Inhuman For Your Thoughts

    Over the decades we have been influenced by our favorite superheroes and comic book characters within all walks of life. They inspire us to believe in a world filled with wonder and imagination. They help us escape reality for a while and get sucked into a really cool story involving major players like Captain America, Superman, Thor, The Hulk, Aquaman and many more. It's the centerpiece of finding within that raving hero that lives inside many of us. We do have heroes in real life plus many villains and we want those heroes taking down the bad guys. But do superhumans live among us?

 

    In reality you can't fly or shoot lasers out of your eyes or have strength like the Hulk but we do have however some amazing human beings being able to do extraordinary things. Great minds like Einstein and Tesla, incredible athletes that seem to have god-like powers like hitting a homerun 500 feet, run the 100 meters in around 9.5 seconds, picking up 1000 pounds, bending/snapping wrenches in half and even withstand high doses of electricity. I'm learning about a series of heroes in Marvel called the Inhumans; earthlings that have superhuman abilities from an ancient entity that harnesses their senses and abilities that is different to each individual. Some of you may know more of the Royal Family of the Inhumans such as Medusa, Black Bolt, Karnack, Triton and the Satyr Gorgon. They're kind of like the Ancient Greek Family the Olympians just on a different scale with different powers but all related to each other. What's amazing is that some of these characters have near real-life counterparts that have insane abilities. Triton who is like a fish with the body-like of a man who is practically the king of water, we have athletes that have abilities to swim for long periods of time under water; Medusa as you may have guessed has the long hair and can control even the tiniest particle at will to create some serious damage, think there isn't someone out there that has crazy hair like strength? Some women do but one of the strongest hairs belongs to a man named Joseph Greenstein aka The Mighty Atom that had the hair strength to hold back a plane. Why not Blackbolt, the king of the Inhuman Royal Family (who's also married to Medusa) that has the ability to fire sonic screams to take down enemies, there's a woman out there I forgot her name but her screams had reached decibel levels that are off the chain. Let's not forget Gorgon; a animalistic entity that has the upper body of a man and the lower body of a wild goat (sounds similar to Pan don't you think). He is a trainer of the Inhumans that can take down a city block just with the strength of his legs in a mighty stomp. Some of the strongest athletes in the world have immense leg strength even though they don't have the legs of a satyr; they can run incredibly fast, lift insane amount of weight and have super muscle that allows them to lift well over a ton.

 

    We may not have superpowers but with the right training and the right tools, we can become far stronger than the average human and develop incredible athletic ability. To get an idea of developing incredible strength, one can lift odd objects like rocks, stones, logs, kegs, heavy pipes, furniture anything that has you working the stabilizer muscles in an awkward position. Develop explosiveness through jumping or sprinting. Imagine having your own set of abilities that sets you as a unique individual and be able to generate great power in the blink of an eye using a technique(s) that gives you incredible energy. Use your gifts and abilities to possibly save lives, help others and get a realistic edge over your competition. How sweet would it be to hit a ball further, speed down the field with no one able to catch you, hoist up another human from falling and even protect the ones you love with intensity and insane strength? You can do the ordinary routines and live your life like nothing's going to happen but why not have that Superhero Mentality and infuse your imagination to grow stronger and build incredible muscle that is useful and functional. You have a choice. What would your favorite hero want you to do?

Crazy Strength While Walking

    

     When it comes to Mythology, there are many creatures in certain stories like dragons, half man half beasts and many others but when it comes to pure power and strength one of the most legendary creatures the Centaur is famous for. A Centaur basically is a man with a human head to torso with a horse's lower body. When you have that much strength to go with it's not just that it's crazy speed, the tendons of a great animal and if you want to put a little humor to it you can call this guy a real horse's ass. We're going to be looking into The Chiron Program where it teaches how to handle weight while carrying it in different ways.

 
    Now one of the greatest exercises for pure raw strength is the Farmer's Walk, taking an object of each hand (hopefully with equal weight) and walking with it for distance; this could be dumbbells, kettlebells, buckets of sand and/or water putting thick grips on the handles to make it harder and other possible ways. This is truly a man's man exercise. Now imagine pressing the weight overhead and walking that way in different directions, why not clean them and walk that, it's all how you use your imagination. Being able to imagine you're this mythical creature with superhuman qualities and progressing to a great amount of weight, think with great focus. Ever see the strongman competitions that are on ESPN from time to time? These carry weight pretty much with ease, now think what it would be like to lift and carry furniture to help a friend move or being able to save someone's life if they're trapped, bringing that dead weight to your torso and just take off.

 
    Using your imagination is a key to being very successful in your endeavor, if you're too realistic and think nothing of what you only see with your eyes, you can be successful but not in a much bigger manner. When you open up your mind to the world of the possible, picturing yourself with a much stronger body and can handle greater stress, applying it productively in real time with a progressive system that gets you firing your success rate will jump. Work towards building up to bigger weight or whatever you can handle, lift with efficiency so you don't hurt yourself in the process. Imagine being a real Centaur with a powerful upper body and a superhuman lower body with legs that can kill a man with a single kick, a back that can carry a couple people and has vast energy burning within of the wild beast.

 
    Like the story of Atlas, you literally and figuratively have the weight resting on your shoulders and body. It's not easy holding up vast weight and having to carry it but it can make you crazy strong and fast. Imagine having a weight vest on and walking a mile or less with it that's around 100 lbs. more than your bodyweight, take it off after you're done and you're practically floating as you walk and doing it with speed. It is important to train and let it be useful for nearly any situation, a powerful body that can help others and not just to pose like a pretty boy. Being a beast is not always how big or bad you are, it's the strength you possess both inside and outside and using it to the best of your abilities to help one another. The weight may rest literally on you but you have the power to move and not just carry it but push and pull with great power. You can be a smaller guy and have incredible strength, it's all about how you're willing to carry the weight from a mental stand point and letting it carry over to the physical side, hint Mind/Muscle Connection.

 
Have a great Wednesday guys, be awesome and carry your weight with power and might.

Could Arthur Saxon Be A Vampire?

 
    It's not every day you find one of the greatest strongmen in history in the most unlikely source, a Vampire Book. A current book I'm reading called Fangs: Everything The Modern Vampire Needs To Know which I find fascinating so far shows the ins and outs of a Vampire in the current scene. Now for the most part I would rather be like Blade (Daywalker) than some dumbass from Twilight. In a chapter about Vampire Powers there's superspeed, strength, magic, flight, shapeshifting and things that make a Vampire; out of all things they happen to pick Saxon for Strength. Why is that? They had artistic pictures of other vampires and demons but yet chose to have a real life figure for Strength. They could've chosen a more mainstream person but yet got Saxon and why, because he is one of the true kings of the modern century in strongmanism.

 
    In my opinion (and theory at that) they picked Saxon because they wanted to find a man of incredible strength and power but yet look to what strength was in a certain time where if you were very muscular chances were you had equal or more strength to go with it. Saxon was ahead of his time when he burst onto the scene in circus acts with his brothers and to this day holds the record for the most weight lifted with one arm in the bent-press. Although that was his most famous lift, it wasn't just that lift he was good at, he was incredibly strong in other areas and was a man who seemed invincible (hint Vampire).

 
    The power he possessed was far ahead than nearly every single strongman of his era. He used intelligence and put into practice the energy that would give him the strength to lift more weight with one arm than 99% of the population can't with two arms. You have to remember, strength in those days came in the form of very few athletes, unlike today there are strongman competitions all over the world but back then, you'd be lucky to find a strongman show that didn't involve a circus or a vaudeville show whether it was in the U.S, Canada or abroad in Europe. Saxon in his time was the man everyone aspiring strongman wanted to duplicate because today no one has beat him and this has science in the form of steroids, performance enhancers and yet still no where near him. Giving the fact that almost no one does the Bent-Press or the Two-Handed Anyhow anymore unless you're in a small circle of athletes who continue a tradition in the Old-Time Arts.

 
    So think about this, one of the strongest men to have ever lived happens to be in Vampire Book that displays what strength is to the undead. Could it be that Saxon may have had some supernatural entities to have been chosen out of countless strongmen even the best of today? No one knows, maybe the stories of legendary beer drinking was really blood and it gave him superhuman strength. Think about that for a moment.

 
Be awesome everyone.

The Bodyweight Exploits Of Spiderman

                

               Out of the many classic superheroes, Spiderman seems to be the most athletic in the sense where he doesn’t have the weightlifter physique or the bodybuilder look but he moves like an athlete should. He has the most control in his body to weight ratio and moves with unbelievable grace and power at the same time.

                In Bodyweight Training, you learn to control your body through movements that require no equipment (unless you do pull-ups). For the most part when people begin lifting weights they don’t realize that mastering your own bodyweight ought to be more important before even touching a weight. I’ve seen guys in the gym who can lift more than double their bodyweight but can’t hold their own in a single push-up or pull-up. Handling your own bodyweight goes a long way in learning how to contract and extend the muscles with fluidity and great power. Some use Yoga to do Bodyweight Training, others learn how to master their body through Handbalancing or Gymnastics.

                Mastering your body in various directions can give you strength that weights can’t touch. Think of it like this, a man can bench press 400 lbs. but most likely can’t do 400 push-ups; the two exercises are different but one uses more muscles than the other. I’m not saying if you could do 400 push-ups you’ll automatically lift that same number but yet you have mastered an exercise that requires deep concentration, working more than the upper body and there are many variations you can do. To master your bodyweight, you work from as many angles as possible using as many muscles in a single exercise. Karl Gotch once said “you don’t need to do much, for doing a lot.” You can have ultimate mastery when you can control your body in very difficult movements or holds like a free standing handstand, one-legged squat, finger pull-ups, front levers with one arm, the iron cross on the gymnastic rings, the various planch positions these are all examples of what great mastery can achieve.

                When most learn bodyweight training, they usually go through the motions and just learn an exercise. Now here’s a small tip to create bigger results; learn to use your imagination. Creating a vision in your mind and applying it to your exercises can generate even greater strength because a different thought creates a different result. When you do squats, instead of just counting reps and thinking of just squats, picture in your mind something cool that makes you do squats like if you have to duck from a hazardous object like Indiana Jones did in the Last Crusade or doing Hindu Squats and imagining you have to row a boat where you squat down and rowing the oars, think of the result coming out of that and how much fun it can be and not dreading just the exercise. Thinking differently with feeling can give you far greater results than just going through the motions.  Picture yourself being superhuman and training to save your city from evil.

                Spiderman is one of those superheroes most can relate to, sure he has super powers we don’t have but like anyone else, he can be hurt or worse get killed. He doesn’t have that overpowering physique most heroes have; full of muscle and all that, he just seems like a regular guy when he’s not being a superhero. Don’t forget, some of the ordinary looking people can have extraordinary gifts. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Be awesome everyone, have a badass weekend and have fun. First day of summer is tomorrow, the longest day of the year, make it a blast.

Conserving Your Breathing

            The breath is the most important factor in the human body. We can for days without water, weeks without food but yet we can only live a few minutes holding our breath. The way we breathe in the fitness world is a bit strange at times. You can breathe in and out your nose or mouth; breathe in through the nose, out the mouth or in the nose and out the nose. There are many ways to breathe but during exercise apparently we have to breathe in and out one time with one rep. That’s how we’re normally taught, even in bodyweight type exercises like the squat and push-up, inhale up, exhale down or vise versa.

            What if we switched gears a bit so you can get a few extra reps without breathing in and out every single time? Learn to breathe differently, conserve your energy and your breathing. If you’re breathing too much, too early, you may get wined. It’s like a wrestling match, you need to keep your body strong and supple and part of that is your breathing, if you get winded too quickly (or as they say in pro wrestling you Blow Up), you won’t be as efficient and you won’t be able to handle the stress and possibly end up losing. What does the breath feel like, sound like and where does the driving force of it come from. Do an exercise like push-ups, inhale for 2 reps and exhale for 2 reps, you just did 4 reps in one breath. Now do it a little consistently. It’s not easy and it takes getting use to but you can get more out of your reps with the control of your breathing power.

            Doing the same old thing can lead to boredom and as the definition of insanity is; doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Here at Power & Might, I look to help you find and give information that can help you from another perspective. Thinking differently, helping you get more out of what most people teach. Deep Breathing is one of the most powerful aspects of Physical Culture because it doesn’t just help you become physically strong but mentally strong as well.

            Fluidity is another important aspect of your training. Like Bruce Lee has stated being like water, it’s fluid, powerful and can give life as well as destroy it. Moving with grace and power is far more important than grunting, making little mad faces and being narrow dimensional. Expand your power; one course that is the center of this is CoreForce Energy, teaching how to expand your power, your breathing and your imagination to instantly get stronger and faster. Open up to building a stronger body from within and take your strength to levels that you thought were impossible.

Be awesome my friends.  

By The Beard Of Zeus

            

             Sorry I had Anchorman man on the brain this morning. If you’re a fan of Will Ferrell or Awesomely Stupid Comedy watch Anchorman & it’s sequel. Whenever Ferrell (who’s character is Ron Burgundy) is in shock or whatever he says a random set of words instead of holy shit it’s like “Sweet Odin’s Raven” or whatever comes up. I find it funny but I still like the god himself.

            Funny things aside, you can harness the power of Zeus if you apply the thought, your action and your imagination of super strength and speed by using simple techniques that can create strength by three fold. It’s teaching you to harness your strength that you already possess within you that just needs a key to unlock the door. Believe me I was skeptical at first too and I've been learning all kinds of stuff for years but I decided to put my skepticism aside and just test it, see if the guy who was teaching it was bluffing and full of shit, I was dead wrong and was in for a whirlwind.

            I was shocked when I incorporated the sounds, the imagination and the target points to what I want to do and my strength shot up like a damn cannon. I've literally done hundreds of exercises in my lifetime and even with the most difficult ones felt at ease. It’s called CoreForce Energy; a system proven to combine different elements to surge your strength in less than a few minutes if not seconds. Imagine if you’re an athlete being able to run a little faster down the field, knock the ball out of the park, have laser eye coordination while shooting a basketball have a faster and more accurate slap shot, have a better golf swing and do it all without steroids and/or PEDs, would you want that kind of power and speed?

            This isn't just for athletes but for people from all walks of life from the business man to the martial arts, to the entertainer and opera performer, to the awe strength of Circ Du Soleil to the motivational speaker who wants project a greater voice. When you get your hands on CoreForce Energy you’ll learn in small chunks how to peak your performance at the maximum level with step by step simple but effective elements of training, philosophy and the internal arts.

            Zeus is a fundamental component of the course and you’ll find out why when you hear the sounds of power and music, to feel the surge course through you with breathing patterns that give you strength instead of draining it and you’ll find the deepest secrets of Einstein’s vision of standing on the tip of the light traveling at the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second and how this one technique can increase your speed within an instant. Unlock the power that’s already within you and harness your strength like you've never seen it before. No matter how big or small you are, there’s something there for everyone and my friend Garin Bader will show you the deepest secrets of unlocking your power, your undeniable speed and the strength that is just edging to be unleashed. You have the power my friend, make it happen and perform at a level that you have been dying to have.

Gods And Deities That Teach Us About Fitness

           For countless centuries, we have worshiped many gods and supernatural figures that give us power and love over our lives. Not all have used them that way and have pushed the boundaries what is good and what’s evil about worshiping a god, king or supernatural force but when it comes down to it, it’s important to know that we hold some of these forces and beings in our hearts and can learn from them. In this case in the world of fitness, they’re just as important to learn from in that caliber if not more as we see them as a driving force to believe in.

            Building fitness using the very figures that have conquered World Literature and Mythology is a great way to look at how we can create the human body to a degree of strength and health that we all strive to find. For all intents and purposes, there’s no need to do drugs, steroids or any of that crap to build solid, functional strength that can carry over to everyday life. Here are a few figures in Mythology that can grasp a hold on our fitness training and how we can use them to find what works best for us.

Zeus: The All-Mighty Greek God (or Roman’s Jupiter) is a great way to look at fitness because he is that powerful, nerve forcing god that gives us the strength that we can grab a hold of and harness that force inside us to create that superhuman strength and speed that scientists say we only use 5% of at best. Think of having the hands of Zeus, grabbing something or taking in energy that surges throughout your whole body and puts you in a state where it feels like you can take on any obstacle and laugh at your challenges.

Pan: The Satyr half-man half goat that is the spirit of sexual energy and the way we harness our power and strength from our legs. When you build powerful and strong functional legs, you create that balance of testosterone which in turn gives you great health, burns off fat, powerful muscle all over and it aids in making you feel younger, stronger and more in tuned with your inner child of play and man/woman of loving energy.

Hercules: The man of Superhuman Strength. This is more in tuned with bodybuilding but more importantly, to truly understand the fitness side of Hercules is to learn to build your body that is not only powerful and solid but having nearly equal strength to go with it. The old-time strongmen had built solid and mighty physiques but at the same time, their strength was even more impressive. Men like Reg Park, John Grimek, Eugene Sandow and others that had incredible bodies but even greater strength that was just unbelievable. Don’t be a Tarzan and fight like Jane kind of Bodybuilder, harness your strength and power naturally as you build your physique. Basic lifts and basic programs are key.

            To go beyond what you’re taught, you have to think outside the box. We are taught certain things from different people but in order to be truly successful you have to look within yourself to find the best possible way to be fit, healthy and crazy strong. This goes as much for women as does men. Women do train differently because their bodies don’t have as much testosterone as men however, it’s important to know that you can build a beautiful body that WON’T GET BULKY because unless a woman is using testosterone pills or steroids that’s really the only way that’ll happen. Work with what you learned but also find what works best to your abilities. Just following someone isn't quite enough and the way you follow them isn't always in your best interest. Think for yourself at times and remember to be yourself.

            Putting your body and mind to the test has been the standard for all things for as long as mankind has been around. The Gods and their stories gave us a reason to use our bodies and our brains to think and look for what works and how we create certain things that gives us hope, strength and endurance to move forward. Some of us just think there’s an end-all be all of following and not having a right to think for ourselves. I take bits and pieces of people’s advice and methods and mold them into my own, it’s called becoming creative. Some people don’t know how and it’s sad because they have so much potential but only work with what they’re told to do. Quite frankly I hate being told what to do but I’m not opposing to listening and modifying what works for me. Become more of you and challenge the way things go.

            We may have been created by the Gods or whatever you choose to believe but the reality is that once you are born, you grow up and you learn. No one has your body and mind so what makes you think you aught to be somebody else. Find what guides you and learn to harness the power within you, not someone else and become a more powerful being. 

Evolution Through Mythology

My Judo sensei once said to me, “a man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or else what’s a heaven for?” He was telling me about his old training schedule, the weights he used to lift, and the body weight exercises his sensei would demand that he perform. I was awestruck, doing 500 pushups, or bodyweight squats in one day? At the time I could not conceive that such a thing could even be possible.

His Judo sensei was a member of the Iroquois nation of native peoples, and while they would train he would tell them the stories about mythical warrior Hiawatha. Hiawatha is said to have wrestled the unconquerable Bear of the West the gatekeeper to the realm of the dead to a draw. Hiawatha is supposed to been able to paddle a cannon with such ferocity that he could change the course of rivers, outrun day light so he could continue speaking with the spirits of the night, and shoot twenty arrows into the sky before the first one came back to touch the ground.

Was my Judo sensei actually supposed to believe that Hiawatha preformed such supernatural feats? Well, no, but also yes, within the appropriate context. His sensei was doing from him what the Iroquois elders did for the young up, and coming warrior-braves; inspiring them to forever keep their reach exceeding their grasp. By telling the stories of Hiawatha the young warrior-braves felt encouraged to test themselves over, and over again. They sought to become as fast as the wind, and as strong as a bear. Like Hiawatha, these represent subjective units of measure. How fast is the wind? How strong is a bear? How powerful is Hiawatha? The answer will always be faster, stronger, and more powerful than you are currently. So you must always seek to improve, be better, and achieve greater.

The heroes of mythologies are meant to spark something deep within us, to light a fire that we could use to courageously explore the depth of our souls, and inner recesses of our minds. As we immerge from our own dark psychic forest, we return from what Joseph Campbell termed the “hero’s journey”, and we now have been remade more in the image what we individually believe heroic to be. These heroes are symbols and as such are mutable. They can be changed to fit societal needs, but still represent the values deemed virtuous by an entire collective, and heritage of peoples.

In my own studies of mythologies, I began perhaps intuitively, to feel as if the writers of these sagas where speaking not only across time, but speaking to more than just ancient superstitions. I started to see a deep, if not hidden wisdom within the stories. Thor’s magic glove which translates to “Iron Grip”, and his belt which literally means “earth’s power”, are what enabled him to wield his famous hammer. In order for a man to be mighty like Thor, he would need to train his hands into possessing a vice-like grip, and obtain a well develop lower back, and legs. In reading the works of old-time strongmen I found this confirmed many times. The key to superhuman strength is found in grip strength straining, and focusing on heavy lifting exercises such as dead lifting, squats, and swings.

What transpired next was an immersive study into the mythologies, and hero legends from around the world. This was the impetus of Heroic Evolution and its strength training programs.

However I wanted not only to share quality strength training, but also to promote the qualities of having good character, or at least an examined character. What is the purpose of being strong in the first place? That is a question that has a dizzying amount of potential responses, and is for the trainee to explore for themselves if they wish, and certainly worthwhile if they do.

The stories of heroes like Hiawatha, or even King Arthur, set forth a code of conduct, as well as I believe, contain physical training protocol that where meant to be discovered by young members of different warrior societies. These stories are laced with clues in not only how to get strong, tough, and fast, but also what to do with that formidability in their society, and how to act appropriately.

Embodying one of these mythological heroes is a life changing process. The hero exists only inside you, and to go within to find them is actually to find your greater potential. The exploits of the hero can never be matched; but the hero doesn’t care, as the point is that you attempt. It is in the fierce attempts at the impossible that we discover just how amazing we can be. The hero can’t ever judge you, and thereby this places all the responsibility back on you. How do you feel about your efforts? Do you feel you are meant for something greater? Do you believe you can, or should, do better in whatever endeavor you have chosen? 

Your answer to these questions can be sobering indeed.

Mythologies allow us to glimpse into our own lives, the roles we, and those around us fill. We all live out a certain “personal” mythology whether we are conscious of it, or not. The simple truth of the matter is that if we don’t like the story we are living we need to change it. The strength to change it comes through becoming our own greatest hero, by moving past our own perceived limitations, and reaching into our infinite potential to grasp at something we never dreamed we were capable of until we found the courage to try.

-Kevin Wikse

www.heroicevolution.com

Channel Your Energy To Do Your Bidding

            Everything starts with a thought, we think of things 24/7 but only using some of those thoughts to create action. When it comes to training, many of us think externally, trying to figure out what to lift, what muscles needed, how much weight, the hand and foot positions, is your back straight you catch my drift. We never really see how we can improve from internal points of view.

            If you want to achieve strength at a greater rate, you have to think differently. Knowing the lift or the exercise is only half the battle, think into the exercise itself. What would it feel like to have the surge of power to lift more or do more reps with ease? Your thought process turns into action by how you perceive it.

            Your imagination is the key. Thinking differently creates a different thought and it becomes a different action. Don’t always think of a million things at once; focus on using one thought, one action. Your hands are like magnets, they attract energy, picture your arms that are like steel cords that are fluid but super strong, your body is surging with electricity and every time you breathe, Zeus’ thunderbolt strikes more power into your body. You can make anything in your training happen with the right focus, the creative thought and you imagine something greater than what you already see.

            It’s about rewiring to create superhuman strength, using techniques that instantly charge your body. Create certain sounds that congruent with your thoughts and actions. You can change the very essence of your thoughts and double, triple maybe even quadruple your strength in a matter of seconds. When you master this, it gives you that extra edge and programs your body to do whatever you want. It’s the pinnacle of the mind-muscle connection. A very important detail to think about is using your actions with intent using what Bruce Lee calls Emotional Content. If you are going to lift something or do a particular bodyweight exercise, do it with emotion, do it with feel. When you do this, your strength and power will come much quicker and have more zap to it.