Leg Strength and Mental Toughness: How to Get it

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Finishing a workout with heavy sled and prowler training is a top notch way to develop legs of steel and high octane conditioning.

Mental toughness can be trained by pushing the pace, cutting rest periods, going heavier, racing against others and doing an extra set when everyone else quits.

You can finish your workout with the sled and prowler or you can hit them hard and create an entire lower body workout with these two training tools.

Check out the end of a workout that our athletes went through AFTER going head to head, toe to toe with the Sandbag Gauntlet...

The Coaches who attended the Underground Strength Licensing Course received an entire system for training clients.

It's funny, people think that if they use the same training tools as someone else that the results will be the same.

Not true.

I use barbells all the time. So do the guys at westside barbell. But the difference is they squat, bench and deadlift 700 + lbs, when I am nowhere near those numbers.

The difference? They have a training science and system down pat to create beasts who are stronger than Mack Trucks!

What are your thoughts on training tools, training programs and systems?

Looking forward to your comments below.

In Strength,

--Z--

PS: Wanna know how to apply Westside training to your workouts to develop Herculean strength, muscle and power? Check out their system HERE, it's one of my favorite books hands down!

7 Responses

  1. Yeah Zach, I’d have to agree with you that there’s much more out there than traditional strength training – Aside from mixing the workouts up, your underground style has that real world strength factor going for it –

    So I’d definitely encourage anyone who hasn’t looked outside normal traditional strength training to look outside of that into some of your stuff – Keep going hard bro –

  2. Walter Dorey says:

    Zach,

    I totally agree!

    It’s not the tools you use it’s how ya use ’em.

    One guy grabs an axe and it takes him forty hits to split a log and another guy grabs the same axe and in one whack the log explodes into two pieces.

    In training, it’s not about the equipment or being efficient with it.

    When training we need to use the equipment, no matter how primitive, in a way that has an effect on us: it makes us stronger, faster, tougher. That takes gut-busting effort. That is effective training.

    Running on a treadmill is efficient but not effective.

    Skills training for your sport makes you effiecient at the sport. Training effectively makes you play your sport effectively. Combine the two and you’ve got a winner.

    Simplified, I know, but true.

    Following a system or program does help one to train more effectively, but it still comes down to the effort put into the system/program.

    The westside barbell program will not work unless the effort is put into it.

    Use any equipment you have + a proven system of training + pushing yourself = a stronger, faster, tougher person who does not have the words “I can’t” or “I give up” in their vocabulary.

    Blood, sweat and tears, baby!

    Rock on,

    Walter

  3. The bottom line is simple, you simply must have a plan. Call it systems, progrmas or whatever you simply need it. If you give some skillful guys a bunch of tools and materials a plan you can build houses, but without the plans you simply have a bunch of guys messing around with power tools and making a mess of things.

    The tools are important, just try building a house without a hammer, but they are only as good as the plan they are used to implement.

  4. I think that reaching a certain level in anything has more to do with the “x-factor” than anything else (programming, tools used, systems, etc). Its “the sauce”, as I think I heard Rhadi Ferguson say one time, its what you don’t see or isn’t on paper – the mindset, the attitude, drive, determination. These things matter the most – what system you use or what tools you have in your toolbox are secondary, in my opinion.

    That said, when it comes to strength and conditioning – we already know what works. We might all learn new ways to tweak something everyday, but if you have a great attitude and some killer instinct, I don’t think that you can “mess up” with barbells, dumbbells, sandbags, sleds, prowlers, sledgehammers, kettlebells, etc.

  5. Zach,
    Yo bro, at 211 degrees water is hot, at 212 degrees, it boils and with boiling water, comes steam and steam can power a locomotive.
    Traditional training is like 211 degrees, you need that one more degree to make it something different. That’s what you do with the underground strength system, gave us that much needed extra degree.

    Much THANKS bruddah!

  6. bruddahs, killa comments.

    i dig the mind set points in there

    not to detail it 2 much, more in the future, but, there was a time where i went through a very deep depression for a 6 months and it was like my body was dead to everything

    no matter how hard i trained, how good i ate, no matter how perfect everything was, i was “dead”

    when i finally emerged from depression, i remember putting on a solid 12 lbs in 2 weeks or so, went from 184 or 185 to 197 asap and my strength skyrocketed.

    The mind empowers it all!

  7. Excellent stuff! Doing these types of movements works out muscles differently than traditional weightss.

    Always keep good form though. Don’t sacrifice permanent injury for pride.

    Good job guys and keep up the great work.

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