You Are Awesome

            We all have dealt with many things in our lives. Some have gone through far worse than any of us, some haven’t experienced certain emotional pain yet and with heart I hope no one does cause it sucks. However, the shit you have dealt with in your life can become your greatest blessing because it teaches you how to overcome and become a much stronger individual.

            Now a common question that comes up in a person’s life is What Makes You Unique? Every answer varies. Some people have great gifts and great skills, some are even blessed with certain abilities and either choose to use them productively or rarely use them at all. Being unique truly is a gift in itself because although you stand out from others, you’re the one who gets to decide how much of your uniqueness you want to use. You can even be an outlaw in some cases because you choose to not follow others rules and find your own creativity while giving your ability to become a great person work for you.

            The one thing I always want to emphasize is that no matter how old you are, black/white/brown/yellow/Asian, African, American, French whatever; embrace who you are as an individual because no matter who you are, there will always be a group of others who will tell you to be something else or better yet someone else, people who will tell you that you can’t express yourself and show who you are as the genuine article. It’s extremely difficult, pointless and really idiotic to try to be like someone else. That person is already taken, create who you want to be and never stop believing you’ll be able to achieve it. Influence others who want to be different, show them it’s ok to find your own secrets to becoming a great and unique human being.

            What really makes you awesome? It’s not always how strong you are physically, how manly/womanly you are, how you use your mental and spiritual abilities and even not always how shy you are in the beginning; it’s how you embrace yourself and represent who you truly are and the power you can have to make others notice, it’s that law of attraction that uses guidance. You are one kick ass person and don’t let anyone tell you different, make yourself fun to be around, be good to people, help them out every now and then. Be the genuine article and you’ll find what great things can happen in your life. 

Becoming An Outlaw In Strength Training

We are very different in what we do but at times we try imitate or even try to duplicate our teachers' lessons and in the case of developing strength we tend to follow someone else's program and see how it can work for us. That's fine if you want to do that but the real principle of strength training is to find what makes it different and how you can make it unique that it could even surpass your own assumptions and make you stronger then the next guy. That's one of the beauties of being an outlaw in the world strength, you do it differently then the establishment.

Your first rule of becoming strong is to not only want it but take it by the horns and hold on for dear life. Learn the exercises you want to master. Work them into the ground and take them as your own. You have the ability to take what's yours in your own program and making it work for you and one of your important priorities as a trainee is to make it work for you in ways it shouldn't work for others.

Most gyms or fitness magazines have programs that are too easy, too hard and even there are one's that flat out scare the living s*it out of most people. If there's anything I learned from my days to reading that crap and hitting the iron to making my own programs today is that if you want to be different then you need to be more different then they are. When you build your own program and making it a challenge not only for yourself but make it so others don't ever want to touch it and run away like a scaredy cat.

Another way to look at being an outlaw in the world of strength is that you master your own program to the point where if others saw you, to them it looks like you're putting yourself through hell, fire and brimstone but to you it's another day in paradise. You are more then just a gym rat going through the same ordeal again and again. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. You are the man/woman when it comes to your own style of training.

A good friend of mine named Bud Jeffries is by far one of the strongest men to walk on the planet. He is one of those men of superhuman strength that just blows anyone out of the water and all because he decided to be different then the mainstream chrone and fern type gyms and put himself through the toughest and most enduring workouts you can ever imagine. He is his own best personal trainer and constantly finds what can make him stronger, be more durable and how he can withstand the toughest and heaviest of weights imaginable while also creating endurance workouts that'll make marathon runners and Ironmen for the hills. That's what makes him so special and unique that no matter what he teaches its still going to be him at the top of that mountain.

There are some good looking gyms out there and if you want to be apart of the celery sticks, pumped up roid posers and little milkshakes that taste like crap then by all means go do it but if you want to be different and say f*ck you to those that don't know a lift or a bodyweight exercise from their ass to their elbows then join the few who want real-world strength, never ending endurance, real animalistic power and have the greatest tools to use and turn yourself into the unique and different strongman that resides inside you and has that animalistic rage of becoming stronger, faster and more powerful without the need of steroids or over-priced supplements or doing those damn messed up looking aerobics crap.

Are You Up To The Outlaw Challenge?

If you're a typical weightlifter in a commercial gym there are certain rules you feel you HAVE to follow....Do this for biceps, do this for back, do this for legs blah blah blah. Well try telling that to Strongman Bud Jeffries. At 5'11 and 270 pounds he doesn't look like a typical weightlifter, hell he couldn't pass the "normal" standards of what is a bodybuilder but he doesn't care about that nor the rules.

This particular challenge is unlike anything else and something you only persue if you got the guts. Whether you're a weightlifter or not this type of challenge can take your conditioning to the next level. No matter how you slice it you will become stronger and throw away the typical "rules" of the trade in hitting the weights.

Bud Jeffries is the one guy that can make just any challenge thrown at him a walk in the park and he'll tell you flat out that its not just physical but more mental and thats not an easy thing to take and its the truth. He is not your typical weightlifting and physical training pretty boy; he is one powerful and over the top freakishly strong. Here is a list of accomplishments he has done over the years...

1000 Pound Squat (Starting at the bottom)

3000 Kettlebell Swings

Partial Squat of 1850 pounds

Lifts Rocks up to 300+ Pounds

1000+ Hindu Squats

Pulled A Bus

Bends Rebar, Flat Steel and Mangles 60D penny nails and 10 inch spikes

Thats just a small amount he has done but nonetheless he knows what he's talking about when it comes to building strength. The Outlaw challenge is lifting a 150 Pound Dumbbell 1000 times using various exercises. Are you up to the challenge? Do you got the guts to step out of the pretty boy gyms and make a name for yourself in your own training? Well lets see what you're made of and let Bud take you all the way.


Outlaw Challenge