Eero teaches 3 ancient strength lessons from the legend of Milo of Croton. The first lesson everyone gets but the next two lessons almost everyone misses!
Milo of Croton was a legendary ancient figure from the time of ancient Greece (late 6th century BC). He was an ancient Greek athlete and a 6-time Olympic wrestling champion.
At the time of Milo and still to this day, Croton was actually a city in Southern Italy. During this time, Southern Italy was a Greek colony and was called Magna Graecia.
We and particularly Eero has studied a lot about the ancient training methods and athletes from the ancient Greece. In addition to the Milo of Croton, Galen of Pergamon was an incredible pioneer in the realm of strength training and health.
In the ancient times, wrestling (and war / combat) was truly the peak sport where different warriors from different nations would test their physical prowess.
People at this time were not stupid – rather their training methods were far more developed than people think.
Most importantly, their training methods were extremely functional and sometimes beyond typical understanding of the modern mind. Nothing was done for the looks, everything was functional.
Many wrestling techniques were used as general strength & conditioning exercises. People would carry heavy burdens and use different tools such as the rope and weighted levers to develop their bodies. Of course bodyweight training also existed.
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People often think that now during the 21th Century we have the best and most developed training methods of strength & conditioning. In reality, in many ways we have gone backwards and literally only touch the "surface".
Milo of Croton was the strongest man of his era but according to the legend faced his maker when his hand got stuck in a stump and wild animals devoured him!
Many of the modern training methods simply lack the ultimate functionality the ancient methods had. Today, people care more about external numbers and appearance than the real functionality of the exercises.
Most modern people cannot even understand what is real strength or what is a truly functional exercise. They confuse numbers with strength and muscle size with being dangerous.
The modern mind is a scientific mind that sees everything in linear terms, from point A to point B, when real life is not as linear. In real life, everything flows and motions are often circular.
The ancient athletes had naturally a better understanding of the reality and their training methods reflected this fact.
This is one of the reasons why we have been obsessive about developing the Iron King Method in the past 2 years. We want this strength too.
The 3 Strength Lessons from Milo of Croton
There exists a legendary story of Milo of Croton training in his off years of Olympics by carrying a calf for 4 years until it was time to compete in the next Olympic games.
Then, during the opening ceremony of the Olympics, he would carry the full grown bull the length of the stadium and finally kill and eat it.
Here are the 3 lessons from this ancient legend.
1. Progressive Overload
The first lesson from this story is obvious to many and it's quite popular in the strength training circles: it's about the progressive overload.
Over the days, weeks, months and years while the calf was growing bigger, Milo of Croton also got stronger thanks to the principle of progressive overload.
By progressively increasing the load and carrying the calf consistently, Milo of Croton got stronger week by week.
In strength training, people typically achieve the same by increasing the weight of their lifts or challenging themselves with a harder bodyweight exercise progression. Many people also increase the effectiveness of the exercise by increasing repetitions.
This form of progressive overload certainly has the role in physical development and is vital for progress.
What we argue is that increasing weight or repetitions should not be the primary form of progressive overload. This is a revolutionary idea for many. There are other more nuanced and sophisticated ways to achieve progressive overload.
For example, in Athlete 20XX Method we tend to use light weights and increasing weight is not our priority. Rather, we make the exercises harder each session by improving our body mechanics, control, mind-muscle connection and tempo.
We strongly believe these should be the priority over just increasing weight or repetitions because this does not only promote sustainable & safe progress but you will also develop significantly better movement quality, body awareness and overall athleticism.
2. Carrying Burdens
Almost everyone connects the legend of Milo of Croton to progressive overload and lifting heavy weights but nobody connects it to what Milo was actually doing: carrying the calf!
Bearing burdens is truly an incredible form of strength training and one of the most functional methods of strengthening the body.
For example, we consider round sandbag squats and carries more functional than barbell deadlifts or squats!
By carrying burdens is how you actually build functional strength that transfers amazingly well to real life activities, sports and martial arts.
The benefits you will experience in your grip, arms, shoulders, core and legs are phenomenal.
This is exactly why the round sandbag is an important training tool in the Iron King Method.
3. Strength Endurance
The third lesson that isn't so obvious is that Milo of Croton was not just picking up the calf up and down. Rather, he was carrying it for long distances.
The legend says that during the day of the Olympic days, Milo of Croton carried the full grown (4 years old) bull for the entire length of the stadium!
Nowadays, people are obsessed with low rep ranges and think going outside the rep ranges does not build strength. They think the rep ranges from 1 to 5 are great for strength, and anything between 6 to 20 is for bodybuilding.
In reality, carrying something for long distances or performing exercises for high repetitions (or for a long time) is extremely functional and beneficial for strength as well.
You actually build the foundation of your strength & frame with high rep ranges and long durations. In addition to this, strength endurance (your ability to sustain your strength for long periods of time) is absolutely vital.
Most sports and martial arts are far from a pure raw strength sport, rather they are all about strength endurance. If you cannot sustain your strength for long periods of time, what is it useful for? Exactly.
Building the Ancient Physique
We have always loved learning about the ancient cultures whether it's in the far east in China or in ancient Greece.
We initially got into rope training, weighted lever training and sandbag training out of curiosity and in order to improve our performance in mixed martial arts.
Recommended article: 5 Ancient Methods For Ultimate Physical Development
The results we experienced were amazing. We got hooked because it was such a fun way to develop the body.
Only after the fact, we realized that this is exactly how the ancient warriors used to train! Things just started to click and everything started to make more sense.
As our bodies got stronger, our understanding deepened as well. These are truly the crucial elements of building the strongest and most functional physique.
Last year, we released the Iron King Method which has all of these ancient training methods compiled into a full method and system with the workouts, tutorials, lessons and everything else you need to thrive and conquer.
We updated the program last month with more content and we continue to make it even better as well.
Stay strong.
