Healing In Progress

 Since my last article, the healing process from our accident is coming along pretty well. My wife is just now starting to show some bruising and it's hard for her to take a deep breath at times but she's fighting the best way she can and I do everything I can to help her so she doesn't strain herself. For me, I'm very close to being 100% again, just a bit longer and I'll be back to doing my crazy workouts. We're both seeing a chiropractor whom I've got work done on before and I trust him and he's done a hell of a job with our adjustments.

My training has shifted a little more when I added in DDP Yoga the first few days and when it came to Isometrics, I was holding various positions for 1 minute each. I shifted back to the 6-12 second Iso Contractions and added in Hanging to my rehab training. The hanging has helped immensely, doing sets of different hanging positions and stretching the muscles while building strength in the tendons in my forearms along with building shoulder flexibility. I've also done a couple 30 min workouts with just the step ups at 12 reps per leg per set non stop. 

I still can't do the weights I normally use in my workouts (sandbells, kettlebells, hammers) for a bit longer (not that I'm tempted because of how I feel) but because even one tweak can set me back, I need to stick with bodyweight and isometrics. To test myself to see what I can do again, yesterday I did a 10 min non stop superset of Bear Crawling 40ft and 20 Step Ups (10 per leg) as many times as I could and afterwards, did various hanging exercises. It felt great and I didn't feel pain or discomfort, some tension yes but neither the first two.

The one workout that I've kept consistent with every single day since this thing happened is my mobility routine which consists of Neck Exercises in a slow fashion that doesn't use tension and focuses on breathing and dynamic flexibility, circulating the shoulders in three different exercises, working the wrists and forearms, rotating the waist, side bends, rotating the pelvis, tai chi waist turner, standing leg lifts, hip rotations, hamstring flexibility, 2 different knee rotation exercises, 2 ankle rotation exercises and calf raises. This workout hits the body everywhere and it's all from standing. It takes roughly 20-30 minutes to complete and it feels nothing short of amazing afterwards. 

Injuries are a part of life and the best thing we can do is doing what's possible to get back to our full strength. Some don't ever come back because of severe injuries that can be life threatening but do what you can and don't take life for granted. Take care of each other and be there for the ones you love when you can. 

Sometimes The Universe Prevents You From Going On Vacation

 Life throws curveballs at you and you never know when they'll hit you. For me and my wife, that curveball hit us hard. We were on our way to the Oregon Coast on Saturday for our 2 Year Anniversary and about 90 minutes into the trip, we had a car accident that totaled our car. I don't want to go into too many details but we did sustain some injuries; she had bruising on her chest and ribcage and I ended up with Whiplash, tearing some muscles along the left shoulder and a injured my Rotator Cuff. 

Scary couldn't even begin to be an understatement as we were really shaking up and there were 3 cars total (including ours) involved and one person went to the hospital for precaution. Last year for our 1st, Covid prevented us mainly but this time, it just wasn't meant to be. I'm just glad we are both safe and not severely damaged physically. The man who went to the hospital, I believe he'll pull through and has a full recovery. The first couple days were mainly getting over the shock of everything. We went to an urgent care the day of the accident and quite frankly, I didn't get a good vibe from the doctor and barely even looked at me and put me on a mild dose of muscle relaxers. The wife was to take ant-inflammatory. 

We decided to go to a chiropractor and that's when I found out there were tears in my muscles (mainly along the scapula and just below the neck line). Luckily my spine was still good. I'm going to be off some resistance training for a while (kettlebells, sandbells, hammers ect.) and was basically told to take it easy and stick with light stretching, yoga and joint loosening. I felt that when it came to that, do Neck Chi Gong, DDP Yoga, Aerobic Isometrics and my mobility training. Also needed to take Ibuprofen & Tylenol to help with the inflammation so it dies down and helps the healing process. My wife does need more work done due to also having a knotted up back and shoulders when it comes to adjustments. 

We ended up spending the rest of our anniversary vacation recovering and taking time to heal. We took care of each other and as much as it sucks, I'm doing my best not to shoot for the typical workouts I do and help my girl with stretches and keeping things mobile so things flow better. I feel so blessed to be in the shape I'm in and for the most part, the way accident happened, if there was even a second or more, the car that we collided with could've hit the the passenger side completely (where I sat) but ended up hitting the front end around my side. All that mattered to me during the shock was if my wife and all those that were involved were ok, I didn't give a damn about me.

Tragedy comes with lessons and we learn and find out who we really are in the midst of it. All we cared about was making sure we were all safe and coming together as a couple. Being overly emotional was bound to happen and being there for each other. Learn to love one another and we all know accidents happen and doing our best to come out of it alive. We are both healing the best way we can and taking it one day at a time. Real strength comes from how you react from suffering and having the courage to keep fighting no matter how small or big it is. 

Keep it up everyone and don't take anything for granted. We get only this one life. 

Deep Breathing Isometrics

 One of the great benefits of Isometric Training is that you can do all sorts of exercises that take on a unique aspect of the results you'll receive. When it comes to Aerobic Isometrics, people find it easier to time their holds and focus on the breath as they hold a posture or whatever. Now, what if we changed things around a bit? Why not experiment with the breathing part of Isometrics in a different way? 

Learning this concept from my workouts with Matt Furey's Exercise Bible and taking repetition to a different level, the concept of breathing for reps as you hold an exercise (wall sit, hindu push-up, tablemaker and V-Up), let's look at it a different way. When you hold a posture, let's try seeing how many deep breaths we can take before our bodies feel like coming out of it. I experimented with this the other night (sort of) doing Isometrics of Dead Hang, Fist Push-up Plank (mid range), Handstand, Dragon's Pose (variation of Warrior Pose in DDP Yoga) and Hugging The Tree (or Embracing The Tree in Qi Gong circles) and counted my breaths until I felt coming out of it. 

How many breaths can you take (slowly) in a dead hang before your grip gives out? When you're done, how long do you think those breaths made you last? This is a different way of thinking and seeing what is possible to hold an exercise longer and not just see if you can hold it. If you can hold an isometric for 30 seconds or longer, how many breaths would that take? One idea of this is something I learned from Matt Furey was how many breaths it took to hold a 3 min. bridge. Some counted breaths like seconds but what if you were to able breathe deeper than that? I was averaging 12-15 breaths in 3 minutes at some points in the last 15 years and my best was about 10-11 breaths in 3 minutes which is pretty good in my book.

Deep Breathing is a vital and crucial component that gives us the idea of how we handle stress whether in training or in certain life situations. When it comes to training, the better your breathing, the more you'll last. When you're in a horse stance, how many breaths can you take before you even start shaking? Or how many breaths does it take before you start breathing faster like for example: If you can take in a breath that lasts about 15-20 seconds (a full inhale and exhale), how long can you do that before your breath becomes frequent at 5-10 seconds a breath or less? It's the ability to control the breath as much as possible. 

When you think differently, you get a different result. So the next time you do long holds in your isometric workout, instead of just timing the hold, count your breaths and see how long you can hold the isometric before your breathing becomes faster. Just an experiment, something different to test your breath control, strength and endurance. 

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Playground Isometrics

 

When you were a kid, being at a park was one of the best times of your day. Going up and down slides, running around the grass, going on the swings and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. When I was little living in Santa Cruz, there was this one park called Branciforte Park and it had this really long slide that was probably about 15 ft or so going down that was close to a wooded area. Kids today wouldn't understand what it meant to be on a huge slide.

I always enjoyed going to a park and sometimes just sitting on the grass and let the world go by. See kids play, see a ball game on the other side of the fence, skateboarders doing tricks or seeing families play little games. It can be a beautiful place to go to especially in the sunshine. These days, most adults don't enjoy a park so much and because of so many changes to playgrounds even from 20-30 years ago, it's become a thing where being careful and overly cautious becomes the norm.

I do understand that we don't have the same energy we did as kids and our bodies aren't as durable as they used to be when we were used to running, climbing, swinging and falling off of places. I know I've slid off swings and slides the wrong way a time or two but got back up, today it's almost like if you go down a slide or go on a swing and you move ever so slightly, you can hurt yourself. We may not have the same strength or endurance to go for hours at a playground, but we sure as hell can do something to help maintain our joint health and still enjoy doing things.

I was out for a walk yesterday and went to this park that I haven't been to in a long time and had the urge to go hang on the monkey bars from different angles. Just to hang there and feel the stretch from the torso down while maintaining my grip strength, it felt great. Hanging is a great Isometric Exercise that many don't realize the true benefits. Yes not many people can hang for very long if at all but with practice and working different grips, you can gain some incredible strength and endurance (not to mention flexibility and posture). Going on the swings was just as fun and engaging the core to stabilize you is also a great isometric. 

There are so many different ways to do Isometrics at a playground it's almost unreal. Other than hanging, you can do pulls for arm wrestling, hold yourself up on the dip bars, do pushup holds on the Jungle Jim, do pikes holds on the swings (those are tough as hell to do), L-Sits on the Monkey Bars, Chest Presses on poles, if you're really ambitious and strong you can do the human flag, there's so much we don't realize is possible. Strengthening the body doesn't have to be boring and if kids see you doing Isometrics, they may imitate you and see that there's cool stuff to do. Kids absorb like sponges and when they see some positive and encouraging things as they play, it teaches them to see that exercise is fun and interesting. 

If you live near a park and its got a playground, find a time where there's no kids around and really tackle some exercise and enjoy yourself, if there are kids around, maintain distance as much as possible because these days parents and guardians can freak out and nobody will be able to have fun. We all need some joy in our lives especially now and it is important we find a balance in how we do things. Train while having fun and have fun while training. 

Can't Beat An Old Fashioned Pair Of Legs

 Sometimes when I think about legs, I think of the back and forth banter between Will Smith & Kenneth Branagh from Wild, Wild West. Watched that scene so many times and laugh every single time. It's good to laugh.

Many trainees hate training the legs because they're the muscles that basically get the crap beat out of them more than any other muscle group and get frustrated as hell when they train the calves since they're very difficult to develop a large amount of muscle. Leg Day to me is kind of fun and don't do a ton of exercises to get the job done. Just doing Step Ups in the triple to quadruple digits is more than enough and when I was consistently doing 500 or more squats a day, I felt satisfied.

For the most part, when I train legs, I don't go for the bodybuilding approach and try to put on a ton of definition and specially put on as much muscle, I train to condition the legs as much as possible and strengthen the tendons and ligaments of the ankles, knees and feet. My big workouts for legs these days is occasionally doing 100's of step ups, consistent rucking walking with up to 40 lbs or more (once did a 45 min walk with 70 lbs of gear) and Isometrics that include Wall Sits and other exercises. My goals are mainly to keep my legs healthy and strong because I get older, there's going to be issues with shin and ankles from my injuries if I don't train accordingly. 

Some people bust their ass working the legs so damn hard, walking feels like death the next day and as cool as that may be in your 20's and 30's, once you reach 40, 50 and 60+, you're going to need to train differently. Building muscle should be a priority for sure regardless of age but train safely and train for long term strength, not just temporary. As we age, one of the first things to go is our legs. Strengthening the ankles, knees and feet is what's going to keep you from being in a wheelchair in your golden years. 

From time to time to strengthen my ankles and put some muscle on my calves, I would do one legged calf raises going from one to the other for 5+ minutes non stop, it's a hell of a warm up plus it almost looks like a little dance and hey, dancing can be fun every once in a while. Dancers have some of the most powerful legs around and not talking the squatting 500 plus pounds or trying to leg press a freaking car kind but the kind of strength that keeps you on your toes and are conditioned over a period of time. Some dancers have had serious injuries they paid for later in life is true but others even in their 70's and 80's have incredible stamina and that people half their age would be jealous of. 

Recently I took photos of my legs that I don't think I've ever really shown before since most of my workouts and photos are of me either in sweats or shorts that you can barely notice the calves. I was hesitant about it but the majority of the reception I got felt really good. Honestly I don't think my legs look that good at all but after a decade and a half of training legs off and on, I think I developed them pretty good and they kept me from getting seriously injured a time or two. My dad doesn't call me Tree Trunk for nothing so I think I've done something good. 

Definition and looking good isn't always going to save your ass and if your legs aren't conditioned to a sense of degree, you're not going to last long in many areas. Train them with ferociousness but also take advantage of the little things that make a huge difference. Remember the words of Herb Brooks in Miracle "The Legs, Feed The Wolf." 

2 Mini Workouts And 130 LBS Of Hell

 Sometimes you may not always have a lot of time to get a workout in but just a few minutes could do wonders. You can even do them throughout the day when there's a window of opportunity, 5-7 minutes can do a lot than just doing nothing.

Yesterday, I thought I'd get in a couple mini workouts just for fun and chill out and work on stuff the rest of the day. Here are the workouts...

Superset Of 10 Overhead Presses (50 lb Sandbell) & 20 360's (20 lb Sandbell) for 5 Rounds in 5:41.

The second one was another superset but this time it was for 5 min nonstop of Carrying the 50lb Sandbell 2x across the garage & 10 Sandbell Slams with the 20 lb Sandbell. 

After a while during the day, I thought about doing something else for a quick workout and decided to test how long I can hold a Horse Stance wearing my 2 Weighted Vests (40 + 20) and holding my 70 lb Darth Vader Kettlebell. I didn't expect to hold it very long since I never used that much weight before but I managed to get past the 30 second mark (approx. 36 seconds). It was brutal in my opinion and by 20 seconds, my legs started quivering. My goal for next time is over a minute.

Horse Stance training can give you an idea of where your weaknesses are at and just holding one without weight for an extended period of time is a killer workout in itself. Shaolin Monks would hold a Horse Stance Posture for hours on end and we all know how bad ass those guys are. When you add weight, it becomes a whole new ball game of testing your strength in your entire body. I would at times hold my 50 lb Sandbell in a Horse Stance for as long as 3-5 minutes and feel sore as hell the next day. I once held 110 lbs for more than 2 minutes and that felt different.

130 lbs of added weight in a Horse Stance would test you big time and shows how much strength you can possess beyond the muscles. It shows how strong your tendons and ligaments are and that is what really pays off. You don't need to go crazy like I did, just holding up to 50 lbs can be beneficial. If you prefer just your bodyweight, hold it for as long as you can. My best time in just a regular Horse Stance was about 10 minutes or so and I was dying, that was years ago, I don't know what it would be now.

Train outside the mainstream of modern fitness today and learn the old school aspects of strength and conditioning. Toughen up your bone structure and strengthen your tendons and ligaments especially in the legs because as you know, as we age our legs tend to go first. Train accordingly and progress little by little even if it's a tiny fraction each day. Stay strong everyone and have an amazingly awesome weekend.

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Cyber Bullies And Haters

 Words can have an impact on a person that at times is far stronger than getting physically beaten up. Physical wounds can heal, the mental wounds can be far more difficult to heal. Some people are more sensitive than others and you think in most cases they just need to get over it, if only it were that simple. Can words weaken a person? Words at times are like the bullets of a gun and if you point it right, they'll hit you and you can be changed forever.

Kids especially are impressionable and vulnerable to bullying and even if they're taught to fight back, some way, an impact has been bestowed on them. Some of us are taught to stand up to bullies and take a stand for our own psyche and believe that nobody is going to bully us. It works at times but just about everything comes with a price. Sometimes the victim becomes the bully, what we see and hear can give us the impression that being a bully is inevitable, not always so. 

Suicide rates from being bullied on social media these days is pretty damn high and it's a shame that has to happen to people whether it's the victim or the bullies themselves. On one end, a person makes the choice to be an asshole or that was what they were taught and learned how to belittle and poke at people. On another end, a person didn't do anything wrong yet is ridiculed for just having the wrong hair color or listens to terrible music or can't read a sentence without stuttering. Suicide is about suffering and ending that suffering and often times, people think it's selfish to take your own life but in certain cases, you can never understand the suffering someone goes through.

When you have haters, mainly it's either out of jealousy or they hate themselves so damn much that they have to take that hate on others in order to feel some sort of satisfaction. How could you hate someone that you don't even really know and why do you feel the need to hate on them because they're different or they're associated with someone or just flat out have a sickening passion to just hate and not look at the world around you? Success doesn't always come from something you were born as or born with, it comes from failing over and over again and not giving up until something clicks and continuing that click consistently.

Haters have issues with their own set of problems and at times hate on someone for no other reason than to just hate. They say things that really don't make any sense and try to call you out as if they think they can fight you when the truth is, they really can't. A lot of times, haters are basically cowards with nothing better to do than try to piss on your success and calling it Peach Tea. They're not your friend but at the same time, not really an enemy either unless it goes to an extreme setting because all they truly want is attention and to be recognized as the big dog when they're really a scared little poodle. 

If you're successful, you're going to get some form of bullying or hating whether you want it or not and true success is taking the good with the bad. Some just love to talk shit just for the sake of being able to "talk" but in reality, what's the real issue here? What exactly triggered them to make them hate you so much? The answer, we don't truly know. Words can have an impact on people that triggers many things and we don't always know which ones are triggered or which ones that were deliberately thrown at. 

Don't buy into the bullying and stick up for yourself if you have to or ask for help. If you have haters, keep your distance but stop being you. It's not easy, I understand that, trust me but the more you live with the love and compassion and success of your endeavor, the less noise comes from the haters and bullies are nothing more than turds with bad egos and a hate for themselves. Don't be a bully and don't hate on anyone. 

90 Seconds Of Isometric Exercise

 If you ever have read my articles or have done research on Bud Jeffries, Steve Justa and even Bruce Lee, you know we're all big advocates of Isometric Training. My favorite style is doing the 6-12 sec intense contractions from as many angles as possible but every few workouts or so, I do either a mixture of intense Iso training and Aerobic Isometric Training or do Aerobic exclusively for that particular workout day. 

Long Isometric Holds take on a whole other realm of strength training and conditioning. The most common AI hold is the Plank which can be really good especially if you practice certain variations instead of the typical hold with the forearms on the floor. One variation that is difficult but simple to do is holding the plank on your fist with elbows bent at mid-range, most people barely last 20-30 seconds if that but if you can last a minute or more, that shows some serious strength.

Some people have experienced some interesting results with AI's such as hypertrophy, feeling lighter as they move, loss of body fat, increased strength, better stamina and even an increase in testosterone. When you hold a position for more than a minute, it takes another level of strength beyond the muscles, it is the strengthening of the tendons and ligaments. Shaolin Monks can attest to this as some of their holds go for hours, talk about strong joints. I've had great results in doing long holds but unless it's bridging or holding a horse stance, 90 seconds is my cut off point not because I can't go anymore but because I want to do other exercises and not just do one for a long ass time (I get bored easily).

For the most part with Isometric Training, most courses teach people to do holds at 60-90 seconds because that's where they'll start to experience the fatigue of the muscles and only exerting no more than 60% of their strength. The truth is, very few people know how Isometrics work and the understanding of where fatigue starts or ends depending on what they're doing. Isometric Holds are nothing new obviously but the knowledge of when fatigue sets in, the experience of fat being burned and strength that is developing conjures up more to what the real veterans of the method teach as opposed to those B-Movie style books where knowledge is virtually non-existent and go through the motions (oxymoron I know) of just showing exercises have little to do with real world applications and have dangerous consequences when they're not applied right.

One of the most common mistakes people make when doing Isometric Training is how to breathe. This is because Bodybuilders today and even quite a bit of yesteryear that hold the breath as they flex as hard as possible, this is extremely dangerous and could prove fatal to someone's brain. In longer holds, the objective is to breathe deeply and as controlled as possible and to not exert more than 40-50% of force. If you're a shallow breather, you may not hold a position for very long but if your breathing is controlled, you can hold for a good extended period of time. The better your breathing with long holds, the stronger you can be. 

The fact is, Isometric Training is far from easy and it takes a decent level of concentration that many don't understand. Once you exert an amount of force, you need to keep it there for the duration as much as possible. It is literally impossible to hold an isometric at 100% for 90 seconds or more but if it's around half or less than half that amount of force, you can go longer and develop strength that can shoot past plateaus in your regular training. 

At first, 90 seconds may not seem like that long but when certain things start to set in, it may feel like an eternity. Once you can control your breathing and keep that exertion of force at that level, it can give you one hell of a workout and feels very relaxing when you come out of it. One of my favorite exercises is the 90 second Deadlift using my Iso Strap & Dowel, I feel it everywhere and builds a great level of power in the forearms and strength in the legs and lower back. You don't need to do a ton of exercises to get in a good workout, just a few that totals around 10-15 minutes is more than enough. The results can often be extraordinary and it's not complicated unless you make it that way. simple and yet can beat you into submission. 

You can do them anywhere and use just about anything. Have fun and make it interesting. 

Are Isometrics Good At Healing The Body?

 When we think of exercise, from a general perspective it's about health, well-being and a way to make ourselves better not just physically but mentally as well. Now we don't necessarily would say exercise cures us from anything but there might be a way to have it heal the body, as in take in the HEAL part in healthy.

Isometrics have long been debated on its uses, its ability to strengthen and having a somewhat decent discussion if it's worthy to be in the same realm as weights, machines and sports. The truth is, Isometrics can be used in all three but from specific uses within those three types of training or competitive undertaking. You can practically use anything and turn it into some kind of Isometric exercise, you can either hold something and hold a position for time, hit a specific angle an not move but exert as much force as possible or just use yourself. The point is, Isometrics isn't always a black and white outlook of the method, there's more to it than meets the eye.

When it comes down to healing the body, many wouldn't think Isometrics has anything to do with healing the body but that's where most either don't understand or just pretty damn arrogant. When you have an injury and you can't quite move yet, there could be something done about that. Now, I'm not a medical doctor nor am I a occupational/physical therapist but I do understand from experience what Isometrics can do to help with injuries. I never really talked about this but when I was laid up from my leg injuries, I had to use practically 100% of my upper body in order to get around, if I ever used my legs for anything, I would Isometrically press my feet on the wall, only for like a second or two but I would press with the strength I did have which was maybe 5-10%, I would press and walk up the wall, 2-3 at time. I felt that did strengthen me and I was told I was healing rather quickly by then and it was maybe less than a few weeks before my last surgery when I did that but it could also be I was 20-21 at the time so youth was a bit of a factor. This was an alternative since I was no where near ready to walk yet.

The biggest contribution to my rehab was ultimately calisthenics but it wasn't until I learned about Isometrics specifically what they were all about. I tried many different ways to do them and they helped me really well. Once I got into my 30's, Isometrics have been edging more and more to that area where it's now a top 3 set of methods I use to train. The older I get, the more Isometrics become a great asset especially for my legs. 

Depending on what you want to accomplish and is it plausible to heal certain injuries or problem areas such as the lower back, knees, ankles and shoulders? Many people have claimed Isometrics have completely healed them but how many are true? Other than me, I would say there are quite a few people who have legitimately healed themselves using Isometrics such as Steve Justa, Bud Jeffries, Steve Maxwell, Logan Christopher and others. The healing areas are mainly the strengthening of the joints and utilizing the strength of the tendons and ligaments. 

There have been studies done on how Isometrics help strengthen the body through rehab or as a program to shoot past plateaus in an athlete's sport (with so many studies out there, very few are legit). The healing aspects depends on the exercise used in a safe and controlled manner and which joints to strengthen. I firmly believe that with Isometrics, you can make gains in how you strengthen the structure beyond the muscles. It gives you the ability to walk better, carry things easier and making the body near injury-proof.

Holding a position say the Wall Sit where the target areas are the thighs and calves help immensely for those who have trouble with squats or have trouble bending the knees to a certain degree without pain. This is all too familiar with those with knee and ankle issues but with Isometrics, you can strengthen those areas to hold off pain going up flights of stairs. Some people only do Isometrics exclusively because other forms of exercise either cause them pain or it's because their movements are so limited, Isometrics is the only thing that's helping them stay strong for this long. Justa was nearly crippled before Isometrics healed him and it got him off meds for Type 2 Diabetes. Some people do only Isometrics because that's the amount of strength training for them to do so everyday activities can feel easier to do. It all depends on where you're currently at and what possibilities there are.  

Find out for yourself if this method has healing properties. I certainly believe in it and it has kept me from getting seriously injured over the years.  Keep your joints strong. It goes beyond just doing exercise, it's developing a powerful structure that keeps you strong into your golden years. 

New PR In Step Ups And Club Swinging

Sometimes, certain things inspire you to test yourself and see what you're capable of. Yesterday for Easter, I decided to do 1000 Step Ups using the deck of cards again and see how fast I can do them. My previous best was 51:38 and I thought I'd never be able to go faster than that. I guess things have a way of surprising you and after all the sweat and number of times I wanted to quit I did it and broke my own record by finishing in 50:01, shaving off nearly 100 seconds of my previous best.

Step Ups are for all intents and purposes an underrated exercise that works like a charm when it comes to building leg strength and conditioning. Hell if Bob Backlund can go for hours straight doing them, a few minutes a day would be just as good for the average person. I'm not big on celebrating holidays like I used to. When I was living in Santa Cruz, holidays were a constant thing with my dad's side of the family especially Easter and Xmas (my grandmother is Roman Catholic) and ever since I've lived up here for nearly 10 years, it hasn't been the same since it's gotten harder and harder to travel to see them.

For holidays, I like to do crazy workouts to celebrate which is kind of a weird thing for most people but it gives me an opportunity to celebrate victories for presents. Now that I'm married for almost 2 years now, my wife and I would do some holiday celebrating but because of her job, it's not as easy and we celebrate either the day before or some time after. 

One of the other workouts I did on Easter was doing 1000 Reps with the Indian Clubs doing various exercises. Getting fresh air and getting into almost a meditative state that just feels incredible and getting in some conditioning for the shoulders, wrists and elbows. It was fun and just having that calmness and happiness instilled into you as you exercise. That's what it's all about and making the most of your time so you can enjoy other things later on. 

Today for some reason I just decided to start my day with 5 straight minutes of calf raises on one leg switching from one to the other each rep, it's one of the exercises I learned from Kevin Wikse's Pan Program which is now defunct and consisted of training the legs in a unique way. You can learn a bit more about Pan and his other takes on mythology by going to https://mightandmagick.com/. It just felt right to do and I enjoyed it. That's one of the great perks about fitness is that when it feels right and you enjoy it, it becomes something more than just physical, it becomes a mindset. Most likely today would be an Isometric Day but who knows what will happen. 

Enjoy the day, be happy and make the most of what is possible for you. 

A Moment In My Life That I Thought Would Never Happen

 For those that have known me my whole life know the struggles I had to endure when I was diagnosed with Spinal Meningitis. It made a major impact on the nerves around the right side of my body and scrambled my brain to the point where it would either kill me or make me live my life as an unintelligent member of society. When I was little, I used almost nothing but the left side of my body and barely did anything with the right side. Couldn't even pick up a pen or pencil with my right hand because the nerves were badly damaged. I struggled for decades but I kept fighting.

By the time I was a teenager, I could do quite a few things here and there for basic daily life but some things still weren't possible. I could lift some decent weight and move ok without the assistance of my left arm. Still can't shoot a basketball or throw a baseball or football with my right arm. After my leg injuries, I focused on getting stronger in a different way than ever before (as you may have read) but I also needed to challenge my right side even more. In gymnastics, I had a moment where I could do a one arm hang either on the horizontal bars or the rings with my right arm and that was an amazing feat for me, I was 24 at the time.

As I got older, I had to find more challenges, I was bending steel bars, nails, ripping phone books, levering hammers and holding myself up in a one arm push-up. Yesterday was a defying moment that made all those years struggling worth while. You've seen the videos of me pressing the Darth Vader Kettlebell with either hand or doing one arm farmer's carry with it, I wanted to make it harder so I thought I would attach one of my fat gripz to the handle. I never thought I'd be able to even clean it, let alone lift it with that thing attached and to my surprise, I did it with each arm and didn't use any assistance with my left when I did it with my right. I got it up to my shoulder and pressed that son of a bitch 10 times each arm, this thing is 70 lbs BTW and took a lot of concentration to use the muscles I needed to lift it. At 3-4 years old I have gone from not being able to pick up a damn pencil to basically cleaning and pressing a thick handled kettlebell that weighs 70 lbs. more times than I ever thought I could. This to me was decades in the making and I made it possible. 

You have the power to overcome adversity beyond anyone's expectations. Some never thought ever that you could do something they thought was impossible. You have the power to become stronger and make the impossible possible. The struggle is part of the journey but its those moments in time where everything came together and something incredible happens. Look at some of the old-time strongmen and what they endured to become legendary figures in the world of strength. I made something happen for myself that I never dreamed would happen and yet, it came to light when for years there were dark clouds over me. Although the fighting never stops, it's in those brief moments where you have won the battles over yourself and those who told you it wasn't going to ever happen. You made things happen and you CAN continue to make things happen. You are a bad ass my friend and never stop becoming something YOU were meant to be. 

Starting The Day Off With The Wu Ji Posture And A Cold Shower

 Sometimes when we wake up in the morning, we're still groggy and barely alert but also we wake up full of anxiety and feel the need to really haul ass; shower, dress, get a quick bite and run out the door to head to our job. I wanted to start my day with the Wu Ji Posture and just stand there practicing deep breathing for 10 minutes. It felt really good and it was a great moment of just getting blood flow to the body, breathe deeply and controlled and shake the cobwebs out a bit. The cherry on top of a beautiful Tuesday morning was getting into a cold shower.

For all intents and purposes, a cold shower is a hell of a way to wake your ass up out of that groggy zombie like state. Most wouldn't last 10 seconds and I can't blame them. Who in their bloody mind would want to emerge themselves in cold water, let alone bathe in the damn thing? This practice is more than just having the guts to withstand the cold, it's to really tech you how you handle your body and being calm, cool and collected. I practiced my deep breathing and focused on that as much as possible. It's never easy but the benefits are incredible man.

Getting into the habit of taking a cold shower does take time and taking small steps into letting that fear go and just let the water consume you and build that tolerance for cold temperatures. Is it meant for everyone, probably not but you never know until you test it out for yourself. For the most part, it's fear and others can be because of certain conditions. You don't need to take a 20 minute shower in order to notice the benefits, just a couple minutes is more than enough for most. 

The absolute key to both standing in the Wu Ji Posture and being in a cold shower is how you breathe. Cold showers tend to really get the lungs going and naturally make you breathe even deeper than normal (at least from my experience). You breathe in as deep as you can without straining, breathe out everything without straining and hold onto that. It's a very powerful sense of focus and concetration, think of it this way; you remember the stories of Peter Pan? The idea of slapping on some pixie dust and focusing on a happy thought, put them together and you can fly. Your pixie dust is your breath, your happy thought is your mind and picturing being calm, happy and full of power (I know this sounds goofy but it's the best analogy I can come up with on the spur of the moment).

We hate starting the day off with being anxious, in a rush, having our brains go haywire and dealing with negative thoughts. Start your day fresh and ready to kick ass, whatever it might be and being cool and collected in the midst of chaos. 

Is It Unmanly Or Weak To Be Open About Injuries?

 When it comes down to being a man, you're taught this or you shouldn't talk about that, hide your feelings so they're not used against you later, be cold, don't show weakness and most importantly don't cry like a little bitch; do any of these sound familiar to you? So basically, you're taught to be an emotionless robot or act like you're angry. Quite frankly, some of that stuff is a bunch of bullshit. That tells me, you are taught to live in fear and that everyone is against you, even the people in your life. Should you be open about everything, hell no but you shouldn't be ashamed of who you are either.

Injuries happen to everyone at some point unless you've lived under a rock and were taught to be careful with everything. Do I feel you need to brag about your injuries? No, even those that believe an injury under a certain circumstance is a badge of honor which the majority of the time really isn't. In sports, injuries are more common than a goal, run or point and some are very devastating and end careers while others may be more of a scratch or a sprain and you still go out there or lay low for a few days. In life, some injuries completely transform you either physically, mentally, emotionally or all three. Injuries make us suffer but they also teach us lessons that only those who have similar or we're the only one who can understand it. 

I don't brag about my injuries, I'm open about them because they're a part of who I' am, they're mistakes I have made and had to come back from them, they're ones that changed my entire brain chemistry, one injury changed my entire outlook on fitness and one broke my skull when I was little. They're not badges of honor, they're teachers and I continue to learn from them and adapt so I can keep living. Some have been taught to not talk about them or show they're painful because for some god awful reason it's a sign of weakness and you won't be seen as a man. 

Injuries teach us to make certain choices and whether we can come back from them or not. Some never get that opportunity and die from injuries and it's not always their fault. When I broke my legs, I had to choose whether to make myself strong and push through what would lie ahead or I could've just let them wither and not give a damn about myself and stayed in a wheelchair longer. Because of the meningitis, I couldn't speak very well until I was about 6 or 7 and with problems in my right hand, I couldn't pick up a pencil for a long time but they taught me how to overcome those issues and turn them into strengths. I'll never be 100% from the things that happened to me but that's ok, the world goes on and like everyone else, I have to adapt to it.

When people brag about injuries, they treat them like they've won some special award. When it comes to military, (uncorrupt) law enforcement and firemen there's an exception because they sacrificed their mind and bodies and get injured for a cause for which in many cases are heroic. Some people make too much of an injury that is a little over the top for example: every now and then a famous quarterback breaks his pinky, he'll make the front page of a newspaper and fans will send sympathy cards and roses but what about a soldier or cop trying to save someone's life dies? you'd be lucky to find him/her in the obituaries of the same newspaper. 

Injuries happen in life and we can choose to overcome them or let them consume us. You don't need to shout to the world about every injury you've had because at times, some injuries are completely irrelevant and no need to mention them but there are those that you can never come back from and not everyone is going to understand them but I believe that sometimes being open about yourself shows character and you're not afraid of what others may or may not think because in reality, what people think of you is none of your business. If you're willing to be open about who you are and what you have suffered and overcome, the negative stuff could end up being just dusts in the wind.

Be compassionate and remember, you don't always know what someone is suffering from so do your best to be mindful. Some of us are continuing to learn this. 

The Power Of Aerobic Isometrics

 Out of all the crazy type of training people do these days, would Aerobic Isometrics be one of them? I guess it depends on the type of isometrics you're doing. First off, what is exactly Aerobic Isometrics? It is a form of Isometric training first coined by the White Buffalo of old-time strongmen Steve Justa that he used to increase strength for his hay bailing back in his early 20's. To make this work, he would push, pull, squat, grip, twist in every direction that his brain can manifest and specifically work with longer holds of these categories up to 5 minutes at a time exerting less than 50% of his full strength. The idea is to hold an isometric for more than 30 seconds to a minute or more using less strength and controlling the muscles when needed.

Within a few months, Justa increased his labor work by 40% as opposed to only building 10% strength after 2 years of heavy weightlifting. Now if he can build that kind of strength using Isometrics, what's possible for you? Although I prefer the 7-12 second contractions, holding an isometric longer than usual helps aid in building strength, power and speed that is just nuts and gives off several other attributes including endurance, fat burning and skyrocketing the tendons and ligaments beyond the norm of strength. Holding a horse stance is a classic Isometric that helped martial artists for centuries including the famous yet Jedi-like mystique of the Shaolin Monks. Bridges such as the Wrestler's Bridge and Gymnastic Bridge build incredible power in the neck, spine and legs. For the Gymnastic Bridge specifically, it takes strength and flexibility just to even get into the position but the moment you hold it, you learn very quickly how strong you are with your own bodyweight.

Aerobic Isometrics can be very beneficial to your training especially if you're short on time. Just doing a deadlift isometric for 90 seconds at 40-50% max strength would humble most people and it's a hell of a back strengthener and works the grip like a mother. It can be used for rehab and strengthening the knees and hip joints, just doing a wall sit can build incredible strength in the knees and it would give you stronger ligaments to go up flights of stairs or feel better on a hike or just standing. One of the most famous Isometric exercises today is the Plank and its many variations. Most people would do a plank on their forearms which is a great starter but to get the full benefit, do a plank on your hands/fists and see where your real weaknesses are in that position. A good fist plank at 2 minutes would be a killer for a most.

Some would do Aerobic Isometrics to test where their weakest at and strengthen those areas, many discount Isometrics overall because it is tough to measure strength in various positions. For the most part, they're very good at building an injury-proof body and help you work longer and feel lighter as you do other tasks. No it's not going to give you a 500 lb bench press or break a world record in the 100 yard dash (or maybe it could, you never know) but it also develops a level of conditioning that isn't from conventional styles of training and that would be extremely useful in sports such as MMA, Amateur Wrestling, Baseball, Football and Hockey. 

It develops the little muscles and provides them with strength that is hard to break. Think what that could do for a pitcher or a running back, being able to last longer in games and have little chance of injuring a shoulder or an ankle. Most injuries occur because the big muscles overlap the tendons and because of that, the tendons can't always keep up and are at a higher risk of breaking down faster and tearing. Strengthen those areas and see the results for yourself. 

You can do Isometrics with just about anything from a strap to your own bodyweight to using traditional equipment, hell you can do isometrics with a freaking broomstick and build some awesome strength. Use your imagination and get stronger in very unique ways. 

Weight Vest Training

 I have been experimenting with Rucking lately and within a few workouts went from walking with a 20 lb vest to 50 lbs (40 lb weight vest and 2-5 lb ankle weights). It has been interesting and it's great for those days where I feel like going for a walk. I love the cardio benefits from it plus getting out in nature walking around the neighborhood where there's enough trees to make yourself believe you're in Lake Tahoe. 

Been trying other workouts besides walking where I would do push-ups, animal walks, carry my 50 lb Sandbell, holding a horse stance or doing isometric hangs. There's a lot you can do with added weight for resistance. I bought myself a 40 lb vest to see what I was capable of and I'm happy with what I have done that is now possible.

Yesterday I tried a step up workout with an extra 50 lbs and managed 182 reps in 10:20 which for my first time doing that workout with that much added weight was  more than enough. Hell of a cardio workout and building incredible leg strength and conditioning at the same time. One workout I did recently was wear 50 lbs of gear and pick up & shoulder carry my 50 lb Sandbell 50 times across my garage (40ft at a time), so with that math I was walking with 100 lb per set (2000ft (666 Yards), 5000 lbs carried). 

Rucking can be hard at times so whenever I need a break from it, I just recover and do other things, most of the walking is around 35-45 min depending on the route I take. I've done research about how much per week to Ruck and some places say once a week, others say a few times a week if you're experienced at it and quite frankly, I don't trust certain things so I go with my instincts. If I need to recover, I do it and it has panned out very well. I also need to be careful how often I do go because as great as it is, I still feel I need to give my ankles a rest because of scarring and the hard discomfort I get from my injuries. I ruck basically to toughen up my legs overall, also need to do consistent stretching and loosening of the joints so they don't become painful later. 

I do believe Rucking is phenomenal exercise and strengthens the body along with developing great cardio. It also builds great durability and forces you to have good posture because if you bend over too much walking with weight, it can strain and really hurt the lower back plus not to mention if there's no one around, you're pretty much screwed so be sure to have a few things handy if certain things should arise. Be careful but also have fun with it. 

Train that isn't conventional and be unique. Why be normal in your training? It's not going to do you a bit of good, do something crazy, something challenging and find creative ways to make your workouts interesting that doesn't involve getting yourself injured or doing something stupid that you could lose a body part (it has happened).