Jeremy and Jordan Hines are some of the strongest brothers around! With Jeremy boasting a huge 565 pound raw bench, and Jordan totaling 1763 at 250 pounds in competition, they mean business! Learn how they manage to pull all of this off… drug free!
LIFT: Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves. Give us a little background on your accomplishments thus far in your lifting careers.
Jeremy: I’m 6’3”, 26 years old, and weigh between 270 and 280lbs. I’m a licensed physical therapist assistant with three kids, Jade (6), Dean (4), and Jayce (1). My best gym lifts are a 740lb squat, 540lb paused bench, 565lb touch and go bench, and 780lb deadlift, while in competition my best squat is 738lbs, bench is 507lbs, and deadlift is 727lbs for a meet total of 1973lbs. Competed in the 308’s but weighed 287lbs the day of the meet.
Jordan: I’m 23 years old, right about 6’ tall, and usually weigh somewhere between 220-240lbs. I’m a certified Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator, working the midnight shift. Best gym lifts: 685lb Squat, 460lb paused Bench, 485lb touch and go Bench, 660lb Deadlift. In competition I’ve squatted 661lbs, benched 451lbs, and deadlifted 650lbs for a 1763lb total at 250lbs body weight.
LIFT: How did you originally get started lifting? At what point did you choose to pursue powerlifting?
Jeremy: I started lifting at 11 years old because my older brother Jesse got me into it.
Jeremy
Jordan: I had two older brothers that I looked up to a lot, and a cousin that used to train with us that wasn’t much older than me. I was always the youngest out of everyone that has ever trained with us, so for myself, I always felt like I had something to prove. It was actually nice having the cousin that was about my age, seemed like we were switching back and forth every other week passing each other up on a lift. That helped a lot early on because Jeremy’s always been a good deal stronger than me. So, having someone on my level I could battle it out with on a regular basis really pushed me to surpass a lot of plateaus early in my lifting career.
Both: Powerlifting is just something we were always doing from the start, even without knowing it. We were always fascinated with hitting one rep maxes. To the extent, back when we didn’t know any better we were maxing out every workout regardless of how we felt. Training the bench, deadlift, and squat has always been how we’ve measured our strength. There’s really nothing that’s more satisfying than hitting a PR on one of the big three lifts. Too bad the satisfaction never really lasts because we’ll be back in the gym shortly after, pushing ourselves harder than ever to reach that next 5lb increment.
LIFT: How does training with each other affect your lifting and goals? How important is it to have a good partner?
Both: This is probably one of the most important things. We’ve been training together for the last 11 to 12 years, and being able to see your training partner steadily progress really makes you step up your game. Some people have to go look for motivation, but that’s one thing we’ve always had. You may be feeling like you’re down and out, then you look over and see your brother jacking up PR after PR, and you’re just thinking to yourself, “I better quit fucking around because he’s making me look bad.” But, to us, it’s never been about trying to outdo the other, we both have our highs and lows, it’s about giving each other that extra drive to push through current limitations and continue to make progress. We’ve had a number of people train with us throughout the years, friends and family both, and the majority of them moved on to do other things. So, it’s nice to have that constant out there, that one person that you know will be fighting tooth and nail to make gains no matter what and help push you to the next level of strength.
LIFT: What is your training style, and how does it differ from your brother?
Jeremy: I have two lifting days that are done every five to six days. There’s a bench day that will be done on the first day in the week, and there’s a Squat/Deadlift day that will be done about 2 to 3 days after benching. Then you just repeat after that. For bench there’s two different variations that I do. On my main bench day I’ll do pauses with a wide grip. The rep scheme I follow is 3, 2, 1, 5, 5. An example workout might look something like this: 405×3, 455×2, 500×1, 425x2x5 all paused reps. On my secondary bench day I’ll do close grip benches for 3 sets of 5 reps with the same weight. For assistance, I usually do 5 sets of 10 on barbell curls and 3-5 sets of light barbell shoulder raises.
On our squat and deadlift day we alternate them each workout. We’ll train one of the lifts up to a heavy single, and the other lift we’ll work up to a top set of 5 reps.
Jordan: My routine is pretty much the same as Jeremy’s. But, I don’t use the wide grip. I usually put my ring finger on the ring as I’ve found that going any wider really beats up my chest and front delts a lot quicker. But I guess I just feel stronger and have better stability with the narrower grip more than anything else.
Generally if we’re training for a meet our routine will be almost identical, if not, it may differ a bit depending on whatever the goal may be.
Jordan
LIFT: What advice would you give to a beginner lifter who just wants to get bigger and stronger? Would you point them to a strength based routine, or a bodybuilding routine?
Both: To get bigger and stronger they’d need a combination of both. Emphasize powerlifting, but also do basic movements to build muscle size and strength. Learn how your body responds to different training methods, then find the routine that works best for you and stick with it. Really focus on getting enough rest between workouts, keep food intake high, and above all, stay consistent with training.
LIFT: How about an intermediate lifter wanting to become advanced in the field of powerlifting, but has had some slow progress?
Both: Once again, find a powerlifting program that works for them. Emphasize rest and recovery. Cycle each lift and after peaking out, start over with the same program but up the weights a bit to the point when you finish you’ll be topping out with a new PR. If they’re not making progress, they need to think about what it is that’s holding them back. Whether it be, a lack of consistent training, overtraining, or food intake. Any one of these things could be hindering their progress. Find the problem and make the necessary adjustments to fix it.
Jeremy 540Lbs
LIFT: Do you see eye to eye on all things surrounding training?
Both: We’re both on the same page when it comes to lifting. Our preference is raw drug free powerlifting.
LIFT: Why do you choose to be drug free? Will you always be drug free?
Jeremy: I’ll always be drug free. I don’t want to be dependent on drugs for my strength. I don’t even like really taking any supplements other than protein and food. I don’t want to take drugs to compete at a higher level. And, when it comes down to it, I lift for me. I’m not gonna be influenced by anybody to change the way I lift.
Jordan: Yeah, I’ll always stay drug free as well. Being natural I can always harness most of my strength at any given time. Honestly, I can’t stand coming into a workout now and even doing 5lbs less than what I planned. So, having to cycle on and off drugs and trying to deal with the lows people experience with would drive me insane. Also, I like to be able to show people it’s possible to be really strong naturally. Am I going to be stronger than the strongest guy on sauce? Hell no. But, as of right now, I still have plenty of room to grow naturally and that’s what I know how to do best.
LIFT: Tell us about your home gym. What you have there, what you train with, how you get by with what you have. Does it affect your programming at all?
Both: Over the years, we’ve built our training routine around what we have. We think it’s helped us more than anything by using mainly free weights. We don’t waste our time on exercises that don’t do a whole lot, if anything for our powerlifts. It’s about sticking to the basics and that’s always worked best for us. We don’t box squat, bench with boards, or deadlift standing on a couple 45lb plates. Not saying that others haven’t had success with training those lifts that way, but we’ve always stuck to our principles. If we want to bench more, we’re going to train the bench full range and cycle through a training routine, while sticking to the concepts of rest, nutrition, and consistent training. The same goes for the squat and deadlift, train the lift you’re trying to get better at.
We got a decent amount of stuff in our home gym, which we call ‘The Weight Shack.’ There’s well over 1000lbs in plates, a Texas Power Bar, Texas Squat Bar, Texas Deadlift Bar, Westside Barbell Bompetition Bench, power rack, ez bar, preacher curl, dumbbells, smith machine and some chalk.
Jordan 685Lbs
LIFT: What kind of dieting do you follow? Do you do any cardio or anything outside of the gym?
Jeremy: Don’t necessarily lift for health, we lift to get stronger. As far as dieting goes, when trying to get bigger and stronger while remaining natural, I eat a lot all of the time. You really have to keep your intake up to maintain and make strength gains consistently.
Jordan: I’m pretty much the same way when I’m training for strength, and especially a meet. Eat anything and everything, all day long. Another thing that I really emphasize myself is staying hydrated. I’ve had problems in the past trying to lift being dehydrated and it usually always results in a poor training session or an injury. So, make sure you’re prepared before you set foot in the gym.
LIFT: What is your favorite lift and why?
Jeremy: I like all three powerlifts equally. They all need to be strong and well balanced.
Jordan: I like the bench the most probably because that was the first lift I ever did. Regardless of that, I still train all three lifts with the same intensity. Any deficiencies can cripple your three lift total in a meet, so everything needs to be strong.
Jeremy 765Lbs
LIFT: Who has influenced you the most throughout your lifting career thus far, and what did you learn from them?
Both: Each other, we learn something new from each other nearly every session. Watching someone with the same kind of desire and dedication has been invaluable throughout the years. We’ve fed off of each other’s lifting and always seem to improve. The most important things we’ve learned over the years are to keep training basic, make sure to get plenty of recovery and food, and we’ve learned to tweak our training programs in a way that combines all of our experience and knowledge together to achieve maximum gains.
LIFT: What are your goals for the upcoming year?
Jeremy: If I get a chance I’d like to total 2000lbs raw, drug free in a meet. Also, I’d like to deadlift 800lbs raw in training.
Jordan: I have an upcoming meet where I’ll be benching only, I’d like to beat my best meet bench of 451lbs, despite weighing about 25lbs less. Also, this has to be the year I bench 500lbs raw touch and go! And, what the heck, I’m not too far off of a 700lb squat and deadlift so you can throw those in there too.
Jordan
LIFT: Do you have any thoughts on powerlifting that you’d like to mention? Improvements or changes?
Jeremy: I’m not really going to offer an improvements or changes. I think everybody should find their own preference for training. Satisfy yourself and reach your goals. Don’t be influenced by other peoples training. If you’re content with what you’re doing that’s all that matters.
Check out Jordan’s latest 460Lb bench at 1:33 and Jeremy’s 540Lb bench at 2:17:
http://youtu.be/5etY5xnIHzI?t=1m33s
Here’s Jeremy working up to a 780Lb deadlift only a few days ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tvuuPCHLHPM
Here is their latest meet video where Jeremy totaled 1973Lbs and Jordan totaled 1763Lbs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iELg9fDg-Hc
Be sure to check out and subscribe to their youtube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/user/HinesJeremyJordan
You can also follow Jeremy’s training at: http://www.lift.net/forum/topic/752-jeremy-hines-raw-training-log/