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Rock
Iron Steel 'The
Book of Strength' - by Steve Justa Reviewed
October 2003 Quick
synopsis - What do you get if you put Danny DeVito's head on Godzilla's body?
Steve Justa! It's a great read - find out how Justa built his freaky, phenomenal
strength. Barbells? Nowhere to been seen (not conventional ones anyway), just
grab an oil barrel or railway track (like you do) and off you go!
Tale
of the tape - available
from from Amazon.com
and Ironmind
105
Pages ISBN
: 0-926888-07-2 - Published
by Ironmind Enterprises 1998
- 14
Chapters
- 22
black & white photos
About
the author : Native Nebraskan, Steve Justa is 40 (at the time this was published),
has been training over 20 years and can boast feats of strength such as the following:
Back lift 4500lbs! Quarter deadlift with 2050lb. Carried a 200lb vest for 2 miles,
walked half a mile with a 700lb barbell, barbell walk with 1400lb for 40 steps,
carried 220lb rock for 1 mile, etc etc. You get the point. He's ridiculously strong.
Full
Review : Nebraska is kind of like East Anglia. It's in the sticks and there aren't
many womenfolk without beards. Which probably explains why Steve Justa can wander
around, looking like Beetlejuice
on roids, dressed like Rab Nesbitt, clunking about with large lumps of metal,
rocks and barrels. Like I said, there aren't any women to impress so sod designer
clothes, bugger a good haircut, don't give a sfuk about a sixpack (unless you
can drink it) and just get unhumanly strong. Being
isolated, like a strength training version of the Galapagos Islands, gave Justa
the freedom to experiment, without being tainted by conventional training dogma,
and come out with his own unique theories - based on what worked for him. This
book is all about getting real-world, usable strength and endurance. That
last bit is important. You
may have read Richard Hanner's biography
of Ken Shamrock, where every fighter wanting to join the Lion's Den had to
do 500 bodyweight squats. This was Shamrock's test for strength, endurance and
sheer mental gumption. If you couldn't do it, you failed the initiation. Well
Steve Justa can do 2000 squats (yes that is two thousand), and OK he only does
quarter squats, but wait for it......, he does them with 800lbs!!! Let's say that
again, 800lbs x 2000 reps. And that's drug free. So
what's his secret? Well,
here are a few of Justa's principles (want the rest? - get the book!): - Don't
train to failure - just 70% of your maximum.
- Always
try to end your workouts feeling stronger than when you started - not exhausted.
- Think
of strength gains in years, not weeks or months.
- Wisely,
Justa also stresses the importance of gradual progression. Godzilla wasn't built
in a day.
- Isometrics
- Partial lifts
- Walk
& Run with weight
- Drag
weights
- Lift
barrels
- The
shovel lift - "this lift has helped me in virtually every other lift"
- G-Force
Training - stamp the ground and slap things like a sumo wrestler! No really.
Some
of these theories are good old tried and tested strength building strategies (such
as sub-max lifting, singling, partials and old fashion lifts like the back lift
and quarter deadlift) .Many are a wee bit eccentric (the shovel lift and fasting
once a week) , some are downright odd (like the G Force stamping) and others,
borderline dangerous (running with weights - hello knee surgery?). Still,
it's an excellent, inspirational read, written in a style that feels like he's
right there chatting to you. Justa litters his prose with real-lift strength feats,
you know, stories of railworkers, farmers and cowboys. It makes a great change
of pace from your usual 'scientific' weight training tomes. It's one of those
books that you should come back to time after time. Sometimes, you just re-read
a chapter and think
Justa's a genius.You
definitely get something out of the book and there's absolutely no doubt it's
worked for the author. Just BE CAREFUL. Whether
it will work for busy Mixed Martial Arts practitioners, I'm not sure. The reason?
The training is pretty demanding on your time and recuperation. Fitting it all
in between your boxing, thai, jiu jitsu, wrestling training etc may well be a
struggle. Not to mention the availability of oil barrels, railway tracks etc LOL. Of
more interest to MMAers - Justa is interested in fighting. He quotes anecdotes
from Bruce Lee "the famous karate master" (sic), bar brawling cowboys
and Sumo wrestlers. He believes that his methods will make you pretty handy in
a scrap. Conclusion
: If you are looking for a good, conventional barbell, sets and reps book, then
this isn't for you. Steve Justa's book is entirely different from anything out
there, and well worth a read if you are interested in strength training, regardless
if you adopt any of Justa's methods or not. Rock Iron Steel, rocks. Oh,
and if you enjoyed Brooks Kubik's Dinosaur
Training, you'll love this. |
