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I AM SO HAPPY.

 

My first life goal, deadlifting 5 plates (220kg or 485lbs), was achieved. This took me 2 years since the first day I picked up a bar (around April 2014).

 

For a lot of you, especially those who have only just started your fitness journey, 220kg feels miles away – it felt like that for me too. 220kg felt impossible when I was struggling to deadlift 140kg…

 

 

Above is a graph of my deadlift and weight progression since Jan 2015. If you look you will see a clear correlation between weight and the amount I could deadlift. Honestly, I was shocked by just how clear this was; It seems that people tend to think that you can get really strong without necessarily getting bigger. However, getting bigger helps you get stronger.

 

How did you do it Mike?

 

I know you guys would absolutely love to hear an exact workout program which I performed with percentages and sets and reps… none of that happened.

 

In terms of my workouts, I was all over the place; sometimes I would deadlift every day, sometimes 3 days a week, sometimes once a week, sometimes with a belt, sometimes without… there was no real structure.

 

However, there were two things which I did do consistently:

 

I always lifted heavy

 

I never performed more than 3 reps (apart from warmups).

 

This was more just personal preference… I hate deadlifting for reps; it is tiring and it is just so much effort that I frankly despise it.

 

For the majority of the time with deadlifts, here is what I would do:

-10 or so bodyweight squats (depending how cold it was)

-10 reps with bar

-5 to 10 reps with 60kg

-3 reps with 100kg

-3 reps with 140kg

-1 rep with 160+

-1-3 reps at a final weight between 160kg and 220kg

 

That is typically what I would do. Sometimes I would lift less sometimes more. I would rest as much as I felt I needed. Sometimes this was a minute, sometimes even 5+ minutes.

 

As I said, I mainly deadlifted heavy because it is what I enjoy. I like lifting a lot and hated the feeling of deadlifting for reps. I also believe that if you are trying to deadlift as much as you can then the best way to do this is to deadlift heavy.

 

I went to the gym consistently

 

As I’ve mentioned probably a million times, CONSISTENCY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER.

 

Whenever you go to the gym and train you are improving yourself. Sometimes I would literally only work to a max set of deadlifts and that was it. Other times I would do a full hypertrophy back session – I just did something.

 

The other key thing I did was eat. Gaining weight helped me build muscle and let my body perform optimally, which aided in me increasing my lifts and put on some muscle too – best of both worlds eh?

 

That is it. There is no secret formula or magical thing I did to finally hit that 220kg deadlift; all I did was eat, lift heavy, and lift consistently.

 

-Mike

 

If you are cool you would join me here.

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Look at this guy. LOOK AT HIM.

 

His name is Russel Orhii and he is the definition of a PowerBuilder.

 

This term is not commonly used but is used to describe someone who is a hybrid between a powerlifter and a bodybuilder, and Russel is the perfect combination of the two – this beast can squat 265kg (585lbs) and bench 140kg (315lbs) for reps… and he looks amazing.

 

For those who do not know, Russel Orhii is an up and coming Fitness Youtuber who is rising rapidly in popularity. He is an extremely genuine guy who has an inspirational and motivational outlook on life; basically, you need to subscribe and follow him here.

 

Why you should become a PowerBuilder

 

Well, this answer is pretty simple… why the hell not?

 

For some reason the fitness industry tends to portray that you can either be strong or big, but not both. It appears that people tend to forget that size and strength are correlated. The whole natural concept behind being bigger is to be stronger… muscles are not just there to make us look good, they are meant to make us be able to lift heavy shit and grapple lions with bare hands.

 

Unless I am heavily mistaken about the whole reason why muscles exist, we can safely assume that you can both become huge and strong at the same time, and who does not want that?

 

Admittedly, PowerBuilding may not be optimal for people who want to purely train for strength, as there may not be any need to become bigger, however, there is a much higher recognition between the cross-over effect of the two, and it may be beneficial to incorporate more hypertrophy-styled training – just check out this 4200 word article from Greg Nuckols on why you should.

 

From a bodybuilding perspective, incorporating strength training is key to making you bigger too. Just look at Bradley Martyn, another PowerBuilder who is strong as hell and is a beautiful human being aesthetic-wise; as Kinobody stresses, size is a byproduct of strength, and it may be essential in order to build the muscle you desire to look like a Greek God.

 

How do I become a PowerBuilder

 

Essentially, becoming a PowerBuilder is pretty simple – instead of being a powerlifter and doing mainly low reps, or a bodybuilder doing fairly higher reps, mix it up. Powerlifters tend to place less focus on accessory muscles like arms and shoulders, however as these are muscles that make us look good we want to focus on them just as much.

 

Also, we are going to want to incorporate a mixture of rep ranges; lower reps and higher weight tend to be more beneficial for strength gains, whilst higher rep work is more associated with metabolic stress which gives you the ‘pump’. I would like to stress that both contribute to both strength and size, so it is important to have a mixture of both if you want to maximize results.

 

Here is a sample routine structure:

 

• 1 Primary Movements: 3 sets x 1-5 reps
• 1 Compound Movement: 3 sets x 5-10 reps
• 4 Secondary Movement: 3 sets x 8 -12 reps

 

Primary/Compound movements could be: bench press, squat, deadlifts, overhead shoulder press, dumbell shoulder press, dumbell bench, weighted pullups, weighted dips, incline bench etc.

 

Typically secondary movements are: cable flys, shoulder lateral raises, cable pulldowns, tricep pulldowns, bicep curls, calf raises etc.

 

In a lot of instances, some exercises can be used as both primary and secondary movements. For example, incline dumbell bench press can effectively be used as a secondary movement – it is more about the rep range that you use. That being said, the primary movments has to be a compound.

 

If you want a full 4 month PowerBuilder-based program check out my UNIGAINS program here

 

Check out Russel Orhii’s video here to exactly what he does for PowerBuilding.

 

So yeah, if you want to become as strong as possible and look as good as possible then follow Russil Orhii’s footsteps and join the PowerBuilding crew!

 

-Mike