Training Secrets From The Freak Of Nature Who Can Hoist 51 Reps Of Double 72 Pound Kettlebells In 10 Minutes.

Why, hello, this is Ben Greenfield. I've been getting very strong using kettlebells, and I interviewed a guy who has been integral in making that happen. A guy who is a freak of nature who can hoist 51 reps of double 72 pound kettlebells overhead in 10 minutes. His name is Mike Salemi. He's the world clean and jerk champion in kettlebell lifting. And we delve into that and a whole lot more on today's episode. One of his mentors and instructors is Paul Ch. Any of my Palchek episodes, you're going to dig this one. I went to San Diego and I trained with Mike for a couple hours down there. Then we sat down in my friend Drew Canole's living room to record this. So I think you'll dig it.

We also video recorded the whole thing. So if you go to the show.

Notes, which I will announce during today's podcast how you can go to those, you'll be able to watch the video, too. If you want to see me and Mike sitting there at the table chatting or see us being complete beasts in the garage of Drew, at least you'll see Mike being a complete beast and you'll see me flailing with a kettlebell.

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

So for a novice who has no experience, for sure, getting a qualified coach first and foremost, and hopefully a qualified coach has some system of an assessment process to define where the person is in that moment and then structure the training program progressively so that they can hopefully get whatever their goal is. When you're first learning a skill, I like keeping the rep low, get your rest periods, make sure you've got enough time to refocus, let the nervous system calm down, and then you go back into it.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

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I'm feeling good. I got all my sweaty sweatiness from that garage gym workout cleaned off. And you look good, too, man. Did you get a cold shower in?

I did, I did. Ice cold.

Yeah, that felt good. And for those of you listening in, Mike Salemi and I We just do you like Salimi or Salemi, by the way? Salami.

Salemi is the pronunciation. But my nickname, always in powerlifting as I was a kid, was Salami Mike, Pepper, Turkey Mike. It was always lunch meat names.

But I'm just gonna call you Salami. So, you know, we were out in my buddy Drew Canole's garage out here in San Diego, and you did what you called working out and working in, which I understand is a technique that you learned from Paul Check. But can you walk me through just a couple of things that we just got done doing in the garage?

Sure. So what we did, essentially, because I know you're getting ready for your RKC snatch test, which for the people that aren't familiar with that, that's five minutes. For the males, 24 kilos snatching in five minutes, you got to get 100.

Reps. That's freaking hard.

It's really hard.

My buddy's a badass. He's been on this podcast twice, Joe DiStefano. And sorry, Joe, because I know you're a listener, but he admitted this on the podcast. He failed it. And that made me nervous because he's pretty fit.

Well, like anything, you know, technique plays such a huge role. And a lot of our work today was really just trying to help you be maybe a little bit more of a technical lifter. Because, I mean, already, like, I already know, already know wind and gas is not going to be an issue for you, right, because your motor is infinite, can go for days for you, it's going to be just technique, technique, some alignment stuff. And the better your technique is, honestly, once you start nailing those and really start refining the technique, it's going to be not necessarily a walk in the park, but you've got all the foundations of what you need in terms of mental, mental fortune. I know you're not going to quit. You've got the gas tank. It's just refining. And anyone who takes the RKC strong first, whatever it is, the five minute snatch test, no one goes into that unprepared and passes or slim to none. So. And that's one of the things I appreciate about that test is there actually is a high failure rate. So you have to work in it, you have to practice it. So when you go through that curriculum, you're showing up what people have put in the time and really worked for it. So what I appreciate about you is I know you said you've got it in February, so you're starting at a good time. And I know you've practiced a little bit before.

It's like, that's like what, five months? Five months. Four or five months from now.

Right.

I'm a planner. I'm a prepper. I live out in the forest off the grid. I am really a prepper.

My first powerlifting coach was one of my biggest mentors when I was a kid. He would always say the 5P's prior preparation prevents poor performance. And so I would always just drill that in. So I like what you're doing, I like your mindset and I think you'll do really well at it.

Awesome. Okay, cool. So for example, one of the things that we were doing was just like super slow kettlebell cleans, bottoms up, over the head, down, three per side. Far different than what I told you is my usual soul crushing workout where I'd just be. And then we'd just stop and we'd do like 10 super slow, like tai chi type of. Have you always worked out like that?

No, no. Actually that whole methodology of training was introduced to me when I was really working with Paul. Check. Now I was exposed to Paul Chek's work when I was 18 as a competitive powerlifter. Right before I was really at my peak. 18, 19 is.

Yeah. I want to back up and hear about how. Because you weren't, you weren't. You like it like a, you were a powerlifter and then you got into kettlebell. Yeah. Okay, so, so walk me through this.

So my base, I mean, as a kid, as a young kid, I was a gymnast. And so while I didn't go to an extremely high level due to injury, that really set the foundation for movement and my appreciation of movement, body awareness. I think gymnastics and also martial arts are really two fantastic developmental sports that you can put any kid through. So that was really my base. And from there I got into competitive powerlifting. And obviously powerlifting is a strength based sport. And that's really where my mindset and also my physical abilities really shine because I would. And this is something I really realized when I was working with Paul is I'm a very much a fast twitch athlete. So from the age of about 14, 15 up until my mid-20s, I was very competitive in powerlifting. And at my peak before I really stopped at, kind of got to my highest level at the time, I was thinking when I was 19, I was weighing 178 and my best squat was 605. Best deadlift was 615. And then my best bench was 470.

You were like my friend Matt. In college, Matt and I were night and day. He was total fast twitch. He was hairy like you, you know, he's like this hairy Italian guy. And we'd go for a run, right? I just run. I'd run for days, but he'd run like the first half mile super fast. We'd go to the gym and he'd crush me on the bench. But then I'd just keep benching rep after rep after rep after rep. So, yeah, it's night and day. I can tell what kind of athlete you are. Like the fast twitch mesomorph, powerlifter type athlete.

I love that intensity and that preparation. I love that type of training, which that's really where I took to. And that was all drug free powerlifting. And then I got into a little bit of Olympic weightlifting in college and really liked that. But then at the time I was a strength and conditioning coach at the collegiate level and I took a kettlebell sport because a lot of times when I was working with athletes, it was always either on the mats, on the courts, outside. And so I needed something that, as much as I love the barbell, I needed something that was versatile, portable and something that was relatively small in size. So I took a kettlebell certification and I was hooked. And one of the main instructors at the OR actually he was the assistant instructor and his name is John Wild Buckley, who's one of, one of the coaches I worked for a number of years in kettlebell sport. He pulls me aside after and was just saying, you know, I think here's kettlebell sport. But prior to that point I had no idea what it was. I was like, kettlebell sport, tell me more. And so he explained what it is. We.

I want to know what it is too.

Yeah. So obviously powerlifting, one rep max squat, bench deadlift, Purest test of absolute strength. Kettlebell sport, which is one of the primary ways in which they train the Russian military is very much a strength endurance sport. Now classically in kettlebell sport you've got two main events. It's branching out a little bit more. But the main event that I compete in is called long cycle. And really what that is is just a clean and jerk men. Two kettlebells, one in each hand. At the professional level, we compete with 132 kilo kettle. So 72 pounds in each hand.

72 pounds in each hand.

In each hand, dude, for 10 minutes non stop. You can't set it down. If you set it down, sets over.

Oh my gosh. So what setting it down means, does that mean if it touches the ground.

Touches ground, cancelles ground. Right. So your rest is here and your rest is here. So you can imagine the mental fortitude, the strength, the endurance, the grip, which is usually the limiting factor in a lot of lifters. And you got to repeat that. And based off of your weight class and the repetitions you get, that indicates what kind of ranking you're in. And so at my best in kettlebell sport, in the long cycle category, that my best was 50, 51 repetitions at 73 kilos. So almost I was about like 159, 160 pounds when I weighed in for that. And so that the reason why that.

Really is so that that's in 10 minutes, a 73 pound or 72 pound kettlebell in each hand. And you did how many reps?

51.

51 reps?

No, you.

Because both hands.

Both hands. And I also compete in the double 40 kilo category, which is 288 pound bells, one in each hand. And that's more of a feat of strength category that not too many people compete in. And that one, I've competed in the five minute category. So five minutes clean and jerk unbroken, as many reps as you can without setting the bells down.

That's what you're the world champion in.

I'm world champion at the, at the 32s.

The, the 40s is the 32s is a 72 pound.

Yeah, that's the professional. That's, that's really like the, the, the level that every, the every main large kettlebell sport lifter is kind of compared against the 40s is more like a feat of strength and something that, that was something I was really working on with Paul. And that's still something I'm trying to get. My goal is to try and be the first American or the first North American at least in competition to hit the highest or one of the highest ranks with 40 kilo belts.

Okay, so walk me through what a sample workout would look like for you to get ready for something like that.

So right now I'm in a competition cycle. So I compete on, I think it's like the weekend of whatever is December 7th, 8th, something like that. And for the first time in over eight years of competing, I'm going to try a different category. So I've been competing classically in the long cycle or the clean and jerk. Now I'm going to compete in the second classic event, which is actually 20 minutes of non stop lifting. It's 10 minutes, two kettlebell jerks. Without setting them down. Up, down, up, down. 10 minutes unbroken, 232 kilos, 10 minutes nonstop. Then they take that score.

No wonder the Russian military is so badass.

They take that score and then you come back later in the day and you compete in a single kettlebell snatch with one hand switch for 10 minutes, 32 kilos. So some people you can based off in training, I usually switch at the five minute mark, but in competition my right arm is much more coordinated than my left arm due to some injuries and just not being I'm right hand dominant. So strategically in competition I might go 5, 30 on the right, 6 minutes on the right, and then I might switch. But it's going to be as many repetitions as possible. So right now, my training, every training session combines the jerk component, double kettlebell jerk, and then a single kettlebell snatch.

Now, even before you do all that stuff, you kind of walk me through this warm up. That to me was very similar. I did a podcast with this guy a while back. His name was Jake. He's an Eldoa instructor. E L D O A is this form of like deep fascial stretching, which I know now you're familiar with, but the warmup that you do with me is very similar to that. You do a lot, a lot of this Eldoa type of fascial stretching too.

I do the Eldoas and that's something that I teach also with my athletes. And it's been the Eldoa as well as a company with myofascial stretching, which is two techniques that Dr. Guivoyer developed. Those two tools has been really useful for me.

Dr. Guivoyer is the guy who developed this Eldoa stretching. And for those of you listening in, by the way, you got to listen to the Eldoa podcast too, if you want to get that one hand in hand with this. I've got all the show notes for this episode. If you just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Salemi not Salami BenGreenFulfitness.com Salemi it's s a L E M I. So you work in your warmup and then you're basically, it seemed to me like you do very, very short, powerful sets and then long rest periods.

So we'll kind of go through the classic training. So usually when I first get into a training session, there's always a core temperature warm up component just to get the blood flowing, get your fascia nice and warm. After that, which we did kind of some marching in place and Some arm raises overhead, then we go into an osteoarticular warmup which essentially is a form of joint mobility. So we start from the ankles all the way up. And that form of kind of preparation is definitely something that I learned from the Aldo community and Guivoyer and his courses. And then we got into the training. Now the training, usually in my own training, I'll do some type of activation type exercise, which is something that I learned straight up from Paul, which, which has been super helpful. We didn't get to do that, but essentially it turns on the entire system and can override any prior, let's just say improper movement patterns you have or any type of, any type of thing that you've got going. It can kind of override that. So you're, you're fresh and you're turned on. And after that we go into training. So I like starting off with technique work. So in the beginning of our session we got into two handed deadlifts, we went into single arm deadlifts because one of the things that we went over today was trying to get you prepared for the RKC snatch test. A few tips on that. So because you've got to do your five minutes of single arm snatches, I wanted to progress you into that, but kind of take you through drill step by step. And the foundation of the snatch goes down to the clean, goes down to the swing, goes down to the deadlift. So anyone with any faulty mechanics in their deadlift technique, it's going to be magnified as you move up the chain. So today what we did is we did an alternating kind of swing up to a snatch progression. We did swings, high pulls, then snatches. We only did about 5 reps per side because when you're doing high tension lifts like that and you're really focusing on power, speed, explosiveness, because the fast switch muscle fibers don't have a long duration at which they can essentially operate optimally at. I like, and especially when you're first learning a skill, I like keeping the reps very low, get your rest periods, make sure you've got enough time to refocus, let the nervous system calm down and then you go back into it. There's a time and a place to push it and do endurance training. But when you're really focusing on learning the technique, especially trying to be powerful, it's all about you lay down the.

Technique and then eventually you get to the point where you're practicing just going to the pain cave in terms of getting those hundred reps in, in under five minutes. Right. How is your training different than that?

So my training, because I've got to go essentially 20 minutes non stop. So my training is much more continuous, much more an endurance base. But I think people would be pretty surprised because my training isn't and it's gotten way shorter over the years for a combination of reasons. But my training really is only between. I do a lot of interval training, so I'll just give you exactly what my last training was, just to give you a tidbit or snippet of what it was. So because I'm progressing into the double 32 jerks, right now I'm at 28 kilos. So I started at 16 about almost two and a half months ago. And every two weeks increase the load gradually. I do a lot of shorter sets, rest periods, a lot of interval training. So it was five, just five one minute sets. I did about 17 reps in one minute. 17 reps. And it was only minute on minute off. Minute on minute off. So that was my training for the jerks. Then I went into the snatch. Now the snatch is a, it's. The snatch is the most, in my opinion is the most technical. Whether it's a hard style type snatch or a kettlebell sports snatch, it is the most technical lift there is. So for me, I'm honestly not so concerned about the weight that I'm lifting. I'm more concerned is can I maintain the technique as I get fatigue. So for me, to give you an example, I was doing double 28 kilos on the jerks, but I was only doing 22 kilos on the snatch and really focusing on a fast pace and just on technique and keeping the pace as I got fatigued.

When I was with Paul Check the past couple of days, he told me, Mike trains way less than his peers do. Like, and like shockingly less than a lot of the people you compete against. What is it that you were doing that allows you to do that? Like, what's, what's the secret sauce?

Well, I think, you know, over the years in kettlebell sport, the kettlebell sport is changing. So now I'm starting to see a little bit more awareness in the sport. But especially when I first got into it, it was, it was really tough training. The volume was super high. And there was almost like an assumption that most just like any competitive athlete or in just our Western culture in general, that more is better. However, one of the things I learned with Paul is through his system of managing the entire person and really tracking certain indicators or signals of when someone's under high physiological load, I was able to modify my training, whether it was volume, exercise, or even like we did today. As you mentioned, we combined today. One of the things after our snatch training, we went right into combining working out with working in. So, for example, if I was under high amount of stress because I was under a relationship challenge, a work challenge, or I was in a pre competition phase where the training balls out. If, for example, let's just take morning heart rate, if that was elevated beyond a certain point of what I was in, let's say the green zone, to train, I would modify my training volume or just have it be a work in or a combo day like we did in the gym. So that type of thing allows me to not only it allows me to essentially not burn out so I can get to the competition with vitality. Because before what I was doing is I was just training every session. And even if I was feeling beat up or I was over trained or I was super stressed, I would just get the workout in because I'm a committed athlete. And my assumption was I had to do the workouts in order to get a desired result. When, yes, you have to be committed. Yes, you have to stay on the plan. But at the same time, in my experience at least, you want to honor where you are in that given moment. And so through one, monitoring my body in that moment, having Paul there to help kind of coach me to interpret those signals and then help guide me in what I should be doing, I was training almost, I would say 25% less than before, but my results were the same, if not usually a lot better.

Okay, so if I understand this correctly, and I want to ask you about how you guys are tracking your physiological readiness in a second. Because I know there's like, there's rings, there's watches, there's bikes, biohacks, there's just listen to your freaking body. I want to know what you guys did. But in a nutshell, what you're saying is that if an athlete or an exercising individual wakes up in the morning or on any given day and they assess where they're at physiologically and then do their training based on where they're at physiologically, they can get by on a lot less training than their peers because they're always operating in a relatively recovered or restored state.

Correct.

Now I'm going to call you out on that just a little bit. What if you want to engage in like this concept of periodization, like overreaching and super compensation, like, do you actually go through periods of time where you intentionally dig yourself into a hole or is your philosophy just like always train recovered?

No. I mean, it depends. So, for example, when I came to Paul, I came to him injured. That was the main reason I was going to see him. So I was going to see him for a specific orthopedic injury that no one could figure out. And so in that moment, for sure, I was 100%. If I wasn't feeling right or my markers weren't in line, I would just back off for sure. Now that's pretty tough for an athlete because let's say you got a competition lined up or you've got a specific goal, it could prolong that you might have to change your plan. So for me, it was initially, it was challenging to be open to that, but once I kind of embraced it, and once I did embrace it, then I realized, okay, I don't want to be the type of athlete, it's not my dream to be the type of athlete that only gets to a goal one time, two times, three times. My goal is to be able to do whatever sport it is, whether it's powerlifting, kettlebell, sport, jujitsu, you name it, for the duration of which I have the dream to compete in that. In order to do that, in my experience, you need a little bit more of a mindful approach. Now, to answer your question, absolutely. Super compensation. Those kind of periodization strategies, I definitely use those, those do come in. But what I found is if an athlete, and I'm speaking for myself and the athletes that I coach, if they don't have management of themselves, then the hole that they could drive themselves into is going to take them a long time to get out of it. And one of the things that you classically see, let's just use competitive bodybuilding, for example. This is why you see so many, I see this in the fitness world a lot. So many competitive bodybuilders especially, or fitness competitors, especially females, they'll enter a competition, they'll look amazing on stage, and then they've driven themselves into such fatigue, adrenal fatigue, hormonal fatigue, that they never can come back on stage again. So I think it's a very. You need to be under the eye of a skillful coach who knows how to not only interpret the, at a skillful level, the periodization scheme, but also how to marry that in a holistic model with what's going on with the individual.

Gotcha. So I got a few follow up questions on that. First of all, what was the injury that you came to Paul with.

So the injury that I. The injury that I thought I came to Paul with, at least. No, the injury that I came with Paul with was a compartment syndrome. So compartment syndrome in my left forearm, which essentially was every single time that I would do a tough effort in the gym. So let's just say, I mean, it really could happen at lightweight, heavy loads, you name it. But anytime I would push it, especially in competition, my left forearm would swell up with blood and I would lose all feeling in my hand. So I was preparing like an animal, anywhere from three to six months for a competition. I was dotting my I's, crossing all my T's, my nutrition, sleep, everything's in check. And I would get to the competition and I would usually fall a few reps short of one of the highest ranks in kettlebell sports. So it took me almost five years to reach that ranking because of this. And it wasn't until I went to Paul and started really getting assessed in terms of looking at not only what is the. What was being expressed was essentially the same symptom. But what we found was there was a number of other things going on. For example, I had by birth, which was confirmed by X ray, an anatomical short leg on my left, which was beyond a certain degree that's considered significant. So I was essentially always walking in a hole. Then I had a pretty significant atlas axis subluxation. So my.

You didn't know all this when you went to Paul? He figured all this out?

Paul did. But also, you know, working with Paul is, as you know, quite a big investment. So what we did to strategize, that is, I had.

He's got like a friggin Batman lab up. His assessment room is crazy, right?

It's really neat, right? And so what we did was to make it a little bit easier on me financially was we worked with one of his high level practitioners in my area, which is a guy by the name of Johnny Suarez, excellent high level Czech practitioner, very good, very thorough approach. I call him the scientist. And so he would run my assessments and then he would send that information to Paul. So it was very much a team approach. He would send that information to Paul. Paul would take a look at all the numbers, all the orthopedic assessments and then when I would go see him once a month, I would fly down for one to two days to San Diego. We would review how did the prior month go, what's the strategy, where I am, what am I lacking. And then we would create the program based off of that. So Johnny was the one initially who kind of started finding these things. And then Paul also took it to another level.

Okay, what was one of the things that Paul did, do you think, to identify issues with you that nobody else was seeing? Like was there anything special or is it just his eye for detail? And having worked with so many people.

It'S a good question, I think for sure. The eye, I mean, he's assessed and looked through. I mean just like for example, if I was watching someone do a kettlebell swing literally from the back of a room, I could pretty smart, pretty much spot what they need to work on, where they're lacking, where possibly I want to go from a flexibility, mobility standpoint. So he's seen thousands of people, not only from a movement side, the strength and conditioning side, but especially from the corrective side. So he saw me do a few repetitions and then he really realized. So in addition to some orthopedic stuff that was going on, I had a very. There was a large imbalance between the phasic system or the prime mover system and my tonic system or the postural system. So essentially, as I would get fatigued, I wouldn't be able to essentially control where my arm was in a field of gravity. So it start getting unstable and then I would start over. Gripping the bell would be getting out in front of me. So I wasn't able to manage, you know, going back to. I'm a power lifter, so I got, I got the motor, but I need the level of stability to match that. Otherwise it's only a matter of time before injury is going to kick in.

Okay, gotcha. The other thing that you mentioned was that you measure the physiological load. How do you actually measure that?

So in Paul's system he teaches, I believe it's in his check Practitioner level one. He's got a questionnaire that he uses and yeah, I believe it is, or possibly it's in his check Exercise coach course. But essentially it's a category of questions based off of musculoskeletal system, limbic, emotional and hormonal. Limbic, emotional and hormonal stress. So essentially what you do is you wake up each morning and you fill out this questionnaire. So what it is, is it's walking.

You every single morning.

Every single morning. So I charted it for two and a half years every single day in conjunction with his four doctor. His four doctor system of looking at doctor Quiet, doctor Movement happiness.

We talked about that. By the way, if any of you haven't listened to my first two episodes with Paul, check definitely go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Salemi and listen to him. Those are probably perfect ones to listen to along with this one. So you respond to these morning questionnaires and you were saying about the doctors.

So those. And then I would track them essentially on Google sheets. So while I was away, Paul could kind of check in and we graphed everything. So not only was I tracking things like morning heart rate, which is a very classic indicator of just overall physiological load and stress, but we are, we were looking at all the other factors. So from a chart perspective. And this was also correlated to my training loads and training volumes. So we had a whole spreadsheet not only looking at what was the training like month to month, but what was my four doctor system, how was I managing myself as well as what were the indicators of physiological load. And then through that, I mean it's a very thorough, very thorough and detailed process. But he could see from a distance and then undulate, help me undulate the programming. And really after, you know, I would say it probably took me a good year and a half to learn and to a good degree master that system. But I was working dedicated with him for two and a half years to where? To the point now where unless I'm trying to figure out something that I can't, whether it's a performance issue, a skin issue, a digestive issue, I go back to that system. But for the most part now it's ingrained in me. So no matter what program I'm on, because right now, for example, I'm working with, in terms of kettlebell sport, my coach is seven time world champion Denis Vasiliev. And with his type of training, it's obviously different than Paul. But I'm able, no matter what program I'm working on, which is I think a huge asset, I've got essentially my internal indicators turned on.

Now. Did you ever question when you look at all these technologies that are out there, like the, that, you know, like this ring that I'm wearing that spits out your readiness score or the straps that you put on that measure heart rate variability and nervous system readiness, or, you know, like these, these, you know, there's like the whoop is another one that I know of or the Bioforce, the elite hrv, do you ever question like, couldn't I just like skip all these questionnaires and just like strap on a turbaid and know where I'm at? I think it'd be convenient because that's what I'm wondering.

I think it's very convenient and I did try at some point, the hrv, but what I didn't. I didn't do it for an extended period of time, to be honest. But what I didn't like was having to wear, at least at that time. I don't know if it's consistent now, but the heart rate monitor, the chest strap to bed, because I found it was constricting respiration, you don't.

You just put it on for like five minutes in the morning.

Oh, okay. Okay.

Yeah.

So with that, that was one of the things, at least the way I was using, done incorrectly, why I didn't continue with that. And I think those could be good. But for me, I'm very open to that sort of thing. But I also want to be able to be anywhere around the world, whether it be in the jungle, be in the traveling, and be able to know internally through a practice of mindfulness, through a practice of awareness, and all these factors to where. While it's good, I think, to have some of these technologies, it's also very valuable to be able to function without them because I think they can be very beneficial. But if we're over reliant on them, then we're.

So you like to use these questionnaires?

I like to use these questionnaires.

But how long does that take to fill up?

Well, now, if I were to do it now, honestly. Two minutes, Three minutes? Two, three minutes at least. The readiness assessment, the four doctors, I would be typing in more stuff. What am I eating? Meal to meal and such.

Okay. Now, when you worked with Paul, he told me to ask you this, actually, and you alluded to this, that he had kind of a holistic approach. And it's no secret to podcast listeners who have heard my other episodes with Paul that Paul and I have done ayahuasca and DMT together and we've journeyed. I'm curious how much of that you did in your coaching and how the emotional and spiritual component affected your performance or your injury recovery or anything else. Okay, it's time to go woo woo, baby.

It's time to go woo woo. Yeah, we're going deep now. We're going deep. So at least my experience with Paul. So Paul, first and foremost is a licensed shaman, so he's licensed to do that type of work. And we didn't do. I've only done two shamanic journeys with Paul, and that didn't take place until about two years into our coaching. So with Paul, it's not something at least my experience with Paul and how I know he operates. It is not something that's taken lightly by any means. It's very ceremonial. There's a whole preparation process that goes before it. Again, it took me two years to kind of be at the, at a place where I could manage the possible or potential experience that was going to happen. So two years of preparation to get there. And then there was a preparation pre guidance during and then also an integration after to interpret what was coming up so that ultimately would make me a better person going into sport and going into life. So it was a very, for me, very beautiful experience, a very powerful experience. I think some of the lessons that I've taken from them and I'm continually trying to be mindful of and work on is not so much. You know, when I first started competing, I was always the all or nothing athlete. So I trained six months for a powerlifting competition. Back then I would at that time, based off the information that I had before I had to eat, be healthy. For example, I was doing the best I could. I was slamming Gatorades, I was eating your standard EAS diet approach and it was always all or nothing. So after a competition I would binge eat and go drinking with my buddies. And it was just an unhealthy practice, but I was always outcome goal oriented. And so working with Paul, one of the things that I realized was this whole idea and also through the ceremony was this concept of being more process goal oriented. So to making the process of learning about myself along the way to manage my lifestyle stressors, which you know, the coaching with Paul very much. Yes, I was going to him for performance and orthopedic issues. But if you look at the person which in a holistic model looks at the mental, emotional, the spiritual and the physical, you've got to consider all those because I could tell you from at least my experience and I've seen it cycle to cycle in over two and a half years. If I was under some type of family stress or work stress that shot up my numbers and that directly had an influence in my training. So to say that the mental emotional component does not influence that. I've been able to track that and I could show you side by side, cycle to cycle. And even when I was in a pre competition phase, boom, you would start seeing everything undulate. So for me, a program that only addresses the physical is missing, you know, three quarters of a four of a car that's got four wheels.

The other ones being the other wheels.

Being the mental, the Emotional and the spiritual.

Mental, Emotional and spiritual.

So it was, our coaching was very much physical, but also had impacts on those areas. And the journeys for me brought me into, with specific intentions and specific questions that I had a newfound level of awareness. And then it's a process that's still continuing to this day. I mean, it's something that I'm still working on the lessons and it's something that doesn't, doesn't end. It's not like something you. At least the journeys that I've done with Paul, it's nothing. You do a journey and then it's over. Because then you miss the whole, you miss the whole message of it.

Yeah.

Had you done that before? Was that, was that weird for you to do like a, like a plant based medicine journey based on your upbringing or anything else? Like, was that, was that kind of a new thing for you?

Well, I grew up Catholic and it was definitely a new thing for me and it was definitely scary. But I think after, I know after two years of being exposed to Paul's work and having just a different, having a different experience with it, whether it was even just pot or marijuana to help, I was always against that growing up because my experience with it, watching my buddies in high school, my buddies in middle school, was just not a healthy one. They were just doing it more as an escape. And that's fine, provided it's a conscious choice. But I always didn't really like that because I was always the dedicated athlete and I thought it would get in the way of my training. But then when I worked with Paul and there was an intention, intent, a purpose, and also used more as therapy to build the physical and all the other components to what builds an athlete, it really made sense to me. And I think too, it's the one of the reasons why I get so excited about going after the next goal. Even now, like, what's next? What's next and keeps me hungry is at every level of my journey as an athlete. As the physical goals rise, in order to do so, in this model, you have to also rise simultaneously in your mental capacity, your emotional and your spiritual. So the whole person, the entire individual elevates. And that's what really excites me. Because at the end of the day, my dream is to really become a whole athlete and to share what it means to be a more balanced and a mindful athlete with everyone around the world.

You talked about changing your diet. What's your diet look like now, like, to fuel yourself for this beast of a competition? I'M just curious like how many calories you have to suck down, what your approach is. If you do like the vegan thing, the meat thing, the keto thing, what are you doing as far as fuel goes?

You know, I don't really subscribe to. I mean I would say my diet is more or less ancestral or Paleo S type diet, but it's really more of an intuitive type eating program. So I don't, you know, before I used to be very, very restrictive on what I would eat, what I would not eat. I mean I don't eat usually any gluten containing grains or anything like that. No dairy, few to know nuts and seeds, don't drink alcohol. So it's a very clean diet. But that's more of a lifestyle for me in terms of performance based, I would say it's really just based off of feel. So depending on the training, if it is something like a pre competition phase where I am pushing it, one of the things I find very much like I crave, crave carbohydrates so I'll use a lot of plantains, sweet potatoes, kind of the more paleo friendly ones. But if I'm more in a strength phase like on the off season or immediately after a competition, which I love so still the power lifts and the Olympic lifts, man, like I really crave meat. So I allow myself now to be able just to, you know, check in with myself before a meal. I have a practice where essentially I try and check in with myself, do a few, few deep breaths and just ask myself, how much food do I want, what type of food? And just allow myself the freedom.

I notice Paul does the same thing. Like he woke up in the morning and we have. Penny was making eggs, his wife was making eggs. And Paul walks in the kitchen, he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, breathes out and he's like, my body says no eggs this morning. Just like grab the sausage and the kale. Is that the kind of thing you do?

Pretty much. And I know it looks pretty crazy.

It'S not scientific, but I do that. Sometimes I'll grab like a supplement. Sometimes there'll be something I'm going to dump in a smoothie, sometimes something I'm going to sprinkle on a salad and I'll grab it. Sometimes it's like a jar of capers and all of a sudden it's like, no, no, Ben and I know this. For those of you who don't believe in muscle testing or kinesio testing or the energetic properties of foods, or quantum physics. This might not be something that you agree with, but for me, if I ignore that sense and I proceed anyways and I consume that food, I always feel pretty shitty after the meal. It's crazy.

Well, here's a note on that. So I grew up with digestive issues. And until I started doing functional medicine lab testing, which was a dedicated process over three years, we found that I had a number of parasite infections, fungal bacterial infections that were all the contributing factors to my gut. And during that time I was doing food sensitivity panels. At least at that time the most accurate I think was the MRT food sensitivity panel. And they test over like 400 foods. They tell you exactly what you're intolerance to. And at that time that's what I needed because I wasn't necessarily open or ready for this type of information. So if you dump this intuitive type approach at me at that point I would have been like doors closed. But at that time I needed those objective measures and they really helped. So they kind of opened the door, they met me where I was at. But I will say I spent you know, hundreds if not thousands of dollars on those tests. And while I think there's a time and a place for those now, I could just go for one month or three weeks on a food elimination diet and then reintroduce one food, one food systematically at a time and I could just identify it that way and put all that money into healing modalities, physical body work, food, and just have it be like that. So once again kind of like the technology question, time and place. But I don't want to necessarily be over reliant on any of these things.

Right. What about supplements? Do you have any go to supplements especially that you use for something like competition supplements?

Again my also feeling on supplements, it's for a specific intention and typically only when it's been lab tested or you've worked with some type of, type of applied kinesiologist or you know exactly what you're using for. So the supplements that I do take, I'll consistently muscle test for them. And I don't really have anything specific pre competition. I usually just do some BCAs. I've got a cod liver oil, what else do I do? Pretty much it's whole food based and yeah, I don't really take most all my stuff. I don't really have any, no big secrets, just good sleep, good food, good hydration, sound movement, breathing and, and thoughts.

Cool. Do you still do anything for the gut? You take any, any gut type of Support.

From time to time, I will do a probiotic. And then from time to time, usually once a year, I try and do like an anti parasitic or an antibacterial cleanse.

Just as I like oregano and stuff like that.

It could be a regular. I mean, that's really.

Oregano is one of the best.

Yeah.

That.

Nothing on hand to travel with. I travel with oregano.

That and like. Yeah, that. That activated charcoal.

Yeah, Like South America, Asia. That little bottle of oregano. You do that morning and evening and like that. That covers 90% of your bases.

Yeah, that's like your natural antibiotic.

Yeah, exactly.

So, yeah, that would be something that I would do from time to time. Just as more like of a maintenance thing.

Yeah. Cool, cool. Okay, so one other thing I gotta ask you about Paul. Check. Before we close that loop is he said that he deadlifted against you. He said I had to rib you against this. What happened when you deadlifted against Paul? Check.

Oh, this is a good story. This is a good story. So one of the things that I appreciate most about Paul is, and this honestly is why one of the reasons, obviously, in addition to him being a very skillful coach in terms of as a therapist and as a strength and conditioning coach, was more than anyone that I've experienced in that realm especially he lives, eats, sleeps, breathes what he teaches. And so that means a lot to me. So the amount of changes that we went through, I don't think I would have been ready or willing to listen had it been anyone else or had it been coming from anyone else if the person conveying the information wasn't doing everything that he was teaching.

Right.

So one of the things I love about Paul is when I would go down, when he would write the program, we would train together. So he'll hop into. Now he's mid-50s, he's more Jack than me, and he would hop in the program and train with me. So that was always something that I really appreciated about Paul. And that was some of the best times, honestly, that I had with Paul and some of the fondest memories. So the deadlifting. Deadlifting, obviously it's going to correlate to the swing because it's a pull pattern or the swing, the clean snatch, those types of lifts. So especially in the off season or in the early, early phases, base conditioning phases, some variety of deadlifting was always in there. So. And deadlifting is also probably our. Me and Paul, we share probably our. Even though I compete in kettlebell sport, I still think. I still think I Love, love the deadlift. It might be my favorite lift. So we were deadlifting and you know, Paul's still as grounded as Paul is. He's still very competitive and there's still a very youthful side to Paul. So when we would be lifting in this particular training session, I think we were working up to. We had started our work sets around 3:15. And Paul does a lot of stone stacking as I think you're familiar with. So he's already got tremendous levels of awkward shape. He picks up heavy stones from a low, low position.

Right.

As opposed to the deadlift where the bar is raised. So with that type of, with the deadlift that he likes, we would usually deadlift off of an aerobic stepper, which is a 4 inch raised. Now, I'm not quite sure what the correlation is exactly. It's going to vary person to person about every inch in terms of how much harder it is, but let's just say it's 20 to 40 pounds each inch. And so we would do our deadlift training. We were doing 315 off the blocks and we were going set for set. So we had our predefined, I think it was like five sets of five or something like that. And we were going, I would go, he would go, I would go, he would go. And then we were both feeling good and so we got a little competitive and so why don't we go, why don't we go up and wait? We go up and wait to I think like 345, 355. I go, he goes. And it keeps going until we get up to. We were doing 10 repetitions at 4:05. So four, four plates on each side off of a four inch raised box. And it was the set. I think he did eight, the set before. And then I jumped in and did 10. And that was supposed to be it, but then that once again the competitives kind of took over on Paul. So he hopped in, did 10 repetitions. But then after he set the belt, the weight down, unfortunately, he tweaked his back pretty good and it took him, it took him over a month to heal from that. So the, the lesson for Paul was in that moment, not to compete with Mike, not to compete like you, like he, like he used to. But I mean, 405, dude's freaking strong though.

Yeah, that's impressive.

405 for 10 reps off a box and not really training for that.

I've been deadlifting bad do most of my deadlifts now with a hex bar.

Okay.

Hits bar Deadlift. Yeah, I interviewed this really interesting guy named David Weck who invented the Bosu ball. Actually, he studied Paul check stuff and thought, what if you cut that ball in half? So he made the Bosu ball. He came to my house a few weeks ago and he taught me all these cool moves. But he's got this really interesting approach to hex bar deadlifting and I'll have to show it to you later. For those of you listening in, just go listen to my episode with David Weck because it should be up by now, but really interesting. And dude, I love the X bar. I don't know if you consider that to be a bastardization of the deadlift, but I swear by that thing. I wanted to also ask you about this whole kettlebell thing because a lot of people listening in, they're interested in kettlebells. They want to get started with kettlebells. In terms of mistakes, what are the biggest mistakes that people make when they start throwing a kettlebell around or they want to get into kettlebell training.

So I would break it down by let's just say two to three populations. So if we're talking right now about the novice person who has little to no experience with a kettlebell, the first and foremost biggest mistake that I tend to see is they learn on YouTube so they don't have a qualified or an instructor to take them through property properly. Not only the assessment and the pre qualifying checklist to go through orthopedically to make sure they're pre qualified and they don't just pick up a heavy kettlebell and start snatching it for five minutes where they're going to rip their shoulder out. So for a novice who has no experience for sure, getting a qualified coach first and foremost and hopefully a qualified coach has some system of an assessment process to define where the person is in that moment and then structure the training program progressively so that they can hopefully get whatever their goal is, whether it's fitness or for a specific sport, get there safely. Because most people in my experience using kettlebells, I mean it could be their sole modality, but usually it's because I work a lot of times with athletes, it's, it's kettlebell training to support jiu jitsu, kettlebell training to support tennis, kettlebell training to support hockey. So their main intention for you kettlebell training to support your new, the new category that you want to get into for Spartan racing, which is shorter duration. So the kettlebell training will definitely be a key part, but you also need to train very Sports specifically as well for that. So having a qualified coach, an assessment process and then really just taking it to step by step, not I think for me, single kettlebell training. There is so much benefit that you can just get with one kettlebell.

Yeah. You were showing me like the, we were practicing the Turkish get up and you had like 10 different ways to get up just with, with, with one kettlebell.

Yeah.

And you said you have, you have like an ebook that you're doing that has how many.

So I've been working on, it's been an ongoing project, but it should be coming out in the Next probably like 2ish months. But essentially this volume one, what I wanted to do is because the kettlebell is such a unique tool for its portability, versatility, compact size, the amount of sporting abilities, strength, flexibility, coordination, power, etc that you can accomplish with it. What I wanted to do in volume one is really just show people everything and anything that you could do if all you had was one to two kettlebells. So with that unique exercises in terms of not including variations, well over 150 and I think it's gonna get over 200, not including the warm up the variation.

When's the ebook done?

In the next three months. I'm pretty much did all the photo shoots. So if any of your listeners are interested, if you just go to Mike Salemi IO Mike Salemi IO backslash waitlist.

Okay.

You can be put on that and it'll be notified.

I'll put a link in the show notes too, as well if you guys want to, want to get on the waitlist for that for this ebook and.

Anyone who tells me that kettlebell training is boring, hopefully my goal is not. Yeah. And there's so many different variations. Whether you're training for power, there's different techniques for that. For endurance, there are different techniques. If you want to work hand eye coordination, there's juggling techniques. There's so many different ways you can use it as a corrective tool. So hopefully with this ebook is to kind of open up the box and show people the power and the amount of things that you can do in a short amount of time and just take it anywhere. So if you can throw it in your car, you can get an excellent workout in 15, 20 minutes and have it be something that never gets stale.

Nice. Nice. That was actually one of the workouts that I did coming back from one of these train to hunt competitions that I do. You and I haven't even talked about that. I do these bow hunting competitions where you backpack 100 to 150 pounds through the wilderness for two to four miles. And then you do an obstacle course race with your weapon. So you're doing like sandbag carries and sandbag throws and barbed wire crawls. And then you also have like a four to five hour shoot off where you're just like, you know, stalking through the woods, shooting at these targets. It's an amazing competition. And driving back from one of those, my buddy and I went, we won Montana as a doubles team. But coming back, we had a workout that we did where every 30 miles we stopped and we each did 30 kettlebell swings and 30 burpees. 500 mile trip. We got back and like the very first thing we want to do. As soon as we pulled in, we honestly see our families. We didn't want to unpack. We were just like looking for steak. We're like, let's eat meat. It was a great trip. What's next for you, dude? I mean, you talked about the clean and Jerk competition as being as you wanting to step up to the next level in that. But as far as your own spirituality, your any other goals, anything else that you're working on, aside from this ebook, is there anything that you're really focusing on right now?

Yeah. So in addition to the ebook, I'm also creating a conditioning program for combat athletes or anyone, whether it's recreational or competitive. And while it's going to be primarily kettlebell based, there will also be an introduction to other unconventional tools, whether it's Indian clubs, mace bells, possibly Bulgarian bags. So that's also something that I'm working on right now as well. And that'll probably be released in the next four to five months. And so that's a really going to be. It's going to be an online program, but in addition to that, really just teaching integrated workshops that only all encompass tools that you can take anywhere, that you can do anytime through a holistic model. So I also do nutritional workshops and also the corrective approach as well.

Very cool. Because you're like a Czech practitioner as well, aren't you?

I am, Yep.

Okay, cool. Cool. I love it. So that means I actually trust you because you've been through that protocol. Awesome, dude. Well, this is crazy. In terms of the level at which you compete, I can't imagine holding two 72 pound kettlebells, much less, barely one, much less doing a cleaning jerk. So I have no clue how you pull it off, but it's really interesting to get inside the head of an elite athlete like you who's competing at this kind of sport. It's amazing. And for those of you who are, like, listening and it really is the real deal. One last question. If I want to put a video in the show notes for people to see what this whole 10 minute clean and jerk looks like, or maybe like a video of you doing the 10 minute. Do you have one?

Yeah, yeah, I'll put it up. Or even just me demoing what the clean and jerk would look like and that type of.

No, send me like the whole 10 minute.

Okay.

Because I want to watch it and just see what you look like after 10 minutes.

Okay. Yeah. Towards the end, I'll be flat out. It's not pretty. You're grinding through it.

Email it to me and I'll put.

It in the show notes.

All right, cool. Mike. Thanks, dude.

Thank you for having me. Thank you. This was a lot of fun.

Awesome. Well, folks, again, you can access the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com Salemi S A L E M I thanks for listening in.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more. More cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

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