“He who gains a victory over other men is strong; but he who gains a victory over himself is all powerful.” –Lao Tzu
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a single weight-training movement that’s more “complete” than the deadlift. It’s not just an upper or lower back exercise, or a grip exercise, or a posterior chain exercise, or a core exercise; it’s an every thing exercise. To that end, it’s a must-have in any lifter, athlete, or weekend warrior’s training arsenal.” –Eric Cressey
In Part I we learned that Squats and Deadlifts should form the foundation of your work out routines because they are two of the most effective exercises for building muscle mass known to man.
They’re also two of the hardest!!! That’s why we also covered 9 tips to minimize your risk of injury. If you haven’t read Part I- you probably should!
Now, one thing that I must confess is that I am far from a squat and deadlift master. I’m not incredibly strong in either lift and will probably never be breaking any world records. On the other hand, I am getting stronger every day and am doing my best to practice what I preach by “leading from the front” as Zach Even-Esh likes say.
Remember, this blog is my brother’s and my journey to size, strength and living an awesome life as we learn from the strength coaches and other experts we recommend on the website. You and I are on the same path… so I guess that makes you pretty cool too!
Everything that I share here comes from my personal experience, years of research and my desire to apply and share what I’m learning with you (while continually improving and growing as a person.) Read the rest of this entry »
“For a hard gainer to get big, strong and very impressive is a truly great achievement – one done against the odds. It demands an indomitable spirit and hard-gainer character.” - Stuart McRobert
“Very few movements require the same degree of dedication, desire and determination as heavy squats. Squats are more than a physical strength builder and may be the only movement that builds a person’s character. Life is about standing up AFTER a heavy load takes you down.” – Dave Tate
Ever been to the gym and seen a skinny guy doing barbell curls in this weird metal cage looking thingy?
If you didn’t know, that’s called a Power Cage or Squat Rack… and it’s NOT for barbell curls… it’s for SQUATS!
My point is that sometimes we’re in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time. Yes, I stole that from a song!
The skinny guy doing barbell curls in the Power Cage IS in the right place… but it’s NOT the time for barbell curls; it’s time for squats and lots of them!
What the misinformed hardgainer doesn’t understand is that the foundation of mass building work out routines should revolve around two main exercises (that is if your goal is to get big and strong as fast as possible.)
“When life is victorious, there is birth; when it is thwarted, there is death. A warrior is always engaged in a life-and-death struggle for Peace.” - Morihei Ueshiba
“Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment.” - Morihei Ueshiba
Every man must balance the paradox that is the mystery of life and death. One must choose his own purpose in life and train to refine the body and the mind. He must train, so that one day, he may achieve his full potential. Each of us must follow his own path…and so… I continue mine.
Here’s the program and the path that I’ve been following:
=====>>> The Path of the Awakened Warrior <<<======
This is the program I’ve been using since January and have been getting great results. So, naturally, I’d like to share it with you in hopes that you can make the same or better progress. Read the rest of this entry »
“The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest are rarely the strongest. The fittest are those endowed with the qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing conditions.” – Unknown
While we know Hybrid Muscle Training is Awwwesome for athletes and martial artists OR even your average weekend warrior (who wants to be as strong as he looks)… YOU might be wondering if this type of training is appropriate for the ectomorph, whose main purpose is to put some meat on his bones!
I mean, after all is said and done…. Elliott Hulse and Mike Westerdal (the creators of Lean Hybrid Muscle Program) are NOT ectomorphs. In fact, they are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They are endomorphs and basically have the opposite problem of your average hardgainer. Meaning… instead of finding it difficult to build muscle, these guys find it easy to gain weight… muscle and fat. The difficulty for the endomorph is staying lean as they can gain fat just by looking at a donut! Read the rest of this entry »
“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”
- Bruce Lee
I hope you’ve been following along with the guest posts on the blog by Mike Westerdal, the co-creator of Lean Hybrid Muscle. If you missed them… well than you really messed up!
This type of hybrid training is something that a lot of the top strength coaches are moving towards. I, myself, have been using hybrid training in my own personal quest to develop “Super Hybrid Muscles.”
One of the top coaches whose training philosophy I really like is Jason Ferruggia. Jason has trained a ton of combat athletes and even wrote a book geared towards mixed martial artists called “Fit to Fight.”
Ferruggia’s training style is also very hybrid-like itself (in my opinion), even if he doesn’t refer to it in such a way. I’ve never really used that term “hybrid” either, yet this is what Mike and Elliott like to call it… and I, for one, am NOT going to argue with these huge behemoths!
So, in honor of the successful release of Lean Hybrid Muscle Reloaded I decided to unleash my own “hybrid-style” training program that is a mixture of everything I’ve learned so far. I’m calling this The Awakened Warrior Workout and I’ll reveal it VERY SOON! Read the rest of this entry »
“Personally I’m not against the gym. I love bench pressing, squatting and deadlifting and I’m not going to give that up to perform strictly hybrid cardio workouts by themselves. What I am doing is replacing boring ass traditional cardio (like the stationary bike and the treadmill) with resistance conditioning so I can burn fat and build muscle at the same time.” -Mike Westerdal
You know, going to the gym and working out isn’t the only way to get strong. There’s actually a huge difference between being gym strong versus real-life strong.
It’s completely possible to be in good shape and strong (I mean really strong) without ever having stepped inside a gym.
How is this possible? Are these guys just genetic freaks? Let me tell you that it is possible and no, you do not have to be a genetic anomaly to be in great shape and what I like to call “real-life strong.”
My own dad is a great example of a guy who is really strong and yet he’s never worked out a day in his life. He has however, done a lot of manual labor.
He was always working on things outside in the yard, building stuff, working with wood or any number of other things. Then on the flip side… there’s me! I have been working out since I was in high school in Connecticut.
When I really started to get serious about training, I finally started growing and getting stronger. By the time I hit my senior year and was playing football I was able to bench 275 pounds and was really proud of myself.
It was all put into perspective one day when my dad needed my help to get rid of some large rocks and boulders sticking out of the grass. Read the rest of this entry »
“What one man can do, another can do.” – Anthony Hopkins
“The only limits to what we can create are the ones that we have imposed upon ourselves.” – Brandon Cook
Read the quote above from the movie the Edge, “What one man can do, another can do.” In this movie, Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin’s characters are forced to survive in the wilderness after a plane crash. As they seek to find their way back to civilization, a grizzly bear begins stalking and hunting them down.
After several close encounters with the bear, Hopkins realizes that their only chance to survive is to face the bear and kill it using a spear technique he read about in book.
This technique is very risky and must be executed precisely as the bear rears up on its hind legs and comes down to claim his kill aka YOU!. At that exact moment you wedge the spear into the ground or rocks behind you and allow the bear to impale itself upon the long spear and hope that it doesn’t survive or crush you.
So yeah, it’s pretty risky… but whatchya gonna do when a huge Kodiak bear wants to turn you into a mid-day snack, huh? Read the rest of this entry »
“When it comes to building the ‘Warrior Physique’ you’re going to need to train like a warrior and that involves stepping out of your comfort zone and performing activities that build muscle and burn fat at the same time like resistance cardio or conditioning.” -Mike Westerdal
Regardless of your body type or the type of training that your body responds to best, hybrid muscle training is all around, the most effective way to build muscle and get lean.
Often times, guys ask me how hybrid training carries over into sports.
Well, regardless of the sport, hybrid muscle training can help you be at the top of your game.
But did you know that there are also sports that by their very nature help you develop hybrid muscle?
Actually, any sport that simultaneously incorporates resistance and cardio can be considered a hybrid activity. There are a number of sports that do this-let’s talk about some of them now. Read the rest of this entry »
Make sure you read all the way to the end to get your FREE REPORTS!
“We’ve moved away from living the way nature intended us to live. To get really healthy and get the bodies we want we need to exercise the way our ancestors lived by getting primal in our workouts.” -Mike Westerdal
Nature is amazing. Plants, animals, humans, insects and ecosystems, left on their own, over time adapt to their environment to not just exist, but to thrive. Each species is designed to do whatever it does best. For example, carnivores like wolves, lions and tigers are built to hunt and kill.
They’re strong and fast with sharp teeth and powerful jaws. And all this happens naturally. When they are born, their parents don’t sit them down and explain to them what they have to do to become skilled hunters-they just go about living their lives and they develop that way naturally.
Animals in nature don’t go to the gym. They don’t lift weights, they don’t do cardio, they don’t read about the latest hot training routine and they don’t go on diets. Yet despite the fact that they don’t do any of these things, wolf cubs, lion cubs and others grow up to be skilled hunters with lean but incredibly strong bodies. Why? Read the rest of this entry »
“How do we learn? By taking action, analyzing our results and tweaking them until we get the results we’re after. The key is to be willing to change and try different approaches if you’re not getting the results you want.” -Vince DelMonte
Make sure you read all the way to the end to get your FREE REPORTS!
My First Transformation:
BEFORE Weighing 130lbs
AFTER Weighing 160lbs
As you may know when I first started weight training I weighed a measly 130lbs at 5 feet 11 inches tall. After years of getting nowhere, making tons of mistakes and failing over and over to achieve any significant results, let’s just say I was frustrated. I began to wonder whether I should just give up on this dream of having an awesome body.
Luckily the internet was becoming increasingly popular and I began discovering new training information dedicated towards naturally skinny guys. Fellow ectomorphs like Anthony Ellis, Vince DelMonte, Jason Ferruggia and others had discovered the tried and true methods for weight training as an ectomorph.
