Grease the groove

Pavel Tsatsouline was a physical-training instructor in the Soviet special forces who moved to the United States and, around 2001, introduced Americans to a cannonball with a handle. The kettlebell had been in Russian gyms for a century. Within a decade it was in every American one.

Two things he taught are the key. The first is the swing: a hip-driven movement where the bell floats to chest height and falls, hundreds of times, building the whole back of the body and a heart that can go for a long time. The second is the Turkish get-up, which is simply standing up from the floor with a weight held overhead, slowly, through seven positions. It is the most complete single exercise I know, and nearly every person who does it for the first time discovers a weak link they didn't know they had.

But the idea I want you to carry out of this letter is a phrase of his: grease the groove. Instead of training a movement to exhaustion once a week, you do it often, well under your limit, throughout the day, and you never go to failure. Five pull-ups six times a day, when you can do ten. Three perfect push-ups every time you walk past the kitchen counter. The nervous system learns the movement the way it learns a language, by frequent easy repetition, and strength arrives almost as a side effect.

This is a key for the second month because it's about breath and rhythm as much as muscle. The swing is a breathing exercise with a weight attached: sharp exhale at the top, every rep. And greasing the groove is the gentlest way anyone has ever found to get strong, which makes it the right way to start for the people who've been afraid to.