AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH MAGAZINE

ISSUE 102 - 6/28/2006

1. AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
- Mark Twain

Always seeking instant gratification is a definite way to ensure long-term dissatisfaction. Fear of taking risks and getting out of one's comfort zone is essentially fear of living. When you live through your own experiences rather than vicariously through others, you take responsibility for your life and happiness. With this responsibility comes all of the potential positives and potential failures. However, one thing that is a certainty is that you will feel empowered. Talk to any entrepreneur that used to work for someone else and they will all tell you that you feel far more empowered when you work for yourself than for someone else. Even if your income is considerably less. Yet many people are imprisoned by the known and are scared of the unknown. You may hate the life you have now. Nevertheless, it is what you know and there is always a fear that change may make it worse. Sure that is a possibility. However, it is also a strong possibility that the right actions will make it considerably better. Regardless, we tend to focus on the worst case scenario and use it as yet another excuse to stay miserable in the known. What many people fail to realize is the unknown is what makes you feel alive. It is what makes life exciting.

More often than not, when you have major resistance to do something, it is the very thing that you need to do. There have been many times when I did not feel like teaching one of my workshops. Part of me wanted to cancel the workshop and not deal with it. However, I never allow that to happen and every time I push through the resistance I end of up having a great workshop and more importantly an incredible sense of empowerment. There is an incredible surge of energy that comes with taking action when you do not want to. It is easy to take action, when you feel great. However, how about when you feel depressed and defeated? Taking action when you do not feel like it is what separates professionals in the game of life from amateurs. Yes, make no mistake about it, life is a game and those that take the time to figure out the game have a great time playing it while those that sit on the sidelines are sentenced to the abyss of their inactivity.

A crucial part of playing the game and winning is rolling the dice and seeing the game through. Similar to weight training, when you pick up a weight and meet extreme resistance half way through, you can either grind through and finish what you start or give into the resistance and give up. How do you feel when you give up? Do you feel strong and powerful? How do you feel when you grind through? No question, you will always feel a rush of energy and power. On of the most valuable lessons that we learn from resistance training is how to push through. How to push through pain and more importantly how to push through our own negative thoughts. When you push through with training you get stronger and feel empowered. When you push through in life the same thing occurs.

Action starts with our minds.. As Napoleon Hill states in "Think And Grow Rich" our thoughts are things. Our thoughts can either make us feel strong and empowered or they can make us feel weak and defeated. More important than our thoughts are our actions. If you feel weak and defeated, yet suck it up and take action you will blast through the resistance. On the other hand, if you feel strong and powerful yet never do anything with it, the energy will dissipate and may not come back for a while. Hell, it may not come back ever. When you feel strong and powerful put that action into play right away. The longer it takes to act the less likely you are to do so. On the same note, if you feel weak and defeated, take action right away. The longer you take to take action the longer you will feel depressed and defeated. You cannot feel depressed and take action at the same time. It is one or the other. The longer you stay in the prison of your mind and dwell on negativity the worse it gets. It is not something that will just run its course. You have to get out of it. As I have stated many times, you do not have to wait until you are positive to take action. You have to take action in order to get the positive energy back. Once energy is created it cannot be destroyed.

What Richard Machowicz, author of the kick ass book "Unleashing The Warrior Within" refers to as "self-talk" is very important. Whether we are cognizant of it or not, we are always having conversations with ourselves. Our brains are essentially computers that we can program with beneficial "self talk" or counter-productive self talk. Statements such as, "I will just do it tomorrow" or "I will do it when I feel better" are forms of procrastination that are no doubt counter productive. Procrastination is an incredibly self-destructive action that will ensure that success in any endeavor always evades you. More subtle and potentially as destructive is "active procrastination." "Active procrastination" provides the illusion that one is taking beneficial action. However, in reality, it is just another "delaying tactic." Lets look at starting a business to provide an example of "active procrastination." Upon starting a business the most important action to take is acquiring customers. Sure you need some infrastructure in place. However, it is much easier to stay in the planning stage and delay the most important thing which is acquiring revenue. You do not need a filing cabinet, or a fancy excel program to keep track of accounting, or an expensive website that costs thousands of dollars. What you need are customers. If you do not have customers nothing else really matters. The longer it takes to acquire revenue the less likely you are to be successful. Similar to working out, the longer it takes to see some measurable results the less likely you are to stick with the program. An example of "self talk" that is beneficial is, "I do not feel like doing it and I am going to do it anyway as it needs to be done. Moreover, I am going to do it right now. Not later, not tomorrow, or next week. Today!"

My first experience as an entrepreneur was a disaster. I worked long hours and tried everything that I could think of to make it work. In the end, I was thousands of dollars in debt. I was pretty depressed at the time. Especially, when I had to take a job working for someone else to get out of debt. Working for someone else was the very thing that I was trying to avoid and ironically it was the place that I had to go to in order to get out of debt. Looking back on it now, I see clearly that it was an invaluable experience. I learned a great deal about myself and what I am capable of doing. Some things that I am very proud of and other things that I am ashamed of. Regardless it was an incredible learning experience. I learned how to get comfortable at public speaking which is a skill that I put to good use now both professionally and personally. I learned the discipline or working hard and being consistent. While it did not pay off then, it is paying off tremendously now. A very important thing that I learned from my this experience was what not to do. Knowing what to do is of course important. Nevertheless, knowing what not to do is equally important as it will safe you time and frustration and decrease the likelihood considerably of failure. The most valuable thing that I learned from the experience was the danger of placing blinders on. You can only kid yourself for so long. When you lose sight of the big picture and who you are, it is all too easy to lose integrity and become what you despise. It can happen easily and it often happens gradually so you never see it coming until it is too late. Lying to yourself is a sure-fire way to become what you despise.

No doubt you will not be proud of every action that you take. Regardless, all we can do is the best that we can and that is often enough. Continue to take action with your moral compass and you will get to where you want to be and more importantly become the person that you want to be. Living is about living not dying slowly while you let life pass you by. Talk to anyone that is near death and they will tell you that their whole life seemed to pass quickly. Life is short. Yes it is a cliché and it is also worth remembering and thinking about often. There will not always be a tomorrow, but there is right now. Make the most of it before it passes you by.

Live Life Aggressively!

Mike Mahler

Mike Mahler

2. HELP THE KATRINA VICTIMS

My friend and top body worker Dianna Linden recently sent me a list of non-profit organizations for helping out the Katrina Victims. Here is the list:

I encourage you to take a look at the above organizations and make a donation to the one that sits well with you. Also if you want to help out animals, make a donation to http://www.bestfriends.org.

3. AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH TRAINING ARTICLE

Training For Multiple Goals And Making It Work

By Mike Mahler

I work with great deal of people over the world via my personalized program design services. Many of my clients have more than one goal. For example, one client may want to build muscle, lose fat and increase muscular endurance. Another may want to put on size, train for the RKC Kettlebell certification, and improve his or her numbers on Military PT tests. I am a strong believer that a trainee should only train for a few goals at a time. Otherwise, the trainee will be all over the place and get mediocre at several things rather than make exceptional progress in a few areas. While working on several goals at a time is not the ideal way to make progress in each area, it is possible to work on multiple goals and make progress. This week lets take the example of a trainee that wants to improve his pull-up numbers, increase muscular endurance, and build some strength.

Lets start with the pull-ups. In order to get better at a skill you have to practice it often without burning out. For example, if you want to learn to play the violin, practicing once a week is not going to be as effective as practicing several times per week. If you want to learn a martial art, getting instruction several times per week is going to be much more effective than once a week or less. A great program that focuses on strength training as a practice is Pavel's GTG (greasing the groove program). The GTG program is just the ticket for ramping up pull-up numbers. Here is an example of an effective GTG program for pull-ups:

Ideally, you do the sets through out the day. For example, do one set in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the late afternoon or early evening. However, for most trainees this system will not work. Thus, do one set in the morning before work and two when you get back from work. Or do all three sets at one time with five minute breaks. The key is to be fresh at each set. Focus on making every rep perfect. The more you practice the more efficient your grove will get. Training to failure will just fry your CNS so avoid it and have the discipline to leave each set feeling fresh. Train for your goals rather than the stimulus of training. Once a month test your one set max and adjust the training numbers accordingly.

Next lets focus on strength training. Assuming the trainee is not under a great deal of stress and is getting a good amount of quality sleep (7-9 hours), we will start with two strength training sessions per week and two muscular endurance sessions. If the trainee has a hard time recovering, we will reduce the volume on both and if necessary the frequency. What we are looking for is the minimum dose required to get the job done. More often than not less equals more. Here is what the strength training portion of the program will look like:

Monday

Do a set of A-1, rest for one-minute and then do a set of A-2, rest for one-minute and repeat A-1 again. Continue in this format until all three sets are completed. When you can do three sets with the same weight, move up five pound. If using kettlebells for Renegade rows, add a pause at the top of each rep to increase the difficulty.

Do a set of B-1, rest for one-minute and then do a set of B-2, rest for one-minute and repeat B-1 again. Continue in this format until all three sets are completed. When you can do three sets with the same weight, move up five pounds.

Thursday

Start with weights that you can do seven reps with for each exercise. Do a set of A-1, rest for one-minute and then do a set of A-2, rest for one-minute and repeat A-1 again. Continue in this format until all three sets are completed. When you can do three sets with the same weight, move up five pound.

Finally, lets cover the muscular endurance workouts. HOC (high octane cardio) based on "roadwork' will get the job done for not only ramping up muscular endurance, but burning some fat as well. Just keep in mind that fat loss is at least 70% diet and 30% training so practice pushing yourself away from the table more often and using ballistic strength to stay out of the kitchen. Here are some sample muscular endurance workouts:

Tuesday

Ten sets of:

Do the jump rope and kettlebell work back to back and then take a one-minute breaks. When you can do ten sets with one-minute breaks, take the breaks down to fifty seconds. Long-term goal is thirty second breaks.

Friday

Track and Kettlebell Workout

Place two kettlebells on opposite sides of a track field. Each bell represents a workout station. Jog around the track and stop at each station as follows:

Record the total time it takes to complete this workout and work on beating that number at each workout or add more stations. In other words work up to 12-16 stations. Just keep the workouts under forty-five minutes to avoid depleting anabolic hormones.

4. GET THE AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH DVD COMBO PACK TODAY

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5. AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH PERSONALIZED PROGRAM DESIGN SERVICES

"Lost 10 lbs and went down from a size 12 to a size 8 in jeans – that was something I expected not to happen for another 10-15 more lbs! So thanks for your guidelines – they really have helped a lot."
- Michele Milevoi

Tired of trial and error? Want a training program that actually works? Click here for more info!

6. NEW AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS

I have just added some great new products to my website including: medicine balls, the ultimate portable gym, and some pull-up straps that allow you to do a pull-ups anywhere! Click here.

7. THE AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH SOLUTION FOR THE ROAD WARRIOR

Tired of terrible hotel gyms and getting out of shape on the road? Tired of doing bodyweight only routines in your hotel room because there are no other options? You need Lifeline's resistance cable products. Not only are they light and portable but they provide enough resistance to humble the strongest athletes around. Click here for more info

8. KETTLEBELL TRAINING INFORMATION PAGE (NEW)

http://www.mikemahler.com/kettlebell_info.html

8. AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH MAGAZINE ARCHIVES

http://www.mikemahler.com/newsletter

10. AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH ARTICLES

http://www.mikemahler.com/articles.html

11. AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH TRAINING JOURNAL

http://www.mikemahler.com/journal.html

12. RECOMMENDED READING LIST

http://www.mikemahler.com/reading.html

Until next time.

Live Life Aggressively!

Mike Mahler

Feel free to email me with your comments and feedback at mahler25@yahoo.com

Mike Mahler