AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH MAGAZINE

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ISSUE 77 - 9/28/2005

1. AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"The will to prepare for success is more important than the will for success."
- Jay Schroeder

There are many people that want to be successful. However, there are not too many people that are willing to do what it takes to become successful. It is not enough to have a burning desire for success and a good work ethic. Simply working hard is not enough. You have to work smart and efficiently to increase your odds of being successful. You need to know what you want and use your head to ascertain the most efficient path to success. The problem is that this requires a great deal of research and God forbid actual thinking. It is easier to simply punch in more hours and hope that it adds up or to do what film director Robert Rodriguez calls the "money hose" and fire away than it is to use your brain and come up with creative ways that are more effective to get the job done. Every time you fire the "money hose" you take one step further from success. Why? It is not always how much you make, but how much you keep. On person may make $10,000 in revenue, while another makes $20,000 in revenue. Who makes more? It seems logical that the latter person would. However, The former may be spending $100.00 on promotion, while the latter spends $12,000 per month on promotion. Think that I am exaggerating? Think again! Business' go under every day by attempting to become successful with expensive advertising campaigns. They just hope that they can stay above water long enough to reap the rewards of expensive advertising campaigns, but that is rarely the case.

When I was in the Dotcom world, I saw companies go under all of the time from firing the "money hose" too often. They hoped that their inflated stock and venture capital would take them to the promised land. Unfortunately for them it did not work. The money ran out and the company was done. On the other hand, companies such as Ebay.com relied on word of mouth advertising and viral marketing to get the job done. The result? Ebay, is still around and the other companies are not. Of course Ebay advertises quite a bit now, but they have plenty of money to play with. That was not the case when the first got started.

Before I go further, let me make myself clear. I am not against advertising. I am just against the indiscriminate use and premature use of advertising. I think that you should use actual profit to pay for advertising rather than going into debt to pay for advertising wherever possible. In other words, invest back into your business as you make money. As you make more money, feel free to spend more on advertising. That said, there are always creative ways to promote your business that are inexpensive. I have been doing my strength training business for close to four years and still spend very little on advertising. Yet, my income has doubled every year from applying the same cost effective methods each year. The difference is I just do more of the same things that have been proven to work each year. For example, instead of paying for advertising in a magazine, get the magazine to do a story on you. It is far more effective and does not cost you a dime. Instead of placing an add in a local newspaper, write an article for the newspaper or work on getting a regular column. Or write an article for a magazine. Now, you are getting paid to advertise rather than the other way around. To promote your business further, write more articles and have more magazines do stories on you. It is not as hard as you think. It just takes some research to get the job done and some patience to reap the rewards. As you make more money, it may make sense to delegate and pay for advertising. However, when you are starting out, any money you save is money earned and that can make the difference between success and failure. Remember, most companies go under within the first year of business. My method of promotion requires you to be patiently impatient to be successful. What does this mean? It means that you have to be willing to think things through clearly before jumping in the game. It means that you are willing to go through the necessary research and training that is required to be successful in the actual game. Impatience is also required as it forces you to avoid procrastination and take massive action. Not just any action thought. Carefully planned and very strategic action that has a high probability of actually working. You have to be impatient to take action and patient to plan things out properly and allow things to germinate. In other words both a short run and long run mindset is necessary.

Lets use strength training as another example. There are plenty of trainees that want to be successful. They want to be bigger, stronger, faster, leaner etc However, very few take the time to do the necessary research and preparation that is critical to be successful. As a result, very few trainees reach their goals. They get discouraged easily and throw in the towel when things inevitably get difficult and unproductive. For example, trainees have the illusion that simply working harder and longer will produce faster results. This is only true up to a point. If you are only working out once a week for twenty minutes, then of course adding two more workouts and increasing the training time to forty-five minutes per workout will make a big difference. However, the reverse may also be true. A trainee that is working out for two hours per day, seven days per week, will benefit from decreasing the training time and workout frequency. This trainee will actually be better off working less which shows that hard work in not always the solution, but smart and planned out work is always the solution. Also, the problem may not even be a training regimen, but what happens when one is not training. Poor sleep, poor diet, high stress levels, poor physiology (low levels of growth hormone, testosterone, DHEA, and high levels of cortisol and adrenal output). Getting the diet and restoration in order is part of proper planning and a necessary ingredient for successful training results. If you have serious problems on a physiological level, then no training program is going to work until those problems are addressed.

Do not just go after success. State clearly what your goals are and do the necessary planning to find the most efficient path there. In addition to saving your time and money, you will increase the likelihood of success. The longer you can stay in the game and avoid burning out, the more likely you are to succeed.

For more information on Jay Schroeder, click here.

Live Life Aggressively!

Mike Mahler

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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:

• Operation USA http://www.opusa.org
• Mercy Corps http://www.mercycorps.org
• Oxfam America http://www.oxfamamerica.org
• America's Second Harvest http://www.secondharvest.org

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.

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3. AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH TRAINING ARTICLE

This weeks training tip comes from one of my favorite strength training authors, Brooks Kubik, author of "Dinosaur Training." As many if you know, I am a big fan of the Military Press and Brooks is one of the main reasons for that. After reading his book and his old newsletter "The Dinosaur Files", I wanted to develop a strong overhead press like the old-time strength athletes such as: John Grimek, Doug Hepburn and Sig Klein. If you are interested in developing a powerful overhead press, then you are in luck.

Developing The Overhead Press

By Brooks Kubik

Dinosaurs know that the overhead press is one of the KEY exercises for strength, power and muscular development, as well as being one of the very best tests of a lifter's strength. We all want a bigger and better press. Here are some important tips on how to build a better press. In his "Guide to Weightlifting Competition," Bob Hoffman listed what he considered to be the 14 best assistance exercises to improve the two arm press. Here they are. How many of these exercises have you included in your training program over the past 12 months?

1. Heavy dumbbell pressing. Harry Paschall also rated these very highly. Virtually all great pressers excel on the dumbbell press.
2. Seated presses, both with dumbbells and with barbells. The seated barbell press was one of John Grimek's favorites.
3. Pressing behind neck. Yuri Vlasov did these.
4. Alternate presses, where you perform a military press, then a press behind neck, and so one, back and forth, alternating the two from rep to rep.
5. Incline bench pressing. Use a 60 degree incline. A favorite of Dave Sheppard and Jim George. It brought Sheppard's press up from 286 in 1954 to 341 in 1958. It brought Jim George's press up from 220 in 1954 to 297 in 1958.
6. Bench pressing. A favorite of Doug Hepburn. Also used by John Davis.
7. Push pressing. One of Hepburn's favorites. Also a favorite of Paul Anderson. Lower the weight slowly, using arm power alone.
8. Wide grip pressing. Press as wide as possible at first, and as you add weight, gradually bring the hands closer.
9. Handstand presses. Sig Klein's secret weapon. Grimek's secret weapon. Terlazzo's secret weapon. Hepburn's secret weapon. Need I say more?
10. Partial presses from the shoulder -- use more than you can press and see how far you can press it. A favorite exercise of Paul Anderson. Shown in my power rack training tape with over 400 pounds. A related exercise: the jerk with a heavy weight, and then lower the weight as slowly as possible.
11. The Bradford Special. Hoffman said that 297 pound Jim Bradford had the broadest shoulders and biggest deltoids he had ever seen, and this was Bradford's favorite exercise. Press a heavy weight to the top of the head, lower it behind the shoulders, press back up to top of head, lower to chest, repeat.
12. Forward raise with barbell. A favorite of John Davis, who could perform the exercise with 175 pounds. You also can perform the exercise with two dumbbells. The dumbbell variation was a favorite exercise of John Grimek.
13. The bent-over lateral raise. Helps to build supporting and stabilizing strength.
14. Pressing a single dumbbell. A favorite exercise of Paul Anderson. Chuck Vinci performed this exercise while holding onto an overhead bar, which makes it a very strict movement. So there you have it: 14 terrific assistance exercise to help you build a world class press!

Editor's Note: Some additional exercises for increasing overhead presses, include: The Sots Press (go into a full squat and press a dumbbell, barbell, or kettlebell from that position), Side Press, and the TNT Cable Press. Many of you are probably wondering how to incorporate all of these exercises into your routine. I would use Louie Simmons Conjugate approach. Pick one exercise and focus on improving that for four week. Then switch to another exercise. Every six weeks or so, test the primary exercise that you re trying to improve (Double Kettlebell Press, Barbell Press etc). This is one of the things that I do with many of my online clients.

For more info on Brooks Kubik, visit his site, and make sure that you sign up for his newsletter. If you do not have a copy of Dinosaur Training, pick up a copy today. Also, I will be reviewing Brooks Kubik's Dumbbell Training DVD in a future newsletter that is inspiring to say the least.

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4. GET THE AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH DVD COMBO PACK TODAY

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6. NEW AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS

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7. THE AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH SOLUTION FOR THE ROAD WARRIOR

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8. KETTLEBELL TRAINING INFORMATION PAGE (NEW)

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

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9. AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH MAGAZINE ARCHIVES

http://www.mikemahler.com/newsletter

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10. AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH ARTICLES

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

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11. AGGRESSIVE STRENGTH TRAINING JOURNAL

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

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12. RECOMMENDED READING LIST

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

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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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