Below is a great guest post by my good buddy Adam Glass. I’ve known Adam for almost 5 years now and every time I see him I learn something new. Adam does not just talk the talk, but walks the walks by putting it on the line in competition.  Heck, a couple weeks ago I was lifting him and I hear “Hey Mike, check this out”     I walk into the other another room and Adam deadlifts almost 500 lbs…..with ONE hand.   Insane.  It is pretty bad ass to be lifting and see someone pull over your 2 hand deadlift max with one hand.   I also have Adam to blame with my crazy obsession of lifting the Dinnie Stones now too.

Sit back and learn a few things from one of the top grip competitors in the world.

Take it away Adam!
Mike T Nelson

Lessons From the Platform: 10 Things I’ve Learned From 16 Competitions In 2 Years by Adam Glass

Lifting weights is one of my favorite activities. It is my secret garden, my escape from the universe. For an hour or two a day I get to put aside everything else and invest in something which ALWAYS makes me feel better and produces measurable return.

Strength sports appeal to me. Since I was a little kid reading X-Men comics I have dreamed of building super human ability, like most kids right? Rather than grow up and continue to fantasize about it, I have been doing something to try and achieve it.

There are a thousand ways to be strong, and no one “strong” is better than another. Of course that is the topic of heavy debate across the world and web, men less secure in themselves do everything that can to assure themselves of their strength and ability.

Rather than talk about it, I prefer the platform.

Competition is where all excuses end and where all training can be tested and compared. Many people have wasted many words on the apples to oranges comparison of “what is better, a heavy clean and jerk or a heavy bench press” when the better question maybe “why are you not lifting in an event and seeing how you are stacking up?”

There are many reasons I respect Mike, and one of them is he is never one to shy away from stepping up on the platform to lift. In fact, Mike has participated in 10 different strength competitions at Movement Minneapolis plus a few Power Lifting meets and Tactical Strength Challenges since I have known him. I don’t know how you are reading this, but I will wager you haven’t put your skills on the line as many times as Mike has in the last 3 years.

As I prepared this article, I wanted to reflect on what I have been up to with my sport. I compete (and dominate) in Hand and Grip Sport. It is a combination of both old Strongman feats and All-Round lifts plus some very unique events. To say Grip Sport is new would be to say O lifting and Power Lifting are infants, the first grip contest on record was a card tearing contest in France before the turn of the 20th century. Since then nearly all of the famous and celebrated strength athletes of history have been noted for their tremendous grip strength. Many of the modern events are based on the old timers famous lifts as tribute and remembrance of their power.

Unlike some others who dabble in their strength sport, I train and play to win. I do not pull the “I didn’t train for this meet” card which I disgustingly see thrown out to mask poor ability. My scores are a testament to what I understand and do in my training. I specifically point this out because I am frankly tired of the continuing trend in the fitness world of “coaches” who do not compete and sucked when they did (usually that one time). I am not a fan of titles but if you pin me down I represent myself as an athlete, not as trainer or coach first and foremost.

I am going to high light the three core lifts as a marker for the changes I have made as I have moved through the last two years. In grip sport we have a total made of the highest rated gripper close (using the RGC method) heaviest two hand pinch on the standard apparatus (looks like a disc with a loading pin) and the overhand deadlift on the 2” bar or Axle.

In 2010 a new North American League was established by key leaders in the grip community including US National Champions Jedd Johnson and Andrew Durniat. One of the established standards was the Elite total of 800 lbs. I decided that would be a great place to aim for my goal of grip mastery.

Over the last two years I have competed in the following events.

Here they are along with my total (when it was contested) and position in the meet.

Amateur Strongman Contest, 1st place 2010

World’s Strongest Hands Series 2010 (10 contest sites globally) – 4 legs (10th place globally/1st local, 11th place globally/ 1st locally, 11th place/1st place globally, 11th, over all 11th out of 91) best total for the series (148/186/385-719 lbs) – Set World Record for 2” Vertical Bar lift

Tactical Strength Challenge 2010 (500/10/120)

Certified Mash Monster Level 1
Certified Captain of Crush Dec 2010

Metroflex 2011 (3rd out of 31, 165/211/386- 762 lbs)

Movement Minneapolis Grip Decathlon I May 2011 (1st Place, 179/222/407.5- 808.5 lbs ELITE)

US Nationals (2nd place, 240 pinch #10 All time best pinch record)

Certified Mash Monster Level II
Certified Mash Monster Level III

World’s Strongest Hands Series 2011 (11 Contest Sites World Wide)– 3 legs (3rd place globally/1st locally, 26th place/ 2nd locally, 6th place globally out of 122/1st locally) World Record for Half Penny Lift

Frostbite Grip Challenge (1st place)

USAWA Minneapolis Meet (World Record 2” Vertical Bar, US Records Dinnie Stone Lift, Bent Over Row, Two Hand Pinch)

Minneapolis Iron Grip (1st place, 182.5/216.5/404.23- 803.23 lbs) World Record 1 Hand Pinch

Movement Minneapolis Grip Decathlon III 2012 (1st Place, 182/243.41, 433.66- 859 lbs) World Record Two Hand Pinch/8th all time heaviest pinch record, One hand pinch total Left + Right, Rim lift.

Ok hooray for me, time for the lessons.

#1 Practice what you will do and do it exactly how you will do it.

Of all of the improvements I have made, my personal favorite is the pinch numbers. Without judgment, there are many who have been in this sport for 4-8 years longer than I who still have not hit a 100kg lift in a comp, and who add 1-2 kg a year. I added over 57 lbs in 18 months to my competition score. In training I have done more.

I was able to do this because I train my pinch often in the exact style it will be contested in. Few warm ups, then 4 lifts to hit max weight. On my volume days, I focused on achieving a better average rather than maxing out. I typically do 7-9 volume days for each max day. An observation I have made, too many people are attempting for max weight far too to often. The other big thing holding them back is they take too many attempts before hitting their maximum weight.

#2 Get on the platform often to drop the jitters

Many people experience jitters and nervousness before they hit a lift in a competition. It doesn’t seem to matter if it is in front of 3 people or 3,000, it happens. I believe the best way to get around this is get used to stepping up and hitting those lifts. You can train this on any given day, get some people and throw an informal contest. It sounds so simple, but it makes a huge difference in your performance.

Adam deadlifting more than me, with ONE hand!

#3 Build a ritual of success

I have all sorts of goofy little things I do before my lifts. Some of them serve no purpose, except that I have now done them so many times they are all part of the switch.

“the switch” is something you see or hear about for almost all competitive lifters. It is the mental gear change over where the world goes away, and all that remains is the challenge.

I do not think learning to switch has anything to do with getting pissed off or emotional. I personally do the exact opposite. I feel everything go away, everything is silent. I feel nothing other than the pressure of the weight in my hands. It will probably be different for each person, and of course each event.

This is an example of what we refer to as “State before skills” which Mike has written about a number of times. Many people are trying to maximize their skill sets, but they do so in a poor state. Fear, anger, nervousness, and excitement all can seriously DEGRADE performance. I feel it is a safer strategy to learn to abandon these feelings rather than figure out how to work around them.

One way of doing this is associating different patterns to the lift. Before a big pinch I sandwich the plates and rub them, then position myself, and clap my hands together. I set my hands, lower my hips, then look directly down. If you watch other champion pinch lifters, they do different things. What matters is not what is done before the lift, it is what happens with the lift.

#4 Learn to roll with the punches

In a lifting event you get points for putting numbers on the board. It doesn’t matter how good or bad it looks, or how hard you struggled, it only matters what is lifted.

In the 2011 series of World’s Strongest Hands I bombed out my pinch. This means I missed all 4 lifts. I had to step away for a moment and collect myself. I just pissed away a top 5 finish for the series. I was fairly upset, but I pulled it all together.

I walked back in, and went on to finish in the top 4 world wide for the next two events. In contrast I could have wallowed on the failure, kicked myself in the ass, and generally been a baby. Instead I did what I had trained myself to do, go numb and lift the weights.

In contrast I have have seen a lot of other people who miss a lift and completely lose their shit. Their state management skills are too shitty for them to get it all back on track. The rest of the meet goes poorly, they go home, and beat themselves up. In my opinion this breeds a cycle of failure. Next time they come out, if they come out, they will be haunted by the miss. If you are not a competitive lifter, this may all sound silly…maybe it is. What is accurate is a number of people have not resumed competition because of a miss, and the real problem is purely their ability to roll with the punches. Even Ali was beaten in the ring. Everyone has a bad day. Keep yourself cool and collected.

#5 Turn set backs in to opportunities

In Oct 2011 I was setting a spring loaded gripper in my hand, and the handle snapped off. It was pretty amusing at the moment to be strong enough to break off a steel leg, until I realized the damage it did to me. I partially ruptured a ligament in my right hand, on the dorsal side right below the wrist. It looked like a hole was in my hand. Within 7 days the pain became so severe I was unable to twist off the top of a plastic water bottle or turn a door handle.

Maybe you can imagine how severe of an injury this is, particularly to someone who does a sport of squeezing and crushing things. It was honestly depressing. I was rampaging towards a shot at the Mighty Mitts competition at the Arnold, the premier event in our sport. I knew I would be in big trouble.

After a few weeks, I still had a lot of pain. I did however discover I could lift most of my thick handle objects without discomfort. My entire training moved towards the Thomas Inch Dumbbell and the Axle.

The Thomas Inch DB (trust me, it if freaky hard)

Even though I still couldn’t set a COC 1 gripper, I was now hitting thick bar almost daily. In several months I went from being able to lift an Inch DB 5-10 times every few days, to being able to lift it 50-100 times in any given workout and lift it day after day.

In the same way, you will probably get hurt if you are training to win. My challenge is for you to find things you can still do without pain to keep getting better as you heal.

As a side note, the expected healing time for the injury was 6-9 months. I was able to compete again in 5, and now 8 months later I am stronger (far stronger) than before I was hurt.

#6 It’s always a contest, even if the other guy doesn’t know it.

I feel it is accurate to say in my tiny little sport the 105kg class is the most competitive of all. The best all-round grip athletes are in this class. I don’t know if they know it, but I am competing with them everyday. If I see one of them hit a new PR, I will hit 5. If they are training 4 days a week I will do 6. If they are planning on taking some time off I will be hitting the gym even harder.

I love these guys. Without them I would not have the same drive to train. I have always been motivated to lift, but when I look at the incredible strength of guys like David Horne and Andrew Durniat I feel an urge to RUN to the gym NOW and do more work. On a side note these guys are great friends to me too.

Whatever your sport, you have to find the best guys. Then you have to be ready to stack up to them. In many ways your competition are your best friends, without them you have no sport. Pay attention to what they are doing. Plus that cuts down on the surprises.
On the note of surprises, I feel there is not really a true surprise in a strength sport. In a base ball game you never know who will come in and hit that game winning home run. In a strength sport you will know (well you should know) pretty much what you are going to open with and what your capabilities are. In the same way you will know how the other guys in your class are doing.

#7 Run the numbers, and pay attention to what they are telling you

There is a very specific reason I decided on the 3 event total as a goal- it is great measuring stick. Everything I do can be traced back to a very good question “did that improve your total?”

Of course there are plenty of things which I do which are not directly connected to it, but as far as my sport specific stuff it all must go to it.

I know this sounds like preschool, but how many people are doing things right now which are supposedly “sport specific” yet have zero improvement on their sport specific numbers? I had a guy on a coaching call tell me about his burpee training for softball. Does that make any sense? How would more burpees improve batting average, throwing distance, or hand/eye coordination? As soon as I asked him that he agreed it wasn’t helping.

On that note, less than 10 men in North America have totaled over 800 lbs in grip as of this month. Of the lot of us, only two of them have a higher total then me. I am the lightest weight/youngest of the group. All of them were great in the sport before I started, but now only two of them could beat me in an all-round contest. I suppose I will find out next month at US Nationals 2012.

I did that by paying attention to the numbers.

#8 Get yourself some strong people to play with

If you are in strength sports you must be the one who is not always the best if you want to be the best. It’s great to be #2, because you get hungry. Find some strong dudes, and lift with them as often as you can. If you can’t, then connect virtually using the web then do some contests and such. You know the saying “there is always someone stronger” well go find that fucker. Plus it seems everyone I know has a 6′6” 280 lbs brother/friend/neighbor/cousin who can out lift me. I can’t seem to ever find this person, but they always tell me he exists. Try and find someone who is stronger and work with them. If that is not possible, find someone who is equally excellent in their sport of choice and lift with them. Champions are champions, regardless of sport.

#9 Prepare for realistic problems

I typically sleep very shitty before a meet. Luckily for me (not really) I typically sleep shitty most other nights too. I have learned to perform with fairly crappy sleep. I have also trained myself to lift well with crappy food, dehydrated, bad climate, and fatigue.

I spent almost a decade of my life in the armed forces, and the number 1 lesson I was taught was the value of preparation. Things always go wrong, so you better not be counting on perfect conditions. That is a fun thing to dream of, but on a given game day something will be off. So train for it. I believe over the long run bullet #1 + this one will make you the most consistent athlete in your class. Sadly most people do not understand the true nature of specificity.

#10 Have Fun!

I hope it would be clear I love doing this stuff. Sports are one of the fine things in life. Rather than sitting on your duff watching others enjoy them, get out and do them yourself. You will make new friends, find new motivations, and who knows? What if you are the next great thing for some sport? There is only way to be certain, you got to get out and do it.

Once you find “your sport” you will find a path to good times. I have had some really crappy things happen over the last few years in my life, but I do not regret even one moment I have spent preparing for and playing my sport. It has carried me through somethings with a positive note, and allowed me to stay focused when many things were a blur.

If I have learned anything at all on the platform, it was how to have a good time

I believe your sport training is relevant. Maybe you are working towards a professional ticket in the NBA, or you are a minor bowler in your local league. What other people think about it pales in comparison to how you feel about it.

If you are going to do something, do it to the best of your ability. Train for it with conviction. Compete with honor. I believe if you do this, you will find satisfaction and a vehicle for your personal development.

Adam Glass

Bio
Adam Glass is one of top competitor in the strength sport of grip.   Read more from him at www.adamtglass.com or get your butt over to the Movement Minneapolis if you are local.  Trust me, you will not regret it and I can’t recommend his services enough.    Go!

One thing I have been working on over the past several months is more body weight training and this includes hand stand push ups. When I started, even putting my head down caused me to be dizzy and feel horrible. Now I can do elevated partial hand stand push ups and getting closer to a full handstand and then a full hand stand push up.
Today I have a guest article from Danavir Sarria on this very topic. Take it away……

How To Do Your First Handstand Pushup by Danavir Sarria

There aren’t many things that will make you look any more athletic than standing on your hands and repping out a couple of pushups with the grace of a gymnast.

The problem with handstands pushups are that their hard, extremely hard. For a lot of people it will take months to get your first handstand pushup down. Personally, it took me about 3-4 months to get my first full rep with my feet against the wall. I was so excited that I attempted a second rep.

I made it to about a quarter way down before I had to bail. This was a couple of months ago and eventually I got to 5 full reps before stopping all handstand training once I couldn’t use my same old space to do it.

Now I’m here to tell you how I did it.

It’s all about progressing to a harder version to build strength, stability, getting used to the movement as it takes time getting used to the blood rushing to your head and above all staying safe as one thing you will have to get over is the fear of staying in such a position for an extended period of time, so here we go.

Pike Pushups – Work Up To 3 X 12

Start with the Pike Pushup. This position will introduce you to the vertical push movement while having your head in a good position to handle the blood rushing through. Keep progressing from workout to workout until you’re able to complete 3 set of 12

Elevated Pike Pushups – Work Up To 3 X 12

Once you can complete the Pike Pushups, elevate your legs to put more weight on your arms and again help you handle the blood rushing. Work up to 3 sets of 12 as before.

Walk Up Wall Handstand Hold – Work Up To 2 X 1 Minute

\Now it’s time to get on the wall. As every time I have to get someone to just do a regular handstand against a wall, they always get scared so I always tell them to start by walking up against the wall to get into position and practice doing that first. Do the same and hold that position for 2 sets of 1 minute each.

Wall Handstand Hold – Work Up To 2 X 2 Minutes

This time around, you want to do a regular handstand. It takes courage for some people to do this so take your time but eventually you will have to get over it and just do it. Hold it for 2 sets of 2 minutes. It’s going to suck but it will help you get ready for the next one. (Mike’s note, some people find a good transfer from holds and some do better with moving into the position and out and then on to the next step at even ¼ instead of ½)

Wall ½ Handstand Pushups – Work Up To 2-3 X 5

Now let’s add some handstand pushups going halfway down. You’re going to be glad you did all those handstand holds because it’s going to be tough. Work up to 2 or even 3 sets of 5 reps.

Wall Handstand Pushups – Work Up To 1 X 1

After everything, you will be more than ready to get your first full rep in. It won’t be easy and it’s going to feel like a LONG way down after doing partials for so long but you will get it in. Just try it out once. If you can do it, keep working on it and if you can’t, work again on some partials and try it again later when you feel ready.

Couple of Programming Points

Practice Often

Handstands and other forms of bodyweight training is gymnastics. It is as much about strength as it is about skill. Just like with other sports, you need to practice hard and practice often. If you want to get better at basketball, do you play once a week or do you try to go out as much as possible and work on your shot? Even if you’re not good, you’ll eventually get something out of it due to sheer perseverance.

Perform When You’re Fresh

Always perform your most important and hardest exercises at the beginning of your workout. After your warmup, go straight to whatever variation you’re working on at the time. If you leave it at the end of your workout, then you’ll never be strong enough to progress.

Never Max Out

There is no need to max out unless you’re testing for something specific and on my recommendations; it doesn’t happen until you test if you can do a full handstand pushup. With handstand training and just about anything else, always opt for sub-maximal loads or loads where you can do 2-3 perfect reps or higher.

Now How To Bail

Practice getting into and OUT of each position safely. This will allow you to relax more in the position and decreases the risk of injury.

Conclusion: How To Do A Handstand Push Up

It’s going to take a long time before you do your first full and explosive handstand pushup, but with perseverance and a smart program you’ll get there. Once you get it down you’re going to be the biggest bad ass on your block.

Bio: Trainer of the warriors, Danavir is a writer, trainer, consultant and martial artist who loves everything performance or regular fitness training.  He writes over at www.DanavirSarria.com. Head over if you want no B.S training information and bring out “the warrior from within”.

My inbox has been blowing up lately about a post coach Mike Boyle did entitled “Is Foam Rolling Bad For You?”

Mike Boyle

In it, coach Boyle referenced an article I wrote about 4 years ago about why I did not like the error erasing properties of the amazing foam roller.

“Don’t be fooled by internet writers looking to take a contrarian stance to get site hits. Focus on results.” –Coach Boyle

It seems I am the contrarian and not the results fitness guy now. I guess the following articles did not help my contrarian case.

Get Off the Corrective Exercise Bandwagon

Foam Rolling

Get Off the Treadmill

Static Stretching Still Sucks (The 4S Rule)

Intermittent Fasting for Fat Loss

Keep in mind that I have 567 entries on this blog alone, so by comparison the articles I have are not that many.  Hmmm, maybe I should have started  www.foamrollerssuck.com

Foam Rolling: The Early Years

However, I started out with quite the different view of each of those topics above.   When I ooked back at a program I wrote for a client in 2005, it started with foam rolling and treadmill work! Eeek.

Over time, while the foam roller seems to help in the session, it did not do anything long term to reduce his pain.  Each time he came back, I was having him roll his ITB.  He was yelping in pain and I would proclaim

“Ha! See, it is painful, so it must be good. That whole area is tight and needs to be rolled out.”

Hmmm, if that was so true, why was he still doing it with the EXACT same response 6 months later?

Broken To Better

It was around this time that I was so broken (by my own free will) that it took me almost an hour to lift anything in the gym!

I was foam rolling while thinking that all those other goons in the gym don’t know anything since they are not using this amazing piece of equipment and I know what is going on! Keep in mind this was around 2005 when I was much younger and knew everything.  Haha.

After foam rolling I would do some static stretching, dynamic mobility drills, joint mobility work and THEN start very light to progress on to my working sets over the next 20 minutes. Yep, almost 1.5 hours into a training session before I would do my first working set. Seems totally insane now, but at the time I thought this was the best it could get!

All of this to pull 345 lbs in competition and wake up with horrible pain so bad I could barely bend down to wash my face in the morning. It was a great tripod maneuver to spread my feet wide enough and slowly get my left hand on the counter so I could get my face about 3 feet from water. I don’t fault anyone for this, as I did it entirely to myself! I was foam rolling like white on rice, in the morning, in the evening and some times during the day. I even started to include dynamic and mobility drills then too.

My clients at the time (circa 2005) were getting stronger, but they still had nagging pains too.

The Breaking Point

All of it came to a head when I was at Z-Health certification in AZ that Fall. I remember taking a hot bath that night trying to get my back to relax, wondering what the hell I was doing to myself.

Was I really going to be the next Benni and deadlift over 1,000 pounds? Was Any Bolton laying in his warm bed in the UK all worried that I was going to come up from nowhere and steal his current world record in the deadlift at that time?

Benni Destroying Some Weight!

Andy Bolton’s World Record Deadlift in 2006

Hell no!

There was high school girls lifting more than I was I’m sure.

Why was I so bent on doing a certain number? Why did I not realize HOW I was doing it was the source of my issues?

Blame My Injuries

Sure, I could blame it on all sorts of past injuries from a completely ripped out right shoulder (broomball accident), grade 2 separated shoulder (AC joint), busted right ankle (snowboard accident), sprained wrists (windsurfing), pulled groin/hip flexors on both sides (deadlifts), misaligned thoracic spine (thoracotomy when I was 4.5 to repair a congenital atrial septal defect, ASD, in my heart), a misaligned right eye that causes my whole body to twist so I walk straight, blah blah blah.

The reality was that I was attempting to load a chassis that was screwed up. Dropping a V-8 into a pinto is not a good idea (er, in my case a V-6).

Laying there in hot water trying to fix my back so I could make it through 3 more days of the certification, I decided that I was going to destroy my ego before it destroyed me. In hindsight it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I called up my buddy Brad “No Relation” Nelson to get his help and vowed to do whatever it took. If that meant I did not even LOOK at a deadlift for 5 months, fine. If I could only use 135 pounds for months at a time, fine. At least 135 lbs was more than the 95 lbs I started at with deadlifts back in 1996, so that was improvement, right. I was sick and tired of being in pain.

Happy Ending?

Now I can deadlift without pain (although it is still not the best lift for me) and even on my worst day I can pull 345 lbs without any warm up (no, I don’t recommend you do that). My warm ups are about 5-10 minutes on my worst day.

My current goal for this year is to pull 600 lbs on my Dinnie Stone Trainers for a single deadlift and lift the Dinnies in Scotland 3 years from now. Most would say that is a screwed up lift since it is more of a heavy partial, done from a rotated spinal position, with an offset load (the load on the back hand below is about 75 lbs less), so the torque across your body gets pretty nuts. Stu McGill fans run in horror, but it does not bother me (then again I am not normal in any sense of the word).

Dinnie Stone Trainer Deadlift Recent PR

Foam Rollers?

My whole point with that part of the rant is that everyone’s person journey will change how they perceive events. If coach Boyle see success with his athletes (which he does, otherwise nobody would pay him and he would do something different), and he has them foam roll beforehand, his brain will associate foam rolling (to some degree) with success.

A Better Way?

Could there be even better success around the corner without foam rolling? I would say yes, but it would have to be tested.

Testing can be scary since you may not find what you WANT to find. It is hard to test all aspects of programming I know.

But what things are you willing to question?

Former Foam Roller Dealer

Perhaps I am a contrarian for fitness, but I did not start out that way. I used to even buy foam rollers for my clients to make sure they had one. I had them start on the treadmill, static stretch, eat their meals every 2-3 hours (going without protein for 5 hours was a huge sin), do their corrective exercise drills, but I was wise enough then to look at the results.

If the results did not match what I thought they could be, I would try something different and re-measure again. I would seek to understand why things should or should not work. If that did not match, I would really have to ask myself why I was still doing them?

After years of testing, I had them stop doing treadmill work, stop static stretching, get off the foam roller, do FEWER warm ups, employ intermittent fasting at times, and they got even BETTER results.

Of course they got results before. I would not stay in business if they did not get result, but they are now even better.

Contrarian or Results Fitness

Over time though, they got better and faster results by REMOVING things from the program instead of adding them.

“Maybe all the fitness people need to clean out their garage instead of adding more tools” –Adam Glass

I call it the “Adam Glass Corollary” the more certifications and information a trainer has, the worse then tend to perform over time.

At first, learning more dramatically helps. However, once you reach a base level, adding more knowledge by itself is not helpful. It starts to go the other way.

“More knowledge without action will lead to brain damage” –Frankie Faires

The reason is that you are starting to de couple knowledge + action. Too much knowledge and not enough action. Just like a fat kid on a sew saw, it is skewed too far one direction only.

Clean Out Your Fitness Garage

It is time to clean out your fitness garage.

Take each item, look at it, test it, keep ONLY what is useful.

Nothing is exempt.There is nothing scared. It is either making you (or your athletes/clients) better or worse. It is really that simple.

Are You Up To The Challenge?

Are you willing to do it? It is not easy. It is really really hard. Few do it.

I can guarantee that your results will be even better.

You owe it to yourself and your clients.

Summary (aka How To Still Love Your Foam Roller)

More knowledge is not the answer.

More action is better.

Applied knowledge is the key

Are you willing to question and test what you think you know?

This includes foam rollers. They are not exempt.

If you have tested them and can show they help performance, by all means keep doing it.

But if they do not help, are you willing to take them out?

In the end I would rather be known as the results guy instead of the contrarian fitness guy; but I will take whichever makes people better. I really like better.

I agree with coach Boyle when he says “Focus on results.” Since that is what matters and is why all of us are here.

Rock on

Mike T Nelson

PS—If you love results as much as I do, no matter how you exercise right now, you could have bigger, stronger muscles, go HERE : Video Training for More Muscle and Strength –FREE

Another great video to get you going on this Monday.

It is up to YOU!

YOU decide what to do via your ACTION.  The critic does not count.

It is easy for others to SAY what to do, but you back it up with action every time.

The time is now, and don’t wait.

Go for it and live the life you always wanted.

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

Very cool video of Mike Gillette showing off his savage strength!

Wow!

You know I am a big fan of bending and just general feats of strength.

I even did my first steel bend last year (hat tip to Adam Glass).

The video above shows Mike doing some crazy things!

Bending horseshoes, destroying frying pans, karate chops to cement, and much more.

I love the part at about 1:05 in where the hostess is cringing as she watches along!

For a limited time, you can pick up Mike’s Savage Strength program for 50%

Savage Strength For 50% Off

But you have to act fast as the sale ends soon!

Age Is Not An Excuse!

…..and keep this away from the Planet Fitness crowd who want to use age as an excuse for why they are not strong(er).

Mike is 49 and doing insane things, so age is not an excuse! Be better now!

Here is an inside look at some of the work Mike does

I plan to get stronger for as long as I can to (so far, so good).

Rock on
Mike N

PS–The sale ends VERY soon, so act now