Chances are you never heard of Steve Justa. He has trained for 20 years and has done crazy things like Quarter Deadlifts with 2000lbs, Quarter Squats with 800lbs for 2000 reps or walking 2 miles wearing a 200lbs weighted vest.
You can always learn a lot from someone who has trained for 20 years and who succeeded at increasing his strength to a significant level. The following quote comes from his book “Rock Iron Steel: The Book of Strength“.
Remember, consistency and momentum are the keys to success in the world of super strength. As it is in any pursuit, aim high with your goals and keep chipping away at the rock. Think of every workout you go through as a little chip off a big rock, and when you get that rock whittled down to nothing, you’ll know you’ve been someplace. In the art of super strength, you must think in terms of years, not months or days. And have fun along the way. Don’t get upset or discouraged if you fail to move a certain weight a certain number of reps. The main thing to think about is what you can do. Don’t worry about what you can’t do.
Persistence Is Key to Success. Whatever it is you want. Nothing can stop you if you put your mind into something and work on it systematically until you get it. Persistence will deal with any setback that comes your way.
- How many people do you know who never set goals? They’re doing the same exercises, lifting the same weights for years without progressing. And then they wonder why they’re bored or why they don’t see results.
- How many people set those big goals that they never achieve instead of setting mini-goals that bring them closer to their big goals?
- How many people think strength training, building muscle, losing fat or anything else in life that demands an effort from their part, is a sprint rather than a marathon?
- How many people get pissed because they had another bad workout instead of focusing on the fact that they went to the gym although they were sick, tired or didn’t feel like going to the gym in the first place.
- How many people don’t get what strength training is really about: that getting your Squat up to 1.5x your body-weight & beyond demands persistence, sacrifice and much more from your part. And that the place it brings you, is a place of increased self-confidence and self-knowing.
Share your views in the comments below.
Another nice article. I like the focus on the mental as much as the physical on your site Mehdi.
Congratulations on 20k readers subscribed. I’m working on my application for your personal training, in two weeks when I’m done traveling, you’ll hear from me.
Kudos to you sir.
The last point in the article summarizes exactly my view on what strength training (and life) is all about. From my experience the mindset is far more important then the physical espects. Too shame, not many people agree with me, that why I’m so glad I found this website!
Keep up the great work Mehdi, have a nice weekend!
Nice post Mehdi, as a newbie I like to read things like this that make me think about the long-term commitment training is. My motivation is still running as high (or higher) than on day 1 a few months ago, I hope to continue.
From the article “Quarter Squats with 800lbs for 2000 reps” — is there a video or something of this? How long did it take him? It would take me hours to do 2000 BW squats, or maybe you meant 20 reps?
@Shoebox/Jurrien
Thanks!
@Grambo
The 2000reps quarter squats with 800lbs took him 3 hours.
I though controlled movement were better than momentum as momentum cheats the action.
Nice article 2 miles with 200lbs on your back is tough, would you recommend his book?
47 yo, 6 ft, 194. doing 3×5 workouts from SS by Rip.
Two workouts away from squating my weight after 3 months. Dead lift 245 1×5.
Body fat down from 25% to 16.9%, weight up about 2 lbs.
That is about 16 lbs fat loss and 17 lbs muscle gain.
Eating pretty clean diet but not watching calories too much. Not much sugar or “white” carbs.
I have reset a couple of times and got better each time as technique improved and little tweaks like my L shoulder recover.
Agree wholeheartedly with long term perspective and not getting greedy, expecting too much improvement too fast.
mehdi,
I always look forward to your topics on mental toughness and inner strength. Can you recommend other posts that touch on this subject.? Tell me, how do you keep your consistency and momentum. Momentum is a funny thing, the moment you realize you have it you lose it. And its only after you lost it, that you realize you had it. If that makes much sense.
@YA
I definitely recommend Steva Justa’s book.
@1st time reply
Set big goals, break into mini goals, work toward mini goals, don’t be greedy, be happy with small PRs, delaying bigger PRs until the next week rather than wanting too much too soon: if you can add 10kg on a lift per year, that’s 50kg in 5 years. yes it takes longer, but end result is the same. Most of all be consistent: go the gym whatever happens, bad workout better than no workout.
Wow cool article!! keeps motivated!! I guess things said in this post are not just for strength training in general, can be applied to all areas of life e.g. Sports..
goal are important, with out goal I wouldn’t be able to squat 150lb . now, tring to work on my upper body whch is hard.. for me because I can only do 6 push up, I need lots and lots of help…
Wow, 2000 quarter squats with 800lbs in 3 hours is ridiculous. Is there a video of this feat somewhere? Would be fun to watch in fast forward
Awesome article.
It points out one of the things I truly love about Stronglifts: improving with every workout, reaching for that slight increase in weight or squeezing out one more rep. It keeps the momentum going, and it makes it fun too!
Justa’s book is great. Mehdi what is all the relative strength stuff about? Lighter lifters have better “relative strength” always but they are usually also shorter which means they are moving the weight through smaller range of motion. Obviously in many sports relative strength is a big factor because of the weight classes.
Absolute strength combined with crazy strength endurance is what Justa (and his book) is about. His book has lots of practical information which is a nice change from scientific training literature. If you wonder what all that car pushing/pulling and weight carrying is about you will understand after reading Justa’s book, he knows how to explain things with common sense - I’m not saying scientific literature isn’t useful , I’m just reading Supertraining myself and I find it very good.
Scientific training books are great and many people think they can’t understand them, I doubt they even try! I’m far from intelligent, I’m not a native english speaker and I still can read and understand scientific training books.
I think consistency and persistence are the keys to success in any endeavour.
There’s a great saying by Jack Canfield: “99% is a bitch, 100% is a breeze.” The whole idea being, of course, that if you only commit to something 99%, you’ll always be waffling on it. If your commitment is 100%, it’s a done deal: it’s happening, no matter what. There’s no waffling, and it’s a hell of a lot easier to just DO it.
Lol 3 hour for the quarter squats. Probably not the most entertaining of videos then. Great article, these mental strength articles are invaluable.
Thanks for the “words of inspiration”. I am pretty new to this but iI have been using your “5×5″ method and have seen results. As with everything else,consistency and momentum are definitely the keys to success.
great article!
Thanks for the article. It gives me a boost because it makes me reflect on what I’m doing. Although I know better, it often seems that in today’s world I expect instant gratification, rather than cultivating my body, mind, and spirit. When I train for anything I have to constantly remind myself that persistence, even if it’s just a brief daily attention to something, is the key.
I really enjoyed this article. It helped me put the events of the last few years into perspective. I’ve been plagued by injuries pretty often, and even though I’ve lost a lot of strength and size, I know I can regain both again since I was at that point before. I don’t think a 325lbs bench, a 405 squat, and a 385 deadlift at a body weight of between 190 and 200lbs is too bad considering I only trained seriously for about three years. Especially when I started at 150 pounds. I used Bill Starr’s program for the majority of the work and would switch to a more body building based routine when things got stale.
Again this article pointed out the fact that I was pretty dedicated for those three years and was the reason why I got to the point that I did. You know it’s funny because even then I never considered myself big or strong. That the weight s I could handle weren’t heavy at all. Now I look back on pictures from that time in my life, and realize That I was doing things right, and that consistancy was the ultimate tool. Yhanks again for the article and for enlightening me on how to adjust my way of thinking about training.
Thank you for making the effort to write the article Mahdi.
Right now I am going through a hard time with training in general but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Every champ has gone through hell to become a champ. Once again, thank you. I look forward to reading more of your articles regarding mental strength…etc.
Iron Soul
mehdi,
I’ve taken a week off stronglifts program for recovery. If I continue to eat the same calories and just work out with bodyweight exercises. Pullups/chin ups, dips, pushups, inverted pushups against the wall, body squats. Will i lose the muscle i have if I continue to do bodyweight exercises for more than 3 months?
I think failure qualifies as a key to success.
Awesome article! The key to success in anything is consistency. Momentum is key as well. It enables one to get over the “hump” and reach the peak of their destination. I really enjoy your articles! Keep up the great work and thanks for contributing!
kk