Hi, it’s Mehdi here.
I wanted to take a minute and introduce myself, and answer the question you are probably asking: “Who the heck is Mehdi Hadim?”
I’m actually a pretty normal guy from a small village in Belgium, who at one point just got sick and tired of being a skinny-fat weakling.
I won’t bore you with the details, but I used to be so weak, I once lost armwrestling to all my friends and then a girl. Worse, when they challenged me to Pushups, I couldn’t do one stinking rep while that same girl could! As a guy, that was beyond humiliating…
In my defense, I wasn’t born to be big and strong. Many guys would label me as a “hardgainer” with my skinny-ecto built that I inherited from my parents (my thumb actually overlaps my middle finger when I grab my wrist).
But the truth is that for the first 15 years of my life, I never did any kind of sports or let alone help my dad with yardwork. Instead, I lived the couch-potato lifestyle… spending my days playing Doom on my 486DX2… watching movies from my couch… and washing down cheetos with coke.
And, guess what? I got sick of being embarrassed by my man boobs every time I went shirtless at the pool… tired of sucking my gut in like David Hasselhof… fed up with being weak, out of shape and sucking at sports. Many guys accept what should be humiliating – not me. It made me miserable, angry, proactive. It motivated me to take ACTION. Maybe you’ve had a similar experience.
Well, it wasn’t exactly easy to figure out how to gain strength and muscle, and how to lose my man boobs and belly fat. I spent the next few years trying every technique in the book – Pushups, situps, biceps curls, db flyes, triceps kickbacks, machines, cardio, working out 5x/week, supplements – you name it.
Nothing Worked Until I Started To Squat
My first “breakthrough” came when I began training with a guy who had been lifting for many years, who had the kind of body I wanted, and who was one of the strongest guys in my gym. As I learned from him, the most powerful exercise to gain strength and muscle naturally, while losing fat, is the one that I’ve been doing since he showed it to me our first workout 12 years ago…
The Squat.
But my REAL breakthrough came four years later when I discovered the amazing training method of Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s life long mentor – the legendary Reg Park, 3x Mr Universe and 2nd guy ever to Bench Press 500lb.
In his book “Strength & Bulk Training for Weight lifters,” Park revealed his secret training strategy – 5 sets of 5 reps of free weight compound like the Squat. It was this 5×5 method that I discovered by dumb luck in 2003 thanks to Glenn Pendlay MS USAW (coach of 97 champions and gold medalists) who had spread this program on little known websites which don’t even exist anymore.
For a long time I was skeptical because 5×5 was radically different from the split routines I had been doing since 1999. But when I got my home gym in 2004 and no longer had access to machines, I decided to test-drive this 5×5 claimed to build strength and muscle in only 3 workouts per week… doing only 3 exercises per workout… for low reps… without training until pumped and sore. Heck, I was bored to death with the routines I had used for years anyway because I wasn’t getting any results, so I thought I had nothing to lose.
And Today, At Age 30, I’m In The
Best Shape Of My Life, Ever!
Okay, I’m still only 5’8″ with skinny ankles and 6.7″ wrists – can’t change rotten genetics. But my body-weight has skyrocketed from 132lb to 175lb, almost 43lb of raw, drug-free muscle gain WITHOUT turning into a fatto, quite the opposite, my man boobs and belly fat have vanished, and made place for 6 pack abs. I don’t want to be a bodybuilder, but people I meet routinely ask if I lift weights (some have even cried “steroids!” even though I’m totally natural).
More important: you can see on the top picture that my clothes fit great, and I feel extremely confident about my body today. One of the things I’ve realized is that looking like a cover-model isn’t automatically going to change your life and make you “happy” on the inside. In fact, if you think achieving perfect symmetry will be the answer to all of life’s problems, I’ve got bad news for you…
But I can also tell you that if you focus on gaining strength, eat mostly whole foods and start ignoring the mirror, you’ll not only look better and be stronger than 99% of those curl monkeys, your confidence will also go through the roof.
Since you probably wonder how much I lift… I went from not being able to do a single Push-up to Squatting 400lb raw, and from not being able to do one Pull-up to doing weighted Pullups with 88lb and Deadlifting 500lb raw (raw means without powerlifting suits). Aside from having reached the “advanced” level of lifting, I can also do long runs any time even though I never do cardio.
Why I’m Doing All Of This
It’s not my style to brag, but the truth is that my friends quickly labeled me as the “fitness expert” because they had noticed how lifting had transformed me into a new person, and radically changed my lifestyle (I’ve also quit smoking, quit drinking soda, and quit eating all that junk). Suddenly, all of them started to come for me for advice about training, fat loss, technique and nutrition.
But I had never thought of making a living coaching guys or making a website. I was making decent money working as tech support for Corporate Belgium, and I would still be working there today if this mindset of wanting to improve myself in the gym had not gotten into all other areas of my life…
Here’s why: I became bored with my IT job, craved for a challenge, but never got promoted due to dumb corporate politics. I felt “stuck” and started to hate commuting 2 h/day, working shifts & weekends and doing monkeywork.
My mentor who showed me how to Squat told me to start a website about how to gain strength and muscle while losing fat, but I thought that was a bad idea because I couldn’t even write a grocery list in English (my native language is French). Few weeks later I realized there was indeed a desperate need for such a website, free of all the usual bullshit and broscience, and so I launched StrongLifts.com on May 1st 2007, quit my job 12 days later, and lost all source of income… with no guarantee that this website would ever turn successful.
Over 15 Million People Can't Be Wrong! Hundreds of thousands of guys from all over the world have applied the StrongLifts Methods. The reason is simple: It works.
As you can see, the growth of StrongLifts has been astonishing over the past 4 years. It is now the biggest strength training resource in the world, currently influencing 7 million guys each year. I’ve achieved the “fantasy” of making tons of money from a home-based, easy, pleasant business doing something that I’m really passionate about, and completely free to work when and how I want.
Again, not bragging, just illustrating this important point: this site would NEVER be successful if the 5×5 routine you’ll be doing during the coming months didn’t work. I have hundreds of success stories of guys from all over the world raving that StrongLifts 5×5 totally revolutionized and changed – sometimes even SAVED – their lives. They’re living proof that my methods work, and so am I.
Why Should You Believe That I Can Help You?
Maybe you’re a deeply skeptical guy because you’ve been around the block 100 times, seen it all before, and now wonder if the StrongLifts 5×5 program and its hundreds of success stories aren’t pure, unfounded hype. Quite frankly, I can understand if you’re skeptical, I also thought 5×5 sounded too good to be true when I stumbled upon it, who wouldn’t be with all those fitness fads.
This is different. And to prove it to you, I’ve put my StrongLifts 5×5 program right here, on this website… for… everyone in the world… to try… ABSOLUTELY FREE. There’s nothing you have to buy, no bogus supplements to take, and no fancy equipment required. Just click “StrongLifts 5×5” to view the entire training program, test-drive it for 12 weeks, and by then…
Your Own Body Will
Force You To Believe Me!
And I don’t frigging care if you’ve been lifting for years, or are just starting out. StrongLifts 5×5 is proven to pack on more real-world strength and solid muscle in 12 weeks than most lifters (including the steroid-drenched jerks) achieve in 12 years of hard work. In fact, you’ll see faster and better results with only 3 workouts a week (at just 45 minutes each!) than everyone else who is slaving away 2 hours a day, 6 days a week! That’s right – you’ll get stronger, without frustration, and with less time spent in the gym.
Sounds impossible? It’s not. Actually, it’s quite easy to accomplish. Thousands of guys from all kinds of backgrounds, bodytypes and ages have achieved 3 times the progress on SL5x5 while spending half the time in their gym. If they can do it, so can you. But only if you take action and give StrongLifts 5×5 a honest 12 week test-drive. It’s 100% free anyway, so you have nothing to lose.
Mehdi Hadim
P.S. Please email me YOUR full success story once you’ve completed your first 12 weeks of StrongLifts 5×5, because I rather talk about the results guys like you achieved, than write about my accomplishments as if I was full of myself.
