#123 StrongFirst and Kettlebells With Eric Frohardt
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, we discuss kettlebell training becoming stronger, not just physically, but mentally, and why strength is a skill. In this episode, we talk with Eric Froehart, CEO of the company Strong First, about his background in kettlebells, the history of the kettlebell movement, and his background as a decorated combat veteran with multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so for the past 10 years or so kettlebells
00:00:21.000
have become a popular workout tool if you don't know what a kettlebell is basically a cannonball
00:00:26.880
with a handle on it and you swing it around and it gives you both not only a strength workout but a
00:00:31.780
cardio workout well the man who had a lot to do with the popularization of kettlebell training here
00:00:36.500
in the united states his name is pavel tesalini and pavel started a company not too long ago called
00:00:41.400
strong first which is dedicated to helping people become strong in all aspects of their life using
00:00:45.820
not only kettlebells but barbells and bodyweight training anyways today on the show i have the ceo
00:00:50.960
of strong first on with me his name is eric frohart he's a former u.s navy seal a decorated combat
00:00:57.420
veteran with multiple tours of duty in iraq and afghanistan and today on the show we're going to
00:01:01.620
talk kettlebell training becoming strong not just physically but mentally and why strength is a skill
00:01:08.800
so it's going to be a great podcast a lot of great takeaways so let's do this
00:01:13.160
eric frohart welcome to the show thank you brett appreciate it so you are the ceo of a company
00:01:26.920
called strong first so what is strong first and what's the story behind it for our listeners who
00:01:33.240
aren't familiar with it um well strong first is the school of strength and i'll get into that a little
00:01:40.300
bit more later uh but the story behind strong first is pretty interesting pavel satsulin our
00:01:47.180
founder and chairman started the some people call it the kettlebell revolution uh or movement back in
00:01:54.120
the early 2000s uh he brought the uh the kettlebell over to the u.s and did some articles in some
00:02:01.640
different magazines about it and it kind of caught on um he partnered with a publishing company
00:02:07.680
uh based in minneapolis and wrote a few books and launched uh launched the first kind of global
00:02:14.440
kettlebell instructor certification known as the rkc and uh at some point i believe it was
00:02:21.600
2011 2012 uh due to some differences in the vision he left that organization which he kind of co-founded
00:02:30.340
uh or founded or was organized in and uh as he left he formed strong first and i believe that was in
00:02:38.480
2012 and many of the people who he had chosen as um senior instructors or master instructors or even team
00:02:49.060
leader instructors within that organization uh kind of followed followed and joined strong first with
00:02:55.220
them so there's that well so tell us about more about pavel because he's an interesting guy uh he's
00:03:00.660
from russia what's his background it was something with the kgb or the russian military or yeah it's the uh
00:03:07.080
the spets not the spets not that's right yeah they're uh they're you know their version of the special
00:03:13.220
operations forces um he you know he's he's not very open about that part of his history so and pavel's a
00:03:22.520
very you know he's a very private guy understandable and i am too right um but i mean so i think it's
00:03:31.800
one of the things i find fascinating is this whole the the russian yeah mentality towards physical
00:03:37.920
fitness um because they yeah during the 70s you know the during the cold war uh they were doing some
00:03:44.800
crazy stuff experimentation on uh basically improving human performance that we sort of take for granted
00:03:52.460
nowadays um is that is that sort of the research and this russian approach uh pervade strong first
00:04:01.020
a bit or is it a you're taking you're building off of that and adding yeah the new research that's come
00:04:07.780
in it's it is it's a mixture of both brett um yeah there's you know underpinnings in in that system and
00:04:14.740
and pavel you know people forget he was a master of sports there and um it has to do with you know
00:04:22.600
a certain level within uh you know the state of their fitness i'm not sure how to best describe that
00:04:31.020
he uh he he's he does a very good job of of taking the complicated science and making it simple
00:04:40.780
um you know there's uh his recent book kettlebell simple and sinister it seems extremely simple and
00:04:48.200
it is uh it's very effective um but he basically distilled down a lot of science from that and uh
00:04:56.580
you know made it a little more digestible um on the higher end of the spectrum he's got a we have a
00:05:03.060
an event called plan strong and in that in that course it's like a it's a almost a two-day course
00:05:11.440
he goes through some very very uh detailed programming uh methodologies or programs uh for
00:05:19.260
making for people to use to get you know really strong on certain events so gotcha very very uh
00:05:25.680
very very intelligent guy yeah super knowledgeable um so tell us about your story and how did you get
00:05:32.280
involved with strong first absolutely uh well i was i was introduced uh to pavel's methods back in
00:05:39.920
2005 a close friend of mine a teammate of mine named john foz showed me his kettlebell and john and i
00:05:48.240
were seals together serving at the same seal team at the time and john was a very close friend of
00:05:54.720
pavel's in fact pavel trained john as a high schooler and later on once john kind of
00:06:02.220
had aspirations of becoming a navy seal he found he found pavel through uh you know through a magazine
00:06:09.240
article and pavel was teaching people some some kettlebell training methods in minneapolis um
00:06:16.060
so i met john and you know i saw him doing his kettlebell exercises and i i just you know was at least i was
00:06:24.020
i was very curious because i was kind of sick of you know the standard uh lift weights one day cardio the
00:06:30.220
next day kind of thing it just kind of just was burnt out um so i i spent some time using pavel's
00:06:37.460
principles of strength uh with primarily with kettlebells and some barbell stuff and some bodyweight
00:06:43.680
exercises but primarily kettlebells i just like the simplicity of it i did that for a few years
00:06:49.280
um actually the first time i did it just for a few months right before a deployment
00:06:53.520
and was completely shocked at how much better uh that tool and those those methods prepared me for
00:07:03.760
um combat tours or as i like to say various adventures and it just for for the first time i just felt like
00:07:12.680
the gear i was wearing felt light and i felt like i moved well and i felt really strong and i didn't get
00:07:19.520
bigger while doing it i had done a lot of strength training stuff in the past but didn't like bulking
00:07:25.260
up with it so fast forward from there i met pavel when he came to our team one time and trained us
00:07:32.540
and uh really enjoyed meeting him uh a few a year after that i got certified and later after that i got
00:07:41.660
certified through strong first when recertified through strong first when he uh when he moved
00:07:46.760
uh i really loved the the training i love the way i love the way it made me feel and perform and and i
00:07:53.760
am you know would never have taken this gig if i wasn't you know a big believer in it uh in 2014
00:08:00.600
pavel uh hit me up on email and he asked me to help look for a new ceo at the time i was working at the
00:08:10.520
uh the blue core shooting center which is a a firearms range retail and training facility that i co-founded
00:08:16.740
here in hit here in denver and during one of my daily walks which i've seen you write about many
00:08:23.800
many times um i was just kind of thinking about you know my future and my plans and stuff and i just
00:08:30.500
it just kind of hit me that i should apply for that gig so after uh after kind of a lengthy interview
00:08:37.520
process i was fortunate enough to be selected as the new ceo for strong first and so i stepped down
00:08:44.740
from the day to day at blue core and um now i'm the ceo of strong first and it's been uh it's been
00:08:51.960
really really fun you know challenging and rewarding um i did i did fail to mention that john fa is my
00:09:00.000
best friend or one of my best friends in the navy and the guy that pavel trained and he's been
00:09:06.520
mentioned in a few of pavel's books but john was actually he was killed in that helicopter crash
00:09:11.820
in 2011 so that's uh that's kind of how pavel and i met and how uh we've stayed in contact and
00:09:19.760
you know how i how uh you know how i took this gig right and for you've also helped us out on the art
00:09:27.680
of manliness consulting on some articles uh yeah so we we did the uh how to pull an all-nighter
00:09:33.860
yeah uh from a special force guy which you are uh which is it's funny whenever whenever it's like
00:09:41.100
finals time right like december it's like there's like this uptick of people checking that that post
00:09:47.320
out uh how to pull an all-nighter yeah and then the uh tactical way of dressing yeah which is a lot
00:09:53.920
of fun so if you guys haven't seen those go googles and search that on the site um so let's talk about
00:09:59.440
strong first like why the name strong first and like the philosophy behind that underlies what you
00:10:06.100
the exercises that you all teach yeah no i'll just kind of start you know start with our mission you
00:10:12.580
know we we want to make the world a stronger place we want to make people stronger um it's instead
00:10:19.820
of a war against obesity we have a war against weakness right i like that we are what we are is
00:10:28.120
we're a school of strength and we help people achieve high levels of strength in a safe efficient
00:10:35.440
and effective manner and this is important without interfering with their lives their jobs or their
00:10:43.400
duties and that was important to me uh when i was a seal that the training i did didn't didn't hurt me
00:10:51.880
or my my ability to perform my duty and it's important to you know firemen policemen law enforcement
00:10:58.800
whatever like military law enforcement first responders it's important that your training
00:11:04.080
you know makes you stronger yet not interferes with what you're trying to do um we we are we believe
00:11:12.600
that strength is a master quality in other words getting stronger helps all other physical endeavors
00:11:19.860
and we believe that strength has a greater purpose strength in the gym is really cool but strength for
00:11:26.680
real life applications is more important and that can be that can be as simple as or as as cool as
00:11:34.320
you know a navy seal getting stronger for a mission uh or more realistic but in my opinion just as cool as
00:11:41.220
you know having having uh you know someone who used to be deconditioned or weak who can now you know
00:11:47.580
do chores around the house and pick up pick up you know luggage in the airport just actually feel
00:11:53.240
strong and be strong so uh that's who we are we are we are strong first uh but but not strong only
00:12:01.560
um as mentioned earlier we believe you know strength is important it's a master quality and that having
00:12:08.240
high levels of strength will improve all other physical attributes attributes um whether it's
00:12:14.460
mobility flexibility agility or all those you know coordination work capacity there's a number of
00:12:21.020
them being strong will help you uh in all of those it'll also help you be you know from from being a
00:12:28.200
dancer to playing football um distance running to power lifting yoga to mma um if people get stronger
00:12:35.860
they just watch uh they can just watch themselves improve um we have a saying like we want people
00:12:42.760
to you know be what you want as i mentioned it could be a football player a dancer a runner a power
00:12:49.700
lifter fighter whatever be whatever you want but be strong first um and we don't we don't diminish
00:12:57.720
any of the other physical qualities right if you ever attend any of our events uh our certs or our
00:13:04.280
courses you'll notice we spend time working on mobility flexibility and discussing conditioning
00:13:11.060
but we we've chosen not to be all things to all people our niche is strength training and and being
00:13:19.360
strong is tightness so how do you make people stronger uh you mentioned the kettlebell and there
00:13:24.840
seems like there's an emphasis on the kettlebell uh what's so great about the little cannonball thing
00:13:29.620
with the handle on it it's i mean there's a lot of different things um we we have a principle
00:13:35.740
based system and our principles are time honored battle tested and and proven and these these
00:13:43.520
principles help people achieve high levels of strength and we focus on being safe efficient and
00:13:49.740
effective with all of our training in fact we don't call it training we call it practice um because
00:13:55.520
strength is a skill and that is an example of one of our principles strength is a skill i love that
00:14:01.340
i love that the idea that strength is a skill that is really cool oh it's really it's a really important
00:14:06.320
it's one of our most important principles and um it's just we use that and many other principles and we
00:14:13.640
have different tools obviously we're most known for the kettlebell but we have barbell and bodyweight
00:14:19.640
courses and certifications as well and uh certainly as i mentioned we're most known for the kettlebell
00:14:25.800
um but our our principles are the same in all the different certs and events there are some things that
00:14:32.960
are interesting about the kettlebell and the obvious emphasis is that the whole kettlebell revolution
00:14:39.940
was started by paul and uh as i mentioned he introduced it to western culture in the early 2000s
00:14:47.720
and since then um he's been building and refining our curriculum into what it is today
00:14:54.080
and simply put the the kettlebell is just very efficient and effective and it's also very safe
00:15:01.720
if the exercises are done um correctly you can you can reach high levels of strength and high levels of
00:15:10.260
conditioning with a very simple tool that takes takes very little space
00:15:16.320
can be used in the home and takes very little time so that's that is uh some of the reasons behind
00:15:24.200
the popularity of it and for us it's just it's kind of it's kind of a just a great all-around tool um
00:15:32.460
really for anybody so yeah but one of the things about the kettlebell it's not just a strength
00:15:36.800
tool it's also could be as a conditioning tool absolutely work capacity um i actually you know speaking of
00:15:44.020
how it's just it's can fit in your house right you don't really need much much space i have like a
00:15:48.560
kettlebell right by my kitchen just sitting there and whenever it's the whole greasing the groove
00:15:53.400
principle which i got from paul absolutely uh whenever i walk by it no matter what i'll stop
00:16:00.440
and do five kettlebell swings with yeah no that's great that's a great way to you know grease the groove
00:16:06.240
is just it's one of his many you know awesome programs uh it's worked well with you know with
00:16:12.240
kettlebell movements uh pull-ups is a really good one too yeah i got that going out i have yeah so
00:16:17.220
yeah explain what grease the groove is because it's a pretty cool it's it's so simple but it can it has
00:16:22.300
such profound implications if you actually put into practice yeah no it's really cool it's just it's
00:16:27.820
simple you know you're you're just kind of practicing a movement or grooving a pattern um
00:16:34.040
you know kind of randomly throughout the day uh and the idea is instead of doing let's say my
00:16:41.700
let's say i'm going to practice doing uh one arm or just pull-ups right and instead of doing my five
00:16:49.420
sets of five pull-ups one after another with a couple of minutes break in between if i do them
00:16:56.760
throughout the day it allows me to practice each set uh more well rested so if i'm going to
00:17:04.920
do heavy pull-ups it works really well and i can get strong i just kind of you know there's a lot of
00:17:12.220
things about it what i've always found is it just tricks you into doing uh a lot of volume as well as
00:17:18.220
doing uh none of the in none of the sets are you really tired yeah right because you're not doing
00:17:24.340
five sets of five or whatever right after another you're kind of just doing it as you pass by yeah
00:17:30.240
exactly so i have one of those doorframe pull-up bars right another place and anytime i walk under
00:17:35.140
it i crank out five pull-ups perfect and what yeah what i love about the grease the groove thing is that
00:17:39.680
whole idea that strength is a skill because a lot of people think that okay to get stronger you just
00:17:44.060
need to build up muscle mass but there's a nervous the nerve process in there your nerves have to learn
00:17:50.860
how to contract your muscles uh in a certain way in order to maximize on that muscle capacity
00:17:58.280
absolutely there's you know there's a and i'm not pavel is really good at this stuff you know
00:18:04.660
explaining it uh and and some of our senior instructors also very good at it uh all of our
00:18:10.980
you know our leadership from team leader to senior to master they would know all this stuff a little bit
00:18:16.300
better what i what i find is that um when you treat it like a practice you want to approach each
00:18:23.920
you know each practice session so that most of them you leave feeling better yeah because you're
00:18:30.460
maintaining good form throughout you're not there to get the burn and the neat thing about that is
00:18:35.420
it's a it's a good way to get strong without bulking up and you mentioned the you know the the mind to
00:18:42.080
muscle connection it's it's very very critical um just teaching your teaching your uh um teaching
00:18:49.940
yourself to get full recruitment out of a muscle or not full but more recruiting out of your muscle
00:18:55.800
versus just growing the size of that muscle right so it's yeah it's a very it's a very very powerful
00:19:02.840
powerful thing um and it's very it's it's part of you know a bunch of our different programs from
00:19:09.860
grease the groove simple and sinister easy strength things like that it's it's very very uh important
00:19:17.100
that you get that you know that mind to muscle connection yeah so if you're listening this is a
00:19:21.280
great thing like do this go out and get one of those doorframe pull-up bars that cost like 15 bucks
00:19:25.420
put in your doorframe anytime you walk through it crank out five pull-ups or if you can't even do a
00:19:30.500
pull just do one pull-up yep hang add on yeah or just hang right or you can do the same thing with
00:19:36.060
the kettlebell um so one of the things i've noticed about strong first and the content you put on the
00:19:44.780
website and as well as in the the content in the books is that you focus on the psychology of strength
00:19:51.180
as well um not just the the physical aspects so my question is uh what psychological barriers do you
00:19:59.440
think get in the way of people getting strong or stronger yeah um it's i mean i think there's a
00:20:09.660
a few different ones um you know we we we believe as many do that attitude is everything and um we spend
00:20:21.160
a lot about a lot of time talking about it and we try to distinguish ourselves you know as strong
00:20:27.080
first instructors we try to distinguish ourselves from the uh you know the hordes of trainers um
00:20:33.420
littering the landscape of the industry um we like to know pavlo says we're not trainers we're
00:20:39.680
instructors trainers trainers have dogs we have students and uh you know um he also says that we
00:20:47.980
don't have clients hairstylists have clients we have students right so it's it's definitely a mindset
00:20:54.020
thing um our our instructors they're brought together by you know the beliefs i mentioned
00:20:59.940
earlier one of which is strength has a greater purpose and strength is a skill and things like
00:21:05.320
that and they realize that the uh the barriers preventing preventing some people from uh achieving
00:21:13.080
their potential in strength training there's just a number of different ones and some people get
00:21:18.480
worried that they'll you know they'll get too big if they start strength training right so they're
00:21:25.140
more interested in you know being lean and not getting strong and they don't understand that
00:21:32.480
getting strong is a really awesome way to get lean and it's it's muscles that actually work versus
00:21:40.160
you know muscles that look and if it was easy to get to just get big by strength training
00:21:47.100
the uh the supplement industry wouldn't be as successful as it was right like there's so many
00:21:54.660
people that are are lifting and taking supplements and they still can't you know in their mind get big
00:22:00.380
enough so we kind of combat that that you know you won't really get too big if you strength train and
00:22:06.460
it's um you get incredibly strong without getting much bigger than you already are and most people
00:22:12.880
actually lose weight when they start even though they'll be gaining some muscle
00:22:16.600
um and as you start to get better and you start to pursue goals then you sometimes tell yourself
00:22:22.800
if you as you have a new goal or if you see other goals that people have achieved um you know there
00:22:28.540
there's the voice in your head saying i can't do that right um and we try to convince people that
00:22:35.480
you know we have we have a number of people who have achieved you know amazing physical feats
00:22:41.640
either as our you know beast tamers or uh tactical strength challenges or other you know other
00:22:48.480
little goals that we have and they're not all huge right so it's in many cases it's mind over matter
00:22:54.220
especially if you look at it as uh strength training as a practice and that consistency trumps intensity
00:23:02.120
you know in the long run yeah the big problem is some people find our protocols kind of boring and
00:23:11.700
and it's just like grease the groove is not that sexy no it's not every time you walk by the pull-up
00:23:18.320
bar do pull-ups um the problem is uh you know we don't chase fads what we do is timeless we stick to
00:23:26.360
what works whether it's the principle or the tool uh the tool being the kettlebell the barbell or the
00:23:31.960
body weight um we we understand that many people get the uh the exercise exercise addd and um they
00:23:41.660
want to do you know they want to do something new they want to quote feel the burn they can i've heard
00:23:46.800
people say oh i did swings twice last week and now now i'm an expert what's next and they don't so
00:23:52.780
they don't want to stick to it and master the basics and quite honestly i saw the same thing in
00:23:58.060
firearms training um you would have people who can finally hit a target five yards away
00:24:03.540
and they want to start moving and shooting with the lights off oh yeah um you know so they don't
00:24:09.520
they don't really care about the basics and when i was you know i was in the military when
00:24:13.800
when i was a young navy seal there was a place that we got some high-end firearms training
00:24:18.900
and the instructors there they said a bunch of different things and and many of them stuck with
00:24:23.560
me but none more than than this statement and that is the best do the basics better and i've used that
00:24:31.240
in so many parts of my life now and i i think it's so true in in physical training or firearms training
00:24:39.260
our world is full of people who are quote bored with the basics and mediocre if they would just spend
00:24:47.480
time on on the basics in firearms training you know the basic trigger squeeze uh at three yards and
00:24:53.920
things like that and in the kettlebell world you know our our kettlebell swing if you had people uh
00:25:00.000
spend time on those basics they'd be a lot better off they just get uh you know they just get bored
00:25:06.340
um as pavel says many times the uh the kettlebell swing takes like five minutes to learn
00:25:12.840
and a lifetime to master so um i think i think if people spent more time on basics and stuck you know
00:25:20.840
stuck to their goals instead of changing programs every you know every three weeks they'd be a lot
00:25:27.280
better off yeah i love that yeah the whole idea i guess what they call it in martial arts they call
00:25:32.760
that the white belt mentality right and uh i love there's all these like anecdotal stories from like
00:25:38.120
vince lombardi like on the first day of practice he would first thing he was doing he put hold up a
00:25:42.740
football and says gentlemen this is a football and he explained to him this is a football field
00:25:47.160
divided up into 100 yards and then um wooden the ucla basketball coach yeah he did something like
00:25:55.000
the first day of practice he would like show them how to tie their shoes so they wouldn't come untied
00:25:59.780
like that's awesome just the basics right and that and they were incredibly successful because they
00:26:05.440
focused on those basics absolutely yeah no i i've seen it you know martial arts is a great analogy
00:26:12.080
you have you have you have whether it's jujitsu or krav maga whatever you're taking some schools you
00:26:19.820
go to and you learn like six moves in an hour yeah and you feel like wow that was cool and then
00:26:25.160
you can't recall any of them yeah it matters but the good ones they spend time you know drilling
00:26:31.080
one thing and to the point of boredom but then you can you can draw on it when you need it
00:26:36.600
yeah i love that and one thing i've noticed too whenever um you start focusing on the basics is
00:26:42.460
that and you have that mentality of trying to get better at it is that you start it starts getting
00:26:47.440
like actually really interesting because you start noticing nuances um that you didn't notice as a
00:26:53.780
beginner but it takes a while to get to that place though absolutely uh i mean and that can be as
00:27:00.120
simple as you know i've been doing martial arts for a while and i'm starting to notice like just
00:27:05.360
just tweaking little things about hitting the heavy bag and you know where the power comes from and
00:27:11.180
when to tense up and when to relax and stuff like that and the kettlebell is especially our ballistic
00:27:17.420
moves like the kettlebell swing it's such a neat balance between tense relax tense relax and and the
00:27:25.480
you know the hip drive and things like that so it's uh and when to how long it floats versus you know
00:27:32.300
forcing it down uh there's just a lot of different things you can do with it so you guys offer uh
00:27:38.200
several courses uh with your with the school of strength and i you know we we do a lot of fitness
00:27:44.000
content on the site and one complaint i would call it some guys say we we talk about too like too much
00:27:50.460
like advanced stuff guys who are already fit right for the guy who's just like man that he needs to lose
00:27:56.040
30 40 pounds he hasn't exercised maybe ever in his life uh what's a good entry point exercise or course
00:28:04.320
for that that kind of guy yeah yeah um so for most people we always recommend they uh um
00:28:12.880
they they have a couple of options they can look for a uh a strong first uh certified instructor in
00:28:21.320
their area to show them some some basics with the kettlebell or barbell or body weight um it takes
00:28:28.460
um it it's it's important that if you're going to use kettlebells that you learn how to use them
00:28:37.100
safely um you see them in gyms all the time now and for the most part even the trainers at gyms are
00:28:43.800
doing the exercises wrong um but you know finding a finding an instructor getting a lesson or a group
00:28:50.260
class is is a great way to start another and i would recommend that before just buying kettlebells
00:28:56.600
and you know clicking youtube and say it go yeah another great option we have we we created user
00:29:04.320
courses uh and we have the user course for the kettlebell barbell and body weight the kettlebell is
00:29:09.740
the most popular user course and uh it's a very in-depth uh user course it's about eight hours um but you
00:29:18.620
spend a lot of time learning the basic moves and um it's a good way to learn those moves
00:29:25.240
in a in a course setting a non-intimidating environment and it's a single day um instead of
00:29:32.780
you know our certifications are three days long and they obviously cost a lot more money and not
00:29:37.860
everybody wants to be a kettlebell instructor so um we created this user course and it's a really good
00:29:43.700
option is this something they had to come out to denver for yeah no we have user courses all over
00:29:49.440
okay cool from uh you know in most states now we have user courses um but we have a user course in
00:29:56.400
denver if you ever want to come out i need to get out to denver actually my uh managing editor jeremy
00:30:01.200
lives in denver oh cool maybe i'll get him over there yeah send him send him uh send him my info i'd love
00:30:07.940
to love to send him to a user course and let him know what it goes have him uh let me know what he thinks
00:30:12.580
yeah fantastic um so what about the guy who's intermediate right or here's a question like i
00:30:18.300
know we have a lot of guys uh who are leos or in the military um do you guys have specific like
00:30:25.020
training programs for these type of guys yeah um we uh we we do a lot of training for law enforcement
00:30:31.940
and military um it's we don't really have much of that on the website yet we're you know we're going
00:30:40.460
to have our own kind of division that just focuses on that at some point we've we've already been
00:30:46.340
doing it without you know without really um having that yet um but we do there's some very very basic
00:30:54.180
stuff for them uh the kettlebell and body weight in particular are popular because they're just very
00:31:00.400
easy to have when you travel and um i i mean i'm a really firm believer in it i when i when i started
00:31:09.840
using the kettlebell my my kit my body armor whatever you want to call it it started to feel
00:31:15.920
a lot lighter i felt like i'd move around a lot better and um yeah it just really really worked
00:31:21.540
cool um so here's if you had to choose one single lift movement exercise right for someone to do
00:31:30.900
uh i know it's probably like picking children um but what would it be
00:31:34.800
um i mean for me that's an easy an easy question i would say hands down the kettlebell swing
00:31:42.740
um as i mentioned before you can you can learn it very quickly but you can spend a lifetime trying
00:31:49.000
to master it um it's a just a great movement or a great exercise for for strength and conditioning
00:31:56.380
um we've used it we've used it to help elite endurance athletes and elite power lifters um and
00:32:04.700
myself i used it you know to make myself a better soldier better operator uh it carries over to a lot of
00:32:11.680
different athletic endeavors in fact i once i once took my deadlift from 360 to 450 and this was at a body weight
00:32:21.300
of 180 so from two to two and a half times my body weight i took my deadlift up that much just by
00:32:28.480
doing three months of swings three days a week at varying intensities and and we call that the what
00:32:36.280
the heck effect because i didn't do deadlifts and i didn't do whatever that i was testing but i saw that
00:32:42.560
stuff go up or improve um nowadays i do almost no cardio i jump rope a couple times a week i do uh
00:32:51.280
a one mile walk each day of course and uh sometimes i i hike or ski on weekends and
00:32:58.220
typically i do kettlebell swings at least two to five uh days a week depending on what program i'm on
00:33:05.100
and um so no real no real uh you know cardio per se uh like most people consider cardio you know the
00:33:14.680
treadmill or the uh elliptical none of that boredom uh or as pavel says none of that dishonor
00:33:20.780
uh i and all i do is the hiking and you know the jump rope and the kettlebell and i just got a
00:33:28.140
physical and my heart rate was 47 beats a minute so it really does work as a form of uh of cardio and
00:33:37.300
the kettlebell swing is as as we say it's it's the center of the kettlebell universe if you have a
00:33:43.640
good swing you're going to be good at most of the other moves that's awesome man you've got me i'm
00:33:49.340
gonna go do kettlebell swings now yeah i'm drinking the cool i'm gonna go do it right now yeah well
00:33:55.160
that's a good thing it's i have one here in the office it just fits everywhere they do i mean what
00:34:00.580
so here's like what weight do you suggest for guys that's a good question i some uh most guys will
00:34:07.980
get the most use out of the 24 kilo uh i think that's about 53 pounds and some
00:34:14.580
is that a pood yeah i think so i have to look at the yeah one pood one pood two poods a lot of a lot
00:34:24.400
of people will get you know will will start at the 16 kilo that's not enough that's not enough for most
00:34:31.400
but uh it's a well there's some good there's some good you know some good uh moves you can do with that
00:34:38.140
i right now i'm doing the simple and sinister protocol and i'll you know i'll kind of go back
00:34:44.700
and forth between the uh the 24 and the 32 kilo so okay 32 kilos like 72 pounds or something awesome
00:34:53.880
cool simple and sinister that's the new book right yeah yep so yeah where can people find out more about
00:34:59.760
strong first and uh the programming you all offer yeah just check us out on strong uh you know
00:35:06.300
strong first dot com um it's all kind of laid out there with our courses and our certs and
00:35:11.240
links to the different books and uh you know it's just uh that's that's where we you know where we send
00:35:18.180
people and if they want if they want to find uh you know a strong first instructor in their area they
00:35:23.900
can they can find uh find those instructors through our through our page awesome well eric for
00:35:30.560
this has been an awesome conversation thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure
00:35:33.540
thanks brad appreciate it have a good day our guest today was eric frohart he's the ceo of
00:35:39.640
strong first you can find out more information about strong first and their training programs at
00:35:46.220
well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice
00:35:53.920
make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy the show
00:35:58.300
you've gotten something out of it please please please give us a review on itunes or stitcher
00:36:02.200
that'll help get the word out and the best compliment you could give us is to recommend
00:36:06.500
the podcast to a friend we'd really appreciate it anyways until next time this is brett mckay