This is Jon Andersen. Retired Pro Strongman, Retired Pro Wrestler, Currently an IFBB Pro Bodybuilder. Ask Me Anything

Jon, how did you find your voice to inspire others? I’m president of an academic student organization in college and I think having such a skill would make me a better leader.

That’s a great question brother… I found my voice of motivation through doing things that most people could not do… What I mean by that is they would not continue to try as hard and as long as I would which set me aside from everyone else… When there’s a task that’s a motherfucker in front of me I don’t say I can’t do that… I say this is gonna fucking hurt… And I start busting my ass… Trying failing …trying new things and failing… Most people are afraid to fail so they don’t try to begin with… Once you are a master of continuing to try through all the failures and tell you succeed… People want to listen to what you have to say… At that point you realize you have an opportunity to change peoples lives and you capitalize on it

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Totally gonna screenshot this. Thanks a ton Jon!

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Right on my brother keep fucking kicking ass out there

Best deep water sets

Power clean… 100 kg… 101 reps… No rest

Squad
405… 43 reps
500… 26 reps
700… 10 reps

Squat/dead lift superset 20 reps each total of 40 reps
455

This was also extremely painful shit… But I loved every second of it… I learned a lot about myself during these moments

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I treated myself to a Deep Water shirt for my birthday and I can’t wait to crush a set of some floor to overhead work in it

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Dude, was just looking at the shirts right before seeing this, haha. Got my eye on the black one.

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So amped! We need a gym banner: I would SO put that up.

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You gonna wear that and do some kinda crazy keg/chin-up/car-deadlift complex?

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Hey Jon, I was inspired by others (many of whom are in this thread) to read into Deep Water… needless to say, I crushed through the whole book in about 2 hours :sweat_smile:
Glad to have an athlete of your caliber here with us.

At what point do you recommend advancing from Beginner Deep Water to Intermediate Deep Water, and in continuation, from Intermediate to Advanced Deep Water? Its easy enough to assume one would start at beginner and just keep going deeper until the program is completed. In the interest of this lifestyle, however, is this program something that should just be repeated - albeit with heaver weights each full cycle?

I think the AMA might be over? But @T3hPwnisher probably knows

I don’t know Jon’s recommendation. I can make my own, but that’s about it.

I know you’ve done well on deepwater so what do you recommend?

I can’t make a particular recommendation to you, as I have no hands on experience, but for myself, I ran beginner and then went to intermediate and advanced all in a row the first time. Second time through I ran beginner and intermediate but skipped advanced, and I plan to do the same in 11 weeks.

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For mere mortals like myself, I believe this program would be best used in progression from beginner to advanced every 6(ish) months to trigger CNS response and break through barriers often found in more conventional training. For example: if i’ve been running PPL for months and have reached a point where little to no progress is happening on main lifts, i need to increase volume and intensity on those lifts. I could stick with PPL and reduce lifts of lesser importance to focus on these main lifts, but that is honestly a half-measure at best.

I think the diet and program would both serve as an excellent mini-bulk to be done 2x a year. This isn’t to say that one can’t do this year round, but not all of us are built (metaphorically) like Jon Andersen either. I’m going through a hard cut currently but I would like to give deepwater a go when im done, assuming that it is correctly applied in this circumstance.

I find life determines when I can run the program rather than body. It’s a LOT of cooking, eating, and having food exit the body, along with intense training: my job and family can only tolerate so much of that.

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I can respect that. I’m working full time and doing college courses after work with a young family. I’ll have to take this into consideration before i undertake this program

I figured this was good enough

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I would be in a wheelchair after that. For once, you actually looked taxed at the end.

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Oh dude, I am ALWAYS taxed at the end

Otherwise, how do I know its done? Haha

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