My name is Logan Christopher and I am the owner of Legendary Strength. Below you’ll find a fairly complete history of my training.
My beginnings
I was a weak kid growing up. Very scrawny. More interested in computers and games than being strong or athletic.
In eighth grade, I went out for the basketball team. We had ‘Camp Rambo’ which was to get us in condition and build skills before try-outs ever took place. The beginning of each practice was a mile and a half run. It took me about 13 or 14 minutes to run it. Then I got a pair of running shoes which magically cut minutes off my time. Despite this, I didn’t make the team. That was a shot to my fragile ego.
Later that year we had the Presidential Fitness Test. I remember hanging on a pullup bar, not being able to move an inch, wondering how it was possible to do so.
School finished. My brother was ‘making’ me go out for football in high school. He put me on a basic lifting program which I did in my backyard. I don’t remember the full details. I do remember the first time I deadlift over a hundred pounds and how happy I was about that. I also remember knocking myself hard in the chin doing a barbell clean one time.
I joined the football team at under 100 lbs. We lifted heavy. We ran a lot. I made some progress but really not much. I was still weak and scrawny.
Bodybuilding
In the off-season I did bodybuilding, getting routines out of the muscle mags. Typical routines involve four sets of squats, four sets of leg presses, three sets of hamstring curls, and three sets of leg extensions. I make some progress on the squats until I realize each time I add weight, my range of motion decreases, and I have to start over. (That’s not the proper way to do partials.)
I do it for a while then stop, only to return later on. I play football for all four years and this cycle continues. I would say in that time I became marginally stronger, but was still scrawny weighing in at about 140 at 6 foot.
In my senior year, I become friends with another guy who likes to bodybuild. We become training partners. We did some crazy routines, like working out for an hour, going out to the parking lot and drinking a protein shake, and then going back into the gym for another hour and a half. We take a lot of supplements and get marginally stronger.
Somehow my friend stumbles across an Ironmind magazine and orders some grip stuff. We mess around with it a little infrequently. I couldn’t even close the Trainer the first time I tried.
Bodyweight Training
My brother, who got me into football and bodybuilding, tells me about this guy Matt Furey who has some crazy bodyweight exercises. I read about them online and give them a shot. They whoop my butt. I start doing them regularly between gym workouts. After a period of time I stop going to the gym and focus on the bodyweight exercises exclusively.
I’m getting results. I’m progressing quicker than before. One of my first goals was to do a handstand pushup. After several months of training, I hit that goal. I continue onwards and upwards until I can hit the lofty goals of a 3-minute wrestlers bridge, 500 Hindu squats, and 100 Hindu pushups. I keep going. At this point, I believe weights are for people who don’t know that there‘s a better option of just using your own bodyweight. I can start doing things others can’t. One arm pushups, handstand pushups, bridge kickovers, one leg squats, and more.
Kettlebells
My friend buys kettlebells. I scoff at the idea of using weights but put that idea aside and give it a try. It’s fun and it kicks my butt. I start training with the kettlebells too. About a year later in 2005, we head off to the RKC. I remember training hard to hit my thirty snatches with each hand to pass the test.
At this point, I’m doing lots of bodyweight stuff and lots of kettlebells. At this point, I’m really into training. Buying all kinds of courses, studying all different systems, and trying to do it all. One guy in particular, Bud Jeffries, is the first person that I see that talks about combining it all in an intelligent way. I follow his advice.
I assist several times at the RKC studying more from Pavel and all the other top kettlebell trainers. I learn about competitive kettlebell lifting and get certified at the AKC. I continue to study Matt Furey and even go on to win his Combat Conditioning Athlete of the Year.
Strongman and Everything Else
Depending on the latest thing I read, and to a smaller degree my goals, I’m doing different things all the time. The world of physical culture is quite wide.
I got interested in hand balancing after watching my friend walk on his hands. From that point on I have steadily worked on increasing my skills. I joined an adult gymnastics class even though I had no prior gymnastic experience. With their help and facilities, I increased my tumbling and hand-balancing skills.
Hand balancing used to be something that almost everyone practiced to some degree. All weightlifters had various amounts of experience, though that is far from the case today. I aim to bring hand balancing back to everyone with this site.
I read a biography of the Mighty Atom. I get inspired and want to become a strongman. So I start to get heavily in grip strength, especially bending steel. I remember the first time I bent that Yellow Nail bracing it against my leg and taking 10 minutes to complete the bend. I learn more feats, primarily from Dennis Rogers, who I later get to study with down in Texas. I begin to perform small shows demonstrating my strength.
I’ve done it all. Dinosaur Training, Combat Conditioning, Twisted Conditioning, Kettlebells, Clubbells, Strongman, Powerlifting, Crossfit, Partials, HIT, GTG, EDT, and things that don‘t necessarily have a name or acronym to them. There was training to failure, training beyond failure, not training to failure, and not training to effort. There’s club swinging, joint mobility, gymnastics, slow movements, fast movements, isometrics, and more.
In ‘07 I also start my own personal training business which later evolves into the online entity it is today, all starting with a book on hand balancing.
In certain things, I make progress, even good progress over time. Other things I let backslide and get nowhere over the course of a year. This continues for years. The overall trend is upwards though never as quick as I would have liked.
I start to finally get it. I can come up with a good training plan that moves me towards my training goals. I can stick to this plan and get results from doing so. I make progress in just about every workout with occasional plateaus.
Biofeedback
Then this weird concept called Biofeedback training comes along. I put it to the test and after an initial breaking-in period I go to learn from Frankie Faires and Adam Glass to learn more about it. My progress starts to accelerate.
I continue training with this as it is the best way to stay in tune with my body, never receive a single injury, and continue to make progress. Over time I work with this, continually learning what the others are doing, and put together my own program called Beyond Biofeedback.
Mental Training and Energies
Then a new revolution happens. I learn many masterful techniques of using the mind including NLP, hypnosis, energy psychology, and more. I start working with these mental training tactics and seeing even better results in the gym. I temporarily moved up to Medford, Oregon to train under Doctor John La Tourrette to learn more of these tools as well as begin in Kenpo karate.
I’ve continued learning, practicing, and now teaching these tactics as they’re the missing key in what most people are doing. By adding this component in to whatever you’re currently doing I feel you’ll get even better results.
A good amount of this material is all found within the book I published with Dragondoor, Mental Muscle. I’m now an author along with some of the people that set me on this path.
Health and Nutrition
Starting out scrawny, I sought an edge wherever I could find it. This led me into nutrition, realizing it made a big impact on performance. As a kid, I literally did not eat any fruits or vegetables besides watermelon and strawberries. Now I eat them all.
After watching my mother pass from breast cancer I’ve become even more committed to seeking superior health, which I’ve begun teaching along with the above as the Peak Performance Trinity.
I learned all about nutrition. I learned about healthy living. I learned about the power of herbalism.
The latter of which led to the founding of Lost Empire Herbs along with my two brothers.
Evolution
This was my evolution. This led me to where I am now. Where I am now will continue to evolve. This is by no means complete and I‘ve got much further to go. More experiments to run. More training to do. More people to learn from. Much more progress to make.
Every system, every tool has its advantages and disadvantages. Some are better than others depending on your goals. Some are better than others period. Of course, I wish I would have had all this knowledge back when I started but what fun would that have been? In this case, the journey was worth it, and the truth is, it wouldn’t be the same if I hadn’t taken the journey.
Currently, I practice a wide variety of strength training and skills, including gymnastics, hand balancing, lifting heavy, extreme conditioning, flexibility, bending steel, and more. Because of my love for physical culture, I wish to spread my knowledge out to others. Life is much better when you are vital, no matter your age, and physical training is a big part of that.