Home → Aggressive Strength Magazine → Issue 160 - 12-1-08 

Aggressive Strength Magazine

Issue 160 12/1/08

1. Aggressive Strength Living Article Of The Week

Will You Let a “Knife” prevent You from Conquering Your Goal?

Mike Mahler

You must be relentless. If this were a fight to the death, would you let a dagger in a rib stop you?—Octavio Consone, Highlander:  The Series

You'll never be a professional in life's game until you'll willingly take a (metaphorical for some, literal for others) knife to the gut...then keep pushing forward.  Your focus on what you want must be such that you don't even feel that knife, and even if you do, your determination never waivers.  If it does, you're still an amateur, not yet ready to progress further.  If you think you have all the time in the world to pursue your goals, think again.  The reality is the clock is ticking--fast--and if you don't take action now, you probably never will.  There will always be excuses, but successful people make opportunities, not excuses, and that's more reality for you.

You have to become self-actualized to achieve any meaningful success, no matter your goal.  If you don't know yourself, and thus your potential, genuine success will ever evade you--and rightly so.

Newsflash:  Suffering--no matter how moderate or severe--is a part of achieving any meaningful goal.  There's no way to avoid it and never has been.  No amount of pep rally Tony Robbins seminars can prevent suffering.  Fuzzy, positive-thinking slogans won't inure you.  Emailing me for free advice on how to skirt suffering on the way to success will not only not spare you, but invite more suffering!  Suffering is a critical component of life and success.  On a basic physiological level, we require the stress hormone, cortisol, to thrive, if we don't produce enough we can actually die.  Stress makes us stronger and without it, our adrenal glands function at a low level.  Our goal is not avoiding stress, but managing it, and even using it to our advantage.

Make no mistake:  you will suffer on the way to achieving any meaningful goal.  Like every other successful person, you must pay your dues.  While the current economic bailout indicates seemingly free rides, those relying on being bailed out have lost the game; they will never be self-actualized.

As Shakespeare said, “Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once.”  Living your life in fear is slavery to fear and thus cowardly.  Yet there is nothing wrong with feeling fear.  Fear is often unconscious exhilaration, and it's those moments when you are most fully alive.  Fear brings a sharpness that can be used to your advantage--if you follow through with worthy action.  Use fear as an excuse to avoid expansion and reap what you sow.

Let's look at some exemplary people who not only didn't resist the pain but pushed through: 

Mixed martial arts legend Randy Couture once received a broken arm while blocking a kick from opponent Gabriel Gonzaga, resulting in a separated ulna, a heinous injury which didn't prevent him from defeating Gonzaga by TKO and retaining his title.

NBA legend Michael Jordan pushed through the finals with a case of severe flu and came through for his team.  I'm not a basketball fan, but I remember watching that game in awe as Jordan sucked it up and did what it took to play at an elite level despite his illness.  He worked harder in that run-down state than someone pumped up and primed.  Lesson:  People who wait for the "perfect" time to act never take action.  Losers make excuses while successful people make opportunities.

When you feel like crap, you must not only take action but do a great job!  This is the true measure of your determination.  Anyone can work hard under optimal conditions, although few even do this much.  Try this:  push through even when everything is crashing down around you and see what you're made of.  This is survival-of-the-fittest time:  thrive or die off.  It's easy to feel the enthusiasm when the going is fun, but professionals continue pushing through once the fun is long departed and nobody else cares anymore.  Get past the amateur, glazed-eye stage and re-evaluate how much you still desire your goal.  

This article's knife analogy comes from a terrific episode of Highlander:  The Series.  For those of you unfamiliar with either the movie, Highlander, or the ensuing television series, it's about immortals who must fight each other to the death...only one man emerges victorious.  Difficulty:  the only way to win is to chop off the head of your opponent.  OK, it sounds like a cheesy concept thought up by Dungeons & Dragons uber-nerds, but the original Highlander is a movie classic (albeit not so much the crappy sequels) and seasons two through five of Highlander:  The Series were superb, full of real drama and complex characters..

In the episode "Duende" occurs a flashback wherein the main character, Duncan McLeod, learns a valuable lesson from his mentor, Octavio Consone.  While engaged in sword fighting practice, Octavio stabs Duncan in the rib to make his point.  Duncan, shocked, protests that the stabbing was unnecessary but Octavio retorts that in order to win, one must be relentless, even willing to take a knife to the ribs for victory.  He goes on to say Duncan has good instincts and won't make the same mistake twice.  This is a foreshadowing of what comes later in the story...

Many years later, Duncan and Octavio are now enemies and fighting to the death.  Octavio is winning the fight until Duncan cunningly disarms him by pulling Octavio’s sword into his own stomach.  Octavio, unable to defend himself,  loses his head.  Duncan fully exploited the opportunity even though it engendered considerable personal suffering.  Despite his immortal status, he still feels physical pain, like everyone else, and further, welcomed that pain as part and parcel of his victory.

Experiencing a life or death situation teaches you more about yourself than anything else.  Unfortunately, what you learn may be disappointing, but personal growth begins with honest self-assessment.  I think everyone needs at least one dance with death to truly value life.  I, myself, only completely committed to my goals after nearly succumbing to a virulent case of pneumonia in 2002.  That experience at the edge taught me a lot about myself and I've never looked back.  It was a knife to the gut (though not the only one) and I received it, pushed through, and consequently grew stronger.

While few of us will be forced to literally push through a stabbing, such symbolically intense events aren't outside the realm of possibility for any of us and certainly, we will all of us face tough times on our way to self-actualization and no matter what you achieve or acquire in the world, without self-actualization, it's meaningless.

Have you taken a metaphorical knife to the gut?

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Live Life Aggressively!

Mike Mahler

***Article Edited by Teresa Blazey: teresa.blazey@gmail.com

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2. Your Collision Course With Destiny Is Here: Time To Make A Commitment To Excellence 

 

 

 

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We live in a minimalist society in which people are looking for the lowest common denominator and act accordingly. We see it in movies, television shows, music, customer service, restaurants, and on and on. I do not know about you but I am fed up of it. I hate that anti-climatic feeling that comes when you look forward to something and then end up disappointed that it did not live up to your expectations. This is why I am committed to excellence with my business and life. I never want my customers to feel that terrible anti-climatic feeling with any of my products. I am prepared to apply the deliberate hard work that is necessary to produce excellent products. I do not want to meet the lowest expectations of my customers, I want to exceed the highest expectations of my customers. This is why I find the best instructors for each production. Without top-notch instructors it will be impossible to acquire the best material. We have all seen well produced fitness DVD's with poor material. On the other hand, high quality instruction with low quality production is an insult to the customer. 

I have the utmost respect for my customers. Without them I would not have the great living that I have. As a result I have an obligation to people that have supported me over the years to produce not only DVD's with high quality instruction, but exceptional production. Fortunately, I have an in house production team via my brother Roger. To say Roger is committed to excellence would be the understatement of  the year. He will burn the midnight oil for as long as it takes to produce the highest quality product possible. Those of you that purchased "The Boys Are Back In Town Kettlebell Workshop DVD" already now this. His commitment to improving with each subsequent product shows clearly on the Collision Course DVD. 

This DVD will exceed your expectations and you will not have that anti-climatic feeling that you often have with other products. If for the off chance reason that you do not, you can send the DVD set back for a hassle free refund. However, do not even bother purchasing this DVD unless you are committed to excellence yourself. If you are a minimalist when it comes to getting the most out of your training and life than this product is not for you. If I am committed to excellence then I expect you to be committed to excellence as well. If you are committed to excellence then this DVD is a perfect fit for you. If you want to be committed to excellence and need inspiration then look no further. It is right here. 

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3. Size and Strength Training for The Entertainment Addict Generation 

By Mike Mahler 

In Part 1 of this series, I showed the entertainment-addicted youth of our nation — Generation Ent — how to do hardcore cardio work that's fun, challenging, highly effective, and never boring.

This time the subject is size and strength. The workout is based on ideas popularized by Louie Simmons, a true strength-training pioneer. The powerlifters Louie trains at Westside Barbell Club are some of the strongest men and women around.

Most young men reading this don't care about setting squat or bench press records, and I can't recall the last time I met anyone who told me his goal is to look like a heavyweight powerlifter.

So why would I base this workout on those used by some of the world's strongest humans? One word: variety. Westside lifters know how to mix things up. They don't cater to Gen Ent, but their workouts offer enough novelty to keep even the most distractible lifter engaged. As long as you avoid eating like a powerlifter, you'll develop a strong and solid physique with powerlifters' training techniques.

Three Workouts, Three Goals

My program includes three total-body workouts each week, each with its own goals and challenges.

Monday: Maximum Size and Strength

At Westside, the lifters work up to a one-rep max on a chosen exercise on maximum-effort day. The following week they max on a similar but different exercise. For example, if they use the floor press one week, they might use the decline press the next. They call this the "conjugate method."

But while working up to a one-rep max is great for building pure strength, it's not ideal for hypertrophy. For that, you need more reps. So instead of a 1RM you'll work up to a five-rep max on the chosen exercise. You'll still increase your strength, but also induce muscle growth as well. (I picked up this tip from Andrew Durniat, an outstanding strength coach and strongman competitor.)

Another change: Instead of switching your main max-effort exercise each week, you'll change every three weeks. This way you have a chance to get good at the exercise before moving on. This is a flexible standard; if you're new to training, you can spend up to six weeks on each max-effort exercise, as long as you keep improving on your 5RM. More advanced trainees, who adapt quickly to their training programs, may want to change every two weeks.

Most of you, however, will do well with this three-week rotation:

Week one: Work up to a weight that's one rep shy of failure. The goal is to get your fifth rep on your final set feeling as if you could do one more.

Week two: Add five pounds on your final set and go for five reps, even if the fifth rep pushes you to your limit.

Week three: Go all out — the heaviest weight you can use for five reps, even if you risk failure on the fourth or fifth rep. (Just make sure you use a spotter where appropriate.) This is your final week on the exercise, so you really want to push it.

Start over with another exercise the following week, using the same progression.

You'll do this with four different categories of exercise:

• presses (vertical and horizontal)
• upper-body pulls (vertical and horizontal)
• squats
• lower-body pulls

I'll provide lists of exercises in each category in a bit.

Wednesday: Repetition Method

One workout a week, you'll use light weights for timed sets. But don't mistake "light" for "easy." An example would be a five-minute set of the dumbbell clean and press, using about 30 percent of your one-rep max.

One goal, says Louie Simmons, is to jack up growth-hormone production, promoting bigger muscles with better body composition. Another goal is to increase strength endurance, helping you train longer and harder. Finally, by putting this workout in the middle of the training week, you'll get some active recovery from your max-effort workout.

Friday: Speed

Despite what advocates of Super Slow training say, you have to get fast if you want to get strong. Really strong men and women don't set out to do slow and controlled lifts of really heavy weights.

Sure, the bar may move slowly when you're lifting maximum weights. But that's not because you're trying to lift it at that speed. You're trying to finish the job as fast as you possibly can, with as much force behind the effort as you can generate. It just happens to move slowly because it's a really fucking heavy weight.

Top Strength coach Chad Waterbury states that muscles are meant to contract quickly. All of the recent focus on prescribed rep speeds has set strength training back dramatically.

Faster muscles aren't just for performance. The muscle fibers responsible for fast, high-effort movement are also the ones that have the most potential to get bigger. Fast training also has powerful effects on your body comp — you'll jack up your metabolism in the short term and, over time, keep it up and running at a chronically higher rate.

Finally, lifting fast is just more fun than lifting slow. You'll feel ramped up after your workouts, rather than wiped out.

Word of caution: You still have to use good form. Sloppy lifts are a bad idea at any speed, and they're especially bad when you're moving the weight as fast as possible.

click here for the rest of the free article

 

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4. Death By Truck Ramp! How To Get A Great Workout Without Equipment Anywhere 

By Steve Maxwell 

As you probably know by now, I'm an outspoken critic of most traditional forms of cardiovascular training. One of my blogs, 10 Reasons I Don't Do Aerobics, caused quite a furor, overloading my mailbox with missives from both nay-sayers and supporters. The exercise physiologists (whose livelihood depends on convincing us this exercise is so important) were hands-down the most upset.

Yet people in the physiology community conduct experiments and studies because their positions require they "publish or perish". These studies are typically run by students (as part of their education and training) and are, for the most part, unsupervised. To meet their deadlines, the students may fudge the data, as students will. I'll say it: Most of the studies conducted are worthless.

So, if you can't trust science, who can you trust? Old school trainers, who've been in the field a long time, have tons of in-the-ditches experience and empirical data about what does and doesn't work. Guys like myself ain't gonna have jobs for long if they aren't consistently producing good results for their clientele! As I travel across the country in my little RV, I have the opportunity to meet with like-minded individuals running gyms based on the same principles I espouse. I hear story after story of clients abandoning what passes as mainstream fitness to start training anew with the exercise models I preach--with terrific results! What passes for training, even personal training, in most gyms is for the most part, utterly worthless.

Most people haven't the access to some of these cutting-edge, alternative gyms, like Gym Jones, Monkey Bar Gym, Maxercise, Recreate Fitness and Prime Physique. These are five examples of phenomenal venues producing the fat loss and fitness gains most people desire.

But you don't need any gym at all! With the phenomenon that is online personal training you can benefit from the decades of personal training and coaching experience of hard boiled trainers like myself and your home (no matter what or where that may be!) becomes your gym--no membership required! You'll become one of the growing numbers of people realizing most gyms aren't even conducive to hard-core beneficial training. In fact, the required exercises are typically discouraged in such gyms!

Some of my--and my young assistant's--most tremendous workouts were completed out-of-doors while traveling cross-country. Obviously, this requires a fair amount of creativity on the part of the ol' Coach, who surveys the terrain and sees a workout opportunity at every turn...and every turn-out!

When I look out the window and see a construction site, I see not building materials but odd objects needing to be lifted. When I spy boulder fields and scree along the mountainside, it's a world of large, smooth stones to shoulder. Roadside warning signs? Forget 'em, I see only the sandbags anchoring the signs, hogging all that gravity! Public parks and rest stops? I possess the uncanny ability to ferret out the pull-up opportunity, using everything from swing sets to picnic kiosk cross beams, tree limbs...and the odd stall bar in the men's washroom.

Often, these workouts are impromptu, spur-of-the-moment affairs. One such workout introduced itself on the drive from Salt Lake City to Portland. As we were climbing a picturesque mountain range, I espied a runaway trunk ramp. A thing of beauty, I tell you! My teen assistant, who'd already been chauffeuring me a number of hours, was getting feisty and in need of a break. We pulled alongside the runaway ramp and Lil 't quickly donned her workout togs with my gentle--yet persuasive--prodding, heh.

Teresa loves a good workout, and physical exertion in general, thus she's made great progress under the Coach's tutelage and finds herself now, at 40+, in the best physical condition of her life.

One of the most results-producing cardio, and fat burning, exercises are hill sprints. The trunk ramp, though daunting, was the perfect venue for this unparalleled expression of fat combustion...providing actual runaway trucks are as uncommon as we hoped! Although a runaway truck would bring the motivation to a whole new level!

After a warm-up of the Maxwell Daily Dozen, Teresa sprinted from the bottom, as far up the ramp as she could, in 45-seconds. She noted the spot she hit each time I called out the time, then she'd return to the bottom of the hill and immediately perform an upper body exercise to balance the tremendous leg, hip, hamstring workout she was getting during those arduous uphill sprints. It didn't take long in that thin mountain air to get Teresa a-panting like a puppy dog.

Despite the chill (and the fact that she opted for minimalist workout attire) there was a thin veneer of sweat on that silky skin and the ol' Coach felt stirrings as he ogled his assistant!

The workout went like this:

10 sprints, coupled with 10 upper body exercises:

2 pushes
2 pulls
4 core
2 combination push-pulls

Specifically:

1) hill sprint, 45-sec/ return, 45-sec
a) Hindu Push-Ups, on push-up board
2) hill sprint, 45-sec/ return, 45-sec
b) Jungle Gym Rows
3) hill sprint, 45-sec/ return, 45-sec
c) Chatturanga (yoga-style)Push-Ups
4) hill sprint, 45-sec/ return, 45-sec
d) Curl Grip Rows
5) hill sprint, 45-sec/ return, 45-sec
e) Full Sit-Ups, non-anchored
6) hill sprint, 45-sec/ return, 45-sec
f) Continuous Clean & Press with boulder
7) hill sprint, 45-sec/return, 45-sec
g) Alternating Elbow-to-Knee
8) hill sprint, 45-sec/ return, 45-sec
h) Continous Clean & Press w/ boulder
9) hill sprint, 45-sec/ return, 45-sec
i) Elbow Plank then Side Elbow Plank, L/R
10) hill sprint, 45-sec/ return, 45-sec
j) Elephant Walk Outs

This was a fantastic workout requiring no equipment and though enhanced with a Jungle Gym and Push-Up board, they are by no means required.

We hit all parameters of fitness. There was a great deal of athleticism involved, including the anti-aging boon of utilizing those all-important fast-twitch muscle fibers, along with the upper body, core and back work most every woman so badly needs.

Compare this workout to the average woman's gym hour spent mindlessly running the treadmill or stairmaster, plugged into the excess inputs of television or iPod all the while shuffling along at a pitiful pace, burning a pitiful number of calories and deprived of any muscle strengthening benefit whatsoever. If she does any weight training at all, it's ridiculous movements, with light loads, in bad form, copying some silly, body-building or Shape magazine-style workout.

In this extreme high-intensity workout, your lady friend can hit every parameter of fitness in less than 40 min and continue to burn fat for hours later. Not to mention the effect of the altitude! This is one of thousands of versions of this type of workout I provide to my online clients--and they're seeing their hard-won results.

The only equipment you really need is some type of pull-up bar, a Jungle Gym, Push-Up board and a few kettlebells.
Some luxuries include:

• Power Wheel
• a couple sandbags
• optional barbells and dumbbells

You can get everything you've ever wanted in the realm of the physical body with this simple list. Combat athletes will want to add clubs, mace and climbing rope...and a sledgehammer!

The above can be purchased on even a modest budget, often second-hand.

Do yourself a favor: get out of the gym and get out in nature. Stop the ridiculous, marathon gym routines. Forget the aerobics, they're a waste of time. Start working out in a productive way.

In Strength & Health!

Steve Maxwell www.maxwellsc.com 

5. Aggressive Strength Equipment Recommendations

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6. Aggressive Strength Product Recommendations

SUN WARRIOR RICE PROTEIN

Finally a protein powder that is organic, tastes great,  and will not cause nausea and have you running to the bathroom with the runs!

“Over the last couple years, Mike has always passed along sound nutritional advice that has positively affected my performance.  Recently, I mentioned that I was having trouble finding a protein powder I was happy with.  Mike recommended Sun Warrior Protein and I have been very satisfied with the results.  It’s a high quality supplement with a good amino acid profile that doesn’t produce many of the negative side effects (ex. bloating) associated with most protein powders.”--Ken Blackburn Director of Operations for the IKFF www.ikff.net 

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Meditation is one of the best things you can do to relax your mind and handle stress more effectively. High stress equals low DHEA, testosterone, and GH levels. You must get a handle on stress to be at your best. My online client Les Larson told me about this program and after only a few weeks I am hooked.

Just listen to the program for 30-60 minutes per day and you will notice a difference after a few days. After a week you will look forward to each session. I like to use it after working out or before going to bed. Check it out at:

» Meditation CD's That Actually Work

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7. Kettlebell Training Information  

 

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

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8. Aggressive Strength Magazine Archives 

http://www.mikemahler.com/newsletter

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Until next time.

Live Life Aggressively!

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

Mike Mahler

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