Bodyweight, Barbell, Kettlebell - Which is Best? /Pavel Tsatsouline | Joe Rogan

You know, machines are... this is an interesting point of view. There is a belief that machines are great for beginners. And because you don't have to control it, it's safer and it's isolated, so on and so forth. Really, machines have limited use for advanced lifters when they're injured, or whenever they have to just really focus on something. So it's possible. It's possible to use a machine if you're really messed up, you can find some angle. But a beginner starts doing leg presses to control his coordination. It's not going to have the backstrings, it's not going to have his abstrings. So machines are not necessarily bad. So the pec deck might be okay for bodybuilding looking for more cuts, or for somebody recovering from an injury knowing exactly the angle to which to push. But your typical person going to gym has no business doing that. None. One of the things that I love about kettlebells is that it promotes functional strength. It promotes the entire body moving as a unit, and that seems to apply very quickly to athletics. It's one of the reasons why jiu-jitsu people have adopted kettlebell training. So almost universally. Absolutely. There are many reasons why, but that's one of them. And non-glamorous moves like Turkish get-up, which is like one of the very best moves for jiu-jitsu. It's just phenomenal for your stability, your core, and your ability to get out from under the bottom positions. It's just a phenomenal workout. But these principles of using the entire body, and with kettlebells, using different parts of your body, using your legs, your core, your ab, all in one workout. It's also so effective time-wise, because you can get a spectacular workout in a very short amount of time. You're correct, Joe. Maybe this is a good time to discuss the benefits of kettlebells versus, let's say, barbells or body. Sure. That's a very good conversation. That's a question people ask often. Right. So I would name these as three top modalities for people. Yeah, there are some other additional things, dumbbells and whatever, but usually they're secondary. So what are the respective benefits of these different modalities? The body weight is obviously accessible. It's with you no matter where you go. But interestingly enough, the body weight requires the most coaching. So you have to, it's very subtle. Like, for example, if you look at developing something, the gym is called the hollow position. It takes a lot of coaching. To perform it, correct, even pull-up or push-up, it's a lot of work. One leg is squat, so on and so forth. So it's great, but it just takes more time, more investment. Also, the down side of the body weight would be, you can't really turn your lower back effectively. And you have to turn your lower back to see on. You just have to. And whatever you do, back extensions, other stuff, neck bridges, it's not going to do it for your back. Just won't. So body weight, great modality, but with these limitations. The barbell, if you just love heavy stuff, it's awesome. And it's just psychologically, it's extremely satisfying. A heavy deadlift, let's say. For some people, not for all. Then, if you're looking for to maximize your muscle mass, nobody has come up yet with anything other than the barbell. So you start doing some repetition, deadlift, squat, so on. So that's another reason. But let's say you're playing football, right? The problem with the barbell, first of all, is the learning curve. It takes some time to learn it correctly. It's not easy to master it. And it takes a lot of instruction. In addition, the barbell is not forgiving. So let's say that one of your shoulders is jacked up. It's just not very forgiving. Because you can't, you just have to adjust yourself to the bar, as opposed to make the implement adjust to yourself. So this is where the kettlebell comes in. First of all, the kettlebell, because it moves freely, it adjusts to your body, to your physiology, to anatomy, I should say. So it works, it works quite well. For example, Mark Rifkin, he's one of my top instructors. He was a highly successful gymnast in the past. And later on, he was a coach for women's powerlifting national team and great powerlifter too. So he cannot do bilateral exercises well, because of the mileage he sustained. He took a very bad landing as a gymnast, ruined his knee, and then from there other things went back, back, whatever. So, but he can do one arm, he cannot do two arm swings, because it just messes him up. But he can do one arm swing, so the body compensates a little differently, and he can handle it. So it's, with the proper medical clearance, it's much easier to work around problems. Then the offset center gravity, that's just a tremendous thing for your back, I'm sorry, for your shoulder. So the position is to put your shoulder in. You cannot do it with anything else. But, and you obviously have the get up, which is an amazing exercise. You cannot do it as well with other implements. But the ballistics, that's another unique benefit of the kettlebell, swings and snatches, exercises like that. The benefits of these exercises are many. So, first of all, ballistic loading obviously is part of sports, and it's a part of life. And, oftentimes, it's hard to do it safely. Go ahead, start jumping. It, like before somebody starts jumping correctly, jumping off boxes and so on and so forth, just even, you know, hopping across the floor, it requires some coaching, it requires getting some strength, it requires addressing some dysfunction, so on and so forth. The kettlebell swing, for example, it's so many hard men with high mileage who are really banged up in so many different ways, their backs, their knees, their hips, they're able to do swings safely. That's just remarkable. And the ballistic contraction is very important. So you have to run, you have to jump, you have to do things like that. But it goes beyond that for your health, for your longevity. So, as we grow older, there's a loss of type 2 muscle fibers, so the strong ones, the fast-wish fibers. And there are several problems with that. First of all, they're metabolically needed for the body to be healthy, to process sugar, so on, so on and so forth. Second is to deal with real-life situations. You know, like it's very unfortunate, some old person trips and breaks a hip, it's terrible, and oftentimes the reason is just weakness. And we need these fast fibers because whenever you trip, you have this reflexive contraction, these fibers go online first. So if you don't have them anymore, you've got massive problems, right? So another reason is in type 2 fibers, there is mitochondrial degeneration takes place, as you grow older, much faster than others. And if you don't take care of that, it's also that's aging. So you've got to train this type 2 fibers. And there are only two ways to train type 2 fibers. It's heavy or fast, so there's no third way. So whenever people try to do some sort of a super slow this or Pilates that, whatever, it's not going to do it. So you have to train heavy or you have to train fast if you want to stay young. So are you completely against that kind of super slow training? Not at all, but for totally different reasons. There is, well, obviously one reason is possibly somebody's injured, right? Another reason is to develop your type 1 endurance fibers, hypertrophy for these fibers. Why would you want to do that? Well, first of all, type 1 fibers, the downside of these fibers is they contract slower. So obviously that's a downside for some sports, for some activities. But they're also more efficient, which means it's plus for other sports, right? So another positive here, they already come pre equipped with mitochondria. So mitochondria, that's where aerobic metabolism takes place. And by building your type 1 fibers, you automatically get more endurance in addition to muscle mass and strength too. So super slow work is good for that, but it has to be done correctly. The proper methods were developed by Russian professor Viktor Silyanov. And so he developed this method. I'm going to summarize it for you right now for your free listeners. That's something you can easily do yourself. Easily is not the word, simply. So the duration of a set is 30 to 60 seconds. You have to select the range of motion where there's no stacking. There's no support from your bones at all. So for example, if you were to do a squat, you go down below parallel, but not to the point where you're sitting on your calves, and come up just a little above parallel and below again. So just at most unpleasant, the most painful area. If you're doing, let's say, pushups for your chest, for example, you would almost brush the deck with your chest, come up about halfway and come back down. And the speed is very slow. So there's no momentum at all. Now, it doesn't sound like anything new, but here's what's new. Silyanov, I optimize the rest periods, and that's a big game changer. Normally, when people train in this manner, bodybuilders and others, they just want to get more burn possible. And by the way, the burn is awful. And in this particular case, you want to train closer failure. In this particular case, that's just a muscular training. That's not strength training, per se. So they try to run from one set to the next. So they'll do this, let's say, that 30 seconds set, then they will just rest for 30 seconds to do it again, completely hammer themselves. The problem with that is, even though we do not know the exact mechanisms of muscle growth, we do know that some lactic acid is needed, but too much lactic acid is destructive. So what Silyanov did is he figured out, after this kind of set, you have to rest for 5 to 10 minutes. And it sounds for people, it's a very hard mental thing to do. So here I am going for this massive burn, and I have to wait for 5 to 10 minutes. But it's very simple. You introduce another exercise in between. So train twice a week, 5 to 10 sets on a heavy day, eventually, once you build up to it. And about 1 to 3 sets in a light day. That's it. Now this is incorporating super slow techniques? Oh, yeah. And who would this be good for? Resters. For resters, it's spectacular. Because even though there are explosive elements there as well, but it's also very much there's that static element, static endurance. And one of my strong first certified instructors, Roger from the UK, I had him follow this protocol before he and his crew rode across the Atlantic. And he did much better after most people and was much happier, if you can be happier, rowing across the Atlantic. So for rowing, for wrestling, for bodybuilding, for some people who cannot do anything else. So that's a good protocol. So this is essentially a muscular endurance protocol? You know what? It's both. Because the muscle is getting bigger, and it will get stronger as well. But it won't be faster. It's not something you would incorporate with a boxer. No, absolutely not. No, definitely not. Resters, yes. MMA, you just have to use your judgment there. Depending upon your style.