This program is designed to get the most out of the least.

It’s simple yet effective. And what’s better - if you do it right, you can progress the workouts sustainably and indefinitely.

I have built this program around the simple ideas pioneered by Kettlebell and Fitness legends such as Pavel Tsatsouline, Mark Wildman, and many, many others.

Here are the foundational ideas behind the program:

• Muscle Building and Cardio are not an “either or” trade-off!

• You need to train Ballistic Hip-Hinging until you die!

• Mixing Heavy and Light weights is essential for surviving your training!

• As you age, you can feel a loss of Endurance and Stamina in daily life!

• Getting off the Ground is a skill you can not afford to lose!

These are the core movements of the program:

• Swing

• Snatch

• Clean & Press

• Squats

• Get-ups

The thing to understand about these movements is that there is almost infinite variation for you to challenge yourself in a given session. AND if you cannot perform these movements smoothly, there are regressions and progressions that we will cover in a longer deep-dive style article.

Before you keep reading, take a second, breathe in deeply, let’s count to 4, and now breathe out forcefully (empty your lungs completely). Let’s do it again - this time observe yourself - where do you feel the breath? What is the passage the air is taking?

Are you breathing in through your chest and mouth?

Or are you breathing in through your belly and nose?

While I will refrain from saying there is a wrong way to breathe, I will say there is an optimal way.

The optimal way to breathe is mostly through the nose and through the belly.

In breathwork training, we call this horizontal breathing.

And the reason we call it horizontal breathing is to give you a visual and physical cue: when you breathe in, can you put your hand on your belly and see it rise?

For most of my life, I was told lactate was toxic waste to my muscles and body, or “lactic acid” (colloquial term) was the thing that was making my calves tight during the school mile test. I remember vividly, crying because I didn’t reach the presidential standard in the mile test, and my coach telling me the “lactic acid” was the reason - while this wasn’t completely wrong, it wasn’t the full story.

Later in life as I got back into fitness, I discovered the real reason I couldn’t hold a high pace in the mile-test in school through the research by Iñigo San-Millán and his mentor, George Brooks, the lactate cycle, often referred to as the lactate shuttle, is a fundamental “bioenergetic” process in which lactate produced in one part of the body is transported to and consumed as a highly efficient fuel by another.

I have had this conversation with every single one of my clients. “YOU DO NOT WANT TO FEEL PAIN!” In a session with me or especially on your own.

The mantra in the United States is universal: “No Pain, No Gain.”

This phrase is really just the harbinger of injuries to come.

While modern history will tell us this fitness catchphrase comes from the likes of Jane Fonda and the golden-era bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the cultural reference is far older, going back to Benjamin Franklin and beyond.

If you are out of shape, deconditioned, or more seriously, struggling with metabolic issues like pre-diabetes, your body’s internal energy factories (called mitochondria) are essentially “crumbling” and as we all know by now the thematic repeat of the human body is “if you don’t use it you lose it,” but this could be the most dangerous “lose it” you ever face if you are pursing a happy and healthy life.

When these energy factories are not working efficiently, your body struggles with everything. If you have ever seen “600 Pound Life” or any shows like it, one thing you will notice with almost every subject is that they describe a “constant state of pain.”

A metabolically broken baseline is equivalent to a conditioned individual maintaining steady state exercise. That’s why there’s a constant state of pain. Your body becomes “energy inflexible.”

This isn’t just a side effect of being overweight or inactive. It starts earlier with a lack of energy, focus, libido, and motivation. Slowly, you start to lose your will to live.

There is no magic pill to fix this. Exercise is the only medicine that actually repairs these energy factories. There is no shortcut here.

Specifically, you need to start with a steady movement. Start with walking.