Wrestling & The Golden Age Of Physical Culture

Before baseball was a major success, before football became the second national pastime, wrestling was the talk of the world. Even in the carnival ACT shows, wrestling was a way to make money whether by side bets or on a major bout in a small city. The most notable wrestlers of the day were Tom Jenkins, George Hackenshmidt, Frank Gotch and quite possibly the greatest of them all Ed “Strangler” Lewis. Wrestling as we all know is the oldest of sports and what better to help bring wrestling to the national spotlight then in the Industrial Revolution. It took more then these men to make a profit and matches were unpredictable as some lasted a few minutes to lasting a few hours.

 If there was ever a man long before Television swept the nation in America’s living rooms, he took wrestling to a height that only Hulk Hogan and Lou Thesz would achieve later in the century and that was George Hackenshmidt. A man born in Estonia, the most built developed man at that time and was considered to be at one point to another title, The World’s Strongest Man. Looking like he was carved from Granite, Hack sold out areas in Europe such as the London Opera House and in America drew one of the biggest crowds in Sports History wrestling Frank Gotch. By far one of the strongest competitors of that time but more importantly believe it or not one of the most conditioned. Hack lived and breathed exercise and wrestling as he build muscles and brains by writing a course that became his Magnum Opus: The Way To Live. Up until Hulk Hogan arrived, Hack was the guy that brought strength and muscle to the world of Professional Wrestling.

 Lou Thesz who was the most watched man in America in the early TV era, considered one man he didn’t question as the greatest of all-time (even though it’s still argued to this day) was a man who was known to beat anyone at any length of a match and whenever he wanted but still made a moniker as a boring defensive wrestler named Ed Lewis a.k.a Robert Julius Fredrick if I stand corrected. Although very well talented and could cripple any guy he faced, Lewis wasn’t all that of a offensive wrestler if history serves me right and he just didn’t do very well when drawing a crowd. During one match it lasted five and a half hours when spectators were expected to see a good hour of wrestling. Because of this notion, during the roaring twenties and the Depression of the 1930’s, the scientific style of wrestling became faded and the people needed excitement. With promoters and wrestlers alike they began doing performance matches which they don’t try to cripple each other but get the people in frenzy and this was the turning point from being a sport to becoming an entertainment spectacle.

 No matter what sport you love, there’s always going to the single greatest debate, “Who’s the greatest.” Wrestling is no different. During the Industrial Revolution, kids and athletes of all shapes and sizes flocked to YMCA’s and the early stages of Gymnasiums done by guys like Sig Klein’s gym in New York in the 30’s and also York Barbell Company along with a Health Club in Oakland, CA by a little known Physical Culturist and athlete himself Jack Lalanne. Wrestling for most people at that time and in Europe such as England, Germany, Ireland & Scotland honed their skills just to pass the time because of either money trouble, tension at home, odd jobs or even to become a professional. Back then, Wrestling gave you a sense of hope and to test your manhood of not only skill but character. A lot of great athletes came out as wrestlers at one time or another. Even big name Presidents were wrestlers in their lifetime like William Taft, Calvin Coolidge, Teddy Roosevelt and others but the most famous wrestler in the White House long before the Industrial Revolution was none other then Abraham Lincoln.

 Such big names during this era up until the TV era were names like Otto Arco, Gama, Hackenshimidt, Frank Gotch, Eugene Sandow, George F. Jowett, Tom Jenkins, The Mighty Atom Joseph Greenstein, Lou Thesz, Ed Lewis, Jim Londis, Toots Mont, Ad Santell, Stu Hart and many, many more. These men were the cornerstone before there was a WWE, WCW and ECW. The NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) was on the verge of becoming the top promoting company in the wrestling business at that time. Wrestling back then was far more real and scientific then the high flying, bloated up bodybuilding and chair swinging entertainment that it is today and wrestlers had to be in tip top shape and be able to go an hour or more in a match if they needed to.

 Money wasn’t a major deal at the time until Hack and Gotch came around and for them, they were practically the first two athletes to draw a major wrestling card as they had a series of Championship matches that lasted god knows how long but they kept at it until they had a final match in 1911 at Chicago’s brand new Comiskey Park where Hack lost another match to Frank Gotch.  Other then that unless it was in the Carnival shows, betting on a wrestler was as much a gamble as horseracing (maybe less). Side bets came left and right and most likely there were guys who took a fall to get a big payday like shaving points in a basketball or football game today. Like any gamble, there were guys who won and lost money on a good wrestler and very few great ones like Santel, Gotch and Jenkins ever lost a match before they ended up crippling their opponents. Like any athlete you want to bet on a man that is good, strong and intelligent in how he uses his opponents. Once the promoters began running shows in various cities around the country and the real style of wrestling faded, the gamble wore off and ticket profits became the stuff of legends.

 There are an extreme few wrestlers today that are as good, some better and some far less then the wrestlers of the past. If I had to name a few would be Ken Shamrock, Randy Couture, Dan Severn, Kurt Angle, Kazushi Sakuraba, Brock Lesnar and Matt Hughes that are keen wrestlers to tearing down their opponents, yes I realize a few of these names were in WWE at one time but seriously, I’m talking before they even talked to guys like Vince McMahon. Any wrestler whether in the WWE, UFC, King Of The Cage or even what use to be PRIDE in Japan should pay homage to those that came before them, learn their history, learn where they came from and how to model themselves after. It’s more worth while knowing your history then knowing your techniques. Knowledge is power, wisdom is strength, and conditioning & technique come last. Whoever is the greatest wrestler doesn’t matter and really shouldn’t ever matter, what does matter is what did you get out of learning from the best whether it’s from one wrestler or ten of them.

Fire, Passion & Powerful

Three words that I can describe this guy whose come right out of the bushes and began a journey of strength & health unlike anyone I’ve seen before. I’m talking about my man Matti Merzel. He’s one very unique individual that you only see once in a generation. A man who’s come so far in a short period of time that one can only wonder how far he’s going to push the limit. This is the same guy who was in the army in Israel and became a mean, fighting machine.

 There’s a lot of great qualities about him but one thing that gives him away more then anything in a good way is his intensity for becoming strong and powerful at a small size. One would not think of him as being strong but that’s where ignorance is bliss. I’ve seen and talked to some of the strongest people on this planet but Matt has that aura of him that takes on a whole new meaning to the words “holy f*cking s*it.”

 He’s a warrior by nature not only being in the military but in his specific feats of strength he performs. I’ve seen him break wrenches, rip phonebooks, held handstands and whatever the hell else he does and in every feat, there’s a fire in his veins that just never seems to wear out unless he wants it to. It’s hard to believe that strongmen have that much intensity and love for what they do but within Matti it’s a little different like with every living breathing strongman. The power he posses should not be human and most likely isn’t but nonetheless, like they say “with great power comes great responsibility.”

 There’s John Cena in the WWE who’s the face of the company and is a living, breathing athlete. The reason why I chose Cena to compare to Matti, not because of athletic ability, not for being a wild character but because like Cena, Matti has a passion for what he loves the most and he lives, breathes, eats, talks, thinks it every single day of his life and he believes nothing will get in his way of succeeding. It’s that passion that you only see once in a lifetime, it’s that passion that you can’t fathom unless you experience it but it’s also that passion that puts you ahead of many others and your only way is not to climb down but climb up and in the words of Rocky Balboa “Its not how hard you hit, its how hard you get hit and still willing to keep fighting.” You can’t teach that in a school or a gym or in an office, you learn it by fighting through it with heart and will power more then any average person. It’s that fine line between ordinary and extraordinary.

 Want to see the passion, fire and love for Physical Culture? Head over to Ferociousstrength.com and look at the already plethora of articles he’s written that are just over the top with info that not many this fast has accomplished. I encourage you to read this man’s story and find what makes me a real fire-breathing athlete in our realm of Physical Training. Give him a chance and he’ll make it worth your while and then some as he will help you take your training to a whole new level. This is a dawning of a new Era and it will be an Era all will never forget.

The Animal

There’s a movie of the same name that’s been around for over 10 years. It’s a really funny comedy if you’re a fan of Rob Schneider. I’ve seen it many times over the years but after learning more on exercise I’m looking at this movie from a different perspective. It’s one of those scenarios of being bullied and turning it into triumph.

 The story goes of a wanna-be who wants nothing more then to be a cop. The problem with him is that he’s a classic weakling and has symptoms of asthma and a lack of confidence in himself. He goes through an obstacle course for police training that keeps blowing up in his face and fails on the last piece of the course. He even goes as far to make himself lean and mean by buying a bodybuilding supplement called “Badger Milk.” After seeing in the infomercial what the product “does”, he orders it and tries it out and even likes the taste.

 One day there’s a call in a robbery and with all the other cops out at a sporting event, this lonely, weak looking guy takes the call and gets in his sad and pathetic looking of car. A wild animal is in the middle of the road and almost hitting it Schneider’s character swerves and starts rolling the car down a long mountain. Being more dead then alive, a man drags him out and carries him to a barn where he happens to operate on him. After being in surgery, the weak guy wakes up and find his way back home.

 What this surgery got him was a weird success of an experiment where he has different organs of wild animals like a horse, chimp, wild cat and what else was put in him. Because of this, he develops Wild Animal Instincts and he becomes stronger, faster, more stamina and aware of his surroundings. Not going to give you the rest of the movie away because I’m not that good at giving a play by play.

 What I’m getting at here is that you don’t need a doctor to turn you into an athlete when you can develop into one yourself. Building strength and fitness does take effort but if you want it bad enough, you will develop your body in ways you couldn’t imagine before. You can gain strength and power by moving your body in awkward positions just like the wild animals and nothing is stronger, faster, more agile and intimidating then a wild animal.

 During parts of the movie, the character finds it difficult to control his urges for food; sexual appetite and the way things happen that makes his instincts go haywire. Now even though this is exaggerated in the film, in real life, urges happen in us all the time. When you develop your body through great exercise, hormones are being built and you build levels of metabolism that shoots through the roof.

 Our instincts are as old as time and one way or another we follow what we feel, even if it’s wrong at times but when it comes to exercise, we want a great body and be able to do things that seem impossible. Throughout the years our priorities towards fitness slows down and being more civilized and use proper manners towards what’s wrong and right. Our instincts remain the same but are told what we can and can’t do and don’t use our full potential as not only a human being but using that wild animal that resides within all of us. Learn to use your instincts and when you exercise, learn the best things for you that make you strong, powerful and animal-like.

 Unlike in the movie where he developed powers overnight, that won’t happen in real life. If you want to be strong, athletic and functional, you got to put work into it but it doesn’t have to be stressful. You can create a program that’s fun and can be done just about anywhere. One of the key elements of success to having a great exercise program is to enjoy your exercise and be hungry for more. The more you love it, the more likely your results will come and when you add your imagination and think like an animal.

 I encourage you to go and get the movie because it’s not just good fun comedy but you can learn a thing or two about being weak and making it a habit to become strong and healthy. Have fun and get out there and go animal.

Fitness Russian Roulette

Ever heard of that ultimate and ruthless gamble? You have one bullet in a gun and you never know which part of the barrel it’s in. It’s a matter of life and death and you never know how long you’ll live until BANG!!! You’re dead.

 In the fitness world this type of gamble happens more often then you might think. You have that one chance to find the results you want, you keep trying this or that but in the end, that one bullet will come up on you and because of your stressful efforts you failed and bit that bullet. People gamble so much for their bodies that the odds of them succeeding are 100-1 in my opinion. Very rarely that bullet of failure falls out of that metaphorical gun and you just happen to accomplish a goal and you felt awesome about it.

 What about the game of Chicken? You know that gamble like in jousting where one guy lives and the other might not and one chickens out and turns the other way? Throughout the years this game has had cars to “toy with” and it doesn’t turn into a game anymore, again it becomes a matter of who might live or might die. This is where exercise and the person training can become very dangerous either physically or mentally. You’re scared that you’re not going to beat that exercise whether its weights or not and there is that piece of you that just gets so frustrated that instead of confronting it, you turn around to save your own ass.

 If you want to beat the game of chicken and Russian Roulette then the one thing you must develop to stop having that one bullet come up and hit you right through that thick skull of yours is to learn the love of enthusiasm. Learning this trait can bring you beyond the peak of turning dead end results into a consistent state of not only making your results possible but learning to keep them. It’s very important that you love and believe what you do and use your love for finding what works and keeping it a challenge.

 There are two sides to every coin like ying and yang. One cannot coexist without the other. In order to build a solid foundation of both positive and negative sides to the coin you keep flipping over and over, you have to watch how your enthusiasm takes hold. If you have trouble finding what works and don’t know if anything is going to work, that’s the negative side of the coin. Now if you’re successful and know what works for you how do you kill two birds with one stone? Simple really, learn to smile when things don’t always go your way but one way or another you will be successful.

 One of my key successes in having a solid foundation in a fitness program is to learn what you’re getting into without knowing what you’ll get out of it. What I mean by that is you learn certain exercises or many of them and you know which one’s work and which don’t so you challenge yourself to see what results you will get from them. Many people fill out the sets and reps schemes and work the same reps in the same set. You do this for strength and that for endurance. For me, I gamble my exercises. In almost every workout, I never know what numbers are going to come up and when they do sometimes I’ll keep them as they are or double even triple them but I can always change course at the blink of an eye and make it an adventure instead of it being generic and dull. That’s what you want to make your exercise program, an adventure. You never know what’s going to happen but you damn sure want to find out. It’s like walking into the jungle, you never know what’s in it but you’re going to have the ride of your life whether you like it or not.

 There’s also another metaphorical gun you should avoid that has not just one bullet but beyond the loaded rounds and that’s the verbal gun. The majority of people will tell you that you can’t achieve something great and you won’t make something happen because you’re no good. This type of Russian Roulette is far more dangerous then being scared of being a failure. To avoid that stress and anxiety picture all those people that tell you that you can’t be successful. Picture them as if they were bullets in a loaded gun and if you even attempt one shot, most likely it will hit you hard. What you do is in your mind is think of taking that gun out into the ocean where no one will find it. Take it as far out as you can where no one can hear them or see them. Take out all the bullets and throw that bitch in the ocean and let it sleep with the fishes. You are a wonderful person who should succeed and if you want it bad enough you’ll go get it and not let one negative person stand in your way. Don’t pull the trigger.

The Forgotten Lift

Before anyone said “How much can you bench?” Before there were cardio machines reigning gymnasiums and long before the testing powers of Power lifting, there was one lift that gave you the most praises for your test of strength and that was the overhead press. This was the lift that told you how you belonged in the Physical Culture world and the two variations that became the stuff of legends were the Bent Press and the Two Hands Anyhow which means lifting 2 objects any way you can.

 In this day in age it’s very difficult to find almost anyone doing these lifts. The closest would be doing them with a kettlebell, rarely a dumbbell and almost never with a barbell. Why have these lifts fallen off the radar? Good question. Olympic Weightlifting has dominated the strength world and so has Power lifting and the Strongman competitions and have other tested feats of strength. However, these two lifts alone are one of the very pinnacles of what true lifting strength is and it’s also one of the most difficult to train. Yeah I can understand there are safety rules and injuries that can accrue but really, there are more dangerous lifts then these two bloodhounds.

 The man that not only made these two lifts famous but owns records that haven’t been broken in over 100 years was none other then quite possibly the greatest one-handed lifter of all-time Arthur Saxon. Saxon was a lifting god among the average man back in the old days of vaudeville and stage lifting. He and his brothers Kurt and Herman was the trio of strongmen acts that were unlike anything then and now. Their feats of strength were the talk of the world at that time and trained in very unusual ways. They drank beer, lifted, ate enormous amounts of food and trained day in and out for many, many years. In Germany, weight lifting and beer were the biggest draws and no one team of individuals did it better then the Saxon Brothers (aka Henning Family).

 When you talk about records you might think 762 career homeruns, 33,000+ career points in the NBA, 56 straight baseball games hitting 1 ball a game, Bret Favre’s consecutive games played in a NFL career, 100 points by Wilt Chamberlain in 1962 and even Wayne Gretzky’s most goals in a season, Saxon’s Bent Press should be right up there with them. His record of pressing 370 lbs. with one-arm stands the test of time and is a record that could never be broken. Think about that for a second, 370 lbs. with one arm. The majority of men can’t pick that much weight with two arms and yet one man defied the odds. His record of Two Hands Anyhow is 448 lbs, also an unbroken record.

 Those that have attempted to break these records have been on the receiving end of a failure. No one has come close and if it does get broken, I want to see it happen and I can probably see one guy I know do it and he’s determined to do it hell or high water in the coming years. It really is one of the ultimate challenges in the world of strength. Majority of men can lift something with two arms but to lift something with one-arm is a test of power, grit, world-class ability and the strength of a lion.

Internal Conditioning

A lot of mainstream gyms today help you build your body from an external point of view as in you see what’s in the mirror and for most that’s the only thing that counts. Some even go on extreme diets and do extreme type workouts that not only can hurt you from the outside but more on the inside. Have you ever thought of what it’s like to feel alive both in and out?

 Building the body from the inside is a key ingredient to your fitness success. The reason why that is it’s because your body is a system of not just bones and tissues but your organs as well. The organs are what are keeping the body alive. You have your heart, liver, lungs, spleen, kidneys and the largest organ of them all, your skin. Too many people neglect training these areas because to them either they take it for granted or don’t realize how important they are.

 Working the body internally is not just taking a few deep breaths no, its loosening the joints to keep them fresh, strengthening the organs to keep your energy floating like a beautiful river stream, it’s opening up the meridians (pressure points) in your body that help you stay energized and vibrant. Deep breathing is essential to any program but when you learn to target certain parts of the body that can help cleanse the body of toxins and breathe new life into your system.

 In Chinese medicine, it’s said that there are 300 pressure points on the body. Now whether there’s more or less I don’t know I’m not a doctor but because of that many you only need a few to help energize and vitalize the body. Did you know that certain pressure points hit spots on the body that hit in places that you never thought they’d hit? There’s a pressure point on the body that’s within your own hands that can help relieve headaches. Didn’t know that did you? There’s even a pressure on the wrist that opens up the heart in a way that vitalizes it and helps blood flow. How about a certain spot just below the navel where it gives you sexual energy like crazy and no it’s not your sexual organs. My personal favorite is a certain spot on the sternum that after I slap it a few times I end up smiling more than a kid on a Christmas day.

 Now do you have to be a hardcore gym rat to practice this type of training? Hell no. Most of the time it’s usually for people who have crossed over to the middle aged range but who says you can’t do it far younger say in your teens, 20’s or 30’s. They say life goes downhill after 40. I don’t believe that for a damn bit. I may be in my 20’s and not that far from 30 and I do this type of program almost every day and for good reason. It wakes my ass up more then a cold shower, gives me more energy that I need throughout the day for both my mind and my body and it puts me in a blissful state that you can’t get from anything else.

 Let me put it this way. You strengthen your organs and joints you get stronger internally and the amount of energy you develop can be used in other forms of training. You have a much higher chance of living longer if you practice a program like this. It’s not that difficult to learn and you can do it anytime, anywhere. You can even do it just before your regular training or do it in the morning before you leave for work, ditch the coffee. Your long-term health is in good hands if you practice it regularly. Build your body from the inside out and get your body on the track to superior health and vitality.

Finding The Flow Of Your Training

All of us have different perspectives about the flow or high we get when we train. It can be a real hardcore workout, smooth and methodical, powerful or having the feeling of just taken on the world and won it in a glorious fashion. When you find how you flow through your workouts, you’ll be getting a sense of what true strength and power lies, not in the muscles but in the mind.

 What is the perfect workout? Is it hitting a certain sets and reps? Is it perfecting the very best exercise performance? Or is it just finishing everything and going home to rest? The answer can be any of those three things but to me the perfect workout is neither one of them. The very perfect workout is when everything comes together and you flow through it like the waves of the ocean. It’s when you create something special that you rarely ever do and it’s powerful and strong but at the same time it’s peaceful and vibrant. Very few people experience that but again it’s never the same for everyone so your definition will most likely be different then mine but that’s the beauty of it.

 Nine times out of Ten your workouts will be great or boring or even good to call it a day afterwards but that one time, that workout will make everything else look like nothing but you accept it and it gives you a sense of accomplishment. All leading to that one moment where you feel the world is yours and you take it in your hands and you felt like you were Zeus himself on the top of Mount Olympus. It may for you often or very rarely it doesn’t matter, what does matter is how you portray that one conquering moment where everything falls into place and you enriched in glorious freedom of power and might that even for a brief second, it consumes you and you want to keep that moment.

 There will be times in your workouts where everything falls into place and you have secured your perfect training session. How can you make this happen? Well, honestly it takes more then a couple workouts. Takes practice and patience and never expect the perfect workout to come, let it come to you and when you least expect it, it’ll happen like a bolt lightning.

 Don’t just find your flow in your workouts, you can find your flow in other things. Did you know the ancient samurai weren’t just warriors of combat and lived/died by the sword? They were artists, poets and men of honor. Like them, the Shaolin monks, the Vikings, the Romans and other ancient warriors of combat they learned many aspects of life that had nothing to do with war or fighting. When you learn many other things, that’s where everything with you comes together to create your own moments of self-discovery and find how things work for you. Find your flow and you’ll find who you are as a person.

How To Deal With Minor Injuries

Anything can happen in a workout especially when it comes to injuries. You can break a bone, sprain an ankle or you can pull muscles. One little minor injury however happens often in the strongman world and at times its common in gymnastics and that’s tearing of the skin. You get a cut or a bruise and you automatically think your training is done. Well hate to burst your bubble but you can still train while you heal but might need to cut back (no pun intended) a bit.

 I went for a personal record this past St Patrick’s Day weekend and ended up having my skin being torn in two different places in my right hand. Now I’ve dealt with this before and have had big time bruises from bending and tearing stuff and I can assure you it’s no picnic but that doesn’t give me an excuse to stop training all together. Taking a little time off from certain training can do you some good but you should also focus on another realm of training.

 When you get a cut or a bruise from a workout its not a laughing matter if you just left it alone. If you want to heal faster you have to treat the wound and if it’s at a point if it’s too severe then you need to see a doctor. Other than that is sure to treat your injuries with ointments and stop training at a hardcore pace and let yourself heal. Healing is just as important as building muscle and from recovery. I stopped some training because my hand is not in the shape to be in but I don’t stop training. I can train my legs more, do qi gong, practice muscle control without gripping my hand as a fist, all sorts of varieties I can do till my hand is back in the shape I want it to be.

 Switching things around for healing purposes can be a great and rewarding experience. Practicing Internal Training is a healing method of training just as it can be used to train the mind and your whole body. As you begin to heal, you’ll notice that as you get stronger, your mind becomes stronger because you’re learning how to handle different things for different situations. We’re all different and do our best not to get injured but it does happen in the most unexpected ways and no matter what the injury is, we should treat it well so when we get back, we can learn certain lessons on how to prevent that ever happening again.

 Some people take it too far and get injured more often then they should be healing. Now a scratch or a bruise is one thing but certain severe problems can arise and it can haunt you and bite you in the ass. Believe me from personal experience, you don’t want that and never push hard when you’re making a recovery. When you’re healing, take some time out of your training and think into your body, learn to electrify your body and practice building strength from inside the body like the organs and tendons. When I got hurt from bending steel and cut my hands, it was not pretty and it looked like it will be a long time before I get back to doing what I love, but in a two day span of using some ointment and very bandaging along with internal training, I’ve seen major improvements in my hands and now it just feels bruised more then a cut but less painful and the healing process is incredible. Now that may not sound true but let’s face it, I’m a terrible liar. Some people don’t heal as quickly as others which is understandable and it takes longer to get back from certain things but if you learned to harness the power of your mind and practice building your body from the inside, that’s where real strength and healing come from and you’ll be surprised how quickly you can heal from doing these kind of practices.

 Some say that the little things can make a huge difference. I believe that with just about anything. Doing big things all the time can lead to a downfall and you won’t know how to develop little goals of challenges. When I learned about the injury Paul Levesque (WWE Legend Triple H) had with his quad tear back in ’01, he said during an interview that if you want to get back into something, you set little goals for yourself. Small goals can create a monster positive outcome not just as a recovery and getting back to something but it’s the journey that makes all the difference to make one big explosion and you’re back stronger, hungrier and more determined then ever.

 Never believe the training is ever over. It’s just taking a break while you learn and experience the type of training you can take on and conquer so when you get back to regular training, you’ll have a new found respect and appreciation of what you can accomplish. It’s not always about pride or ego; it’s about becoming a stronger individual no matter what the obstacle is. I never want to see any one of you guys out there getting hurt but if it does happen to you, do what you can to get back and learn the best and safest ways to do it.

Muscle Control Resurrected

There is such a thing as building beautiful muscles without ever training with weights. It’s not always calisthenics that does it but with the proper techniques, you can build awesome looking muscle by doing the lost art of Muscle Control. This method of exercise is one of the most unique in the world and it’s very powerful.

Muscle Control has been around for centuries since it became famous by a teacher who traveled to China and taught the out of shape monks how to fight with peace but also build their bodies both internally and externally. This is a form of internal training, using your mind to create the tension. It became more famous later on in the Golden Age of Physical Culture in the early 20^th Century by strength stars like Eugene Sandow, Maxick, Otto Arco, Sig Klein and many more. This was the true way to building strength and build muscle in ways unheard of at the time.

The real days of Bodybuilding were in the era of the stars I mentioned above. Their physiques were unmatched then as they are today and even back then before steroids and the overwhelming franchise of supplements and infomercials, these men taught the public through their mail-order courses how to live the life of a healthy, strong and vibrant individual. Most of these men outlived the majority of the average life capacity of the time which was between 47 and 60. Even after they had reach their peak in the world of fitness and healthy living, their bodies still looked vibrant and powerful as their strength was just as incredible as well.

Did I forget to mention that these stars have phenomenal strength as well? Matter of fact sometimes they did Muscle Control exclusively and still had incredible power left over. Take Otto Arco for example…One of the best overall athletes on the planet at the time was also one of the first 3 men in his weight class to lift double bodyweight in the overhead press which was unheard of for a man at less 155 pounds. Controlling the muscles individually can help increase some of your lifts if you do that as well because it teaches the muscles when to contract for a specific lift or stunt.

Powerful muscles can make you healthy in the long run as well. Practicing this method helps build internal power as it can increase your breathing capacity and strengthen the organs and not put rough stress on the tendons. When you learn the art, you will find some very rare techniques that not only give great definition and power but keep you healthy and vibrant. These exercises worked then and they’ll work now and if you’re practicing professional bodybuilding, your competition will ask about how you’re building these sculpted and chiseled muscles.

Take your time to learn these, you don’t need to rush and just jump into the exercises. Learn them, do them and practice, practice, practice. Before you know it, you’re going to look like a person that was carved from granite and have the body of a rugged athlete. Have fun and trust the power within you.

Beginners Luck

Every journey starts at taking one step at a time. Just like in Fitness, if you haven’t exercised at all or wanting to get back into after many, many years, all it takes is one step and keep moving. It’s not always easy getting into an exercise program and you might get discouraged because you can’t get the exercises right off the bat. Starting out can be confusing and not know what to do. Many systems don’t teach you real basic training instead they tell you to this for muscles and that for strength it becomes a vicious cycle that you never should go through.

 You’re in luck and you know why? Because you can begin anexercise program at any age and it doesn’t matter if you’re thin and want to build muscle or you’re overweight and want to trim down or even just getting the basics back on track to help you stay in shape. It’s a matter of how much you want to improve yourself and become healthy, strong and vibrant.

 The benefits of learning an exercise program is to find what works best for you and how you want to progress. Imagine training at your own pace and not have some trainer scream at you and telling you you’re doing it wrong when in fact you might just be doing it right. There’s always room for improvement and that’s the beauty of beginning your training where you can do it anytime, anywhere and not spend one red cent in a gym where it’s a good chance it’ll be gross with sweaty benches, germs on machines, waiting for the next person to get off an area where you need to train.

 Basic training is the foundation of all exercise systems, once you mastered them that don’t mean you need to do them anymore; no it means you can go back to them if you need help with progressions and never needing to do the same routine twice. You can change the tempo of your exercise, increase/decrease speed, hold certain postures and work the same exercises but in a different order. Never let yourself get bored because learning is the fun part and you’re finding who you are as a trainee. Progression is the key to the game and in order to play, you need to build yourself from a very easy exercise to a very difficult one.

 Changing the body in a healthy way makes you a better person and helps you build confidence in yourself and it doesn’t matter if you’re large, big and tall or small you have an opportunity to become the very person you dream about and it all starts with a dream. It’s up to you to make it a reality. Jack Lalanne once said “Make haste, slowly.” Take your progressions one step at a time, no need to rush anything, build yourself up, have patience and before you know it, there will be another person in the mirror. You’re still you but with power, vibrancy and a person full of life and energy.

 Getting started isn’t easy but you can make it one hell of a trip. Don’t waste any more time thinking, start doing and getting you into the shape you desire and dare to conquer. Let skepticism aside and believe in yourself that you will be strong, you will get in shape and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

Bringing Out Your Animality

I think the only real time you’ve ever heard that word if you knew, was in Mortal Kombat 3 the video game or in the very terrible scripted film Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Although the movie sucked and made the first film look like it should’ve been up for an Oscar lets not forget an important message. In each and every one of us there is a wild animal waiting to be unleashed. Now not saying you’re going to literally turn in a ferocious creature but you can however make your conditioning look like a cake-walk to other methods.

 Becoming an animal takes practice, observation, mindfulness and the will to move like one. We humans have lost our sense of what’s to be in shape and if you want to look like a bloated pumped up meat-head that’s your business. Some of us even sit on our asses almost an entire day without moving or never get the time to get out and move around. That’s not acceptable and I feel nothing gets you moving more than being a beast in the urban jungle.

 The practice of moving like an animal gives you strength, flexibility and endurance in ways almost all cardio machines can’t top. Conditioning in this manner means you’re generating more natural growth hormone, your brain becomes stronger, you lungs becoming more powerful and the ability to move your body in awkward positions builds strength in places you cannot even remotely get from weight lifting. Not saying weights are bad but let’s face it, you can’t carry weights around all the time when you travel and have no gym now can you? Animal Training gives you what most methods can’t and that’s freedom to do it wherever you want, whenever you want.

 A firm secret to be successful in your animal routine is to not just look at an animal and go through the motions, no, you become that animal, imagine being so powerful you can run down a gazelle or out run a vicious predator just waiting to chop you for dinner. When you put your mind to this secret, your results will come quicker; you’ll be leaner, more agile, developing an animalized physique and have a lot more fun. One of the fastest ways to know what animal you truly are is to practice as many animal movements as you can and find out which one you most frequently use. This alone will determine your true Animality.

 Unlike other methods, this type of training is superior for a lot of reasons, one…Using multiple muscle groups, two…Building growth hormone which helps you stay leaner, younger and more energetic, three…Moving in awkward positions instead of neutral positions and four…It’s fun as hell. Some programs are good but many of them are boring, take too long, more prone to injury and can take a toll on your body more then you’ll know.

 Finding your Animality is like searching for the Holy Grail or the Fountain of Youth. You will be amazed how much your body can change in a short amount of time that’s safe, productive, time efficient and can be done by just about any age. Your health will be as strong as ever and you will have a new found confidence among your friends and family as they’ll want to know what you’re doing and how you managed to have such a powerful and conditioned body. You are an animal, it’s about time you started acting like one. Animal training and other kick ass programs like you see here will bring out the very best in whom you are and make you one of the strongest persons on this planet both in and out. Unleash your inner Animality.

Healing The Joints For Super Human Health

Was there ever a time in your life when you didn’t have nagging joint pain? Most likely when you were born and as you got older and less active or pushed yourself too much you developed it. I know a thing or 2 about joint pain. Imagine being 19 or 20 years old and waking up some days being so stiff and in pain that every inch you made, some joints will crack in odd places. That was me before I had my major leg injury.

 Joint pain is not good on the body and you’re certainly not healthy from a physical stand point. I’m sure you’ve tried pain killers, morphine, aspirin and inflammatory medication at one point. All those are made to only ease the pain, not cure it and certainly will get you addicted if you keep taking them, now you have all these chemicals in your body that are really not that good for you. There are people that have no choice but to be on meds since the pain is too severe and need it. The majority of you however should work on more exercise and watch what you eat.

 One of the key secrets of building great strength both physically and mentally is to have powerful tendons and ligaments. The reason why that is, is because when your joints are powerful, your muscles will be even stronger. The tendons are what help hold the skeletal structure together. Too many people rely more on muscle building then tendon training and look what happens to them, nagging joint pain, injuries, broken bones and tears that shouldn’t even happen in the first place. Now I realize injuries happen and are common in sports and the work place but if you practiced building your joints, you will be less prone to those common injuries.

 One method of training called Internal Power which means that you build strength from the inside and build strength in the internal organs, bones, ligaments and joints.  Learning to harness the power of your chi (life force) can in fact help you build power in the places you need. In China there are some systems like qi gong, tai chi and various postures you hold that target certain areas of the body that can heal the joints that give you pain. Some stretching programs for example the one you see here, gives you the chance to unlock the unreachable in your flexible and have you become reachable.

 Once you learn to unlock the door to pain-free joints, your body will have a blissful feeling of power, strength and major flexibility that you can use however you want whether it be sports, military and the workplace or just for everyday life. Having a pain-free body means you can play with your kids, take care of your groceries, reach in a high place to get something, run faster, jump higher and have more stamina. All these things can be done if you have good strong joints and if you’re into weights, look out for how much strength you can develop if you kept your joints healthy.

Animal Gymnastics

Without question the greatest athletes in the field of bodyweight training are the acrobats and gymnasts. Now why do I say that? Simple really, they use their bodyweight in ways most others can’t even compare to. They’re control, balance, awareness and conditioning is second to none. The closest to conditioning I would compare them to are wrestlers. The way they train almost seems animal-like, graceful, strong and powerful. 

 Do you need to be a gymnast or acrobat to be in good condition? Hell no. You can have a powerful and strong body just using simple and basic gymnastics training and if you want to be wild about it, you can even do Animal exercises which imitate the most graceful and strongest animals on the planet. The benefits of learning these types of methods is off the charts…Strength, flexibility, stamina, lean body and have great mental clarity. Animal Gymnastics is the combination of basic gymnastics along with the movement of wild animal. It’s not hard to say just doing basic movements is really the key foundation to a strong, healthy and illness resilient body.

 Have you heard of those lethal hormone injections that athletes and celebrities use on the competition to gain an advantage in their sport or movie role? Well, I’m going to lay it down for you, unless you’re sick and in a hospital you don’t need that shit whatsoever. What you need is good old-fashioned exercise where multiple muscle groups are used, you will be getting your hormones jumped through the roof and this can happen at any age. Younger people like me don’t worry so much about that because we’re not at that age yet where it has to be a factor, older folks however especially over 40 and beyond have a tougher time getting that lean body they want and the percentage you lose each year of hormone levels. Don’t ever let that happen to you. If you practice programs like these, your hormones will run through your veins as if you were young again.

 When you move like a wild animal, you’re moving your body in ways other methods can’t match. Do you see a Gorilla on a treadmill or a Bear on a weighted bench? No you don’t because they are strong and fast as they need to be. Going to a gym is fine if you want to do that but if you want real world strength that is functional and powerful then go to a park or your own backyard and roam free. One of the key secrets to this type of training is not going through the motions like some dull airhead, see yourself as that animal and picture yourself being strong and taking your conditioning to levels unheard of before.

 Do you what a bear cub does after it’s born? It learns to walk, then run and wrestles his brothers to learn survival so when it becomes a full grown bear it will be fierce, feared by man and run down its prey faster then you can say Jack Rabbit. Now what’s that called again when you learn new things and want to get better at them? Oh yes that’s right, PROGRESSION!!!! A lot of people feel starting small isn’t enough for them, even some trainers have that “Go big or go home” attitude and that’s just crap. In order to get good at something no matter what it is, you have to learn how to earn it. If you’re new to exercise or a seasoned veteran, you must learn the value of progressing through the things you want to accomplish.

 Like adults, children too need that structure of becoming good athletes no matter what they want to do. Exercise for kids is very important especially in our society today where childhood obesity is more common then smoking a cigarette. Children need the feel of fun and learn the ins and outs of what’s right and wrong. Exercise has been shown to help children’s emotional state balanced and it helps them with structure and what can work for them. Some children are very active and sometimes are tough to put down for a nap because of all that energy, exercise helps that too. If a child has low self-esteem and has symptoms of depression, exercise has been shown to bring up their spirits and not even treat as a sign of working out but more like play. A program like this can give your kid a lifetime of fun and helping them along with other things in their lives.

 How do I know about self-esteem and exercise? Well when I was a teenager, I wished I had higher self-esteem and more exercise because I wasn’t the typical 97 pound weakling teen matter of fact weight wise I was the exact opposite. At 13 I was 5’4 and nearly 200 lbs of blubber and didn’t have much muscle to show for. I was also slow and very rebellious. I didn’t have strength to write home about and was ridiculed on not just my weight but my personality. As I got older and shifted more towards exercise and mental training I became the person I should’ve been all along. In a way I have evolved over the years and becoming strong and healthy was a major key and I never want kids at that age or younger to go through that so parents, train with your kids and help them achieve their goals, they’ll thank you in the long run.

 Have you seen the abs on those gymnasts? I mean holy shit, that doesn’t look human at times but seriously, gymnasts have the strongest abs on the planet bar none. They have to be strong and powerful otherwise the skills they perform won’t be that good looking.  Your core is one of the most important keys in either sports, fitness or for overall daily life like holding groceries, lifting a heavy box or carrying a couple kids. Crunches are not the best choice to do abdominal work unless you’re a beginner. If you want strong and powerful abs, then you need to work your whole body as one unit while focusing on keeping the core muscles tight and locked. Even doing Hand Balancing requires complete core strength and overall body strength. Doing basic gymnastics and animal training can get you there and trust me, having a strong, injury-free and healthy body goes a long way for things in your life.

We all have some form of Animality within us and we can unleash that thirst for strength by exercising like the animals that far out-beat us in every aspect of fitness. Screw aerobics and treadmills, go out and have fun and be a wild animal. Bring out that animal within.

Stretching For Strength

When you think of flexibility, you normally think of limberness, a few stretches and stretching a few muscles but what if you can gain strength while becoming flexibile? How's that possible? There's no such thing as building strength while stretching, or is there?

There are a lot of things wrong with modern flexiblity in the mainstream gyms and even the Yoga classes. But wait, Yoga is suppose to make you limber and lighten your life and body. Truth is the one mistake people forget about stretching is to breathe and use their mind to break through the stiffness. Flexibility is beyond just common stretching. When I think of flexibility I think, loose joints, stretching beyond the muscles and tendons and strengthening the body from every possible angle.

How's it possible to create strength while stretching? Simple really....Use tension in the various exercises like you learn here. Tension creates strength period. However if you also want to move up even a centimeter in your stretches, you have to relax. Isometric Stretches is not moving a muscle but flexing in certain positions and after a few seconds, release and go a little further. Loosening the joints is critical as it opens the body and gives you a sense of bliss as the looser you are the more flexible.

One of the greatest techniques to unlocking your flexibility potential is what's called the Ice Cube Concept. No it doesn't involve actual ice cubes or the Rap legend sorry to disappoint you. What this technique is that you visualize your muscles as if they were a block of ice. each time you stretch, you inhale for a few seconds and when you exhale that ice melts just a little and you go a little further. This is one of the coolest secrets in fitness as to increase your flexibility by a small percentage each time you breathe in and out. You don't want to go all out at anytime whether you're new to stretching or a veteran, be patient, be mindful and think relax, relax.

Strengthening the tendons is a major key not just in flexibility but just as important as strength. The bands and bones holding your body together are more important then the muscle tissue as if to say it's better to pull a muscle then tear a tendon, believe me the pain difference is major between the two. Loosening up the joints are more then just being flexible, you're mobile, you're agile and you are dangerous if your joints are flexible an your tendons are really strong.

When you practice the course that you can get here....You will never look at stretching the same way again. This is the same program that had me go from a stiff 230 lbs weightlifter to a 245 lbs mobile workhorse with powerful tendons and pain-less joints. This can increase your flexibility as fast as 30 days or less. Some will be faster then others but I increased mine within less then a couple days if not the first hour, that's how awesome and powerful this one course is.

Can You Become Your Own Avenger? Pt. 4

We've read about superheroes since the days of David vs. Goliath to the powers of Sampson and the strength of Milo. In the modern age of comic books, there are superheroes and villains in every page front to back with stories of victory, struggle, love, hate, diversity and learning the responsibilities of having super powers. Our heroes come and go and some live on in legend. Some work as individuals and some work as a team, however at rare times you'll find our most favorites work as a unit and to assemble the ultimate team.

In my opinion if you are hardcore trainer or like staying in shape, its not just a hobby, its a lifestyle. For some, fitness is like a second language, we are so consumed by it we don't think twice about it yet some take it to extremes that's out of their control, they feel its life or death if they don't do a workout, kind of like a superhero who's so consumed by their gifts that they forget what is more important and what makes them who they are. Training can be used in a lot of ways. It's very easy to go caught up in it that you don't realize the consequences but its very difficult to create consistent progress and learn how your body works on certain cycles.

Being strong and powerful is very rewarding but it does come with a price. You don't get strong overnight and not feel it the next day, that's the reality. You can have fun in your training and find out how good it feels which is a good price to pay but overall to keep up your what you love, you must take things in stride and work hard to reach your goals whatever they may be.

Look at some of our favorite superheroes like Batman or Thor, one's a god and the other is mortal with a superhuman mind and the fighting spirit of a warrior but what do they have in common? They both use what they have to keep those from harm but they both have paid a price individually. Remember that price you pay for getting so consumed in what you do that you end up suffering consequences? Take it from Thor, he's a god among men yet he got so consumed at being a warrior and battling everything he went up against that he forgot who he really was for a while and lost his power for a period of time.

Batman feels he has no choice because he wanted to Avenge his parents death that it took over his ability to find what's really important and that's himself. He may not have super powers like many others but he took an oath to be powerful in some shape or form and that's where it became a blessing and a curse at the same time. He has a few weapons at his arsenal and has the ability to fight like a ninja but that doesn't make up for the one power he has over others and that's his mind and that's where he's most dangerous.

If you want to become a real life Avenger, the very first thing you must practice is avenging yourself. In that sense you learn to fight to become strong and powerful and take a chance on who you were and what you want to become. There's still the real you inside but you can amplify it and build a foundation of who you want to be both internal and external. Ever since you were a kid some way or another you dreamed about being strong and triumphing over evil and rescuing the damsel in distress. You can make those dreams come true if you learn to use the right resources. Strength is not always in the muscles but in your heart and soul.

All of us have been weak at some point in our lives whether physically, mentally, emotionally or all the above. It's harder getting in shape to become the very thing we dared dream about but if you learn to value that challenge, you become much stronger then you would physically. A strongman who has known power all his life can lose that sense of value and use it against others. Some of them do and some don't but you get the idea. A weak man however wants that strength and will do whatever it takes to get there and learns the value of that strength yet some will go to great lengths that aren't natural and very few take the journey to become powerful by will and hard work. If you are strong, don't bully those that are weak and more vulnerable, help him/her gain confidence and help them become strong like you did when you were in that state.

When it comes to natural strength and getting strong, you can move weights around if you want and do cool and awkward bodyweight exercises but if you want to develop strength in ways those other things can't touch then you got to go with nature's weights...Rocks, stones and logs. Nothing is more pleasing to the eye then moving a heavy boulder or lifting a heavy log. Yes Olympic Weightlifting and Powerlifting are awesome to watch but remember, the weights are already numbered and set. You can never always tell the size and weight of a big rock or huge looking log, they could be 50 lbs. or 500 lbs. you can't always tell but when you have the ability to lift it, it just makes everything that much sweeter then cherry pie.

Thor's Hammer is a symbol of strength, power and a warrior's spirit. What if you can have that all that and more in your very own hands? How would you use it in your strength training? What strength can you build with that kind of hammer? I will tell you first hand that if you had a hammer like that, you don't look at it as just a cool looking tool or just swing it around and get strong, you make it more then a hammer, you make it more then just steel, you make it the very powerful tool it was mean't for. The hammer is your personal weapon for your quest to be strong, it is in your arsenal of things that are more powerful then anything else. You become more then yourself, you become that hammer, you alone can only bring that hammer to life.

If you can build a body that you always dream about, then you can help those who don't know how to get there. Being strong has its benefits individually but going beyond who you are to help those become strong, that makes you more then just a physical presence, you're a symbol of what's good and hopeful in this world. Those who bully that are weak don't have any real sense of pride or goodness in them, just ignorant pricks that rather care for themselves then be there for those that need it. A real strongman becomes strong both physically and helping those get there as well. Being something more then yourself and losing that selfish pride is a real sign that you are a man of strength.

The Eye Of The Wildman

In the world of fitness today, we are taught to do this or that, do aerobics for cardio, low reps for strength, bodyweight for endurance, weights for power, crunches for super abs and cardio machines to burn calories. Some of this is all well and good if you're into that kind of thing and want to learn them but really its about following your instincts. If you truely want to be athletic and have a body that you dream about then you must learn to use your instincts. Training is not always about looking good, having big muscles, being ripped to shreds, its about heart, about passion, the will to push through and the power to strive for survival.

When it comes to Animal Fitness, you don't need to be an expert and jump through exercise to exercise, just practice the basics. Look at young animals in the wild whether it be a baby bear cub, tiger, chimp or a bird. They don't build their bodies by running to the nearest gym to pump some iron, they learn to survive by practicing and playing with their kind. Learn to use their strength and power so when they grow up they're strong, powerful, a lean, mean, fighting maching. Just moving and becoming strong is not always good enough. You must become that animal, move like them, become your primal Animality.

Cardio these days is way overrated with the machines, the jogging, the ridiculious aerobics classes and so on and so forth. Why not just go roam free and be whatever you want. Go to a park, go to the playground, hell go to your local school after hours and just have fun. Now you may live in a place where you may not have those things like in a big city or whatnot so whatever room you have in your home, use it. Moving like a wild animal makes machines look like a cake walk. You're moving in awkward positions, swtiching your body around in ways that you can't do on a machine or lift on bench. Just a few minutes a day is all the cardio you're going to need.

Ever see the Tarzan movies? The one most people remember these days is the Disney flick back in the late 90's and if you're from an older generation its the stories of the ape-man from the johnny weismuellers to the george scotts and Mike Henrys. What do they all have in common? They show Tarzan learning to survive in the jungle with only the things that surround him, his body, the trees, his awareness for danger and the ability to move in ways you can't get from weightlifting or going to a gym. If he can learn to survive like that, what's your excuse?

What would you do if you couldn't go to a gym? What if there were no machines, no weights, no racks? You had nothing but your bodyweight and you wanted to get in shape, what would you do? You'd find the best ways to get in shape or sit on your ass and die. This is where you learn to your instincts and get your body into the best shape possible. Train like Tarzan.

Training like a wild animal takes practice, patience, the will to learn. It doesn't take 30 minutes to an hour to get started. Begin your journey with one minute. Pick a few of your favorite animals and do 20 seconds of each and that'll be your workout. Each workout, add just a few seconds and learn your way around and before you know it you're having fun and you don't even realize how long you did it. This is the beauty of it.

Having fun is a major key. When you get into the mind of it being fun and you love doing it even for a few minutes, your conditioning will soar and your body will become lean, powerful, strong and agile that will impress others and also make them jealous. Now unlike all that bodybuilding magazine crap that tells you to have a set up of this amout of exercise and do this many reps each exercise and do it for hours on end that won't happen with your animal workouts. You pick your animals, do distance or reps doesn't matter or switch from one to the other with very little rest or do a little time and take a breather. You have the freedom to do whatever you want, its your choice.

With patience, imagination, practice and have an open mind to have fun and treat it as play and not work, you will build a body you can be proud of and you will to unleash the animal in you that is nothing but powerful, strong and won't let anything stand in your way. Become the animal you were born to be. Unleash your Animality.

Bringing Gama Back To Glory

Even as a small boy growing up in the Punjab in India,  Ghulam Muhammad was destined to be a great athlete and at the age of ten won contests that displayed grueling exercise tasks including squats, club/mace swinging and wrestling and was last standing out of 400 wrestlers in one of these contests. Nicknamed Gama, he trained in the Sand Pits of a wrestling ring and just took over everyone around him becoming a feared wrestler on the mat not just in practice but in competition. By the time he reached his 20's he was the most feared wrestler in his country and continued to be throughout the globe as he took on all comers and oulasted them all never losing one match in his entire career. Even the top champions in America at the time wouldn't dare challenge him, even guys like George Hackenshmidt wouldn't take him on.

His conditioning was second to none and had routines that would make a world-class champion walk away. He swam, wrestled, swung the mace and clubs, did push-ups, squats and some bridging thrown in there that would go beyond the limit of most men even at Gama's size at 5'7 260 lbs. As heavy as he was, he moved like a little man and had the strength of a siberian tiger (slight exaggeration) but also his routines sound a bit over-exaggerated yet he trained harder then almost anyone before or since his time.

As his legend grew, the exercises he once used started to fade in the mainstream and only very few outside of the middle east ever trained on them. This all changed when a little known catch wrestler named Karl Gotch started teaching these very same exercises to his athletes in Japan and places around the USA and became a big deal. Taking on an athlete named Matt Furey, Gotch had put him to the test time and time again and Furey kept coming back for more. Because of Gotch's influence, this upincoming businessman of fitness put out a series of courses on these same exercises minus the clubs and the mace. Putting three exercises together called the Royal Court which consists of the Hindu Push-up, Hindu Squat & The Back Bridge.

In one course he made, naming it after the legendary Indian wrestler himself, Furey brought variations of the three main exercises and took them to a level beyond his own imagination. He then added some supplemental exercises like Hill Sprints & The Power Wheel as an added bonus along with a plethora of things to use in your arsenal like stretching and Isometrics. Gama Fitness became a cornerstone for what Bodyweight Exercises can accomplish for you.

One key element that Gama posessed was the ability to throw opponents as big or bigger then him as if it was childs play and that one element came into being Isometrics. This system of training teaches you how to build strength and speed without ever moving a muscle yet still burn fat and build functional strength that's off the charts. Unlike other exercise systems, Isometrics helps you find the weak spots in your body and strengthens them to increase not only your physical power but more importatly your internal power.

This course to me is one of Physical Culture's greatest creations and it gives you a prespective on how to use your bodyweight in ways that's beyond tradition in the modern era. It was one of the first courses that got me started and taught me how to be my own trainer and give me the chance to change my body and my overall strength. It truely is Bodyweight Training at it's best.

Another key element is what Karl Gotch refers to as "the most important in physical conditioning" is the Bridge. You will find that it takes more then just getting into position and holding, it takes skill, keen awareness and flexibility to fal into the bridge from standing. Practicing this takes on a whole new meaning to the words "holy s*it." Never have you seen stuff like this before and if you want to take it to a whole other level which in my estimation is the peak of Bridging Training is Here and you will learn things that will amaze your friends and your athleticism. You don't have to be a wrestler or gymnast to do this stuff.

There will never be a course like this again because it gives you tools for lifelong health, fitness, strength, flexibility and endurance. Want to learn the old secrets of the indian wrestlers from yesteryear and for centturies before, get your ass over there and grab it asap.

Becoming A Stronger Man

When you look at super-heavyweight athletes, almost 99.9% of the time you wouldn't think that they have the same amount of strength as they do with endurance because lets face it, when you think of endurance body wise, you look at much smaller guys that can go for long periods of time, you think of ironmen, triathletes, marathon runners and even Olympic decathletes. However there is just that one of a kind athlete that has the rare respect and reputation for being a strength athlete as well as having the endurance to back it up. That one of a kind athlete is super strongman Bud Jeffries. I believe without question he is only man on the planet that can squat 1000 pounds from the bottom position and also have 3000 rep marathons with a kettlebell. At 5'11 and nearly 275, he is without a doubt one of the very top guys if not at the top of superhuman heavyweights that can do both at the same time. There are great trainers out there that can teach you either strength or endurance but never has there been a man that can teach both and be a big man to boot.

In one of his epic masterpieces Twisted Conditioning he teaches the best ways to shape up for strength an endurance at the same time which in some cases has never been written on paper before and it brings out the best for one who wants to have the strength of a gorilla and the endurance of an Ironman. In one way to look at it in order to train at both levels at the same time takes creative thinking and the way certain things play out in order to culminate together into one colossal program. Most people train for strength and very little on endurance, however the same can be said by those who train for endurance but never take up strength training, now there are no excuses why you can't train both.

One of the greatest bodybuilders of all-time John Grimek had a body that looked like it was carved out of granite and sculpted into this beautiful and awe dropping masterpiece but he was one of the very few that had the strength to back it up. He was also an Olympic weightlifter at a time when you either had to be a bodybuilder or a weightlifter and he was both and was one of the very best in the art of Muscle Control. He was probably in my estimation one of the last of his kind to be strong and looked the part at the same time. Once steroids started itching their way in the the lat 60's early 70's, that natural and wholesome tradition of becoming strong and shapely started to fade. Yes many guys busted their ass in both the bodybuilding world and the strength world but after guys like Grimek, Pearl and Park it just lost its natural state and became a steroid-infested industry.

There are an extreme few drug-free bodybuilders, lifters and overall athletes that keep that natural, hard work and iron will power from becoming a dead art and my boy Bud is right up there with them along with some awesome individuals who share the same goal. Drug-Free for those playing the home game means all natural and no steroids or P.E.Ds (Performance Enhancing Drugs) and there are orginizations out there that support that concept especially in Powerlifting, Bodybuilding, Football, Baseball ect. but doesn't have the respect it deserves.

In another epic course by Bud called Massive Functional Muscle, he teaches you that you never should choose to do this or that, you can either be a bodybuilder or a functional athlete, you either do high reps for endurance or low reps for strength. In reality you can do all the things you can think of and do it without the need of steroids just like the old-time strongmen of yesteryear. Look to guys like Sandow, Hackenshmidt, Arco, Maxick, Sig Klien and others of the early generations of strength. Screw the modern establishment and learn what you want to be and turn yourself into the athlete you dreamed of when you were small and fragil and wanting to be a giant among men and have the strength and power of a grizzly bear.

Do you want the body of a greek god and have the strength of a bull? Do you want to be able to run for miles and lift the heaviest of weights? Do you want to have the ability to train using push-ups and sit-ups while swinging a heavy kettlebell in the same workout? The only thing from stopping you doing all these things is you. There is no excuse to what your potential may be and you have nothing standing in your way.

Your imagination is the key that unlocks all your potential. You have the power to make it happen just need someone who can lead you on that path and very few can do it as awesome as the southern stud Bud Jeffries can. Never settle for less then what you want to do and on't let anyone stand in your way of becoming the strongest person in and out that you can be.

When Wrestling Was Fun To Watch

I grew up a 90's kid, watched the saturday morning cartoons, obsessed with The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, there was Keenan and Kel and at night it was Jeapordy, Wheel Of Fortune, Seinfeld and great tv shows of the time but nothing got me more hooked and more tuned in then Professional Wrestling. The very first event I watched on TV that I can remember was Wrestlemania 12 and it was the coolest thing I saw. I saw a 7 foot deadman piledrive a bad ass giant, saw a ringmaster with a million dollar belt, I witnessed a grown man in gold kiss a scottish wrestler on the lips but the one match that caught my eye and the one I still will say to this day was the greatest match in the history of televised events was the Iron Man one hour marathon between the Heart Break Kid Shawn Michaels vs. Bret The Hitman Hart for the WWE Championship. That was the match that started my journey into the history of the sport and gave me the chance to learn about the very best in the sport from its early days in the sticks to the epic era of television.

When I began watching the Monday Night Wars between Raw and Nitro, it was the most fun I ever had as a fan watching these awesome athletes of all shapes and sizes doing the things that they did best. Unlike a lot of fans I wasn't very much interested in what the character was but what happened in the ring that put most of my attention to. Watching these guys jump off the ropes, doing suplexes, power slams, cage matches, 6 man tags and the incredible physiques they had. Yes I was a fan of the NWO and Degeneration X but none of that mattered unless they wrestled in the ring.

I went to a few house shows at the Cow Palace in San Francisco and the old San Jose Arena before it was changed to the HP Pavillion and was at 2 big PPVs and a Smackdown show and it was the most epic time of my life as a fan of the old WWE and WCW. Because of this I became obsessed of what wrestling really was and studied the old school days of the sport going back as far as ancient egypt to presidents and kings being wrestlers to the PT Barnum era of the ACT shows to the epic battles of Frank Gotch and George Hackenshmidt to Ed Strangler Lewis being the transition from real wrestling becoming a profitable industry of characters to Television where Lou Thesz was the talk of the globe. I was also obsessed with how the wrestlers trained and what they did to become stars other then becoming a character.

Even during the early days of television wrestlers with an amature background broke into the business and brought their styles to a whole other level. I will still say to this day from the clips of matches I saw of the early TV era that the best amature wrestlers that made an impact on Pro Wrestling were Lou Thesz, Verne Gagne, Gene Kiniski, The Briscos, Dory Funk jr., Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson. There were guys just as good but none had an impact like those mistros of the mat.

I can never imagine the training wrestlers went through to break into the wrestling business. I mean sh*t the easy part was training in the ring and building a charcter but to put all that infront of hundreds of thousands of people was just brutal. I've seen clips of guys aching and begging for their lives for the torture to stop. I've heard stories of Hulk Hogan training from Hiro Matsuda, Eddy Sharkey who trained guys like Road Warriors, Bob Backlund and Jesse "The Body" Ventura who took these guys to limits that you can't imagine unless you were there and don't get me started on guys like Walter "Killer" Kowalski who was a conditioning machine who taught the art of the business to future WWE Hall Of Famer Paul Levesque aka Triple H.

I've been through torture workouts myself in my later years after being a teenager but never have I or ever want to be put through that kind of training but that also put me on my quest for being in condition and strong. Conditioning is your greatest friend and nobody put that concept better then the late Karl Gotch. It doesn't matter whether you're in wrestling or in other sports, you can have the techniques down to a science but if your condition is poor you might as well get out the door.

I wish there were matches that were just as good if not better then the matches going on today in WWE's PG era which I have no idea what that concept is nor do I care. There are some great wrestlers today like Rey Mysterio, NCAA standout Jack Swagger, College champion Dolph Ziggler but the one guy that really brought his amature status to the ring and brought a whole new meaning to the words Wrestler and even going back to the place where he first gained fame in the Olympics is Kurt Angle. This guy in my opinion is our generation's Dan Gable and he took wrestling in ways that will never be duplicated as far as wrestling goes not rassling. There are a few guys that are good to watch these days but it doesn't live up to the era of my teenage years where you had guys like the Rock, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker and quite possibly one of the funniest cats in the business as well as one of the greatest performers Chris Jericho.

They don't make wrestlers like them anymore and the very few guys that are good to watch every now and then like Randy Orton, John Cena, Kofi Kingston and CM Punk just had me lost interest as a fan of that part of the business and rather watch the guys from my generation to the day days of Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Harley Race, Ricky Steamboat, The Road Warriors, Bob Backlund and believe it or not Macho Man Randy Savage. Nowadays I watch real wrestlers like Brock Lesnar, Matt Huges, The Shamrocks, Tito Ortiz, Josh Barnett, Randy Couture and the great Japanese wrestlers.

Although I have lost interest in the few years of WWE wrestling, WWE gave me the chance to learn and love wrestlers of the past and transition from the loud characters and chair swinging lunitics to the kick ass submission style and scientific version of wrestling. Its all how you tend to look at things. Whether you're a fan of wrestling ingeneral or not its really how you love to watch your heroes and watch the great evolvement that unfolds whether its cool or not and find the best to watch and learn for yourself.

Historical Physical Culture

I believe that the real golden age of physical culture started with the industrial revolution and its first major superstar was Eugene Sandow. He was the Arnold Schwarzenegger of his day. He had strength beyond belief, can wrestle with the best of them and had one of the most powerful physiques of his generation next to the Russian lion himself George Hackenshmidt. During this time on till about the early 60's, the strongmen were the rockstars of their day. In the vaudeville era where theaters flourished with acts of all shapes and sizes ranging from acrobatics, magic, comedy and others but usually the Strongman got it's biggest applause of what they were capable of doing. Sure there were guys who faked lifts and certain stunts but the legit men and women put on a show that can still be talked about to this day.

One of the coolest things that these men did was challenge the audience to their special lifts and put up prize money to whoever can lift and handle it as good or better but safe to say, far too many tried and failed. One of the strongest men of all-time The Mighty Atom, had men of all shapes and sizes come up and try to bend one of his signature spikes and only a handful ever did it and one of them became his one and only student and he was dubbed the nickname, Slim The Hammerman. Atom and others just captivated audiences all over the world showcasing their unbelieveable strength. Some carried horses across the stage, some lifted elephants off the ground, others lifted weights from odd angles and even others would hold a weight in one arm and have a totally different type of apparatus in the other (e.g Barbell and kettlebell, look up Arthur Saxon).

Some still talk to this day about the great impact the old-timers gave and encouraged us to become strong, vibrant and powerful. Some old-timers however have been forgotten and were only mentioned by those who had seen them or read about. I don't believe for a second that those who had been forgotten were that at all, they were just lost in history until one learned how to find them again and there are a few who have done just that. Learning fitness and strength is really learning about our own history as there's information out there that are as good or better today then any modern method of the last 40-50 years. There really are secrets of how the old-timers trained for the things they've done and some of that info is lost in history but now you can find some of that lost treasure here.

I am a firm believer in old school bodybuilding and whether using weights or bodyweight alone, the old school ways are far better then the crap that's used today. Sure some modern methods are good but that's an extreme few. Bodybuilding today is bigger then life and it has its share of ups and downs and almost none of the men and women of today have a damn clue of what true bodybuilding is. In the old days (long before steroids) guys trained to get strong and used natural methods to put on muscle in ways that can never be reached today. If I had to choose between Ronnie Coleman and John Grimek i'd pick the latter. Unlike Coleman, Grimek had a physique that's still unmatched to this day and had the wicked strength to go with it. Sure Coleman is a strong mofo and can move weight as good as anyone but Grimek can actually move his body better. The point is, guys like Otto Arco, Maxick, Grimek and even Reg Park for that matter are the real deal of what it takes to get strong and powerful. Are they even close to the guys of today, hell f*cking no but its also vise versa, guys today interms of health, real strength, power and vibrancy are no where near guys like them.

Reg Park was really one of the first men of his era that showed he can have a powerful physique and the strength to back it up. He was the first bodybuilder to bench press 500 lbs. That was unheard of at that time and the bench press itself was itching its way to becoming a synonum for what someone's strength is. I believe that Park and Bill Pearl were the last of the all-natural bodybuilders that had real world-class strength to back up their physique. They can lift, they can pose, they did it all without ever needing steroids or PED's. They ate good, they trained hard and were actually healthy. Reg Park was the man that got the great Schwarzenegger himself on the track to becoming the most famous bodybuilder of all-time.

In all fairness you don't need steroids to become strong and powerful. The physique stars of the early era didn't need them cause they weren't around then and still don't really need them for that purpose. Media has really to blame whats wrong with how one looks. If you want to be a bodybuilder today, you need steroids, if you want to get ahead in sports, you do steroids, you want a quick fix, you take steroids its all real bullsh*t. Yes genetics play factors but that doesn't give you an excuse to build the body you want naturally. Usually these days if one looks a very muscular guy there's at least 2 things on his mind, "He must be on roids" or "he was born to be that big." I don't always believe either one of those things. Look at guys like Maxick, Charles Atlas an others, if you saw them before they got strong you would've thought they were swizzle sticks just waiting to get their ass kicked and never had a chance in hell of having a phenomenal physique. Maxick was a sick child and didn't have much to look forward to as he was tol he was too weak, too frail to do the simplest activities yet he became one of the first 3 men in history to officially lift more then double bodyweight in the overhead press and had the some of the very best muscle control that no one was close to duplicating. Charles Atlas was a 97 lb weak teenager who would be the target for mos of the bullies in his neighborhood and once had a girlfriend who left him for s tronger guy yet managed to put on nearly 100 lbs of muscle in a few short years and was crowned the most perfectly developed man twice.

Never assume that one is strong because you think they were born that way. In my opinion, the old school methods of physical culture are far better for you health wise compared to the crap used today. Learn your history and find that it doesn't take a whole lot to learn how to be strong. Work hard, create goals, imagine yourself being strong and muscular eat good and use basic principles. Its easy to learn now as it was back then. Let me ask you this, if you didn't have your chrome and fern gyms, your little bity weights and your machines, how would you be able to turn your body into from a weak state to a muscular state? You'd be surprised on what you can find.