The Shortcut to Strong

Part I: The Shortcut to Strong

 

What is the Shortcut to Strong?

 

There is no real shortcut to being strong, but in my time as a fitness professional, I have come up with a theory that has led to my success in a faster timeframe than most conventional workout programs. I have tested this theory on myself and over 100 clients, and it has assisted in weight loss and increased strength gains.

 

The Shortcut to Strong is based on a theory of developing strength fast! The methods in this theory include many reps and require a lot of patience.

Getting strong can be done without weights, but getting strong fast is a more comfortable journey with some heavy stuff added.

This theory doesn’t involve fad diets, strict workout programs with set timeframes, or exercise restrictions. This theory only requires one thing to succeed: seeing the entire process through. I admit this theory goes against some of the techniques taught in private training schools and books, but sticking to them will make achieving more strength in your fitness life much easier. This theory will also help simplify how you train yourself and your clients. Once again, there is no shortcut to strong, but getting strong is not rocket science either. There are so many "specialists" in the world who claim to have the correct and proper way to get too strong that they have started to overcomplicate a trait our ancestors achieved relatively quickly. How strength training is taught to people now reminds me of a scientist explaining why gravity exists, endless equations, and a lot of jargon that will sound like a foreign language to most people. This theory is simple, and there is a good chance it will work if you believe in it. Receive this theory with an open mind and see how it affects your results in the gym.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pick 5 Master 5 Theory

This theory was inspired by the 2-list system created by Warren Buffet.

 

Warren Buffet is one of the most successful people on the planet financially. Here is a brief overview of his two-list system. You write down 25 things you want to achieve in life, circle the top 5, and avoid the other 20 until the top 5 are finished.

Warren Buffets’ 2 List System

Warren Buffett’s 2-list system is a productivity and focus strategy designed to help individuals prioritize their most important goals. The process involves the following steps:

1.     List Your Top 25 Goals: Write down the 25 things you want to accomplish, whether career-related or personal

2.     Circle Your Top 5 Goals: Identify and circle the five most critical goals from this list.

3.     Two Lists:

 

List A: This list contains the five circled goals. Your top priorities should receive most of your attention and effort.

List B: This list includes the remaining 20 goals. It would help if you actively avoided these goals until you achieve the goals on List A.

The idea is to focus exclusively on the most important goals (List A) and not get distracted by less critical ones (List B), ensuring you channel your energy and resources effectively.

The “10,000-Hour Rule” is a principle popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers,” which suggests that mastery in any field requires approximately 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. This idea is based on research by psychologist Anders Ericsson, who studied the practice habits of elite performers. The rule emphasizes that consistent, focused practice over time is essential for reaching expert-level performance rather than innate talent alone. However, it's important to note that recent discussions have nuanced this view, highlighting the quality of practice, feedback, and other factors as critical for achieving mastery.

The Law of Adaptation is a psychology and physiology principle explaining how organisms adjust to environmental changes. In the context of physical fitness and training, it refers to the body’s ability to adapt to increased stress or workloads over time. When you repeatedly challenge your body through exercise, handling the new demands becomes stronger, faster, or more efficient. This adaptation involves muscle strength, cardiovascular efficiency, and overall endurance improvements. The law underscores the importance of progressively increasing the intensity or duration of workouts to continue making gains and avoid plateaus.

Applying the Warren Buffet two-list method with the 10,000-Hour Rule and the Law of Adaptation gives you the shortcut to strong physical fitness. To elaborate more on this Shortcut to Strong Theory, take 25 exercises you want to master and pick 5, master 5.

Next, you will complete 10,000 reps of each exercise using perfect form to activate the law of adaptation. After mastering the first five exercises, repeat the method with the remaining 20. Once all 25 exercises are mastered, you repeat the process. Now, to ensure that you continue to gain strength during this process, you will enhance the weight of each exercise once 1000 reps are completed on each weight level. For example, if you start mastering dumbbell Bicep Curls at 5 lbs. when increasing the weight after 1000 reps by one lb. after 10,000 reps completed, you will have mastered 14 lbs. on the Bicep Curls.

This nearly triples your starting weight, which triples your strength.

I decided to apply that system to my fitness goals. Picking a routine to master is tough for a person who is new to the gym and even more challenging for a person who is a veteran there. Thousands of exercises and workouts can get you to your fitness goal, so picking a set routine is nearly impossible without a trainer doing it for you.

The Pick 5 Master 5 theory involves picking five exercises, setting goals for all five exercises, and mastering them. This process will make it much easier to meet your gym goals and help you reach your dream fitness level.

The Method to the Madness

I know you are wondering why there are only five exercises.

Well, five exercises are easy to focus on and easy to perfect. When you work out with 45 exercises and track your progress on all exercises, you will spend more time doing data entry than Training. Shortening your workout to only five exercises will help you get unbelievable results. You will notice immediate strength gains because you only have a few areas to work on.

Take on the mindset of a professional athlete who gets paid millions of dollars to do one thing, such as shooting a basketball, throwing a football, or running 100 meters as fast as possible. That athlete's job is to perfect one thing perfectly: the skill he is getting paid to perform.

The Pick 5 Master 5 theory uses the same concept. Your workout should be driven by one goal. Whatever that goal is, whether it is to bench press 400lbs or run a 5-minute mile, it is up to you, but you must have a short, simple blueprint to follow to achieve that goal. You may not be making millions to master bicep curls, but I guarantee you will feel more accomplished knowing that you can walk into the gym, pick up the heaviest weight, and curl it without hesitation.

Here are the five steps to the Pick 5 Master 5 Theory. 

 

Step One: Pick 5 Exercises

What exercises should you pick?

Now that I've explained the Pick 5 Master 5 theory, I want to explain how to pick the right five exercises.

First, you must understand that getting stronger works better with weighted exercises. Resistance training is the key to strength, so your five exercises should use dumbbells, barbells, resisted cables machines, weighted machines, or any other resistance exercise.

Next, you want to pick five exercises that cover all body areas. For example, you should always select exercises incorporating the chest, back, arm, leg, and ab muscles.

For example, barbell curls, barbell back rows, military presses, barbell squats, and chest presses. You also want to keep the equipment the same. Keeping the same equipment can make your workouts faster by staying in one area. This process makes gym sessions much more efficient. Keeping the same equipment also helps you develop more well-rounded strength because your body can easily adjust to the equipment. For example, a dumbbell workout has different benefits than a cable-based one. Both work well, but they have different ways of helping you develop strength due to the design of the equipment.

 

Step Two: Set a goal weight.

You must develop an obsession with your workout. A goal weight gives you an ending point for the workout and something to strive for daily. The goal weight should be high enough to work hard to get there but not so high that you lose the confidence or patience to reach it. Setting a goal weight surpasses the workout and gives you a focal point. For example, when you set a goal weight of 400 lbs on the bench press, you will not be focused on how long or how many reps you have to get there; instead, you will be focused on getting to that weight.

Now, you may think that this is common knowledge when working out. 

Set a goal. Meet the goal.

Yay, everyone celebrates.

No. This method digs a little deeper.

 

Step Three: The goal for all five exercises should be the same weight.

Establishing the same weight for all five exercises is to develop ultimate full-body strength. To explain further, imagine the ability to curl 200 lbs and bench press 200 lbs. The bench press portion will be more manageable if you curl 200 lbs, but that's not the case. Many people can bench press a lot but can't curl anything. On the same note, these people may also lack strength in the legs and shoulder areas, leading to less weight used during squats and shoulder presses. The ability to complete the same weight with your arms, legs, chest, shoulders, and back shows overall strength, which means you are strong in all areas of your body. This type of power resembles comic book heroes, not your everyday strongman in the gym.
You must set an overall weight goal for all five exercises to achieve this type of strength. 

One weight for all five exercises? That's impossible.

When reading that last portion of the theory, this common thought will go through anyone's mind. Let me explain the method to the madness for setting the same goal weight for five exercises across five different body areas. 

Start small. Use lightweight, to begin with. Of course, some exercises will be easier to do with a lighter weight than others, but this method is about creating a solid all-around body. To make this goal more achievable, use the procedure below to calculate your starting weight for all five exercises.

 

How to calculate your starting weight

Write down your five exercises. Next, find out your max weight on each of the five exercises. You can find your max by using the weight you can only perform two repetitions of. After finding your max weight on all five exercises, multiply that number by .30 or 30%. After getting the following five numbers, add them up, divide them by five, and use that average number as your starting weight for all five exercises.   Example.   Barbell Bicep Curls: 80lbs x .30 = 24lbs Barbell Rows: 315lbs x .30 = 94.5lbs Barbell Shoulder Press: 125lbs x .30 = 37.5lbs Barbell Squats: 315lbs x .30 = 94.5lbs Barbell Chest Press: 225lbs x.30 = 67.5lbs   24 + 94.5 + 37.5 + 94.5 + 67.5 = 318/5 = 63.6 The number is 63.6; round the number to 60 lbs per exercise as your starting weight.   Always round down, not up.

 

In the next part of the book, I will explain how to reach this goal more effectively; if you are choosing to test out this theory, take a minute to write down five exercises that you want to master.

Next, head to a gym and find your max on all five exercises. Use the equation to find your goal weight and write your goal weight down not just on a piece of paper but on your wall.

Write it somewhere prominent to see it daily, then go out and achieve it. We live in an age of smartphones now, so write the goal on your phone and set daily alerts that prompt you to achieve that goal.

As a fitness professional, using this theory also makes setting goals for your clients easier because you will only have to focus on a few exercises every session, which leads to more consistent workouts and faster results.

 

Step Four: Lift Something Light Until It Becomes Heavy.

It may be too easy if you go to the gym and lift a 5lb weight ten times. If you lift that same weight 1000 times, that weight becomes extremely heavy. 

This process will get you to your fitness goal fast, removing the headache of designing complicated routines. Lifting light weights often helps you develop muscle memory, allowing you to move up in weight quickly without a high risk of injury. For example, if you are doing a chest press and set your starting weight at 30lbs, then lift that 30lbs 100 times, increasing the weight you lift from 30lbs one week to 35lbs next week without risking injury will be effortless. You can double your weight lifted by only increasing the weight by 5 lbs a week over six weeks. It can sometimes get boring, but it will be worth it if you focus on your goal.  One hundred repetitions of any exercise make you very familiar with that exercise. If you increase that number from 100 to 1000 reps, you become a master of that exercise. 

Imagine working out is the same as a basketball player shooting a jump shot. For the basketball player to improve the percentage of shots he can make in a game, he must shoot ten times more in practice to increase his muscle memory and skill at shooting a basketball. For this basketball player to develop his shooting muscles, he must shoot the ball until his arms become so tired that the ball feels like he’s shooting a concrete block. Once the player reaches this level and can still make shots, this player will become a master shooter. 

The mastery number of 1000 reps came from one of my favorite quotes by Bruce Lee, who said, " I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

It's not about the number of things you try out that make you strong, but the few things you do all the time.

 

Step Five: Lift Something Heavy Until It Becomes Light.

In the same way, you can lift a 5lb weight 1000 times to get stronger; you can lift a 100lb weight once and lift it every day until you can lift it 100 times. 

Getting strong requires you to push past your limits. To do that, you must change your approach to completing specific exercises. 

For example, after months of Training to get strong by lifting light weights and moving up each week, there will be a weight too heavy to lift. When this weight is reached, you will utilize the muscle memory you developed in the previous method to approach the weight properly. 

Even with perfect form, this weight cannot be moved. It would help if you lifted that same weight every day until that 100lbs begins to feel like 5lbs. That is when you utilize the mindset of lifting something heavy until it becomes light. 

Imagine this process as pushing a boulder down a path leading to a life-changing fortune. The boulder starts too heavy to move, and you can only get it to budge a few inches; after multiple attempts, you begin to move a few feet. 

The few feet then turn into yards, and before you know it, you have moved that boulder out of your path, and are now able to collect your fortune. 

The boulder is the heavyweight or your goal weight in this scenario. The path is your 5-exercise journey, and fortune is the new strength you will develop when you finally move that boulder out of your path.

I have used this theory with my clients for over a decade, and they have all seen excellent results, from size gains to weight loss to general strength gains.

I believe so strongly in this theory that I made it a precursor to my workout program, The Hero Training Program.

I know some pessimists may say there is no shortcut to getting strong, and my response to them is to try this theory out and see if it works.