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Primal Foundations Podcast
Welcome to the Primal Foundations Podcast! We will dive into what I believe are the 4 essential foundations you need to live a healthy lifestyle.
Strength , Nutrition , Movement , and Recovery.
Get ready to dive into discussions that will guide you on your transformative journey to unlocking your path to optimal health.
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Primal Foundations Podcast
Bonus Episode: Let's Talk Strength # 2
Join hosts Tony Pascolla, Nikki Georgeson, and Nathan Banuelos as we unlock the secrets of consistency in health and fitness. We explore how staying focused, even with detours, is key to long-term success.
Dive into functional strength training, where we emphasize skill development and performance-based goals over aesthetics. Leading by example and balancing busy schedules, we show how prioritizing functional strength improves overall wellness, with aesthetics as a natural bonus.
We also discuss the critical link between fitness, diet, and lifestyle, emphasizing that "you can't outrun a bad diet or out-lift your fork." Kettlebell training is highlighted for building strength, endurance, and movement, with aesthetics following naturally.
Connect with Nikki:
https://www.instagram.com/ngeorgeson/
Nikki's Peak Performance App
https://nikkigeorgeson.myflodesk.com/xrmhc6vfvq
Linktree
Connect with Nate:
https://www.instagram.com/nathanbanuelos_/
Nate's Kettlebell Program
https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/team/kettlebell-strength-collective
Linktree
PRIMAL FOUNDATIONS PODCAST-
Instagram: @Tony_PrimalFoundations
Website: Primalfoundations.com
The Strength Kollective:
Download Kettlebell Programs (Click Here)
Book a free 30 minutes consultation (Click Here)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the second episode of let's Talk Strength. We are actually in a podcast studio, which is really, really awesome. I'm Tony Pascola. I'm a functional fitness coach and strength training coach. I'm going to introduce my friend here.
Speaker 2:Nathan, coach Nate, but I'm a strength and conditioning coach based out of Chicago SFG too, and yeah, I love the kettlebell, so that's my intro.
Speaker 3:That's all you need to know. Really, yeah, yeah, I'm Nikki Georgeson, I'm Coach Nikki, and I'm a strength and conditioning coach and a nutrition coach.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and I'm a strength and conditioning coach and a nutrition coach Awesome. And this is our. I'm super excited because this is our first like real deal in the studio podcast. We want to kick things off a little bit. We were talking about off air, a little bit about consistency and one of the big pieces of just lifelong fitness and nutrition as well of just lifelong fitness and nutrition as well. But you know, what does consistency look like to you? And the word could be subjective a little bit too, depending on the person.
Speaker 3:But, Nikki, if you want to kind of give us your thoughts, because I know this is something you're passionate about, yeah, and just kind of going through our notes, and you know, obviously this is a word that we hear all the time and there are many very common popular words that I feel like float around, especially on social media, consistency being one of them. But I've figured out, when I'm in a conversation with someone, in particular my clients, I think we've all heard, oh, I need to be more consistent, and my head just goes straight to what? What does that mean? What does that mean to you? Because I feel like, especially when it comes to health and wellness, like specificity is king.
Speaker 3:Without specificity, the brain doesn't really know what to do. Next, we need to get specific. To me, in nutrition, consistency means 24 days out of 30 days. So if I have someone that is tracking a habit, you see the 30-day calendar check mark if we have completed what we're aiming to complete and an x on the day where maybe we didn't get there. So to me, I think, especially in nutrition and in health and wellness, the word a place, but can we break it down and understand what it means and what it might mean to that person?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that because you're you're going back to the person, and everybody has a different definition of what consistency means, and I think for me, when I look at consistency, it's you're just at least getting to show up even once a week, right, like once a week for me is we're, we're in a great place Two times a week, we're increasing frequency and we're now increasing volume in your sessions.
Speaker 2:But that's all great in theory, but we have to remember that just even showing up one time a week is a big deal and it's and it's awesome that to remember that just even showing up one time a week is a big deal, for sure, and it's awesome that you're getting to show up even one time a week. So, but you know, consistency again, like if you can kind of build in once you make that habit of even showing up one time, right, let's increase the frequency, let's go two times, three times, so, yeah, that's, it's it. It's definitely a challenge for everybody. Everybody has a different relationship with that word. I think we all have different perspectives with how that goes, but definitely, definitely something to work on.
Speaker 1:Even if you can go one time a week, yeah, Right, one time is great, I mean just to get somebody to. I used to say like to some of my clients, like if you can just go into the gym, whether you do anything or not, right, like, just get yourself there it's like one piece because you'll find yourself eventually doing something because you just got there, right.
Speaker 1:Uh, so that's like a big piece. But I've been thinking of consistency and like actually, health and wellness is like a like a road map, right. Right, like if I'm traveling cross country and like I have a goal, like health and wellness, fitness only comes before health and wellness in the dictionary, right like it's like you don't worry about fitness, like that's not first thing. It's like my overarching, like my stress level, like my nutrition and all those things. And like the roadmap.
Speaker 1:You know, if you're taking a road trip and you do make a detour, that's okay, like it's a deviation and like maybe I'm not gonna, maybe I'll pull over on the road to like see this one attraction for a little bit, but then I got to get back on the road to go and the more deviations you make like the less you're going to actually make a tour towards your goal. Or if you go too fast, like I was thinking of, like you're going to get a ticket and a ticket is an injury, a burnout or something like that. So I've been like thinking of that. It's a good analogy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah what's my like end goal of where I want to be, and then you know kind of mapping that out, because if I keep making stops or if I stay in the hotel too long I can't get back on the road. So it's just like planning some deviations, planning some attractions, but really like putting in the time in the car to get where you got to go.
Speaker 1:So that's why I look at like this long function way of like yeah, of consistency, just like this, this big road trip, and you can always change the destination too.
Speaker 3:I like that I might steal that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like a seasonal thing too, you know. So I think a lot of people they think that, oh, I'm going to be hitting these, these volumes, these markers every single day, four times a week, and something might happen in your life. You know, something can, can change your, your, your week to week. So, even showing up, like you know, if you do so much volume on one day and then you're only doing half the volume the next day and you're doing that same volume again the week before the next day, the thing is is you're still consistent, like it doesn't matter, like you can still go up and down on that track, but just again, showing up is the word right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and then kind of getting into this piece and I want to kick it to you, nate is this motivation versus discipline and training?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um, that's so. I, I see I'm seeing that a lot like as a trend where it's like oh, you know, motivation, you know, isn't the the main thing that you should focus on? And discipline, you need, you need them both, I think. Um, I definitely would want to lean in on the idea when you, when you look at the word discipline or talk about the word discipline, discipline, showing up when you don't want to, right, it's like literally showing up when I've had a long day, it's been tough and uh, you know, you, you, you get into that workout or you get into your even a walk, right, like, showing up for a walk is is part of that discipline.
Speaker 2:So, um, I do think you know it's a, it's a challenge, uh, for a lot of people to, you know, work off of um, motivation, if you're focusing on motivation all the time to get to your workouts because it's it's very it's tied to emotion, right, so, um, I love love to, you know, get my clients in the mindset, like, let's think about just showing up if you can and trying to take emotion away as much as possible. And, and you know, even if you have to do half the workout for that day, you know you're showing the discipline right, so it's just just, I guess, the approach.
Speaker 1:I think uh, uh, like trying to get a david goggins speech every day before you go into the gym. I didn't want to go there yeah, it's like I'm trying my best to maneuver. Yeah, you know, yeah, once you got to get there before your workout, like I can see like hyping yourself up for a specific thing, but like if you have your man yeah, I, I mean, I mean I I didn't want to get there right, so so I don't know, like you, you kind of fall in that. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:But you know, I think, like just discipline versus motivation is is just that emotion versus like. You're actually in the habit and you've created the habit and that's so important. It's important for a lot of people. It's a and, as a coach, like once you start to see people like kind of fall in there, they come into their sessions, are like man, I didn't have a, didn't have a good day, but it's like you showed up today. It's part of the discipline. It's really great that you're doing that for yourself and that's, over time, is going to win you a lot, a lot of great things and a lot of and it's good paid pay great dividends.
Speaker 2:So, what about you, Nikki?
Speaker 3:You know, it's funny cause they just had this conversation recently with a client, because she, you know she was voicing that sometimes she struggles because she bases her decisions too much off of her emotions. She's very far to the left of she allows her emotions to to determine what she does and what she doesn't do when it comes to showing up, you know, for for her health and wellness. And she goes Nikki, you're just I admire it because you're just so disciplined. I'm like I just don't feel that that's the right word, though, because discipline does have that connotation of showing up when you don't want to. But I don't really have that a whole lot.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm human, I have my moments, but I just do it. It's not really. I don't have that mental battle of getting myself to do something when I feel like I don't want to, because I think I've been doing it for so long where, to your point, nate, if I don't go to the gym that day, then I'm going to go for a really long walk with my dog, and that's another way of showing up, and that's another thing that I really enjoy doing it makes me feel better Body, mind, spirit.
Speaker 3:Same thing with food. Sometimes I love to meal prep, every single meal for the entire week, and other times, you know, sometimes I'll, I'll use my quicker you know um tools in my tool belt and I I won't do that, but it happens no matter what. So in my mind, motivation and discipline are not like words in my mental vocabulary. Um, if I sleep well, eat well and my stress is at a manageable place, then it's pretty seamless for me to show up on some level to do those things.
Speaker 1:I think clients and just people in general, if they see like fitness professionals, the assumption will be oh, they're hanging and banging at 5 am and really getting after it. I don't know if you guys can contest this, but I know. When I started because I have a full-time job and I train on the outside, and I was going to the gyms three, four days a week to train people, maybe sometimes in the morning before I had to go to work I'm like I work out less now than I've ever done before.
Speaker 1:People have the assumption that we work out all the time.
Speaker 3:I love that you just said. That I really appreciate that it's true.
Speaker 2:It's true.
Speaker 3:I feel that right now actually, and in many times throughout my career. But the other word that I appreciate for coaches and I don't again, I don't know about you guys, but a lot of my job I like to think that we all lead by example and that's a part of educating others. So a lot of why I do the things that I do is because I have integrity. Right, and I think that was. I never really knew what that meant when it was maybe on, you know, the wall at a gym and their core values. But as I get more and more into this career, to me that is why I do what I do, because I have integrity and I want to maintain that integrity and honor that integrity as a coach and as I'm coaching others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, integrity, doing the things that you're supposed to, or the expectation to when nobody's looking? Yeah, you know. And speaking of inspirational quotes, I know you have one on your wall. Yes, yes, what's it? What does it say?
Speaker 2:It says, uh, it says you are, um, basically, in short, it's like you are your greatest project, right, and it's so important to think that you know again, life like you're, like how you brought up the roadmap. It's, it's a roadmap and you it's going to go in different fluctuations, you're going to go ups and downs, you're going to hit different points, but again, like, that journey is just the most important thing. It's the most important thing. It's just to think about this whole thing as a fun project, right, and and you yourself you're it's, let it be fun.
Speaker 1:Let, let it be fun Let it be a fun thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll cue in the music. Life is a Highway. Yeah, or Nickelback, or Nickelback.
Speaker 1:We need Nickelback. You remind me of a Okay, so going into this next piece is I'll kick it to you, nikki of training for functional strength versus aesthetics, because I know this is a hot topic Oof.
Speaker 3:Yeah, where to start? Yeah, yeah, okay. So I think that a lot. I think the three of us are really like-minded in the functional strength world, right, and that's why I love watching what you guys do, the way that you coach your clients, the way that you coach yourselves, because we are very like-minded in that way and strength is fun to us. Like, functional strength is super fun, and my business, and now and forever, will be about performance, right, how well you can perform something in terms of strength, how well you can perform something in terms of strength.
Speaker 3:Aesthetics is just has become a different animal to me since doing nutrition coaching, and the thing is is what I've discovered with working with lots of people, both men and women and of all ages I have now categorized aesthetic goals as being advanced, because I think a lot of people have trouble doing the basics and doing them well.
Speaker 3:So, first and foremost, like I want to put someone's focus on their functional strength, like putting focus there first and and foremost in terms of training, figuring out what they like to do, what they're good at, where they want to take their training, what kind of things do they want to accomplish. Like going there first, getting their mind actually off of aesthetics and just like putting your head down and enjoying the strength ride, if that makes sense. But I just don't think aesthetics are going to happen without talking about nutrition. To me it just will not. No matter how many times a week people train I've had lots of people train six or seven times a week and train them for years and their body composition actually doesn't change at all. They get stronger, they move well, they move tremendously better. Their mobility gets better. So many wonderful things that we know that comes with functional strength training. But body calm very easily cannot budge without acknowledging their stress sleep or their nutrition easily.
Speaker 1:You can't outrun a bad diet and you can't outlift your fork. That's a Vinnie Tortor's quote. That's a Vinnie Tortor's quote.
Speaker 3:Wait, I've never heard that before. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:You can't outrun a bad diet.
Speaker 3:I love that one.
Speaker 2:I use that one. You can't outlift your fork, we just always steal each other's things.
Speaker 1:Wait, that's awesome. Yeah, steal each other's uh thing yeah, that's great. I agree, and I think it's this. We look at social media, we look at uh magazines, we look at all these things. We look at the 90s movies of sylvester stallone, you know. Oh man, I mean I want to be rocky three shredded. I want to be brad pitt fight club. That's a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice.
Speaker 1:You mentioned advanced. That is advanced. It is. And some of those things aren't sustainable. Like you can't run your body fat that low and try to maintain that for a long period of time without any breakdown, and we need to get away like. The function you mentioned too is like functional fitnesses. Am I able to do the things in life, like can I put the suitcase on the flight, you know, you know upper deck kind of thing. Can I, you know, pick up my kids, grandkids, whatever, so can I do my job? Like to me that's functional fitness. Like I'm preparing for whatever life throws at me. But the the aesthetics is like everybody's chasing that. Everybody works way too hard at that and it's such like a, an advanced goal to have, unless you're training for something. If you're a bodybuilder right, and that is a sport. You are training and that is discipline with a lot of sacrifice with a lot of sacrifice, a lot of sacrifice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is I? I remember just seeing on like instagram some of those guys at the end of like it'd be midnight and they're like in the gym. They're not going out, they're not doing anything else, they're getting, you know, two, three workouts a day, like to maintain that physique. I got stuff to do, I got stuff to do and I I cannot, um, just constantly worry about like this is somebody like I've I've talked on my podcast too. Like I come from like a food addiction. I would just like we've had conversation too on a podcast of like I would yo-yo and yo-yo and from wrestling and other things like drive my calorie intake down, drive my the fat intake down and look great for a little while, but then I would yo-yo back cause I can't sustain it.
Speaker 1:But I finally found a place where, like I'm eating like whole foods nutrition, like I'm unapologetically like carnivorous, like that's just for me has worked a lot and fixed a lot of health problems. But any clients that come to me because if they come to you for strength training, they're going to ask you some like nutrition questions Absolutely I'm like just eat real food. Like eat real food, something that's like bioavailable nutrient, dense and satiating. If you can check those boxes, you're in a good spot. You're better off than most 90% of the world. Like you know, if you're eating out of the packages and eating out every day and not even real food, you're really not going to go anywhere and like yeah, like you said, you got people training all the time and they still. Body comp has not changed at all.
Speaker 3:to preface, and this kind of goes into what you just tapped into is that it has to be a conscious choice because it takes work and sacrifice and does it doesn't mean enough to you right because it has to.
Speaker 3:It's a lot of work. So this past summer I didn't care to to do that. I didn't care to be in body recon mode like I typically am during the summer. I just wanted to enjoy my summer. My boyfriend was in town. We wanted to go out, we wanted to eat, we wanted to do all the things. Was it worth it for me to body recomp, and for what reason? So at that point I didn't care, like I don't care this year. That's not, and that's a conscious choice. It's not that I couldn't, but it's not worth it to me enough to do that under the life that I had during the summer, where I had a lot going on and knew that maybe this just isn't the right time to be doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are your thoughts? Yeah, what are your thoughts? Yeah, so this it's. It's crazy because, like, what you both are saying is just I have a little bit of a background on just my own.
Speaker 2:I had like body dysmorphia for a while, like even and it's crazy to even say that because I I'm like looking at myself and I'm like man, I'm working so hard. I got to push myself harder, I got to work harder, I got to, I got to drive harder and this was, you know, this was more like four or five years ago, so not not where I'm at now, but that's how a lot of this started. Like my training actually started that way. But it's funny because ever since, you know, I made that to training for skill progression and for and for like actual goals and putting like the look on the back, on the back end, is sort of like a dividend from this type of training everything got a lot better, like I feel, like I feel I that's the most important thing is like I feel better, I move better, and then what's really cool now is I'm starting to look better and these are that's like how I'm trying to retool, you know, because people come and they're, they're saying they're like'm starting to look better.
Speaker 2:And these are that's like how I'm trying to retool. You know cause people come and they're they're saying they're like I want to look better. It's great, it's an amazing goal, it's a fantastic goal. But I don't know if that should be the first carrot at the end of the stick. Right Right, I don't know if that should be the first carrot at the end of the stick. So I think a big part of our jobs is to kind of rethink about that and to make health and to make focusing on the longterm of, like you know, what are you? What do you want to do when you're 80? When you're, what do you want to do when you're, you know your grandkids are around you, or when you know your, your nieces and nephews are around you, like you want to be, you know able to play and like do stuff with them. So that's kind of how I've retooled it, and then the aesthetic piece will kind of fall into place over time, as you keep showing up.
Speaker 2:Right, so um, granted, I want to. I want to just say I really appreciate you for focusing on nutrition and cause. It's such a hard, it's very hard, it's, it's, it's very, it's very challenging I want to use that word too. So you know, for me my focus is always going to be on like I want to help them make the habit of showing up and working out and training skills. But you know, I just want to say, you know, on that journey and helping people on that front, that front it's, it can be quite challenging, right so um, but yeah, yeah, I think, um, we have to look as like, looking better.
Speaker 1:It's just a by-product of of lifestyle. That's it. That's the by-product.
Speaker 3:You have to live it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it. You have to live it. Yeah, and getting into one of our favorite topics kettlebells Yay.
Speaker 2:My safe place, the safe place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think for all the topics we've covered to get to this point of you know, people starting out, one of the things that I put on some of the questions we wanted to cover was, like for beginners, like where do you start? Like how many bells do you get? Cause that's always a question that I get. I don't know if you guys have um kind of like a just like a stock answer for like most people, or it kind of depends on the client, like do I get one bell? Do I get two bells? Do I get double matching bells? Go for it, man, I'll, I'll, I'll go for it.
Speaker 2:I have. I actually have it all. I have it written out because, like, I think about this a lot too. So, um, I think in that initial combo I have and I just kind of figure out, you know, first of all, I make sure that they're interested in like training with the bell, obviously, or training with the kettlebell, because it's just a tool like you can really get strong in many ways.
Speaker 2:I don't want to preface and say, like kettlebells is the best way to train, but, um, you know, when we, if you're interested in learning and you're interested in making this a uh, a part of your journey, um, the two bells that I'd say a lot of people should start with is a 12 kg, which is that 25, uh, 26 pound bell, and then a 16 kg, which is that yellow bell, and the reason is is those two are really really good.
Speaker 2:You want to be able to, I think, press something you know, and I think that 12 kg bell is a great goal for women, especially to be able to press. That's like one of the like, the first things that lights up in my head. I'm like I'm going to get you to press this bell, like I'm going to get you to press this bell. It's so fun if you can't. And then the other thing is with the 16, it's really good for you know deadlifting and squatting, so you can really work that lower body. And then, just you know, we would start off with those two. Keep it nice and simple. I don't, you know, we can start jumping to like those heavier bells, but I want to see you make it a habit of moving those two first, and I think that's really a good place to start.
Speaker 1:But I mean, if you were like a professional weightlifter and you know, you had some experience with this paperweight you just gave me you know.
Speaker 2:But like from that feedback or from that data point, I would be like okay, well, I'm sure maybe a 12 might be a little. 12 kg might be a little bit too light for you. Let's look at the 16 and the 24 or something, 24 kg. So that's how I would probably go about it. But 12 kg, 16 kg, I think, are great starting bells.
Speaker 3:I agree. Yeah, that was actually my answer as well. Usually just 112, 116. So something that's you know. Starter bell to me is that 12 kg more, just catered to, we're able to integrate upper body or upper power movements clean, and then 16 kg for sure.
Speaker 1:And then 16 kg for sure. Yeah, I would agree as well, I think, and to your point I would, if somebody has some experience with lifting and is a little bit bigger and stronger and you know, sometimes especially male and female, like I'll start them off with that 12, 16, but some of the male that's like a little bit bigger, I might go 16, 24 or 16, 20.
Speaker 1:Or 1620, um, and that 20 bell or that 24 kilo bell for them, because they're learning the movements too. It's also this piece of and you always hit on this. You're like skills, skills, skills. And the analogy that I just heard, which I thought was great, was like the if you're training with the bell for like the first time, it's like a uh, if you're learning stick for the first time. So, even though it's a 24 kilo, right, it's gonna be clunky, it's gonna be hard, yep, you know. And then, once you perfect the skills, then it's like the shifting is like a, like a nascar shifter, like you don't even feel them. That's right, shifting as you're going because it feels so smooth, yeah, man these analogies?
Speaker 2:yeah, boston out yeah, I gotta get a book you gotta start writing a book of analogies.
Speaker 1:We'll have a uh, let's talk strength. Uh, coffee table edition. Yes, put on the coffee.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can throw it right there it's gotta be like aesthetically, like the cover's got to be like a nude and in in nice color. Yes, pattern, yeah, that you can throw right on the table.
Speaker 1:So for it and there's like and then those motor like you're using more like motor units with that 24 at first, but then, like, as soon as you develop the skill, it's like, wow, yeah, you're using half of the time, you know half of the motor units and like it's, you're just being more efficient and you can move more weight. And then I want to get into this, like this is why I think the kettlebell is like a swiss army knife, because you can utilize it so much you know, and for the ballistics, for the, the grinds which we get into. But I use it for mobility. Yeah, I use it for mobility.
Speaker 1:Uh, arm bars like squat prize and like that's a part of my warm-up. I still use a 12k in my warm-up. I'll be doing bottoms up with pressing with 12k, I'll do my halos. Maybe you know arm bars, things like that. And you know, oh, you're a big guy, you should be using a. You know bigger. But no, like it's, it's utilized, I can utilize in so many ways. And also the piece of. I have people that buy the starter packs. They think they have to get. I know you have a sweet starter pack.
Speaker 2:Nate's got all the bells at his place. It's just that's my family, that's my babies right now, you know.
Speaker 1:But you could people think, oh, now I got to get. If I want to do front rack, I have to do double 24s. It's like actually, no, you can do.
Speaker 3:Double 12s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, double 12s or a 12, and they could be not the same bell.
Speaker 2:I do that all the time.
Speaker 1:You know, if I have a client that works at home and they only have, I'm like, okay, double front, rack different bells, and then we're doing front squats or whatever, and then we'll switch the bells the other side and you're going to do it again. It's just like this. The utility of the kettlebell is phenomenal. Do you guys have any like things outside the box that you use it for besides like just straight up, like exercise movements? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean, I mean, I just want to piggyback off a point you said is you, you know that it's a great like Swiss Army knife, and I think the really amazing thing about kettlebells is that you can do all the dumbbell path movements. Yes, so that's something we want to think about is the tool that you use when you go to the gym. So some people use machines, some people use, you know, dumbbells, some people use barbells, some people use kettlebells. It's just a just a tool, right. But what I love about the kettlebell is that it can do both bar path movements. You can do a lot of the dumbbell stuff, right, you can do a lot of the barbell stuff.
Speaker 2:Yep, and to answer your question, I really like to use the kettlebell for barbell lifts, like Olympic barbell lifts, and I know we might talk about that in a little bit but, um, it's such a great tool Like you can literally go in your house in your uh, I know, chicago, new York and our our, like the Northeast region is kettlebells are really popular, but it's because you only need like a five by five, like square foot space and you're ready to rock and roll Like you don't need a, you don't need a platform or anything you know at a gym. So that's something that they provide. And as a tool, like you said, it's just, it's very, um, it's very you can just use it in so many different ways. So, yeah, but definitely Olympic barbell lifts. Like I can I try to copy those a lot and it's it's so much fun, like it, it's so much fun you don't realize how fun it is.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, what about you, nikki?
Speaker 3:um, I mean piggybacking off of nate. I feel like they just they can check every box, even for someone who does use the trap bar and does barbell work and all those different kinds of things. I mean I feel like everything can and will transfer over right. You can use, as is where they will actually set you up for success, if and when you decide to go for heavier lifts or if you want to go back to the barbell or trap bar. I work the get up and swing 12 week program. Holy moly, it works every time. Not only I've done it multiple times and I've used it with my clients many, many times. One they feel great. It's insanely simple. It's like the simplest schedule and, to your point, they're getting really proficient at these movements, going up and load and feeling as good as they do, and then when they hop back on the pull-up bar and back to the deadlift, I mean it is wild.
Speaker 3:It's just completely carries over and I think that's one like really underrated piece about kettlebells because strength, power, mobility, Like to me that's like ultimate triple threat.
Speaker 1:Yep, what's the strong first like joke. It's like, well, you can't swing a barbell between your legs more than one time. Like that's like the ongoing joke and it and it does check all the boxes and I know that's why we all love it. But I want to kind of get into like the ballistics versus grind movements and like the people really need to utilize this. Like you don't need like you were saying, you don't need all of the fancy equipment. I kind of really I don't need a treadmill, I don't need a row machine.
Speaker 1:I can do like in my ballistic movements, like repeated swings and, as long as my technique is good, like I'm getting a great conditioning workout endurance, man yeah yeah, and where some of the barbell, like you, go to some gyms I'm not a big fan of like deadlifting, touch and go repeatedly over and over and they'll use the barbell as conditioning. Yeah, I'm not a fan of it. I just feel like because your technique will start to go, you'll get fatigued lower back, something might not feel right and it's just like why keep doing it? And if it doesn't look good anymore, like put put the bar down. You don't have to. Just because they wrote out 20 touching goes on deadlifts, like if, if 10 of them look great but the last 10 suck, like stop.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, there's just there's so much return on investment, right, and I think that's why I love it again, for especially that endurance component. It was really interesting because I took a poll on social media of what people feel like they need to work on, like what in their um you know array of buckets, their conditioning, their strength, their mobility. What do you feel like you need to improve on? Everybody said endurance, yet everyone dreads it. That's probably why they feel like they need it, because in their minds, they need to go for a run or get on the treadmill or do something that, or go on the stair. Master, a hundred percent, something they tell, tell me that they don't want to do. I'm'm like why don't you swing some bells?
Speaker 3:man like or grab a jump rope. You know there's so many different options, but when you work on endurance with kettlebells, there's so much return on investment. I mean you're working on so many things simultaneous to your endurance and I know when I work with kettlebells during the summer, I mean my endurance is like it's awesome it's awesome. But that's why I look forward to them is because in other seasons I'll work on other things, but it's.
Speaker 3:I've always felt like I've had my greatest peak of endurance when I'm working with bells and you and this one thing that you've mentioned before is like you're a seasonal lifter I would say that what is, so I would say that I am the
Speaker 2:I. What does that mean? Yeah, I need to learn.
Speaker 3:Unpack that for us please I think I think I am someone. I'm. I've, you know, born and bred bells for sure, but I I do like other parts of the gym and I do like working on other goals, and it's not that you can't do that with kettlebells, but I like to feed, you know, my, my meat health self during the winter time and I like to put on weight.
Speaker 3:Um, it's something that's really fun for me. I've done it multiple times and I just really like to see what I'm capable of in terms of strength. And that's when I like to go back to the barbell, back to the trap bar and you know other things that the gym has to offer in that way. And then as I start to come out of that phase you know, getting into the springtime, then I get to look forward to working my bells again.
Speaker 3:And it's just I get you know this happy cycle every single year of doing both with different things and it's just super fun.
Speaker 2:And to watch my body, um, go through, you know, just hitting my peaks at different times of the year is just, it's just fun to me yeah, you same same way yeah, and in like the last two years especially, I shifted from just doing, like you know, bodybuilding and kettlebell work all year to now it's seasonal, like I am spending in the early, you know, spring, I'm running, like I'm running more. So now what happens is I don't have to strength train as much I'm not saying because that strength training, but I'm running more. So now what happens is I don't have to strength train as much I'm not saying because that strength training, but I'm giving a lot to running, right. So if I'm running two or three days a week, I can't be training four or five days a week and my body will just explode. So, um, but seasonally, like, it's been so much more fun to train like that.
Speaker 2:Um, but also there's I think there's some um, there's periodization baked into that, right. So, um, what happens is is, you know you're you're training one thing and it might be endurance one quarter of the year. Then the next thing uh, when summer comes around, I like to be outside, I like to play sports. So instead of, instead of running like my running time is done, it's like, okay, let's go play tennis now, let's go, let's go to the track and sprint or let's do something you know, but I will say my base while I'm talking about all this is two days of kettlebell work, minimum. That does not leave.
Speaker 2:I can't, I just can't personally, me it's, it's just a personal thing but then, uh, yeah, then you know, then in, um, the third quarter of the year, um, let's, it's power. It's power one day, and then it's kettlebell strength the next day, like you know, and I'm going back and forth between those things, and then, once winter comes around and it's, we're not moving as much cause it's cold as hell in Chicago. Um, but you know you're you're doing your best to get on, like you know stairmaster bikes, you know you're trying to move, trying to get your steps in, but I'm bodybuilding more because, again, like I can eat more, I'm like I'm eating more, I'm letting my body do its natural cycle and it's been so fun, so fun, it's so fun to do that and I'm giving that to a lot of my clients that I'm working with and they're like man, I really wish I did this before. I'm like, yeah, and now you're more, you're training like an athlete yeah you're training like an athlete now, which is badass.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's badass to train like an athlete, so, um, but yeah yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's not randomness, right, it's, it's purposeful variety. Which is that's? That's different. Like you know, I'm getting in the woods, we're getting the winter months. I'm already like planning a deadlift, like an eight week deadlift, just because I've gotten away from it.
Speaker 2:You and I both do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we're definitely tagging up like for sure I actually I just got, I've been working with Fabio's Knock Em Dead deadlift plan, okay, and there's like two versions of it. It's crazy I'm. And there's like two versions of it. It's crazy. There's an open cycle and then there's like a closed cycle, which is nothing I've ever heard of before, which is really cool. It's like the open, I'll go with the closed cycle first, because the closed it's eight weeks, and then, like you do, like this three week peaking phase. So it's like you start to rev it up a little bit and then you and you bring it down and it's like all mathematical, like fabio does math like crazy, like he'll be like doing all these calculations. I'm like what like? I'm like putting two like rocks together. I'm like I have no idea what it is, but just tell me what the percentages are. And it's like this very intentional, like going up in percentages of like 3.9, 4.6 percentage of your one of of 80, 80% of your one rep max. And it's like eight weeks, like MIT.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and I'm like what?
Speaker 1:And uh, then you would like you, you, you toggle back a little bit and and, and then you, then you test, right, yeah, and it's this big and there's a light day, so you're only working with like 60%, you're just doing reps of five, five by five, and it's all clean, all perfect. And then a little bit of a heavier day, uh, more ladder style, like a two, three, five.
Speaker 1:Two, three, five okay, love that and then, like this open cycle which I've never even knew or heard about, was you? You'll go through this phase of like the ladders like two, three, five, two, three, five, and then if you can't hit the last, it's like nine sets and then if you can't hit the last five, it's like you still keep going, but if you can't hit the second to last three of the ladder, you automatically go to the peaking phase. You might be four weeks in. You automatically go to the peaking phase. Like it stops and it depends on like you and I'm like that's so interesting of like, oh, this is an eight week, I have to do this eight weeks. But it's like no, like, if you are starting to hit the wall here, why keep going on the plan? You just, yeah, you regress immediately and then and I'm like that's such a good idea like I've never thought of like an open-ended like, choose your adventure of like, oh, like you stop here.
Speaker 2:Now we go here, which is good, but it's like that purposeful variety it puts like a stop gap there, though, and it's also like you have a coach watching you, essentially Right, and it's like a if, if statement, like okay, if I hit this, I'm going to do this then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, gonna do this then. Yeah, that's great, that's awesome and we we talked about the kettlebell and how it's the swiss army knife, but also finding the gaps with kettlebells. Do you feel like there's any gaps in kettlebell training? I do go for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I um there's. I think that there's difficulty. Um, you know, it's not impossible to train chest with kettlebells, but there you definitely need something to like put on your back or you, if you, if you lay on your back, you're not going to get like full range of motion on like chest presses, stuff like that, um, also like any type of vertical pulling. So if you're like pull-ups, chin-ups, it's, it's, I mean snatches, when you pull them down, you're sort of getting a lot like that lat engagement swings. You're getting that lat engagement. They definitely help. But, like, if I were to isolate, you know the, the pull-up or the chin-up, and if I have, you know, some of my any, really any of my clients that are have never hit a pull-up before. I'm not going to throw them on a strict kettlebell program, right?
Speaker 2:so yeah so that's something that you want to think about. Um is maybe like vertical pulls and horizontal pushes. Feel like the kettlebell does a really good job of everything around it yeah um, and you can kind of get in multi-planar stuff too. So, but those are like the two big glaring weaknesses, yeah, so I don't know, I don't know if you guys have any others that maybe I'm missing. Yeah, I'm curious, nikki, any no, those are.
Speaker 3:Those are the main right two. I mean, floor press is golden, but, to your point, unless you have a bench, you're not going to your full range. Um, yeah, I would say those are the main two. I see people like laying on kettlebells, sometimes too like they're big bells. Okay, I also see that for like inc.
Speaker 2:The main two. I see people like laying on kettlebells, sometimes, too, like they're big bells. Okay, I also see that for like incline presses. Um, I see people use uh, you know, people have bow suits at their house. Yeah, I'm actually thinking about buying a bench press this this winter and just kind of playing around with it. Um, I see, uh like, there's a big kettlebell instagram person.
Speaker 2:Uh, every day, by joy, he's got, he's got like yeah he busts out his bench and like you can just get like chest presses in that way with your belts, and you don't even need that heavy belts, you just maybe 235s and, you know, get your chest pumping.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the belt the belt sits offset right. Yeah, and that's like different, because if you use dumbbells the center of mass is inside of your hand versus you know, offset with the kettlebell and it's, it's definitely more challenging, without a doubt.
Speaker 2:Like a 60. Like I was like, yeah, I'm gonna grab two 60s. I literally like almost passed out. I was like this is not, this is not linear. Right, it's not a linear thing, I see some people say, you should probably tack off yeah I know 100. That's just the ego, right there for sure, just the ego I would agree with the the.
Speaker 1:I mean I enjoy barbell back squatting and I never really I was always a barbell like or a kettlebell front squat, front rack, front squats and I'm like and it's cool because, like, you have to hold the weight and like, and you're gonna have to, like you can lace your fingers as like I say that that's like putting on a weight belt almost when you lace your fingers when it's in front rack, versus holding them like separately. Yeah, and it's really hard, but then it's just like. Sometimes I like loading the bar up and like really working on my barbell back squat, because it's different and it's something that I like. Again, the deadlift, because I can't deadlift the same weight with a kettlebell, like it'll check all the boxes until it doesn't, and like if I really want to be pulling heavy, which I guess me and Nate will be doing this winter and maybe Nikki as well yeah, we'll have to do a session, we'll have to.
Speaker 1:We'll make it happen. So there are the holes, there are the gaps um of the kettle bell, but if it's just I was looking at it like if you just need a tool at your home and you don't have to drive anywhere, that's the thing is like you don't have to drive an hour to the gym, you don't have to, like, do all this thing. So like that, like the bang for the buck of the bell or a few bells at your house outweighs so many other things of like these other tools, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I've also found myself walking into the to the gym and I just end up grabbing kettlebells. Yeah, I'm like, why am I here? I mean environment, sure, but I will find myself literally going to the gym multiple times a week and I just end up tracking the kettlebells down. You get the gym buff when you go to the gym.
Speaker 2:Like when I go to the gym multiple times a week and I just end up you get the gym buff. When you go to the gym, like when I go to the gym, people are like nate, you have the full thing at the house.
Speaker 3:I'm like, well you're, you're around people. It's like the environment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is a difference, for sure it's really, you get a little gym buff. You get to go up like three, four percent in strength just from being around people, because people are watching.
Speaker 1:You're like we're watching. I kind of got to demonstrate a little bit here that that's it.
Speaker 2:You know? No, it's, it's um. One thing I wanted to say um about, uh, just just in general, with the, with the kettlebell, and having it at the house is just um, and I don't think we talk about it enough is just your. You're improving your environment so much by just having the weight around that it lessens the amount of excuses and of saying like I can't get to the gym today or making the time and, um, I think that's something that I've noticed with the kettlebell especially is that it's attracting a lot of people who may not have a lot of time in their day, right, a lot of professionals and busy parents and, you know, college kids. Literally, you know you can get in knockout four birds with one stone with a simple kettlebell workout and I think that's super awesome and I that's why I really love it. And it's so cool. Like, once people actually start using it, you're just getting all these, like all these dividends start paying. They just start paying into your body, and it's that's something that I think about all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I looked at the. Literally yesterday was, uh, as I wanted to work out in the morning, couldn't get it in. I taught all classes. I had one block off just to check emails. I had a coach after school and literally I was like I didn't get my workout in. I wanted to do something today. I literally like warmed up a little bit and I looked at the clock. I'm going to do 10 snatches on my left, 10 on my right. Like give myself 30, 40 seconds to recover and do that five times. Right, it's okay. I got a hundred snatches in and like five minutes of some change. I'm good, like I'm good, right then and there, yeah, yeah, know, yeah, it pays the it.
Speaker 2:It puts something in the bucket, you know, for for everyone, and I think that's what it does a really, really good job at. That's what I think it excels at actually. So can't, can't, can't. Put the barbell in the apartment right or in the condo.
Speaker 1:Maybe someday, no, I think in the, in the garage.
Speaker 2:you know the house for sure, but you know just a little easier.
Speaker 1:So as we're talking about gyms, Nikki, what's your biggest gym?
Speaker 3:I have to pick just one. Oh, you can pick two. No, I'm just kidding. Um, what's man, I do have a couple. Um, what's man, I do have a couple. Um, one is when people just don't put their crap back oh I'm like are you gonna? I've? I've literally actually gone up to someone and, because they hadn't quite walked away yet, said are you gonna watch me put this back?
Speaker 2:it's like what, what are you doing? Yeah?
Speaker 3:what do you think you're doing? It was like a 70 pound dumbbell. You're gonna you're gonna watch me put this back like ick. That's a big ick for me is when people don't put their stuff back that's more of just like a common courtesy sort of thing.
Speaker 3:um, a lot of people ask me like, oh my god, what do you do when you're in a gym? I'm like I don't really pay attention to other people in the gym. I'm like that's their body, their business. I'm not here to work, I'm here to to work out. So I don't pay as much attention as probably people think that I do.
Speaker 2:What about you? I think, just so there's, there's, there's two. I and this is probably my, completely my fault, but going at, you know, peak time, it's just, it's, it's like almost night, it's like nightmare fuel yeah, honestly um, it's just it's, you know it's, it's tough because you go and it's it's like bananas.
Speaker 2:Just people are going everywhere, so that's partly my fault. Um, but the other one is definitely, um, when somebody is just texting, you know, like someone's texting, or in a space, in an area, and they're just, you know I get it. You know I get it, but you know it's a common space, right, like we all want to get some time in in this area, you know. So it's definitely my ick so yeah you'll see me.
Speaker 2:I mean, you'll definitely see me with the camera out like filming myself, and I'm very, I'm trying, I think, about everybody around me, but I won't be like texting in a spot, waiting in, like owning this space, you know, for for texting.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's my. So I think when people drop weights or drop kettlebells or like, but for no reason, like it's not like they failed the lift and they had a bail, that's okay, I get that A bail's okay, a bail's okay. But like when you're clinging stuff or like literally you're done with your um, you know your military presses with dumbbells, and then you just basically throw them on the floor just to make a noise so everybody can look at you, just to be like I don't know what people think. Like that they're like, oh wow, that guy's so strong or whoever's so strong. Like I'm like dick, like dude, and plus I hate when people drop kettlebells especially, uh, and I tell people all the time like clients and stuff I'm like, hey, man, you gotta respect the bell a little bit, you know because if it does land in a weird spot, if it lands on the handle, it can go any different way, like it could go so many different ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it won't yeah, and it's just like you want. You want to make sure, like you're protecting yourself, but like people around you too. So it's like like the unnecessary of like throwing things around or making unnecessary noise that's my ick. I hate that. And also like not wiping down stuff when you're done, because that's that's a big ache too. Oh man, uh. And then this is an ick, for I know this is an ick for other people, it's not an ick for me. I exclusively as, as as much as I can, I train barefoot all the time. Barefoot is my always, always barefoot. A deadlift, barefoot, squat, like squat heavy barefoot Uh, I think it's an advantage for me and like, especially if I'm dead lifting, like you can just lock and rock your feet in and just grip the floor and like, if I'm squatting, like I can splay my feet out and I can push my big toe on the floor and like, get that little extra. But I just know some people Tony explain that though a little bit like about the, about pushing the floor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why would you even want to do that? Right? So funny you asked uh, like once, like once you set your feet into the floor and you splay your toes. To me it's like it is just the extra foundation that you have that you can build upon and literally create so much more force against. I always think of, like my deadlift and my, my squat, like the bar isn't really moving as much as I'm pushing the floor down, especially on my deadlift, like I'm just pretending the bar stays still and I push the entire building down.
Speaker 1:I don't know why I think that, but but I just it gives me the setting and then like these are like my new balance running shoes, I'll run in these. I will not run in the barefoot flat shoes. I'm sorry If I put miles in. I tried, yeah, f that.
Speaker 2:I tried. Did you try in your Vivos? I did no. Well, I used to try in Earthrunners, which are like those sandals.
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 2:Yes, you're was psycho, it worked, it worked.
Speaker 3:Technically, I'm sure it worked. It worked, like you know your, your, your.
Speaker 2:Your gait changes automatically. You're like oh, I'm supposed to run on the ball on my foot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But when you're going for long distances and you live in the city, you cannot. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:And if you are, I saw this guy. He ran the.
Speaker 2:New York marathon, barefoot, yeah, and he does it like every year. So look, it's not, not possible. Like bless you, and I never want to say like it's the exercise's fault, right, there's like that saying, but like if we can, if you, if you can, I think the shoes is make sense for running.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah. And then like trying to, and I get people when we do like kettlebell workshops and stuff, I'm barefoot when I coach my you've seen, like I'll coach a barefoot and I'll even suggest to the people like if you, taking your shoes off is going to be your best bet because you're like you can actually like lock yourself into the floor and you don't have any foam around your foot. Cause, if you watch people with like thick shoes, like hokos trying to swing bells oh man, their ankles, everything's moving all over the place I actually throw off the bell path a little bit. Yep, so I'll even like, if they don't want to even take their shoes off, like fine, don't go on the turf, go on the rubber yeah like that will be more stable for you.
Speaker 1:But I just feel like people like don't want to take the shoes off or whatever. But I'm like, dude, let let the dogs out.
Speaker 3:So I do have the ick a little bit looking at other people's feet. It does give me like just a little bit. If I'm by myself I'm barefoot, but I am very proud that my monday and wednesday night crew over at ethos are very slowly each one of them are slowly taking their shoes off as they're coming into the space.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Right, just kind of, you know, reminding them if we're doing certain movements like you deadlift or squatting a hundred percent, but any unilateral movement where they already struggle to balance and stabilize. And then I see them with this big Archie, you know running shoe. I'm like shoes off gang.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Cause that's not going to help you in any way here to your point, can't be. You know utilizing your toes um much less with.
Speaker 1:You know kettlebell dynamic movement, so very proud that they're slowly you know, taking off their shoes for that kind of stuff, and then you guys can see I may throw that foot up there. I got the flux. I got the flux, on with the wide toe box.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the wide toe, but I mean it was. It was actually kind of crazy because I don't last like two years.
Speaker 2:I I started wearing stuff with with foam and I started because I, I need it, like I was, I was getting to a point where, personally, look, I know everybody has their own, their own thing. But, um, personally I was like you know, I want to start protecting my knees a bit more with like walking it's like walking and right, like my cardio stuff when I'm trying to get my steps in. But I love these flux, yeah.
Speaker 1:I like that. I like that Flux sponsor us. I wish. But the, the adapts are really great. I have the adapts, they're amazing.
Speaker 2:The flat ones of those. They're phenomenal. They're like the vans right, like it's a little bit it's a little bit more.
Speaker 1:It gives a little bit more than a van, sort of like a Chuck T, like if you're going to dab at your squat. But the vans and the Chuck Ts they pinch your feet together too much where the flux actually like allow you to splay out a little bit, like if you're at a place where you can't take your shoes off, like cause they're like, oh no, like you have to have shoes. So I'll make sure that I bring my adapt fluxes for sure. Yeah, go ahead. No, no, I was gonna say sponsor us flux fingers crossed.
Speaker 1:I'm wearing your stuff yeah, and then, uh, I wanted to talk about nate. Like you've and I've seen it, we've both seen it on like instagram, all your posting of like. You've added a lot of like explosive movements versus like typically, people that are like the strong first, like they'll have that, but it's like swing, get up very like lots of tension and a lot of like, just those like deep six movements. But you're adding a lot to your programming. How's that been?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, I am adding, but I am keeping at the same time. So, uh, brett Jones, I listened to your last podcast with Brett and he said something really cool that I absolutely love and I'm going to steal it. But we it's because we love you and we appreciate your work. But he said that you know you want to stay doing something consistently, but then, if you want to modify, just add a little something to it. And that's been my add a little, because I've always like my friends and family know me, um, but I've always had like a coordination issue, like with my movement, like I just coordinate.
Speaker 2:My coordination has not always been great. It's honestly like I haven't. I'm, I'm, I'm athletic, but you know there's definitely a, a curve there. So I have to. I had to practice it in the like a lot of those plyometric drills, those jumps, um, skips, like you know, I'll add those in. And once I started, I started practicing them, I started trying them and like man, I'm not good at these and I need to get better at these, and what they did, they just helped my coordination so much. Now my bell lifts are like so much better. They sharpen it, like sharpens you up. You know that's my best, best way I can explain it.
Speaker 2:But I am not like stopping to do. I don't stop doing my basics. I do my basics every week, every week, and I obviously have my deload weeks and stuff, but and I'm not doing a lot of it. I'm not doing a lot of it. I'm not doing a lot of it Cause you know, like, with plow metrics, I don't I don't know if there are people out there doing them four or five days a week, bless your soul.
Speaker 2:Um, but they're very high intensity, right. You have to be careful with, like, how much your body has to be ready to take on that. That force. It's a lot of force when you're jumping with your body. It's times gravity. So we're talking acceleration, you're talking multiples of load landing into these joints, right, so you have to be careful with how you bring that in. But I started slow, built up, built up that capacity. I'm doing like plyometric training and power lifting, that type of thing, like once a week, twice a week, maybe if I'm feeling ballsy, but if I'm feeling good, but I'm straight, like sticking to like the basics, like two to three days a week. That's most of my, most of my time, yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you program explosive?
Speaker 3:All the time, all the time. So I'm actually opposite you. That's typically where I thrive is those movements I don't know why they make sense to me. I was really good. I'm more of a low and lateral type mover, so anything vertical is challenging for me. But my favorite thing to get my clients are lateral skips.
Speaker 3:I mean, it is just so you know it takes them a minute and it's just so nice to to your point to get them to work through it especially at the beginning of session, just trying to get them to move opposite arm, opposite leg, adding a little low impact, plyometric, like it's awesome for them and getting them moving and different planes that they're not used to. I mean I really enjoy watching them struggle through it because it is good for them in that way and I always have fun doing them myself. But sometimes my dynamic warmup is my favorite part of the hour because it gets me moving dynamically and that includes a lot of the plyometric training, the skipping um and all that fun stuff.
Speaker 1:With that, the lateral skipping, uh, skipping, uh, when I do, when I have big teams come into the weight room or we'll train, I'll actually I'll make, I'll throw that in some of the days and I'll before like we'll do forward skips, you know we'll do like you know, like we call it, like you know the scoops and some of the frankensteins and whatever all that stuff. But then we're like all right, we're gonna see who the real athletes are in here today.
Speaker 1:Lateral skips, and I'll do, and I when I first started doing those lateral skips like it's hard like but then I got it down so I'll do and I'll look really proficient at it because you kind of like it gives the kids like a buy-in too, because they literally can't do the skips and um, and it's really funny too you will lose skipping.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you guys saw this post that like happened. I can't. I think about like squat university or somebody, but they they were like showing people over like the age of like 50 or 60 or whatever and they would ask them to skip and they couldn't do it and it's just like it's something that you could lose and I never. I do like some skipping and some like little bunny hops and, like before my session, just get like my nervous system kind of firing a little bit, but I don't do enough explosive jumping at all and I feel like I've just started to get back into like box jumping and not a lot. Like you said, I'm not going to do it every single day, yeah, and I'm not trying to like my verticals.
Speaker 2:Three sheets of paper, like that's it's not great yeah, it's not that great mine's like, mine's like honestly not that good. My tuck jump is good, like I like that tuck jump, that that's something that has gotten a lot better. But no, I can't vert like, if you see me, I can't, I can. I think I can, like smack the bottom of a net of a basketball I was about to say I could smack the backboard.
Speaker 1:I'd be like, yeah, you got hops man. No, no, I wish. And then, speaking of overdoing it, you know we all are in the realm of, or we're not all like, um, so good at what we do we'll never get injured. And then like including our clients, like how do you guys either help your clients through injury or yourself, like what is your like mental process through injury? I know we talked a little bit before on the walk over here. If you want to start us off.
Speaker 3:I mean, I just had a very humbling experience because I got injured for the very first time. I made it 32 years injury free.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Which not bad. Not bad, and I was an athlete when I was younger, so part of me was that mindset of just like once I knew it was muscular, I'm like we're going to be okay Could be so much worse. The pain was just astronomical it was. And, what was interesting, it wasn't from training, it was from excessive sitting, I think, and it was an array of things. So we couldn't find the culprit. There's not always one culprit. There was definitely something happening back there where my C-spine and T-spine meet and could have been high stress, sitting in my bed, and it decided to lock up and spasm on me to the point where I could not move. And this was just a week and a half ago and it was just. It was so humbling.
Speaker 3:And, you know, the first thing I can tell people is have a network, have a network of people that you can go to and that you trust. I mean, I cannot emphasize that enough. I'm lucky that I had someone in the gym to see me that very day, because I don't know what I would have done if I didn't, and I never want to be in a position where I'm, like you know, scared. I didn't know what was going on, I couldn't move and I had nowhere to go and there is like no worse feeling than that. So, like, or you know, I hope you have a coach, I have someone that you can refer to, that can even refer you to someone else, because that's a very vulnerable place to be. I don't think I've ever felt so vulnerable, coming off of her table, feeling the way that I was feeling, I mean, I was in tears because I just felt so helpless and so debilitated.
Speaker 3:So, the one thing, to your point, like trying and that's this is my thing, and I might be going down a whole different path here but, um, you know, it sounds so good to people to train like an athlete and the first thing to me, and training like an athlete or training athletes number one is safety. We lead with safety, and when people not everybody, obviously lead with safety, and when people not everybody obviously, but when I have clients that are, by definition, maybe overdoing it, it's not safe, right, it's just not the greatest idea because we don't have a recovery bucket. What are our recovery systems? Are they in place? Are we taking days off Like part of injury prevention? Is understanding recovery what it is, why it's important and why it's there for us, because the one thing that we don't want to have happen is get injured.
Speaker 3:And so if you are on top of your recovery system, your risk lowers by 10%. A lot, yep. And let me tell you, it was not fun being injured. And I was lucky, I'm very lucky that there's no long-term effects, no surgery, no nothing. It was just a really series of unfortunate events, so I cannot imagine what it's like, you know, being injured and needing, you know, more care than I needed.
Speaker 1:We talk about. Strength has a greater purpose all the time and luckily, you've built up, like this, building blocks of your body where, if you do get injured, you need to take some time off, like you've done a lot of the work to like still consistently be strong, but also like, because you've strength trained, you have, like this, also like mental fortitude of like, okay, this is where I'm at, I'm injured, I have to like crawl back step by step and just go through the process slowly.
Speaker 1:yeah, like your body's the boss at that point and I know a lot of people struggle um trying to mind over matter things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm like yeah like we gotta knock that off right like we gotta really knock that off, because it's just you're. You have to surrender sometimes. So it's understanding to your point of like my body's trying to tell me something. So if you're not listening, you're gonna make it worse and so it's developing really that relationship of when you're injured. So who said this? I think it might've been my practitioner. Pain is the outcome of something that's been happening for a while.
Speaker 3:So if you're, not paying attention to your pain. That's like your body's way of saying this is we didn't know what else to do.
Speaker 2:So we're going to let you know.
Speaker 3:So it really is like you have to really pay attention.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm in the same boat. We were, like I just did SFG2, not even that long ago, and one of the things is you have to press the 40 kilo which congrats, by the way, congrats SFG2, baby Thank you and you have to.
Speaker 1:For my body weight I had to press the 40 kilo and I didn't even really my press was good and I really didn't have to train it Like I can do it going into it and that I was also just always strong in the press, like the didn't wasn't a thing for me. And then I couldn't. Uh, we were training a couple of weeks ago and I'm like I can't even like get the 32 up for a 32 kilo get up, which I can rep out easily any time of the week, like a 32 kilo get up easy. And I'm like it is very humbling right now where and I couldn't, I can't put my finger on how I got injured I didn't get injured training. I can't put my finger out. But then I'm looking back.
Speaker 1:I played beach volleyball and I think when I laid out, I think I might've separated my shoulder and like just cause the joint was so strong, like I didn't really like feel the injury but then it creeped up and then now I'm like I'm pressing like a 24 kilo for five and I'm like it doesn't feel good after five so I've put it down, so I have to like it's really hard, like if you're, I'm at a 40, you know, 44 kilo press and now like I'm just practicing with a 16 and it kind of sucks, but it's like okay, like we talked about that roadmap, I'm I'm just, I'm just taking a detour a little bit. You know I'm taking a detour, I'm taking a pit stop. Um, you're so disciplined, you know, I'm getting the the, the wheels, you know, realigned a little bit and then I can get back on the path. Because now, now I'm back in my head. I'm like I took my pressing for granted. I know you've had just some, like some PRs come up for you for pressing. I'm kind of like I can't wait to start pressing heavy.
Speaker 1:I'm just so excited Once I like feel figure it out a little bit. You know it's getting better. Uh, I think it was like a shoulder separation that I just didn't even realize.
Speaker 2:And you know, it's a really like something about injuries. Right there, we look at them so negatively and I don't want to say it's not negative because, yes, injuries suck, but they're really good learning opportunities as well, right so, and they're also really good stop gaps of like learning where your volume thresholds are. So, let's say, you know, I just had this happen with one of my clients and I'm sad, but you know he started getting some like lower back stuff. It's like pretty common, like when you start, when you go from zero and you start lifting or doing anything where I'm teaching deadlifts, teaching these things we hit I think we just hit like a threshold of volume where it's like, okay, we crossed something and your nervous system is like okay, hey, like we need to slow down, we need to stop doing what we're doing and what we're doing now and to kind of talk about, like what my approach is is I don't want people to stop mobilizing completely. I think that's kind of something that I do. We all agree on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we're just let's reduce, let's take the load off first of all, right, Like, let's reduce the load and let's just work on making sure that you, you feel okay moving first, and then, once we get that, we'll slowly start to build back where we were, um, and let's address that mobility issue. So for him it was like, yeah, my lower, my lower left hip. So I, we did a little bit of a um, we, we, we did some mobility stuff and I was like, okay, yeah, there's clearly a imbalance here. Right, there's clearly an imbalance that I wish I caught earlier. But these things are, you know, they're, they're hard to spot sometimes.
Speaker 2:So we're building up that mobility now and, and you know, two, three weeks this is two, three weeks ago he's like dude nate, I'm feeling the best I ever felt with, with this movement. But we didn't stop, like, we didn't stop cold turkey, we, we, slowly, we, we addressed the issue, we slowly picked it back up. Now I mean we're not at that low the loads that he was at before, but again we're, we're starting to get the, the snowball rolling again. So, um, yeah, I I think one one thing we as a, as a community um, is just helping our clients just find a way to keep moving, even through that pain and whatever it may be Right, so and and helping ways to work around the pain and then, uh yeah, building, building that up over time yep, you're gonna.
Speaker 1:You're gonna get a lesson like you'll. You'll learn an experience like experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted exactly yeah exactly, and we and we take those things and now, now you learn it.
Speaker 2:So like a new bucket for you and a new, a new experience that you can give to somebody else who may have a similar issue as you, right so?
Speaker 1:and with like if they're overdoing it. Or again, I think we could all agree to like best recovery strategy is like proper programming, like we want to make sure we're programming properly, like we're you know, if we see the client or ourselves like kind of the movements aren't looking as well you know, kind of pulling back and kind of knowing when to push, like playing that like tug-of-war a little bit, but active recovery, like for you guys and Nikki, if you can start it like, what does that look like for you? Or how do you prescribe that for clients?
Speaker 3:Well, it's kind of what you just said. I mean, there's more than one, but waving intensity and I wish that was talked about a little bit more. If you do want to exercise six times a week, then great, but are we waving intensity accordingly? Right, and that's just a smart aspect of programming, right? We can't go 100% effort every single day, right, that's not. I don't know what good outcome we're gonna get from that. So I think, first and foremost, like is actually integrating lower impact days, lower intensity days and active recovery days, and in which case you can keep doing what you're doing for a long period of time.
Speaker 3:I think identifying and managing stress when you're in the midst of your programming as well. Sometimes, if you are in this I don't know if you guys do this um is just getting a gist of how people are walking in the door and man and knowing when and how to manage intensity based off of how we're feeling. Um, and you know what we can offer put into our workouts that day. Let's, let's give me 90, a hundred percent. If you're at a nine and a 10, great, let's take advantage. Let's do it. Good night's sleep, great, let's. Let's get her done. We're walking in at a three? Probably not the day to do that. So to me, managing and waiving intensity is is a great recovery tactic. Um I I would actually say that's my, my main one.
Speaker 3:I'm just understanding what that is and what that means, Um and having a rest day just rest doesn't mean like Netflix and chill, but, um, not just for physical recovery, but mental recovery, and I I mean that's another thing I'd love to get into. I think that's another thing that's not very talked about is mental and physical usually coincide with each other. So everyone, you know we have saunas, we have cold plunges, we have all sorts of things to, you know, help recover in terms of that physical aspect. But like, where's the mental part of this? And how does your nervous system, you know, your central nervous system, play into this in terms of recovery or injury prevention?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think stress is like a huge piece of it, like your nutrition, your stress, your hydration, all those things I like. I know sometimes my workouts are my stress relief, but sometimes if I'm stressed out and I don't want to go to the gym, like I don't want to like I'm just not in the headspace to like oh, I'm going to crush this. Today I was like I kind of don't even want to do that and I gotta be like okay with that. Like walking to me. I used to be like cause I like I would like love to go and clip four miles, six miles or whatever, but then I'd be banged up and it just kind of like no, that's not like the stress reliever that I wanted.
Speaker 1:But I live closer to the lakefront now, which is great, so like now I just put my headphones in and I go for an hour walk. I used to not think that in my head that walking was going to be like a great movement tool for me, but it's been when I don't want to train or you know I'm away from the kettlebells or I don't want to hike to the gym or something like I'm just going to go walking and it could turn into a light jog, it could turn to like stopping at different places. I'm going to walk to that coffee shop I really want to go to, it's like three miles or two miles away, and I'll put in some movement and when I get back and I get some sunshine, I'm like I feel better and when I get back and I get some sunshine, I'm like I feel better.
Speaker 3:Well, and the one thing I try and you know educate, especially in group classes is and I don't know if you, I actually am very curious to know if you guys program your clients this way, but sometimes all everyone's different. But I will actually try and get people's higher intensity days at the beginning of the week, because that's when they're most fresh in terms of central nervous system, right. Right, hopefully they've recovered accordingly during the weekend. We don't always really know, um, but monday, tuesday, wednesday, you know, I'll kind of tap into those higher intensity days and then start to taper them off thursday, friday, saturday, because the week is hitting them pretty hard, like even starting wednesday. I'll have people come in wednesday night and I can kind of feel it. See it, it's starting to happen. And so Friday is, you know, when I try and tell everyone to really identify where they're at towards the end of the week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You you agree? You have the same. Yeah, absolutely, and I want to just piggyback off of walking and I just kind of want to talk about it because I think walking and I'm going to make a, I actually want to make a post about it, but I think walking is just. I have a lot of people, hey, nate, like what's the best way to get into shape or get in, to get, get back into it? Just just walk, just literally walk. Go for a 20, 30 minute walk and make that a habit, like two to three times a week, you know, and I think that's like the best gateway back into making fitness and exercise part of your lifestyle.
Speaker 2:But there's also so many like benefits just from being outside after most of us are on the screens all day. Most of us, statistically in the U S are on screens most all day. So it's, it's exhausting to, to, to sit through that. So get outside, get some natural, get some fresh air, sunlight. You'd be surprised I I've seen, uh, those brain scan pictures of what happens when you when before you go for a walk and then after you go for a walk like your brain's just lit up. It's just endorphins. So, um, yeah, no, I, I love that you said that. And some days I won't even train and I'll just go for a walk. Like that. I want to re, re, you know say what tony said is like some days if I'm, if I'm exhausted and mentally I have like a three out of ten day with work or something. Some stress comes up. I'm not gonna go and push myself on a on a high intensity workout, I'm just going to go for a walk.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:It's part of that discipline.
Speaker 1:It's part of that consistency.
Speaker 2:So, no, I'm just trying to make a joke. But yeah, no, but for for recovery. I just want to say, like the big things I always am looking for in my sessions when we start off, did you get enough sleep? Right, like, sleep has been a big game changer for me too, because it's the best time to get active rest. You're not doing anything. So, uh, really important, making sure you're getting enough sleep. Um, water, right Water, just making sure you're drinking enough water throughout the day. Um and uh. Also food making sure your body's getting enough nutrition, getting the nutrients it needs. Trying to eat whole, trying to uh. Also food making sure your body's getting enough nutrition, getting the nutrients it needs. Trying to eat whole, trying to uh. You know, I know it's.
Speaker 2:These are, these are pretty heavy things, um, but then the other one is stress the stress management I think that's something that um is overlooked in in our society too is just not not managing our stress levels, not taking time away. If you're really, really stressed out at a point in your day you got to find like 10 to 15 minutes to just step aside and like really try to decompress.
Speaker 3:Build some tools.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tools, I love that, thank you. So, um, but yeah, those are like my kind of like my four, like they're biomarkers, you know, and if you keep an eye on them and, um, I know not every day will be perfect for you to be like, oh, I'm at like a six out of four, but you know, just trying to have like keeping those four, if you can focus on them, it'll make everything else pretty much in your life better, right, if you are improving those things.
Speaker 1:So, and that's, and you don't need anything to do them. Yeah, outside is outside, right, I don't got to.
Speaker 1:I don't pay to go outside. You know Exactly, I can just drink my water. And then also the. You mentioned the stress piece too. I feel like it's also like this is we're getting like real, like deep, deep, but like like connections with people and relationships is for me, like I, I think that that's something like when we talk about community and people. It's like today I I look we talked about earlier like we looked really a lot before we cut that part. No, we looked for like towards today, like I was so excited for to see you guys and it was like you know, my, my week was pretty stressful this week. I have a lot going on, but like, oh my gosh, like this is so cool to come here and like have the relationships with people and that's the big thing of like when you are stressed out is like having that person to call, lean on, whatever it may be, uh, is important as, like humans, like we need we, we really want connection. You guys can call me.
Speaker 2:Thanks, no, I'm, I'm being serious, yeah, but yes, it's super, it's so important and going for a walk with somebody, right, Like asking somebody hey, like you know you, we both had stressful days Like just give a friend a call and go for a walk. You'd be surprised how many amazing ideas you guys talk about during a walk. Super simple, Like I know. It was like even business ideas like uh, like I'm spinning on walks so I'm like I can get back on my screen and type on my phone, but it's crazy Like how much your brain just gets going on doing that Right?
Speaker 2:So I know we talked about that a lot.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, it's important, though it really really important. And I mean you you've I feel like nate, you've like really built your community with, like, uh, third coast. Yeah, yeah, you talk about third coast a little bit. Yeah, guys, it's been.
Speaker 2:It's been literally. This is a uh, three year, four year vision that has come to fruition. Um, and it's just an amazing thing. Like three years ago, me and my wife lived in Florida and I started just training with kettlebells in a room and I'm like how cool would this be if one day I can just be doing this in Chicago on the beach and like doing something like that, because I didn't see really anybody doing it. So, you know, it's cool to see that last this whole summer, thankfully, thanks to everybody who showed up uh, we sold out every single class and it was and it was literally uh, uh, it was so much fun.
Speaker 2:Every single class was just fun. It was, um, you know, I want to shout out Dom, cause Dom, and also Eliana for letting me use her car and also for letting me lug all those damn bells in the car. But yeah, it was just. There was like so much behind the scenes going on. You learn about like event planning and marketing and you learn about like help and how can we get this out the best way possible and make it fun, make this a fun environment where you're sort of learning. But that was the goal was like I don't want to, I don't want to be teaching the whole time. I was like I want to make this a fun thing, let's make it fun and let's bring a great group of people together. And I think this summer we kicked ass like every single one of us who showed up. It was just a blast.
Speaker 2:Um, I do have some good news. I do have some some continuing. Uh, fingers crossed should be continuing through the winter at a gym. I will be saying it hopefully this week, but I'm so excited that we get to go year-round. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's going to be awesome. Yes, no, thanks for asking. You should feel proud. No, yeah, it's cool. I mean, I always see the clips and everything. Everybody's looking like laughing, having a good time. Yeah, you know, get a pop your top off, that's right.
Speaker 2:The idea was like let's put Top Gun. Let's not and let's get some kettlebells and let's, let's have some fun and let's get people just moving in new ways, and we put those three things together and it's been been Third Coast.
Speaker 1:So it together, and it's been been third coast, so it's been awesome. That is awesome, and what's what you told me, but tell the listeners.
Speaker 2:Why did you call it third coast, third coast? Because, uh, you know you got east coast and uh, it's like you know atlantic, you got west coast, pacific the best coast is going to be lake michigan. Baby, yeah, it's third coast, third coast. And uh, shout out to dom, he came up with that one. That's awesome. I'm gonna give him his credit so cool, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, nicky, what's what's coming up for you?
Speaker 3:some, some big news coming down the pipe to drop a bomb. Oh, nathan, doesn't I'm about. Well, do you know? I don't know if this is gonna be fun. I'm moving abroad. Wow, I'm moving. I'm moving out of the States. Tbd on timetable, but it is sooner rather than later.
Speaker 3:So, I'm so excited. There's a lot going on, but, yeah, I will be moving officially out of the States, so I will soon be an online coach, um, which is, I mean, I've been coaching for almost nine years, but to have your full-time business online when you've been doing in-person for the last nine years, like challenge extended it has been like. And also building a community online, right Like I know how to coach, I've been doing it a long time but to actually try and connect with people near and far online and trying to create that community, you know it's, it's all been such a learning process for me. So, you know, still coaching online, I have an app that's launching on Monday Congrats.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I know you put a lot of work in that Also been very humbling.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is, yes it has and you know, hope it, just you know. I think it has awesome potential in terms of you know, the community aspect as well, because, at the end of the day, like we're throwing, some bells around you know and we're learning. I want it to be an education-based platform. Like people want to learn and, to your point, people want to connect, so I really hope that you know you're going to crush it. Thank you I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:You're going to be great.
Speaker 1:I've seen some of the sneak peek things you've been posting about it, so I'm looking forward to it. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:It looks great it was a labor of love. My uh, my boyfriend did the videos and helped me with that, and we were able to do that together. So it just it means a lot and it's kind of entering into this new phase of life as well. You know, moving, moving abroad. So I'm very excited.
Speaker 1:That's great. Yeah, that's awesome. Well our boy, Tom, in the back there said that we can Skype you in uh if we come back.
Speaker 2:So, we're gonna have, we're gonna, we're gonna bring a screen, yeah, and nikki will be right there um, beside, anything else coming up for you besides just the app and moving oh, just the app, and that's it.
Speaker 3:That's it trying to get to another country. Um, you know, I, I think I I'm just trying to like. It has been, truly, it's been one of those moments which I know you guys have had, you had to have had, when you are in like the deepest, darkest hole of work and you're in a phase of like, I'm terrified, I'm doubting, I don't know if this is going to work or oh my God, I've never done this before, but it's all like amazing things, and you know that it's hard because it's growth, yep, right, and I'm just in that point, that sticky point of like, oh my God, the days are long, I've had multiple meltdowns, but this is all for something that I mean, that's greater than I could have ever imagined. Right, it's just you're, you're almost high off of it, but it's also so terrifying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the unknown.
Speaker 3:Just the unknown and like it is. You know me, myself and I all the time, like calling a friend and going for a walk or doing this podcast, like bringing you back into these conversations that really just remind you of you know why we do what we do.
Speaker 3:And if you keep doing that, then all is good in the world. But just trying to land my feet in another country as smoothly as humanly possible, um, and you know, continue to build my business. But but yeah, so I'll still do custom online programming, coaching, nutrition. I actually have like a full all-inclusive program for people that want that triple threat approach, right, that you know want the high level coaching and programming. We do custom nutrition and then recovery as well, and then I'll have the app awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. I know you put a lot of work into it, so, and hopefully sfg2 in italy you know, you never, oh, that would be crazy.
Speaker 3:I've been holding out you guys I'm like maybe gonna make it. Make it in italy next year awesome so I've been, I've been holding.
Speaker 1:We gotta go assist then, yeah, I'll apply how come?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's my favorite place I lose, I lose my mind what? What city is it in, do you?
Speaker 3:know I gotta double check, but I know they host one in italy. That's, that's amazing maybe we'll just pop over there and for sure do my sfg level two.
Speaker 1:What about you, nate, besides the third coast, uh getting uh its own indoor space here? Anything coming up for you?
Speaker 2:yeah, I just um, you know, just, I I do have online and uh, online training available. Um, I do one-on-one and I have uh, I also have an app too, so it's, it's there, it exists. I have to do a way better job of getting it back out there, um, but uh, it's there. And then also, you know, just just sticking to um, you know, I want to uh, sfg. I'm going to do a SFL next year, so in spring I'm really looking forward to. It's really crazy. I have not once had any barbell instruction, so it will.
Speaker 1:I will change the way you look at a barbell. Yeah, I joked around with Fabio and I talked to him and I was like, within the first 10 minutes of being in the in the instruction with him, I'm like I looked at, um, uh, rock was with us, um, Eric, eric Eric was with us and I'm like, dude, I don't know anything about barbell. Yeah, I'm like this is how you learn so much.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited it's going to be. It's going to be a ton of fun. But yeah, just looking forward to that. And yeah, just also like just an open invite to anybody in Chicago or in the area who's even interested in what we got going on, like with third coast, or just even like I know, I know we we both have like classes, but we all have classes going on and if you guys are just interested in coming, we're not trying to kill you. A I have a lot of people like, oh, you're trying to like run me in the ground. No, it's like we're, I'm trying to, we're trying to teach you, to make this a fun thing. We've had so many people who have not had that any experience. They come in and they're like, wow, I have not had fun exercising. Yeah, fun exercising and we're having fun exercising. Imagine those two words together, right? So it's, it's been, it's been amazing. The kettlebell does a really great job of doing that and hopefully we get to see you this this winter for some third coast events.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I know Tony's got some stuff and Nikki's got some stuff, so nikki's got some stuff, so hopefully we can see some more people in chicago.
Speaker 1:I think the work I mean to me, like I love teaching bells and like that's my thing and my passion of like you know you've been to the one at chicago strength and you know it's weird when you say like scared, like I never had. I don't really. I know the community. I'm not like really affiliated with the community. I just go in there, drop in and do like sometimes like open gym, and I said, hey, can, can I do some kettlebell classes? And they're like yes, and we just had first timers that like really learned how to like do kettlebell clean oh, that's awesome, and it was like everybody like got it at the end and then we did a little mini workout and everybody's like high-fiving each other.
Speaker 1:Uh, nate came to support, which was great, and I think we all like have done our best to like go and support each other. But you know, that's been my. My new passion is like two, two workshops a month, one at all emotion in the west loop and then, uh, chicago strength, the river north so fun. Yeah, it's a great time, so fun I'll have a nutrition workshop at ethos november 10th.
Speaker 3:So if you guys in the new space so love it and that's a fantastic space and I have last thing I have a workshop coming up with danny cola as well.
Speaker 2:Um october. It's at the end of october. I have the day. It's like october 26, I'm pretty sure. Sorry, danny, don't kill me um, but it's uh it's. Uh it's clubs and uh it's kettlebell. So from the basics, from zero. So if you don't know anything and want to learn some skills and just come out, that's the workshop for you, just swinging some iron around. It's going to be so fun. It's going to be so fun it's going to be four hours. Yeah, three, four hours, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1:Great Well, thanks for coming and I mean this is great. I can't wait to do the next one, Tom in the booth. Thank you so much for having us. Thanks everybody for listening to. Let's talk strength oh yeah, I love it.