Like many of you I played sports in high school. I walked on the football team in college and played four years of football. Keeping my body lean and strong during that period of my life wasn’t a problem. After all we had practice, mandatory weight lifting sessions, morning running and a very positive environment for keeping the body in an overall anabolic state.
As the post-college years kept passing by, I found myself being less and less active. Don’t get me wrong I found a new passion and started testing my merit in amateur powerlifting over the past few years and it has kept me really motivated and I do love the competition. But……something is missing. I’ve gotten a lot stronger but I also gained over 25 lbs! It’s kind of embarrassing actually. Here I am preaching on the Internet and trying to help others stay fit and I go right ahead and pack on some un-needed pounds.
What does all this have to do with the Warrior Physique Mike? I’m glad you asked, let me explain. I have lot of relatives that live in Sweden and I’ve always been interested in Viking History. As I was reading a book of mine called, “The Long Ships” I realized the Vikings didn’t have to workout in gyms, their lives and their battles were workouts enough. Fortunately I don’t have to engage in battle which is good considering I get winded from playing a pickup game of basketball! It was starting to get obvious that I’d probably make a lousy Viking and was nowhere close to the top shape I was in during college.
Several months ago I hooked up with my now good friend Elliottt Hulse who is the owner of a warehouse gym in my area called Strength Camp. Elliott is pro strongman and I started watching some of the workouts he was putting his clients through. This wasn’t like anything I had really seen before. They weren’t using your typical gym equipment. They were carrying odd objects, loading sandbags, dragging sleds and doing all kinds of exercises that looked like half resistance training and half cardio training.
I told Elliott I wanted to try some of the “Warrior Training” methods. He grinned and wanted to know what I meant by that and I told him, that the guys from his camp train like guys from my Viking book. It’s no surprise Elliott and I hit it off right away and started doing some workouts together.
We’d combine my strength building exercises with his max effort resistance cardio techniques to come up with some pretty sick training sessions. The fat has been melting off and I’m still getting stronger so I think it’s safe to say we’re on the brink of discovering something pretty special.
Check out my results so far in only the first 8-weeks!
Ya I know I look like an idiot in the pic to the left. They made me put that outfit on when I got my bodyfat tested in the Bod Pod. The results came in at a shocking 27%! Ouch. That pic coupled with that stat really put a fire under me to get crankin.
If you think this is as remotely cool as I do than go check out this free video series we put together called, “The Art Of Rapid Transformation“. We’ve already released video 1 and 2. Video 3 is coming out tomorrow. You can see them all together on the page. There are over 1000 comments. Mostly good, a few bad apples, so head over and join the battle!
You should check this out. I think you’ll really like it.
I’m gonna call you “sexy westy” for now on!
Hey Mike,
Excellent article! I’ve learned in my years of weight lifting training, that you really do have have to mix it up, but most importantly.. enjoy the workout.
It sounds to me you’ve found a strategy that you feel satisfied with; that’s key! Being mentally engaged is a huge plus!
When you enjoy your workouts, you look forward to them, and tend to stick with them much longer.
Take care.