Guest post by Renegade Inner Circle member, Joshua Grant.
A few years ago I decided to stop training.
Completely.
This was a kind of experiment on my part. Having a naturally curious mind I wanted to see what would happen.
What would happen if I stopped working out 5 days a week, doing bodybuilding routines, carrying food around in tupperware containers, worrying about the size of my biceps, and just gave up training/dieting altogether.
Now you have to realize how big a deal this was. Before this I had been training and dieting religiously.
I started working out for football when I was 13. Around the time I turned 15 I decided that I wasn’t happy about the way I looked and I bought my first bodybuilding magazine. I started doing the workouts. I started following the meal plans.
I was the guy bringing turkey burgers to the cafeteria while my friends chomped on pizza. I was the guy going to the gym after football practice because it was arm day and god damn you if I was gonna miss arm day. But after 6 years of this I was 6’1 and 170-175 disappointing lbs.
I just didn’t understand. I was doing the workouts just like the magazines said. I was eating every 3 hours. I was shoveling enough protein down my throat to keep a small pride of lions healthy.
I was doing my cardio and working chest twice a week. I was doing tri-sets, drop sets, giant sets, extended sets, rest-pause, isometrics, plyometrics, and whatever other quasi-semetric-extended-unilateral-concentration exercises you could think of.
AND NOTHING WORKED.
It got to the point where I couldn’t go on like that and I had to see how the other half lived.
So at the end of 2006 right after I turned 21 that’s exactly what I did. I stopped going to the gym. I started eating whatever I wanted to whenever I wanted to. I started drinking frequently, having never really drank before due to being worried about how it would affect my physique.
I basically became your average 20 something college student and you know what? It was fucking awesome.
Seriously, it was. It was great. But that’s not the point. The point is after about 6 months of this… NOTHING HAPPENED.
Seriously, nothing. I looked the same. I weighed the same. You couldn’t tell I had been doing anything (or not doing anything really) differently. I maybe had just a little bit less muscle definition but I was still 6’1 and a very disappointing 170-175 lbs. It was amazing to me.
And since I got pretty much the same results from sitting on my ass drinking beer and eating pizza as I did to devoting every day to chicken breasts and 1.5 hr long training sessions, I chose the former. I didn’t work out at all for two years.
Fast forward to 2009. I had just got married and was settling into a new life and I decided that it was time to start working out again. I joined a gym and started lifting. I also started reading whatever fitness info I could get my hands on. I subscribed to Men’s Health and while on the website I discovered Craig Ballantyne’s blog.
What he was writing about training and everything else was very different from all the stuff I had heard before but it sort of clicked with me. It made sense. Through his website I got connected to other resources and I started to actually get a hold of some real training and fitness information.
One person that Craig mentioned fairly often was Jason Ferruggia. He seemed to hold this guy in high regard and I even saw that there was an ad for Jason Ferruggia’s “Muscle Gaining Secrets” program on the side. I looked at the website and found it intriguing but I actually didn’t go for it right away.
I was just stepping foot into the doorway of this hidden world and I wanted to see what all else was out there before making any kind of training commitment. So I continued to train and read and learn, and then at the end of 2009 I purchased MGS.
To say that this was a turning point would be an understatement. As soon as I read the book I knew that this was something different. There was no fluff here. There were no shiny ads for magic supplements. In fact he told me that most supplements were bullshit, and after years of trying every kind of supplement conceivable I had to agree with him.
The workouts were hardcore. There was no wasted energy here. The only exercises you were doing were the ones that got results. Progression was the name of the game. Adding weight to the bar was my objective.
After years of gauging my workouts by how pumped up I felt this was like diving off a waterfall into an ice bath. It was a wake up call is what I’m saying. When I started MGS I went from just “working out” to fucking training. I had a goal and an objective. Each rep held a promise of things to come.
And for the first time in my life, I got results.
And not just so so results either. I got amazing results.
Within two weeks of starting the program, the weights I used for reps were up on average 20lbs.
The exercises and rep schemes were setup differently than anything I had tried before. I went from 170 to 187 over the course of about 5 months and my strength levels were constantly rising.
Then Jay released Triple Threat Muscle around the fall of 2010 and I jumped on that. It was another turning point. From September to the end of January I went through the entire 3XM program and came out the other side at 205 solid lbs and 10% bodyfat.
It was incredible. I was more mobile, more athletic, and I was finally moving some decent weight for the first time in my life.
This was also when I joined the Inner Circle and it has been the absolute number one resource for training information for me. Having direct access to one of the world’s top strength and conditioning coaches on a daily basis is invaluable.
Having your questions answered, help tweaking programs, diet and nutrition information, new programs every week and a like minded community is a godsend and I don’t know why anyone would not want to be a part of it.
I’ve continued training using Jay’s methods over the past year and I’ve continued learning. Through my own transformation I came to realize how much of an impact the fitness field can have on people’s lives and it led me to recently get certified and become a trainer full-time.
Now I get to apply all of my newfound knowledge and try to help people achieve their goals just like Jay helped me achieve mine. He quite literally changed my life and I can’t say thanks enough.
If you’re tired of siting on the sidelines, not being the person you want to be, feeling powerless, useless and lost, you need to become a part of this. It’s so much more than fitness, and it’s something everyone should experience.
PS. You can join The Renegade Inner Circle right now for just a buck, and if you do so by January 17th you’ll be entered into our transformation contest where you can win $10,000 worth of prizes, including a beach vacation.
PPS. Want to be featured in our weekly success stories? Email your experience with The Renegade Method to info [at] jasonferruggia.com with the subject: Success Story. We’re looking for 350-1000 words and 1-3 pics at either 615 x 346 or 270 x 345. If we use yours we’ll send you a free t-shirt.
