Mark Lauren - Strong and Lean: 9-Minute Daily Workouts to Build Your Best Body: No Equipment, Anywhere, Anytime

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For our agent Steve Ross.

We cant imagine a better guide on such an amazing worldwide journey.

You hold in your hands the most direct path to an athletes body, one that takes only 0.3 percent of your time each week.

Heres a simple truth: You achieve your best body through training the movements most important to your survival. But other trainers and authors havent even asked what those are.

So Im going to share with you what it took me a lifetime to findthe formula to the most desirable physique. Its almost sad that its so secret. But the fitness industry doesnt want you to know the simple solution to reaching your goals, so they can keep you addicted to their gyms, equipment, and other needlessly complex, moneymaking fads.

Strong and Lean has proven to build more muscle than weight lifting, burn more fat than cardio, and produce sexier and safer results than either of those. It will turn your body into the only fitness equipment youll ever need again.

I was proud to write the first bestselling bodyweight fitness book, You Are Your Own Gym: The Bible of Bodyweight Exercises. It was also the first popular fitness book based on a military program, and the first I know of to chuck out monotonous, time-consuming, energy-draining and inefficient cardio. You Are Your Own Gym remains a timeless resource for everything from body composition to motivation to nutrition. With 125 possible exercises, it transforms any room into a total fitness center.

Strong and Lean is a different animal. While You Are Your Own Gym is the Bible of Bodyweight Exercises, Strong and Lean streamlines my lifes work into one program in a simple layout, removing the guesswork. And while You Are Your Own Gym allows you to isolate muscle groups, here Ive carefully engineered new movements that each strengthen your entire body at once.

Strong and Lean applies Western cutting-edge sports science to the Eastern worlds wisdom, and couples that with three decades of unparalleled experience, so you only have to put in nine minutes a day, a few days a week. Never before has there been such a short, low-impact program that comprehensively and methodically covers all the muscle groups, joint functions, and athletic skills you require to get and stay strong, lean, healthy, mobile, and injury-free.

BUILDING A BILLION BEAUTIFUL BODIES: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

Doing my exercises in You Are Your Own Gym, millions have now used the body they had to build the body they wanted. But what about a billion? Whats stopping so many people from having their best body?

Two things:

Those who work out:

Everyone wants to get leaner and stronger. But their goals always seem just out of reach. Why? Because most trainers and authors dont understand what strength actually means, and therefore how its achieved while building your leanest body.

Those who dont work out:

Sedentary lifestyles and poor nutrition have thrust us into a health crisis thats making millions miserable, often leading to their early deaths. Everyone knows the benefits of consistent, proper exercise; you get healthier, stronger, leaner, sleep better, live longer, have more energy and more desire. So whats stopping them from doing it?

We conducted a survey asking just that. We asked a thousand Americans from all fifty states who didnt work out: why not? The number one answer? You may have guessed it: They say they dont have time.

So as You Are Your Own Gym became a bestseller in over a dozen countries, I set out on a worldwide mission, one even I thought impossible:

Could I develop the ultimate program that takes the least amount of time and produces the results people need?

MY JOURNEY

Like a lot of people, Ive tried a lot of things that didnt work. I spent a life driving myself to extremes, trying to find the formula to the best human body. By the time I was nine, I was doing six hundred sit-ups a day on my bedroom floor. In high school, I competed in bodybuilding competitions. By the age of twenty, Id become another gym bunny, developing undesirable proportions, mistaking the size of my muscles for actual ability and strength. I realized it wouldnt be long before I also developed debilitating chronic injuries. I saw firsthand that most bodybuilders cant even walk straight. So I started doing CrossFit-type workouts for hours every week before CrossFit was cool. Then Id take Sunday off and play a sport with some guys and gals who dont even work out, and guess what? Theyd kick my ass! I couldnt believe it. All that work wasnt paying off. The incredible inefficiency of my exercise programs really pissed me off. But the worst was yet to come.

When I joined the air force, and eventually the Special Operations community, I prided myself on shutting out pain and taking my body past perceived limits. I still hold the U.S. military record for swimming underwater the longest (two minutes, twenty-three seconds), before blacking out underwater. Most of our Special Operations courses were designed to drive candidates into the floor. But only by realizing more is not better did I get better results. Because doing more than whats necessary only prolongs recovery and increases the risk of injury.

After serving on Silver Team at the 22nd Special Tactics Squadron at McChord AFB in Tacoma, Washington, I became the physical trainer of nearly a thousand elite Special Operations warriorsincluding SEALs, Rangers, Green Berets, Force Recon teams, and air force commandosassigned to carry out the most dangerous missions. My men became my heroes. Some earned Silver Stars. They became the strongest and leanest people of our civilization. Because it wasnt their livelihoods but their lives (and ours) that depended on it.

I developed a purely bodyweight program that evolved until my squadrons were using it not only in the field but even when equipment was available. One time, we actually gave away a few hundred thousand dollars worth of exercise equipment, just to make room for more floor space. Because your arms were made to push and pull your bodyweight, not to grasp handles on machines or metal bars while you sit on a cushy bench. I mean, lying down on a soft surface is fine when youre sleeping. Sitting on a cushioned seat is fine if youre driving or looking at your computer or TV. But we realized we sure as hell shouldnt be doing that if were doing real exercise.

You Are Your Own Gym brought my system to civilians125 exercises for every single body part that transformed your living room, bedroom, office, garage, yard, you name it, into a total-body fitness center, using no equipment but the most efficient fitness device ever created: your own body.