The Strenuous Life Podcast with Stephan Kesting

In this episode Travis Stevens, 3 x Judo Olympian, Olympic silver medalist, and BJJ black belt goes deep into his training regimen. You'll learn why and how he does 5 or 6 workouts a day, what the strength benchmarks are for effective judo, the differences between his BJJ and Judo training, and much more. It's an amazing episode that I'm sure you'll find very interesting.

In this episode I try to answer as many questions as possible from my email newsletter readers, including whether BJJ gameplans really are for everyone (3:30), how to pace yourself against the young guys when you're 52 years old (8:36), the best stretches for grappling flexibility (13:12), what are the best drills for developing a specific position (15:30), what's my hypothetical plan for creating a BJJ world champion if I had a young clone of myself (18:41), when will the single leg X guard and modern leg lock formula instructionals be released as apps (28:28), what should your focus be if you're training purely for self defense (29:35), ranking physical attributes in order of importance for BJJ competition (32:22), bodyweight fitness routines (38:00), tips for dealing with knuckle and joint pain (40:50), what's a good balance between weight training and BJJ for healthy joints (44:30), is 5' 9" too small to do BJJ (50:10), training around knee pain (52:05), post training nutrition tips (55:35), flexibility for older grapplers (57:05), are you being rude to your partners when you want to go light because of injury concerns (59:25), and how can you deal with getting promoted to blue belt but not thinking that you deserve it (1:03:54)? Please subscribe and give this podcast a rating and/or a review if you find it useful - it's really helping us produce more episodes!

I LOVED talking to Bernardo Faria, 5 time BJJ world champion, about his getting 'kidnapped' in the Philippines, reflections on ADCC 2017, the toughest guys he has ever rolled with, whether you can get your BJJ black belt without competing, the connection between jiu-jitsu and entrepreneurship, building a BJJ school, if North America will ever catch up to Brazil in jiu-jitsu, and much more. Check it out! You can find out more about Bernardo on his website at https://bernardofaria.com and/or his Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/bernardorochajf

No gi grappling is very popular these days, and a lot of people find making the transition from training with the gi to training without it tricky and difficult. In this episode Ritchie Yip and I go over some tricks and tips to make this an easier transition and to give you a fighting chance when you can't grip cloth to control your opponent.

In this short episode we talk about why training plateaus are actually more frustrating than training slumps, plus I share 3 concrete steps to bust out of a plateau and get back to getting better!

I really like this episode because we got the chance to go DEEP into the training routine of the world's fastest firefighter, Jamie McGarva. Jamie has held numerous titles for the Firefighter Combat Challenge both in the team and individual category, including breaking the world record twice in two days. Even now he continues to push himself harder in a single workout than most normal human beings do in a month. Hope you like this and come away inspired for your next training session!

In this episode I talk with BJJ black belt Rob Biernacki about gratitude and how that has shaped his visiting student program where people can train with him for free. And, because it's Rob and I, we go off on some major tangents including the weirdos who have hit us up on the internet, how to identify fake martial arts, and why it's sometimes good to be the dumbest guy in the room.

In this episode Eva Schubert and I discuss our semi-annual 30 horizontal mile and 3 vertical mile 'Deathmarch' through the British Columbia mountains on the 'Kneeknacker Route' and why four was just not our magic number this time...

What belt level should you start training leg locks at? It depends a little bit on what your goals are and whether you're doing gi or no gi, but it's a lot sooner than you think EVEN if you're competing only in the IBJJF rule set. This podcast episode is excerpted from a 17 minute long Youtube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GQZPtpsg_U which takes you through how to do the actual leglocks and demonstrates some of the techniques that will instantly get you disqualified from an IBJJF tournament.

There is so much information (and misinformation) about knives out there that it's easy to get confused. In this episode I talk with metal professional and knife collector Zoltan Schubert and we break down the different types of steel used in knives, optimal Rockwell hardnesses, as well as the characteristics that make knives better for different purposes.