strength training

The Unarticulated Consensus of the Power Elite

November 8, 2013 By Marty Gallagher 6 Comments

Understanding the politically incorrect relationship between calories, strength and muscle

In the history of strength and muscle building, no other group of athletes has come close to developing the power, strength and gigantic muscle size that elite American powerlifters regularly attained from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s. The massive—but functional and athletic—physiques these men routinely built on a widespread basis have not been matched before or since. Using an elegantly simplistic method, these athletes obtained results and world records which remain unsurpassed to this day.

Their system was the unarticulated consensus of the power elite. Instead of having a single author, the system was the distilled essence of the training experience shared by hundreds of elite strength athletes obtained over 20 years. It was the power and strength equivalent of the Manhattan Project—the athletes conducted their own scientific strength research but shared the same allegiance to the truth. This truth about training and obtaining factual results had to be untainted by commercial interests. In commercial fitness, miraculous results are first proclaimed for a fitness tool, product or system. Next, flawed, faux “science” and outright lies are spun to sell the miracle product.

The power and strength system based on the unspoken consensus was universally used by the uber-elite. It is pure and completely untainted by commercial interests. The system is devoted to tangible, measurable, finite, real-not-imagined results. The power elite of that time followed the truth of real results wherever it led them. They were strength monks hammering out their Iron Bible. The eventual truths led these power monks to a strange final destination, a destination so odd and so unexpected that its lessons and methods—despite being unbelievably effective—have been purged from the annals of resistance training.

On rare occasions you will see an article about a great lifter of yesteryear, but his methods and their universal effectiveness are forgotten and ignored. Why? It’s because the truth about power and strength has fallen afoul of our politically correct times. Some truths are too hard to swallow and too harsh to be accepted—or even allowed.

The finalized strength system that eventually evolved was a true consensus of the power elite. The system’s widespread usage was due to its success on the lifting platform. Its proponents were the athletes who kicked sand in the faces of all the other powerlifters nationally and internationally. No spin machines were behind this system, it was popular for one simple reason—the incredible results it obtained on a widespread basis.

The system worked for average men and elite athletes. No matter how high or low the physiological starting point, a diligent user of this system always obtained real results. Executed correctly, it was physiologically impossible not to add strength and size. This uniquely American strength system was initially conceptualized in the mid-1960s by pioneering power men like my iron mentor, Hugh “Huge” Cassidy, the first superheavyweight world powerlifting champion. Huge and other early power pioneers—superstar lifter/athlete John Cole, John Kuc and Larry Pacifico—were feeling their way along while creating a never-before-seen system with a progress-inducing strength template specific to this strange new sport of powerlifting.

The questions they asked were: What is the best way to maximize our three-lift performance? What is the best way to increase our single-repetition maximum in each of the three powerlifts?

Formal powerlifting began in 1964. Early powerlifters constructed training templates drawn from the premier strength sport at the time, Olympic weightlifting. Other primordial power men constructed their training templates using the power bodybuilding tactics of men like Reg Park and Marvin Eder.

While it seemed logical and appropriate to use these existing strength and muscle-building systems as a starting point for creating pure power templates, both Olympic weightlifting and bodybuilding were ultimately a bad fit. Weightlifting and bodybuilding are primarily volume-based training strategies.

The new sport of powerlifting had characteristics which led pioneers to conclude that the body-shattering poundage they routinely handled needed an intensity-based approach. Elite weightlifters and bodybuilders trained a lot. There’s nothing wrong with volume, Reg Park, Marvin, Bill Pearl, Ray Hiligren, Pat Casey, and a slew of other 1950s greats built incredible bodies and awesome power with marathon lifting sessions. But, power pioneers reasoned that for their own purposes, less volume would be better.

The proponents of high volume training were working with the flawed science of the times. This faux science dictated that lifters and bodybuilders had to train the same muscle every 48 hours, or risk losing physiological gains. At the time, they falsely believed a muscle began to rapidly atrophy and weaken 48 hours after training. Trainees were told that their strength and power would start disintegrating within a few days of a session.

Muscles were described as balloons with slow leaks requiring a refill every 48-hours or they would deflate completely.

Men were told to train the same muscle three times weekly to preserve it and progress. Training three times a week wasn’t a big deal to John Q.

Average bench pressing 100 pounds for 8 reps and back deadlifting 185 for 5 reps. But, power men discovered that benching 440 raw for 5 reps, squatting 600 for 5 reps, and deadlifting 635 for 5 reps—all in the same week, three times per week—was physiological suicide. Woody Allen was once asked if sex was dirty. “If it’s done right!” he responded. It’s the same with hardcore do-it-right power training. If it’s done right, power training sessions are savage, brutal, and body-shocking in the extreme.

While the orthodox experts of the time issued dire warnings to the opposite opinion, early power pioneers found out the hard way that too much powerlifting in any one week was counterproductive. Tangible results led the pioneer powerlifters in a very different direction. The truth—manifested as tangible results—led the power elite to consider far more radical methods.

— Olympic weightlifting consisted of the clean and press, snatch (floor to arms length in one motion) and clean and jerk (floor to arms length in two movements). The classical Olympic lifting template of the 1960s trained the press, power snatch, full-squat snatch (or split snatch), power clean, clean and jerk, and front and back squat twice a week in two long “whole body” sessions. On Saturday, the lifter would “total out” by turning the weekend training session into a 3-lift mini-competition, working up to a single rep in the clean and press, snatch, and clean and jerk. Then the lifter would finish the workout with 1-5 rep sets of heavy squats.

— Power bodybuilding in the 1960s was primal and excruciating. The orthodox training template trained the entire body three times a week. Exercises for body parts could be substituted session to session. Sessions were incredibly long—bodybuilders would routinely perform 3-4 exercises per body part and 3-5 sets per exercise. Imagine endless hours spent performing upwards of seventy sets per session! Reps were high, in the 8-15 range.

Powerlifters discovered they were not recuperating between sessions when they attempted a three-times-per-week training template. A top powerlifter could handle 600 to 700 pounds in the raw squat—imagine trying to squat 600 x 5 reps on Monday, 610 x 5 on Wednesday, and 620 x 5 on Friday? What a horrendous strain on thighs, hips, lower back, hamstrings and spinal column—not to mention the central nervous system! Then add some more trauma to this squat horror show by simultaneously (in the same week) deadlifting 615 x 5 on Monday, 625 x 5 on Wednesday and 635 x 5 on Friday. The squat/deadlift duo doubled the damage because limit deadlifts and limit squats work many of the same muscles—hips, upper thighs, lower back and hamstrings.

For any man handling 500+ pounds, squatting three times a week was proving impossible even before adding three 500+ deadlift sessions! Too much heavy training created massive negative effects which couldn’t be ignored or overcome. Frequent training with truly heavy weight was impossible. So, for pure power purposes, too much powerlifting was proving counterproductive.

Power sessions were slashed from three times a week to twice a week. This was a huge break from orthodox conventional thinking. Next, any and all exercises that didn’t contribute to the lone power goal of building a bigger squat, bench press and deadlift were removed from the workouts. Snatches, cleans, jerks, and non-essential bodybuilding exercises were all jettisoned. The misty outlines of the system began to emerge. Each month the best American lifters’ training was outlined in our bible, Powerlifting USA Magazine. We developed a primitive communication network, and for the first time strength information was shared and pondered on a widespread basis. By the 1980s one system had emerged and was being used almost exclusively.

Virtually every elite lifter and world record holder used this particular approach, despite the fact there was no reason to use it other than wanting to obtain results. Its lack of commercial value ensured its purity and contributed to its demise. The system’s broad outlines and protocols can be summed up in a few sentences:

— Devote 85% of available training time to the squat, bench press and deadlift

— Above all else, try to increase single rep max strength in the three lifts

— Compliment the three power lifts with a select few “assistance” exercises

— Perform each core exercise once per week

— Goals are set in a classic “straight-line 12-week periodization cycle”

— Each week for 12 weeks, training poundage is raised and reps are lowered

— “Signature” techniques should be developed, honed and refined

— For 10-12 straight weeks, the lifter seeks to purposefully increase his body weight

The last point, purposefully adding body weight, is—and forever shall remain—the deal breaker for the modern trainee. It’s why this amazing system became extinct. The idea of trying to purposefully gain body weight is counter to everything modern fitness believes. With the entire fitness world geared towards dieting, eating less, leaning out and becoming “healthy and fit,” adding body weight sounds insane. People are starving in Botswana and here you are stuffing your face. Besides, you are going to blur the delineation of your beach muscles. Are you really willing to outgrow those $300 size 32 Tommy Hilfiger custom jeans?

Consuming substantial amounts of the demonic dietary nutrient, saturated fat intensifies the nutritional immorality. Purposefully eating excess calories was bad enough, now this system purposefully sanctions consuming saturated fat? This is nutritional water boarding for the modern metro sexual.

Old time adherents like Huge Cassidy would routinely guzzle four quarts of whole milk each and every day—in addition to eating regular meals—for the necessary supplemental calories to recover, heal and grow after his bi-weekly slaughter-fest power sessions.

Old timers will tell you, fat at 9 calories per gram, is fabulous for accelerating muscle-healing, inducing muscle growth, and increasing power after a crushing workout. The idea of high intensity power training combined with high calorie eating—including saturated fat—was just too much for the sensible modern man.

Modern man might want additional muscle, but he certainly doesn’t want it bad enough to engage in sanctioned gluttony. One can see why the most effective muscle-building progressive resistance system was destined to die a slow and tortured death. Despite its continued and unrivalled effectiveness, it was—and is—too politically incorrect to exist. This system is a public health menace on par with smoking. To recklessly recommend this lift-and-stuff system—even to eager young American alpha males seeking size and power—is evil, akin to handing out packs of cigarettes to trick-or-treaters on Halloween. Those who recommend it should be attacked by packs of wild lawsuit lawyers seeking damages for youth whose lives were wrecked as a result of following this system.

The system was driven into exile and died in direct proportion to the new “fitness revolution” of the 1980s. This “revolution” ushered in the low-fat and no-fat era, soy products, aerobics, Nautilus, and the old Jane Fonda aerobic dance craze.

I am here to resurrect and defend the most politically incorrect of all strength systems. Power training combined with unapologetic calorie slamming is far too effective a muscle and strength system to be allowed to die for PC reasons. Damn the preconceptions of the imperious fitness elite. I hope there still remains a sizable number of reckless, crazed, alpha-male types, MEN in the relentless pursuit of power and functional athletic muscle—MEN unafraid to try radical methods for radical results. This is a call to arms for the thin and pathetically weak. System practitioners routinely add 10-30 pounds of muscle while increasing raw strength and power from 5% to 25% in the same 90 days. That’s the reason the system was so popular: rapid and radical results.

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Marty Gallagher, author of The Purposeful Primitive, is an underground legend. Mentored by a Hall-of-Fame strength athlete as a teenager, Marty set his first national record in 1967 as a 17-year old Olympic weightlifter; he set his most recent national record in 2013 as a 63-year old powerlifter. He is a former world powerlifting champion who turned his attention to coaching athletes and devising individualized training templates for the finest strength athletes in the world. Read more about Marty here.

Psych and the Almighty Workout

October 25, 2013 By Marty Gallagher 8 Comments

Krishnamurti, Zen and how to employ Brain-Train to enhance a workout: To change your body you must first change your mind

I coined the phrase Brain-Train to describe mental methods of focusing and sharpening the mind to improve the quality of a workout. In our world, success is achieved when the trainee intertwines lifting, cardio and nutrition in a periodized program designed to engineer a dramatic physical transformation. The conscious mind can be the trainee’s best friend or worst enemy. Old-time hardcore pros—men that have been there and done that—will tell you the key to both short and long-term success is rooted in the effectiveness of each individual workout. Regardless of the workout’s content, were the goals—planned in advance—for the specific session met? Yes or no? We want to want to compile a lot of “yes” workouts.

Those who’ve transformed will say the goal is to string a long, uninterrupted sequential series of quality workouts together like pearls on a strand. A proper mindset can turn a bad workout into a good workout—and a good workout into a great workout. Transformative success is built upon the success of the actual individual workout. All good things spring from the ability to consistently conduct a productive workout. How do we define productive?

A productive workout induces hypertrophy, releases blissful endorphins, and oxidizes body fat. Limits are equaled or exceeded. Remember that limits shift hour to hour, day to day, session to session.
Each workout represents an opportunity to improve in some way, shape, or form. The almighty workout is our ritual and religion—the gym our church.

Let’s get elemental—all tangible physical results have their beginning in a productive workout. Once we are able to successfully create a results-producing workout, something marvelous happens: the self-inflicted trauma unleashes a hormonal tidal wave. Blissful endorphins mingle with spent adrenaline to create a feeling of exaltation and triumph. Physically, you’ve just decimated some part of your body and are awash in sea of hormones which induce a heightened sense of alertness, awareness and perception.

The chattering little man inside your head who loves to control your thoughts and actions has been silenced by the monumental exertion of engaging in limit-equaling/limit-exceeding lifts or athletic tasks. The elite athlete is no longer preoccupied as the workout unfolds, pulling him or her under the silent “spell” that accompanies a savage workout.

Workout Grand Maestro Bill Pearl is famous for working out at 4AM. Civilians thought Bill’s early morning training was some grand act of willpower, like standing under a freezing waterfall. I know his secret—those early morning endorphin-releasing workouts are often the highpoint of the entire day. Bill got up at 3:30AM out of love, not duty. He couldn’t wait to do his next incredible workout. Bill absolutely loved the early morning purity of working out. By doing it first, he could take his time, get it right and still be done before the rest of the world woke up. He used to tell me, “The spaces between the sets are as important as the actual sets themselves.” He attained and retained a heightened, engaged state-of-being as he performed his exercises. He did them notably better once he achieved centeredness, focus and stayed in the zone. After a half century of weight training six days a week, he possessed an ability to access the optimal workout zone within the first five minutes of his 90-minute ritual workouts.

Sustained psych versus instantaneous psyche

We reserve psyching ourselves up for all out, top set efforts done with the heaviest poundage. Everything before the all out top set has been preparatory. The athlete will do 2-4 warm-up sets preceding the all out set or sets. As the warm-up progresses, the elite lifter concentrates on finding the technique zone. He knows from past experience that attaining near technical perfection will improve his performance in the unfolding workout. Focusing 100% of one’s mental abilities on the sole task of technical perfection is an elemental act of concentration.

Workout success is determined by success or failure with the top set rep and poundage. Only the top set is sufficiently intense to trigger the strength-inducing adaptive response. Everything else is just preparation for the main event. The elite iron athlete becomes more and more centered, focused, and aggressive during the warm up sets. His own experience tells him that allowing some aggressive, primal emotions to surface—but not too much—will improve workout performance. If his focus is deep and intense, when it’s time to perform the actual top set, the elite iron man will attack the barbell.

Workout gains reside in effort—the degree to which you’re willing to struggle and push or pull your guts out. The gains lie in those final, excruciating, limit-equaling or limit-exceeding reps which are so often barely achieved.

We must exert this degree of effort to throw the hypertrophy switch and unleash the hormonal tidal wave. Only by engaging in grueling physical effort can physiological changes occur. Spectacular gains only manifest in response to maximum effort. If we could reap all the muscle and strength gains with less than maximum efforts, then why not dispense with doing the top set altogether?

While performing the excruciating final rep of the top set, and exerting 100% effort, there is no preoccupation or mental fuzziness. There is no distraction or lackadaisical attitudes—there is only single-minded focus and the effortless concentration that comes with doing something dangerous. Krishnamurti described this state of mind as, “The observer must fall silent on his own—if we force the silence this is another act of will.” In a high intensity workout, the toughest reps—where a millisecond of concentration lapse will cause instantaneous failure—will effortlessly silence the thinker/observer/little man in our head. The lifter will assume the athletic version of a Zen Samadhi state—perfect, effortless, silent, thought-free concentration. This is an addictive peak athletic experience. How wonderful to be addicted to a beneficial habit.

Real, measurable results keep us coming back for more. That and the magnificent ‘altered mental state’ that accompanies peak athletic performance. The hormonal afterglow is one of life’s true natural pleasures. Anyone—regardless of their fitness level—can experience the altered-state hormonal bliss that inevitably and invariably accompanies a perfect workout. Everything of physical and transformative consequence begins inside an actual workout. Within the workout, what matters is the degree of effort we use in dealing with the toughest reps.

We need to learn to conduct a productive resistance training workout, then string a series of them together. Our workout results can then be amplified with a wholesome, organic, nutrient-dense nutritional program. Add metabolism-boosting cardio and a complete physical transformation is now longer a matter of “if” but “when.”

The iron elite knows that twelve weeks of consistent quality workouts—week in, week out—will result in an earth-shattering physical transformation. A successful workout is pleasurable on many levels, and humans repeat what’s pleasurable. The idea is to fall in love with the whole workout experience. This pleasurable experience is not illegal, immoral or unethical. In fact, this pleasure-inducing “vice” is actually good for you. Physiological effort creates psychological momentum.

The quality of the workout can be amplified and enhanced by a proper multidimensional mindset. The results from that workout will be substantially increased.

Martial Master Mentor

Bob Smith throws a powerhouse haymaker to the gut of Hsing I master Wang Shujin

In the early 1970s I saw a notice in the Washington Post that a famous local martial arts master was providing free lessons every Saturday morning at 7am in a nearby park. The dude teaching these well attended free classes was a charismatic man with the vanilla name of Robert Smith. I studied with him for five years.

Smith was anything but vanilla—he was a CIA operative rumored to have been a field agent and station chief. Smith spoke several dialects of Chinese fluently and was martial arts Renaissance man. He was a judo expert who became enamored with the (at the time) unknown Chinese “internal” martial arts. The three interlinked internal arts were Hsing I, a straight line attack style, Pa Kua, a style based on intricate circles, and tai chi which actually has a combat component. I began studying with him twice a week.

Smith had been stationed in Taiwan. Between performing clandestine assignments, he immersed himself in the internal martial arts. He studied hard and long under the very best and he brought all that knowledge back to the states. Once he organized his thoughts, he wrote a series of books about the Masters and their methods. Bob was arguably the best martial arts writer ever. With often time partner Donn Draeger, he wrote Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts, the best single-volume martial book. Bob also penned a dozen other books and his magazine articles were read worldwide.

Bob was a real man—mustached and stocky at about 5’9″. He was the polar opposite of pretentious martial arts “masters” that routinely wear costumes, demand to be addressed reverentially, and use props and pomp to enhance their thin credentials. Bob Smith was demanding and brilliant, and he routinely used me as his shoulder punch demo dummy.

While talking about a Pa Kua or Hsing I punch, he’d grin slyly and search the assembled class for me, the beefy weightlifter dude. He’d catch my eye, smile and motion me to the front of the class. Once up front, he’d say with a twinkle, “Assume the position son!” The class would laugh as resignation crossed my face. Naturally he hit hard as hell, and naturally I was not going to show any emotion. A rivalry developed. “You will NOT uproot me, Boss.” I’d quip as I sank and readied myself. “We’ll see about that, son!” Then he’d haul back and blast me with the punch he was demonstrating. He almost always rocked me off my balanced stance, no matter how deep I sank or how heavily I weighted myself.

Around this same time, I delved into different Eastern schools of thought. Before Smith wrote about it in his seminal book, I was intrigued by the Moko-San procedures Kendo experts used before their highly formalized practice sessions and competitions. . It was an interesting twist of fate that both my mentors, Hugh Cassidy in lifting, and Bob Smith in martial arts, were both superb writers. Smith’s biographies of the various martial arts masters helped shape my emerging literary style. Bob brought them to life along with their style, personality, and important contributions. He did this in compact vignettes chocked full of obscure but appropriate quotes that reaffirmed a point or exemplified the personality he was profiling.

Martial Masters lineage chart: systems passed down generation to generation

The martial arts, Chinese Taoists, and the Japanese Zen/Samurai/Budo traditions have formalized mental techniques inexorably linked to superior performance in battle or competition. Neil Claremon has a brilliant observation…

“The way of knowing,” the master said, “depends on subtle adjustments that occur with mindful repetition of form and the ingraining of a consciousness that tells us ‘when’ rather than ‘how’ to do something. This intuitive faculty—although innate—must be trained and organized if it is to become reliable.”

Smith was a big believer in chi and intuitive responses to threats. He spoke of ‘squaring the circle’ that existed between lock-step katas and being instantly intuitive when attacked. When rote training becomes so ingrained in both the conscious and subconscious mind, its use becomes instinctual, effective and spontaneous. Bob would say the perfect mindset for dealing with an attack is silent yet alert. I was fascinated—training for the brain, fantastic! Where do I sign up!

I wanted to learn more. Maybe these various martial masters had tapped into the same peak performance state I experienced when I accessed “the zone” during training and competition. Perhaps these mysterious Eastern martial masters had mental secrets that could take my performance and physique to the next level. I eventually developed a friendship with a high level Hindu “realized being” and genuine guru, Sri Chinmoy Ghose. I wondered if specific methodologies existed for improving the abilities of the human mind. And could this ‘improved ability’ convert into improved athletic performance.

Eventually all roads led to Krishnamurti, the man who resonated with me most profoundly. His strategy was stripped of any religion and ceremony—his approach was about logic, science, and deductive reasoning. Rene Descartes crawled out of a bread oven after two days muttering, “I think, therefore I am.” In the West we are big on thinking, and it doesn’t get much bigger than “I think therefore I am.” Krishnamurti would counter with, ‘I do not think, therefore I perceive reality as it unfolds in the ever-occurring present.’ He was all business and led listeners like a farmer leading a herd of dumb cows into a grassy pasture. He guided us to his ultimate conclusion, ‘the cessation of thought is the awakening of intelligence.’ In the same breath he cautioned students not to fall into the trap of allowing the mind to silence the mind—‘just one more mental trick designed to retain control while pretending to give up control.’

Forty five years later, I’m still working on the Koan that is Krishnamurti and his conclusions,—especially his idea that mental chatter creates an inky film blurring the immediacy of perception. He pointed out that reality is always occurring in the immediacy of the ever-unfolding present. If you allow the ‘thinker,’ ‘observer,’ or the internal voice, to carry on a conversation, then you are preoccupied. Preoccupation prevents perception. The internal voice needs to fall silent for clear perception of the immediate present to occur. One proven way to silence “little man inside your head” is to engage in intense exercise—intense enough for adrenaline and endorphins to flow.

Through the use of willpower, a strong-minded individual can force the inner voice to be silent, but every act of will is finite. Just like G. Gordon Liddy holding his hand over a cigarette lighter to impress a date, all acts of will must end. Enforced silence is filled with tension—exactly what we don’t want. How do we cause the brain to fall silent of its own accord? Krishnamurti says it’s a matter of always and forever being in the exact present. One way to spend more time in the present and enhance our ability to silence the mind without subduing it in an act of will, is to engage in absorptive activities. An absorptive activity is so engrossing that the ‘little man inside your head’ falls silent of his own accord.

The little man inside our head falls silent when presented the opportunity to become involved in a absorptive task—cooking, gardening, painting, dance, or any sport. In a perfect world you would spend your day rolling from one absorptive activity to the next, until the day ends and you go to sleep, relaxed and in a synchronous yin-yang balance. Activities that absorb our attention are usually conducted in an Alpha state, 8-12 Hz. The little man in our head wants to create his own movie, a separate and real existence in a parallel mental universe instead of your primal absorptive state. While concentration and contemplation are the friends of absorption, projection and reflection are its enemies. The little man wants to be in charge of projecting (mulling over the future) and reflecting (mulling over the past). Neither have any relevance to the immediate present, and if you give in and daydream, you’ll be seduced by the fascinating movie being made in your brain. It is far more interesting than the cold reality of the ever-unfolding present….

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Exercise Pomposity: Are you a mindless exerciser – or a TRAINER with a purpose?

October 18, 2013 By Marty Gallagher 10 Comments

I love training incognito at commercial gyms, YMCAs and fitness clubs. The wacky antics I see on a never-ending and continual basis have provided column fodder for my magazine articles for decades. Just yesterday I arrived at my local upscale training facility for a 6:30 AM workout. In the early morning you run into the serious fitness folks—the people smart enough to understand the need for fitness and need to fit it into their hectic lives. These folks are disciplined enough to haul themselves out of bed at 4 or 5 AM to dress, drive to the training facility, hit a workout at 6, be done by 7, then shower for their stress-filled job by 8 or 9. Admirable.

The early morning crowd is far different then the macho meatball crew of 18-35 year old males that start rolling into the weight room at 5 PM to strut and preen for their meatball brethren or in front of their beloved mirrors. This is a male mutual admiration society that congregates at every commercial gym in America every evening. They’re the reason I won’t train at a commercial gym past 5 pm. However, macho punk arrogance in the weight room is understandable—these idiots are overflowing with testosterone and probably not coping with real life very well, but in this controllable little corner of the universe, these baboons can act out their WWE wrestler fantasies. They get off on acting out in front of strangers—finally someone is paying attention to them.

The Macho Boys have a captive audience: the gerbil-wheel aerobic machine riders. The captive cardio audience— whether they like it or not—has a ringside view of the free weight area. The boys can’t help but to act out in front of an audience with profanity, posturing, yelling, back and face slapping, while screaming fitness platitudes. These boys are starved for praise and attention, because outside this finite fitness universe they are mostly losers, barely getting by. In stark contrast the early morning fitness crowd is sincere, with careers and responsibilities. Yet they can exhibit delusional arrogance as unwarranted and outrageous as that of the testosterone-poisoned evening crowd. Morning is the time for sophisticated sophistry.

I am not a big fan of pomposity. Oscar Wilde once described the moralistic preaching of an opponent, “He speaks with the easy assurance of the blissfully ignorant.” I see Wilde’s blissfully ignorant types each and every morning. Yesterday morning I arrived to squat. My strategy was—as always—simple: work up to a single ‘top set’ of five reps in the ultra-deep, paused back squat without wearing any gear. I thought that after my top set of five, if I still had any gas, I would perform one additional higher-rep/lighter poundage squat set of about eight reps. Then I would leave. Squat and leave. Can’t get much simpler then that.

After I squat, I walk to the locker room, strip, and sit in a scalding steam room. After being boiled alive as long as I can take it, I immediately take an ice cold shower, then return to the horrific steam room. I go back and forth three times. It takes me longer to steam and shower than to squat. I love to steam, sauna, or whirlpool after a workout. It purposefully heat the body before dousing it in cold water. The heat opens the pores; the cold water snaps the pores shut, squeezing out toxins. After two or three rounds of heat and cold, I actually enter an altered state. The super intense, endorphin-releasing, hypertrophy-inducing squats have shattered me—in the tradition of ‘that which does not kill me makes me stronger.’ Add a body-shocking steam/sauna/whirlpool/cold shower session can create a fitness-induced acid trip. And I am totally down with that, actually it keeps me coming back for more….

But, I digress—back to the training session…

I set up a barbell in a power cage in the right front corner of the free-weight section. I placed the safety supports a few inches below the deepest point of my squat range-of-motion. So, if I have to eat a rep, I can ride the squat bar down to the pins, slide out and not get squashed like a cockroach. I loaded the barbell to 135 pounds and stealthily glanced around the large facility—naturally the bulk of early morning attendees are on the carnival ride, gerbil-wheel, high-tech cardio machines. I’ve used this facility for years and in the early morning could predict with 80% accuracy which trainee will be sitting, standing or riding atop their favorite cardio machine—using it the same exact same way as yesterday or tomorrow. Humans are creatures of habit. But, habit is bad when it comes to physical progress. To trigger progress we need true exertion.

The facility has 40 high-tech cardio devices—ten per row, four rows deep—like battle tanks in formation. What a huge financial investment. Many of these machines have built-in TVs even though the gym has three 60-inch Sony TVs hanging high. All the gerbil-wheel riders can watch TV and hopefully distract themselves from the mind-numbing drudgery of riding these cardio devices. No matter what day, or cardio machine, everyone had one subtle, startling, disturbing commonality: no one ever changed or improved the shape or contours of their physique. They all looked exactly the same as the day I first say them.

That’s mean to point out, isn’t it? In our politically correct culture, pointing out a lack of tangible results is rude, hateful, disrespectful and just plain mean. “Now just a doggone minute Mr. Rude Neanderthal, these morning trainees are sincere, disciplined, intelligent, hard-working individuals. They get up at the crack of dawn and drive to the facility to exercise! They serve as wonderful examples to our youth and are to be praised, not damned, by a missing-link, win-at-any-cost, strive-for-excellence type like you. Who elected you Pope, Mr. Mean Man?!”

How horrible of me to point out that these shining examples are getting zero results for all those hours engaged in their mindless gerbil-wheel activity. Couldn’t the PC police at least collectively hook up all the diligent, result-free cardio machine riders to some master generator that could provide free electricity to poor people? At least the collective effort could be put towards the collective good—exercise Marxism, “From each according to his ability to pedal, to each according to his electrical needs and inability to pay.” The lack of cardio results for these exercisers is directly proportional to the amount of sweat being generated by the group—zero. In aerobic world, no sweat equals no results, and lots of sweat equals lots of results. The PC folks would call this “an inconvenient truth.”

No one sweats in this aerobic squadron. They kinda/sorta exert themselves, but sweat is in short supply in this little community. They obtain zero collective results because they all do the same favorite exercise in the same way, without varying pace, duration or intensity, over and over again. Obviously, their bodies have long since neutralized any “training effect” these pet cardio strategies initially produced. Using one cardio device exclusively, performing the same workout over and over while exerting sub-maximal effort, cannot and will not produce any tangible results, it’s a physiological impossibility.

I return to squatting, and step under the squat bar, un-rack it, step back and perform 10 reps. On reps 1-5 I feel stiff and awkward, but by the last rep of the set I feel awake. I will take this same weight again in two minutes. Light weight lifted for a few sets flushes the blood and hones technique.

I hit my second set with 135—it feels good, tight and precise. I load the bar to 185. As is my habit between sets, I like to stroll to a nearby set of windows and watch the early morning racquetball players; these men are mostly overweight, but are sweating their asses off. Some are quite quick and agile, despite being chubby. At least the R-Ball players are exerting themselves, sweating buckets, and getting some real cardio benefits.

While watching the R-Ball players, my attention fell on a slightly underweight individual working out in the resistance machine area. This 30-something was 5’8″ and weighed around 150 pounds. He had a slightly athletic build and looked like a successful accountant or tax attorney that might compete in 5K events. He caught my attention by performing plyometric leaps onto a two-foot bench, which is hardly dunk height. He did a manic set of eight leaps on and off the bench immediately followed by a set of deltoid-isolating standing lateral raises with a pair of 5-pound dumbbells. I was dumfounded. I wanted to quiz him on his strategy. I am sure he would eloquently explain—with the easy assurance of the blissfully ignorant—the incredible benefits of his cross-pollinated exercise strategy.

I slipped around the corner and did another deep and precise 5-rep warm-up set with 185. Then, I loaded 225 on the squat bar and slipped back to the R-Ball window to watch my man work—and he did work—at least in terms of exercise volume. He’d perform a pathetic set of eight little leaps my 5-year old grandson could do before grabbing tiny dumbbells my grandson could handle. It was all so serious: leaps, lateral raises, leaps, lateral raises. Even though he wore only a t-shirt, I didn’t see a drop of sweat. While he had the exercise volume bases covered, his exercise intensity was non-existent.

I tore myself away from watching “Sky King” long enough to dispatch 225 for 5 reps. This felt good and I loaded the bar to 275. Now I needed to get serious. In the free-weight section a husband and wife duo began their exercise routines. The stern woman started with worthless shallow walking lunges which she performed while facing the mirror, transfixed by her own image. Her pompous husband was a tall good-looking guy wearing a big-ass lifting belt and gloves. He started his “grueling” workout with standing dumbbell curls. He grabbed a pair of 15s off the dumbbell rack and stood five feet from the mirror, staring as if trying to hypnotize his own image. I hit 275 for 5, which was a 50 pound jump and didn’t feel quite as snappy as I had hoped. I loaded the barbell to 315 and checked on the leaping lateral raiser who was still at it. I reckon he had 5-6 super-sets under his belt at this point and still wasn’t sweating.

The older women roll in at 7AM. I hit my first squat set at 6:35AM and am feeling antsy—I want to get the hell out of here because the facility is getting overcrowded. The older women use the resistance exercise machines in the most pathetic, detached, and clueless fashion. They’ll do a half-assed set of 8 reps at 30% of their capacity then sit on the device as they “recover” for their second of three sets. They’ll sit on a machine for 15 minutes to complete their three sets, and take mortal offense if you ask to use the machine for a quick set. They spend more time and effort rubbing the machines down with disinfectant after their sweat-less sets. There’s no contagious sweat anywhere on the machine. You’d think there had been an outbreak of Bird Flu!

Everywhere I look I see people engaged in mindless, result-free exercise. Everyone is in motion but no one is training. In fact, 99% of the 70+ people using the facility could be bowling, playing golf, disco dancing or playing badminton and getting the same results—none—while having a lot more fun. But they’d lose their patina of fitness nobility. “Look at me! I am noble, disciplined, and up at the crack of dawn doing fitness!” This is the same self-importance I see in the joggers who insist on running along major highways, facing oncoming traffic while making eye contact with all the drivers. “Look at me! Praise me! I am doing fitness!”” They could be jogging in beautiful, quiet, picturesque neighborhoods one block away, but that would deprive them of the attention. Never mind they’re inhaling toxic exhaust fumes with every breath, it’s all about their need for attention.

I hit 315 for 5 ultra-deep paused reps, which felt heavy. Not good. I decide on one more set and add a 25-pound plate on each side—my top set of the day would be 365 for 5. I had to get my game face on for this one. I took the entire two minutes between 315 and 365 psyching myself up. As an Old Pro totally attuned to his body, I knew after the 315 pound set that I was having an off day. Anything less than 100% effort, and I would not make 5 reps. That would be an unacceptable outcome. Psyched and ready, I stepped under the bar and snapped it out of the rack. I set up and began, reps 1-3 felt heavy as hell and sluggish, rep 4 felt like I was lifting a house and rep 5 was a tooth-grinding, pants-splitting, tomato-faced effort which required 101% of my diminished capacity to complete.

I racked the weight and collapsed onto a nearby bench. Even though I was having an off day, I felt really good about the set. I’d worked hard enough to trigger hypertrophy and release endorphins. I never broke form while working through the squat sticking point and had pushed my guts out. My legs were shaking and I felt like I’d been run over by a garbage truck or struck by lighting. I actually laughed out loud when my brain said, “Hey, what about that 8-rep back-off set?” After my body-crushing set with 365, I would have only been able to use 50 pounds! On a good day, that same 365 would feel light on my back. At rep 5, I’d feel like I could perform one, two, or—on a super good day—three more reps. On those days I would perform a back-off set of 8 with about 315. But not today. Today I was toast, fried.

I had bled so much energy and exerted so much pure hellacious physical effort on the 365 pound set that if I had attempted an 8-rep back-off set I would have had to use so few pounds that there would have been no “training effect” or adaptation. After the 365 x 5 set, if I used willpower and continued to train, I’d throw myself down the black hole of catabolism and overtraining. Even so, it would take my legs 4-5 days to normalize after today’s 101% 5-rep effort.

Make no mistake, I purposefully traumatize my body. I am successful when I shatter myself, from neck to calves. I glanced at my watch: 7:05AM, my entire session had lasted for 29 minutes. The gym was suddenly a beehive of activity. On the floor mats by the racquetball window, a spandex-clad personal trainer was starting his 7AM “weightlifting for women” class. The pompous personal trainer with perfectly dyed hair, sparkling teeth, and Botox forehead insisted his class of a dozen middle-aged women spend a full 30 minutes “stretching out to avoid injury” before their 30-minute all-machine submaximal weight training session. To his credit, he made sure that the women thoroughly cleaned their machines with disinfectant when done.

By now, the gym was packed, and there was manic activity everywhere—mindless, directionless, useless exercise that was obviously not producing results for anyone. Yet no seemed to notice or mind. Personal trainers pretended to train and trainees pretended that they were getting results. Everywhere, everyone was exercising, but no one was training or exerting nearly enough effort to burn fat, spark hypertrophy, create endorphins, or cause an adaptive response. No one was sweating or progressing. Yet, in this society, it’s enough to show up and the prevailing sentiment seemed to be that everyone deserves a participation trophy, winning, success, and results are overrated. And that most people are not destined to become winners—the overemphasis on winning and results is unhealthy! We used to have a motto at Chaillet’s hardcore gym back in the 80s, “Effort is no substitute for success.” Nowadays the motto would be, “Strive for mediocrity! Feel good about yourself!”

I literally wobbled as I walked out of the gym after my workout and steam/ice baths. I was physically blasted yet as centered as a Zen monk. My mind was silent, the ‘thinker,’ the ‘little man inside your head’—as SEAL trainers label the conscious mind—had been bludgeoned into silence by the degree of intense physical effort and severity of the steam/shower. I was experiencing my predictable blissed-out altered-state of exercise nirvana. My legs were so shot that pushing the clutch to the floor was hard. I had body tremors all the way home. I drank my post-workout smart-bomb shake and then lied down. I went into a virtual coma for an hour and swore I could feel my body growing and reconfiguring. Exerting this degree of effort meant I only needed to squat one time a week. I needed four to six days to fully recover.

A high-intensity, low volume, minimalistic training approach can enable you to experience the same blissful, endorphin-releasing, hypertrophy-inducing, result-producing workout that I experienced in my squat workout and that I experience in all my workouts to varying degrees. Let’s vow to stop mindless exercising and instead embrace intense training. Participation trophies are for losers. We’re about creating success and results. In one of his movies, the great Sean Connery muttered these immortal lines, “The losers whine and moan and complain about the unfairness of it all—the winners kick ass then go home and F@#K the cheerleaders!”

Amen to that my Brother. Iron Bible words to live by.

***

Iron Roots—

October 11, 2013 By Marty Gallagher 5 Comments

A Perfect Storm of Spartan Maleness

I came up in an era when our transformational tools were crude, primitive, ultra-basic and limited. The lack of choices worked to our benefit. In hindsight, even though our choices were limited, they were damned excellent—to this day we use and recommend subtle variations of those ancient modes. The exercises, systems and techniques I first used in the 1960s are the same ones we use and recommend today. We had to kiss a lot of fitness frogs in the interim to grok that those first tools, techniques and tactics were better than any others offered up since.

During the past half century, I have examined and test-driven every significant resistance training system designed to enhance strength, power, human performance and body composition. The fundamental truth of resistance training is that nothing trumps the muscle-building, strength-infusing benefits gained from prolonged and expert use of barbells and dumbbells.

When I began training in 1961, resistance machines hadn’t been invented. Other than barbells, dumbbells, and flat and incline benches, the only “machines” we had were a chin/pull-up bar and a homemade set of dip bars. The lat pull-down/push-down device could only be found at the few commercial gyms in existence. Being children of the space age, we assumed that crude barbells and dumbbells would be swept away by a wave of high-tech resistance machines that would allow Joe Average to transform himself into Arnold with one or two machine workouts per week. We were sure this was just around the corner.

In the 1970s, the great egotist Arthur Jones actually played into the idea that high-tech would inevitably sweep aside the low-tech, in a fitness version of the industrial revolution. Jones mocked us, portraying barbell and dumbbell users as idiotic modern versions of Ned Luddite throwing sand into the gears of the machines eliminating his job.

As it turns out, resistance machines are inferior at producing muscle strength and size. We weren’t tempted and that worked to our advantage. Without the sweet seduction of effortless/ineffectual resistance machines, we brutalized ourselves in long sessions exerting savage intensity with our crude tools. When it comes to building power, the cruder—and more difficult—the better. We were forced to use an unwieldy barbell in a time when elaborate overhead lifting was in vogue. I was a baby boomer and we were legion. When the like-minded neighborhood alpha males decided to establish a training lair, my basement was selected.

It was perfect. My father was a widower who worked long hours. He kicked out our Nazi Nanny the day I turned 12—a tale in itself— from that point, it was just two young brothers and a father alone in the big house. Most importantly, the basement had an outside entrance so guys could come and go without disturbing life upstairs. On Monday through Friday, Pop was gone from 6 AM to 6 PM. He’d be around all day Saturday and Sunday. He encouraged our basement lifting scene as long as it was quiet. He never came down—ever. Though he might poke his head down to call on me. Yet, he was friendly and I’d often come home to find my training partners watching TV with my old man. He was brilliant and conversationally engaging, but remote and detached on many levels.

We lifted three times a week in my large, open, dry, well-lit basement. Our five-foot exercise bars were on plywood platforms with plates strewn everywhere. We reinforced a picnic bench for bench pressing and created a set of homemade wooden squat racks, set to one height. We made a dipping station using a basement stair-step and a stepladder. That was our gym. We hit every exercise we could think of in a long straight row…bang! bang! bang!

When a competitive alpha male lifts in front of his peers— superiors and inferiors—it’s easy to generate extraordinary physical effort. In continual show-off mode, a boy learns how to rise to the occasion. Every set of every exercise in every session was a competition. We always tried to best each other, in every lift. We eventually had to set up second and third lifting platforms on weekends to handle the sheer number of teen and pre-teen lifters.

You would think a bunch of prepubescent boys would get bored out of their minds hoisting a stupid barbell in various exercises and quit within a few weeks. One gigantic factor kept that from happening: real, tangible physical results; a stronger, more muscular, leaner, superior athlete. The fantastic thing about weight training is that progress is totally objective— if you overhead press a 155lb barbell for 8 reps on Monday, then make 9 reps on Wednesday, that is tangible progress. When a man adds 100 pounds to his squat in six weeks, that is tangible progress, or when a boy adds ten pounds of lean muscle and girls start noticing. These results fire up an alpha and cause him to redouble his efforts.

I was living in a perfect storm of Spartan maleness: I could dedicate my whole life to muscle and strength building. I was self-motivated—this was my trip, not a case of being pushed by a parent into a sport I hated—I wanted to transform myself into comic book hero proportions. Now I had a large cluster of equally “into the muscle trip” alpha boys who were also digging the results. Plus we were all experiencing a sudden and dramatic raging infusion of testosterone. We ate like pigs, drank milk by the gallon, and stayed lean by playing team sports and running and biking everywhere. We lifted hard, heavy and often before the runaway gusher of male hormones were dumped into our bloodstreams.

We exploded with growth, muscle, and power. Weighing 195 at age 17, I pressed 205 for 10 reps, squatted 405 for 10 reps, and 500 for one raw. My number one training partner, Red Ruggles, benched 350 raw weighing 170. We were hardcore a decade before the term came into existence. I was the group strategist took my cues from 1960s Strength & Health magazines. I wanted to become a lifter, not a bodybuilder and I’ve been grateful I decided to favor function over form ever since. Bodybuilding training concepts are divorced from the reality of poundage or performance. We sought usable athletic power—the kind that could be taken onto the ball field to run people over, or into the ring to knock opponents unconscious.

The earliest strength strategies we embraced as a group were copied from the training templates of elite lifters and power bodybuilders of the day, men like Olympic champion Tommy Kono, Reg Park, and Marvin Eder. The routines could best described as high-volume/high-intensity weight training. The entire body was worked in a single session using a list of exercises as long as your arm. These herculean workouts were done three times per week and some form of improvement was expected in every exercise, every session.

Our training was all barbell (except for dips and chins) and mostly used exercises that allowed us to stand. We would only lie down for bench presses. Starting in 1962, I’d read S&H cover-to-cover and absorbed a lot of solid training information. In retrospect, I feel like the early training tactics I provided our group were dead-on. I was the cruise director for our training group—I provided the exercises and their prescribed order. We did so damn many exercises that everyone’s favorite was included. I took my cues from the lifting and power bodybuilding routines I found in the magazines. As I came across new and exciting stuff in S&H, I would rotate the new exercises in and pull out exercises we were bored with.

Practiced a wide variety of lifts
Trained the entire body three times a week
Limited to barbell training with technical and tactical inventiveness
90% of all exercises were compound multi-joint movements
Strove for technical perfection
Sought to get stronger
Sought to add muscle size
Reps rarely exceeded 10, and were usually in the range of 3-5 reps with many maximum attempts
Ate big to support intense training
Created an alpha-male training group
Began competing at age 12
Fell in with grown-man lifters by age 15

If you were looking to create a positive environment for an aggressive, athletic, super-intense young teen or preteen which would set them on an effective, intelligent, result-producing strength pathway, you would be hard pressed to come up with a better scenario of circumstance than I had when I first took up the barbell.

Within the wolf pack alpha males initially seek recognition, respect and acceptance. Eventually the true alpha seeks dominance. One surefire way to up your status within the alpha pack is to morph yourself into a physical giant: large, muscular, bull strong and scary. Big and strong always ups a man’s game. I unlocked the secret to big and strong early on…

Savage weight training
Continual athletic participation in baseball, football, track, and wrestling
A blast-furnace metabolism
Early exposure to harsh natural elements
Eating ample amounts of recuperative/regenerating calories

My early iron efforts were all directed towards increasing my single rep max in the overhead press, snatch, clean and jerk, squat, deadlift, bench press and chin-ups. Naturally, when the testosterone spigot was suddenly turned on, young master Gallagher gained 20 pounds of muscle every year for four straight years! I began competing and won regional titles almost immediately. I captured my first national Olympic weightlifting title at age 17 and set my first national records: a 260 press and 225 snatch. I power-clean and jerked 330, only to have the lift turned down for press-out. Pete Miller, the longtime president of the District of Columbia Amateur Athletic Union was my first coach. These early experiences and influences molded me physically and psychologically.

I watched in horror as the “fitness revolution” occurred. Suddenly there was money to be made in fitness and dieting and the plain-vanilla old school barbell and dumbbell training was labeled antiquated by a new breed of resistance machine manufacturers. The space age machine people and burgeoning supplement and diet book “experts” seized the fitness soapbox and declared barbell training as nothing more than injurious garbage to be thrown into history’s trash-bin.

The alpha male barbell boys from the basement survived. All the “revolutionary” Nautilus Machines are now piled high in history’s garbage dump, deservedly forgotten. My kind and I have been in self-imposed exile from mainstream fitness for longer than Moses wandered in the desert. Only now do we feel inclined to emerge from our rural and subterranean hideouts and share our collective wisdom with those truly intent on physical transformation. We know exactly how to do it.

The single most important element in the overarching transformational matrix is the art and science of hardcore resistance training. Over the years our tactics and techniques have evolved while staying true to the tools. A barbell, some dumbbells, enough basic equipment to perform our “core four” exercises. That is all we ever wanted or needed.

We understood very early that the panacea promised by resistance machines was a false god, a magnificent golden calf meant to sway us from the true path of progress. Cleaning up the core movements by creating false precision machines that mimicked these movements never fulfilled the promise. Sanitizing resistance training, making it easier and more user friendly, only emasculated it, making it ineffective. Machine devotees are exercise eunuchs who not too long ago lectured and admonished us, driving us into basements, unheated outdoor garages and run down buildings. After the hardcore exodus from mainstream fitness, we went into self-imposed exile. While in exile we continued our eternal quest for improvement. We found ways to survive, thrive, and up our game—mightily.

And now we are back…

In 2008, the mainstream fitness industry underwent a financial Armageddon. The ranks were thinned and it was no accident that the rise of the no-frills CrossFit empire announced the dawn of a new “frugal fitness” era. In the old days—before 2008 and the fall of Fitness Rome—the template for a successful fitness facility was to purchase a franchise, sign a five-year lease, then have enough money and room for twenty high-tech resistance machines and twenty high-tech cardio/aerobic devices. Don’t forget childcare, protein shakes, personal training and tanning. You will also need the services of an on-call techno-dude to keep the expensive gear rolling when it breaks. This business model requires big bank and lots of clients.

While this business model was pure gold in the 80s thorough the 00s, the glitz and lavishness, the excess and hipness crested in 2008. Suddenly the public stopped showing up and the whole house of cards collapsed. In tight times, folks were done paying $120 per month for individuals or $200 for a couple—especially for an activity that delivered negligible results. Honestly, in flush times they loved to go the health club for fun 30-minute workouts on the push/pull machines. They could watch the news on the built-in TV while walking on the stair-stepper. Afterwards club members could take a soak in the steam room, grab a shower, towel off in the sauna, then get a pitcher of beer and a burger at the club grill. As entertainment and fun, it was fabulous—as a result-producing fitness formula, it sucked.

Club members found more important uses—like making a car payment—for the money that had been allotted for dues. The pendulum began a definitive counter-stroke towards a primal revival of old school hardcore progressive resistance training tactics. Like the Sex Pistols destroying the vapid corporate rock of their era, or Nirvana’s angst decimating the soulless hair bands of the 80s, the time is right for primordial training to reemerge into the sunlight. Let us crack our knuckles and share with you all that we’ve learned during our time in deep contemplation and reexamination of the transformational arts.

Time to share what we’ve learned.

***

The Iron Guild

October 3, 2013 By Marty Gallagher 4 Comments

An off-the-grid consortium of transformational experts—who we are and why you should listen to us

Unknown to you, there exists an underground Guild of like-minded strength athletes, coaches and sports medicine doctors. In the Dark Ages, trade guilds emerged with the goal of sharing any and all information they had learned in their trade. Within the guild they shared trade secrets instead of jealousy guarding them like family heirlooms or privileged information. Sharing information was also the price of entry. A Strength Guild—a consortium or loose confederation of men—exists and shares information on an ongoing basis. The goal is profound—to dramatically improve the form and function of the human body.

This modern Iron Guild is strictly unofficial and ad hoc; yet, we stay in contact and share information on how to best create progress. How do we transform the human body—how do we best improve its performance and function across every definable benchmark? We want it all—to be lean and more muscular, with superior performance in every athletic category. You can’t join our Iron Guild unless you are a national and world champion athlete, a national or preferably international level coach, a member of an elite military spec ops unit, a governmental counter terrorism operative, or a cutting-edge sports medicine human-performance doctor.

You haven’t heard of us because we are off the commercial fitness grid, and we are not included in the mainstream fitness world. We hone our strength kraftwerk in private—some would say in secret. We keep to ourselves and network with each other. The Strength Guild’s raison d’être is to cross-compare techniques, tactics, modes, and methods to up our collective game and improve our collective results. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Guild members accumulate empirical training data on an ongoing basis by observing the results—or lack thereof—as it relates to our own training efforts. Virtually all Guild power-players are at the apex of a pyramid of local athletes. These athletes take their training and transformative cues from the Guild participant. To aid our own efforts, we share ideas and strategies with our strength collaborators. The Guild has members all across the United States, and in every geographic region including members throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Far East.

Membership is based on accomplishment and is not formalized—there is no secret initiation, no secret handshake, and no fee. The coin of our realm is information—information about strength training, human performance, and methods of altering body composition. The inner circle shares technical and tactical ways to up our own respective games.

I bring 50 years of immersion in the world of progressive resistance training to the table. I set my first national weightlifting records in 1967, and my most recent national powerlifting records in 2013. I was mentored by a hall of fame strength athlete, and now I mentor hall of fame strength athletes. Our strength System— passed along to me by my mentors—is a full-blown, fully realized progressive resistance training system. It’s ancient yet pliable, an inch wide and a mile deep, with limitless variations and possibilities within the System’s self-imposed boundaries.

The Way of Power is both subtle and overt, hard and soft. It’s sophisticated in its simplicity, yet complex in its totality—the individual component parts are easily understood, but the complexity springs from the layers of various disciplines, which create a logical (and potentially confusing) transformational matrix.

Our resistance training strategy is second to none—we do not need your approval or praise. Now it’s time to break our self-imposed silence and create a manifesto—a summation of our collective knowledge and conclusions to date. The Strength Guild has had an unwritten Iron Bible for generations. Until now, no one has taken the trouble to make the System public.

Being a longtime inner circle Strength Guild member and professional writer, I was the logical choice to compose this Iron Bible, The Tao of Power. This book, to be published next year by Dragon Door, will be a manual of techniques and tactics that define and differentiate our approach from all the others. There is no doubt that our approach works— we hold too many current world records for there to be any lingering questions about its effectiveness. The athletic and military elite has passed judgment; their continual use of our combined services is testament to the effectiveness of the System and the tangible results we obtain.

The only real question is this: do you have the guts, gumption, the situation and favorable circumstance, the drive, desire, motivation, and the burning primal urge to transform? Believing that a transformation is actually doable creates sustainable, renewable motivation. A vision of the finished physical product—and a sincere belief in the system—will overcome the force of habit. When vision trumps habit, success is assured. We’ve found a sizable, identifiable segment of the fitness public, which intuitively embraces and senses the truth of our counter-intuitive, unorthodox, and heretical approach when exposed to it. We seek this radical fringe of men and women who sense the truth, logic, and positivity of our approach—and immediately embrace it totally.

We’re really big on totality. Our System is not a progressive resistance cafeteria where the reader peruses the contents, embracing one aspect or tactic while rejecting another. Our System is an integrated strength system. We represent a style—a strength art—and have a specific arsenal of techniques and tactics that define who and what we are.

***

Marty Gallagher, author of The Purposeful Primitive, is an underground legend. Mentored by a Hall-of-Fame strength athlete as a teenager, Marty set his first national record in 1967 as a 17-year old Olympic weightlifter; he set his most recent national record in 2013 as a 63-year old powerlifter. He is a former world powerlifting champion who turned his attention to coaching athletes and devising individualized training templates for the finest strength athletes in the world. Gallagher was the personal coach for national and world champion Mark Chaillet. Gallagher is best known for guiding the career of strength legend and six-time world champion, hall-of-fame powerlifter Kirk Karwoski for a decade. Marty was the competition coach for the greatest strength athlete in modern history: Ed Coan.

Marty coached the United States powerlifting team to the world team title and has six national team coaching titles to his credit. His writings, musings, speculations and observations on “physical transformation” and all things strength and power related since 1978 when he penned his first article. Since then he has had over 1,000 articles published. He has mainstream journalism credentials, having written 230 fitness columns for the Washington Post.com.

For the past decade Gallagher has worked officially and individually with Tier 1 Spec Ops commando both in this country and abroad. His work with spec ops has flourished because of the measurable results he obtains from men already at 95% of their genetic potential.

For hands-on instruction in the Strength Guild’s methods, check out The Purposefully Primitive Strength Training Seminar.

Marty Gallagher is currently completing a new title for Dragon Door Publications, to be released in the Spring of 2014, The Iron Bible: The Tao of Power.