Pavel Tsatsouline on the Science of Strength and the Art of Physical Performance | Tim Ferriss Show

1. 0:00 – 1:27

   Pre-show banter, soundcheck, and sponsor messages

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:00

      I want you, Pavel, if you don't mind, just tell me about what you had for breakfast this morning as a soundcheck.

   2. PTPavel Tsatsouline0:05

      Soundcheck, breakfast, coffee.

   3. TFTim Ferriss0:07

      [laughs] Okay. Optimal, minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat-out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

   4. PTPavel Tsatsouline0:18

      Now we're just doing it part-time.

   5. TFTim Ferriss0:20

      What if I give you the opposite?

   6. PTPavel Tsatsouline0:22

      I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton.

   7. TFTim Ferriss0:27

      The Tim Ferriss Show. Thank you for supporting the sponsors of this show, 99designs, which is your one-stop shop for all things graphic design related. Go to 99designs.com/tim to see the projects that I've put up, including the mock-ups and drafts of the book cover for The 4-Hour Body. As always, you can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, and you can find all of the links and resources from this episode, as well as every other episode, by going to 4hourworkweek.com/podcast. Spell it all out, or you can go to 4hourworkweek.com and just click on Podcast. Feedback, if you have feedback, I would love your thoughts, anything at all, who you'd like to see on this show. Ping me on Twitter, @TFerriss. That's twitter.com/T-F-E-R-R-I-S-S, or on Facebook at facebook.com/TimFerriss with two Rs and two Ss. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is Tim

2. 1:27 – 5:22

   Who Pavel Tsatsouline is and why his methods resonate

   1. TFTim Ferriss1:27

      Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where, of course, I try to deconstruct world-class performers, whether they be billionaire investors, chess prodigies, athletes, and everything in between, to pull apart, tease out the tactics and tools and resources that you can use. And this episode was a real treat. I had so much fun with this. It was easily one of the most enlightening and lucid conversations about physical training I've ever had, and we covered everything, meaning strength, flexibility, endurance, and beyond. And my guest is none other than Pavel Tsatsouline, and yes, that is how you say it. He is chairman of StrongFirst Inc., and was born in Minx, [laughs] not Minx, Minsk. I always have so much trouble saying that, not that I say it that much. USSR, former USSR, which is now part of Belarus. In the 1980s, he was a physical training instructor for Spetsnaz. That's also another one I wanna mispronounce always. It's not Spetsnaz, it's Spetsnaz, the elite Soviet special-forces units. Pavel is now a subject matter expert to the US Marine Corps, US Secret Service, and the US Navy SEALs, and he is also, perhaps you know this or not, he is widely credited with introducing the kettlebell to the United States. The ubiquitous kettlebell, which is called kettleball by almost everyone. Maybe that should be changed, make things easier. In any case, over the last several years, Pavel has become a friend of mine. I'm honored to call him a friend, and his input was critical to the success and many of the experiments of The 4-Hour Body. Whether you have heard of him or not, stick with this interview, prepare to have your mind blown, and I really don't say that lightly. [laughs] You are gonna enjoy this, and you will have a lot to take notes on. And there will, of course, be tons in the show notes at 4hourworkweek.com/podcast. But without further ado, here we go. Please meet Pavel Tsatsouline. Pavel, welcome to the show.

   2. PTPavel Tsatsouline3:36

      Thank you, Tim.

   3. TFTim Ferriss3:37

      I'm so thrilled to have you, and I thought we would start with the, the answer to a question that I ask all of my guests, which is, how do you pronounce your name properly?

   4. PTPavel Tsatsouline3:47

      Uh, Pavel Tsatsouline.

   5. TFTim Ferriss3:50

      Tsatsouline. And-

   6. PTPavel Tsatsouline3:51

      That's right

   7. TFTim Ferriss3:51

      ... and you'd mentioned before we came on what you tell people at Starbucks if you order coffee. And, and what is that?

   8. PTPavel Tsatsouline3:59

      It just has to be Pavel.

   9. TFTim Ferriss4:00

      [laughs]

   10. PTPavel Tsatsouline4:00

       Coffee for Pavel. There's no other way.

   11. TFTim Ferriss4:03

       [laughs] And I, uh, I've really admired your work and expertise, and also just your method of, of teaching, quite frankly, for so many years. And I was having trouble piecing together how we first came in contact. Of course, I was well aware of your work prior to us having, us having any direct contact. But h- do you recall how we, how we came to know each other?

   12. PTPavel Tsatsouline4:30

       Yes, I do, Tim. Uh, as you, I'm a big fan of simplicity in my life, in different aspects of my life, and, uh, 4-Hour Workweek really resonated with me. And at that point, I remember writing an article, and I entitled that article Ferriss Bueller's Day at the Gym.

   13. TFTim Ferriss4:46

       [laughs]

   14. PTPavel Tsatsouline4:47

       And [laughs] and I sent you that article, and I submitted it for your blog.

   15. TFTim Ferriss4:51

       Ah, that's right. That's right. Okay. And that, that, that really set, uh, a cascade of events in motion, and I became very, very, uh, fascinated. I mean, of course, like a lot of people, I think I was initially exposed to you as the, the strength trainer who, who used the word comrade a lot, and really hadn't, uh, hadn't delved into a lot of the details, uh, of your strength training specifically, which we'll

3. 5:22 – 7:15

   Simplifying strength: principle-based training and clear programming

   1. TFTim Ferriss5:22

      of course get into. And I guess there, there are two questions I'd love to ask, but the first is, uh, what do people consider you-- The people who know you well, what do they consider you world-class at?

   2. PTPavel Tsatsouline5:35

      Tim, I have been able to take very complex subjects, take them apart, and put them back together in a manner that's very simple, that can be delivered to regular people without losing the essence of what these, uh, of the systems. So I'm talking about specifically serious strength training. I'm talking about both programming, and I'm talking about what I would refer to as, uh, the body language of strength.

   3. TFTim Ferriss6:05

      Mm-hmm. And could you explain for people who are perhaps not, uh, not inductees into the world of strength training yet, what do you mean by programming?

   4. PTPavel Tsatsouline6:13

      Programming, planning your training. You go from A to B. You want to add 50 pounds to your deadlift. This is what you do.

   5. TFTim Ferriss6:21

      Mm-hmm.

   6. PTPavel Tsatsouline6:21

      And unfortunately, the world of programming is very confused. Well, the whole world of fitness is very confused.

   7. TFTim Ferriss6:27

      Mm-hmm.

   8. PTPavel Tsatsouline6:27

      And again, what I attempt to do is to bring principle-based training. So when you understand the principles, applications are many. Applications are easy.

   9. TFTim Ferriss6:36

      Right. And I th- I think that's where I feel such a, such a degree of, of kinship with what you try to do with these subjects because, of course, whether I succeed or fail, and, uh, sometimes I do both, uh, I, that's very much what I, I try to do with the subjects that I tend to obsess on. And for, for those who aren't familiar with your background, um, y- you've worked with many different types of elite athletes and also special forces and so on. Uh, would you mind just giving a, a little bit of background on your, um, your bonafides, so to speak, some of your, your, your background as it relates to, to training?

4. 7:15 – 11:23

   Training for harsh environments: robustness, essentials, and “antifragile” preparation

   1. PTPavel Tsatsouline7:15

      Sure, Tim. I used to be a PT training instructor, physical training instructor for Spetsnaz, uh, the Soviet special forces, and my education is in sports science. And, uh, I did, over the years, train a number of, uh, high-end units in the West. I've been a subject matter to, uh, US Marine Corps, to the US Secret Service, uh, to US Navy SEALs, and others. And, uh, my methods are used, uh, officially by some very high-end, uh, military and counterterrorist units in two countries that are main allies of the United States. What I do ... Pardon me?

   2. TFTim Ferriss7:56

      Oh, I'm sorry. No, I was just, uh, my, my brain erupted with something nonsensical. Please continue.

   3. PTPavel Tsatsouline8:01

      Sure. So what I do is I take methods that perform very well in very rugged environments, and I take these methods and I apply it to other environments. So if somebody decides, "I just want to change my life. I want to get stronger. I wanna have a better game of tennis. I want to succeed in a given sport," I take the same methods that have been tested by operators at war, and I bring these people the same methods.

   4. TFTim Ferriss8:29

      And, and, uh, just to, to, to drill into that, because I've seen the many, I'm sure at this point, thousands of photographs that are sent to you by deployed troops overseas or people in special forces, uh, of their kettlebells or, [laughs] or their-

   5. PTPavel Tsatsouline8:44

      [laughs]

   6. TFTim Ferriss8:45

      ... their, their, uh, their rigged, uh, their rigged gyms with, you know, bu- sort of makeshift pull-up bars and, and whatnot. What, what is it that you have to keep in mind when you're designing or why have, why have your methods had such appeal for, uh, elite military? What, what are the things that you've considered perhaps that other people have not for those types of trainees?

   7. PTPavel Tsatsouline9:10

      Well, Tim, Plutarch, who said thousands of years ago that the training of a soldier and the training of an athlete is radically different, that an athlete has the luxury of a pampered lifestyle, and, uh, the soldier doesn't.

   8. TFTim Ferriss9:24

      Mm-hmm.

   9. PTPavel Tsatsouline9:25

      So this is pretty much the difference. So what you want to do is you want to build the training that becomes, in the words of one of my favorite authors, Nassim Taleb, antifragile.

   10. TFTim Ferriss9:34

       Mm-hmm.

   11. PTPavel Tsatsouline9:35

       It's a type of training, training that thrives on a very harsh environment, that's really robust in these different environments. And, uh, that's pretty much the difference. How do we do that? We have to strip all the non-essentials down.

   12. TFTim Ferriss9:50

       Mm-hmm.

   13. PTPavel Tsatsouline9:50

       Pretty much what you do in your work with different, uh, with business, with lifestyle, and so on. And once we get down to the things that really matter and we apply them, then, uh, everything suddenly becomes very simple.

   14. TFTim Ferriss10:03

       Have you spent any time with, uh, Nassim?

   15. PTPavel Tsatsouline10:07

       No, I have not.

   16. TFTim Ferriss10:08

       Oh, well, uh, okay.

   17. PTPavel Tsatsouline10:08

       I have not. I'm looking forward to meeting him.

   18. TFTim Ferriss10:09

       I'll, I should, uh, I should introduce you guys at some point. He's, he's [laughs] exactly what you see is what you get, if you've read his books. [laughs]

   19. PTPavel Tsatsouline10:17

       [laughs]

   20. TFTim Ferriss10:17

       And, uh, I think you guys would really hit it off. Uh, the, the, um, you know, the, what you just said brought to mind, um, a conversation that I had with a friend of mine who was formerly Navy SEAL, and now he's doing things that he can't tell me about. Not that he could tell me much about what he did before. [laughs] But, uh, he ... And actually, uh, not to be named, but, uh, now that, now that I think of it, you introduced us, uh, so, so-

   21. PTPavel Tsatsouline10:42

       Oh, let's call him Victor.

   22. TFTim Ferriss10:43

       Victor, yes. Victor, amazing guy. And, uh, Victor is, is the most efficient trash compactor I've ever seen in my life. He, he can eat anything and make fuel out of it, and he was, uh, he was criticizing [laughs] in a very good-natured way some of his colleagues 'cause he said, "Well, you know, you know, some of the guys that I, that I work with out in the field, you know, some of them are the bodybuilder types, and they get really grumpy if they can't have their protein shake every two or three hours." [laughs] And he said, "I view it as a real competitive and practical advantage that I can, I can consume anything and then go for a 30, 40, 50-mile run." Um-

5. 11:23 – 15:01

   Nervous system strength and the ‘body language’ of power

   1. PTPavel Tsatsouline11:23

      Well, and Victor, for his strength also, that gentleman is exceptional both in his strength and his endurance, but for his strength, he relies on the nervous system, not so much in the muscle tissue.

   2. TFTim Ferriss11:33

      Mm-hmm.

   3. PTPavel Tsatsouline11:33

      And again, that's what's so, that's what's so different.

   4. TFTim Ferriss11:36

      Mm-hmm.

   5. PTPavel Tsatsouline11:36

      You can ... If you look at a typical person and how do you get him stronger, let's say that you have a four-cylinder engine.

   6. TFTim Ferriss11:44

      Mm-hmm.

   7. PTPavel Tsatsouline11:44

      And, uh, what the person would do is they would make that, you know, six-cylinder engine.

   8. TFTim Ferriss11:49

      Mm-hmm.

   9. PTPavel Tsatsouline11:49

      But before you were firing on two, now you're firing on three.

   10. TFTim Ferriss11:52

       Mm-hmm.

   11. PTPavel Tsatsouline11:52

       But if instead what you do is you learn to fire on all four.

   12. TFTim Ferriss11:55

       Mm-hmm.

   13. PTPavel Tsatsouline11:55

       So there are ways of training your nervous system to engage your capacity so much more fully. And if you look at high-level performers at light body weight in some fields, let's say a very high-level martial artist, somebody very skinny breaking a stack of boards, or Very skinny guy like Lamar Gant, uh, deadlifting five times his body weight. So this is so much about the concentration of mental force. And for your listeners, I could give a very simple example how you can use, uh ... You can do that in your gym. Let's say that you perform ... Try it with the simplest exercise possible. Try it with a dumbbell curl or a barbell curl, because I know you're sissies out there, you'll do that.

   14. TFTim Ferriss12:36

       [laughs]

   15. PTPavel Tsatsouline12:37

       And [laughs] so let's say that you're going through your curls, and things are suddenly starting to get tougher. So when they suddenly start to get tougher, I want you to just crush the dumbbell or the barbell or the kettlebell, whatever it is that you're curling, just white-knuckle, uh, white-knuckle pressure. And what you will see is you're gonna definitely gonna be able to get several more repetitions out. And I'm gonna give you, uh, two more techniques in addition. Once you have practiced that, then on the next set, in addition to crushing the bar on the way up, also contract your glutes as tight as possible, like somebody's gonna kick you in the butt. Very, very tight, so you're just like crunch a walnut. And at the same time, tighten your abs as if somebody's gonna kick you, which, you know, somebody might. So if you do that, if you do these three things, if you contract your glutes, contract your abs, contract your grip, everything that you do, absolutely everything, is gonna be greatly amplified. And this is just a small example of the skills of strength that I do teach.

   16. TFTim Ferriss13:48

       And, and we're gonna, we're gonna dig really deeply into this, because I, I have personally, uh, reached a point where I want to return to the training of a, an athlete who's trying to optimize relative strength as opposed to just packing on slabs and pounds of muscle, uh, which, uh, quite frankly, just my frame and my joints and my, my entire system is, is, is finding, uh, aggravating to sustain, just the, the full-time eating and the-

   17. PTPavel Tsatsouline14:18

       Well, the full-time eating, Tim, that's what gets you.

   18. TFTim Ferriss14:20

       Oh, my God, it's the worst.

   19. PTPavel Tsatsouline14:22

       [laughs]

   20. TFTim Ferriss14:22

       Uh, especially as someone who has, depending on how you look at it, like, the most acute form of conditioned, like, body dysmorphia or orthorexia possible through, you know, a decade of wrestling. [laughs] It's just, my eating habits are really astonishing. Sort of like a German shepherd who's, like, broken into the pantry and eating sticks of butter on, on more than, more than a few occasions. But the, the question I wanted to ask you, uh, uh, next is what are the biggest misconceptions that people have about Pavel Tsatsouline? And I am training myself to say Tsatsouline because I've heard everyone say Tsatsouline, so I'm trying to correct that.

   21. PTPavel Tsatsouline14:57

       Okay.

   22. TFTim Ferriss14:57

       But what are the biggest misconceptions that people have about you?

6. 15:01 – 22:02

   Beyond ‘the kettlebell guy’: principles, collaborators, and rapid gains

   1. PTPavel Tsatsouline15:01

      Well, Tim, they call me the kettlebell guy.

   2. TFTim Ferriss15:04

      Mm-hmm.

   3. PTPavel Tsatsouline15:04

      They call me the father of the kettlebell, which I appreciate very much. I did introduce, together with my business partner, I did introduce the kettlebell to the West. And right now, the kettlebell has become mainstream. But what I'm really all about is about the principles, the underlying principles of strength training, the underlying principles of power generation. And it doesn't really matter what modality you use, whether you use a kettlebell, the barbell, your body weight, whether you're arm wrestling, fighting, lifting rocks, it really doesn't matter. So I am not about the kettlebell. I am about the principles that make you strong. What I have done is I have reverse engineered the way the strongest people move naturally, and I have brought it to the people. I've shown to people how to move in this manner and how to shave off years, and if not decades, of training to progress to a much higher level.

   4. TFTim Ferriss15:57

      You, you've worked with some incredible strength athletes. Would you mind mentioning, uh, some of them? I mean, some of them you've ca- co-authored books with, but, uh, who are, who are some of the strength athletes that you've collabo- or, uh, strength trainers that you've collaborated with?

   5. PTPavel Tsatsouline16:12

      Andy Bolton. Uh, Andy Bolton. Uh, he's, uh, the first person to deadlift over 1,000 pounds. He is, um, he's an amazing athlete. He's a very, very smart trainer. So Andy Bolton and I, we have written a book together called the Deadlift Dynamite. And, uh, the reason Andy and I have written this project together is, again, Andy's a very smart trainer, and his particular style of deadlift looks exactly like the kettlebell swing that I teach. So it's, again, that fit of the body language. I have, uh, written a book called Easy Strength with Dan John. Dan John is a strength coach extraordinaire. You would really love interviewing Dan on the show because-

   6. TFTim Ferriss16:52

      He's a, he's a beast. [laughs]

   7. PTPavel Tsatsouline16:54

      Dan is, and he's so ... Again, he just gets past the fluff. He gets to the things that matter. And Dan does not try to impress you. Dan tries to get the results. So Dan and I, collaboration, collaboration with Dan over the years, uh, we have taught each other a lot, and our views on strength are very similar even though they are colored in some way. So that's why we have written this book called the Easy Strength. And so Easy Strength was about making yourself strong for your sport, not making lifting your priority. That's what Easy Strength was about.

   8. TFTim Ferriss17:36

      And, uh, just since you brought it up, what are some of the things that you've, you've, uh, what, what would be an example or examples of things you've learned from Dan?

   9. PTPavel Tsatsouline17:47

      Dan has a terrific concept of the quadrants, the four quadrants. On, uh, one grid you're gonna see the level of development, the level of, uh ... On the other one you're gonna see the level of specialization. It's really quite hard to explain that, uh, over, over audio.

   10. TFTim Ferriss18:06

       Right.

   11. PTPavel Tsatsouline18:06

       But if you look up, type in Dan John and quadrants, that's a terrific concept. So what that allows you to do is it allows you to place yourself today In the particular quadrant according to your status, according to your goals, and, uh, select the correct type of training for yourself.

   12. TFTim Ferriss18:24

       Mm-hmm.

   13. PTPavel Tsatsouline18:24

       That alone is gonna save years of preparation for you. So that's just one of the many things. Dan and I have exchanged these little tactical tidbits and details over the years, and, uh, I highly recommend, uh, Dan John's work to anybody, anybody who's an athlete or anybody who, uh, thinks of himself or herself as an athlete.

   14. TFTim Ferriss18:45

       And I, I'd love to... I w- I wanna personally give a few examples of just how quickly or how significantly you can shave off what people assume is required to make massive gains. You introduced me to Barry Ross in, uh, Los Angeles, and the-- that became the effortless superhuman chapter in The 4-Hour Body, and I was able to put, I would have to say, uh, it must have been, uh, between 100 and 150 pounds on my deadlift in less than three months. I mean, it was just-

   15. PTPavel Tsatsouline19:17

       Outstanding, Tim. Outstanding

   16. TFTim Ferriss19:18

       ... it was, it was just-- it was crazy. And, uh, particularly when you consider the inputs or the total amount of time under tension and, and actual lifting frequency and time, it was, it, it really... I've seen, just given that we are cut from the same cloth and that we try to distill very complex things and, and use 80/20 analysis and so on, I've seen a lot of disproportionate outputs for inputs, but it really just, it, it really blew me away. And the, the testing of assumptions where, in that particular case, it's a deadlift-based protocol that's using what many people would consider the weakest range of motion, so from the floor up to the knees, uh, effectively, uh, really impressed me. And then to, to highlight your, uh, the, a couple of the points you made earlier, the, the crushing with the grip and the, the abs and the glutes, I recall, uh, when I did, uh, RKC 1 and RKC 2, for those people not familiar, the Russian Kettlebell Certification 1 and 2, uh, which was a tremendous, a tremendously positive experience for me. And we did-

   17. PTPavel Tsatsouline20:19

       Thank you, Tim

   18. TFTim Ferriss20:19

       ... and, uh, encountering, uh, Max Plank, um, if I'm getting-- That, that is his last name, right? Uh, am I, am I getting that right? Is that Max, uh, Big Max? Uh, he, he was, uh... Believe, uh, believe that's, that's the fellow that, uh, whose name is, uh, it's coming to mind. But he-- There, there were a few people, yourself included, who, uh, I did not pass all of the tests for RKC 2 the first time around, and one of them, if I'm remembering correctly, was, uh, cleaning and pressing a kettlebell that's roughly half your body weight.

   19. PTPavel Tsatsouline20:52

       Mm-hmm.

   20. TFTim Ferriss20:52

       And, uh, I, I, I f- I was-- I guess I ultimately made three attempts, and I failed on the first two attempts. And with a few minor corrections, just, uh, s- moving my weight slightly back towards the heels, cleaning, um, with my elbow closer to basically dropping my elbow a little bit, uh, lower, and then really focusing on the grip, I was able to press it. And the third attempt was, felt easy, and it was just aston-

   21. PTPavel Tsatsouline21:19

       Outstanding, Tim

   22. TFTim Ferriss21:20

       ... astonishing. Uh, also, some of the demonstrations that you've done in front of trainees where you've taken people out of the crowd and said, "All right, who's somebody who would consider their," and I'm paraphrasing here, but your, your maximum press X number of kilos, and then you'd bring them up in, in front of everyone in the, in the-- within five minutes or so, you'd increase their press by whatever it might be, five, five kilos or 10 kilos. Uh, you, you once mentioned to me in a casual conversation, uh, I was-- I called you for some type of training advice, or it might have been via email. And, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but you said, "When in doubt, train your grip and your core." Is that-

   23. PTPavel Tsatsouline21:55

       Correct.

   24. TFTim Ferriss21:56

       Could you elaborate on that? Because I think it's, it's very, uh, it's not advice that many people have received.

7. 22:02 – 32:34

   Grip + midsection fundamentals: irradiation, ‘grease the groove,’ and the hard-style plank

   1. PTPavel Tsatsouline22:02

      Well, Tim, uh, there is such a thing as called, uh, irradiation. So the phenomena of irradiation, what it really means is if you contract a muscle, the tension from that muscle is gonna spill over to the neighborhood muscles. So, uh, for your listeners, I'd like to try this. Make a fist.

   2. TFTim Ferriss22:18

      Mm-hmm.

   3. PTPavel Tsatsouline22:19

      You're probably gonna feel tension in your forearm.

   4. TFTim Ferriss22:21

      Mm-hmm.

   5. PTPavel Tsatsouline22:21

      Now make a tight fist. You're gonna feel tension in your biceps, triceps.

   6. TFTim Ferriss22:25

      Mm.

   7. PTPavel Tsatsouline22:26

      Now make a white-knuckle fist. You're gonna find that tension is gonna spread into your shoulder, your lat, your back and so on. Okay, folks, you may relax now.

   8. TFTim Ferriss22:32

      [laughs]

   9. PTPavel Tsatsouline22:33

      And, uh, the same thing happens. So certain areas of the body have this great, uh, great overflow of tension. So the gripping muscles are, uh, amongst them. Why? In part because, uh, they have such a great representation in, uh, your nervous system, in your brain. And as for the abs and as for the glutes, that has a lot to do with creating your intra-abdominal pressure. So what does this mean exactly? Visualize your muscles as speakers, and visualize your brain as the gadget that plays the music, whatever it is these days, iPad, iPhone, whatever, and the record player. Doesn't matter. And the amount of your pressure, the pressure in your abdomen, the intra-abdominal pressure, that's the amplifier. That's the volume control. So by increasing the pressure in your abdomen, it's like you're turning up the volume and vice versa. So when you're trying to stretch, when increasing your flexibility, if you see somebody there trying to do a split and you see, "Uh, uh," it's, uh, the person is creating high intra-abdominal pressure, and that just increases the tension of the muscle. Instead, what you need to do, you need to [inhales] [exhales] completely release and let go and bring it down. So for strength, we do the opposite. We have special techniques where you increase that pressure and maximize your power.

   10. TFTim Ferriss23:59

       Mm.

   11. PTPavel Tsatsouline23:59

       So that's, those are just a couple of the different ways we can increase the strength, and that's what you've seen in my certification. FYI, I am no longer with that organization.

   12. TFTim Ferriss24:08

       Right.

   13. PTPavel Tsatsouline24:08

       So my company today is called StrongFirst.

   14. TFTim Ferriss24:10

       Mm-hmm.

   15. PTPavel Tsatsouline24:11

       And, uh, SFG certification, that's that same curriculum that you have, that you have learned back then.

   16. TFTim Ferriss24:18

       And, uh, the, um- Just to, to touch on two points and then we're going to, uh, jump into more training and, and ask about how you would rank certain aspects of what people would traditionally consider perhaps fitness. Uh, the ... What would be, uh, good ... What would you, what would you recommend as good methods for developing, uh, the grip and, uh, core or abdomen, uh, for, for those people listening if they wanted to take a simple protocol and perhaps experiment for the next few weeks? What, uh ... Is, is there any basic approach that you might suggest for those two things?

   17. PTPavel Tsatsouline24:57

       Sure thing. It can be done in conjunction with a full-body training regimen that uses, let's say, kettlebells, climbing ropes, and so on. But if it is not, then what I recommend that you do is you get some grippers. So the company is called Iron Mind, ironmind.com, and they carry hand grippers. One thing you need to understand is these are not those little sissy plastic grippers you get at a, you get at a store. Uh, these are heavy-duty grippers. They go up to 365 pounds. Just a couple of people in the world have done that. And, uh, they also do have, they also do have resources on how to do that. But even without reading how, I can tell you how to train. So get yourself a couple of grippers, use their chart, their recommendations that Iron Mind offers, and, uh, start training them in the manner that I refer to as, uh, grease to groove. Grease to groove is a highly simplified training methodology that's been derived from Soviet weightlifting methodology. So in a nutshell, this is what you do. Throughout the day, every day, whenever you feel fully recovered, so you have to have at least 15 minutes of rest between sets, you know, maybe 30, maybe even more, is you're gonna do a set, and you're only gonna do about half the repetitions that you're capable of. So for example, you picked up a particular gripper. You start squeezing it, and, uh, you probably could do it 10 times, but you only do five, and you put it down. Let's say you later on pick up a gripper that's a little heavier. Maybe you could do three reps with it, but you do only one. And in this particular manner, you accumulate reps, and you keep going and going and going. And everybody tells you that's impossible to get strong in this particular manner, yet science and experience shows that this makes you strong. This makes you strong s- fast, this makes you strong in a safe manner, and this makes ... You can apply this particular methodology, again, I call it grease to groove, to any strength exercise or any strength endurance exercise. Just to give you an example of its effectiveness, my father-in-law, former Marine, at the age of 64, started following this routine. He was able to do about 10 pull-ups at that point. In several months, he was up to 20 when he tested.

   18. TFTim Ferriss27:19

       Mm.

   19. PTPavel Tsatsouline27:19

       And he could not do that many as a young jarhead. So, uh, you young bucks out there, you can definitely get this done. So this is how you guys are gonna train your grip with these grippers. Carry through, with you throughout the day. You're not gonna get sweaty. Just whenever you feel like it, just take it out and squeeze. As for training your abdomen, there are many different methods of training the abdomen, but you have to abide by the following rules. You have to keep the repetitions to five and under. No more than five reps. Anything more than five reps is bodybuilding. And you need to make a focus on tension, m- make, make a focus on contraction, as opposed to on reps and fatigue. Just to give you an example of the plank, you know, the plank is a kind of a fashionable exercise in the core training circles. And by the way, we don't use the word core at StrongFirst. Why don't we use the word core? Because, well, because people who use the word core, they do things we don't like.

   20. TFTim Ferriss28:15

       [laughs]

   21. PTPavel Tsatsouline28:16

       We don't like at all. So [laughs] we just say, [laughs] we just say midsection. And, uh, so the plank. So traditionally, they would put you in the plank, and you're supposed to stay in this plank for a couple of minutes. And what's happening is you see this poor person who cannot even assume the proper posture to start with, and then as fatigue sets in, uh, other muscles, wrong muscles start kicking in. The back starts arching. The butt starts shooting up. And what you're doing is what Gray Cook calls putting fitness on top of dysfunction. And what we do instead is if we do a plank, we call the hard style plank, we would do a plank for no longer than 10 seconds. And when you do the plank, you try to contract everything, absolutely everything. When I showed that, uh, type of-

   22. TFTim Ferriss29:03

       Everything meaning the shins, your forearms, your neck, everything.

   23. PTPavel Tsatsouline29:06

       Everything but your neck and face.

   24. TFTim Ferriss29:08

       Okay.

   25. PTPavel Tsatsouline29:08

       Everything below your neck you're going to contract. It's not for folks with high blood pressure, heart condition, and that's true for pretty much any type of training. But for everybody else, it's an extremely powerful tool. So you get down in a plank. You make fists, okay? You contract your abs. You contract your glutes. You contract your entire body. You pretend that somebody's walking in a walk by and kick you in the ribs, which again, somebody might, at least at my course.

   26. TFTim Ferriss29:32

       [laughs]

   27. PTPavel Tsatsouline29:33

       And [laughs] , uh, Andy Bolton and other top powerlifters to whom I've taught this technique, they swear by this because this is the abdominal training for strength. This is not just some nonsense that you do cranking out the reps. So to sum up your abdominal training, find whatever abdominal exercises that you like. It can be the plank. It can be, uh, some kind of a sit-up. It can be something from your book, The 4-Hour Body. It can be something from my book, the Hard Style Abs. It can be something else. That's not important, as long as it's a good exercise that's been recognized that it does work. And three times a week, do three to five sets of three to five reps. Okay, folks? Just remember this. Three to five sets of three to five reps. Focus on contraction. Don't focus on fatigue. Don't focus on the reps. And I promise if you do these two things for several months You work your grip in this manner. You work your abs in this manner. Everything that you do today is gonna be stronger. I don't care what it is. It's a bigger deadlift, it's a tennis serve, it makes no difference. You're gonna be stronger.

   28. TFTim Ferriss30:42

       And th- in the case of the, the ab, let's just, the, the, the midsection, uh, and we're working with the plank. If people decided they were gonna keep it simple just so they can remember it and do three sets of three reps three times a week, let's just say Monday, Wednesday-

   29. PTPavel Tsatsouline30:58

       For the plank, let's do just three sets of 10 seconds.

   30. TFTim Ferriss31:01

       Got it. Okay.
8. 32:34 – 42:13

   Pull-ups solved with strength practice: hollow position and assisted reps

   1. PTPavel Tsatsouline32:34

      Well, Tim, I guess first of all it depends what higher repetitions mean. If it's, if your goal is 20 or 25 strict pull-ups-

   2. TFTim Ferriss32:41

      Yeah. Let's, let's use that

   3. PTPavel Tsatsouline32:43

      ... then, yes, that's one thing. Because if you go beyond that, and in Russian, th- in Russia they even have specialized competitions where they do strict pull-ups for some crazy, insane reps, then training becomes so weird and so state-of-the-art, then you better not even bother.

   4. TFTim Ferriss33:00

      Right.

   5. PTPavel Tsatsouline33:00

      But most people don't need to do that. So if you want to be able to do 20 or 25 pull-ups, you can achieve that level purely by training your strength, which means that you never even have to do more than five reps in training, and just whenever you go out and test, then you're going to get those reps. Here's something, here's a note about strength endurance. The more resistance that you're overcoming in your endurance effort, the more strength helps. So what does that mean? It means that if you're strong, that is, let's say you have a good deadlift. That's going to help you carry beer kegs to the second floor. But on the other hand, it's not necessarily going to help you, uh, hammering a nail all day, if that makes any sense.

   6. TFTim Ferriss33:47

      Right.

   7. PTPavel Tsatsouline33:47

      Because hammer is light.

   8. TFTim Ferriss33:48

      Mm-hmm.

   9. PTPavel Tsatsouline33:48

      Beer kegs are heavy. So when you're doing a 25-repetition effort, the weight is significant. It's still a significant percentage of your one-rep max, so that can be bumped up purely just by, by getting stronger.

   10. TFTim Ferriss34:02

       Mm-hmm.

   11. PTPavel Tsatsouline34:02

       So that would be my recommendation. For people who have a hard time doing pull-ups to start with-

   12. TFTim Ferriss34:09

       Mm-hmm

   13. PTPavel Tsatsouline34:10

       ... I would recommend, uh, start by learning to get tight through their abs. That's very important. There was an article a couple of years ago saying that women cannot do pull-ups, which is ab- of course, absolute nonsense. Uh, in StrongFirst organization, we have some ladies who can do, uh, you know, we have a lady in Boston, uh, Amanda Perry, who can do strict dead hang 14 pull-ups, neck to the bar. So the way we do pull-ups is no kipping, no swinging, pause in bet- on the bottom, and you have to touch your neck to the bar. So she can do 14, for example.

   14. TFTim Ferriss34:47

       [laughs]

   15. PTPavel Tsatsouline34:48

       So [laughs] she's a m- well, let's put it this way.

   16. TFTim Ferriss34:50

       Yeah. Yeah, just-

   17. PTPavel Tsatsouline34:50

       She's a much better man than most men.

   18. TFTim Ferriss34:52

       Just [laughs]

   19. PTPavel Tsatsouline34:52

       And that's the way.

   20. TFTim Ferriss34:53

       Just for those people who have not tried this, um, having gone through some of this training with Pavel, [laughs] if you have just done ... If the difference between doing a strict pull-up or what you envision to be a strict pull-up, where you kind of throw your chin up above the bar height versus pulling in to touch your neck slowly to the bar [laughs] is so different as to ... It's not a difference in degree, it's sort of a difference in species. Uh, but anyway, just [laughs]

   21. PTPavel Tsatsouline35:24

       [laughs]

   22. TFTim Ferriss35:24

       I challenge, I challenge everyone to try that. [laughs] It's really challenging.

   23. PTPavel Tsatsouline35:29

       Well, Tim, for people who, uh, for people who have a hard time just to get started in pull-ups, and again, that's true for some ladies, many ladies, that's true for a number of gentlemen as well, a lot of the problem is they're unable to contract their abdominals strongly enough. They're unable to even assume the strong posture. Remember I told you earlier that I reverse engineer what the strong people do naturally. So if you watch a gymnast perform any kind of maneuvers on the rings, let's say, you will see something called the hollow position. So what's the hollow position? The hollow position is, uh, the body is like your tail is tucked in, and your body kind of, uh, forms a, it's like a dish. Your body looks like a dish pretty much.

   24. TFTim Ferriss36:07

       Mm-hmm.

   25. PTPavel Tsatsouline36:08

       So if you want to learn to do pull-ups, first you need to master the hollow position. It's very easy for you to type in, you type it into your search engine, the hollow position, find a picture, see what it looks like, and just practice this hollow position, this hollow rock. Listen, the exercise is called the hollow rock. I explained it in my book Hard Style Abs, but I'm sure you can find it anywhere else. And so you practice this hollow rock, and this hollow rock is going to Not only strengthen your abs, but it's also going to, uh, teach you how to acquire that position. And then after that, you can start working with assisted reps, and that's a very big difference. We're not talking about negatives, we're not talking about forced reps, we're talking about assistance reps, assisted reps. So what's the difference? The difference is an assisted rep feels like a moderately challenging rep that you do on your own. So your training partner or your trainer is gonna push you in your mid-back and enable you to do that with some degree of difficulty, but definitely not make you struggle. And, uh, when they've done a study on young gymnasts years ago in the Soviet Union and they used this type of methodology, they called it artificial controlling environment, where the partner allows you to do a perfect repetition, but in a way that doesn't really kill you, that it doesn't make you struggle. They found that the speed with which they progress was absolutely remarkable. So practice in your hollow rock. Don't forget your a- grip. And, uh, then start three times a week with the help of your training partner. Do, let's say, three to five sets of three to five reps of assisted, assisted pull-ups. And I just want to reiterate again, the low reps are key, guys. If you want to be strong, you need to keep your reps at five and under.

   26. TFTim Ferriss38:02

       And at, at five reps or under, is what you're really working on, sort of the, the, it's ... And, uh, um, I'll get out of my depth and into yours pretty quickly, but the sort of neural pathways and the recr- the recruitment of motor neurons and, uh, sort of firing capabilities and so on, or-

   27. PTPavel Tsatsouline38:19

       Pretty much. You're gonna have, you're gonna have a high level of neural adaptations and, uh, you're also are going to build some muscle as well. So you're gonna build the high-threshold motor units as well, but not, it's not a bodybuilding protocol. You'll build some muscle, but it's not really the end, the end goal itself. So, uh, you are trying to also, you're trying to avoid the fatigue. You're trying to avoid the burn. Because whenever you start experiencing the burn, that's from something called the hydrogen ions.

   28. TFTim Ferriss38:48

       Mm-hmm.

   29. PTPavel Tsatsouline38:48

       That leads to a whole lot of problems for you. So one of the problems is it interferes with the command that your brain sends to the muscle to contract. And another problem that it creates, these hydrogen ions literally are destructive.

   30. TFTim Ferriss39:01

       Mm.
9. 42:13 – 49:01

   Strength as the priority—and the biggest myth: training to failure

   1. TFTim Ferriss42:13

      it's such an important shift, and I'm glad you brought it up. Which, which k- kind of leads me to the next, uh, the next question that it ... And it's about prioritization. So when people think of fitness, and particularly non-athletes, I think that there tends to be a very scattershot approach, and there's a paradox of choice challenge that they have where they're, they're fed a lot of recommendations from many different people. And They have strength. Uh, let's just talk, let's ... Strength, not necessarily muscle gain, but just getting stronger. They have hypertrophy. Mm, so increasing their, sort of muscular size, for lack of a, a better description. Endurance, flexibility. How would you rank these in order of priority, and why?

   2. PTPavel Tsatsouline42:58

      Tim, as long as the person has the required mobility and symmetry, the priority is always ... And health, the priority is always strength. Strength has to be first. So the first step that you do is you as- assess your mobility. You find a specialist who can do that. FMS would be, F- FMS would be a recommendation of mine. Gray Cook's FMS.

   3. TFTim Ferriss43:22

      Functional movement screen.

   4. PTPavel Tsatsouline43:23

      Functional movement screen is gonna find out how, uh, mobile you are and also how symmetrical you are. So as long as that is dialed in, that is in place, you have to get strong. And strength is the mother quality of all physical qualities. And that's not a statement by me, that's a statement by Professor Matveyev, the father of periodization, one of the greatest sports scientists ever. And greater strength increases your performance in absolutely everything. So you can see, of course, okay, of course, yeah, being stronger is gonna help you in, let's say, uh, punching somebody harder or lifting something. But how is that gonna help me if I'm, let's say, a triathlete? How is that gonna help me if I'm a marathon runner? It is going to help you in several different ways. One is the perceived level of exertion is gonna go down. Several years ago, Norwegians did a very interesting study where they put, uh, elite endurance athletes, some were bicyclists, some were runners, on a pure strength regimen. That's four sets of four reps of heavy squats. It's about as pure strength as it gets. And in the end of the study, not surprisingly, all these guys were stronger, they could jump higher and so on, but they were not impressed with that. That didn't matter to them. What did impress them is they ran faster. Their times, their race times went down because strength just makes, enables everything else. If you're trying to, let's say, lose weight, being stronger is gonna help you do that because you're gonna have, uh, you're gonna have, have a bigger furnace, you're gonna train yourself much harder on the exercises that are fat loss exercises. So it really doesn't matter what it is that you're trying to achieve, strength is the number one attribute you need to address, and that's why my company is called StrongFirst.

   5. TFTim Ferriss45:17

      [laughs] You know, I, uh, I love, uh, I love that the, the, you ... One of the things that I love about you, Pavel, is that you s- you say what you mean and mean what you say, and I, I, I just, it, there's a, there's a s- there's a degree of clarity that I, I envy. And, uh-

   6. PTPavel Tsatsouline45:34

      Thanks

   7. TFTim Ferriss45:34

      ... I, I might include it for people, but the, uh, when we did our soundcheck, I asked you, uh, to do, you know, to give me an answer so we could test the audio, what you had for breakfast, and what was your answer?

   8. PTPavel Tsatsouline45:44

      Coffee.

   9. TFTim Ferriss45:44

      [laughs] And that was it. That was the soundcheck. [laughs] I love this, the, the simplicity. Now, speaking of simplicity, and also, uh, sort of, uh, undoing the confusion that a lot of people suffer from, what are, what are the most counterproductive myths or misconceptions about strength training that come to mind?

   10. PTPavel Tsatsouline46:05

       Well, the number one, Tim, I guess is the idea that you have to go to failure-

   11. TFTim Ferriss46:10

       Mm-hmm

   12. PTPavel Tsatsouline46:11

       ... every time you train.

   13. TFTim Ferriss46:12

       Right.

   14. PTPavel Tsatsouline46:13

       And, uh, I can tell you one thing, that the Soviet weightlifters ... I, I have done a very thorough analysis of the Soviet weightlifting methodology from through the '60s to the '80s, the glory days, and I found that they typically did one third to two third of maximal repetitions per set. So what does it mean? If, let's say, that you're using a weight that's your 10 rep max, 10 is all you could do if you push yourself very hard. They would do three to six consistently. Now, you probably ask yourself, "Okay, I'm not a weightlifter, and what does this Soviet stuff from the '80s have to do with today?" Well, two things. First of all, even though a person who is not a lifting athlete is not going to train exactly as a weightlifter or powerlifter, nevertheless, the methodology has to be derived from these sports, because these are specialist strength sports. So it, they just have to be adapted to your needs. Second of all, the, this particular Soviet methodology is still superior to this day. This is very interesting, but if you, you keep hearing about all these new world records set in the sport of weightlifting. Well, if you compare the world records of today to the world records of the '80s, you will see that in most cases, the records today are inferior to records in the '80s. How can that be? They accuse people of doing drugs.

   15. TFTim Ferriss47:42

       Mm.

   16. PTPavel Tsatsouline47:42

       And they changed weight classes twice since the '80s. Of course, it's so wonderful. I'm so happy that today nobody does drugs anymore. It's just terrific.

   17. TFTim Ferriss47:51

       [laughs]

   18. PTPavel Tsatsouline47:54

       And [laughs] so if you look at, if you look at the lifts performed by Soviet lifter Yurik Vardanian in 1980 at the Moscow Olympics, these lifts have never been exceeded. These lifts have never been approached. So this particular methodology does work extremely well. It's still the best methodology, period. Later on, the Soviet powerlifting team adapted this methodology for powerlifting with tremendous success. They dominate. And, uh, the same particular methodology has been adapted to body weight training, kettlebell presses, and so on and so forth. So it's the same thing that can apply for everybody, because this is principle-based training. So the major misconception is that you have to go to failure.

   19. TFTim Ferriss48:42

       Mm-hmm.

   20. PTPavel Tsatsouline48:42

       So that if you just overcome that, and if you make it a habit To do one third to two third of the repetitions that are possible and do more sets instead. You're going to make much greater progress, you're going to do much safer, and folks, you're going to enjoy your training.

10. 49:01 – 56:44

    Hypertrophy and muscle-growth theories: creatine phosphate, hydrogen ions, and long rests

    1. TFTim Ferriss49:01

       And how do, how does the approach shift if your focus is, uh, maximal hypertrophy?

    2. PTPavel Tsatsouline49:10

       If you're after maximal hypertrophy, it's volume. So they figured out in the Soviet Union that there's a direct correlation between volume and, uh, hypertrophy. So you just pretty much have to do more sets. You're going to have to do more sets in the, like, 60 to 70% of your max range.

    3. TFTim Ferriss49:28

       Mm-hmm.

    4. PTPavel Tsatsouline49:29

       And a whole bunch of sets of five and six, just many of them. And your rest periods might be compressed a little more. But that's it. If you do that, do this a couple times a week, many sets of five or six, don't even worry about how many, just, just keep going. Don't kill yourself. Enjoy yourself. Uh, eat more, you're going to get bigger. It's unavoidable. It's just as simple as that.

    5. TFTim Ferriss49:51

       [laughs] And you have, I've, of course, I've, I've spoken with, uh, with fans and written about the app- the applications of to-failure training for primarily hypertrophy, just because you're, you're doing so much with the sarcoplasm and maximizing the, the sort of, uh, cellular volume. Um, that the, the challenge is not so much the training with hypertrophy, it's the eating. Uh [laughs] it's just-

    6. PTPavel Tsatsouline50:22

       Yeah

    7. TFTim Ferriss50:22

       ... I mean, you really, you feel like the, the, the Japanese hot dog eater, Kobayashi, after a while. It's just waking up in the middle of the night to eat meals and whatnot. It's, uh, that, that's by far the most punishing aspect of it, for me at least. Um-

    8. PTPavel Tsatsouline50:36

       It is, Tim, it is. And, uh-

    9. TFTim Ferriss50:38

       Any tricks there?

    10. PTPavel Tsatsouline50:38

        Also, nobody knows. Also, nobody knows. Yeah, there are a couple tricks. But there, no, I- I'll mention them in a second.

    11. TFTim Ferriss50:44

        Yeah.

    12. PTPavel Tsatsouline50:44

        Nobody does know exactly what happens on the cellular level when you try to stimulate muscle hypertrophy.

    13. TFTim Ferriss50:50

        Yeah.

    14. PTPavel Tsatsouline50:50

        Anybody who tells you that they know, they, you know, it's just, uh, speculation at best.

    15. TFTim Ferriss50:55

        Mm-hmm.

    16. PTPavel Tsatsouline50:55

        There are a number of theories. Some of the theories are more credible than others, but the fact is we still do not know.

    17. TFTim Ferriss51:01

        Mm-hmm.

    18. PTPavel Tsatsouline51:02

        And, uh, what makes the Soviet, uh, weightlifting methodology of the '80s so spectacular is that was a purely empirical methodology. They tried to explain what happens on the cellular level, but they didn't try too hard. It was pretty much a trial and error. They would analyze the training logs of successful lifters and successful competitions. They analyzed this data, they made recommendations, and it's kind of chicken and egg. Where does this start? Scientists watching what the best lifters do, or the best lifters, the best scientists telling the best lifters what to do? It was kind of both, and they kept narrowing down, narrowing down, narrowing it down, and this is how it works. But, uh, we still don't know exactly what happens there.

    19. TFTim Ferriss51:44

        What is your ... Uh, I, I want to, I definitely want to touch on the, the tricks for, uh, not making yourself nauseous all day when you're trying to, to pack on pounds of muscle. But before that, what is your favorite pet theory, w- even if it's sp- speculative at this point, what is your preferred theory, uh, for muscular growth?

    20. PTPavel Tsatsouline52:05

        Okay. Vladimir Potassnitsky's theory makes most sense to me. And according to this theory, when the muscle comes, the contraction comes to an end or close to an end, when you have depleted the creatine phosphate in the muscle-

    21. TFTim Ferriss52:23

        Mm-hmm

    22. PTPavel Tsatsouline52:24

        ... that's the primary stimulus for hypertrophy, according to him. And again, what could that possibly, well, how can that possibly do? In, if the muscle contraction stops not as a result of mounting acidity, and that's very, very important-

    23. TFTim Ferriss52:39

        Mm-hmm

    24. PTPavel Tsatsouline52:39

        ... but as a result of there's simply not enough creatine phosphate, supposedly the, uh, cross bridges no longer can really disengage properly.

    25. TFTim Ferriss52:49

        Mm-hmm.

    26. PTPavel Tsatsouline52:50

        So supposedly-

    27. TFTim Ferriss52:51

        And, and by cross bridges, you're talking about the, the myosin and actin?

    28. PTPavel Tsatsouline52:53

        Actin, myosin. That's right.

    29. TFTim Ferriss52:54

        Yeah.

    30. PTPavel Tsatsouline52:54

        Supposedly, this is what tears them apart. Supposedly, that's what causes the microtrauma that makes the satellite cells do their thing.
11. 56:44 – 1:06:01

    Slow-twitch hypertrophy via occlusion-style mid-range work and active recovery

    1. PTPavel Tsatsouline56:44

       So when you're training just for strength, you don't need to do that. You just do one-third to two-thirds of your maximum reps. When you're trying to train for hypertrophy, yes, you can do just simply more submaximal sets, but sometimes you just have to push yourself harder. Not to failure still, but harder. And Silyanov also has the most fascinating slow twitch fiber protocol as well. I'd like to tell your readers about it because there are a lot of misconceptions about training the slow fibers.

    2. TFTim Ferriss57:13

       Mm-hmm.

    3. PTPavel Tsatsouline57:13

       Well, if you think about slow fibers, well, first of all, there's-

    4. TFTim Ferriss57:15

       Which most people associate with endurance.

    5. PTPavel Tsatsouline57:18

       Yeah, exactly, and they do have endurance. That's true. But they are also ... People think, "Well, they're thin. They're weak. They're small, and why should I do that? Why would any self-respecting power athlete, you know, demean himself training the slow fibers?"

    6. TFTim Ferriss57:30

       [laughs]

    7. PTPavel Tsatsouline57:31

       So [laughs] ... And, uh, Silyanov has a very different point of view on this. First of all, if you look at back in the six- in some studies done in the '60s, if you compare the strength of your slow fibers and fast ones, uh, they are just as strong for the same cross-section. So which means that if you have a bundle of slow fibers that's as thick as your finger-

    8. TFTim Ferriss57:52

       Mm-hmm

    9. PTPavel Tsatsouline57:52

       ... and you have a bundle of fast fibers that's as thick as your finger, they're equally strong. Just, you know, the slower bundle is gonna have more smaller fibers, but it doesn't matter.

    10. TFTim Ferriss58:02

        Hmm.

    11. PTPavel Tsatsouline58:02

        Number one. Number two, because their velocity of contraction for the fast fibers can be 20, 40% higher for the slow fibers, the presumption is, "Well, I need to move fast. I can't afford that." So but Silyanov's work has found out that even in sprint, 50% of the output is provided by slow fibers. And he says even though in, uh, vitro that may be true that these fibers are contracting faster, but in vivo, in real life, in sport activities, you're not really gonna go so fast. So that advantage is no longer, no longer valid. He has put experienced sprinters on a training protocol that hypertrophied their slow fibers, and these sprinters improved their sprint for 100 meters on average from 10.9 seconds to 10.7 just from, just from this slow, fast, slow fiber hypertrophy. And there is additional benefits of hypertrophy for slow fibers, something we can discuss a little bit later if we talk ab- if you choose to talk about endurance-

    12. TFTim Ferriss59:10

        Mm-hmm

    13. PTPavel Tsatsouline59:10

        ... is these slow fibers come pre-equipped with mitochondria-

    14. TFTim Ferriss59:15

        Right

    15. PTPavel Tsatsouline59:15

        ... which means they have a lot of endurance. So for other types of athletes, that can be very beneficial. So Silyanov has this fascinating training protocol for training, uh, for hypertrophy of slow fibers. So here's how this goes. He says the biggest problem that you have is typically people just try to go and burn them out. Well, but all that does, again, that just, the gig comes to an end because of the mounting acidity. That's not the right stimulus right there. You want to make sure that you exhaust that creatine phosphate, get that free creatine flowing. So how do you do that? You create occlusion. So he would have you do, uh, s-

    16. TFTim Ferriss59:49

        You said aclusion, occlusion.

    17. PTPavel Tsatsouline59:50

        Occlusion. Yeah, it means basically shut ... Uh, the contraction prevents the blood flow.

    18. TFTim Ferriss59:55

        Right.

    19. PTPavel Tsatsouline59:55

        So it's a constant tension, what bodybuilders would call constant tension. And what you would do is you would do, let's say, squats. You go a little bit below parallel. You go a little bit above parallel, and you're going slow. The timeframe is 30 to 60 seconds, about the duration. And, uh, you have to come to failure or close to failure. Now, this is, again, this is what's really fascinating. After that, and this is what's so, so different from the traditional slow twitch training, is you have to take that same five to 10 minute active rest.

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:00:23

        Hmm.

    21. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:00:24

        Because he says if you don't, that mounting acidity is gonna mess everything up. And on one day a week, typically you would do four to nine sets in this manner, and then three to four days later you do a second day where you do one to three sets. So that's a protocol. One more time. Super slow movement, no rest, 30 to 60 seconds in duration. One day a week, four to nine sets. Three to four days later, one to three sets. Five to 10 minutes of rest in between active rest. By the way, active rest can also mean working different muscle groups. That's, that's very fine as well. And just to tell you how effective this protocol is, he put a number of athletes, experienced athletes from different sports on ... who knew how to squat, on a back squat protocol using these, uh, using these types of reps and sets and so on. And in eight weeks, these guys increased more than, added more than 25% to their back squat.

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:01:22

        Holy crap [laughs] .

    23. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:01:23

        Yeah, yeah. And you realize these guys were not, these guys were not your typical American college subjects. You know, the guys with very fast thumbs, you know? Facebook people.

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:01:32

        [laughs]

    25. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:01:32

        No, I'm talking, I'm talking about athletes. [laughs]

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:01:37

        [laughs] And what, what percentage of their one-rep max were they using for these 30 to 60 second sets? Because that's a, that's a challenging micro range of movement [laughs] from-

    27. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:01:48

        Okay. It ... The typical guidelines, you have to find it for yourself because that depends on your bo- on your fiber composition.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:01:55

        Right.

    29. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:01:55

        Typically, it's about 30 to 60% for your lower body and 10 to 40% for your upper body. So why is the difference? And the difference is, uh, is de- determined by the fact that your upper body is more fast twitch.

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:02:08

        Mm.
12. 1:06:01 – 1:15:20

    Why older methods still win: neomania, enduring records, and longevity examples

    1. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:06:01

       Tim, I think Dan John has said it really well. It worked so well, I got bored with it and I stopped doing it.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:06:08

       [laughs]

    3. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:06:12

       [laughs]

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:06:12

       Yeah.

    5. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:06:12

       And, and before, shortly before, uh, their death, uh, not, you know, in the last decade, both Vasily Alexeyev, uh, who is, um, you know, great champion, and, uh, Arkady Vorobyov was a great champion, and the sports scientists, they criticized these practices very, very heavily. Alexei Medvedev, who, uh, also has done the same thing. They said, "Basically you guys are barking up the wrong tree right here." So I just think that people are trying to get fancy.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:06:41

       Mm.

    7. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:06:41

       It's, it, it's funny that what's happening in Russia is probably reflecting that whole trend, Western trend that Nassim Taleb would, uh, call neomania. People love the new.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:06:56

       Yeah, absolutely

    9. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:06:56

       ... people just absolutely love the new. They're, they're forgetting that what stuff that, or it worked much better. You could consider the results, the results were superior back then.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:07:06

        Mm-hmm.

    11. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:07:06

        The same thing you can look at the powerlifting methodology, uh, the, also going back to the '80s. The classic American powerlifting methodology, the classic cycling, as exemplified by lifters like Ed Coan and Lamar Gant and, uh, systematized by Marty Gallagher. Again, people are saying, "Well, we have better training methods these days," and they're showing you different numbers in the squats and the bench press and so on. To which I say, well, in the squat and the bench press, it has become impossible to really compare apples and apples because of all these crazy shirts and suits-

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:07:42

        Yeah, the gear

    13. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:07:42

        ... that people are wearing.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:07:43

        Yeah.

    15. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:07:43

        Exactly. But in the deadlift, you're still seeing ... Look at the record tables. The record tables, a number of the deadlift records are still set back in the '80s and [laughs] '90s, and they're still sitting. These are all-time historic records. And even the advancement of some assistance gear for the deadlift and advancement of the longer bars, we have bars and so on, yeah, it improved some pulls, but still many of these records still do stand. And, uh, the '80s is a fascinating era for strength. I wrote a blog a little while ago that I called it Forward to the Past. It was inspired by the upcoming 30th anniversary of, uh, the movie Back to the Future.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:08:27

        [laughs]

    17. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:08:28

        And the point, [laughs] and the point I made in there, look, you know, if Marty McFly wanted to travel, there are plenty of reasons to travel to today's day. But looking for strength advice, that he would've been much better off staying home.

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:08:41

        [laughs]

    19. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:08:42

        Because so ... [laughs] weightlifting methodology of the '80s, the American powerlifting methodology of the '80s, they still remain superior, and that's not something you can argue.

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:08:52

        Yeah. Ed Coan, even for people who are not familiar, perhaps especially for people who are not familiar with powerlifting, uh, I think would just be fascinated by, by Ed Coan. What was it he pulled? Uh, oh, God, I'm blanking here. N-

    21. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:09:06

        901 probably is his best pull, but-

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:09:08

        That's the one. At what w-

    23. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:09:09

        Ed has pulled-

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:09:09

        At what body weight? That was 220 or something

    25. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:09:11

        ... uh, 901 at 220. That's correct.

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:09:13

        God, insanity. [laughs]

    27. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:09:15

        [laughs] And Ed has set, Ed has set somewhere close to 100 world records in ... And he has competed in weight classes, you know, so many different weight classes over the years, and he also had a remarkably injury-free career, just really remarkably.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:09:29

        His hips gave him ... I mean, he's had, he's had hip issues since then. Do you think that's a result of sumo style deadlift?

    29. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:09:36

        I doubt it very much.

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:09:37

        You do? Okay.
13. 1:15:20 – 1:26:06

    Daily routines, calm as a performance advantage, and protecting creative work

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:15:20

       Uh, I'd love to shift gears and just ask you a few, um, questions about, uh, sort of your philosophies and your thinking, not, not so much, uh, the, the, the highly specific training questions. But wh- when you think of, for instance, the word successful, who's the first person who comes to mind for you?

    2. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:15:39

       Tim, I am fortunate enough to know many successful people, and I think that what separates them from the rest is, uh, the CEO of StrongFirst, Eric Froehlich, he put it very well. He says, "Balance with priorities. Balance with priorities." So Eric, yourself, and, uh, many others I'm fortunate to know, they exemplify success for me.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:16:06

       And the ... How do you h- h- what is the best way, uh, what, what are the habits that you've observed that allow people to have balance with priorities? What are the, the things they do that other people don't do?

    4. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:16:21

       Yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:16:21

       Or maybe, or maybe the things they don't do that other people do.

    6. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:16:24

       Well, I think one is calm. These people are calm. Because people who are hyper, they get so trapped in their reactive mode, they get too trapped in the everyday minutia of their work and their existence, so they just do not pause and they do not think. Again, Eric has a great quote from a Vietnam era SEAL, which says, "Calm is contagious."

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:16:50

       Mm.

    8. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:16:51

       "Calm is contagious." So when the person is calm, then he or she has the time to meditate, reflect, set their priorities, and, uh, set the balance.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:17:02

       Yeah, that, that's, that's certainly holds true from what I've seen. And the opposite, of course, is true. [laughs]

    10. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:17:11

        [laughs]

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:17:11

        Hysteria is contagious.

    12. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:17:12

        Well, it's just chasing the tail.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:17:13

        Yeah. Yeah.

    14. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:17:13

        Absolutely. Chicken Little.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:17:15

        [laughs]

    16. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:17:15

        The sky is falling. Yes, everything is urgent.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:17:18

        [laughs] Sounds like the internet in a nutshell right there.

    18. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:17:21

        That's right.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:17:21

        Uh, the ... [laughs] Uh, what, do you have any morning rituals? What is you, what are the, what are the first, what does the first hour or two of your day look like, typically?

    20. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:17:32

        I like to ease into my day. I will get up early, 6:00 AM typically, and my wife and I will just have coffee and read the newspaper and make small talk, and I really take my time.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:17:45

        Mm-hmm.

    22. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:17:46

        I pointedly read a paper, not watch TV, not get any kind of electronic news or radio. I really appreciate the calm of print.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:17:56

        Mm-hmm.

    24. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:17:56

        Because whenever you're watching TV, it's just the latest news, the breaking news, and it's, again, that same tail chasing.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:18:02

        [laughs]

    26. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:18:05

        [laughs] After that, if I, if I decide to lift, train with kettlebells, I'll go to the b- beach and do that. If I do not do that this morning, I'll just still go to the beach for half an hour. I will-

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:18:16

        What time is that, typically?

    28. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:18:17

        That'll probably be about 7:00.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:18:19

        Okay.

    30. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:18:19

        And I will take a dip. I'll meditate a little. I might stretch a little. So it's, again, it's a time to, time to be composed. After that, it's a time to do creative work. So I will either write or I will do research. And when I do that, I very pointedly have the email down. So my whole email application is down. If I need to use the internet for some research, you know, the browser will stay up, but not the email. And my colleagues know to call me if, uh, they have something urgent. And, uh, not a lot of people call me because I have, my business card only has my email. So that's good. [laughs]
14. 1:26:06 – 1:42:23

    Flexibility vs. mobility: splits, the ‘three S’ rules, and patience-based practice

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:26:06

       Got it. And, uh, so to touch on that just as a segue, I'd love to talk about flexibility because I, I, I get a lot of questions about flexibility. I don't consider it my area of expertise, so I, I constantly refer people to your work. But-

    2. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:26:22

       Thank you

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:26:23

       ... uh, I'd love to hear you talk about where flexibility fits into the picture or when it does because f- uh, I think for me, and for other people, there's a lot of confusion around mobility versus flexibility. Uh, one of the questions I get most often, for instance, is, um, how do I get to the full side splits? They wanna go between the chairs-

    4. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:26:45

       Mm-hmm

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:26:45

       ... like Van Damme. And, you know, is that, uh, is that a, a, a worthwhile goal? Is it a terrible goal? This is a lot coming at you at once.

    6. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:26:54

       [laughs]

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:26:54

       But, but how does, how does flexibility fit into the picture or not for what types of people?

    8. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:26:58

       Okay. Well, first of all, let me tell you about the goal of the split, whether you ch- if you choose to achieve that. It's achievable. I will tell you a great success story. He's one of the StrongFirst instructors, and he is, uh, truly a product of the system. The gentleman's name is Steve Freides and is a music professor. He was severely injured. His lower back was herniated very bad. He spent eight or nine months in bed on Percocet. It was very bad. And then he decided to become a man, decided to train seriously for strength, for flexibility, train like a real athlete, after getting the proper medical clearance and so on, of course. So fast-forward to today, Steve Freides, who is, uh, 59 if I'm not mistaken, he holds a number of American records for his age group in the deadlift, and he deadlifts without a belt. And Steve Freides, 59-year-old man, who used to have horrendously messed up back, can do suspended side splits just like Van Damme. So, uh, you big sissies out there think that you're too old or too whatever, no. You just gotta, you [laughs] you just gotta shape up.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:28:11

       [laughs] So, all right, touch- [laughs] touching on the ... All right, I'll, I will-

    10. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:28:17

        Most people are sissies

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:28:18

        ... I'll, I'll, I'll raise my hand. I'm one of those sissies. Um, [laughs] if, if ... And I've, I've had this ... I think there are many to-dos that are ... There's the n- there are the nice to have things, then the must have things, and for me, it's been at least a decade, maybe 20 years, where I've had these suspended side splits on the to-do list, and it, it just gets, it gets renewed. You know, it's kinda like, uh, car insurance. Like, I renew it every year.

    12. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:28:43

        [laughs]

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:28:44

        But I never really make any use of it. So, uh-

    14. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:28:48

        Well, Tim, we'll deal with that. We'll-

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:28:49

        [laughs]

    16. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:28:49

        ... we'll get you there. You know, it's, whether it's a worthwhile goal or not to pursue, yeah, obviously there's the obvious just because it is there.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:28:56

        Right.

    18. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:28:56

        And there's no way of judge that kind of goal. Somebody climbs to the mountain, somebody, uh, somebody learns to do a side split. Is that something that you need to do for your performance outside of several sports like taekwondo or gymnastics? No, you really don't.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:29:13

        Yeah.

    20. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:29:13

        Is that going to improve your wellbeing? I do have to say that the sense of freedom that you have in your hips when you consistently can do a full split-

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:29:24

        Mm-hmm

    22. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:29:25

        ... is really pretty awesome. To have that feeling of freedom in the hips, it, you can only know that freedom if you also have known what not to have it, if that makes any sense.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:29:34

        Right, of course.

    24. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:29:35

        So I will periodically, you know, for a while I kind of would not treat, treat it too seriously, take some time, you know, stretch very lightly, kinda stay my, keep maybe at 70%, and then I'll just make the push again and bring it back, and I always really enjoy that feeling of freedom. So that's, it's, it's a decision though. But let's talk about this mobility and flexibility business. Let's talk about how people should proceed about it. So mobility, pretty much we're talking about the full range of motion in the joint when, uh, the length of the muscle is not an issue. So let's use an example of a full squat, okay? So if you're in a full squat, uh, n- you know, not a whole lot of muscles are preventing you from hitting that range of motion. So there may be a possibility that you need to just pretty much get your joint moving smoother. So what does that mean? Folks, it just literally means, uh, just doing a whole bunch of squats very slowly, and not very slowly, just slowly and building up progressively range of motion. Uh, I'm also academician. I'm also of the famous Soviet, uh, scientist who was a kinda health guru. He would perform these movements every day. He would perform 100 squats every day and 100 other, um, other things. If you're not up for doing that, you just simply hold onto the doorway. So you just unload yourself partially, you shift your weight more to the heels to make it easier on your knees, and you start squatting. And don't go to pain, you know. Be very progressive. Go as deep as you can. Eventually go deeper. Just do multiple sets. If, and the same thing is true really for pretty much for all the other joints, but obviously the hip joints, that's, that's a big one. And everybody needs, everybody needs th- this type of training I like a very simple, uh, joint mobility protocol. Obviously, you can make this as complex as you want, seriously, and many people have. But like in my book, Kettlebell: Simple & Sinister, that's my latest book, I give this protocol where there are just, just a couple different exercises you do. One exercise you do is you just kind of, uh, move an exer- so move a weight around your head in a circle, a halo, loosen up your shoulders. Another exercise you do is a very particular type of squat, kind of a prying goblet squat. That's a terrific exercise. So you can do search online prying goblet squat.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:31:55

        And just for people, I remember the first time I heard you say that. I embarrassed myself at the certification because I thought you were saying goblin squat, and I asked you what a goblin squat is. So for pe- [laughs] It is a goblet, uh, like drinking out of a goblet, uh.

    26. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:32:07

        It's a goblet squat-

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:32:08

        [laughs]

    28. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:32:08

        ... the name by Dan John. And, uh, it's, it's a terrific type of a squat that's literally squat for the people. See, the problem with the squat exercise is most people are, don't know how to move well, they're tight, and you try to put a bar in their back and they just cannot do that. So the goblet squat is kind of a squat for the people that Dan developed. And, uh, the prying that is added to that is something that really allows you to increase your mobility and flexibility. So, uh, what you need to do when you're trying to get, get your flexibility increased, let's say that, and mobility, let's pick any exercise that you're doing, any kind of a stretch that you're doing, whatever it is. So there are certain rules that you need to abide by, and, uh, I call these the three S. So str- use your strength, find space, and spread the load. Use strength, find space, spread the load. So what does that, so what does that mean exactly, Tim? Well, let's use an example of the squat. Using strength for the squat means pulling yourself down into the squat instead of just dropping yourself. Using example of the split, instead of trying to drop yourself down into the split, you're very actively pushing your feet out like you're trying to spread the walls apart. So spreading the walls apart, that means you're using strength. Find space. So what does finding space mean? Finding space mean just pretty much kind of a prying and moving your body into the position and trying to find more space in the joint. And also try to loosen up the fascia, that, uh, sheet, that fibrous sheet around your muscles. It's, uh... a very good analogy would be trying to pull a post out of the ground.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:33:57

        Hmm.

    30. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:33:58

        So let's say you're trying to pull a post out of the ground. It's a concrete post. You pull on it hard, and it's not gonna come out. And I can tell you because I have tried.
15. 1:42:23 – 1:57:55

    Culture, choices, and closing: limiting options and where to find StrongFirst

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:42:23

       Mm-hmm. Yeah, true for so many areas. Uh, I wanted to come back to something you said about over-sharing earlier [laughs] and, and the, uh, [laughs] I guess it was the, uh, the, the f- the flaws or the, the dangers of over-sharing and-

    2. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:42:39

       The malfunction

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:42:39

       ... the malfunction, even better, of over-sharing. [laughs] So that's, that's kind of my, my business model, I guess. But, um, [laughs] so the, the, uh, the ... I'd love to hear-

    4. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:42:49

       Tim, it's my opinion. I'm not judging.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:42:51

       Oh, no, no, no, no. You can feel free to judge. I think I, I think that over-sharing is a problem also. But, uh, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what Americans could learn from, uh, perhaps the culture you grew up in in the former Soviet Union or vice versa because I personally, and this is not meant as a slight at all, I have so much respect for so many, uh, people in the former Soviet Union. Uh, I've ... My, most of my observation's been in the, in the sports arena, uh, uh, sports arena, I mean, looking at people like Konstantin Konstantinov or Dmitry Klokov or just these, these amazing specimens. But I have a very tough time when I meet some people from the former Soviet Union socially with, uh, getting through the cultural differences. And I'm usually, I don't usually find that hard, unless there's a lot of vodka involved. Um, but-

    6. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:43:43

       Well, that's, that's the social lubricant.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:43:44

       [laughs]

    8. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:43:45

       You just need to, uh, you just need to drink more vodka. That takes care of that.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:43:48

       [laughs] So what, what could, what could Americans learn from, uh, from the culture you grew up in or vice versa?

    10. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:43:56

        Okay. Well, first of all, I'm speaking about the Soviet culture. I'm not talking about the current culture, the post-Soviet culture, uh, because unfortunately this is my observation that oftentimes when different countries learn something from America-

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:44:14

        Mm-hmm

    12. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:44:14

        ... they choose to learn not the things that worth learning.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:44:16

        Right. Agreed.

    14. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:44:17

        I really would like to see for Russia to learn about, uh, free enterprise, about, uh, fair competition, about freedom, and unfortunately the things they're learning are, are not. These are, like, reality TV. That's what they're learning.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:44:35

        Mm-hmm.

    16. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:44:36

        And that's, that's not unique to Russia. That's, that's pretty universal around the world for some reason. Instead of getting the best from America, people are just sort of getting the Las Vegas version-

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:44:47

        [laughs]

    18. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:44:47

        ... of America. So [laughs]

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:44:49

        Right.

    20. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:44:50

        And what people can learn, what Americans can learn is they can learn to limit their choices. You mentioned earlier The Paradox of Choice, the... Is it Barry Schwartz book, right?

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:45:02

        That's right.

    22. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:45:03

        It's a very good book. I enjoyed that book very much, and I think that is, I think that is very true. When there is so many choices to exercise, these choices are difficult. It takes a lot of processing power. There is a great, uh, moment in a film, Moscow on the Hudson, an old film with, uh, Robin Williams, where he walks into, uh, an American grocery store and he sees coffee everywhere. He says, "Coffee, coffee, coffee." He just passes out. So what is very difficult in this country is exercising the choice because options are just so many, and choices are difficult. And in fact, you will find out that a number of Eastern Europeans who have failed to assimilate or failed to make their life in America are the ones who just have a hard time making choices.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:45:52

        Hmm.

    24. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:45:53

        They're used to for a lot of choices being made for them, and there is obvious downside to that in terms of freedom. There is obviously an upside of it because there's, there are fewer distractions. So you, uh, personally, not you, Tim, but the listeners, you need to figure out how to limit your choices, then make these choices and stick to them. The Konstantinov and the Klokov and these other Russian athletes you mentioned, these guys do not train with 360-degree butt-squeezing Scott curl bench that you see in a typical gym.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:46:26

        [laughs]

    26. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:46:27

        These guys have the basics, and they just hammer, just absolutely hammer on the basics. And the... I'm a big admirer of the free enterprise system. Unfortunately, as much as that's worked in so many fields and industries, it's completely failed in, uh, the exercise industry and fitness industry because it's constantly chasing its tail, tail with the novelty, the new, the best, the whatever, and it's a fad that just goes away again. But the simple fact is certain things just do not change. What I think also, I think Americans could really learn is, uh, they could learn from themselves, they could learn from the past. I have a great, uh, idealized image of America that I did when I was growing up, and that came from my favorite film is The Magnificent Seven.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:47:20

        Hmm.

    28. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:47:21

        It's interesting that they showed that film when my dad was in the service and it was came out first, and then I saw it many years later. They showed it again. And I was just very impressed with this ethos that you could see there, these very strong, self-reliant people who don't, uh, waste words, who do not get stuck in a part of hierarchy, who sort of ride into the sunset. I think it's just very powerful. I think if America would just little bit more reconnect with what makes it, makes it great, it wouldn't have to search elsewhere. Uh, we can talk about American exceptionalism. There is such a thing as American exceptionalism because no other country has that same sense of freedom, has the same opportunities, and that same spirit of everything is possible. No other place. So even people who go out and start criticizing America, that's usually it happens because of envy. That's really all it is. So maybe let's just go back to the older times, maybe some of them didn't even exist, the Old West, whatever it is, where just people had the pride in being pioneers, the pride in just getting ahead. Or let's even look, T- Tim, let's even look in the '50s or '60s. Like, today, where do the brightest young people, what do they end up doing? They end up designing apps, right?

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:48:56

        Wow.

    30. PTPavel Tsatsouline1:48:56

        Well, in the '50s and '60s, they designed spaceships.

Episode duration: 1:57:55