Belgian Skinny-Fat Ectomorph Gains
43lb Of Mostly Lean Muscle... Builds Six Pack
Abs... And Skyrockets His Squat To 400lb
Free Audio Interview Reveals How YOU
TOO Can Gain Strength And Muscle While Burning
Belly Fat... Without Using Drugs Or Supplements And
Training Only Three Times A Week
Left: Mehdi in July 2000, six months after he started doing Squats.
Right: Mehdi in 2012 after gaining 43lb of almost all lean muscle.
Mehdi Deadlifting 462lb after starting out not being able to do a single
pushup and even losing armwrestling to a girl
By Mehdi Hadim
StrongLifts.com
Transcript From The Audio Interview Mike Westerdal from
CriticalBench Did With Mehdi Hadim From StrongLifts
Mike Westerdal: Welcome everyone. This is Mike Westerdal from
CriticalBench.com and the weekly muscle building expert
interview series.
I'm very pleased today to have Mehdi Hadim on the line.
We're talking to Mehdi from StrongLifts.com . He's the
creator of the StrongLifts 5x5 program. He's also a
professional coach from Belgium.
Mehdi basically helps skinny guys gain muscle and strength
while losing their belly fat. He does this without drugs or
supplements and, this is the kicker, only training three times
per week.
Mehdi himself started training 15 years ago. He was one of
those skinny-fat, hard-gainer type guys. He couldn't even do
a single push-up and even lost arm wrestling to a girl.
Today he's gained over 43lb in muscle while losing his
stomach fat. He's squatting 400lb, deadlifting 500lb. He's
doing this all raw without ever having used drugs.
His website, StrongLifts.com is the biggest strength training
resource in the world. Over 20 million guys have been
reached in the last four and a half years and his training
program has been quoted on thousands of website. He's got
hundreds and hundreds of success stories. These are all
guys that have used his StrongLifts 5x5 program.
Thanks a lot for being with us today. How's it going, Mehdi?
Mehdi Hadim: I'm awesome. Thank you, Mike.
Mike: Anything I left out there?
Mehdi: No, no. It's a good introduction. Thank you.
Mike: No problem. How long have you been lifting weights?
Mehdi: I started lifting weights in 1999 so it's something like 13
years right now that I've been lifting weights pretty much
every single week. Been very consistent with the training
over the years so I pretty much average 45 weeks of training
a year usually, something like that.
Mike: Great. How did you originally get started? Why did you get
interested in working out in the first place?
Mehdi: Like you said, I'm the kind of guy who never did any kind of
sports in his life. I'm more like the nerdy type, playing
video games at home, Doom and Warcraft and that kind of
stuff. Never did any kind of sports at all.
One day when I was 15 all my friends had this crazy idea of
doing push-ups. No, they had this crazy idea of doing arm
wrestling. That's what started it. They started doing arm
wrestling and I basically lost against all of them. Then this
girl came over and she started doing the same and I lost
against her as well. I lost against all my friends at arm
wrestling and then to her.
That was humiliating, to be honest. They started doing
push-ups and I couldn't do a single push-up while that girl,
she could. Losing against your friends is one thing but losing
against a girl, that was really embarrassing.
I was like OK, I need to do something about this. I started
doing a lot of stuff but basically I was like I'm not going to be
that skinny, fat, weakling again. I'm going to do something
about it.
Mike: How old were you when this arm wrestling, push-up
challenge?
Mehdi: I was 15, almost 16. 15/16. I was something like 120lb. I'm
5'8" so I was not just skinny, I was also the smallest guy of
the group which is something I joke about sometimes - I
couldn't get taller so I figured I would work on getting wider.
Mike: It certainly sounds like we were similar. I started lifting when
I was 15 too and I was around the same weight.
Mehdi: Same story?
Mike: Not the same story but same size. We'll save my story for
another call.
Mehdi: [laughs] OK. I think a lot of guys who start lifting weights do it
when they get sick and tired of being skinny and weak and
everything. I think that's a very common story.
Mike: Yeah, definitely. When you first started working out what did
you start doing and what kind of things didn't work for you?
Mehdi: What I first started doing was push-ups at home. One of my
friends, he did several push-ups and I was like oh geez, you
can do so many push-ups, how do you do it?
I started asking questions and he was like, "Yeah, I do
push-ups every day." I was like OK, you do push-ups every
day so I'm going to start doing push-ups every day also.
I went home and I started doing push-ups that day. I couldn't
do one, of course. I had to do them on my knees... like
women usually have to do it when they get started with
push-ups, I had to start like that. Somehow I stuck with it.
I had a little bit of wrist pain from doing push-ups so I
did them on my knuckles and I just stuck with it and three
years later I could do like 70 push-ups in a row and I had
gained something like 10 pounds from doing push-ups daily.
That did get me somewhere. I think I went from 120 pounds
to 130, something like that, and I had a lot more shoulders
and everything, but I had no legs and I had this belly fat thing
because I was still eating potato chips and Belgian fries and
frozen pizzas and everything. That was my diet back then.
I was 18 and school finished. I had my driving license, had a
car and everything, so I started going to the gym.
I'll be honest with you, I also had noticed that I had a lot
more attention from the girls from gaining those 10 pounds
and I was like, "OK, if I get more attention from this maybe if
I start lifting weights I'll get even more attention." I was single
anyway. That was the second reason.
I joined the gym and then for the first four months I did the
usual muscle magazines split routines of dumbbell curls,
flies, lat pull downs, leg extensions, all that kind of stuff.
Mike: A body split routine?
Mehdi: Yeah, five times a week and didn't really have any kind of
results with it so I quit after four months of doing that.
Mike: Four months and you didn't get any results with that, even
after you were just doing push-ups before?
Mehdi: No. I suppose I got a little bit of a pump but four months into
it it was like I was not getting everywhere. I wasn't getting
stronger, I was actually getting weaker. It frustrated the heck
out of me. You feel like throwing the dumbbell into the mirror
and you don't understand it. I just quit.
I think I started lifting in August '99 and I quit in December
'99, something like that. I lost motivation.
Mike: Was that the gym you got kicked out of?
Mehdi: Yeah, I got kicked out of that gym like five years later. I
trained there five years and then I got kicked out of it. That
was much, much, much at a later stage.
Mike: OK. That wasn't working for you, the body split program stuff
you saw in the magazines. What did you wind up finding that
did work for you that helped you gain some muscle and
strength?
Mehdi: I quit going to the gym in December and then New Years
came with the New Year s resolution and everything and
then, of course, I went back to it with a vengeance.
This time there was one guy in the gym who had the kind of
body that I was looking for and I also noticed that he was
one of the strongest guys so I manned up that day and
decided to go ask him if I can train with him.
My logic was if he has achieved that and if I just do the same
things he's doing I'm going to get the same results that he
has. That's what I was thinking.
Mike: Makes sense.
Mehdi: I just went over to him and said, "You mind if I can train with
you?" He said, "Yeah, sure. Why not? What about today?
I'm doing my legs."I'm like,  Yeah, but I was going to do my
triceps." I was really going to train my triceps, then it was my
tricep day. I had tricep day.
He was like, "Just train with me right now." I'm like, "OK." I
got started. We started with the leg press, which I had done
before. I just trained at a much higher intensity than I had
before this. Then we moved on to the squats. I had never
done the squats before.
I was so out of shape. I think I worked myself up to 135
pounds on the bar and by the time there was that on the bar
I was feeling like throwing up everything. I told him, "OK, this
is enough for me." I went to the showers and there I just
puked.
Mike: He didn't know that. Did you tell him?
Mehdi: No. I was embarrassed. I was like I'm not going to tell him. I
didn't want to be a wuss so I didn't say anything. It took me
two years to tell him.
Mike: You kept training with him for a while longer?
Mehdi: Yeah. I just shut my mouth and I just went to the showers
and came out of the showers afterwards and said, "When
are you training again?" He said, "The day after." I just came
back for more and shut my mouth and tried to earn respect
by training hard with him. I owe that guy a lot. I still see him.
I trained with him for two years and he basically taught me
you need to squat, you need to focus on getting stronger and
not on pump and soreness and that kind of stuff. That's
where really the results started to come. It took me six
months or something to gain 20 pounds or whatever.
I don't have any before after pictures, that kind of stuff, but
I knew I was getting a six-pack six months in. That's coming
from struggling with a belly fat thing for three years almost
before with the push-ups and not getting anywhere and there
I fix it in six months by doing the squats and also cleaning up
my diet. That's also the thing that I understood from him.
The technique that I found that really worked was focusing
on the strength. That was the first thing. The second thing
was squatting, we were squatting every single week. 95
percent of the people in the gym weren't doing any squats
and the few that were doing them they were not hitting
parallel, they were doing partials. That's what made the
difference for me.
Mike: It seems most people do partials. It's very rare you ever seen
anyone going parallel or deeper.
Mehdi: Well, it's tougher.
Mike: Definitely. You have to drop your weight significantly.
Mehdi: It takes a hit on the ego.
Mike: For sure. How did the 5x5 training, when did you get into
that?
Mehdi: That took me until they kicked me out of the gym. That's
what took me to get on that.
Mike: I've got to ask you what happened? Why did you get kicked
out?
Mehdi: You know what happened? It's my fault. I'll be honest with
you, it's my fault. What happened is there were guys that
saw how I had gained weight and they saw that I was lifting
a lot more weight than other guys, than most guys in the
gym, so I had a lot of people who started coming to me for
advice.
Keep in mind the gym that I was going was a gym with a lot
of people who were taking drugs and steroids and
everything. This is my experience with it, Mike. I've never
taken drugs steroids or anything but a lot of the guys that do
that they rely on that and not on their training. A lot of them,
they don't do the squats, they don't do the heavy deadlifts,
they don't do any of that. They just rely more on the drugs
than the other things.
What happened was, there were a few characters there that
didn't like that we were training harder than them and that we
had people also coming to us for advice. There was a
personal trainer and he took it personally I guess that there
were people coming to my mentor and me for advice instead
of to him. He knew the manager very well, of course, being
the personal trainer. He just told the manager that I shouldn't
be coming anymore and that's what I did so I stopped
coming after they kicked me out.
I trained in another gym for six months but it wasn't the same
there. Plastic dumbbells, that kind of stuff. You want to feel
the iron in your hand. What the heck is plastic dumbbells
Trained there for six months but it wasn't the same.
Then I found out that equipment wasn't as expensive as I
thought it would be so bought a power rack, bought barbells
and everything.
I couldn't do any machines anymore then, of course. I came
from this mindset of doing body part split routines. We did do
a lot of strength so we did focus on the strength, but I didn't
know about progressive loading. We just tried to lift more
and then last time but we didn't do any kind of de-loading or
whatever behind it, more like failure training all the time. We
did a lot of machine work, that kind of stuff.
When I started training at home I couldn't rely on any
machines anymore because I didn't have any so this forced
me to only rely on compound exercises and that's when I
became more open-minded to routines which only rely on
compound free-weight exercises and no machine isolation
anymore.
Mike: That's interesting. It's almost like you didn't plan on this but
you stumbled upon it and it wound up really working well for
you. For the people that aren't familiar with your StrongLifts
5x5 what's that based on or could you explain the workout a
little bit?
Mehdi: Yeah, sure. The 5x5 method, that's not my invention or
whatever. I want to make that clear. I first stumbled upon it in
August 2003 because I had another experience where I went
to Turkey with two of my friends with whom I trained with.
All three of us on holiday, single guys, you know how it goes.
We all train and we get attention and that kind of stuff.
There were these guys there in Turkey working in the
Turkish sauna stuff. And there were these guys when we
came, they were like, "Hey, you muscle guys, let's do all arm
wrestling."
We started doing our armwrestling and these guys were fat.
They weren't lifting any kind of weights or whatever, they
were just fat. We started doing arm wrestling against them
and basically we lost against all of them.
That was to me like, I started lifting weights to get stronger
and I've been lifting weights for four years or something and I
got all this gym strength and then I'm out in the real world
and I can't use any of it. It's all fake gym strength.
Remember, I come from a background of losing arm
wrestling to a girl and wanting to fix that and now four years
later I've got the same thing going on.
I came back to Belgium and decided to start... instead of all
that body building split routine I'd been doing - which got me
the results I wanted physique-wise but I started to lose
motivation because if you look the way you want and you've
reached a point where you're actually confident about how
you look what is going to keep you going then? I needed a
new challenge was the first thing.
The second thing is I discovered I wasn't as strong as I
thought I was. That's when I started to research how to get
stronger, actually, and that's when I found out you need to
do compound exercises, you need to do free weights not
machines, that kind of stuff. That's when I stumbled upon the
5x5 method.
Which is what Glenn Pendlay, the Olympic coach, had been
writing about on a bunch of websites, that was back in 2003.
Personally I was like, "This can never work," because he
was basically saying you have to train three times a week
doing only three exercises per workout, no isolation just
squats, deadlifts, rows, the big exercises.
I'm like, if I do that, my chest muscles, my arms, I'm going
to lose everything so I thought this can't work.
The good thing that happened was they kicked me out of the
gym so I was forced to give it a try then because I couldn't
really on isolation exercises or anything then. So it was
actually a good thing that I got kicked out of the gym.
Mike: It's not a complicated program. It almost seems too simple
that a lot of guys aren't even willing to give it a try.
Mehdi: Yeah, it's true.
Mike: It does works.
Mehdi: It took me one year to try it. It took me one year to try it. You
know what Leonardo Da Vinci said. "Simplicity is the
ultimate sophistication." It does look too simple.
The first thing that guys usually think is only three exercises?
It's not about how many exercises you do, it's about the
intensity. That's the first thing.
Where are the isolation exercises? Well, when you do a
bench press your arms are holding the bar and they're also
pushing. It's not like you're just training your chest or
whatever so everything works.
What I got out of it is I did get stronger of it but the thing that
amazed me is my physique actually improved because it got
more balanced. That's the thing with body part training that
you're always going to favor certain exercises and you start
usually with your arms and your chest or everything, you
give that a little bit more.
Mike: You work a little harder on those.
Mehdi: Yeah and you're going to neglect the posterior chain a bit
and you're going to neglect your back a bit. That's usually
what happens with most guys. A lot of injuries, which I had
been dealing with, I got rid of that also because I started
doing this compound exercises routine.
Mike: If you're like me and you learned a lot of stuff from the
beginning just from reading magazines and stuff, something
like this is just so opposite of what you read in the
magazines. The magazines won't tell you to do the same
thing three times a week, just a few exercises, because
that's not sexy. They've got to talk about the splits and the
isolation and all that different stuff to keep coming out with
new material every month.
Mehdi: Also there was another reason: I wanted to give it a try. I
was skeptic but I really wanted to give it a try and the other
reason why I wanted to give it a try is when I started lifting I
was a student but then I started working and when you work,
I didn't have the time or even the willingness to go to the
gym five times a week and train for up to three hours
.
I had leg trainings back then which often took three hours
30. There's one point where you say, "I just don't want to do
all that work." When I'm now seeing that I get better results
training less, that's the real kicker. I was training five times a
week, sometimes even six times a week, for at least two
hours, sometimes three hours, and then I went to training
three times a week for one hour at home.
At home you're saving even more time. No more having to
drive around and all that crap and waiting for the machines
to get free. So I saved so much time, I actually could have a
life outside the gym. It was a huge change. I never went
back after all of this, of course.
Mike: It almost sounds too good to be true. Once you try it.
Mehdi: That's why people are skeptic because it does sound too
good to be true. But you never know until you try it.
Mike: With your website, StrongLifts.com , people have
downloaded over 530,000 copies of your report. You've
reached over 20 million people in the last four and a half
years. Could you tell us a little bit about how StrongLifts.com
got started and why you started it?
Mehdi: Yeah. What happened is I get this nerd background so I
studied IT and everything, and landed a job in the corporate
world, a big corporate company in Belgium. Worked there for
five years. And I got sick and tired of that after a while. The
thing with strength training is you start to understand that
you actually get some power over yourself. You come from
skinny/fat and then you change yourself. I gained 43 pounds
since I started. Couldn't do a single push-up, increased my
Squat to 400lb and everything. When you get these kind of
changes I guess at one point you say if I can change that
stuff what else can I change?
I started to also look at my career and everything. I just felt
stuck in the job I was doing. It was commuting two hours a
day, working nights and weekends, all that stuff. I got sick
and tired of that. I just felt that I could do more with my life
than just that kind of stuff. It's then that I started to look for
something else to do with my life but I didn't know what to
do.
It's really funny when I think about it because it should have
been so obvious. I never thought about making a living
coaching guys or whatever. I had friends who came, of
course, to me for advice. I had my brothers which I helped
them also with the training and everything, friends, even
colleagues and everything at work. But I had never charged
for it, I never thought of making a living of it. I was looking for
something else to do but I didn't think of it.
It's actually my mentor... I start reading about websites,
about people who were making a living with a website just
like you have with Critical Bench and everything. I found that
interesting because I thought I have an IT background, I
could do that. I was looking really for a topic. What would I
make a website about? Again, it didn't occur to me to make a
website about weight lifting or whatever.
The guy who introduced me to squats 13 years ago, it's him
who said if I were you I would make a website about weight
lifting.
Mike: He's like your business coach, too, then kind of.
Mehdi: Yeah. Wait, you know what I told him? I just ignored
completely what he said. I was like, "Yeah, yeah," because I
was thinking what a stupid idea. [laughter]
It just didn't occur to me. It's hard to explain it because now
there's this book "Acres of Diamonds ". I don't know if you've
ever read it. Can't remember the author (NOTE: Russel H.
Conwell is the author). "Acres of Diamonds" talks about
people always looking for opportunities, and looking far, far
away, but usually, opportunity is right under your feet.
That's kind of how I was looking at it. I was looking at
everywhere and what could I do, what could I do? And not
understanding that I should just be talking about what I had
been doing for so long, which was the weightlifting. I had
been doing it for almost 10 years when I started
Stronglifts.com. I just didn't think of it.
I should have thought about it, it wasn't really my idea. But
he said, "Why don't you do that." I was like, I ignored it. But,
then the idea stayed in my mind. I hesitated a little because
English is not my primary language. I'm from Belgium, so we
speak French and Dutch here. And my English wasn't what it
is today, either, so I couldn't write English. I couldn't write a
grocery list in English or anything. So I thought that was a
bad idea. And I was also thinking there's all these bunch of
websites already about how to build muscle and everything.
What I then saw was that all the stuff on there, it was always
about the body part split routines, five times a week, for two
or three hours. 27 exercises to you work out and everything.
And there was nothing really about the thing that I had found
worked better and saved a lot of time and everything.
And that's when I was like, you know what, actually, I should
make a website, like my mentor said. I should make a
website about it, but make a website about how to really do it
with compound exercise and stuff. Not like all that bullshit
there. But like how to really do it with compound exercises
and everything because nobody has.
When I started StrongLifts.com, there wasn't really a website
about strength training. It was either bodybuilding or it was
powerlifting. But strength training to build muscle, there was
nothing about this. If you wanted to build muscle, it was
basically bodybuilding. And if you wanted to train for
strength, then you should be doing powerlifting. But simple
how do you build muscle by strength training, there was
nothing about this.
I mean, StrongLifts.com is, in my opinion, the first website
which really talks about how to build muscle by strength
training. Looking back, I should have thought about this
earlier. But I'll be mentioning my mentor in my will. That's for
sure.
Mike: Cool. That's an amazing story. I mean, just finding what your
passion is. It was right there in front of you. And going ahead
and following that, and putting this up and helping people
and overcoming all those obstacles. I mean, your English is
amazing now, and your writing and stuff, it's one of the most
well-written websites.
Mehdi: Thank you. Thank you. You know, the secret to that is the
same as the secret to mastering squat technique or gaining
muscle. I look at building Stronglifts.com a lot like training.
I couldn't be doing Stronglifts.com if I hadn't been doing the
weightlifting before. Not just because of the knowledge that
I'm sharing, but the business aspect of it. There are lessons
that you learn at the gym which apply to building a business.
And one of those lessons, for example, is you've got to be
persistent.
My English, it really sucked. I had to re-write a lot of articles
because I'm embarrassed myself when I see how bad my
English used to be. But I always knew that if you keep
writing, it's going to improve. Just like if you keep squatting,
your technique going to improve. And if you keep doing all
the training and all the nutrition, you're going to gain muscle.
You're going to look better. You're going to get stronger.
You've got to be persistent. A lot of people, they fail that.
They don't want to do that kind of work.
Mike: Yeah, people don't want to do stuff that's hard. Isn't that what
Ronny Coleman says?  Everybody wants to get big, but
nobody wants to lift the heavy weight.
Mehdi: And also, wasn't there another quote, "If you live your life the
easy way, it gets harder. If you live your life the hard way, it's
get easier."
Mike: I like that one. That's a good quote.
Mehdi: It's easy for me now to write the articles. You know what I
even did? I was rewriting articles here daily just to get the
English in. Does that make sense?
Mike: Yeah. Killing two birds with one stone. Creating content and
improving your skills. So, switching gears a little bit, back to
the 5x5, what kind of results have some of your guys gotten
that have followed the routine?
Mehdi: Usually, let's just say that what good results with the
program are is that you achieve a 300lb squat, 400lb deadlift
within a year. And, usually you're going to gain 25 pounds of
raw muscle. I'm not saying weight, but I'm really saying raw
muscle, 25 pounds of muscle the first year while losing fat.
That's typical results. My training partner, for example, he's
been training with me for a year now. His squat has
increased, and he started like me. No athletic background.
Never done a squat in his life. Eleven months of training with
me, he squatted 308 pounds, deadlifts 405lb. And he did that
not even in a year and training only three times a week. Lost
a lot of fat. He's a bit of an older guy, so he's 33 years old.
Lost a lot of fat. Lost his belly fat. Gained muscle, instea
I mean, he looks like a completely different person. And
that's the kind of results that you usually achieve with
that kind of routine.
I've got to be honest, there are people who had more results
in 12 weeks doing the 5x5 then in the 12 years that they
trained before. That's kind of like what usually happens.
Mike: Now, is there any cardio in this, or is this strictly three times
a week of strength training?
Mehdi: You can do the cardio, also. The routine is flexible, and if
you know what you're doing, you can add stuff on top of it.
The problem is, you've got to know what you're doing.
And if people add cardio, which one are you going to
focus more on? Are you going to focus on the cardio? Are
you going to focus on the weights?
If you start doing too much cardio... there's some people who
do StrongLifts 5x5 and who want to do the running on top.
And the problem with the running is you're already doing
Squats three times a week, which hits your legs. If you do
running on top of it, well, now you're going to get into
recovery issues.
Mike: Right. Yeah. Absolutely.
Mehdi: And the other thing is, why would you do cardio? Okay, you
want to do cardio because you want to lose fat? It's usually
better to look into your diet first because a lot of people,
they think they're going to make up for a poor diet by doing
cardio. But cardio, you do half an hour of of cardio and
you're going to burn what? 400 calories? There's more than
that in a Big Mac, so it's very hard to make up for a poor diet
by doing cardio. It's better that you start with the nutrition
first.
Mike: Yeah. That's definitely true. Another thing you mentioned in
the book, you talked about Arnold Schwarzenegger and his
mentor, Reg Park. Everybody thinks that they did body part
split routines like the fitness magazines said about them. But
they wound up doing something similar to the 5x5, didn't
they?
Mehdi: Yeah, because I discovered the 5x5 method through Glenn
Pendlay in 2003, but when I started doing more research on
it, I discovered that Glenn Pendlay, he got it from Bill Starr.
Bill Starr, in the '70s, he had written a book about it, "The
Strongest Shall Survive," about using this method for
football. But then, before that, there was in the '50s, there
was Reg Park, which was the mentor of Arnold
Schwarzenegger, he had used the same routine. I read a
book about it, also. It was basically the same thing.
Upon further research, I also discovered something about
Arnold Schwarzenegger. Most people, when they think of
Arnold Schwarzenegger, they think of his book, "The
Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding." I've got a copy here
lying. There's a big bible there. In that book, it's all body
building split routines. When I just used the word bible, but
it's really true because I bought that book back in the day
and my training was based on what he's saying in that book,
which explains the five times a week training and everything.
But, it's later when I found the 5x5 through Glenn Pendlay,
then I went to Bill Starr, Reg Park, and then I went looking to
Arnold Schwarzenegger, his autobiography, and what's it
called again? Ah, geez (NOTE:  The Education Of A
Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger)
Mike: I don't remember the name of it.
Mehdi: Anyway, his biography. I'll stumble upon it later. And,
basically, in his book, he has like a paragraph where he says
he was training just like Reg Park, his mentor, and Reg Park
had done the 5x5. And he had done the same thing.
And there was a specific paragraph in there. If you look in to
my 5x5 report, I quote the whole thing, so you can look it up
if you want. Where he says, muscle magazines were all
saying as if he had built his physique doing body part split
routines, but that wasn't true. He always done compound
exercises since the start.
And if you look at his training career, few people know this,
but he started as an Olympic weight lifter. He did Olympic
weight lifting, and did a lot of competitions in that.
And then, later, he moved to power lifting and he also won
competitions in there. Actually, Schwarzenegger was not
kidding around. He could deadlift 700 pounds.
Mike: I didn't know that. I read that, too.
Mehdi: Yeah. And there's pictures of him deadlifting 700 pounds.
For the nonbelievers, there's pictures on there. And those
pictures date from before he was Mr. Olympia.
Same thing with Reg Park. Reg Park could also deadlift 700
pounds. He was one of the first guys... Actually, he wasn't
the first guy. The first guy was Doug Hepburn. Doug
Hepburn, he benched 500 pounds. He was the first guy who
benched 500 pounds. And Reg Park, he was the second guy
to bench 500 pounds in the '50s.
I mean, these guys, they were strong, and if you look at
Ronnie Coleman, for example, well there you have it.
Another example of a body builder who is deadlifting 800
pounds and everything.
Mike: These elite body builders, what do you think their secret was
to gaining muscle?
Mehdi: They understand that it is all a matter of strength. And I'm
not going to make things up here. They have usually done
body part split routines later in their training career. That's
definitely sure for every body builder out there.
But you just said the quote of Ronnie Coleman, what was it?
 Everyone wants to be a body builders but nobody wants to
lift heavy stuff. There he says it. You go look at his training,
and I can't remember which video it was of him where he's
squatting or was it deadlifting 800 pounds out of the five
weeks out of the Mr. Olympia competition?
Mike: Yeah. He lifted heavy.
Mehdi: He's not pumping it up there in front of the mirror.
And, yeah, there's the whole thing of, "Yeah, but those guys
were using drugs." And, of course, they were using drugs,
but there are other guys like Layne Norton, who you're
probably familiar with. He's a competitive body builder,
natural bodybuilder, drug free like I am. And he's also an
elite power lifter with several record sets in power lifting. And
there you have it. That's just another of the many people
who understand if you want to build muscle, you've got to get
stronger.
Mike: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. A lot of people, when they
hear 5x5 they just think that it's pretty obvious. They know
what to do. Five sets of five reps like they don't need to really
learn more about it or see what the routine is, but it's a lot
more than just reps and sets. It's an entire philosophy, a
framework. Can you expand on that a little bit?
Mehdi: Yeah. It's true that at first people think it's just the 5x5 and
everything but that's not really the key here. You can do 4x6
or 6x4 that could even work also. The bigger point behind it
is really the whole idea of adding weight in a progressive
fashion and staying away of failure, staying away of failure
and of soreness and everything. Does that make sense?
The problem with most people is they don't have a system
behind what they're doing. I was talking with Mike Tuscherer
this week. He has a different kind of program than I do but
he was also saying the same thing like I'm a guy that needs
structure both in my life but also in my training. The whole
thing about going by feeling and everything doesn't work for
me. I need the structure, I need the plan.
What 5x5 does is, you're no longer the guy who goes to the
gym and who's like  what am I going to do today? Hmz, what
this guy is doing looks cool, let me try that or that machine is
full, OK I'm going to do that instead. You get it? That's how
most guys go to the gym. They've got no plan and
depending on what some other guy (who doesn't know what
he's doing either) is doing, depending on what he's doing
you're going to decide what you're doing. There's no system
behind it and you know what the saying says, "Failing to
plan is planning to fail."
What the 5x5 does is it really gives you a plan. When you go
to the gym you know today's workout, A, I'm doing this, this,
and this as a set with that weight for so many sets and reps
and the next time I'm going to do so much.
You can clearly see a progression and the plan gives you
confidence, especially if you're the kind of person who is
self-conscious or something when you go to the gym.
This plan gives you confidence. That's the first thing. The
second thing, it's motivating to see yourself gaining strength
and making progress. That's the real thing behind it.
Mike: Yeah. I like seeing numbers and things versus looking in the
mirror. It's a byproduct. When you're looking at your
numbers and you're trying to get stronger and it's like a
performance goal that you're going after. Your body does
change as a result of it, but for me it's more fun to actually be
chasing those kind of goals versus just the way you look.
Mehdi: It's easy to quantify your progress when you do it this way.
Most guys they're indeed, like you're saying, relying on the
mirror for feedback. Let's face it, the mirror is dependent on
diet more than on training. You go out on the weekend and
you get drunk and you eat some junk food on the way home
and that kind of stuff you're going to look different because of
the salt in the junk food, the water retention, everything that
happens. It influences too much how you're going to look
and you've got no idea if it's because of the training or is it
because of the diet. A lot of people get confused.
Here, when you focus on the numbers, it's easier to quantify
your program into am I making progress, yes or no? The
whole thing about -  5x5 is it going to work? I'm skeptic! You
try it and you know for yourself one month later are you
lifting more or not? If you're lifting more weight then you
know it's working.
Mike: Yeah. It's like you said, looking in the mirror and what if the
lighting is different one morning or you have a different shirt
on that looks better. Then you go and change your entire
routine because you think something's off. It just doesn't
make sense unless you're using body tape measures and
before and after pictures.
Mehdi: Yeah, and I mean we are guys. I'm vain myself also. I
wouldn't want belly fat or whatever. I had it and I don't want it
ever again. I eat healthy and everything to keep it off.
But, I mean we are guys. If you're obsessed with the mirror, ,
that's for girls, in my opinion. I may sound sexist with that
kind of stuff, but in my opinion girls worry about the thing like
how they look in the mirror. Guys, if you look good in a suit,
you're good to go. [laughs] It doesn't have to be perfect.
Some guys are like -  my right pec is one centimeter less
thick than my other, what should I do? Who cares? Only
you know it. I wouldn't know it if you didn't say it.
Mike: Right. [laughs] That's funny. Your approach to the 5x5, how
is that different than some of the other variations that are out
there? What makes the StrongLifts 5x5 different?
Mehdi: I think that the big difference is I've seen a lot people, the
biggest problem that they do with pretty much any program,
whether it's my program or any other program that's out
there, a big mistake that people usually do is they start the
program with too much weight. Which is an ego thing.
People don't like the idea of taking a step back and they
usually don't understand the thing of taking a step back and
then taking two steps forward by gradually adding the
weight.
People, they usually do OK, I get it, 5x5. I need to add five
pounds every workout. What they then do is they start the
weight too heavy, then in the second week they're already
hitting a plateau because they cannot keep adding weight
and that's the end of the program.
Mike: Right. I definitely see that all the time.
Mehdi: This is not just a failure or a mistake with StrongLifts 5x5. It's
really a mistake with any program out there. Guys do start
programs with too much weight. I know that. It comes from
thinking that you're going to make faster progress like that.
Usually what happens is the opposite. You're not making
faster progress, you're actually slowing down your progress
because now you're hitting a plateau and you're losing
motivation and that's the end of it.
Mike: Your technique is all screwed up, too.
Mehdi: Yeah. Also, how are you going to focus on the technique if
you start with so much weight?
Let's say with StrongLifts 5x5 you have to Squat three times
per week. Let's say you've never done three times per week
Squats. Well, if you start too heavy on Monday your legs are
going to be sore so you're not going to be able to make it on
Wednesday and you're already skipping workout in the first
week. Probably by Friday you still have some sore legs so
now you're skipping the rest of the week. That's always the
end of it.
Mike: You haven't even got into the routine, you haven't got the
habit established yet, and it's over before you've even
started.
I had a buddy actually after college, you're talking about five
years. We were in high school together and lifted weights
together and we used to do the same thing in high school
but after high school he just quit and didn't lift weights
or do anything.
Five years later he wanted to come back to the gym with me
and I was like, "OK, come on," but I had been seriously lifting
hard for five, six years.
He wanted to come along and do my routine, which was fine,
but he also wanted to do the same weight for everything that
I was doing which was impossible.
He had an ego thing about I can do what you can do but his
form was awful. He wound up hurting himself, he was too
sore, and he lasted for two weeks and then he quit again.
Mehdi: I don't think it's that guy's fault. It's just the way that we are
wired. I told you in the beginning I fought it the first time, I did
the exact same thing. My training partner, I didn't want to be
a wuss. I threw up. I threw up and I got sore for a week. I
know what's happening there. You do have to keep your ego
in check.
That's the thing that I have changed with my StrongLifts 5x5
program. I always recommend to start with the empty bar.
You just start a program with the empty bar. If you really
have more strength and you feel it's too light or you have
done the exercises before then you can just start with 95
pounds on the bar and progress from there.
If you really have been doing a similar program for a while
then you could start with like 50 percent of your regular
weight, but any higher than that it's not necessary at all and
you risk hitting a plateau in the second week already and
never making any gains with the program.
That's the big difference with my program is I really try to hit
that mindset, to drive that point home of building this mindset
of starting light. This is a lesson not just for StrongLifts 5x5
but pretty much every program out there. If you start too light
you can fix that. You can just add 10 pounds instead of five,
for example.
Mike: Yeah. If you start too heavy you're stuck after two or three
weeks.
Mehdi: Yeah. You're screwed and you've got to restart for scratch
and it's three weeks of your life you just wasted.
Mike: Exactly. That's a good point. A lot of the stuff we talked
about on the call you have outlined in your book. This is a
free book people can get from your website, right? Where
can people go get more information about StrongLifts 5x5?
Mehdi: Yeah. You can go to StrongLifts.com or just Google
StrongLifts. Then in the navigation bar at the top just click on
 Free Report  You click on it and you just enter your name
and email in there and you will receive a free copy of my 5x5
report which explains the whole theory behind this program.
It's basically this program, it will help you gain muscle and
strength while burning your belly fat without drugs or
supplements and, like we said, you're training only three
times a week.
You can get a free copy of this report. Whether you try it or
not is up to you but I hope you try it, of course. I warn you
you're probably going to be skeptic, but give it a try for 12
weeks. You've got nothing to lose if you try it.
I was a skeptic. I did it. Most of the guys for this StrongLifts
5x5 were skeptic also. I have yet to see a guy who does the
program exactly like I laid it out who didn't see any gains with
it. It just doesn't exist. The thing works. Reg Park has done
it. Schwarzenegger trained this way. This thing is from the
1950s. It has decades of proven so it's going to work for you
also.
Just go to StrongLifts.com then  Free Report ; enter your
first name and email, and you will get a free copy. You will
also get a free 5x5 spreadsheets to track your progress in
the gym with graphs and everything. It's going to keep you
motivated.
Mike: For everybody listening, I think Mehdi's being a little bit
modest here because this is more than a report. I've got it
open on my computer right now. It's a 211-page book that
he's put together that's just filled with content.
This is bigger and better than all the stuff you see for sale
online and he's just giving it out for free to help people and to
spread the word about this type of training that has changed
his life. The spreadsheets are really cool. It comes with
Excel sheets where you can record your lifts and track your
progress with charts and things.
Definitely head over to the site and get access to that report.
It's a fair trade, your email for this wealth of information. I
wanted to thank you for sharing that with us, thank you for
being on the call today.
I think we've had a good time. We'll have to do a part two
sometime and continue this conversation some more but
we're running on an hour now. I don't want to hold you up
too much longer. I just wanted to say thank you for doing the
call with us.
Mehdi: Yes, thank you very much, Mike. We'll talk again soon. Very
cool for having me on the call here.
Mike: All right. Thanks, Mehdi. Talk to you soon.
Mehdi: Bye bye. Thanks, Mike.
[End Of Audio Interview]
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