Joe Rogan Experience #1399 - Pavel Tsatsouline

All right, here we go. What's up, man? How are you?

Joe, great to be on the show.

It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to meet you, and an honor. I've, I've been following your work for a long time, man. I mean-

Thank you, Joe.

... I was first introduced to you and your methods by Steve Maxwell, who was a, you know, a huge proponent of the kettlebell. And then I started getting into your videos.

A very smart coach, yeah.

Yeah, very good. And, uh, I started getting into your videos, and I've read your books. And, uh, so-

Thank you.

... for me, it's an honor.

My pleasure.

How long have you been, uh, teaching and practicing with kettlebells? Since you were little?

Something like that, medium.

(laughs) Since you were medium-sized?

Medium-sized. Yeah, it's kind of like baseball, you know.

In-

It's a pretty common thing.

... in Russia?

In the Soviet Union, yeah, it is.

Why didn't it catch on here until you came over here?

You know what? I don't think people really tried. I don't think people really understood that it would catch on, and I did not think it would happen either. So I'm sitting with my friend, Marty Gallagher, having steaks, years back. Marty is a former coach for Powerlifting Team USA and, uh, coach of some top lifters. And you were just trading old war stories, talk- talking about stuff, and I told him about kettlebells. He says, "Well, you've got to teach Americans how to do that." And I said, "Marty, you don't understand. This stuff is too hard. Nobody's gonna wanna do this." And he said, "You don't understand. People want to do this." And, uh, I wrote an article for, based on Marty's suggestion, for Milo. So Milo was a publication, niche publication, for strange guys who lift rocks, and bend things, and break things, and so on and so forth. And, uh, so that was the start of it. And then after that, I told my publisher about it, and, uh, he said, "Well, come on, let's just make kettlebells and teach people." I had told him the same thing, "You don't understand, that people will not wanna do this. This is too hard." And, but he convinced me, and they convinced me, and the rest is history.

Why did you think that it was popular in the Soviet Union but wouldn't be popular in America?

You know, this is something that you just see. It's a very common thing though, so you just see this, you don't think much about this. Um, who knows?

Yeah, but it was popular over there.

Yeah.

And effective.

Since at least, since at least 1700s, or possibly before that.

But this country is so-

Yeah.

... performance-oriented and so sports-oriented and so competitive. Why wouldn't you think that that would be sort of a natural training modality, that would, they would immediately adopt it?