“Victor” running an ultramarathon.

Pavel Tsatsouline is a former Soviet Special Forces physical training instructor, currently a subject matter expert to the US Navy SEALs and the US Secret Service. In 2001, Pavel’s and John Du Cane introduced the Russian kettlebell to the West.

Dan John is a former nationally-ranked discus thrower and Olympic lifter–as well as Fulbright Scholar–with more than four decades in the iron game.

T-shirt: Lance Armstrong to Pavel.

Enter Dan and Pavel

Years ago, my friend Dr. Jim Wright said something that got burned into my brain:
“Consistency and moderation over intensity.”

Not nearly as sexy as “Do or Die!” or some other juvenile T-shirt slogan, but you could not think of a better set of directions for durable performance.

You are about to meet a man who embodies this maxim. He is a US military special operator whose name I shall withhold due to the nature of his duty.

Let us call him “Victor.”

I met this quiet professional at one of our RKC military kettlebell courses. He was capable of a strict pullup with 160 pounds of extra weight, at a bodyweight of 195 pounds (and one-arm chins, naturally). He could close Iron Mind’s iconic #2.5 Captains of Crush hand gripper, 237.5 pounds strong, for three reps. And he had run over ten ultramarathons, from 50 to 100 miles!…

Any of the above is an accomplishment, but combining either the first or second feat with the third is unheard of. Especially if one considers that this man is not a pampered professional athlete, but a warrior with many combat deployments under his belt. I had to know more.

Victor graciously described his training:

Low mileage. I only ran 30 miles per week in preparation for the 100 miler. The most important training event for ultramarathons is the weekly long run. I kept my heart rate low and breathed through my nose during training runs, and I think that this helped to minimize muscle damage. I can run 20 miles on a Sunday, and still perform strength exercises on Monday. The key is having the LOW INTENSITY. I use a heart rate monitor, and I stay at 60-65% of my MHR. This means that I am often walking on the hills. If I ran 20 miles at 70-75% MHR, my recovery time would be much longer. I would do high intensity track or hill intervals on one day during the week, but the interval workout never lasted longer than 30 minutes. I keep the intervals pretty intense, though.

Fueling. I am religious about using proper fueling for all long distance events, and I swear by Hammer Nutrition. I consumed exactly 270 calories/hour for the entire 100 mile race (7:1 carbs/protein) and this gave me all the calories that I needed. The protein in my race nutrition (Hammer Perpetuem) helps to prevent muscle cannibalization during the race. Post-race/run, I drink Hammer Recoverite immediately after finishing, and try to get a good meal within an hour of the race.

Prior experience. I did my first 50-mile race 11 years ago, and I have completed over 10 ultramarathons since then. I know how my body will react after long distances, and this experience helps with the mental side of the sport. I have also completed many similar types of endurance events in my military training. Having this experience is very beneficial. I know that I can walk out the door anytime/anywhere and run a marathon pretty easily.

The hand strength and gripper stuff is just fun to do. I train them “Grease the Groove” style [easy sets throughout the day, every day—Ed.]. Of course it helps that I have been doing literally 100s of pull-ups per week (on average) for the last 14 years. I also have done a lot of rock climbing in my past, which really helps with grip strength.

Variety. I have enough variety in my training (yoga, running, biking, kettlebells, clubs, calisthenics) help keep me injury free. I try to get 1-2 days of yoga per week. Sometimes I go to a class, and sometimes on my own. I work the basic poses and focus on releasing some of the tension that comes from lots of running and strength training. The yoga has been great for injury prevention. I also do not lift any other weights besides my single 53lb. kettlebell, and my two 25lb. clubs. The only 1RM training that I do is with the gripper. I used to do presses and deadlifts after reading Power to the People!, but I felt my ego pushing me harder and faster than my body wanted to go. So I decided to limit myself to one kettlebell and two clubs and just focus on adding repetitions and intensity. Staying injury free has helped me to maintain consistent progress for the last 10 years.

I rarely train for more than 30 minutes per day. The only exception to this would be a weekly long run (3+ hours) and a weekly trail run (50-min). I have always done lots of trail running and I find that the trails are much easier on the legs. The steep trails keep things fun and help to prevent overuse injuries. I also keep my exercise selection pretty minimal: pushups, pull-ups, kettlebell swings, get-ups, windmills, goblet squats, and club mills/swipes. That is pretty much it.

I attribute most of my success to consistency. I have been training almost daily since I was 14 years old, and I am also fortunate to have a job that requires me to stay in shape. I also don’t think that there is any reason why strength and endurance have to be mutually exclusive…

Process vs. Outcome

In the mid-nineties, a curious book came out in the States: Body, Mind, and Sport by John Douillard. Given its focus on endurance sports, an apparent dislike of hard training and beef, and heavy doses of New Age discussions of Ayurveda, it is unlikely that it was read by many of our intense weightlifting friends. At least one did, though: Victor.

The book was dedicated to improving one’s performance by reducing the effort to 50%, enjoying the process, and not focusing on the result. The author cited a University of Texas in Austin study of goal-oriented and process-oriented people in the workplace. Unexpectedly, it was not the hypercompetitive Type “A” people who were doing more for the company, making more money, getting more raises and promotions. It was the folks who were enjoying their job.

Ironically, not getting wrapped up in the result may deliver higher gains. I had heard that before. One of the best pistol shooters in the Russian armed forces made a breakthrough in his accuracy when a coach told him, “You know, you have the right to miss.”

One of Douillard’s techniques was practicing a competitive sport without keeping score. “Focusing on the score attaches you to the result. Focusing on the process lets you access your greatest skill and increases your fun.” That rang true.

When I was working on my running in preparation for my military service, at least once a week I would leave my watch at home and go as far as I could while staying totally relaxed. I would draw out my breaths as far as possible comfortably, taking a series of partial inhalations (one per step), and then partial exhalations (one per step again). It took several steps, say six, to complete one breathing cycle. I scanned my body regularly for hidden tension and would release it by “breathing out” through the tight muscles and by shaking them off. I would keep my mouth closed, but not tightly, as relaxed jaws are essential to effortless running. Even after weeks when I did no other kind of running—no hard runs, no hills, no intervals, no running with weight—I could race any distance up to 10K very fast if I chose to. All I had to do was add some “gas” to the relaxation, and I flew.

Nose-only breathing was later stressed in my unit. They sometimes had us run with a mouthful of water—a brilliant self-limiting exercise in the best Gray Cook tradition. Some Russian marathoners hold a handkerchief in their teeth for the same purpose of preventing panicky and inefficient mouth breathing.

Not surprisingly, nose-only breathing and keeping the heart rate low were key components of the Body, Mind, and Sport program. The inventive author figured out a way to “make it a competitive endeavor. For example… run around the track and the winner will be the one who not only finishes first, but has the slowest breath rate and heart rate.”

Here is how he scored the winners:

Finish Time + Heart Rate + (Breath Rate x 3)

The lowest score wins, and he multiplies the breath rate by 3 to emphasize its importance.

Victor stresses, “The low HR and nose breathing are essential. After a few months of consistent practice, nose-breathing should be used for the tempo run as well. Nose breathing teaches breath control, and also acts as a “governor” that helps to prevent overtraining.” This is especially important to an athlete for whom running endurance is not the number one priority.

Endurance or strength, Dr. Anatoly Bondarchuk (Olympic hammer throw champion and coach of champions) makes a stunning revelation that the harder you push the body, the more stubbornly it refuses change:

“In our practice, with each year we have become more convinced that the stronger our desires to significantly increase the level of achievement… the less the effect… This is explained by the fact that the stronger the complex of training effects, then the more harmony there is in the defense functions in the body… This in every way possible creates barriers or prevents a new level of adaptation, where in the process of restructuring it is necessary to expend a significant amount of energy resources.

…the defense function of the body systems in high level athletes is more “trained” than in low level athletes. From here a very “bold” conclusion follows, that the process of increasing sports mastery takes place at the same level as the process of developing defense functions. In the end result, the defense functions prevail over most of the time of sports development… Up to this time, all of this is a “superbold” hypothesis, giving food for very “fantastic” propositions, but there is something in all of this… Today it is only sufficiently clear that in the process of sports improvement, the body always defends itself against the irritants acting upon it.”

The ability to differentiate between “laziness” and “doing just the right amount to get the job done” is a mark of a winner. Recalls AAU American bench press record holder Jack Reape:

“I spent the first half of my training career learning to work harder and never miss workouts, and the second half learning when to sometimes go easier and when to back off.”

The above is excerpted from Pavel and Dan’s new book, Easy Strength. Learn more about it here.

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ODDS AND ENDS: Breville winner and Angel Investor of the Year?

Jan Winklmann is the winner of the Random Show Breville competition. Please check your email. I need your final OK to ship. Danke sehr!

Angel Investor of the Year?

Reader Cody Candee nominated me as “Best Angel Investor of the Year” for the TechCrunch Crunchies. Thanks, Cody! If you’ve followed my investing or like what I’ve written on the subject (samples here), I’d very much appreciate your support.

To second Cody’d nomination, just click here and then click “share” next to my name. It takes just 5 seconds, literally.

I’m an advisor and/or investor with companies including Evernote (Just announced: Inc. Magazine’s “Start-up of the Year” — congrats, boys!), Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Uber, Shopify, TaskRabbit, and many more. Thus far, no real fatalities in almost 4 years of doing this, and cost basis recouped 20x+.

(Photo: RunningClouds)

Last-minute packing is an art form, and most of my trips allow me to pack less than 10 pounds for a world tour.

This time, 10 pounds was just the starting point. My packing list was straight out of a James Bond movie:

“Shovel?”
“Helmet?!”
“Avalanche kit?!?”
“Tracking beacon?!?!”

I was seeing it for the first time around 4pm in the afternoon. The next morning, I’d be departing for Chile for “cat” (snowcat) skiing in Patagonia, after six years of no snow sports. What the hell had I signed up for?

Baptism by Ice – 15 Key Lessons

This post is based on my lessons and experimentation with the PowderQuest crew, with special thanks to Mo and David.

The first day was sheer terror. The second day was an improvement — just laughable. Then, around the third day…

Suddenly, I was skiing powder.

It wasn’t a gradual learning process. There were a few critical insights and lessons learned that immediately changed my ability to handle powder.

Here they are.

Positional tips and posture:

- Read a big newspaper. Keep your hands in front of you and downhill, as is reading a big open newspaper. Never read newspapers? Aim for about 6″ outside of shoulder width. Look at the picture sequence at the top of this post and notice the arm positioning throughout.

Keep your hands further ahead than you think makes sense.

- From this newspaper position, plant wide with your poles before your turn, and only move your wrists. Keep your arms from moving and flying backward, which throws you off balance — maintain newspaper position.

- Narrow your stance a bit, but not so close that your skis are touching. This will help with the “one ski, one turn” turning mantra discussed below.

- It’s fine to squat down a bit, but don’t let your knees end up behind your ankles. If your weight is this far back, you will suffer. “Sit back more!” is common powder-skiing advice, but all it did was burn out my legs and unweight the front of the skis, which led to the tips crossing more easily. Crossing = face plant. If your hands are forward, your weight is forward; if you hands are back, you’re weight is back. Once again: keep them more forward than you think makes sense.

- Scrunch your toes occasionally to test excess back-lean. If you can’t scrunch your toes, you’re leaning too far back.

Turning:

- Imagine your turns as rounded zig-zags down a hill. Squat at the mid-point of the straight lines, then — without a pause at the bottom — stand up to near-straight legs, which will unweight you. This is when you turn. Don’t time turns for when you are moving slowest; time turns with when you’re naturally unweighted.

- [This was big for me] Don’t avoid bump-like contours in the snow — aim for them! Rather than navigate around these bumps, run up them to unweight. It actually makes turning easier. Be sure to speak with a guide or snow patroller who can teach you the different between safe snow bumps (all snow) and dangerous bumps covering submerged rocks.

- Make turns with your femur (thigh bone) instead off the edge of the ski. In other words, envision your thighs rotating in your pelvis, in the same direction, to turn the skis.

Don’t ski as you would on harder snow. If you catch your lower edge to turn (fine on groomed runs), the lower ski will just shoot under the snow, cross under your floating top ski, and you will then eat snow.

- “One ski, one turn” — a mantra for the preceding point. Make all of your turns as if you have one big ski, and rotate your thighs instead of catching edges. Try and maintain equal pressure on each ski for the entire run.

- Don’t rush it. Imagine taking nice, rounded turns — again, using your femur to slowly rotate the skis — as opposed to the hopping into ice-scaper-on-windshield zig-zag.

Notice the “S”-like curves after the straight-away traverses.

Gear:

- USE FAT SKIS. Once you go fat, you will never go back. Additionally, a little bit of rocker (reverse camber) goes a long way. This approach was originally tested by the renegade skiers who rigged waterskiing skis on snow.

- Drop some cash for boots if you can. I don’t ski often, so I wanted to rent skis, but damn: I was punished for renting boots. Particularly if you’ll be spending several days out-of-bounds or in the backcountry (“off piste” or fuera de pista in Spanish), particularly if you might be spending thousands on a trip, spend a few hundred on boots that will custom fit and last. Having foot pain while far away from ski lodges for 10-15 hours at a time sucks.

Find a good bootfitter at the resort, get a pair the first morning of a multi-day trip, and have the bootfitter adjust hot spots and customize to your foot that afternoon for pick up the following morning.

Falling and Yardsale Insurance:

It’s not a matter of if, but rather when, so learn how to get up the right way when you flip.

- X-factor: If you fall, don’t put your hands down to push yourself up, as you’ll simply fall through and get a snow sandwich. Cross your poles into an “X,” hold onto the intersection with one hand, place it uphill from you, and then push yourself up.

- The Sweeper: If you are a fall-prone novice, as I was, ask or hire someone to play “sweeper” and ski behind you, so that they can help you find skis if you eject out of them or “yard sale” (when you fall spectacularly and your gear shoots in all directions). Experienced skiers can still have fun while doing this for you, as they don’t need to ski slowly, but rather start their descent well after you.

- If you eat sh*t 10 times in a row, do two things. First, pause after each turn, or pause after getting up, and catch your breath for 20 seconds. No rush, brah. Second, when you’re ready to punch yourself in the face, or when your legs are totally shot, put your big girl pants on, head down to the ski lodge, and grab a hot chocolate or Hot Toddy by the fire. That will calm your inner animal, make you smile, and get you psyched to tackle it again in the morning.

Learning to ski powder can be immensely frustrating, but — like most things — it doesn’t have to be. If you’re looking for an incredible tour company for Argentina or Chile, take a peek at PowderQuest, who were simply awesome.

Enjoy the fresh tracks!

Have some additional tips? Please leave them in the comments!

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Odds and Ends:
Join me in Australia with Sir Richard Branson; Live Kindle Q&A

First, I’m finally making it to Melbourne, Australia!

Will you be near Australia Oct 21-22? If you can, join me, Sir Richard Branson, and others here. I’ve never been to Melbourne or this event, but I’m really looking forward to good company, good conversation, and good food.

Second, I will be doing a live Q&A soon for anyone who wants to submit questions via Kindle.

The questions can be about anything in The 4-Hour Workweek or The 4-Hour Body, but if you can tie your question — about tango, languages, Ewoks, etc. — to a passage, ask whatever you like.

Here’s how to send me a question, and early submissions get priority, so please submit sooner rather than later:

1. Using your Kindle (I suggest Kindle 3) or the Kindle App for iOS (iPhone & iPad), highlight a passage in either The 4-Hour Workweek or The 4-Hour Body. You will see options for: Note, Highlight, and Share. Choose Share. This won’t work in the desktop Kindle app.
2. You will see options to share via Twitter and Facebook. Choose Twitter.
3. Type the phrase “@author”, followed by your message to Tim Ferriss. Press the tweet button.
If you haven’t linked your Twitter account, you will see a dialogue that says “Set Up Account – You need to set up your Twitter account before Sharing.” If this pops up, press Okay.
4. Press the “Link Account” button on the screen to link your Twitter account.
5. Type your Twitter username and password, then press “Sign In”. You will be taken back to a screen where you will see your Twitter account linked. Press “Done.”
6. You will be taken back to the Kindle reading app and your message will be sent to the author.

This short presentation, delivered in Berlin at the NEXT Conference, covers the four key principles of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The 4-Hour Body. It also includes an interview with the fantastic David Rowan, editor of Wired Magazine in the UK.

The Q&A covers smart drugs, Ambien, measurement of “thoughts” (prefrontal cortex activity), and more.

All speaker videos from NEXT can be found here, and include some gems, like the inimitable CTO of Amazon, Dr. Werner Vogels.

I first met filmmaker Adam Patch, courtesy of David Brundage on Facebook, over Thai food in San Francisco.

It was a warm evening in the Mission district, a good omen and unusual blessing. The goal of our meeting was simple: to see if we clicked and, passing that hurdle, to plot the making of “the best book trailer ever made.”

Whether we pulled it off or not, that ambitious mission statement was necessary to survive the many all-nighters and hiccups that would follow.

August of 2010 was the starting point.

On November 30th, the end product was a 59-second trailer, which debuted on Huffington Post Books. It immediately took The 4-Hour Body from near #150 to #30 on Amazon, where it later climbed to #1.

The launch was initiated by a simple poll post, which was followed by an analytical second post. Due to its high production value, the video then made the jump from online to offline, eventually making it to national TV for The Dr. Oz Show (see the clip at :40).

This post will explain exactly how the trailer was created, including early concepts, tools, the team, and more…

Hitting the Pink Elephant First

Let’s hit the most common question first. How much did it all cost?

I paid close to $12,000 total, but I also brought a lot of resources and co-promotional opportunity to the table. The same trailer done with a good freelancer could cost $40-50,000. If you choose a production company, which involves more moving pieces, it could add up to $100,000+.

But don’t be scared away by the above numbers. Can you sometimes make budgetary miracles happen? Most certainly.

Emulating a Hollywood film is much more expensive than a slick demo trailer such as those produced by Epipheo, and the latter is better suited to many start-ups and services:

Second, it’s easier to contain costs if you have a clear vision of your goal, as well as a clear picture of your would-be partner’s longer-term goals. In my first fateful meeting with Adam, I slid a piece of paper across the table within ten minutes of us sitting down — the draft storyboard:

Click here for larger version.

Following up on our meeting, I sent him this e-mail:

Hi Adam,

OK, so here are some goodies to get your juices flowing.

Here is the basic book idea — I’ve made myself a guinea pig so you don’t have to:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/06/22/the-next-book-from-rapid-fat-loss-to-strongmen-a-guide-to-becoming-superhuman/

The video clip in this mock-up vid (attached) is from an incredible gymnast in the UK, Damien Walters. I have an email in to him to see if we’d be able to use any of his stuff. Pretty amazing, but it’ll give you an idea.

Current book cover is attached. I imagine it, some variation, or book/combo would appear at the end after the dude jumps over the car (perhaps even mid-air), or whichever visual we use.

Other potential vids for ideas:

Breathholding:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn6cley8WDE (jump to :25 or so, seems very low-cost but potentially HD)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQITWbAaDx0 (just for fun)

Deadlift: http://www.youtube.com/user/Konstantinovs

Running: 2:35 or so forward here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRZvlQTTCMg

These are all starting points, but feel free to go nuts with your imagination. I want your ideas and input.

Look forward to your treatment!

Tim

How did it all hold up? Here’s the final product in HD (give it some time to load):

Getting from that scrap of paper to spots on national TV was not easy.

The music portion alone almost killed the project. But the success of this trailer IS replicable.

The following interview and footnotes will explain the process and the lessons learned.

Adam Patch, interviewed by Charlie Hoehn (with comments by Tim)

Tell us a bit about your background.

My name is Adam Patch, and I directed and edited the trailer for The 4-Hour Body. I went to film school in San Francisco to learn directing, and got my start doing music videos, commercials, and motion graphics editing. I’ve been a freelancer for the last five years or so.

How were you chosen to direct the 4HB trailer?

I received a call from Tim one day, out of the blue.

He introduced himself, told me about the new book, and said he wanted to do a trailer for it. It sounded cool, and I hadn’t really seen many book trailers, so I was intrigued by the idea.

When we first met up, Tim laid out his entire vision, which was pretty clear from the beginning. He already had the track from Sevendust (“Splinter”) picked out, and knew he wanted to base all of the trailer’s visuals around that song.

After our first meeting, I wrote up a treatment (which is just a specific outline of how I wanted to shoot the trailer and the energy I wanted to bring to it), presented it to Tim, and he was on board right away. Shortly after that, we went and filmed it on a two-day shoot.

[TIM: Here is the original treatment Adam presented to me]

What happened after The 4-Hour Body trailer came out?

It blew up. The trailer got a ton of great comments on YouTube [896 at the time of this writing], the hits on my website took off, and I got several calls from other publishers interested in doing book trailers. I’ve also been getting emails from film students who are interested in learning how I did certain effects. It’s been really cool to see such a positive response to the video.

The trailer opens with a shot of Tim working at a table. Can you talk about that day of shooting?

We basically did a full day’s worth of shooting at the atrium inside Tim’s house. We knew that we were going to split it up, so we took our time finessing everything and really made sure all the shots looked nice. And visually-speaking, the atrium was super cool to photograph.

How Adam gave the atrium a cinematic feel in After Effects.

We brought all this stuff to make it look like a mad scientist lab, like he had been doing experiments on himself and taking notes. We shot that 30-second part of the video for probably six hours in one day. Then the following day, we drove all around the Bay, meeting up with each of the people in the video and shooting their little vignettes.

What goes into a six-hour shoot like that? Why does it take so long?

Almost all of that time was spent setting up lights. We lit up his whole atrium so it looked cool on camera, laid out a dolly track, and set up two cameras for shooting. We had a rough idea of what we wanted to shoot, but we were also exploring while we were there and coming up with ideas on the fly. For instance, there was one shot from overhead where the camera kind of drops down on Tim, and we didn’t really plan for that shot.

Typically, a shot like that would be done with a jib. But we didn’t have a jib, so what we did is we had the camera up on two C-stands and had two of our grips lower them down slowly. That looked pretty amateurish while we were doing it, but we also couldn’t see what we were shooting. We just put the camera up there and hoped it would work. So it was cool because it actually turned out pretty great.

There’s also a shot of a dilating eye. How did you guys shoot that?

We just had Tim sit in front of a camera with his eye closed for 20 seconds or so. We had a light nearby so that his eyes would quickly dilate when he opened them. Then I actually enlarged his pupil in post-production to make it even more noticeable.

What were the “holding your breath in the pool” shots like?

Those little pool shots were with Nathan Zaru. I remember it was kind of cold outside, and the water was freezing. And we had to keep doing take-after-take to make sure we got it right.

The camera we were using was the GoPro HD Cam, which is this really small HD camera where you can’t see what you’re shooting at all. It just has a fisheye lens. You shoot with it, and then you have to download the footage to see what it looks like. So we would do several takes with the camera from different positions, hoping one of them would work. In the meantime, poor Nathan is just sitting there freezing his ass off. By the end, his lips had literally turned solid blue, and we finally said, “Okay, that’s probably enough. I’m sure we got it.” It worked out.

How about the deadlifting shot in the gym?

We went down to Mark Wild’s Wild Iron Gym in San Jose, which is a really tiny, grimy old-school gym. It’s basically a big storage unit with a roll-up door, and there’s a whole bunch of huge dudes working out inside. It was pretty awesome.

What was amazing about that shot was that powerlifter Mark Bell [our photo subject] was just in the middle of a workout. It wasn’t like we were telling him to do the lift. I mean, he helped move stuff around to make it look good, but it wasn’t as staged as I thought it would be. He was lifting about 600 pounds, repeatedly. He kept saying, “You guys want me to do it again?” It was nuts.

[TIM: Just for fun, compare the above "after" post-production shot with the below "before" still. The footage is exactly the same. Notice any differences?]

We also shot Tracy Reifkind with the kettlebell at the same location. We were trying to find a good spot to film her workout, and it was basically a parking lot and storage units. So we ended up lugging all of our gear onto the roof of the building and shooting.

Her scene is on the roof of this huge industrial building. It was kind of sketchy; you’re not supposed to be able to get up there. But we shimmied up the ladder with all of our gear and shot her at the top, just so we could have a nice view of the sky.

What about the running portion?

We were driving around with Brian MacKenzie, trying to find a good spot to shoot his stuff, and we ended up finding a cool place right off of the freeway in San Mateo. We pulled over and ended up shooting a lot of different angles, because I wasn’t sure I was going to use them at cut. There’s a ton of footage of him just running around and going through trees and trails, but we only ended up using a tiny portion of it.

And the second to last shot: the Parkour jump over the wall?

We shot that with Brian Orosco at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, and he was just coming off of a sprained ankle, so he wasn’t even up to par. It was a little scary because we weren’t sure how many takes we would get. He was totally doing us a huge favor and after the first jump, we didn’t expect to get another take. We figured he would hurt himself or something and we’d have to move on. But he was great. He did that jump four times, I think. And the one we ended up using in the trailer was what he called “The Lazy Boy,” where he puts his hands behind his head and jumps off.

We have to talk about the original ending. The first time Tim and I watched it, we busted out laughing. It just didn’t work.

[Laughs] Yeah. When Tim first spoke to me about the trailer, he told me a theme of his book was “becoming superhuman.” And one of the things that I put in my original treatment was that it would be cool at the end (after Brian jumps off the wall) if it were actually Tim who slams down in the final shot. So I wanted to do this totally epic comic book-style, like “Sin City” or something, where Tim would smash down on his knee and look up at the camera. That was the plan, at least.

[TIM: Here's what the rough cut looked like, using placeholder numbers for experiments, test subjects, etc. Try and keep a straight face at the end.]

Keep in mind that this shot would only look good after a lot of work in post-production. But it was basically Tim softly dropping down to the ground, which looked extremely silly while we were shooting it. I still think that if I’d had some time to fix the shot, it probably would have turned out cool. But in the first round of edits, it just looked like a joke.

Tim called me right after he saw it for the first time, and he couldn’t stop laughing. He suggested we replace him with the book slamming down instead.

The book was just a high-res still of the cover, and I rebuilt it in 3D using After Effects. I took the different planes, rebuilt a book shape, and just slammed it down. I added dust particles and concrete cracking and all that stuff to make it seem more energetic than just a cut to the book’s title.

What kind of gear did you and your crew use during this shoot?

My crew consisted of Phillip Briggs (cinematographer), Jeremy Wong (1st AC), Chris Galdes (gaffer), and Chris Bennett (grip). Below is the full list of video gear I had to use for this shoot (minus lighting equipment).

Cameras from the shoot:
- Canon 5D
- Canon 7D
- GoPro HD Camera (for the underwater shot)

Camera Lenses:
- Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro
- Canon EF 14mm f/2.8 Mark II USM
- Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

My workstation set up:
- 8 core Mac Pro (2 x 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon) with 10GBs of RAM
- 2 x 24″ Apple Cinema Displays
- Medium Intuos 4 Wacom Tablet (I use this instead of a mouse)

Software/Plugins I used for trailer:
- Final Cut Pro
- After Effects
- Twixtor (for all slow motion shots)
- Magic Bullet Looks (for color correction)

Footnotes and Cautionary Notes from Tim

But what about the music? Ahhhhh…. music. You capricious little minx, you.

The entire trailer started as a fantasy while listening to Sevendust’s “Splinter” track in an airport. I chartered Charlie with identifying the route to licensing and the costs involved.

At first glance, it appeared that, for online use only, we needed to pay approximately $320 to either ASCAP or BMI, two large clearing houses for licensing music.

In the beginning, it seemed so simple. That is, until is wasn’t simple at all. Here’s what we found in the rabbit hole, partially from ASCAP and partially from industry mentors:

There were six writers on the title “Splinter” performed by the band known as “Sevendust”:

John M Connolly
Vincent E Hornsby
Edward Clint Lowery
Corey French Lowery
La Jon Witherspon

There were four related publishers, listed below, Chrysalis being the primary and the place the start:

Publishers/Administrators:
CHRYSALIS MUSIC
DARK NEW MUSIC
KAYLA 1 PUBLISHING
VEH PUBLISHING

Once determining the above, the standard next steps were then:

Issue a “quote request” to the publishers (starting with Chrysalis) indicating the various rights and terms we were looking to clear. The request could start with “initial rights”, the most narrow we could manage, followed by “options” for broader rights. To begin the quote request, we’d need to define the scope of rights sought:

Initial Rights:

Media: Internet and TV (Need to specify if this is “all tv”, free tv, cable, satellite, etc.)
Territory: For Internet, it’s the world; for TV, is this for “Good Morning America” in the US only? North America?World?
Timing: What is the length of the use — how much of the track? Is it edited or interrupted?
Nature: Is it a background vocal? Background instrumental? Visual vocal? How is the song being used (i.e. In what context)?
Term: 6 months minimum with two options for 1 year, then 3 years? Additionally, there would be a master recording which needs separate clearance.

Sevendust’s “Splinter” also came out through Asylum, who would be the label to clear the master, typically on an MFN basis (most-favored-nation) with the publisher’s quote. While it might be helpful to have a relationship with the band (to approve the use and help expedite the process), ultimately we’d have to deal with the publisher and label at the end of the day.

Sound complicated? It should, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

It was then time for disaster-recovery planning.

Since the trailer made no sense without accompanying music, and “Splinter” was up in the air, I began to look for sound engineers as a back-up insurance policy. For a 60-second original track, the cost could range from $500 to well over $10,000, all depending on the complexity of the score, their reputations, past clients, etc.

Based on Adam’s original recommendations, I ended up working with two engineers/musicians: Steve Emerson and Dave Groseclose.

Re-editing the visuals before launch was impossible, so their tracks would need to match the cadence of our cuts. Both Steve and Dave were excellent to work with. Here are two of their samples:

Steve Emerson:

Dave Groseclose:

Incredibly, at the 11th hour — literally, late the night before the final video deadline — we received the official go-ahead to use Sevendust’s track online, and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Alvin Witherspoon, LJ’s father; Tony Couch, Sevendust’s manager; and Aaron Ray of The Collective for making it happen.

Last but certainly not least, thank you to Sevendust for creating such incredible music. If you haven’t heard their stuff, you should absolutely grab either Cold Day Memory or their acoustic Southside Double-Wide.

In summary: If you’re on deadline and need music, either hire a professional (such as a seasoned production company) to manage the complexity, or hire a sound engineer from the outset. Licensing tunes is not for the faint of heart.

The Morale (and Moral) of the Story

This trailer was incredible fun to create. It was also extremely stressful towards the end, with more than a few late-night sessions fueled by wine and caffeine.

The entire experience was infused with an anticipation wouldn’t have existed without the ambitious “create the best X ever” goal. I also believe, as smooth as most things were, it could have gone horribly wrong without a few key ingredients:

- A well-defined vision for the end product
- In-depth review of Adam’s prior reels, as well as in-person discussion, to ensure an aesthetic match.
- Two brainstorming sessions with Adam prior to making things official, to ensure a collaborative match. Creative headbutting, as opposed to give-and-take, creates delays. The request for treatment was also to observe his response time, which was outstanding. Remember: reliability and on-time delivery is more important than optimal skill set.
- Alignment of interest: Instead of focusing solely on price, Adam and I looked at how we could help each other. He was eager to show-off his killer directorial abilities in addition to his post-production skills, and the trailer provided an outlet.

As I’ve written before and still maintain:

It’s lonely at the top. 99% of the world is convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre middle-ground. The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them the most time- and energy-consuming. It is often easier to raise $10,000,000 than it is $1,000,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s.

If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.

Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve for yet another reason.

Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal. Realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level, are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem, at which point you throw in the towel. If the potential payoff is mediocre or average, so is your effort. I’ll run through walls to get a catamaran trip through the Greek islands, but I might not change my brand of cereal for a weekend trip through Columbus, Ohio. If I choose the latter because it is “realistic,” I won’t have the enthusiasm to jump even the smallest hurdle to accomplish it. With beautiful, crystal-clear Greek waters and delicious wine on the brain, I’m prepared to do battle for a dream that is worth dreaming. Even though their difficulty of achievement on a scale of 1-10 appears to be a 2 and a 10 respectively, Columbus is more likely to fall through.

The fishing is best where the fewest go. There is just less competition for bigger goals.

As the Romans (or at least Turnus) would say: “Fortes fortuna adiuvat!”

Fortune favors the bold. Have fun with it.

Human flight in the form of judo. (Photo: Fabiogis50)

Pavel Tsatsouline was punching me in the ass.

It’s not every day that you have a former Soviet Special Forces instructor punch you in the butt cheeks. But it was the second day of Russian Kettlebell Certification (RKC), and we were practicing constant tension, one of several techniques intended to increase strength output. In this case, we spot-checked each other with punches. Pavel, now a U.S. citizen and subject matter expert to the U.S. Secret Service Counter Assault Team, wandered the ranks, contributing jabs where needed.

Two hours earlier, Pavel had asked the attendees for someone stuck at a 1-rep maximum (1RM) in the one-arm overhead press. He then proceeded to take the volunteer from 53 lbs. to 72 lbs. in less than five minutes: a 26% strength increase. Translated into more familiar terms, this would represent a jump in one-repetition max from 106 pounds to 144 pounds in the barbell military press.

There were dozens of such demonstrations throughout the weekend, and each was intended to reinforce a point: strength is a skill.

Not only is strength a skill, but it can be learned quickly.

The following article, authored by Pavel, describes how he helped his father become an American record holder in powerlifting with just one hour of training per week…

Enjoy.

Enter Pavel

“Doing the unrealistic is easier than doing the realistic,” Tim wrote in The 4-Hour Workweek:

“It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most time- and energy-consuming… The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone else is aiming for base hits. There is just less competition for bigger goals.”

Running is the most democratic of all sports. Because it seems so unthreatening—“anyone can do it”—every local race is packed, and your chances of placing are slim to none.

In contrast, sports like powerlifting, grip sport, or arm wrestling have a remarkably small number of competitors. Showing up already means that you have defeated 99% of the contenders. They were too intimidated to even try.

A couple of years ago, I brought my 70-year old father to a power meet to keep me company. But he was not content to watch; I caught him in the warm-up area deadlifting 225 pounds with bad form. So, you want to compete, Dad? Affirmative.

My father, Vladimir, is a lifetime athlete—swimmer, boxer, judoka, skier, fencer, you name it. But he had not been bitten by the iron bug until then. He started training. A year later, he stood up with 374 pounds—without a belt!—at a body weight of 181 pounds and broke the American record (USPF single lift DL, 70-74 years old). Even if he took to running with the same zeal, he would still be finishing in the second wave of a local 5K race.

Vladimir Tsatsulin deadlifting on Muscle Beach Venice in one of his first meets. (Photo courtesy of www.venicepaparazzi.com)

Tim was right: “Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve for yet another reason. Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal. Realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level, are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem, at which point you will throw in the towel.”

My father’s training is very 4HWW. It is driven by Pareto’s Law and Parkinson’s Law. The former states that the lion’s share of the output is produced by a small fraction of the input. My old man wants to excel in the deadlift, so he deadlifts. He does no assistance exercises.

The other law, Parkinson’s, decrees that, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Deadlines imposed by regular powerlifting competitions keep my father focused on what strength coach Dan John calls “keeping the goal the goal.” This is why Vladimir competes, typically twice a year.

Would you like to follow my old man and become a successful lifter?

You have a choice of competing in all three powerlifting events (squat, bench press, and deadlift) or becoming a BP or DL specialist.

If doing all three appeals to you, review the article I wrote for Tim’s blog, 80/20 Powerlifting and How to Add 110+ Pounds to Your Lifts.

If you want to take the bench press route, you cannot do better than former Coach Powerlifting Team USA Marty Gallagher’s plan on pages 425-430 of The 4-Hour Body.

If you choose to be a deadlift specialist, follow my father’s tested plan.

Vladimir’s Deadlift Regimen

Vladimir competes only in the deadlift for three reasons. First, he has an old shoulder injury that prevents him from serious squatting and benching. Second, competing in only one event allows the athlete to have an ultra-narrow, highly focused goal. Third, the other two lifts demand that one adds a lot of muscle in order to be competitive. The deadlift is an exception, a pure “mind lift” that allows one to get very strong without adding much weight. Consider this video of one of our RKC kettlebell instructors, Melissa Klundby, pulling a record 314.5 pounds at a bodyweight of 128:

(Video courtesy of Melissa Klundby, RKC)

Dad deadlifts twice a week, once heavy and once light.

The light Monday workout never changes: 225 x 5/5. It serves several functions. First, technique pactice. Second, maintaining muscle mass close to a meet, when training volume on the heavy day has been reduced. To give you an idea how well this has been working, Prof. Stuart McGill commented that he had never seen such a muscular back on a seventy year old. And McGill, the world’s leading spine biomechanist and consultant to Olympic teams of several countries, has seen a great many impressive backs. Third, because the load remains the same, the perceived rate of exertion allows Vladimir to monitor his strength gains by paying attention to the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE).

Traditionally RPE is logged on a 1 to 10 scale, but I like my father’s method better: percentage of an all-out effort. Throughout the training cycle — before the meet in which he pulled his personal record 380 — his RPE readings for the light day read:

60%, 50%, 49%, 48%, 47%, 46%, 44%, 43%, 42%

You might say, “You have got to be kidding! 42%?! No one can define their perceived effort with such accuracy.”

True. In my father’s system, such increments simply mean that the weight felt a hair lighter than the last time. And I was very pleased to see the pattern as the light workout stayed the same for the duration of the cycle, and apples could be compared to apples. He was obviously getting stronger.

My father’s heavy day is Friday. Saturday would be better, as powerlifting meets are almost always held on this day, but Friday works too.

Following is the plan I had designed for his last competition (warm-ups are performed first):

Vladimir Tsatsulin’s 380-pound deadlift. The 73-year old athlete has been powerlifting for only a couple of years. (Video courtesy Steve Belanger, RKC)

Let us take the plan apart piece by piece.

First, the ‘warm-up’. It is a skill rehearsal more than anything. Note the low reps; one of the mistakes inexperienced lifters make is wasting their energy in their warm-ups—very un-4HWW.

Second, reps. Fives rule. Proven by decades of powerlifting experience, it is the most productive rep count for building lasting strength. Higher reps do not work as well and lower reps tend to burn the athlete out quickly. Which is why we switch to triples and doubles only for a couple of weeks before the meet to bring the strength to a short term peak.

Third, sets. The given numbers are not writ in stone but the pattern of reducing the total number of reps—in our example from 25 (5/5) in the first workout to 4 (2/2) in the last—as the cycle progresses towards the big day is almost universal. The volume is reduced because the weights have gotten a lot heavier and because the athlete needs extra recovery before competing.

Fourth, progression. Everything in nature is cyclical. It is impossible to add weight or reps indefinitely; you have to back off after achieving a personal best. It is not a matter of choice but of natural law. Whether you like it or not, thou shalt cycle. Master RKC Mark Reifkind, former Coach Powerlifting Team USA, jokes about the “tough guy cycle”: Heavy, heavier, even heavier, injury, light… Since your body will force you to downshift no matter what, you might as well plan for it. “The next step off a peak is always down,” warns Rif, “One should step down rather than fall off.” Which is why powerlifters developed a procedure called ‘cycling,’ which requires that one starts with weights and reps well below one’s ability, gradually goes heavier, posts a PR in competition, and starts over with light weights. He who denies the cyclical nature of adaptation is always punished.

Fifth, the length of the cycle. Eight to twelve week cycles are the norm among competitive powerlifters. The exact length is determined by the competition calendar, nine weeks in my father’s example. To map out a cycle, work back from the date of the competition. Here is a foolproof way of doing it:

Start with setting a goal for two sets of two reps on your last heavy workout before competition. For a beginner to intermediate lifter, the current 1RM is a realistic goal, but feel free to be more conservative as I am with my father.

Work back in increments of 2-5% of your one-rep max to arrive at your starting training weight. Vladimir jumps 10 pounds a week, which is a little under 3%. For reasons which are outside the scope of this article, I urge you not to take steps smaller than 2% (except when learning technique).

Let us design a sample cycle for a deadlifter with a 275-lb. 1RM. 2% of that weight is 5.5 pounds and 5% is 13.75. 10-pound jumps are what the doctor ordered. If our hypothetical puller has twelve weeks to go before competition, his poundages will be:

Week 1: 165
Week 2: 175
Week 3: 185
Week 4: 195
Week 5: 205
Week 6: 215
Week 7: 225
Week 8: 235
Week 9: 245
Week 10: 255
Week 11: 265
Week 12: 275 (2 x 2) < — start with this number and work backward
Week 13: Meet

Do five sets of five every week. It will feel very easy in the beginning. Don’t fret, it is supposed to be, as you are building ‘momentum’. Do NOT do more reps or sets than prescribed and do not reduce the prescribed rest periods! You will walk out of the gym wanting to do more and this is the way it is supposed to be.

At some point, the weights will get heavy. When you have barely made your 5/5 with good form, next workout switch to 3/3. Note that this sudden drop in sets and reps allows one to have a relatively easy workout in order to unload before the peak. It is one of the secrets behind the given cycle’s effectiveness.

Week 1: 165 x 5/5
Week 2: 175 x 5/5
………………
Week 10: 255 x 3/3
Week 11: 265 x 2/2
Week 12: 275 x 2/2
Week 13: Meet

The last two workouts before the meet are 2/2. And the number of 3/3 sessions will vary depending on how long you will keep on making 5/5 gains. This is the beauty of this cycle: it adjusts to you. In my father’s case, I had no doubt he would put up 305×5/5, was convinced that 325 was too much, and was not sure about 315. Hence the plan read, “315 x 5/5 or 3/3.”

This is how things might work out for our 275-pound puller:

Week 1: 165 x 5/5
Week 2: 175 x 5/5
Week 3: 185 x 5/5
Week 4: 195 x 5/5
Week 5: 205 x 5/5
Week 6: 215 x 5/5
Week 7: 225 x 5/5
Week 8: 235 x 5/5 (PR)
Week 9: 245 x 5/5 (PR)
Week 10: 255 x 3/3 (did not try sets of five because the last workout was very hard)
Week 11: 265 x 2/2
Week 12: 275 x 2/2
Week 13: Meet 300 PR

It is also possible that you will have to switch to triples on week nine or even earlier for stronger lifters. No problem, the flexible cycle accommodates any strength growth dynamics.

To sum up your plan of action:

- Start a cycle eight to twelve weeks before the meet.
- Plan on doing 2/2 with your current max on the week before the meet.
- Work back in 2-5% 1RM weekly increments to arrive at your starting poundage.
- Do 5/5 on your heavy day, preferably Saturday.
- Optional: a light workout of 40-60% 1RM x 5/5 and 5min of rest between sets three days after the heavy one.
- When it appears that you have reached your 5/5 limit, next workout switch to 3/3.
- The last two workouts before the meet are 2/2. The number of 3/3 workouts will vary depending on how long you will keep on making 5/5 gains.

Learn and perfect your technique first.

Find a powerlifter—not a bodybuilder and not a typical personal trainer—to teach you. Then subscribe to Powerlifting USA magazine and find a competition near you that’s three months away. Look for ‘raw’ meets that require you to compete without special squat suits, bench shirts, etc. AAU is one of the federations that hosts raw competitions.

An ‘unrealistic’ goal accomplished: my father becomes an American record holder—training only one hour per week. (Photo courtesy of www.venicepaparazzi.com)

I shall wrap up with another quote from The 4-Hour Workweek: “For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks… The universe doesn’t conspire against you but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up all the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct the course along the way.”

Do it now. What do you have to lose, except your weakness?

# # #

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Pavel Tsatsouline is a former Soviet Special Forces physical training instructor, currently a subject matter expert to US special operations units. Pavel’s bestselling book Beyond Bodybuilding has been endorsed by Larry Scott, Dave Draper, Marty Gallagher, and Louie Simmons. Subscribe to Pavel’s free e-newsletter and get a free course on building strong abs the Russian way at www.PowerbyPavel.com