STEVE MAXWELL ON LIVING A MINIMALIST LIFESTYLE

Steve Maxwell is a personal trainer who has worked with professional athletes, from fighters to baseball players. He is known for being one of the first trainers to introduce kettlebells to the Western world, as well as many other unorthodox tools like club bells.

He advocates a complete body workout over isolation exercises, body maintenance over pure athletic performance, and overall well-being over exercise for the sake of exercise.

In this interview we talk about his beginnings in the fitness industry, his minimalist lifestyle, self discipline, using exercise as meditation, and how faces his fears and doubts.

If you’d like to find out more information about him, you can find his exercise DVD’s and blog here.

In the second part of the interview we spoke on his views on self-discipline and motivation. In thethird part we spoke about how he sees meditation. And in the last part of the interview we spoke about his views on spirituality.

Hope you guys enjoy.

I had a rule where if I couldn’t fit it into the trunk of my car, then I wouldn’t own it.

KB: Why did you start working out?

SM: When I was in fifth grade, I went through a phase where I was starting to get a little pudgy, and I started getting picked on by a lot of other kids. My father saw this and bought me a barbell set. He started teaching me how to box and encouraged me to try wrestling. He really put a lot of emphasis into fitness.

I took right to it. It was just something that I was born to do. I soon became the strongest boy in my high school. All my efforts were geared towards making myself better at my chosen sport which was wrestling.

We lived near The York Barbell company which was the mecca for Olympic weight lifting. So my father actually took me down to watch the Olympic lifters lift. I got a chance to talk to these guys and watch them train. I really cut my teeth with some high caliber people that really knew what was going on. I’m incredibly fortunate to have that as my introduction into strength training. So many guys are introduced to strength training through these really ridiculous muscle magazines that are geared towards selling supplements.