Ask With Intent & Mindfulness

           In the fitness world, there’s always something to learn, the next big gadget, a new bodybuilding routine, how to develop superior grip strength, get bigger arms or legs, tight abs, lifting 500 lbs. of a specific lift like the Bench Press. We get excited and eager to learn so we ask a million questions but we don’t always get the answer we were hoping for and why is that? Getting so amped up then you find out certain things you didn't expect and often times you find yourself disappointed but how you can you change that around?

            Some of us get asked a bunch of different questions on training or something specific like Muscle Control for example, or how to increase your push-ups, what’s the strength difference between a barbell bench press and a dumbbell bench press hell even about a specific athlete that you love. I don’t get asked a million questions often like some of the other guys like Bud Jeffries, Logan Christopher, Ryan Pitts, Dru Patrick or even the legendary Dennis Rogers but when I do, I do my best to give the right answers but sometimes I’d like to ask the other person what they’re intent is, do you have a specific goal or do you want to know just for the sake of knowing? Knowledge is a powerful tool; it’s how you use it that creates what you want.

            Some of you guys out there are very eager to learn, you want answers and things explained but I’d like to share with you a quote from Master Catch Wrestler Billy Robinson, he says “Learn how to learn.” What does that mean exactly? In my way of putting it it’s learning by following your intuition, you learn certain things and ask about more but in order to find the answer, you have to participate and being mindful about what you want to learn. Ask yourself in your mind, what do you seek, where do you want to go in your training, you picture what you want to do, after that you do it. The questions you seek will come by experimenting, getting someone’s take on the subject and what they’re ideas are, take them in like a sponge but have the intention to go with your questions.

            Some guys like to run their mouth and like a machine gun just asking a bunch of questions without looking at the big picture. Their excitement is great and wants to find out as much as they can but yet don’t always hit the target. If you ever see someone at a gun range, watch how some of them take a shot at the target, they can shoot off all they want but if the bullets don’t hit the target they’re not aiming properly and clearly don’t know how to use a gun but they’re excited to learn and want to hit that target. Asking questions is the same thing, they’re like bullets but you need to have a target otherwise you’re just shooting all over the place. Focus on what you want to target, be mindful and fire at the points you’re looking for. When you look at it like this, you’ll find what you’re intentions are and what you want ask, sometimes it’s not the answer you’re looking for but yet it could be the one that was there all along. 

Channel Your Energy To Do Your Bidding

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

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

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

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

The Stronger Your Grip Is, The Stronger You’ll Be

           Why is grip strength so important? It’s essential to our everyday lives and not just for training or getting in a good forearm workout but it has the ability to save a life or help someone in need. A surgeon needs his hands to construct, repair or save another person’s life, a massage therapist needs strong and supple hands, an athlete needs strong hands to throw a ball or tackle someone, even in soccer at one point you need to throw the ball out into the field to get the best advantage of scoring a goal. A parent has to have some strength in their hands to carry groceries, help keep their baby up, play with them and so on. Catch my drift here?

            Your grip is a major key and I’ll get into different types of grip strength in a second but let me point a few things out. In the world of the strongman, your grip cannot be neglected because if you’re going a specific feat of strength, the majority of the time you’re going to be using your hands. You can’t bend steel if your grip isn't up to par, you can have strong wrists but you need to keep a lock on a bar a spike, if you’re Ryan Pitts at Stronger Grip you can’t swing another human being on his human swing set without having a solid grip and if you’re like Dennis Rogers, there’s no way in hell you can lift a fridge with one finger without training your grip. Now the majority of us aren't strongmen or a specific athlete or really big with genetic gifts of strength; most of us don’t realize how important our grip is, to hold onto a child, to carry a gurney to put in the ambulance to take someone to the hospital, to rescue someone from a burning building, to fight in combat as a soldier. The stronger your grip is, the stronger you’ll be.

            There are different types of grip strength; there’s pinch gripping which is having that alligator type snap, crushing strength like from grippers and thick bar lifts or using fat gripz, working the fingers like fingertip push-ups, twisting strength, working the wrists, playing an instrument like playing the piano or guitar hell even the drums, for carpentry you need precision and accuracy in your hands to build and carve things and also lifting something like the blob; there are many ways to develop your grip but focus on the ones that geared toward a specific goal. The more you focus on a particular type of grip strength, certain things fall into place where your whole body becomes apart of the exercise. A lot of people think isolating the lower arm will make them stronger, which is true in certain cases but when you engage your whole body as you focus on the lower arm, bigger things arise like your conditioning, strength in other place, muscles being used that aren't normally used. Think of Arm Wrestling, its not just slamming another guys arm down, it’s a full body effort.

            Mighty hands build mighty things period. A key thing to remember is to focus on the tendons and ligaments when you’re training your grip, this is where it’s most neglected because people mostly focus on the muscles and only do half the work. The more you focus on the tendons the more you realize that’s where your strength falls into place and will prevent you from getting injured. Using different implements like Sledgehammers for example to strengthen the tendons will help you succeed in your life. The most common injuries in sports and the work place are torn tendons/ligaments and carpal tunnel, you can prevent these if you focus on your tendons. Isometrics work very well with this because it gives your body the maximal effort without moving a single muscle. Steve Justa makes this very clear and it keeps things in perspective. Make it a habit to include grip strength in your training and you’ll see how much stronger your body will become just adding a good amount of tendon work.