Twisted PHA

Abu' Coimhde!
Failte Fuirbidh!

Everybody remember what that means?
(Hail forever God! Hail Strongman!) - in Gaelic

Hello all and God bless!

Well things are hopping here. A lot of busy new things, articles going up, interviews everywhere. Some cool new stuff on the way! Busy, busy, busy. This is what we've been praying for. And we pray that your life is busy in a good way as well. Lot s of productive new training, ever growing in your spiritual family and physical realms.

Let's not forget that even though life just whirs by at a break-neck pace, you can't forget the important stuff. You must, to quote a colloquialism, "Make hay while the sun shines," but don't forget to pray and be thankful. Give all the glory to God. Kiss your wife. Tell her you love her, you appreciate her and how beautiful she is, especially mine... heh heh heh. (Wait.... just ME tell her.... not you.... anybody else gets a poke in the eye. LOL Just kidding.) Spend time with your kids. Remember your parents and grandparents if you're still blessed enough to have them. And your friends. Treasure them, because a real friend is rare.

And surely, don't forget to visit Strongerman.com regularly. Cause where else are you going to get this unique blend of balanced, God-based, peaceful spirituality and family orientation... mixed with hard-core, rough-neck, tear-the-walls-down, freak-them-out, strength. You know it's always good to have fun with your strength. Be excited about life, about your family, and about your training.

Paul Anderson used to talk about "Clod kickers." Meaning, people who shuffle around, kickin' the dirt with down cast eyes, falsely humble. Let your strength show in your personality. Part of the whole reason we train and one of the big benefits of training is that if you delve deeply enough into it, it enlivens you and creates a passionate mind, body, spirit connection. Let that show through. Don't just be excited after you make a PR, or after your team scores a touchdown. Let that power and passion flow through into your daily life and personality. Don't be closed and guarded. People will respect your passion. Be just as excited about being in church or hanging out at home with your family as you are when you hit the gym. Let that excitement transform how you live your life, how you attack your goals, how much fun you have. If you spend every minute worrying about whether people think you're silly or not acting, "straight-laced enough" then you're wasting the precious time you're given on this earth.

Take a stand. Don't worry about what other people think. Be completely connected to your life and your passion. Let it show and get busy living.


STRONG FRIENDS:

If you don't know who Mike Mahler is then you haven't been paying attention to what's happening in the world of hard-core strength. Mike's kind of all over the place. Exploding on to the scene as a writer for lots of different internet and print companies and traveling all over teaching people about hard core training. You can find reviews of his excellent DVD, "Aggressive Strength," over at T-Mag. He has a new article in Ironman Magazine as well as the cover of Ironman Japan. They have translated his DVD and book into Japanese. He writes for Hardcore muscle magazine, Industry magazine and Lord knows who else. I have known Mike for a couple of years now and he truly is a good guy. He knows his stuff. If you don't have his stuff... you're missing out. He has some totally unique ways to apply kettlebell training especially for mixed martial arts. He's also probably the biggest, strongest, Vegan you'll ever see..... Ha-ha Mike... I had to throw a little vegetable shot in there.

Actually he is one of the most knowledgeable people around. he's also truly good person, concerned about other issues and he has integrity. He and I will be doing a workshop together sometime early next year. You won't want to miss that. You'll also want to subscribe to his email newsletter, "Mahler's Aggressive Strength
Newsletter," which you can find at his website:

http://mikemahler.com


TRAINING TALK:

An interesting little workout I did the other day... it's actually one of a multiple variations I've come up with for a routine I call, "Twisted PHA." PHA stands for "Peripheral Heart Action." It is a workout style developed by Bob Gadga, a champion bodybuilder from the '60's. It is essentially a style of circuit training based on burning fat by keeping blood flowing all around the body instead of pooling in one area. Therefore creating extended heart/lung work.

The original system called for doing repetition sets of 5 lifting exercises in a series and repeating them 5 times. Then you would move on to the next series, etc. Well.... my style is a little different.

Because we want to accomplish so many goals, yet still be time efficient I am mixing multiple different styles of exercise, levels of conditioning, types of movement, etc., within the basic framework of this workout. Within the original workout everything would have been done for 10 to 25 repetitions, because it was a conditioning based workout.

But we're going to mix in more strength with the conditioning. For instance, in the workout I did the other day, I did low rep dumbbell presses, moderate to high rep rows, low rep partial squats, moderate to high rep bodyweight squats and low and high rep calf raises, all in a circuit. Adding weight to each exercise where it applied. So by the fifth set I'm at my heaviest weight on the dumbbell presses and partial squats. I'm still cranking out reps on the rows and bodyweight squats and I've worked from high reps with lighter weight to low reps with heavy weight on the calf raises.

In this way I use a max exercise, a partial exercise, a repetition exercise, a bodyweight exercise, all to ramp my conditioning up while building max strength at the same time. Do you see the "Twisted Conditioning" concept here?

Combining all three levels of conditioning at the same time, in a time efficient workout for aerobic, and muscular endurance and high level strength at the same time. This is one of the featured workouts in our upcoming "100 Routines" book, which we'll elaborate more on later.

Another quick exercise routine here might be to combine low rep full squats, tire flips, low rep rows, kettlebell jerks and sit ups. Whole body covered, high reps, low reps, endurance, aerobic, and strength all together.

Enjoy!


50 POWER POINTS:

Are you looking for something to help put you over the top in your training? Those tips that people who sweated long and hard have learned about building strength but they aren't so willing to share? Well... we've shared them.

It's all in my course, "50 Power Points for Super Size, Strength and Endurance." The perfect book for the strength trainer who's on the go. Why? Because you can sit down and read 50 article-length points on everything related to strength you can think of. Topics like:

- Consistency, and it's deep applications to training.
- How to make partials pay off for big lifts. Probably the only in-depth discussion of this extremely valuable training style in any modern print book.
- The 100/200 Routine. A NASTY, NASTY conditioning routine that you may not survive.
- Simple old time, Olympic style moves you don't need a coach for.
- Building focus, how it can radically increase your strength.
- And many other topics.

For the strength enthusiast you just never know where you'll find that one tidbit that'll put you over the top. Help you make that new PR, or find that new element that your training has been missing. This could be it.

Check it out now!

http://strongerman.com/50_tips.html