm with you, right? Yeah, I can think of a number of times in the past when I was quite lean and had a little bit less muscle than I do now. And so I remember one time I was wearing a long sleeve shirt that was kind of baggy. And somebody hadn't seen me in a while. And they were surprised and concerned. Like they

thought maybe I like, was I sick? Did I get some sort of disease and I stopped working out? What happened? And no, I have, literally have ab veins. That's... That's, well, I call this the problem of shirts, right? So the idea is if you're not doing drugs, if you're not doing drugs, then you have like of shirts, right? So the idea is if you're not doing drugs, if you're not doing drugs, then you have a choice, right?

You can either look better with your shirt on or your shirt off, but you can't have both, right? And so if you wanna look better with your shirt on, you're gonna have a little bit extra lovin' to really fill it out, right? So you might wanna just keep your shirt on, but you'll look good with it on, right? Conversely, if you wanna to have ab veins, then...

You're always going to look kind of small and people are... They're going to be surprised when that shirt comes off. They're going to be like, whoa, where did that come from? Whoa, right. Holy crap, right? And I've always inclined to... I think that's cool. That's like the Bruce Lee physique. I think that... And I used to have a martial arts instructor. First time I did a lesson with him, I'm like, who is this guy? He doesn't even just even lift, right? They took off his shirt. I'm like, whoa! So that's right. Until you take off your shirt, like people will probably be like, do you even lift? But that's just that's just a decision you got to make, right?

You have a, you have, as one person said, oh, you have a good swimmer's body. That's the, that's the kind of compliment you're going to get. Yeah, but I think it's important to have, again, those realistic expectations just in general when you're getting into fitness. If you're going to be a natural lifter, which is what I recommend for most people. Right. Just just understand that's kind of the game, unless like you're really a crazy mutant freak. And I guess there are a few of those people out there. It's kind of like, OK, which direction do you want to go?

Shirt on or shirt off right let's uh let's talk about the big six kettlebell movement so the big six lifts that form the foundation of effective kettlebell training can you tell us about those yeah good yeah thanks I see you have opened my book This isn't like totally original to me, right? This is kind of like within the kettlebell world These are sort of the core six movements that people tend to focus on and so starting out what we what we like to teach people just to like get some familiarity with the kettlebell are your Your kettlebell swing we could talk about each of these individually for want the goblet squat which apparently was invented

I don't think just apparently, I think legitimately invented by Dan John. So the kettlebell swing, we have the Goblet Squat. We have the Turkish Get Up, which is like the Howard Stern of exercises. People either really love this thing or really hate it. We have the Military Press. We have the Clean and we have the Snatch. So these are your fundamental moves where various combinations you can put together

all sorts of compound moves and cool workouts. And you can double up a lot of them too. So like from the swing can naturally evolve to double swings, you have double cleans, not really double get ups, I wouldn't recommend those. Don't really recommend double snatches that much either. Double presses for sure and then front squats are typically with two kettlebells.

So there's lots of there's lots of cool auxiliary exercises, but these are kind of like I use these as the sort of primary ingredients to a lot of my training programs. And can you briefly explain for each of those exercises? Why? Yeah, yeah. So think in terms of different movement patterns, muscle groups, so the swing is going to be your hinge type of movement. So I like for a lot of times when I approach exercises

to think of just your kind of your basic movement patterns, push, pull, hinge, squat, carry. I guess the getup kind of counts as a carry, but I also, I do recommend and have in the book various other carries, suitcase carries, stuff like that. So this is taking a page from Dan John. So you have your hinge, you have your kettlebell swing, you have your squat, you have your goblet squat

and front squats, you have your push, you have your single arm press. Rows, sorry, I forgot rows too, would be your pull. But cleans and snatching do have a row component as well. And cleans and snatches are just kind of cool. So those are a little bit redundant with swings. But the way I justify them are in a couple of different ways. One is a clean is a necessary transition exercise for when you're doing a lot of kettlebell exercises to get into what's called the rack position, which is just

where the kettlebell is on your forearm positioned against your rib cage. And now you can access military presses and squats. So the clean helps you get there. It also to justify cleans and snatches is it helps you to learn, not just force production and reduction, which the swing does, but also now force redirection. And that's, I think that's a, I think that's a cool thing to learn not just force production and reduction, which the swing does, but also now force redirection. I think that's a cool thing to learn. I think that's an important sort of athletic quality. So you've got this kettlebell that really wants to just kind of take you in all sorts

of different directions. You really have to learn to kind of control this wild thing to redirect the force, to develop some sort of elegance and grace. I think that's something that's often overlooked in training. What am I forgetting? Turkish getup is cool. I like, so people implement to get up at different ways. There was a time when people like to be like circus performers with the getups.

They would do getups with like human people and I click how heavy I can go. I don't really use gaps for that. I like getups just honestly for mobility, for warming up. I actually think the getup is a good conditioning tool too, which was one of its original purposes. Just getting up and off the ground fairly quickly with not too heavy of a load, has you moving through a lot of different joints, learning to stabilize the weight through the stanchion of your skeleton. I do think there's a good amount of benefit to the Turkish getup for mobility and conditioning purposes.

I don't use it as much for absolute strength. Just personally, I don't. A lot of other people still do. I don't use it as much for absolute strength. Just personally, I don't, a lot of other people still do. Yeah, I see it often from people whose opinions I respect, I often see it prescribed for mobility, also shoulder health. Yeah, for sure. I mean, like, what I, one thing I like to do just to show how you can combine it with some auxiliary exercises,

I'll do some fairly light get-ups and at the top of every get up, I'll hit a, people probably can't, I won't demonstrate because I know not everyone's watching, a kettlebell windmill. And a kettlebell windmill is a little bit different than what you might see in yoga. It's not a side bend, it's really a combination

of hip flexion and thoracic rotation. So also really great for mobility and shoulder health and stuff like that. So that's a pretty common sort of mobility flow or warm-up for me. Just get ups into windmills back down. Just do that for a certain amount of time. Feels good, looks good. I think it's a useful exercise. Am I missing any at this point? Sorry, I forgot the list. I mean those are... Yeah, you got six

plus one with the carry the carry how do you how do you typically do carries you are you doing one side or or two yeah so there's three or four carry variations I like oh by the way forgot forgot squats obviously squats are for squats yeah goblet squats yeah great squats are for squats we don't need to justify that Great. Squats are for squats. We don't need to justify that. I particularly wanted to hear on the cleans, the snatches, the Turkish get up because again, people see this and it just looks kind of weird and somebody just doing it for social media. No, it's a real thing and there are actual benefits and in the hip swing, obviously people see that that's the one that everyone just associates like that's kettlebell training.

It's just doing swings. Yeah. And you know, like, look, you can get stronger by lifting heavier weight or removing weight faster, right? So swings are going to focus more and snatches more a lot of times on the lifting weight faster. Obviously, a power element to those and awesome conditioning tools. So there's some little more justification there.

For carries, I like your classic suitcase carry, you know, your single arm carry. I like farmer carry, which is just one bell in each hand. I like overhead carries, but only with one hand. I don't like the double overhead carry. Something about that just sometimes doesn't seem to sit right with a lot of people. But you can do cross carries. Dan John recommends these. So that's one overhead and one in the suitcase. And another one I really like are just rack holds do cross carries. Dan John recommends these. So that's one overhead and one in the suitcase. And another one I really like are just rack holds or rack carries. And that's where you put the kettlebells in the rack position.

Essentially where you would be before you press the kettlebell. And that was the first kettlebell exercise I actually ever did. The first time I went into what would be my martial arts gym for many years when I lived in Pennsylvania. My boxing coach at the time just grabbed like 232 kilogram kettlebells and just maybe hold them in the rack for like a minute which was excruciating. Then he would do this drill with us where we do these rack holds where it's really hard to breathe. He thought it sort of mimicked the rigors of being in a clinch position,

trying to keep a long tall spine, don't collapse under the weight, taking a few steps forward or backwards and then we would do bag work. clinch position, trying to keep a long, tall spine, don't collapse under the weight, taking a few steps forward or backwards, and then we would do bag work. So I always have somewhat fond memories of that. So I like rack holds, rack carries, farmer walks, suitcase walks, and single arm overhead walks. I think those...

And what are the benefits of these carries? Because you don't see many people doing these types of exercises, at least in mainstream gyms. Yeah, I think it depends on the carry, right? So pretty much all of them, or at least the suitcase and the farmers are going to have significant grip strength elements, which I think is important. I think it's good to have a strong grip, good posture benefits. The single arm carries seem to have some benefits for the core that don't seem to happen from the double arm stuff. It's particularly because of that asymmetric loading. Yeah, because of the stabilization that needs to occur.

Yeah, stabilization. So I think that's why it's beneficial. Like even though you can go heavier and do two kettlebells, I think it's still beneficial to have the single arm stuff in there for the stabilization. Those are some reasons I think that it's still beneficial to have the single arm stuff in there for the stabilization. Those are some reasons I think that it's worth keeping them in there. The overhead stuff, you're going to get some mobility and shoulder stability benefits as well. I don't know why I keep raising my arm whenever I talk about it. Just instinctive, right?

Yeah. See, I think there's a range of benefits depending on the carry stuff. And they're also just really hard to mess up especially like the farmer carries like it's nice it's nice to have some exercises that like don't require a lot of concentration like you know a lot of kettlebell movements I think are fairly accessible but the snatch is a little technical the clean is a little technical you got to kind of think about these moves at least starting out so it's good to have some stuff that that I think is decently high yield that you don't really

have to think about it. And especially if you're a coach, you could have pretty much anybody do these exercises right away. We will get back to today's episode shortly. But first I need to tell you about my best selling fitness book for men who want to gain up to 35 pounds of lean muscle and lose just as much fat or more in just three to five hours per week and without giving up delicious foods or even doing grueling workouts. And this book is called Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. And while it cannot help you pack on brain

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and strategies, and bigger, leaner, stronger shows you how. So head over to Amazon, get your copy now, and start your journey to a fitter, leaner, and stronger you. Let's talk about programming. So let's speak to,'s let's speak to first. Let's speak to somebody who is following a typical weightlifting program of one kind

or another who would like to incorporate some kettlebell training, maybe not replace it, but would like to incorporate some kettlebell training into this program. And let's say minimally this program has them doing the big movements with, you know, barbells, dumbbells, machines. So they're doing some pushing and some pressing, they're doing some pulling or some hinging or both.

They're doing some squatting. So they have their bases covered, but they would like to include some kettlebell training in that. And how would you think about programming that? Yeah, good. So if you already have a program and you're just looking to incorporate kettlebells for whatever reason. We can even you can even speak to maybe what you feel would be the best reasons or the

best uses like, for example, let's say they have a good hypertrophy, strength hypertrophy kind of power building program going, all right, so they're doing that. It would be redundant, I think, to say, okay, so let's do some kettlebell rows. Like, well, you probably don't need to do kettlebell rows because you're doing barbell rows or dumbbell rows or machine rows.

Yeah, right. So like I said at the beginning, if somebody's already on a good, a good program, I like I wouldn't want to say, oh, if you switch to kettlebells, all your dreams are suddenly going to come true. Like if you if you haven't been able to gain muscle with barbells and dumbbells, right? Something else is wrong, right? Something else wrong. Kettlebells. Or maybe they're doing well with that action.

So they want to stick with what's working, but they would like to augment and get some of the additional benefits that could be obtained. Yeah. So where are kettlebells like in terms of killer apps? Like what are kettlebells really good at? Well, I think there's again, there's a few exercises where the kettlebells are right up there. So you might just want to put kettlebells in for certain exercise selection considerations.

I think military press is an easy option there. Single arm rows, even just for some variation at some point. You mentioned Bulgarian split squat. Great for that. Bulgarian split squat. So those are three exercises. And maybe even front squats, depending how strong somebody is at a front squat. Because the kettlebell front squat is kind of, if it mimics anything, it mimics something more like a zircher squat than a traditional barbell squat but a lot of people don't like the zircher squat because it's freaking really uncomfortable right but it's a cool exercise so they think i did that once and i'm like nah i remember doing it one time so i'll just put it i'll put it up here

i'll put on my back i'm okay yeah for. But the kettlebell front squat could be something there that is worth considering for that reason. So those are four exercises that I think wouldn't be a complete waste of time and could be actually quite useful for people who just wanna implement it with respect to exercise selection. I think kettlebells are particularly useful

when it comes to your traditional, I guess I don't even know how traditional it is, but your complex and metabolic conditioning type of stuff. So if you're looking for something that can fill a gap or that you want to just have a little bit more of your complex based conditioning work in a program for whatever reason, kettlebells are gonna be great there. And more fun than just doing sprints or something.

Yeah, totally. And it's not incompatible. So a lot of times, like I'll do sprints once a week and I'll do complexes once per week. And it's like, keeps things really interesting, spicy. And for me, my, my generalists, uh, talk about generalist training, right? I try to have like three good, just classic heavy strength and muscle building workouts per week and then like, you know two ish They're less in duration of these conditioning type of bouts You know Maybe it's just 15 to 20 minutes sprints or complexes I think kettlebells really shine there because you can put together all sorts of flows of one-arm swings

Snatches push presses, you know lunges the kettlebell because it's compact and it's got the handle, like it just flows really nicely through just a string of exercises, right? In a way that like dumbbells are kind of clunky and barbells, barbells kind of work, but they're a little bit clunky too. I think the kettlebell is just really well situated for that style of training, for the metabolic conditioning type of efforts. What are some of your favorite, just off the top of your head, complexes that you like to run through? Yeah, so my book has 101 workouts and a lot of them are complexes, but there's a few fan favorites on my YouTube channels. I'll spell a few. Here's a simple one, right? So just take five kettlebell exercises and do five reps of each. So you could go like five one-arm swings, five clean and press, five snatch, five reverse

lunge and then throw in like five push-ups or something at the end there. So not too, you could double the reps if you wanted to. You could even double the kettlebells and do it all double kettlebell. So the classic five by five types of complex works really well. And so you're running through that and then you're resting and then you're repeating? Right. Yep. Switch sides, rest, repeat, classic, you know, AMRAP with good technique type of prescription. Escalating, you know, ladder type of complexes. So maybe you start with like two reps of a string of exercises, something like two swings, two one arm swings, both sides, two snatches, two

thrusters. Then you repeat, but then you do four of each, and then six of each. Eight, you know, climb as high as you can with good technique, back down. That stuff works really well. EMOM works super well with kettlebells. So EMOM is every minute on the minute type of training. I've got a lot of different EMOM workouts. And I actually like my sort of kind of playing with staggered EMOMs in the sense that you might do something a little bit more intense on minute one and a little bit less intense on minute two. And staggering it like that gives you a little bit more time to recover so you can actually stay on the clock. So you might do like a nasty little five by five complex on minute one and a minute two, I don't know, maybe you just hold a 20 second

plank or something like that, right? I think I've got some pretty creative and useful EMOMs. And then you have classic like VO2 max type of protocols. So you could just take single arm snatches, 15 seconds on the right, rest 15 seconds, 15 seconds on the left, rest 15 seconds. And you do that for 15 to 30 minutes, right? And the idea there is it should feel kind of like a kettlebell jog.

That's a really, I think, useful application on more in the endurance side of things. And then a lot of mobility stuff we already talked about get ups we talked about windmills for this a lot of other I think useful creative kettlebell exercises kettlebell hal reminding us of how our hips are supposed to work so you can get down into gaba squat, you can pry your knees out, get some really good both mobility and flexibility work from that type of stuff. So if you're already happy with your general strength and muscle type of stuff, I think you can throw in kettlebells for a couple of exercises and it'll be just as good and just some maybe interesting variety. And then kettlebells really shine on the conditioning front

and are super useful in the mobility front too. For mobility, could you give us an example of just like an upper body mobility routine that you might work through as well as a lower body? You've mentioned a couple of specific exercises, but for people curious for, let's say it's, I'm guessing if it's just strictly a mobility routine, it's probably no more than 15 or it's, I'm guessing if it's just strictly a mobility routine,

it's probably no more than 15 or 20 minutes, I'm guessing. What are those two routines look like typically? Yeah. So for upper body, I like, I already mentioned the kind of get up to windmill combo, but I'll reiterate it just and put a little more detail on it. So what I'll often do or recommend is you just put a certain amount of time on the clock. I think that, I think that works well for mobility type of stuff. So maybe ten minutes is kind of flow with it right and you increase the range of motion is your body says okay this is cool we can do this so you do you start with the turkish get up to get to the top and go slow with it right so if you break down the get up it has kind of like six or seven different stages to it. I've got like three or four tutorials of this on my youtube channel if you want to see it. I've got like three or four tutorials of this on my YouTube channel if you want to see it. Then at the top you get into that deep windmill position, hang there for a few seconds, come

out of it, do a reverse get up, switch sides and repeat and just flow with that. After that you can go to goblet squat prying stretches. So this is the idea where you get into the goblet squat, you're holding the kettlebell by the horns or the sides of the handles, you drop into a deep squat and then you start shifting your weight side to side as you kind of pry your knees outward. Great way to find space into the hips and get the hips. This is one of my favorite things to do before like a heavy squatting routine. Few sets of that.

Doesn't have to be crazy. I do recommend this though. If you're down in the prying squat, say you're spending 30 seconds down there just kind of prying things out and open, don't stand up with the weight. Put the weight down and then stand up. Just as a, just kind of like a things out and open. Don't stand up with the weight, put the weight down, and then stand up. Just as a, just kind of like a simple precaution. And then the last one that... And why is that for people wondering?

Just because you're so lax at that point, right? Don't stand back up under load. Just put it down. And then after that, I typically, this isn't kettlebell exclusive, I just think it's good. I just like your classic hip flexor type of stretches too. You don't need a kettlebell for that one. But those would be three exercises where I think you're going to kind of get everything primed that needs to be primed before. My warm up philosophy is this, Mike, or mobility philosophy. I always like to have both a global and local or general and specific warm up.

So my general warm up is something like that, maybe with even a little bit of jump rope or running just to get more of the blood flowing. And then my specific warm up is, okay, well, what's on the menu today? And whatever's on the menu today, let me do a few light sets of that just to make sure that like nothing's totally screaming at me or nothing demands a little bit more extra love or attention. So hopefully you could be, you know, pretty well prepared, but also somewhat efficient with your warm-ups, I think, if you take an approach like that. In the book, you also talk about a simplified diet plan.

Can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah, thank you. It's been a while since I read my book, so let's see if I can remember what I talk about. As an author, I understand. That may sound weird to people listening. No, I've been there myself, especially you write a number of books and then you, okay, let me go back, especially if you have continued to work in the space because often you're revising your ideas.

And I've tried to stay on top of that with my books. That's why I've released multiple editions over the years, mostly because it just bothered me that I would look at this previous edition and on the whole, sure, it's good and a lot of people have gotten a lot of value out of it, but there are just always, there would basically be like a critical mass of things that would just bother me. I would keep a list until I had to do it. I can't put my name on this anymore. I have to fix this. Yeah. Well, dude, I think I will answer the question. So three points there real quick.

One is I think that's the mark of a great coach, or at least not a bad one, is somebody who is one generally consistent with a set of core principles, right? So you don't want somebody who's like changing their mind every five seconds because they're just like chasing fads. That's the mark of a charlatan but also willing to evolve over time as they learn more things and new evidence comes in and stuff like that so like that sort of evolution to me is like yeah that's the kind of person I want to follow right there's a clear consistency here groundedness in

principle but that person themselves is refining and getting and getting better so that that that I think is definitely to your credit, Mike. The other thing is when people don't often realize like the book comes out in two weeks. I didn't write it two weeks ago. I wrote it like over a year ago. Traditional publishing is glacial. It's glacial, right.

And like, I don't, you know, I guess I'd need to work on some narcissism, but I don't typically sit and just read my own work every night. As soon as I'm done with a thing, I move on. It would be even more narcissistic to listen to your audio, but listen to yourself speaking to yourself. Can't get enough of me. Yeah. So all that being said,

I think I have a good idea of what's in the book because I think I've stuck pretty consistently to my core principles of nutrition for a while. So I'm sure I have some specifics in there that just escape me right now. But I think there's a few key hinge things that I think are really important and some other things that I think are probably useful

for a lot of people, right? So one of the big hinge things is caloric control. Obviously, we need to take in consideration caloric control, either for weight loss or weight gain. And there's a couple, I think, kind of useful general rules here for people. One is the rule of 300. If you want to lose weight without like going insane something like a 300 calorie drop is gonna be like a good like rough starting point, right? If you want to gain weight something like a 300 calorie surplus three to five hundred

I think it's pretty reasonable you could do percentages as well like something like a ten ish to twenty ish percent Daily calorie deficit and depending on like how chunky you are and how aggressive you want to be, you might want to be on the higher end of that deficit. If you're already relatively lean or you just don't want to be that aggressive, you go on the lower end. The other thing I recommend with the calorie deficit is to cycle it. So I like this sort of five-two approach where you have five days consecutively of where you're in working in this deficit And you have like two days where you come back to maintenance. I think there's some benefit to that

I think there's some research to back that up It's kind of traditional bro science, but sometimes real science has to catch up to bro science And I think in some ways it has right I found I found people like the optionality and and I found people like the optionality and counter-intuitively, at least it sounds counter-intuitive to a lot of people who are starting out. A lot of the people, they often once they start seeing results, they just want to go seven days. They know that they can take two days off and increase their calories,

but they get so excited that they're seeing results, often real results for the first time, that they have no desire to eat more food because they feel fine because their diet is calibrated properly. They're not particularly hungry, they're not craving anything, they know they can have little things here and there. But simply having that option can be helpful, at least in the beginning. Yeah, no, I agree. I think it's a useful, at least a consideration. So I'm almost certain that's in the book. I'd be surprised if that isn't.

But if it's not, then we'll put it in the revised edition. All right, so a few other things. I think protein. We should talk about protein. I don't think you can go wrong. I think a lot of things tend to go right if you set some sort of a protein target. You know, traditional bro science is a gram per pound of body weight. I honestly don't think that's the worst recommendation in the world.

I think it's probably a bit overkill for a lot of people. I like Alan Aragon's recommendation. He says a gram of protein per pound of desired body weight. A gram per centimeter of height can work quite well for... That's another great one, right? They're all going to push you in the same general neighborhood, right? So whatever one you want to do, I'm not too fussy about it, but I've been recommending following Aragon there.

If you want to weigh 160 pounds, try and get in the general neighborhood of 160 grams. What I find, Mike, is if you just give people a few simple rules, like, try and hit these, get in this calorie, and ranges, too. It helps to have ranges. I think like you talk about optionality, right? Like hey, as long as you're somewhere between this 10 to 25 percent or even 5 to 25 percent And you're kind of like in this general range of approaching target. Yeah, two thumbs up, dude I think that's that's good. Like there's more there's more area For success there, right? Whereas if you give somebody some hyper-specific target and they don't exactly hit that, they might still calorically

be moving in the right direction, but psychologically they're kind of registering it as a failure. I think that's a mistake. Give people ranges. Try and widen the area of success for people. Many people, especially when they're new and they get very specific prescriptions, they often think there's more significance to that exact prescription than there is. They think that there's more, more significance to one gram per blah. They don't understand because often it's not explained to them that we're really talking about a range. Just try to be somewhere around there. There's nothing special about hitting it exactly or not hitting it exactly under or over.

Just be around there most of the time. Yeah, spot on. So that's definitely right. And then, yeah, I think it's worth, for most people most of the time, try to avoid what are called hyper-palatable foods. Like the stuff with the slogan slogan you can't eat just one If it if it has a mascot you shouldn't be eating it See I'm all about these simple rules, right? That's great I use that one it has a mascot just stay away from it right like like chicken breast so far as I know

All right doesn't the someone's gonna refute me. Yeah. Yeah, then just find a different one, right? Like chicken breast, so far as I know, right? Doesn't seem to refute me. Yeah, yeah, then just find a different one, right? So there you go. Calorie range, protein range, don't eat stuff with a mascot. Done. Let's talk a little bit about willpower. I'm curious to hear your thoughts because Let's talk a little bit about willpower. I'm curious to hear your thoughts because it's unpopular to finger willpower as a causative factor in obesity. But technically, willpower is simply the ability to regulate our thoughts, our emotions, our behaviors,

especially to resist short-term temptations and desires, so we can pursue long term desired outcomes. So unless somebody has the explicit goal of being or becoming obese, then regular overconsumption of calories is technically a failure of willpower, just to some degree. Now there can be other things in play, but it's just funny that that's a controversial statement. No, it upsets in play, but it's just funny that that's a controversial statement. No, it upsets people here, but it's true. And like, look, we all have failures in willpower very frequently.

That's just a common thing. So, don't argue over the obvious. Figure out what do we do about it, right? That's the more useful question. What do we do about it? We're not saying you're a bad person. I've had many failures of willpower throughout my whole life, right? Just a condition of being human. So there's this

motivation paradox, right? You know, this discipline, motivation, how do I get and stay motivated? I think there's actually some interesting and useful things that have some backing in the research but also mirror my personal experience. So also just to quickly add some context, the reason why I wanted to segue to that is particularly in the context of diet, where that's, I'm not sure, it seems to be one of the biggest impediments that people run into in fitness, at least with nutrition, versus exercise. Like there are many people who exercise regularly who just can't get their diet under control. And often it is at least partly a failure of willpower.

And like you said, the point is, okay, that happens to all of us, but what do we do about it? How do we overcome this? Yeah. So what I want to do is this will be the philosopher talk, is make a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, right? So what people want is intrinsic motivation. This is just the ability to have that drive to just do the thing, you know, regardless of whether it's hard or not.

And we all know people with intrinsic motivation. I think I have it in certain areas of my life, including with exercise and diet. You certainly have it, Mike. And it's just that the person who can just, yeah, just through willpower, just do the hard thing to get the job done, right? And they don't seem to have these many failures of will or willpower, right? And I think that the issue is people think that you need intrinsic motivation starting out, but you don't. And that's not typically how it works. Rather, what happens is you get started and you get results. And once you see the results and the power of the process, you then buy in, and then you become intrinsically motivated and you become self-reliant.

That's what people are after. How do I become self-reliant, stable, right? But then it's like, well, how do I get started if I don't have intrinsic motivation? And the idea there is, well, you need extrinsic motivation. You need external structures. And this mirrors my actual journey. Such a cheesy term, but yeah, it was a fitness journey, right? So I grew up, I was a fat kid growing up. The only exercise I really took for a lot of my life was sitting and resting, playing a lot of video games. And like come high school, I was like sick of being the chunky kid among my friends. I'm like, I need to start getting in shape. And I had massive failures in willpower. Like I couldn't stick to the diet I wanted to do, couldn't do the exercise that I wanted to do. I just always quit man

Until as a joke I went with a friend into a martial arts studio wound up actually really loving it Got involved in the community got a coach and a community behind me and had actual skin in the game I had extrinsic structures of motivation and support that kept me going and committed through a certain power that I did not yet have intrinsically. And then I started to see the changes. I started to see it working and I got really excited. And I started to really buy in in a way that I'd never had before to the point that I then for the first time in my life in that area felt truly intrinsically motivated, right? And then over time, that sort of intrinsic motivation grew and it grew stronger and then I didn't need the coaches, I didn't need the community anymore. A lot of times I still have them

and I have them and I got them in other areas of life where I still needed to develop intrinsic motivation. But that's the general lesson, right? It's like, if you don't have that intrinsic motivation, which very, very few people do starting out, then I think your best bet is to look towards some sort of wider community, some sort of coach or mentorship or just group that can help in whatever. There's a variety of ways to help provide you with the external structures, the extrinsic motivation to help put you in play in that process until you start seeing

results and you have that critical point of buy-in. And we've all seen that happen to people, right? I've seen people come into gyms so much, they've never been able to just, they've always had these failures of willpower, but they get involved in the community, people hold them accountable, they're publicly accountable, they get around a different friend group, a different peer group, which is really important, right? It's really hard to have success around people. They're constantly trying to sabotage you. It's a lot easier when you have people that are supporting you, checking in on you, and then at some point you just see this flip, right?

Where like, Oh, now, now they're into this. And next thing you know, they're a trainer in the gym and they're super intrinsically motivated. They love it. They show up early. They crush it. I'm not going to say it's a secret, but it kind of is. I don't see people really talking about those distinctions much, but to me that's, that's the way forward. If you're stuck in that sort of trap, at least it was for me. Yeah. I would agree. Coaching also exercise classes are great for that, for people

getting started to provide that social experience and to get around a bunch of people who are working to get better and who genuinely like to see other people succeed with them, which is most people in most gyms. A lot of people, they're intimidated in the beginning because they have other ideas about who the average person in a gym is. Even the average meathead guy over in the heavy weights section, on average, that guy is exactly what I just described. Probably one of the most supportive people that you're going to have in your life, at least for your health and for your fitness. And many people who are new, they realize that. Again, one of these refrains I've heard over and over, particularly from women who have

been especially intimidated by the weightlifters. But then at some point, they always realize that they are not only accepted, but they are encouraged by the scary looking meathead who thinks it's awesome that this woman is going in there and squatting and bench pressing and deadlifting. Yeah, I agree. Most people, most of the time in the gym are genuinely excited to see new people. Yeah, that's the rule. There are exceptions, but that really is the rule. Regardless of where you're at, regardless of what shape you're in right now. The rule is,

most people are excited to see you there and respect that you're there and you're doing the work because we all started from somewhere and it was not in shape. Maybe a person started large, maybe another person started small, but we all started somewhere. Yeah, that's right. And I remember, I forget when that occurred to me,

but one of the reasons I went to a martial arts studio kind of as a joke instead of going to the gym. I was the least athletic. The last thing I wanted to do was go to the high school gym and hear it from all my... I guess the high school bros are probably the exception. Right? Right. So I just...

It is a high school thing, right? But once you're out of high school, that's done It's not like that anymore like seriously So yeah, I'll grant that if the gym is just high school bros probably not the best culture, right? And I I avoided that because I didn't want to hear it from from all of them. Oh, look pats here, right? Well, look who's laughing now fools. So but yeah, right. I think that's so important Mike. It's just it's I get it It's and I've been there I understand the intimidation factor

But you can you can be confident in the fact that the vast majority of people in the vast major gyms are excited that you're there and they're they'd be very eager to help you if you ask them if you wanted to and Most people are consumed with what they're doing. Most people are Are either staring at themselves 80% of the time or are just focused on their workout too. It's not, that's also just a misconception that even particularly among the fittest people, like they're the ones kind of looking down their nose at anyone who doesn't have the ab veins like they do, like, no, no, they're just staring at themselves.

They literally don't even see you. I have never, ever, ever thought to get annoyed about how somebody looks or performs in the gym. The only thing that performs me in the gym is like when, that annoys me in the gym is like, again, it's like the high school bros. So, we go to a YMCA, so there's all sorts of people there who just like sit on a piece of equipment and just text and do Instagram and they're not even using it. That's the thing that that'll that'll grind me a little bit. Nobody likes that. So as long as you're not doing that, you're fine. Right. Yeah. It's also okay to let people work in with you as well,

I will add. It's actually a nice thing to do. Yeah, I would also okay to let people work in with you as well. I will add it's actually it's actually a nice thing to do. Yeah, I would encourage you to invite people to do it too. Like if I see somebody who's like clearly they're like, hey, come come work in and like, okay, I smell fine. Maybe next time. But yeah. Well, we could we could keep on going all over the place if we wanted to. But we're coming up on an hour. So I think we should move to wrap it up. Is there anything else? coming back to just really anything that we've discussed?

Anything else that you would like to add? Anything that is still bouncing around in your head before we... No, just like when it comes to my new book and Kettlebells, there's really kind of two pillars that I'm building this on. One is generalism. So don't worry about being the best in the world. You just want to be kind of good to great or at least fairly competent at lots of different things. You want to want strength, you want muscle, you want to be lean and mobile. I think it's a great tool. And minimalism and to me minimalism is just trying to find that practical intersection between effectiveness, effectiveness, you know, doing the right things and efficiency, which is doing things right. So if that resonates with you, then I think I think kettlebells, you could you'll find that they are cool and useful. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, again, the book is strong on and it'll be Yeah, we're probably about a month and a half ahead. But we can if you want it out at a specific time, I can accommodate but if you don't care, then it'll come out probably in the next four to six weeks. So one way or another, I'm guessing, even if you want to at a specific time, it's going to be when the book is available. So people can go find it wherever they like to buy books. Yeah, thanks, Mike. It's always a joy chatting with you, man.

Really appreciate it. Absolutely. And let's also just let people know where they can find you on social media. You've mentioned a YouTube channel. Anything else in particular you want them to know about? Yeah. So my primary website is ChroniclesofStrength.com. I have two YouTube channels. If you just Google Pathlin Kettlebells, you'll find my original one. I started a new one though about a year ago and it's exciting to see its growth. It's called Kettlebell Quickies. And as you can

probably guess from the name, it's all aboutettlebell Quickies. And as you can probably guess from name, it's all about just time crunched fitness ideas and solutions with kettlebell. So people can head over to kettlebell quickies and check out some of the workouts and tutorials there. Awesome. Well, thanks again for taking the time back. Thank you. Before we wrap up today's episode, I need to tell you about a new mushroom supplement that I am using every day. And that is Elevate, which is from my sports nutrition company, Legion. And the reason why I am taking Elevate every day is it is the only naturally sweetened

and flavored mushroom supplement with clinically effective doses of three ingredients. And that is reishi mushroom, lion's mane mushroom, and beta-glucan, that are scientifically shown to support cognition and mood, immune function, and antioxidant protection. And of those benefits, one that I want to zone in on in particular is immune function, because one of the most important functions of your immune system is keeping inflammation in check.

And research shows that chronic inflammation caused by an overactive or a dysregulated immune system is associated with many diseases that are the leading causes of death worldwide. Chronic inflammation is also associated with an increased risk of depressive disorders and it may play a role in conditions like Alzheimer's disease. Now, all that is why studies show that preserving optimal immune function, which is also known as immunological resilience,

is associated with exceptional longevity, especially in people who live for a very long time, like centenarians, for example. And it's also why increased inflammation and impaired immunity as we get older, which is often referred to as inflammation, is a primary factor that contributes to age-related diseases and frailty. Therefore, anything that supports your immune system's ability to maintain healthy, which means generally low, levels of inflammation will contribute to your wellness and

longevity. And of course, the right diet, the right exercise, the right lifestyle habits are the cornerstone of all such things that you could do. But supplementation can help as well. Supplements like elevate, which I mentioned earlier, can help support immune function. And one of the ways that it does this is by helping the immune system regulate inflammation levels. But wait, there's more! Because 17 peer reviewed scientific studies support Elevate's combination of ingredients and doses. Elevate contains no artificial sweeteners, flavors, food dyes, or other unnecessary junk.

Every bottle of Elevate is analyzed for purity and potency in a state of the art ISO 17025 accredited lab. Elevate has a clean and transparent label that shows exactly what is in every serving and what's not. There are no proprietary blends. There are no hidden ingredients. And finally,

Elevate is made in the USA with globally sourced ingredients in NSF certified and FDA inspected and CGMP compliant facilities. Also, right now, you can get 20% off your first order of Elevate and everything else in Legion's store by going to buylegion.com slash elevate that's BYLEGION.COM slash elevate and using the coupon code muscle at checkout and then if heaven forbid you don't like Elevate or whatever else you might buy from us over at Legion you just let us know and we give you your money back you don't even have to send the products back to us. So go to bylegion.com slash elevate now, try it risk free.

And while it can't bulletproof your immune system, it can't put the brakes on aging. It can help you stay healthier, heartier and happier. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful and if you did subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes and it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other

people who may like it just as much as you and if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscle, F-O-R, life.com, and let me know what I could do better

or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.