"Intensity or Insanity", this moniker coined by John Defendis and training method developed by Steve Michalik, has been written about, debated and misunderstood since its creation 40 years ago. In their day, the exploits of Michalik and his "Monster", Defendis, were legendary. Now, they are mythical. In an age of immediate gratification, where a pill or a bottle can produce only imaginary results, why would someone do 100 rep sets or begin their workout after reaching failure, several times over?'
One might ask, is Steve Michalik insane? Why wouldn't one ask that question? Steve Michalik is a man that volunteered to go to Vietnam. He tells the story of seeing men levitate people and performing impossible acts with nothing more than the power of their will. He created a training method that required his "Monster" to train legs to failure and then run 100 yard sprints, like Carl Lewis, with a barbell on his back. These are men so intense that if you raised their ire, one might go outside to find your car flipped over by "Frankenstein" and his "Monster". So respected or maybe feared, the police would disregard the act as a consequence of agitating someone so insane. The brutality of Michalik's method was best demonstrated by holding his most revered students' head under water, till nearly drowned. The moral of Steve's lesson, Winning is only an inevitability when it becomes as important as ones last breath. When one reads about a method so preposterous and hears about acts so insane, how can one not believe the deliverer of such insanity isn't insane?
The royal court of England also thought Columbus insane when he proposed the world was round and not flat.
The problem with such scripture is those who write about intensity or insanity cannot relate, comprehend or compute the central focus of the message. People's comprehension is relative to what they know and what they've experienced. Intensity or Insanity is about making the unknown none. It's about making the exceptional a daily occurrence. Intensity or Insanity training is the expansion of one's mental scope. The barbell's, dumbbells and machines are nothing more than the medium of the message. Intensity or Insanity training is to be experienced, not read or talked about. It must be smelled, tasted, touched, chewed and digested. Before one can do this, one must be willing to give up the reality of their prior experiences to taste, smell, touch and digestion. The personal agreements we make with ourselves based upon our prior experience are the fire walls that inhibit our progress. Intensity or Insanity training is about reaching into the recess of one's own mind, consciously and unconsciously. The task of silencing or voices, breaking down the walls of prior experience, personal perception, while unraveling fears is the albatross to accepting the impossible as a daily occurrence. Seeing Jesus walk on water is impossible. Seeing the mother in fear for her daughter's life lift a car that is 10 times her body weight is impossible but once you've seen it and lived it, it becomes truth. There in that truth lies our reality. What Steve Michalik demonstrates in the face of that fire wall is the truth of your prior reality or the truth of what you're about to create. One must set aside the pain, the suffocation, the resistance, the physical failure and fear of that fire wall. To endure is always the choice when faced with life or death, hence the intensity or insanity method "Death by Death".
The next paragraphs are a summary of my first real experience with Intensity or Insanity training. I must say that no matter how articulately I write, nothing can quantify or do this experience justice. If you haven't done it, you can't relate. I'm not sure if there is anything in life that can prepare one for it. I just know I pride myself on being a tough as they come and Michalik will find your fire wall. He will induce the voices in your head to come out and at that precise moment when the choice of a new truth or the death of a prior reality is present, Steve will thrust you into that psychological fire. The only question that remains, will you burn in your new found truth or will you retreat back to the safety of your reality?
Before I begin, I must explain a few terms so you the reader can grasp what Michalik is teaching.
1. Voices: Voices are the noises that echo in our mind replaying our prior experience. Within those voices lie our perceptions of success and failure. Most often, our voices of failure or pain are the ones that echo the loudest.
2. Personal Agreements: Personal Agreements are the contracts we've made with ourselves because we've accepted the noise of our voices. These agreements become the emotional attachments to fears, self-doubts and limitations. The conquering of these agreements is key to breaking barriers, creating new voices and living new truth.
3. Fire Walls: Fire Walls are the psychological walls that appear when we comfort the truth of our chosen reality.
My initial fear was, I didn't want to get hurt. I'd envisioned, with some jeering from John Defendis, rupturing a muscle. The fact is, I felt the workout more 2 to 3 hours after we were done then during the actual session. The experience did not live up to my expectations. It changed them. I have learned that this is the destination.
Conditioning Phase: The purpose of the conditioning phase is to see if one is ready to partake in the actual Intensity or Insanity sessions. This method of training is not for everyone. The deep, deep, and I mean deep psychological component of this Intensity or Insanity is unacceptable to most. No matter who you are, Michalik will force you to face the circumstance of having no choice. It reminds me of a story my grandfather told me. My grandfather was one of 7 brothers. My great grandfather taught them all how to swim by walking them down to the end of the boat dock and throwing them in the lake. They had no choice, swim or drown. If this lesson seems extreme for you, then scratch yourself off the list of being ready for Michalik.
There are over 40 different Intensity or Insanity routines. Also, within the 40 routines are also levels. The levels go from 1 to 10. The conditioning routine, I did, maybe one of many, I don't know. I do know 1 in 25,000 complete the conditioning phase the first time.
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| Steve Michalik Circa 2011 |
The conditioning phase is a total body workout. It is a six station giant set to be done three times around. The exercises were: Machine leg press, leg extension, machine incline press, machine shoulder press with a neutral grip, triceps extension machine and barbell curl. It sounds simple enough but it gets complicated.
Here are the criteria: All sets must be done to completion without stopping and all stations will be visited until you've gone around three times in succession without stopping. Also understand, with every revolution, the number of sets per station increase while your level of fatigue is increasing. First revolution, 1 set per station, 2ND revolution, 2 sets per station, 3rd revolution, 3 sets per station. As I said in my introduction, my description of this device pale in comparison to what it is and I could easily write several chapters of what each successive set entails. Let me quantify this to you in its simplest terms: In a time frame of about 35 minutes, I'm not sure because you go into a catatonic state; I did 36 sets of work and over 700 total reps.
What I wasn't prepared for is not being able to breath. When an athlete runs the 1/4 mile as fast as one can, no matter how conditioned the athlete is, they will certainly reach oxygen deprivation by the 300 meter mark. The last 140 meters is without air. When one isn't conditioned physically or mentally for this, it becomes fearful and can be terrifying because of distress that is going through your body, "Firewalls". Simply put, the body begins to panic and every signal of distress the body has goes on high alert. With the conditioning phase, one is in oxygen deprivation by the second round and that is when the Intensity or Insanity begins. Another note, you're doing each set like a 1/4 mile sprinter as fast as you can while lifting maximum weight at all times. There is no light weight. Michalik asked me prior to the beginning of the cycle what weight I could handle for 8 repetitions. Upon the first set, I was told to do 50 reps for every station. Don't think the weight was reduced when I reached failure and I reached failure many times. The new truth I discovered when I reached failure was: Increase the weight and lift more reps!
Michalik was gracious enough to compliment me by saying I finished the gauntlet. Truthfully, I completed it and there's a difference. There are 10 levels to Intensity or Insanity. My level that day was a 3. If one is satisfied with completion one is not setting a standard of excellence. Ask any champion, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan or John Defendis; winners finish, everyone else hopes for completion, most don't. One seeks the sensei to be humbled and rebuilt. I was humbled that day but that's why I sought out Michalik. "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear and thus let the lesson begin".
This day would be my first real day of Intensity or Insanity training but there's a catch; I was training with two of Steve's long time clients. First there was Micheal. He was very much the gentleman and gracious in the welcome he gave accommodating my stay in every way. He stood about 5' 7 and wasn't a particularly large man. I probably outweighed him by 60lbs. He had been training with Michalik for 6yrs. Then there was Guy. Guy began training with Michalik about 3yrs ago at a body weight of 160lbs. He was now 230lbs, easily at 8% body fat and trained like a Nascar race driver on the track driving his Hummer at warp speed. It's pretty simple; when Guy was training, get the fuck out of the way. The next catch, unbeknownst to me, there is always an exercise implemented for the new-comer that has an inordinately higher degree of difficulty than most exercises. Like most great psychological masters, Michalik puts his subjects under pressure; he does it quickly and severely. It lets the sensei know immediately if you're worth his time and lets him know if you have what it takes. I'll tell you honestly, there were five such exercises in that gauntlet for me that had a higher degree of difficulty than most exercises. Three of the five were common exercises but our execution made them as close to impossible as they could be. That was the idea. I was being forced to challenge my agreement with the way exercises are done. Two of them I'd never done or seen before and I have a repertoire of 1000's of exercises. Michalik must have 100's of 1000's.
Our torture that day was back, chest and shoulders in that order. Let's rewind momentarily. The previous day my "Achilles exercise" was the shoulder press. I reached failure on 3/4 of the total number of sets and did many more sets then required. Important note to self, if you don't do the exercise properly, Michalik makes you start all over again, from the very beginning. Your choices are simple, complete the exercises properly or quit. Oh, I forgot, Michalik will let you off the hook if you drop dead. I'm not joking. I wasn't looking forward to doing shoulders but believe me, I had other challenges to occupy me long before getting to shoulders.
For back, it was a 7-station rotation: Lat Pull down, Smith Machine Rows, Power Cleans (Achilles Exercise), Chest Plated T-Bar Row, Vertical Hammer Row (Achilles Exercise), Reverse Grip High Pulley Hammer Row and Dickerson's. All stations were done exactly as the conditioning routine, 3 revolutions all to completion, without stopping. Every revolution increases the number of sets and difficulty. In this first round of three, my albatross was more than just not being able to breath. You're pretty much forced to compete because you're partnered up with someone else. The level of failure one reaches is indescribable. It's like chopping your arm off then sewing it back on to chop it off again, I'm not kidding. The concept of voices and firewalls became a reality because you're being lashed at internally and pulled to give up. This is opposed by pride, competitiveness, Michalik yelling at you and the freight train of Guy threatening to run over you. Well, I must admit, Guy lapped me twice in this round and that unassuming little man, Michael, started when we were in our second round and lapped me once.
I'm still picking humble pie out of my teeth.
Round Two: Chest. These 6 stations consisted of: Hammer Dip Machine, Plated loaded Incline Bench Machine, Plated loaded Vertical Bench Machine, Smith Machine Incline, Smith Machine Bench and Seated Shoulder Press (that's just not right). The only comfort I had in this round, I could breathe. Fortunately, I've done high intensity training and that was the only thing that kept me from passing out or being admitted to the hospital. To be honest, I don't remember if I got lapped or not. I was in survival mode at this point. I cared about nothing and only wanted silence in my head because I was going deaf from all the yelling. I couldn't discern who was yelling, Michalik, Guy, me or all of the above. It should be obvious to you at this point, I was yelling for a totally different reason then Michalik or Guy.
Round Three: Shoulders. For shoulders, we didn't do stations. We grabbed two dumb bells apiece. Mine were made obviously too heavy, at least that's what I was thinking at the time. Our moves were: A circular front raise (definitely an Achilles Exercise), Funny Press, Horizontal Pullback, Lateral and Bent lateral. All 5 of these exercises were done in sequence with the degree of sets and difficulty ascending as the previous rounds did. I didn't get lapped this time because I got to sit in my own seat all by my lonesome and suffer without humiliation, if that's possible. Failure, it is indescribable and intolerable. The wonderful fascinating thing about the body, if one is willing to resist the firewall and walk through it, it cools down. Failure ceases and one finds the way. The first lesson is learned and the point is well taken.
My gallon jug of water felt like 100lbs. and was difficult to hold. My need to drink was greater than the discomfort of holding the jug. Michalik teaches the relevance of Darwin's laws of survival. Simply put, faced with death or survival, life will adapt and survive. That's what is happening when he is inflicting his torture upon you. He wants to put you in that survival mode. Muscular growth is a forgone conclusion with this training but the limitation still lies within the depth of one's agreement and strength of one's firewall. It must be challenged and it must be faced until it is extinguished and all agreements are agreed to disagree.
I completed the cycle again but understood the lesson. I was stronger and believe it or not, by the time I got back to the hotel I was bigger. I gave my body no choice because I had no choice. With great expectations comes great results with personal agreements, comes nothing.
Day 3 was the last training session of my trip. I purchased 5 sessions from Michalik but because of the time factor and the nature of the training, I'll did the other two sessions with him at a later date. Our adventure today: Biceps, Triceps and Legs. The feared and dreaded leg training. I spoke with John Defendis immediately after completing Day 2. He asked if I was doing legs on day 3. We both agreed, if one is suffocating on the other days, one is smothered on leg day. Michael couldn't attend this session so I had the beast, Guy, all to my lonesome; oh joy. My attitude was different this go round. I didn't want to complete the rounds, I wanted to finish them. I was determined to not to be lapped and lap Guy if the opportunity presented itself.
We began with Biceps. Our sequence: Lying Horizontal Cable Curl, Standing Cable Curl, Lying Low Pulley Unilateral Cable Curl , Seated Hammer Dumbbell Curl and Standing Barbell Curl. All rounds were completed according to the standard set in the previous days.
Our Second cycle was triceps. Our sequence: Lying Horizontal Cable Extensions, Reverse Grip Triceps Press downs, Lying Incline High Pulley Cable Extension, Standing High Pulley Rope Extensions and Lying Dual Dumbbell Extensions.
Let me summarize these two cycles. There were "Achilles Exercises", Lying Low Pulley Unilateral Cable Curls, Seated Hammer Curls and Lying Dual Dumbbell Extension (Mother Fucker)
Oxygen deprivation wasn't an issue, I didn't get lapped but I still didn't complete the cycles to the exact specifications of the Intensity or Insanity protocol. I did improve, I silenced voices and I extinguished the firewall. New agreements have been made.
In the previous pages I've failed to mention the gym we trained at; Synergy, has two floors—an upstairs floor for the common folk, complete with neat, nice machines, plenty of cardio equipment, aerobic rooms and televisions. There is a large open window so you can view people coming and going. The downstairs was a dungeon of free weights, no windows, concrete and dust. This is the place of our physical medieval torture and where legs were to be completed.
The pattern that had been established the previous day, a body part would be trained by a giant set of 6 or 7 exercises of 3 complete revolutions, without stopping, with every revolution increasing in number of sets and difficulty. The sequence for Legs was as follows:
Horizontal Machine Press, Hack Squat, Leg Extensions, Vertical Plated Load Machine Press and Smith Machine Squat. There was a twist to all of this. All sets were done in rotation and as fast as the previous day but all sets were straight sets. The sets were completed exactly as outlined without increasing the degree of difficulty. One Cycle of 8, one cycle of 6 and one cycle of 4 with the weights being incrementally moved up. We then did one plyometric set of weight loaded pop squats for 25 reps. No oxygen deprivation and easy by comparison of the two previous day's work. It is the seduction before the kill. First thing, the weights were so heavy compounded by the speed of the rotations; your legs were like jelly. The steps to the upstairs weight room were almost vertical and about 40 steps high. The monkey jumps on your back while walking up the steps. No oxygen deprivation and Guy didn't lap me but we weren't finished yet, in fact, we had only just begun.
2nd cycle of legs: Cybex Hack Squat Machine (Hate this Machine), Horizontal Leg Press Machine, Lying Leg Curl.
I don't remember how many revolutions we did. All I remember is the weight was extremely heavy, like two or three plates from the whole stack. We had to complete 25 repetitions of each and no stack weighing less than 300lbs. I fought and struggled to complete the Cybex Hack Squat Machine (Achilles Exercise) but my strong exercise, Horizontal Leg Press was excruciatingly painful. By the time I got to 6 reps I'd hit failure and even with the weight all the way at rest it felt like someone lit a fire on my legs all the way to my hip flexors. At that point, I was literally being inflamed by the pain in my legs and the need to stop. The voices in my head were loud and clear, "Give me a break, lighten the load, JUST FUCKING AND I MEAN FUCKING STOP!!!" That's when the old man worked his magic. I suspect he'd been waiting for this moment the last three days. He hadn't quite gotten me there and he wasn't going to let this moment slip. It was Michalik's opportunity to make me confront "the agreement" I'd made with heavy weight, high repetitions and injury. It's simple, what I feared was only going to happen in my mind but I made it my reality. The thing that Michalik played against me that worked to my benefit was my pride. My pride and sense of self-worth, when challenged, will overcome any obstacle, pain threshold or fear no matter what it is. Michalik's assistant had been videoing the entirety of all the training sessions. He said to me "You've got 19 more reps; don't you quit!! Don't you quit on John Defendis and let him see you do this!!!" He said something else but at that point I went into the zone and the only thing I could hear was his count pressed against my ear, 1, 2, 3, etc.
We proceeded to work calves after that but it needs no description. At that point, everything became incredibly easy. The goal was to hang on to the lesson and continue to duplicate it at every opportunity. One can't go through something like that without it changing you. I understand John Defendis at a much deeper level and get it, totally. I can only say to those who might be inspired to travel to the mecca of trainers, it is beyond all your experiences and must be lived. There is no real preparation for it except maybe a near-death experience. Training with someone like Ronnie Coleman or Jay Cutler requires you to be physically an animal. Training with Michalik requires one to be a monster of mental proportions that only Jim Jones or Charles Manson could explain. Good luck interviewing them. You're no safer with Michalik, unless you're willing to become Intense or Insane. You choose!
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