1

2
 table of contents
Too Much Muscle? “Yo-Yo Muscle Building”...............................................................4

Electric Strength...................................................................................................11

Fibrous vs Fluid Filled Muscle.................................................................................13

A Strong Economy.................................................................................................15

Yearly Training Cycle..............................................................................................19

Monthly Training Cycle...........................................................................................22

Weekly Training Cycle.............................................................................................24

Daily Routine........................................................................................................33

The Bulk Free Diet.................................................................................................36

The BEST Muscle Building Supplement ..................................................................38

Fat Loss Considerations..........................................................................................39

Final Thoughts......................................................................................................43

Recommended Training Equipment.........................................................................46

3
 Too Much Muscle?
“Yo-Yo Muscle Building”
Back in 1994 I began weight training
to become bigger and stronger for high
school football, and to earn an athletic
scholarship.

At 5'8" and 185 pounds, I was already

big and fairly strong for my age, but as
any 15 year old high school football
player will tell you, I wanted to become
bigger, faster, and stronger.

To be 6'6" and 270 pounds, with the

strength of a powerlifter and the speed
of an Olympic sprinter, is the dream of
every young American football player--at
least, that was my dream.

My parents bought me my first weight set, it included one barbell, about 300 pounds of
plates and a power rack. Everyday after school I would go down into the basement and train
for three hours with the hope of achieving my strength, size and speed goals.

I was fortunate enough to have my uncle, who was a bodybuilder, a martial artist (Kung
Fu) and a former gymnast, travel to our house on Long Island , up from New Jersey, every
Saturday morning to teach my little brother and I how to train for strength. He taught us
how to gain muscle mass, get stronger and become more explosive with the use of exercises
like squats, bench presses, dead lifts, power cleans and gymnastic exercises.

He also taught us how to eat in order to add more size to our young, scrawny little bodies.
We followed the typical bodybuilder’s mass gaining meal plan, including tons of chicken
breasts, egg whites, brown rice and protein shakes. We also supplemented our diets with
“weight gainer shakes.” These shakes contained 3,000 calories or more, most of which
came from sugar!

4
Needless to say, I got BIG! I discovered I had a genetic gift for building muscle and getting
stronger--fast. It only took a few months for me to add over 20 pounds of mass to my body,
not all of this was muscle, but I did reach my goal of weighing 210 pounds by junior year.
I got strong enough to bench press over 300 pounds and squat over 400!

By senior year I was bigger and stronger than I had ever been and earned a scholarship to
play football at a Division 1AA school in New York, all thanks to my uncle, the barbell set,
months of hard work and piles of food!

In college I continued to train with barbells, and I continued to get bigger, stronger AND
faster. In fact, in my Sophomore season I weighted over 230 pounds and ran the fastest
40 yard dash on the team, 4.34!

After graduation I decided to make a career out of strength training. I took various jobs as
a personal trainer or strength coach at different gyms in New York.

Working full time made it difficult to eat the amount of food and train as often as I did in
college. Within a few short months I lost all of the weight I gained in college, I went from
230 pounds, back down to 185 in less than a year!

During the time I stayed under 200 pounds I lost a significant amount of strength, mostly
due to a change in my training and lifestyle .

Instead of grinding out 500 pound barbell dead lifts and 300 pound bench presses, I
experimented with so-called “functional training.” This led me into the arena of Swiss ball
and rubber band workouts. The heaviest barbell I lifted during those three years wasn’t more
than 275 pounds.

Instead of eating 6 cups of brown rice, a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs a day, I ate organic
vegetables and grass fed beef. Instead of swallowing spoonfuls of creatine and drinking
Weight Gainer 3000 I took fish oil supplements and drank green tea.

I was healthier than ever before, and I had more energy and vitality than I had ever felt
in my life, but I was weak. A big part of me missed the thrill of lifting heavy weights and
gaining mass. So, I shoved the part of me that wanted to grow bigger than a gorilla deep
down into the recesses of my consciousness and continued along the healthy, but weak,
path.

5
Until, I met Tom Mitchell.

In 2007 strongman training began to gain popularity in the sports performance and fitness
industry. Strongman required an athlete build strength, speed, power and endurance in
order to complete exercises such as tire flips, stone loading, sled dragging and log pressing.

Strongman training, with its high

demand on the nervous and muscular
skeletal system, forces the participant
to get bigger and stronger--even if they
don’t want to!

Events such as dead lifting a 2”

thick handled barbell loaded with
500 pounds for as many reps as
possible within 60 seconds places
such a strain on your body that adding
muscle mass, in order to meet the
physical demand, is inevitable.

When I met Tom Mitchell, at a Crossfit clinic in Sarasota Florida, I was still about 185
pounds and eating less food than my 7 year old daughter does. As I listened to the 310
pound man talk to me and the other
150 pounds CrossFitters about
strongman training I thought that it
might be fun to give these “primal”
exercises a try--that’s exactly what Tom
had in mind when he designed his
clinic!

Tom invited us outside where he had

brought along several beer kegs filled
with sand and water, the heaviest
weighing 250 pounds. He also
happened to bring a 400 pound tire
with a handle attached to it by a 4 foot
chain. (Who keeps this kind of stuff in
their truck anyway?)

6
For the next 90 minutes we carried,
dragged, pressed and flipped the
random “odd objects” he carried in
the back of his diesel fueled pick-
up truck. To conclude one of the
most sadistic workouts that I had
ever been through, Tom had us put
all of the kegs and tires into the
back of his truck and then PUSH
his truck across the parking lot.

While laying in the middle of the

concrete parking lot squirming in
pain... I fell in love!

Strongman was the perfect sport for me. It allowed me to use all of my God-given gifts of
strength, speed, power and agility once again. And not only did I fall in love with strongman
training, strongman training fell in love with me.

It didn’t take long before I competed in my first strongman show, and won.

I competed in the 200 pound weight class, but I could feel my body BEGGING me to let
it grow. I knew that if I ate like I did back in high school and college I could gain back all
of the size and strength lost
during my years of “functional
training”.

And that is exactly what I did.

Within less than two years

my bodyweight ballooned up
to almost 260 pounds! I was
winning every strongman show
I entered and even earned my
Pro Card. I finally became a
professional athlete!

My training was TOUGH!-

7
-workouts would often last more than two hours daily. The intensity and volume I was
training with was unsustainable and as a result of training so hard, for so long, my body was
always achy and sore. In order to sustain this level of training I resorted to the use of more
powerful “supplements”.

These extra supplements, on top of my genetic gift of strength, literally turned me into a
“super man.” I had become so strong that I was jockeying for the position of America’s
Strongest 105k Man!

All of the success and excitement came crashing down before I could earn that coveted title.

I tore my biceps tendon.

One day after training with my partners my father asked me to help him remove some trees
from his yard. While pulling the root of a dead tree out of the ground, I tore my left biceps
muscle clean off the bone. I wish I could have said that I was surprised, but deep down I
knew this outcome was inevitable.

As a result of the injury I decided to stop strongman competitions all together and let my
body recover from over two years of abuse. I abruptly stopped using all supplements and
didn’t touch a barbell weighing over 300 pounds for the following 24 months.

I experimented with fat loss diets and different types of “hybrid” training until my
bodyweight was back down to around 200 pounds. During this time I also competed in
several long distance, obstacle races. Losing weight and running races was fun, but it is
NOT what I am designed to do.

My body is built for strength, not endurance. So after two years it was clear what I had to do
next, I had to...

Get stronger again!

At this point I’ll bet you can imagine how the story goes. Elliott starts eating like a horse,
lifting like a gorilla and gains back all of his weight , plus 20 more pounds, and goes on to
win The World’s Strongest Man competition--right?

Not quite.

8
The injury forced me to step back and re-evaluate my training. This time I set out to gain
what strength coach Dan John calls “Easy Strength”. (To learn more about “Easy Strength”
CLICK HERE).

Instead of beating the crap out of my body, which produces tons of soreness and requires
significant recovery time, I have set out to build as much strength as possible under the
following conditions:

1. Grow Stronger...without gaining too much “puffy muscle” or bulk.

2. Grow Stronger...while staying healthy and “functional.”

3. Grow Stronger...without creating achy joints or chronic pain.

4. Grow Stronger...without spending more than 45 minutes a day training.

5. Grow Stronger...without training more than 4 times per week.

6. Grow Stronger...with the use of only a barbell and chin up bar.

7. Grow Stronger...with the “minimum effective dose” of training.

8. Grow Stronger...while maintaining a high level of conditioning.

9. Grow Stronger...without sacrificing mobility and flexibility.

10. Grow Stronger...WHILE BECOMING THE STRONGEST VERSION OF MYSELF!

That last condition, number 10, is a very important part of my mission.

After my biceps injury I came to the realization that my obsession with training heavy and
hard created a severe imbalance in my life. Although I was becoming physically stronger,
other areas of my life suffered tremendously.

About a year ago I coined the phrase “Becoming The Strongest Version Of Yourself” as a
way to describe what happens when you take a balanced approach to strength and personal/
life development.

9
I have dedicated an entire website to this concept and even have a certification program
for people interested in becoming the strongest version of themselves. I call this idea
STRENGTHOLOGY, the science of becoming the stronger you!

You can learn more about STRENGTHOLOGY when you CLICK HERE.

This idea of “balanced training” is a major theme of this book. If you want to become
stronger than ever in the gym, but also have a life that you can participate in and be proud
of outside the gym...then I invite you, join me on this journey.

Let’s Grow Stronger, together.

10
 Electric Strength
Contrary to what most people believe, more muscle does NOT equal more strength. Of
course muscle plays a huge role in your body's ability to produce force, but the muscle
itself is only capable of producing tension though the nervous system.

If your nervous system can supply the muscle with enough “electricity” to overcome the
resistance, you become stronger; regardless of muscle size.

In my living room at home we have a dial on the wall that allows us to adjust how much
light the ceiling lamp produces. If we want the room to become brighter, we turn the dial
up and the room becomes brighter. If we want the room to become dimmer, we turn the
dial down and the room becomes dimmer.

We do NOT go and buy a larger sized light bulb when we want the room to become brighter.
Instead, we “turn up the dial” which provides more electricity though the wires and into the
light bulb thereby increasing the intensity of light in the room.

This is exactly how your nervous system and muscles work together.

Think of your Central Nervous System as the dial on the wall. When you need more
electricity delivered to the muscle, you need to “turn up the dial”.

When you turn up the dial, your Central Nervous System sends more “electricity” though
your Peripheral Nervous System which acts like the electric wires in my living room walls.

When the increased electricity finally reaches your muscle, it “lights up” with powerful
neurological electricity and produces force against a given resistance. In the same way that
the light bulb lights up the room, your muscle “lights up” the resistance by overcoming it.

Now, this doesn't mean that you can become your strongest without the gain of some
muscle mass, or that you can become “The Worlds Strongest Man” without adding some
bulk to your frame. But what it does mean is that you can teach your nervous system to
produce more force (Grow Stronger) without growing much larger.

One of the main reasons I chose to write this book is because I wanted to continue growing
stronger, without too much muscle gain.
11
You might ask, “Elliott, why don't you want more muscle?”

First, after years of bulking up and cutting down I had become sick and tired of the
fluctuations. Buying a new wardrobe every year is not my idea of money well spent--besides,
one of my least favorite places on Earth is the shopping mall.

Also, I'd like to continue competing in various strength sports. I still enjoy strongman
training, power lifting and Olympic lifting. When I compete in one of the heavier weight
classes, my height (5'9") often becomes a limiting factor for me. It would be best to
compete in a lighter, under 200 lbs weight class, and still be competitive. This requires
that I don't gain too
much weight.

My final reason is you.

I know there are several
athletes and fitness
enthusiasts who read
my website and watch
my videos who want to
become stronger but
don't want to gain mass.

Athletes such as boxers,

fighters, skateboarders,
gymnasts, Olympic
lifters, power lifters, swimmers, jumpers, sprinters, etc.--all need to be strong, but either
have to stay within a weight class, or the extra bulk hinder s their sports performance.

With the Grow Stronger system you will become stronger and build leaner, more dense and
functional muscle; rather than large, fluid-filled, bulky muscles. We make this happen is by
focusing on training the nervous system and creating what's called Myofibrillar Hypertrophy.

12
 Fibrous vs. Fluid-Filled Muscle
There is more than one type of muscle
growth.

First, you have what I call “puffy muscles”.

The scientific name for this type of muscle
growth is Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy.
Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy is achieved by
increasing the fluid, or sarcoplasm, levels
in the muscle. When you train like most
bodybuilders, with high volume and low or
moderate weight and short rest intervals –
you'll get sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

This type of training will make you grow

larger looking muscle, but it will NOT make
you stronger. The reason why you'll look
bigger but remain relatively weak is because
you are simply causing your muscle to retain fluid. Since water can not be flexed, like
muscle fibers can, the extra size doesn't help you produce more force.

If we use the light bulb example again, it is like increasing the size of the glass bulb,
as opposed to delivering more electricity to the bulb, or more accurately, increasing the
filament size inside the bulb so that it can handle more electricity.

With the second type of hypertrophy, Myofibrillar Hypertrophy, we are actually increasing
the “filament” size within the light bulb so that it can handle a larger amount of the
electricity being delivered from your central nervous system!

When you train using the exercises and parameters in The Grow Stronger Method you will
be creating actual muscle fiber growth! In order for your muscles to produce more force
your body will continuously add tiny little “filaments”, called myofibrils, to each myocyte.
or muscle cell.

We call the type of hypertrophy that we're looking to gain, myofibrillar, because we want
to grow more of these myofibrils. Myofibrils are a part of the muscle cell, so when they
13
become stimulated by the electricity from your nervous system they contract. This is very
different from the fluid, which doesn't contract, that gathers within the cells in sarcoplasmic
hypertrophy.

There are two main ways that we build myofibrillar hypertrophy within The Grow Stronger
Method.

First, we use a series of core barbell lifts with power lifting parameters in order to produce
as much tension in the muscle as possible. This means using exercises like the barbell dead
lift or a press. We always train very close to our “one rep max”, with intensities that allow
only 1-5 repetitions . We also keep the overall volume very low and take long rest intervals.

The idea that you'll end up a “big fat power lifter” by lifting heavy and taking long rest
intervals is completely untrue. The fact is, most powerlifters have horrible diets and often
add lots of “supplemental” or “accessory” exercises to their workouts, both of these factors
contribute far more to their bulkiness than their heavy lifting. In fact I know first hand some
very lean powerlifters who lift more weight than bodybuilders fifty pounds heavier.

Next, we aim to produce as much tension within the muscle as possible. The more
electricity you drive into your muscle, the more tension is produced. Notice how much
tension a gymnast produces as he holds the Iron Cross position.

In the Grow Stronger system we will add several gymnastics and bodyweight exercises to our
workouts in order to teach our nervous system and muscles how to work together to produce
more force. These types of exercises produce tension in all of the muscles in your body.
Everything from your hand strength to your core strength will be challenged.

And that brings me to my last point. The Grow Stronger Method does not require that you
spend two hours in the gym, everyday. In fact, spending too much time working out is
counterproductive and may cause your results to suffer.

This is the Ultimate Minimalist Workout Plan! All you need is a barbell set, a chin up bar
and thirty to forty-five minutes three times a week to Grow Stronger!

14
 end of free chapters
Download The Full Version

15