Pavel Tsatsouline Kettlebell Strength Training Weight Lifting Workouts Exercise and Flexibility Questions & Answers.

It is my sincere belief, based on my own years of experience in martial arts, that to get to the 'next level' requires refinement of ones skills. I am a blackbelt in Brazilian Jiujitsu from the Gracie family. I have won my division in the World Championships and Pan Ams twice. I have also trained several world and Pan Am champions. All the PTP, RKC and flexibility/mobility training will not help unless one is working on skill refinement and skill rehearsal every day. I have found that daily training is a must to climb the skill ladder to elite levels. Hard training should be alternated with 'soft training'. I usually spar at contest level a couple time per week and do solo drills, partner drills and softer sparring the other days. Obviously, one cannot train at intense levels every day without severe over training. It is a fine tight rope that one walks in trying to balance volume with intensity. Having really tough training partners is an absolute must. You need to train with people that can beat you or take you to your absolute limit. I am lucky enough to have two world class level training partners. Most of ones most useful conditioning comes from the sparring itself. Supplementary training should be only a small part of the actual training schedule. A lot of guys get carried away with how many snatches they can do or how much weight they can lift. There comes a point of diminishing returns in this type of conditioning for the martial athlete. The effort required to perform some arbitrary amount of weight or reps would be better spent being used in the refining of the martial art itself. Steve Maxwell

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Zach, Heavy wooden clubs are the traditional training tool for the great wrestling cultures of central asia. Most notedly the Persians and the Hindu's of Northern India. At the turn of the last century, the Hindu's were unbeatable. Gama and his brother Gulam, destroyed all of the best european and USA wrestlers of the era. The indians used heavy club swinging as a major part of their conditioning system.The Irani's are still dominant in modern free style wrestling. Every year, they place high in team points in the Worlds and Olympics.Club swinging is still an intricall part of their training regimine. This past year at the World Freestyle Wrestling Championships at Madison Square Garden, I interviewed the Russian coach and two Irani world champs.I managed through slick questioning to get them to divulge some of their training 'secrets'. The Irani team practises the traditions of the Zurkhanee (House of Strength) which go back to the time of Alexander the Great. I use clubbells and I own two pair of Irani wooden clubs that were brought to me frm Tehran. The circular strength that the clubbells develope in the wrists, elbows and shoulders cannot be duplicated by any other equipment. It has been a big help to my jiujitsu, judo and submission wrestling students. The strength that is built at odd angles really translates well to the mat. I would reccommend clubbell training to any grappler. Start out with the lighter clubs. 25's are to heavy to start out with. These are not sand bags! They are very sophisticated training tools that require a lot of coordination and refined motor skills. 15's or even 10's are a good starting weight. Steve Maxwell

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Think about what energy systems are used in boxing. Think about how the top proffessionals in the sport train. Boxing is an extremely comlex sport that demands highly developed motor skills and coordination. Boxing uses both the aerobic and anerobic systems. A lot of time needs to be spent learning and practising offensive skills, defensive skills and stratedgies. The time required to learn all these things leaves little energy for other types of supplementary training. One of the skills of boxing is endurance itself. Being able to expend as little energy as possible while making your opponent tired is another. Obviously the best way to do that is live sparring. In the beggining, because skill levels are low, special conditioning drills are a must. Few begginer boxers can spar 12 rounds right off the bat. A boxer has to have a high endurance level to be able to use his skills. Just using sparing as the only conditioning drill for a begginner will create bad habits and a flailing or extremely defence style. Each basic skill has to be broken down. Speed bad for shoulder/arm endurance, heavy bag for power, focus mitts for accuracy and learning combination setups, rope skipping for leg and cardio stamina. Whew! That's a lot of training. The major muscles need to be strengthened as well for balance and injury prevention. Particular emphasis needs to placed on neck, jaws, shoulders, elbows and core. The legs need a lot of stamina. Begginner boxers will be exhausted by just learning the basic skills and need little supplemental training. Advanced boxers who have developed their skills to a high level, including a strong endurance base, need to crank it up a notch by including some extra supplemental work like the ones you mentioned. Even then, the majority of the time needs to be spent working on boxing. Steve Maxwell

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Yoga is the perfect balance to kettlebell training. Yoga is static, kettlebells are dynamic; yoga is deep stretching, kettlebells are short explovesive contractions (exceptions being windmills and other kettlebell drills that focus on flexibility); yoga uses slow nasal abdominal breathing (pranayama),kettlebell lifting also makes use of nasal and abdominal breathing. Yoga is not particularly cardio, even the more dynamic ashtanga styles don't tax the cardio system. Dynamic kettlebell lifting definitely stimulates the cardio/respiratory system. The flexibilty gained through yoga enhances many of the kettlebell lifts. The two diciplines are the perfect marriage. Steve Maxwell

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Warrior, Adding some cardio to your PTP routine should'nt hurt your gains. A couple of moderate cardios may enhance your recovery. Consider adding one high intensity cardio session per week such as one of the sprint protocols. A brief, high intensity cardio session will greatly improve your wind without comprimising your recovery. The Tabata protocol works nicely. The workout is only 15 minutes. Consider walking everyday for calorie control. A few miles each day really adds up in the course of a year without beating up your system. Steve Maxwell

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The basic guideline is,'train when symptoms are from the neck up; ie. stuuffy nose, congestion, cough etc. and don't train when there are symptoms below the neck; ie. body aches, fever, gastric distress.' Scale the workout down to match your energy levels. Sometimes joint mobility and a brisk walk in the fresh air is just what the 'doctor ordered.' Yoga and stretching are great for low energy 'sick' days. Heavy weight, low rep sets with long recoveries are also a good tonic. You should feel better after the workout than before if the loading perameters are correct. Steve Maxwell

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Rikard, The body is capable of improving in only one area at a time, unless you are a complete novice. Begginners often get great all around results in size, strength and endurance. After six months, the results come to a screeching halt, especially when there is to much training stimuli. PTP, high rep endurance exercises, running, martial arts, bodybuilding- where do you get the time? Way to much. You body needs rest. Exercise is an induced stress that actually lowers strength and endurance, lessens muscle mass and makes you tired. The only immediate result from exercise is an injury. It is the rest periods between bouts of exercise that allow the body to 'over compensate' and become stronger. You are not allowing this to happen on your current program. It can take up to 48 to 96 hours for the body to systemically recover from a hard bout of exercise. My best advise to you is to pick one major goal and one minor one. Spend the majority of you time on that goal and less on the minor one. The way you are going now, you are going to get poor results and burned out, injured or sick. Steve Maxwell

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The trouble with daily body building with split routines is systemically your body is always in a state of fatigue. Just because you are working one muscle group on one day and another group on another day does not mean your system is recovered. Your kidneys, liver, adrenal glands, central nervous system, pituitary etc. don't know whether it's arm day or chest day. Daily body building on top of daily martial arts training keeps the body chronically fatigued. Only athletes that use drugs can get way with that type of volume and not burn out. Certainly you alternate several weeks of higher rep endurance training with several weeks of pure strength work. Pavel reccommends two week cycles. Steve Maxwell

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There are no magic formulas. You must decide what it is that you want. If being a martial artist is really important, then plan your training around that. To be good at kung fu, you have to focus most of your attention on that. Much of the conditioning required for martial arts comes from performing the techniques of the art itself. Skill developement is always number one. Because martial arts training is strenuous and time consuming, supplementary training must be used judiciously. All supplemental training should be geared toward any weaknesses you may have. If you are muscularly weak, then PTP or Naked Warrior would be a good choice. If your endurance and cardio is poor, then high rep kettlebell snatches or swings is the ticket. If flexibility is an issue, then emphasis on isometric stretching would be in order. If everything is bad, correct the worst first and cycle your supplemental training every 4 to 6 weeks. In this way you can avoid overtraining and burnout. Steve Maxwell

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Brad, I have seen and produced this phenomominom many times. Healthy fit males (occassionaly females) that have decent or even superior cardio endurance and good strength would seem to handle the workout just fine, then get faint or sick. They would suffer a metabolic meltdown. They do great with pure strength work, but when the rest periods are condenced, their systems shut down. It's a form of shock. Their bodies can't buffer the huge amounts of lactic acid from the heavy anerobic work. I always enjoyed dropping arrogant athletes who thought they were in terriffic condition. The ability to handle high stress with minimal recoveries is an important training goal for wrestlers, jiujitsu, judo and MMA athletes. In cases where I inadvertantly poured it on a bit to much and my trainee 'fell out' , I would just back off the next time and increase recovery periods. I found that giving the person some juice like orange or apple juice would bring them around. As a young trainer,the first couple of times this happened, it was a bit scary. I later learned it was no big deal. The athlete just hasn't developed the metabolic pathways to handle really intense work. Steve Maxwell

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Daniel, Kick boxing training is extremely strenuous and uses up a lot of energy. The four days of kick boxing training in a row leave little recovery time. Valueable energy that could go into building muscle is being burned up. Basically you are trying to combine a endurance activity with a body building program. Because kick boxing training is so extensive and time consuming, many top championships don't lift weights at all let alone attempt to body build on split routine. However, gaining some muscle while kick boxing is possible if you are very careful with calorie consumption and recovery. There are several schools of thought on how to strength train for martial athletes. Because your endurance requirements are being met by kick boxing training (ie; heavy bag, focus mitts, top/bottom bag, rope skipping and sparring) all your weight training efforts should be geared toward pure strength increases. Train for strength and the rest (increased muscle mass) will follow. Get rid of any fluff exercises and stick to the proven mass gainers. No direct arm, pec or shoulder work. Select from the big man making movements. For upper body pick one major push and one major pull ie; over head standing presses, bench press, weighted dips, barbell or dumbbell rows , weighted chins or pullups. For lower body, select one major low back and hips and one thigh and hip movement. Pick from full olympic barbell squats. front squats, regular deadlifts, sumo deadlifts or stiff leg deadlifts. These are the movements that put on size and mass while building functional strength. Work in ancillary movements at the end of your routine such as standing single leg calf raises, neck harness, heavy standing shrugs and perhaps some grip/forearm work. Always end each session with some heavy duty abdominal exercises such as weighted sit-ups, hanging leg raises or full contact twists. Keep the weight high and the reps low. Train three work sets not including warmups. Hit the weights twice per week with two or even three days off between each one. If you feel tired, do the upper body work only and squat and deadlift once per week. The workout should not take longer than 30 min. eat a lot of protein and sleep at least 8 hrs. This advice has helped many a young man put on plenty of size and increase strength. Steve Maxwell

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As a former champion college wrestler with international experience in free style and Greco/Roman wrestling, 140lb. Royler Gracie destroyed me with submissions the first time that I experienced BJJ at a seminar. I could easily take him down, but so what? The moment we hit the ground, he could have basically killed me if he had wanted. Wrestling is a very limited sport. Jiujitsu is a martial art. You win in jiujitsu by strangling or submitting your opponent with a crippling joint attack. In wrestling, you merely hold the guy on his back. Ironically, I had way more injuries in wrestling than jiujitsu. Jiujitsu is actually safer because you can 'tap' out the moment something hurts. Wrestling is 50 % strength/power and endurance and 50% technique. BJJ is 90% technique and 10% strength. At Maxercise, we have had many top level wrestlers come in and be easily submitted by begginner level belts. Case in point, a five time Ukraine national champ and a two time world Greco/Roman champ from Russia came to Maxercise to test their skills against BJJ. Both guys got destroyed quite easily. Wrestling has no answer to the submissions of BJJ. For the wrestler, the fight ends once you hit the ground and the other guy is on the bottom. For the BJJ man, the fight is now just getting started. In the submission game, just because you are on the bottom doesn't mean a thing. It even gets worse for the wrestler when you put the jacket (gi) on. The BJJ man has 65% more submission techniques with the jacket. NAGA was created to give all grappling styles the same advantages. The rules only exist here in the US. In normal submission rules, te college level wrestler has no chance. Even with NAGA's rules, the contestes are almost always won by BJJ men. At the Arnold Schwartzennegar Submission wrestling championships, there have been several college all americans that didn't get past the first round. My teacher, Saulo Ribeiro, fought the number one rated catch wrestler in a professional fight at the Pro-Am tournament in NC two years ago. Saulo easily choked the catch wrestler to sleep when the guy went for a toe hold. Every two years, a wealthy arab sheik sponsers the World Submission Wrestling Championships. The first two years it was held in the Arab emirates in Ahbu Dhabi. It was an invatational and only the best wrestlers, sambo men, judo players and BJJ men were invited. Many top Russian and Japanese grapplers attended. The Brazilians so totally dominated the tournament, winning every weight class, that they changed the rules for the third one. Like NAGA, they basically penalize the jiujitsu man by limiting the ground work and his ability to use the guard. Even with the new rules, the Brazilians still dominated. I personally trained and coached Saulo Ribeiro for the last one that was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Saulo had worked on his take down skills and won several matches against former NCAA wrestling champions on the strength of his take downs. Saulo went on to win his second Ahbu Dhabi title. I have refereed and coached in tournaments all over the world. Occassionally in the begginner and intermediate levels, a good wrestler will win. You never see this at the advanced or elite levels. Steve Maxwell

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Both Randy and Dan have trained extensively in BJJ and submission. Fedor was the Brazilain top team representative in Russia. All of them could not win in MMA without having learned jiujitsu. Modern MMA has sought to limit the effectiveness of the grappling purists by requiring the wearing of bulky gloves. The gloves give great advantage to a striker and limits the grapplers ability to hold, grab and execute submissions. These gloves turn the fists into lethal weapons and allow crazy punches that if bare fisted, would result in broken hands. Guys can punch so hard with those gloves. Without them, knockouts would be hard to accomplish. In the early days of MMA, the BJJ guys totally dominated the game. Rules were a lot less then- bare knuckles, head butts, elbow strikes, groin strikes, unlimited time on the ground or in the guard. The grappler could bide his time and wait for the submission. These made for boring fights in the uneducated public eye and made for poor ratings on TV. People wanted to see lots of knock outs and punching action. Truth be told, wrestlers and strikers would never win against BJJ without all the limitations placed on the BJJ practitioners. Royce Gracie was a perfect example. No one really understood the ground game in those early UFCs and he won fairly easily even though he was not considered to be one of the top 100 blackbelts in Brazil. Royce had never been in a fight before that first UFC. Rorion Gracie wanted to show case the superiority of his families jiujitsu techniques over other martial arts. Even to this day, Brazilian's hold little reguard for Royce's skills. Sometimes it is the style, not the man. Royce exposed a huge hole in modern martial arts by showing what happens when people don't know the ground game. BJJ is the best ground game. Steve Maxwell

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Luta Livre and jiujitsu have a long rivalry in Brazil. Luta Livre is a portuguese phrase meaning 'free fight'. I have dozens of video tapes of bare-knuckle, no holds barred fights between the two factions. The jiujitsu men almost always dominate. There have been a few exceptions, but for the most part jiujitsu still reigns supreme. By the way, the so called luta livre men train in jiujitsu as well as boxing, kickboxing and wrestling. Steve Maxwell

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Alex, Dancing, at the level you describe, is a very demanding anerobic activity much like martial arts. Why would you want to run? Running is a very specific aerobic activity that will do little for your dance. Running is a slow twitch muscle activity that could actually make you less explosive in your leaps. A person can't be all things. Pick what it is that you want to be good at and then do everything possible to improve in that dommain. Running is a totally different domain. Stay with the kettlebell swings and snatches for endurance and stamina. The kettlebell lends itself more to the type of anerobic endurance that you need for dance. You are right to be concerned about overtraining. Your current routine sounds really tough. With my martial arts students(Brazilian Jiujitsu/ submission wrestling), I have found that two kettlebell workouts per week are ideal. If you wish to continue the daily grinds, you could as long as you are not dipping to much into your reserves. The explosive and dynamic tempo lifts are very taxing and should be cut down to twice per week. The specific endurance needed for dance is built by doing dance related drills and dance itself. Steve Maxwell

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BJJ was developed by the Gracie family in Brazil almost 90 years ago. Carlos Gracie learned the art from a Japanese imigrant in the early 1900's. Helio Gracie, Carlos younger brother, took the Japanese Jiujitsu he learned from his older brother and developed what is known as BJJ.BJJ is a true western martial art. Besides altering many of the attacks and holds, he also developed a whole new way of teaching jiujitsu to make it more available for begginners, regardless of athletic ability. Not all BJJ is the same. There are Brazilians who practise BJJ that have no affiliation with the Gracie family. The Gracies were the innovators. The Gracies 'street' tested their techniques in countless fights against all commers and all styles. They quickly disgarded useless techniques and kept ones that worked. Jiujitsu is so effective because it was based on real fights, not theories. Another thing that makes jiujitsu so effective is the ground game. Helio Gracie realized that most martial arts do not address the ground game.The ones that do are not well developed. He also discovered that a smaller weaker man can defend himself much more easily on the ground against a larger stronger opponent. There are many transitional moves and positions that allow the jiujitsu man to 'flow' from one devastating finishing hold to the next. Jiujitsu is the hardest martial art to learn. It takes about 10 years on average to fully master it, although the learning never stops. Unlike many traditional martial arts, jiujitsu is ever evolving and changing. New positions and holds are being created every day. I have been practising jiujitsu for over 14 years, yet I learn something new almost every day. Steve Maxwell

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The person you mention was a fool. Every art has them. You taught him a valuable lesson. Luckily it was you and not some thug.The first thing that I learned from Royce Gracie is to never tell a guy that you are about to fight what you are going to do. The art of Helio Gracie was a defensive art in nature. It was never intended to go out and take out a guy who is bigger, stronger and faster. But if that guy tries to attack me, it's going to be tough for that guy. The harder one tries to hurt the jiujitsu man, the easier it is to 'catch' him. It is much easier to defend than attack. If fighting a man of much superior strength and size, keeping him from injuring you is a victory in itself for the smaller guy. It's been my experience that sometimes you can't do anything to the bigger guy, but jiujitsu nuetralizes what he can do to you. I'm sure the person you had the experience with was a begginner who didn't know what he didn't know. No experienced person would ever talk that way. It is theonly martial art that I know of that a little guy has a chancehimself against a much bigger guy. Steve Maxwell

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I ground my assertion in that most people can earn a black belt in most martial arts in three to four years. BJJ takes an average of 10 years to earn the black belt. There are so many holds, positions, escapes etc. that sometimes the information seems overwhelming for new students. If jiujitsu isn't the hardest one to learn, it is certainly one of them. Steve Maxwell

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The other part of that, "never tell a guy you are about to fight what you are going to do", was-" always put the pressure on the other guy." "Yeah, what are you going to do about it?" Now the opponent feels pressured to say something and then do what he threatens " I'm going to punch you're face in." He has now tipped his hand as to what his attack will most likely be- 95% of the time an over hand right punch. It's amazing how many guys will respond to "what are you going to do about it." They basically lay out their initial intent not to mention the pressure of feeling that they have to back up what they said. Now you have the psycological upper hand. All you have to do is wait for the attack. The Gracies won a lot of fights with this stratedgy. The most dangerous assailent was always a quiet guy who says nothing and casually walks within range and delivers a vicious sucker punch or head butt. Relson Gracie once said that he never let anyone get within arms length that he didn't know and even more so for people he did know. Steve Maxwell

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When training, always use smooth, controlled, high tension reps. Towards the end of your pullup workouts, when you are getting tired and starting to falter, practice the pre-stretch technique below. Every two weeks, go all out. When testing max numbers, cross the ankles, go as fast, but relaxed as possible with as little tension as possible. Breathe normally and only use 'power' breathing for the last couple of reps. At the bottom of each rep, learn to 'pre-stretch' the lats with a little bounce. You must keep the arm bones in the socket to protect the shoulder from injury when using this technique. At the bottom of each rep, just drop an inch into a bounce. That will fire the lats and help spring you back up to the top. That alone should add an extra rep or two to your total. Steve Maxwell

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When a person does a pullup, they are not lifting their entire body weight. They are lifting .92 bw. Any additional weight is added to .92 bw. All of your percentges can be figured from that- total weight lifted. Gaining or losing body weight will affect your pullup ability. It's important to keep track of your weight as well. All official pullup records are based on this formula. Steve Maxwell

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I've looked very closely at he needs and training being offered for the military. It seems that the training to get through spec/ops school is very different than once a soldier makes it through and is assigned to the teams. getting through the initial school is all about strength/endurance and cardio. Body weight calesthenics with emphasis on pushups, pullups, situps, road marches with heavy packs and running.In many instances, swimming, possibly in cold water, is also very important and needs to be trained. That would be the the way to train for several months as prep work to survive the initial schooling. Most guys never make it past the first month. After one becomes a team member, strength/endurance should be maintained, but pure strength work can also be added. The worst stress is getting through the initial training. Obviously there will be a lot of combat stress later on, but there is a lot of down time as well for recuperation. Steve Maxwell

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