And you wouldn't be wrong, Eric himself acknowledges that this may not be the most optimal way to train, but you can't deny the physique and strength he has cultivated through his years of training this way. Here's why I think it works: Strength is a skill. You've heard it so many times and you've probably seen it. When you train for a certain lift, you can get really strong but as soon as you stop training it consistently or you take a break from the gym, all that strength has disappeared. Your nervous system needs to become accustomed to handling heavy loads in certain movement patterns. You have the ability to squat X amount of weight, but if you aren't training for it, you can only squat a fraction of your truest potential. By training one lift every day, you're fast-forwarding that nervous system adaption. Instead of slowly adapting by training a lift twice a week over the course of months on a traditional program, you skip ahead and do it all and more in a week. When I used the Wiso Method to train Bulgarian Split Squats, on day 1 I could only bulgarian split squat 250 lbs but I had the potential to hit 305 lbs which was what I hit on the final day. I had to get my nervous system geared up to optimally use all my muscles in order to achieve what I had the potential to. By following traditional powerlifting programs, let's say you hit on average overhead press twice a week. Over the course of a 4 week training block, you hit the overhead press 8 times, each time with an RPE of about 8. With this style of training, you hit overhead press the same amount of times in a little over a week, rather than a month, and you would see way more strength gains than you would with the conventional powerlifting style. The conventional method tries to slowly improve all your lifts at the same time for a long period of time because this is how you would initially train for a meet where you hit all the powerlifts at one time. But with the Wisconsin Method, you specialize in one movement, you don’t "major in the minors" as Eric would say. It’s the difference of putting all your eggs into one basket while dispersing them among many. I'm not saying that any method is better than the other, Heck I've only been training this way for a few weeks. Just discussing the differences and why I believe I've seen so much improvement over those few weeks, the amount I would see in a year or more of training.

Another reason why this works is Step 6 of the method- eating… a lot. Eric is notorious for packing in calories, like it's a second job. He preaches to eat foods with high calories like dried fruits, bagels, drinking a gallon of milk a day and more. He even goes as far as carrying around a fanny pack of fig bars. Although he has stopped drinking a gallon of milk a day and mostly follows a vegetarian-esk diet now adays, logically, it makes sense. Everyday, you're sending a massive signal to your body to grow and you're giving you body plenty of resources to do that. But what I've found is that your body **NEEDS** this type of eating. I've been **RAVINOUSLY** hungry, I've been finding myself constantly snacking, and looking to those higher calorie foods jut to hold me over.

The final secret step is intensity. You've got to pick a lift which gets you excited, it makes you want to go to the gym after waking up- which is another reason to try odd lifts, ones you haven't done before which is fun to hit new PRs and try something new. To accompany that, Eric opts for a pot of coffee before training- which I don't do after kicking my caffeine addiction a year ago. Eric pumps loud metal music infused with blaring heavy guitar rifts and heavy drums. Eric can be found screaming before, during and after his lifts- an intensity which drew many of his viewers to become fans. But there's a method here. By getting yourself pumped, you are getting yourself in the zone and building up confidence to hit a lift. Eric's motto is,

>"It's a mindset!"


You have to get yourself in the mindset that you **CAN** hit that lift and you will. It's a good life lesson for fighting those self-deprecative thoughts in your head that say you can't. I know that was a long description of Eric and his method but it really needed the background to really explain what it is and why it works.
# My Personal Adaption of the Method
Like many of the readers, I was also a bit wary of only performing one lift per day- especially when I've seen Eric perform accessories and preach about 100 rep lateral raises or curls in some of his rants. I speculate two things: After Eric maxes out, he performs a bunch of accessories willy-nilly just to maintain those areas OR he has two training sessions, one max session and either another where he has a second workout to get some conditioning or cardio or accessory work in OR he hits some accessory or conditioning work whenever he has a free second throughout his day.
If you haven't read about my current training style in previous posts, here is the basic rundown: My only goals is to train everyday, no matter what. Minimum of 2 minutes. The Wisconsin method is another training every day method which I love. With my school demands being high and going into a career with a lot of travel, training is something that was and can be something easily neglected. This means that sometimes all I can get in on a busy day is a 5 minute conditioning session and that works great. But with the Wisconsin method, you need a minimum of 30 minutes to hit that PR. Some days, I may not have that kind of time. Here's a tip to myself and to the reader- work out in the morning. By intentionally waking up earlier and working out, you are making that time for training, before the rest of the days demands get to you. I say this, but I have yet to train first thing in the morning but it's something I hope to implement when I return to school.
   
For those afternoon or evening trainees, I suggest that after you hit a warm up lift, perform an easy RPE 6 or 7 accessory lift right after as a superset (Superset all your warm-up sets). For example, while I was training the Axle Press, after I hit a warm up for the press, I did 5-7 pullups. This may not seem like much but if you have say 8 warm up sets before your max attempt, that’s 8 mini sets of pullups, over a week is 56 mini sets and somewhere between 280 and 392 pullups- that's a lot of pullups. This is in 'Greesing the Groove style' so this is not a set that you should be pushing yourself to do. In similar style, if I have time OR take 10 minutes at a separate time of the day, I choose 2-3 accessories to perform in giant set style right after my max attempt. For example, After I hit my axle press, I wanted to work on my heavy swings and I consider my abs a weak point, I hit some landmine abs, swings and landmine split squats for 2 or 3 rounds after my max attempt. Again these weren't anywhere close to failure, probably an RPE 7 at most. These are just getting volume in, 2-3 sets of these accessories is 16-18 sets in a training cycle, 14-21 in a week. So here is what a full Cole-adapted Wisconsin training would look like:  
- **Main Lift:** Axle Press - **Optional:** Halos, Shoulder Mobility 1. Warm up Axle Press 2. Superset with Pullups 3. Hit Axle Press PR 4. 2-3 Rounds of Landmine Lunges, Landmine Abs and Swings
  For my first cycle of this style, I wanted to see how strong my Overhead Press could get. I found the axle bar more comfortable for me so I chose that lift. The first day, I hit a 160 lb press that was pretty slow. The next day I attempted a 168 press and failed, then hit a 160 lb with no belt (mini pr). The next day, I couldn't hit the actual gym so I opted to hit some Handstand Pushups (with a slight angle, not totally 90 degrees) for 3 rep PR and did some conditioning work after. The following day I hit that 168 lb PR on the axle press. The 168 felt very difficult so I decided to rotate to the kneeling landmine one arm press where I hit a PR the following day for 105 lbs of weight on the bar. The following day I hit 110 lbs. Then rotated to the Axle Z-Press and hit a 138 lbs press with a back-off set. The following day I hit 146 lbs with band for the Z-press. The following day I yet again couldn't make it to the gym so I hit 2 90 degree Handstand Pushups, did some jump rope and rows afterward. The final day I hit 180 lbs for the Axle Press, setting an all time personal record and adding 20 pounds over the cycle.
  For the Bulgarian split squats, I had no deviations, working up everyday in a new PR except for one day where I went on a run instead. Went from 250 lb Bulgarian Split Squat to 305.   # Issues with the method   My main gripe with the training style is that it requires you to always have access to a gym with proper equipment and an hour to train everyday. As someone who does not consistently have access to proper equipment because of shitty College Gyms nor guaranteed time to train because of a busy schedule, that is the biggest challenge. With my previous training style, every daily session was easily adapted to these variations and I allowed me to train cardio and conditioning like I wanted. With this method, it's hard to adapt and allow for time to have separate sessions to train cardio and conditioning.