When you need a pick me up or even the urge to challenge yourself, sometimes you just go with your gut and hope for the best. This morning, I wanted to do some Animal Conditioning and did my Deck Of Cards Animal Workout. Doubled the reps/steps to really sink things in and feel the wrath of the wild. The animals were as follows....
All together, its 1000 total reps. Crazy thing is, I had three jokers in the deck I used so it came out to 1100. A lot of crawling and walking in a half squat and full squat. The only rest was getting up and flipping a card, that was it. For the Animal I did for the jokers it was 100 Steps of the Sasquatch. Walking in that position for a period of time really puts tension in the thighs and works the tendons and ligaments with a vengeance. It's almost walking in a wrestler's stance or a football stance getting ready for a tackle.
This particular workout hits practically every muscle in the body and you can move in all sorts of directions and revs up your cardio that is unbelievable. Awesome conditioning for combat sports, health, coordination, agility, upper & lower body strength. Doesn't take very long (just around 30 minutes or so) and targets quite a bit of the brain since you need to send the nerves to the muscles to keep them going and stay balanced. It's like a jolt to the noggin along with building lung power.
Training is an adventure and when you can play like a beast in the wild (even a duck), it makes your workout all the more enjoyable. With a workout like this, it's like a game and you can create the difficulty. Have fun and keep being amazingly awesome.
Animal moves have an endless variety but only a few are needed to get in a really good workout. What you choose to master or utilize in your training is up to you but never forget to respect the movements as you practice them. You can go hard, you can go slow, you can even do them in Isometric fashion (maybe not the jumping ones for obvious reasons). It's about building a foundation and finding what gives you the best benefit.
The wild never stops. You keep finding ways to condition your body and put yourself in awkward positions to strengthen areas that conventional or "traditional" training methods can't reach. One of the reasons why I love doing my Animal Deck Of Cards Workout (The Four Animals Of The Apocalypse). It never goes the same way every time and when a Joker comes into play, you get to pick which animal to tackle for reps or distance. The total reps I've done most of the time is around 500 but have done a 1000 total on a few occasions and feels awesome afterwards. With the 500 I would finish around 15-16 min for a full deck which is still quite a workout in itself. These days the main four are....
Why did I choose these specific animals? At least 3 are the most basic you see in sports such as wrestling and football since they can be so intense that only a few seconds of them can get you out of breath. The bigfoot walk was what I learned from Vahva Fitness and it's based on movement utilized mainly by wrestlers being in that stance and shifting for balance like in Shadow Wrestling or a match. They get the body in rugged shape pretty fast and when you go hard on even one of them, you're building that explosive conditioning.
One of my other favorite workouts is a 5 min Tabata Workout of just the Bear Crawl. You go as fast as you can for 10 seconds, rest for 20 and repeat until you've done 5 minutes. That may not sound hard but it's not as easy as it looks on paper. When you have to explode at a moments notice and you're practically sprinting on all fours, it becomes quite the exercise. The first couple rounds you might be breathing hard but the more rounds you go, the more it's going to feel like your heart will rip out of your chest. If you're in good health, this might actually be good for you to do (not every single day though). It's quick, fast and can be done practically anywhere. I do it in my living space and it kicks my ass every time.
There are so many ways to do Animal Workouts it's not even funny. When you get the idea of moving like a beast in the wild, it doesn't seem like a workout, it becomes a game you can play and being like a kid again. An ancient style of this type of training can be traced back to the art of qi gong and the Shaolin Monks who mimic animals in their Martial Arts practice. In today's style which can has been seen like with Animal Flow and Ginastica Natural, it's been used to target MMA style training and conditioning for certain aspects of Health. It can be fun especially if you combine them but when it comes down to it, you can do all of that and then some with the Movement 20XX fitness course that shows you how to not just work individual exercises but combine the elements of all of them together to form your own style and goals.
These forms of exercise create an exciting aspect of fitness you don't get with conventional training methods. Yes some exercises may be too advanced for some people but as long as you stick to the basics, you're golden. Just the deck of cards workout I've given you would be a great warm up or a conditioning workout on its own and you can pick your own animal moves to work on. I picked those because they're fun to do. It can be challenging but I find it more interesting to do than hundreds of squats or push-ups. Regular calisthenics are great and should be mastered and practiced whenever possible but at the same time, very few replaces killer exercises like Bear Crawls, Crab Walks & Duck Walks. If wrestlers use them for conditioning, that should tell you how important and brutal they can be. Whether for a few minutes or close to a half hour, animal exercises can be a great asset to your health, your overall strength and conditioning along with building balance, flexibility and durability. Did I forget to mention they're calorie burners as well?
Get moving by training like a wild beast and have fun. The more fun you have, the better your results will be. Keep being amazingly awesome.
Walking in a half or even quarter squat for an extended period of time can really fire up your legs and give that little jolt of energy. I have written recently about what the Bigfoot exercise is and how it's done. The benefits of it alone are pretty cool: It's a bit challenging but also has strong benefits for building incredible strength endurance along with powering up the tendons and ligaments especially in the knees. If you've had previous injuries or have trouble doing a squat, make that a priority before doing this exercise.
In my last article about squatting, I mentioned that when it comes to certain variations, it's better to do what gives the individual benefit more than how superior squats may be. Once you hit a certain amount of reps, where do you even go after that? You're not trying to break numbers like Gama or the legendary Karl Gotch, you're sure as hell not trying to always man up somebody over an exercise. Hitting something like 500 or more is awesome but that's not the full extent of how interesting squats can be.
In wrestling or boxing, hell in most combat sports, you're in a certain squatting position or stance that can be closed in or have a wider base but for all intents and purposes, you're not squatting ass to grass the entire time unless it's to make an explosive move like a slam takedown or a wrap around for a suplex or some kind of set-up for a submission move. Your stance is roughly in the quarter squat position and you're shifting in various stages. Take out fighting for a second and think about how you go through bushes in a forest, you tend to squat down a little in order to efficiently move through. When a S.W.A.T team moves in on a target or has to keep a steady hand as he moves throughout a mission, he's in a particular stance for balance and effective shifting of the legs.
When you move in this squat position that is called the Bigfoot Walk, you're training your legs to be strong and explosive when needed, it's part of a series you can find on youtube that coincides with other Animal Exercises. Walking like the Wonkavator going in various directions, you're maintaining a level of tension in the legs that can be just as effective as doing hundreds of full squats. Try it for yourself. Walk in a half squat or even a quarter squat for let's say 5 minutes and if your legs don't burn at all, than you've got some pretty strong and durable legs. Move like a wrestler or boxer and feel those legs tensing up. I started out moving in this exercise for 3 minutes a day, bumped it up to 5 for a bit and started today at 6 minutes. It gets you breathing a bit and has that TUT feel (Time Under Tension) while moving.
Yeah it looks goofy at first and seems like a silly move but when you put it into perspective on how guys like Gotch, Marciano, Ali, Mark Shultz, Dan Gable and others move in this position over an extended period of time in bouts, it gives you an idea of how powerful those legs are and make explosive movements at a moments notice and rarely get tired. Can you imagine the strength and durability your legs would be if you moved this way for even 10 minutes a day? Your legs would be hard as stones but explosive and full of stamina. For exercise purposes, only a few minutes is really needed and you don't have to be as explosive as a wrestler or boxer but it does bare some awesomeness when you can do this exercise in various ways and keep yourself strong in the process.
This is an exercise you can do just about anywhere and if you don't have a ton of space, you can move in micro steps or hold as an isometric in various postures keeping the knees bent. Start with one minute and work your way up. Once you can go 5 minutes without standing up straight, it's a good chance you got some serious power going.
Be strong, have fun and keep being amazingly awesome.
If you get the reference, kudos to you. Can you last 3 minutes in the Bigfoot Exercise Challenge?
It may not look like much but it is for sure a great exercise for the legs. It is a little out there especially with the name but the effects of it are more than what people think. When you first see it, where the hell is the resistance, what does the range of motion initially? Give it a go and see what happens.
Pretty quickly you'll feel it in your thighs and your ass. If you can do it for a good length of time, you'll feel quite the sensation (even within 30 seconds). It is no joke especially if you want to condition the legs along with strength & durability. Here's the reality, many people even at a higher level of training don't always know what works and what should be thrown in the trash (CrossFit anyone?). A lot live in this dogmatic world that consistently believes that more weight comes to more results, the greater range of motion means more results and that compound movements such as the Squat & Deadlift are the kings of developing the lower body. Don't get me wrong, those lifts are essential to many things such as powerlifting, strongman training and certain aspects of sports specific training but they're not Mount Olympus caliber either.
Here's a shocker for you: Many movements end up being in a partial range of motion. Not only that, but also because of the dynamics and mechanics of a lot of movements, there are a ton of Semi-Unilateral & Semi-Bilateral moves that are similar to the Bigfoot Walk. Think about it for a second like a martial artist or a wrestler, if their stance is too wide, his power and speed won't be as effective plus they can be caught easier in specific positions. With a firm and balanced stance (watch a wrestler like Dan Gable or Jordan Burroughs), it's a little more closed in, it's not spread out and out of unison. Similar to a Hockey Player, he needs that balance on those skates, if his range of motion is out of sync with controlling the puck, he's going to tear a groin, skates will go berserk and he can't be at his best or even at the most basic level of play.
This particular movement is a lot more useful to do for real life and sports. It's weird to look at but it's not any weirder than crouching and walking through bushes or practicing various stances in wrestling or other combat sports. You're only squatting down a bit but instead of coming back up, you stay in that position and move around or hold for a period of time, simple but not as easy as it looks. People with knee issues (small levels) could benefit from this exercise. It creates constant tension and you're shifting from one leg to another.
This is just another look at the wide range of exercises you can learn from such as the ones from Movement 20XX that incorporate full body application and progressions that hit many muscle groups and can get you in killer condition and long-term strength whether you're an athlete, a complete beginner, older trainee or just those who want to be in shape for the long haul. Some of these may be too advanced for some but overall, these exercise will take you to places in your fitness journey you may haven't experienced before.
Be adventurous, take up the challenge if you can. If you can't last the full 3 minutes that's ok, build up to it little by little. Keep striving to be better and keep being amazingly awesome.
