He’s Skinny But INSANELY Strong! (HERE’S HOW)

Have you wondered how someone can be skinny but insanely strong? In this video, I am going to cover how Jesse is not the biggest guy in the room, but is certainly crazy strong, especially for his bodyweight. Not only that, but Jesse is going to share with you his tips for getting insanely strong whi

Jesse: There’s not a day that  goes by where I don’t hear, 5 11 , 130 pounds soaking  wet. Strong? Give me a break.

I might have to disagree with that. Jeff: But first of all, can we at least get those  dimensions straight? Jesse’s actually 5 10 , 165 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal. So,  let’s not cut him short and let’s not make any assumptions about Jesse’s strength based simply  on his body weight. As a matter of fact, this is a clip of him right here doing a 550-pound PR on  a deadlift.

See if I take out my calculator here, 550 divided by that body weight of 165 pounds  gives him a 3. 3 times body weight deadlift. Jesse: 3. 3 repeating. Jeff: How do you do it?

Jesse: Well, let me explain. I know how to create  leverages. I actually pull the bar into my shins as opposed to pulling it straight up. That way  when I pull straight up and back at the same time, I can wedge myself under the bar. The other  thing that I do, is I traded in volume for intensity.

Instead of doing reps of five, six  or eight, I was doing heavy singles, doubles and triples. To accommodate for that fact that I was  using much heavier weight, I had to cut back my deadlift sessions from twice a week to one time a  week. And when I did, my gains soared. Pfff, Am I suppose be impressed or something? Look at those  long skinny arms.

You’re built for the deadlift, bro. You can’t even squat your own bodyweight, if  I had to guess. As a matter of fact, I can squat. Here’s me squatting 430 pounds and for Canadians  and Europeans out there, that’s 195kg. But the thing that made me squat so much was that once  again, using my body to my advantage.

And for me, the two things that I focused on were my chest and  my pelvis. And with the chest I went against the grain a little bit. Some people will tell you,  point your nipples at the floor. I decided to do the opposite, I get my chest up and open and  with my pelvis I made sure to move it at the same time as my chest going down at the same time. And especially when I came up out of the squat, they were moving at the same exact time.

And the more in sync that I kept them, the more success I had on the squat. Jeff: You sure did, Jesse. Because again, at that 165-pound bodyweight, that 430 pound  squat is 2. 6 times your bodyweight. Again, a really significant strength number.

Jesse: And when it came to the squat, unlike the deadlift, it was not as taxing on my  body, so I was able to get more sessions in and I didn’t have to cut back on my volume. So, I did  something called the 3 in 10, which is three squat sessions every ten days. So, what I did was on my  first session work up to a heavy single, which is just one rep and my second session heavy double,  and in the third session a heavy triple, which again is three reps. And this turned out to be the  perfect mix of volume and intensity for me. And by doing this, my squat freaking blew up.

Okay, well,  you got a lot of type two fibers in your legs or something like that, but you can’t bench for shit. Well, you did get one thing right. I can’t bench and I think it has a lot to do with the discomfort  that I have from this collarbone that I snapped in half doing my best Shaun White impersonation,  trying to snowboard like a maniac. Jeff: Excuse me. Do you think that you  snowboarding like this had anything to do with it?

Being a dumbass could actually  result in dumbass accidents. Jesse: I don’t want to talk about it. Jeff: Just saying. Jesse: Having said that, I didn’t say that all  bench pressing was uncomfortable, I meant the Barbell Bench Press was uncomfortable. Oddly  enough, the Dumbbell Bench Press was something that actually did pretty well.

And because I’m  smart, Jeff, I decided to lean into my strengths and work on this version of the exercise. So right  off the bat, I switched over to the dumbbells, and that freed up a lot of the shoulder discomfort  because I was able to move the dumbbells freely in space. However, I noticed a problem with my  strength, and that was because the dumbbells were drifting a little bit. What I did is, I took  a tip from Jeff, and I took the inside edge of the dumbbell and brought it down to the outer portion  of my lower chest. And so, what this touch point did was two things.

First off, it was really damn  comfortable on my shoulders, so I wasn’t having any pain or discomfort anymore. And the second  thing was it allowed me to stack my elbows under my wrist, under the dumbbell. This let me press  more efficiently and ultimately more weight. Now, something I used to do, which was  a mistake, was bench with my feet on the bench. So, I decided I was going to take one  of the things that I learned on the Barbell Bench Press and bring it over to my Dumbbell  Bench Press and that was using leg drive.

By driving my feet into the ground and  forward as if I was doing a leg extension, but without my feet coming off the ground,  I was able to slide back and up the bench. Not only that, but I was taking the dumbbells  and instead of pressing straight up and down, I brought them through their natural  arc of up and back. By doing this, as well as the touch point tip that I gave earlier  and putting in the hard work, I went from benching 50s for three all the way up to benching  100s for three. Okay, great achievements, but what are you going to do next? Brag about  your pullups.

All skinny guys are good at pullups. Well, I wouldn’t say all of us are good at  pullups, but I like to think I’m pretty good at it myself. And the way I’m able to do quite a  few unbroken pullups with full range of motion, by the way, is by adding weight to the exercise. And in my case, I worked myself up to a 45-pound plate. Not only did I get stronger on the pullups,  but my back got bigger too.

And when I took the weight off and jumped back up to the bar, I was  flying through those reps every single time. This might piss off some purists, but bear with  me because this actually works and it worked for me. I was doing partial reps. Yes, partial reps. Every single time that I did a set of pullups, I was going all the way up and all the way  down to complete and total failure.

But I said, I’m not going to let my set end after that, I’m  actually going to take it one step further to and through failure, as Jeffrey likes to say. So,  once I couldn’t get that full range of motion, I’d go three quarters away, halfway, quarter  of the way, three inches Jeff That’s a lot, by the way you know, to the point where I couldn’t  even lift myself at all. And that’s when I call it quits on that set. And ever since I did that,  not only did my back blow up, but so did my pullups. Whatever, dude.

I bet you don’t even  overhead press, that’s the hardest of them all. I do with my bodyweight. Dips? Weighted. Look  at those puny arms.

Do you even curl, bro? Of course, they’re for the girls. Push downs? With the whole stack. Whatever, man.

I  bet you’re not doing the Single Dumbbell Overhead Pistol Squat, blindfolded,  obviously. But only real man does that.

Surprised you mentioned that one, it’s one of my  favorites, actually. That’s it. He’s on roids. I’m going to go follow someone natural. Jeff: Yikes.

So if you are skinny and you’re looking for salvation, you have your answers right  here in this video, you can get strong. Also, if you’re skinny but want to look jacked, that’s  possible, too. You want to make sure you check out this video right here, Jesse’s favorite  exercises. If you’re looking for a full program, you can find them over at athleanx. com, Old School  Iron, the exact program Jesse used to build his strength up