"The Lost Secret of
Super Strength"
...It Has Been Right in Front of Our Eyes for Nearly A Century...
If you have been around Strength Training for a while you have probably heard the name Mike Brown. He has been involved with
strength training for over 50 years, has published at least 15 books on a variety of subjects, and a number of training articles for
Iron Man, MILO, and Hardgainer magazine among others.
Brown is a guy with his eyes open and when it comes to training he notices a lot of details that most people have missed.
He is a man with an interesting take on what it takes to develop super strength as you probably know if you have read
his grip training course "Iron Claws."
So there was Mike Brown one day, flipping through an old magazine. It so happened that this magazine had a feature on Hermann Goerner,
the great German strongman of the 1920's. This was not material that Brown was unfamiliar with, as he had read it many times previously
but this time however, he noticed something that he had never noticed before.
There was Hermann Goerner, dressed in a leopard skin outfit with his huge, globed, shot-loaded challenge-weight
held high overhead. The caption dated the picture as having been taken in 1923...
"But why," Brown asked, "is Goerner still using a shot-loaded barbell in the 1920's when the plated loaded barbell had been invented
over two decades before?"
"There Must be a reason..."
Obviously progression in small increments was a factor... And, as history has shown, a very important one... But was there something else?
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Hermann Goerner
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Nevertheless, on a whim Mike Brown decided to
create a piece of equipment that would combine the convenience of a plate-loaded barbell, with the shot-loaded capability of the old-time
globe barbells.
And so he began to train using this method...
Though he had undoubtedly learned a lot over his 50 years in the strength business, Mike Brown
was utterly speechless at what happened over the next 11 months...
11 Months Later...
In eleven months of testing, here is what Mike Brown found:
"If you add less than 1 pound at a time, you will hit a sticking point (eventually). However, you
will not go from an exercise to a "struggle," as is so often the case with 2.5 and 5 pound weight increases.
The weird thing here is that, when you do hit a plateau, your muscular size and bodyweight will begin to increase.
Our male test subject eventually got stuck (hit sticking points,) with increases as low as one-twelfth of a pound total. However,
at such small increases, our test subject never got stuck for more than 2-3 workouts.
What this appears to illustrate is that the human body is far more sensitive to weight increases than anyone
had previously imagined. The old-timers may have known this, but perhaps thinking that it was obvious, never
bothered to explain it in their 1920's era books and courses.
Our female test subject started at 115 pounds bodyweight and, with no intention of gaining weight, grew
to 120 pounds doing 7 reps in the clean and press with 85 pounds.
One of the strangest side effects we noticed was that the less weight the body builder added to
the bar for succeeding workouts, the more bodyweight gained in a shorter period of time.
What will this method of training do for you? Consider what it did for our male test subject in only one exercise,
5 sets of 5 reps in the military press twice a week. This was the only exercise our test subjects did with this style or training
for 11 months. All other exercises - squats, dead lifts, bench presses, etc., were done with moderate weights.
Examples:
His military presses increased by 36 pounds, for 5 reps, in eleven months. That we expected. We just didn't expect a
36 pound increase for repetitions in such a short period of time. This was an experienced lifter.
His bodyweight in December 2004 was 197, waist size 40. His bodyweight increased to 214 by November of 2005.
What we did not expect was for his waist size to drop to 36 at the same time.
Some of what our test subject experienced in the gym was somewhat amusing.
One fellow asked him, "Are you going to do squats?" when he had the bar on a squat rack.
"No, I'm doing military presses."
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A New Application of an Old Time Strength Tradition:
Introducing Mike Brown's Sticking Point Smashers
In order to revisit the shot-loaded tradition in his training Mike Brown created what he would eventually call his "Sticking Point Smashers" -
anodized, steel cylinders with screw-on caps in which resistance can be added in small increments.
Essentially these are shot-loaded barbell plates, machined and
anodized into finely tuned strength tools. These are much more portable and manageable than the traditional shot loaded
globes of the past, and now you can add ounces -- not pounds -- to selected lifts as you grow stronger.
Each cylinder will hold up to 2.5 pounds of shot or other material. When the two cylinders weigh 5.5 pounds,
empty them and add a 2.5-pound plate on each end of the bar (to replace the weight of the shot). i.e., you
can start over with a heavier weight - as little as one-third ounce increase.
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Mike Brown's Sticking Point Smashers
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Guaranteed to fit on your barbell
How Sticking Point Smashers ELIMINATE
the Most Common Training Obstacle
Almost every trainee experiences the exact same obstacle at the exact same moment in their training: Roughly 6 weeks into a workout, all progress
stops like there is a brick wall built right in the middle of the road. Frustration sets in when the wheels come to a halt and
training is no longer as "fun" as it used to be.
The reason for this is simple; eventually the rate of progression in terms of weight added to the bar becomes too great this late in a
training program.
But imagine never having to get stuck at a plateau - constant, gradual
progress for years at a time.
Sure, the jumps in poundage may be small, but they will start to add up quickly - and what's more, you have a method of
virtually guaranteeing that you get stronger from workout to workout.
Hermmann Goerner's had no idea of any "secret" - he simply kept using something that worked incredibly well for him when most others
had passed it off as "too old fashioned." And he wasn't the only one...
More Historical Proof
Charles Rigoulot
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After training with the Sticking Point Smashers for several weeks and finding out first hand about what happens once you do, I started to notice some
things back in the history of strength training that I had never noticed before.
Let me tell you what I mean:
The great French Strongman Charles Rigoulot persisted in using shot-loaded globe barbells throughout his entire career. He would often
give the governing bodies of weightlifting fits because he insisted on breaking all his records on "outdated" shot-loaded equipment.
Of course, he always made sure the weights themselves were on the level and that the globes were the official height from the floor etc but
the fact remains he kept on training with shot-loaded equipment long after it fell out of style.
I wonder if he knew something that we don't? ...Hmmm.
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Even before Rigoulot and Goerner there was the Alan Calvert and the MILO Barbell company - the first commercial strength equipment company
in the US. Alan Calvert was one of the Iron Game's greatest writers and his training material was top notch.
He established the MILO Barbell company in 1902 and his initial products had an unusual feature - they were plate-loaded barbells and dumbbells,
BUT they also had a port to add shot.
According to Calvert, this was the best of both worlds - He argued that shot-loading 'bells
were superior to plate-loading 'bells because shot-loading allowed the
weight to be increased a few ounces at a time.
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Alan Calvert and The Milo Barbell Company
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But Why is Progress With Such Small Increments Necessary?
Mike Brown's Sticking
Point Smashers
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I know what you are thinking -- "What's the Big Deal? I already know about progression and adding small increments etc..."
And that's the way I thought too, but as someone who was once in your shoes, let me explain a few things:
First of all, when I came
across Mike Brown's Sticking Point Smashers I was a bit skeptical. After all, he was making some big claims, and
I have been training for well over a decade and know a thing
or two about what it takes to get stronger.
So I read about the results Mike Brown spoke of, and decided to take a chance and ordered a pair of Sticking Point Smashers.
I figured there wasn't much about training that I had missed...
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The first thing that I noticed about them when they came was how well they were machined (these were true pieces of art,)
but the real magic started happening when I began training with them. No, not right away, but over time, what started happening was that
I began to improve in each workout in a very unusual way -- as the weight on the bar increased, so did my reps.
After a few weeks I
would end up getting 2-3 times as many reps as when I originally started, albeit with a gradually heavier weight.
Not to mention that this kind of training is not necessary for every lift - but for many others, this is the most effective method
possible for getting stronger...
Something Else to Think About
A person who can curl 135 pounds in good form can be thought of as someone who is pretty strong -- (And by "good form" I mean without
swinging, without jerking and
the ability to "stop" the movement at any point.)
Curling 135 pounds if very "doable" for almost anyone who trains with any kind of seriousness and you will probably find someone who
can do this in just about any gym.
When you reach 150 pounds, however, you know you are getting somewhere. You won't find many folks who can curl 150 pounds in strict
form...
And you are going to have to look for a long time to find someone who can curl 165 pounds or more... at which point,
you would be knocking on the door of World Class. I have been around a lot of strong people in my life
and I could count on one hand the number of them who could curl 165 pounds or more.
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Mike Brown's Sticking Point Smashers VS. Milo Triplex
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Few people ever reach that level, even those
who train for years -- and the thing is, only 30 pounds separates "pretty good" from World Class - not a large margin by any means.
There are a lot of other lifts that fall into the same boat.
Now, it has always been a goal of mine to curl 200 pounds but in the past I would inevitably get stuck at a weight after a
few weeks of training. Those last few workouts before I hit the wall were a bear -- I don't mind the challenge but they
are always a struggle and I know the end is surely near when that happens.
After a month of training with the sticking point smashers I have added 5 pounds to my top curl -- nothing to sneeze about, at least not yet...
but if I can keep up this rate of progress, reaching my goal will just be a matter of time. Now the interesting this is also
that my workouts, while certainly challenging, have also not slowed down one bit since I began training in this manner.
And, as Mike Brown has also experienced as have some of his trainees - All of a sudden I'm putting on more size after having been the same
bodyweight for roughly the last 3 years... can't explain it but I do know its working.
Add This Old Time Method into Your Modern Training Program
for Super Strength and Power
Mike Brown's Sticking
Point Smashers
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Since you are interested in taking action right away, we have put together some materials to help you use the Sticking Point Smashers
correctly.
I have been using them very productively in my own training but just in case there was something that I missed,
I recently sat down with Mike Brown and interview him abut his Sticking Point Smashers.
We talked for over an hour
on some of the techniques he has been using over the past 27 months to obtain incredible results.
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I was writing furiously the whole time and managed to get a ton of info down on paper. So, along with every pair of
Mike Brown's Sticking Point Smashers, you will receive a training booklet in which I collected this material which contains:
1. Mike Brown's unpublished article "Hermann Goerner's Secret"
2. Complete details of Mike Brown's Program - which exercises he recommends and does NOT recommend
using with Sticking Point Smashers, how theses exercises should be performed etc
3. My training experiences with the Sticking Point Smashers and training tips that You Should Know
4. What to fill your Sticking Point Smashers with and how to keep track of your records for best results
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As someone who has been training with Sticking Point Smashers for a number of months now I can whole-heartedly say they are truly amazing and
have my highest recommendation. -- They would not be featured here if
they we not something special.
Where do you want to be 11 weeks from now?
Train hard.
John Wood
Mike Brown's Sticking Point Smashers Super Strength Training Kit:
- Order Below:
P.S. My only regret is that I had a suit tailored before I started training with Mike Brown's Sticking Point Smashers since now it is a little
too tight in the neck and shoulders...
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