Friday, April 29, 2016

Speed Demon

When your life is on the line and someone is chasing you, jogging isn't going to be on your mind. You will burst through and run like a bat out of hell to get away. Sprinting is not just a workout, it could very well save your life and hit your body to drill up some adrenaline in order to survive. Being a speed demon was a staple of ancient times and it's the quickest way to not only burn off fat but put on muscle that is realistic, functional and worth the effort because if you're weak and couldn't move very fast it was your ass.

When I sprint I use my imagination in a variety of ways that has one thing in common and that's to go hard and fast as possible. I imagine things like a wild animal chasing me, running down a villain like the flash, catching dinner like a cheetah, outrunning prey like a greyhound, hauling ass to away from the boulder like in Indiana Jones. There are so many ways you can increase your speed but it all starts with your thoughts. That's where the course CoreForce Energy really helps me, it helps me tap into a place I normally don't go to and not only puts me in a state of mind where my environment changes and my body naturally goes into that mode where I become invincible, ready and powerful. When you truly tap into the power of Sprint Training, you will become a fat-burning machine that has explosive strength, mighty lungs, hormone producing & muscle building.

To get the most out of your sprint training, don't just sprint and get all the benefits of what it comes with, learn the technique so you can prevent injuries which can occur if you're not careful. In the old adage of Spiderman "With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility" so you have not only the power to do sprints but you are responsible for how you achieve it and make the best of it. Learn the techniques and the will to get better.

When you become proficient in Sprints and the fat is melting off your body you can hear the voice of the Wicked Witch Of The West screaming and crying like bloody murder and picture. What better way to imagine the fat melting than that LOL. If you're a horror fan, you can picture it melting by seeing your favorite character slicing and dicing victims. Anyway you want to imagine it make it your goal to hit it hard and just picture in your mind how you want the fat to melt or sound. Be a speed demon and make that workout your bitch.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Two Superheroes Inspire To Burn Fat Fast

I loved superheroes as a kid, watching the old x-men cartoons, Batman The Animated Series, Superman, Spiderman and others but I didn't get really inspired by them until a few years ago when the Avengers movies were coming together. From then on I did crazy research and different ways to train in Superhero Fashion. Of course I didn't put on a cape or mask but I was inspired to train differently and enhance my imagination. That's why it helped me get in better condition and use my imagination for workouts based on heroes like Batman, Thor, Hulk and others. What I found to be one of my biggest inspirations is the Superheroes-inspired sprinting.

DC's The Flash & Marvel's Quicksilver are the speed demons of Comic Book Culture and my biggest inspirations for doing Sprint Training. Out of the two clearly Flash takes the cake. He's more humorous and just has that bad ass outfit with the lightning bolt attached to the center. Whenever I do sprints he's one of the first to have me imagine having that speed, the force to drive hard and run hard for short bursts. Sprints are at the top of the food chain for burning off fat faster than any other method period. I was never much a jogger even before my leg injuries but for the most part, jogging isn't going to help you develop muscle and burn fat the way you think it does.

Not saying running isn't good cardio exercise if that's what you enjoy cool but if you plan on developing powerful legs and burn calories like crazy, long distance cardio won't get you there. HIT workouts burn off far more because of the amount of exertion that is applied and the ability to really tackle insane fat burning and muscle building (functional muscle that is). Jogging can burn calories no question but it isn't going to store energy the way sprinting does. Look at the difference between a sprinter & a distance runner, its pure night and day. The distance runner has great stamina but has very little muscle to show and looks like a person who's about to wither and die as oppose to a sprinter that has a great deal muscle mass, far lower bodyfat and looks like he could be on steroids.

Sprinting intensifies the Fast-Twitch Muscle Fibers and stores more energy into the cells and speeds up your hormones that create better recovery, makes you look younger and fills your lungs with oxygen more than you know what to do with. Although you're breathing far harder and feel like you're going to die, you're actually making your body produce more hormones in order to facilitate those energy cells to the lungs. I'm no scientist or biology professor but I know how my body feels after sprinting and it helps with my legs because I have a rod and 8-10 pins in my legs that hurt at times just from walking but no pain from sprinting.

Quicksilver is an amazing speedster and burns off more fat than any other hero in the marvel universe so he needs to eat like a madman just to keep fueling his muscles. For that much speed to run on and the amount of calories burned a person of that caliber would need to eat up to 20,000 calories a day or more so for a human, it be maybe 25% less than that depending on the person. Don't always assume because someone eats a ton their going to look like a beast; some people have very high metabolisms and need more calorie fueled intake in order to satisfy the body's needs. Some of us like myself have lower metabolisms meaning we can't burn off as easily and our bodies store more. I'm training myself to increase my metabolism in order to burn off the stored fat my body that isn't easy to get rid of. I do train hard as you have seen some of my past workouts but I'm also learning to be a bit more strategic, I do still eat quite a bit because of the muscle mass I produced over the years and keeping to a better minimum of not eating and drinking too much crap (I like food leave me alone lol) so I have to train differently to where unwanted fat has no choice but to burn to a crisp and putting my body through higher intense cardio. That's where sprinting comes in.

Its not easy but this is the fastest way to make this happen and little by little making better choices of food (I still eat a good amount of veggies & fruits) but I like sprints and its warmer out these days and see where it'll take me. Speed up and get cracking on those sprints brother, no more than 2-3 sessions a week.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

The 2 Most Famous & Leanest/Fastest Animals That Teach You To Burn Fat Fast

In my latest quest to transforming into a Wild Jungle Man (My girl calls me Monkey Man), I've been learning through self-experimentation that burning fat isn't that easy but if you stop and think about what really hits everything in order to get that fat burning machine running? I've done it many times but I always wondered what animals are the fastest of their species and how do they stay lean their entire lives. Although most animal movements generate great levels of natural growth hormone and metabolism only less than a handful are the pinnacle of burning off fat like a hot plate to butter.

Next year will be 20 years of being in fitness starting with lifting weights in junior high and in all that time I have found only maybe 3 methods that truly target metabolism-increase, natural hormone-growth and the ability to decrease fat faster & that was Sprinting, Animal Movements & Isometrics. When I went to get my physical for the first time since I was in High School, I found out my metabolism was low and my blood pressure was quite high so I went back to the only thing I can think of that hits those 2 things in very different ways by one thing going up and the other going down. I went back a few weeks later and my blood pressure dropped 30 points and my metabolism went up a percentage.

That one thing I came up with was doing my Superhero Sprints program 3x a week and making it my mission to make those numbers hit in opposite directions. It worked like a charm but I went off the wagon a short time later. Although I still have those numbers in good hands I've just changed things around.

So what are the most famous speed demons of animal kingdom? Would believe their a Dog & Wildcat? It's the Cheetah & the Greyhound. These lean, mean, fighting machines are insanely fast and have muscles in places that are surreal. A Greyhound can run the 100-Meter Dash in under 5 seconds which hits at about 45 MPH, that's freakishly fast and the cheetah's highest speed on record was roughly 70 MPH. How long do they last at their top speed? Most likely no more than a few seconds to a minute. The need for recovery is greatly increased but because of the stupid crazy amount of fat and calories being burned even completely at rest, its increasing their hormones and it helps put on lean, functional & insane muscle from their necks down to the damn paws.

Humans are such a complex and mysterious species but nonetheless, we can get nearly he same effects of that kind of phenomena. No we can't run that fast no matter how hard we try, the top speed on record I believe is 28 MPH and that's less than 10 seconds at full blast. However, do due the nature of our body's unbelievable system of blood flowing, strong organs & mighty powerful hormones we can create great effects on the nervous system to generate greater amount of hormones than the leading lethal injections that pro athletes use to get ahead in their sport. When you sprint hard for 8-30 seconds you are generating insane amounts of blood in order to oxygenate the organs while also expanding your lung capacity plus increasing growth hormone naturally to recover and strengthen all the muscles in the body to produce your metabolism. There's an old saying "You don't need to do much, for doing a lot." This applies very well with sprinting.

Now are there other ways to do this other than sprinting? Yes, there's jump roping for 10 minutes, swimming hard for 25 meters, doing animal movements really fast for a short burst; anything that gets you out of breath fast. Sprinting however is the cream of the crop on this in my opinion. This even helps burn fat even if your diet isn't that good; its possible and I've seen changes in people. No more than 3x a Week and if you're a complete beginner, power walk as fast as you can until you need to catch your breath and build up to a full on sprint. This is the ultimate way to fat loss and builds muscle fast.

Monday, April 25, 2016

Train To Master Yourself

Its not a bad thing to follow someone's methods but its not the best thing to follow someone else's pace or workout. If you do so, you will become second-rate in a third rate system. The very best body shapers & conditioned trainees molded their style all on their self mastery. Train in the exercises you're interested in and learn the technique; the rest is up to you. I like the way certain workouts are put together but like to put my own touches on them because I want to feel they're mine.

Mastering yourself takes discipline but it can be interesting. Learn systems that make you feel amazing and feel like you can accomplish anything. However; following someone else's pace to me most of the time is completely boring and unless you're in a team sport, its best to set your own pace, your own style and your own life. Following someone at their pace takes away a piece of yourself because you're a slave to their style. An extreme few of these systems let you have freedom to do what you want and live with real purpose.

Make use of what works and throw what doesn't in the trash. Its really not fun to be someone else because for one their lives are not always as glamorous as you think and plus even if you could keep up with them you can't look exactly the same as them so why bother trying to do the same speed and tempo on a video that for all you know is just a marketing scheme to program you into their little foundlings. Be your true self and master your own body inside and out.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Progression For Improvement...Not Taking Your Body To The Limit

When I finally got out of the hospital after the three surgeries on my legs, I was cleared to start rehabbing. For those that don't know my story, you can find it in the archives of the blog. What i'm about to say might piss people off and even may confuse them to what they were "taught" at the gym by those so called "experts" that tell you the only to get better at something is to push the limits. For the most part at least in my experience is complete bullshit and I don't care what your reaction is, I'm telling it from my point of view and outlook on my philosophy.

Training early on in my self-rehab was a pain in the ass, i'm not going to lie, it hurt and I couldn't do much but I never pushed it to the absolute limit otherwise i'd be back in the hospital. I started out doing only squats, push-ups and bridging; couldn't do jack for squats, barely can handle a few push-ups and was nowhere near my nose touching the mat. I instinctively learned how to progress through those exercises without pushing myself too hard. I was determined to improve my body's ability to heal and progressed little by little everyday without fail and why? Because if anyone was going to screw it up I rather have it be me than putting a burden on some Physical Therapist. I believed down into my soul that I was going to improve. Once I hit greater numbers I moved on to other forms o exercise and training and used that same philosophy of progression.

The truth is, the more you push to the limits the greater the consequences become to get injured, out of commission and doing something you'll end up regretting. I get it that you want to find out how far you can take it and in a certain period of time. It's human nature to test the limits and when it comes down to it in certain situations we either go all out for a specific purpose or something else. Our bodies are very well equipped with a natural healing, cooling, heat & nervous system but if we compromise those natural settings, how can we properly function in good, solid health? When you progress through natural productivity and mindfulness with the intuition to listen and feel how your body reacts when it is starting to reach its peak you're starting to see the bigger picture. Its very difficult to control how our Adrenaline hits and we are so pumped we forget what's going on in our body and lose sense of what's happening in our surroundings.

I've taken my body to heights I had never experienced as a teen so since I was 21 years old I've hit levels of strength some people I know thought was ridiculously impossible; like being able to one-arm hang on your weak arm at far over 200 pounds is no easy feat, it doesn't look like much but when you had an illness that nearly killed you and switched your brain chemistry that hit the nerves in your body it becomes rather miraculous. How about not being able to do one pull-up at 18 to do multiple reps by 22, do over 20 handstand push-ups in a row with only less than a few weeks of handstand training, go from hurting after 10 squats to doing over 1000 in less than 6 months after surgery. This isn't to brag or show off my accomplishments, its to remind you that if you're willing to progress with intent and belief on improving yourself, you don't need to push the limits. Progression unlocks the door to ultimate strength and doing so as injury-less as possible. Pushing your limits in my opinion 95% of the time will make you weaker than stronger because you can only be so strong or fast or endured for a short period of time.

I hear about all those injuries people put themselves through with some of those crossfit workouts where there is no regard for safety, recovery and progression and just bust through regardless of your body's ability. It's not just crossfit, its other areas as well. In sports, military, law enforcement and survival training are the only true areas where pushing to the limits is in my regard because they train that way in order to fulfill a requirement of specific conditioning, training and mental toughness that the rest of the population can't seem to comprehend. We are taught to train the same as pro athletes or world-class military men and women and that's not practical. Train to improve, not to go balls out because it looks cool. The body is not meant to be put on that level of stress and if you believe you can train the same as these high level athletic people than you're more naive than I thought; even the highest level of athletic and tough people have gotten injured, broken bones, killed during drills & even have made multiple mistakes where it cost others either lives or other problems.

Progress through your own area of mastery with the intent to become stronger, faster and more endured on natural levels of the body's abilities to be strengthened, recovered, levels of stress (Physical & Mental) and the functioning of your brain. That's right your brain is affected in how you train because if you push too hard regardless of what you can do, the brain sends waves into the nervous system and will break down your ability to function by the stress of your organs, tendons, joints, ligaments and muscles you keep trying to build. When you progress through realistic application and the will to improve; overtime you will learn to deal with greater stress, your organs can flow with greater ease in advanced levels of training, the strength in your brain can send more powerful neurons into your body to deal with greater strenuous holds or movements and your joints can take more physical demands. When you push the limits, its going to peak whether you like it or not and your body will begin to break down starting with your nervous system, keep pushing, your tendons can split and you'll break out pieces of what's holding you together in the first place, keep pushing even further, your organs will break down and by then if not beforehand you could die and for what, just so you can be the tough man in his big boy pants?

Be smart about your training regardless of what it is; you are one person with one body that sheds the same blood as the rest of us. Do what works for you but also listen to your body. Push it on a scale that helps you get better without hurting yourself or going to failure. Don't throw your body away just because you wanted to be a big shot and wear the big boy panties, strengthen to become better not to grow weaker.    

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Isometrics & The Animals

Got back into Isometrics lately doing the Self Resistance style pitting muscle against another muscle so I can put on some definition. This is mostly due to changing things up and getting my mind out of boredom. No I'm not giving up on my animal exercise but I might tone it down to a few times a week instead of everyday because as much as I love it I get bored easily.

Making a certain method an integral part in your training can possibly enhance your strength and conditioning so that's where the Isometrics come in. It hits your muscles from a static position with max effort or at near max effort. Most don't realize that this particular method is one of the most difficult to concentrate on because unlike moving your body or a weight, your focus needs to be on point of the muscles you're pushing or pulling. Next to Sprints, Isometrics are the next best thing to burning off fat and building dense muscle plus being able to do it wherever you want.

Doing Animal movements can be taxing so its important to know when to back off and keep your joints healthy and your tendons strong. Some animals you can do everyday but a number of them require jumping or brachiating and that is something to watch out for if you're not used to it. Its fun as hell but you got to protect your body too. I took a day off of animal stuff due to some crazy weird thing with my right foot, just walking on it felt like a crowbar hit it so I stepped back but didn't stop training, just went a different route.

Animals do Isometrics too but not like us humans where we are so damn analytical; animals use a natural state of it to survive in some cases like the Sloth when he holds on to a tree branch; you know how much strength you need just to hold in that position for a period of time? Its crazy. The big cats when they stretch, they flex every muscle in their body, ants hold up to 50x their body weight as they carry food to their home; that's pure isometric strength there.

Do some Isometric Exercise and you can't go wrong.

Monday, April 18, 2016

New Influence By Superhero Beast Boy

Unless you're a hardcore DC Comics Reader and a fan of Teen Titans, not many know about the young superhero Beast Boy. I just learned about him a couple days ago while watching the new DC Animated Movie Justice League Vs. Teen Titans. Hell of a story and one of the best coming of age stories I've seen in a while. The one character that caught my eye that I believe stole the show was the young and green skinned kid named Beast Boy (real name Garfield). His power is the ability to transform into any animal that he has seen whether illustrated or up close; that to me is one hell of a superpower and has struck me in the heart because I love doing animal type movements.



How he got his powers is more tragic than awesome; growing up with parents that practically abused him and ended up contracting a disease that is deadly to any animal including humans except for a West African Green Monkey. The only way the kid can be saved was by being injected with a serum that turned him into a Green Monkey to wear off the deadly virus.  Unknowingly, this cured him but with a heavy price as it kept his green skin from ever turning back to its natural color and surprisingly gave him the ability to morph into any animal of his choosing through his mind. Some good came of it as he went on a path to make something of himself and join up with a group of kids that were a team of basically the younger version of The Justice League the Teen Titans.

For nearly a decade I've practiced different styles of Animal Movements that always has me running back to no matter what I tried otherwise. It has become a part of me to practice this form of exercise and conditioning; my love for it grows everyday and I do my best to get better and be in better shape for it, its the only form of exercise that is fun to me and it's helped shape my philosophy towards fitness in general. Learning about this Superhero just hit me like a strike of lightning, I find myself drawn to this character because like him when I set my mind to an animal I start moving like one, the only drawback is I can't morph into one like him which makes me a bit jealous but what can you do.

The ability to become an animal as you see fit is a very awesome thing to do; in the real world we can't have that luxury but we can adapt to move like one and picture ourselves in our minds to be that animal. Imagine having the strength of a gorilla, the speed of a cheetah, the endurance of a tiger & the agility of a gibbon; being able to hone your body's abilities to strengthen your muscles from the most awkward angles and moving with crisp precision of a wild animal. Just seeing this Superhero and having that ability has now convinced me that moving like an animal is my destiny and embrace it more than any other method. I don't mind lifting heavy weight from time to time, smashing a tire with my Thor Hammer or slamming a Sandbell to the ground but nothing compares to moving like a wild animal. It gives me greater purpose in my fitness journey and allows me to be free without stricting to a single method of rules and sets/reps that determines strength or endurance.

Move like an Animal & you can't go wrong......

Animal Kingdom Conditioning: Survival Of The Fittest
Animal Kingdom Conditioning 2: Call Of The Wild
(Get The Kids Involved) Wild Animal Fitness For Kids
Animal Workouts DVD
Animal Flow 2.0

Friday, April 15, 2016

Not Just Primate Muscle

Many love to see muscles whether big or small on a man. For the most part, being muscular in a realistic sense (not bodybuilding muscles of today) can make you look intimidating but never underestimate the power of what's within your muscles. To me muscles are cool to look at from time to time on some people but in the end, I always wonder if there's real strength behind those muscles? Believe it or not a small portion of the muscle building world has very strong people. The reason why is not just the muscles but the strength of the tendons and ligaments that truly hold the muscles together.

Since I've talked about animal moves lately I should warn you that when you train this way, you'll build muscle but not grotesque looking muscle and you'll be strengthening your joints and the tendons throughout your movements. This builds functional muscle or what I call Primal Muscle. This goes beyond the world of muscle muscle muscle and digs deep into the cortex of your body's natural order of things. Building Primal Muscle takes work, a lot of work but it doesn't have to be boring and dull, it can be fun, exhilarating and very unconventional.

When you strengthen your tendons, you're strengthening the entire core of your physical structure and over time your body begins to change; abs begin to show, denser muscle begins to appear in your shoulders, arms, back, feet & legs, solid power in your fingers, elbows, ankles and knees plus new found flexibility and stamina. You won't see the type of muscle that's in a magazine where it's painted, brushed & photo-shopped, there will be real useful muscle that can be used in any situation and can amplify your way in sports, military, law enforcement & competition. Some of the very best athletes & personnel have used animal moves to build speed, power & intense strength and you can do the same.

Work & play towards developing primal muscle that is useful, practical and realistic. Doesn't matter how old you are whether just a little kid burning off energy or someone older wanting to relive their youth in a different format it is possible when you do the moves that suit you and your goals. Kids love imitating animals and don't care how goofy they look and people who want to do something fun will test out different things. Build Primate Muscle folks, its an adventure.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Daily Animals

Regardless of your training whether for competition, conditioning, strengthening or developing a highly good looking physique there always should be an animal you aught to do between workouts or on your days off. Animal training builds the muscles in different positions that other exercises can't touch. That's because most exercises have an up and down, side lift position as oppose to an animal exercise that hits you from so many angles its not even funny. When I do other workouts like circuits, bridging, VRT or whatever I do my best to move around like an animal the rest of the day because I love to move and keep my body energized.

People like to cram their workouts within a short period of time (an hour or less) and that's fine more power to you but I feel regardless of time, do little things throughout the day so you stay freshed until you're ready to pass out at bed time. When I travel and am around people I don't always have time for a major workout until its night time; I make it a point to exercise no matter what I'm doing, do some work while waiting at the airport, do some jumping movements before my family photoshoot back in march, do isometrics at a restaurant while waiting or in between eating my food. Unless you're at a job 24/7 you can make time to exercise regardless of how busy you are.

Do something for me this week or during your current regimen, on your days off or in between sets of your exercise, do one animal that you like for 5 minutes; it can be 1 minute here or there, 5 minutes straight, 2 min. in the morning, 1 min. in the afternoon and 2 min. at night or however you do within a total of 5 minutes. If that animal is too difficult for you, do bear crawls or hop like a frog in place I don't care, you only have to do one animal for 7 days straight. Build a habit of doing something different that you don't normally do or haven't done before. Don't just rush into an advanced movement, start slow, get the mechanics down, learn the awareness of your body's positioning.

Animal movement is far better for you than those machines at the gym, sure they're good from time to time but unless you're in rehab or plan on doing a bodybuilding comp, stay away from the machines as much as possible and use your natural body to move. Its scary and it may look silly but you know what, you might burn off more fat and build denser and defined muscles just by moving your body around for a few minutes in different directions. This gives you a complete outlook of being an overall trainee. To learn more about animal style training check out my Wild Kingdom section at ben-bergman.branded.me. Get your daily animal in, no matter what. Have fun and be safe.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

The Strength Of Primates

Its becoming a habit of transforming into a Primate (Ape, Monkey) these days as i'm testing out more ways to move like a wild jungle animal or hanging from the pull-up bar in various positions. Currently at my size I can do 5 pull-ups from various grips and that number will get a little higher each progression. That doesn't sound like much but at 268 lbs. its pulling a ton of weight (literally). That's the fascinating thing about primates is their crazy strength and power.

There's no true way of telling how strong a primate is; take for example the chimpanzee....


The strength of a chimp is so surreal its not even worth laughing at. Moving on all four limbs the majority of its life using their arms just as long puts them in the category of superhuman strength. Tested at a zoo they had a female chimp deadlift a heavyweight. The amount was roughly 600 lbs. or more using only one arm. That's freaking insane once you wrap your brain around it. Now think about the Lowland Gorilla.....


It has been said that the gorilla's strength in theory is the equivalent to 10-20 of the strongest lifters on the planet. Personally I believe its slightly exaggerated but not by much, overall that kind of strength is something you don't want to mess with. When it comes down to it, the gorillas are the strongest wrestlers of the animal kingdom, try to take down an ape of this magnitude and your life will be over in an instant. The crushing hand power is unbelievable and the tendons are basically like solid steel. 

We can never be as strong as a primate because of various reasons and the majority of exercises to even practice would be way too dangerous. Their structure may have the closest resemblance to us humans but in fact they have different variety of joints and tendons in areas we can't comprehend and that's why during their lifetime the healthiest primates swing through the trees with ease, walk on their hands and feet like its a cake walk and climb so damn fast it makes rock climbers look like wimps. The most athletic of all primates is the Gibbon hands down.....


As you can see because of the long arms, its built to swing and swing far greater than an acrobat ever could. Because of their genetic code, gibbons can be as tall as three feet from head to toe but their arms stretch as high as 5 feet, talk about a hell of a reach. They have the most agile grip in the primate world because of the way they swing they can change grips within an instant going from tree to tree. To even get close to a fraction of that strength and flexibility the safest way to train is to practice hanging and moving about on a bar, soccer goal or any long stretch of bar; the monkey bars are perfect for this. Do you know which primate has the strongest hands pound for pound? Its the Gelada Baboon....


Although it walks and sits like a dog, the gelada's hands are so powerful it'll rip the bone off your fingers. They live in the highlands of Ethiopia where they climb upside the mountains everyday and have their gatherings. Climbing up and down slopes as steep as these talks a serious amount of focus, strength and agility. Their fingers aren't that big compared to other apes and monkeys but they're so full of tendon strength it makes them a category of power all by themselves. They're the only monkeys to be able to handle that kind of stress. They weigh no more than 45 lbs. (females about 23) but pack so much power they can destroy a 200 lb. man in seconds. The closest you'll ever get to having that kind of strength is if you're an advanced level rock climber.

They say bodyweight exercises are not good for strength and only good for endurance...Depends on how you look at it. I personally believe through specific styles of training, body-weight fitness can be carried over to other areas of strength. If you're going to deadlift 1000 pounds yes i'll agree body-weight alone won't get you there but you can build tremendous strength within other areas. I rarely touch weights (barbells & dumbbells) these days but after many years of thickening my hands and building great back strength and leg strength I can still walk into a gym and still pick up 100 lb. dumbbells and pick up a hand and thigh deadlift of over 300 lbs. I've even done multiple reps with full weight of the lat pulldown machine and machine chest fly over 200 lbs. 

Don't underestimate the power of your own body. With the right training, bodyweight exercises can thicken muscle tissue and power up on your tendons to a degree of strength that makes you hard to put down. Imagine being an arm wrestler and training in the ways of an ape along with your specific training of the sport, most would find it difficult to even make you budge. 

Want to build real strength using Primate/Animal Methods? Get these courses below.....






Want to see more of a visual of cool Primate Movements? Here's a video I found of a guy doing 5 variations of Primate movements you can do in your home (with enough space) or outdoors to play on...

Did some of these earlier just to mess around and were a lot of fun. I'll be filming my style of Primate movement in the near future. Be on the lookout for that one. Get wild and have a blast guys. Be awesome. 



Monday, April 11, 2016

Becoming Tarzan

Training to be the Ape Man isn't something that happens overnight, its a real commitment whether short term or long term. With the upcoming movie coming this summer, I'm brushing up on my animal training (mainly Primate Movements) and making my body move differently and develop flexibility in my hips and shoulders through deep squatting (which I like to call the Ape Squat) and pulling power through hanging from different grips and pull-ups from different grips. To truly dig deep into the heart of Tarzan Fitness you really need to go to the full source (with adaptations of course) by training the body in a series of animalized movements just like the man himself that has to crawl, jump, hang, swing (brachiate) and balance.

Animal Kingdom Conditioning

Animal Kingdom Conditioning 2: Call Of The Wild

For a 270 lb man, brachiating isn't an easy task, for the most part its damn near impossible but I believe i'll be able to do it again one day and be able to practice more on the monkey bars and a soccer goal if I can find one. I love moving like an ape and so since i'm more geared towards being a gorilla than Tarzan it fits me but I like to imagine myself as a much bigger version of the guy. Being 50-100 pounds bigger and doing really cool athletic things a man that size is known in theory to be incapable of doing. To get the look of Tarzan takes different training but its not impossible to build a physique using primate movements and strategically eating well and recovering well. One of the styles of training to have that full Tarzan look is to do Charles Atlas style exercises which you can find below.....

Pushing Yourself To Power

Isometric Power Revolution

Ultimate Push-ups For The Awesome Physique

These are the same (or similar) exercises that actors Jock Mahoney, Mike Henry, Ron Ely and I believe even Johnny Weissmuller did for their Tarzan Roles (IMO Mike Henry was the best of them). I love these types of exercises too because when I don't have the space I need for the Animal Movements, I do these or Circuits from Darebee to do conditioning work. When it comes down to it, I prefer Animal Moves because I don't like to be in one spot the entire time, I want to move around and be surrounded by fresh air and being on the grass but also I don't always have that luxury in the winter time and i'm not fond of being in snow so I go with other options. That's the thing, don't resort to one single ideal or you'll miss out; give yourself options.

Another way to really tap into that Ape Man mentality is to do MovNat which is basically the highest level of Tarzan Fitness there is period. Teaches you real mechanics of crawling, jumping, balancing, coordinating, swimming, fighting and climbing. Whether you choose to train like the Ape Man or not there is always options to have to fulfill your natural and athletic potential and have a healthy body and have strong, supple tendons and ligaments. Keep your exercise to a level where you don't go to failure and utilize your natural strength/body ratio to stay in a long-term stance of training where injuries are slim to none and listen to your body as you train and recover. Personally I don't believe pushing your ass to the absolute limit to the point where there's so much pain you end up tearing or breaking something. I do believe in testing your abilities but only to a certain degree where recovery helps you build up and you can train at a high level without hurting yourself.

We can't be Tarzan everyday, its just not practical but we can adapt and have long-term health with the right training that suits our needs. Learn your options and use what's there for you at anytime no matter where you are. Train like an Animal outdoors (or indoors if you have the space), if you have very limited space use one of the first 3 courses listed above or do Darebee Workouts for circuit training. Make it an adventure to exercise no matter what and utilize your imagination and instincts to truly train anywhere, anytime. That's the true motto of Tarzan Fitness.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Grip Training On A Budget

There are those in the world that can't afford a gym or specific equipment that costs an arm and a leg but still want to become strong and fit. I love having a strong grip but I don't have that big of money for stones, a power rack, drag sled or Battling ropes; I believe in being simple and minimal of what is used for my best interest and benefit. Plus I don't have any room for all that stuff but I do have some things that you can get at a hardware store, towels and a pull-up bar for under 30 bucks. Just because something costs a big deal doesn't always mean its a big deal.

My secret to grip strength on a budget is to do things that the only weight it requires is your own. I did thick bar pull-ups by wrapping my bath towel around the bar, built up my fingers from doing gorilla exercises and fingertip push-ups to the point where I can do them explosively off the ground, hook my fat gripz to a bar and have at it yet still made progress with my grip strength. Not everyone has the ability to get expensive stuff to make themselves better and even if they could, don't take it for granted. I believe in the art of using your brain and using your money for things that matter most to you. Here's a list of what you can use for under a few bucks....

Left over tires for Hammer striking

Your towels to build pulling power

Removable Doorway Pull-up Bar

Step Stool for elevated Push-ups

Fat Gripz

DIY Sandbags

Buckets to fill water and carry

Many ways to build grip power without needing to spend a ton of money, one of the greatest arm wrestlers of the 20th century Mac Batchelor used bottle caps between his fingers and other things that made his grip so powerful, no one was able to beat him. Use your imagination, be willing to do what you can without needing a whole lot for very little. Use your brain, not always your wallet.



Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Apeing Up My Conditioning




Yes the first word in the title isn't in the dictionary or a full on word but you know what, it sums up what I've been doing lately. Becoming an ape is no easy feat, it takes focus, commitment, a little imagination and being oblivious to looking like a goof. People can say what they want and depict how to train like a gorilla but to truly get down to the nitty gritty, you have to move like one in order to become one. Animals in the wild don't lift weights or use machines to gain their strength; they rely on nothing but their body and instincts in order to survive. Granted if they had to move anything it be boulders, knocking down trees and carrying large specs of nature.

Nothing in the world can give you the functional strength, agility, flexibility and power more than the true animalized movements of bodyweight conditioning. Sure weights, medicine balls, jump rope, stones and dumbbells can give you great conditioning and can take you far if you use it properly and with real intentions but in all my years of training nothing compares to animal exercises; maybe its because of the way i'm drawn to them or because they give me real sense of purpose to train for life against myself and nothing else. Training this way teaches me how to handle my body from really awkward positions and strengthen my tendons from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. Its so powerful, very few understand its true source of untapped energy and fundamental strength that is useful, realistic and functional.

The gorilla is my inner animal, its been within me ever since I was a little boy and only up until about 10 years ago or so I started to truly embrace it and train in it. Other animals have their perks and all are very valuable but the ape is the king of them all. You may think differently because your inner animal is different and you can go on and on about the scientific stuff and that its truly impossible to be as strong as a gorilla or to even move like one yet, I have in my mind the belief and the personal experience and participation that when you set your mind to something and adapt it to make it work for you, possibilities are endless. Gorillas are in fact stronger than humans period but we can learn from what they have done their entire lives. Not in complete entirety because there just a great deal of things that we can't do because it wasn't meant for us to do however, when we break down the movements and put in things that are more realistic and practical it can take us to levels of strength we didn't think existed in the human body.

For the past week, I've basically done nothing but hanging, walking, jumping, running and playing like a Gorilla or Primate in my workouts. Due to lack of space and the structure of my body I can't do brachiating movements on my pull-up bar so I have to just do hanging from different grips and isometric pull-ups for now until I can find a much longer bar to work on at a park or somewhere. The ground work however will be more suited to what I'm doing but to keep the equality of pulling and pushing as best as possible. To learn more about true Ape movements get the Animal Kingdom Courses 1 & 2 to have you training like a true ape. If that's not in your budget, get either Animal Flow 2.0 or The Animal Workout DVD to get an idea of what to do to unleash your inner ape. That's all for today. Have fun and go be wild.

Friday, April 1, 2016

Why Is It Important To Be Creative?

Why is it important to be creative? Is it to become someone more than the rest, is it about being better and more reliable on your imagination than to do someone else's style? In my mind, being creative in fitness is the toughest thing you can ever be. Doing someone else's style makes you lower than your true potential is. That is not to say you can't learn or be taught a specific way so you can learn your own style later; it just means what you want to do can be learned through your interest, will to commit and the idea to find yourself in what you believe works.

Throughout my life, I never liked being told what works and what doesn't, I made the choice to be creative because my brain operates differently than the majority of people. I learn from a lot of people all the time but that doesn't change the fact that when it comes down to fitness, i'm very self reliant. I feel alive and focused as I create my workouts or my own style of training. My soul is free and I'm able to generate greater inner strength through my creativity. In nearly 20 years I've learned how to lift, hold a handstand, put up heavy weight, bend bars, bend backwards into a bridge, struck a tire with a Thor Hammer and a near 60 pound sledgehammer, I've hung onto pull-up bars with one arm and taken on some amazing lessons from very gifted and stupid strong individuals that believed in what I'm capable of.

Going from one program to another time to time is fun because you're constantly picking your own brain and seeing something new that you may have not seen or felt before. The truth is, I always go back to one particular style of training that keeps me in shape like a lightweight at around 270 and that's the Animal Movements more specifically Ape Training by hanging, moving like a wild gorilla or chimp. I found out that basically I was destined to be an ape like person. My mother jokingly told me that my father got a card for either my birthday or he got it for father's day who knows but she said that in it, it had talked about a chimp and apparently my father seemed to believe that was what I was going to be because I somehow to him acted like one; now I move and train like one and didn't even realize until I got so into it it became natural to me. My creativity is natural for me because if I ever tried exactly what others do, I become disoriented, uninterested and I shut down. I can't do someone else's system to the T very well because my brain isn't programmed for that.

Some people find it difficult to be creative and so they become followers and be more like sheep or soldiers, follow a leader and let him lead you the way, go down their path because that's what they feel is right. Truth is, anyone that is remotely creative in any shape or form are the scariest people on the planet because not only do they think for themselves, they can free themselves without thinking twice about it. Creativity also brings ridicule, attacks on your self-esteem and its a pain in the ass to make people understand what you want to create. People want to suppress those that have critical thinking and shut down what may bring them hell but all in all, they're jealous of what you have the potential to be successful in. Marketing gimmicks, commercials, the news, endless stupid reality shows and magazines that print bullshit that really has no relevance to your true self.

When you train, learn what the mechanics are and make it into your own style that fits your goals and what you decide to accomplish not what others feel is better for you. Do I believe in certain people when it comes to programs and various systems yes wholeheartedly but I do not follow they're rules or believe in everything they do. They're different in their own ways and not all have the same philosophy. I learn what I want to learn and I pay attention to things that interest me, I have never been able to learn by what someone tells me to do so one of two things go down; I either have someone show me up close and personal the mechanics and I go from there or I observe in a book or DVD and learn if it works for me, if its not exactly what they do then I make it my own until I have mastered it. That's how my brain works, I'm not some little puppy who rolls over when I'm told to, I do my own damn rolling. It is important to be creative because in reality good or bad, its the only way to survive at times; not everything goes according to plan and you're never the same person everyday. Be creative because its who you are, learn what's important and make it your own otherwise you're just another dog mastering commands.

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