Up Keeping Your Conditioning

            When you find different ways to condition your body, it’s important to keep them going until you move on to the next method. However, some of us like me can’t always keep up with what we want to do or get bored easily so now what? We improvise and become creative. When I say upkeep I don’t always mean tuning your exercises or routine but my way of up keeping is to train as daily as possible whether for 5 min. or 1 hour. It keeps you on your toes and you feel a sense of accomplishment.

            Make your goals interesting, don’t always be a straight arrow and generic with “I’m doing this to lose weight or doing that to build strength” and my personal favorite “Just to look good the season.” Those are great goals to have but there’s more to them than meets the eye. Go after your goals but put in a little extra something that keeps your goals interesting like adding an animal exercise for fun or slap in some isometrics that you always wanted to learn. I always believed in the value of having fun and challenging yourself with a smile because most look at it as punishment when in reality it’s all in their head. If you’re not having fun then your goals won’t be that satisfying or worth it.

            Whether you practice one method or many, it’s important to keep yourself progressing. The upkeep of exercise is not always what you have to do on a certain day or you have to do this or that at a specific time. Make it a habit to keep up with yourself, that’s the secret to up keeping your conditioning is by up keeping yourself. I practice a lot of things so I have many ways to keep up with my mind and how my body reacts to what I want to do. For some they focus on one method and believe it’s the end-all be all which is great for them but that’s only part of the puzzle. Training is like a puzzle, in your mind there are either so many pieces to put together or you have chunks of pieces and you have only a few to put together either way there’s something to put together. You can create your own puzzle, no one can build it for you, the question is what do you want to put together that creates what you want?

            There are 24 hours in a day yet most people don’t realize they can get in a kick ass workout in under less than 10 minutes, why because they don’t have the ambition and the motivation. It’s sad because if only they knew that even one small workout or spreading your exercises throughout the day can have a profound effect even on the toughest of schedules. Learn to remind yourself that it’s OK to not have a hardcore workout and train 4-5 hours a day, that’s impossible for most people, hell to me that’s way too much, put in a few minutes here and there; on a break, do a few push-ups and squats, got kids, play with them that’s a lot of exercise in itself and before you conk out on your bed do a couple minutes of stretches, it’s about working on what’s best for you. Make the time even if it’s a small chunk of your day.

            Start with 1 min. if that’s all you have, build it up by 30 seconds each time you train and before you know it, you’d have done 15 min. worth of exercise throughout the day. It’s not complicated, make it work for you and you will find it easier to get things done. Now get to it. Want to know what’s funny, if you read this, you can certainly do a few exercises. Watch your favorite TV show and do some exercise during the commercials, doesn't have to be a lot of reps, do what’s comfortable. Keep up with yourself, don’t try to keep up with everyone else.

Taking It One Day At A Time

            For most in life it’s easy to jump in and make big changes but yet it can bite you in the ass if you’re not careful. In the world of fitness, many want results fast and they want them NOW!!! Sure it seems like a great thing to do at the time but yet it’s about control and bringing little things together that actually take up the big picture.

            What most don’t have is patience and don’t put in the little efforts that create something huge later on. A jet cannot fly without an engine, a deal in a business meeting can’t go down without those little tweeks to get the job done and in fitness/strength training you have to have a relationship between your goals, what you would like to have done and bring it all together in harmony. Granted some like myself aren’t always into routines but I do however believe that if you want the best quality training, you got to align yourself with the right mindset.

            It’s about harmony and building up certain challenges and taking them down a notch. It’s like a beautiful relationship with your significant other, there will be times where it’s all loving and ditsy but yet there will come a time where you face some fights and need to make for them; balance it. Put together what you want to accomplish and be prepared to be thrown a curve every now and then. Be bold and daring but at the same time, let things work for you otherwise some things will just walk all over you.

            A very important thing to remember; everything happens for a reason. There’s just that spark that hits you like Zeus’s’ thunderbolt but there are things that may not always be in your favor, be aware of that, things will work the way they’re supposed to. Be aware of how you do things and find your way to accomplishing your goals and making things happen for you. Training is all about practice, finding who you are and learning what you’re capable of. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that when things go right, it feels like magic but if it doesn’t then you either modify it or switch to something else. Either way you will find something that hits and it’ll be noticeable once you see it.

Mixing Muscle Control Into Your Workouts

            The Art of Muscle Control was a staple for many of the old time physical culturists such as Otto Arco, Maxick, Sandow, John Grimek, Saxon and also the mighty George Hackenshmidt. When you think into the muscles and learning your own physiology, you’re finding out how your own body works in ways no one else can. In your workouts where you’re lifting maybe heavy weights, pull-ups, kettlebell snatches and/or working with Sledgehammer; mixing in Muscle Control can give you that extra edge in the flow of blood moving into the muscles and keeping them fresh and going just a tad longer.

            I've been experimenting with this lately because I want to find out how I can last a little bit longer or flow better in my workouts so after I do a set of an exercise say swinging the mace 100 times; I would superset it with a muscle control exercise. There are many ways to do Muscle Control but my style isn't just flexing and relaxing it’s moving through an entire range of motion, this style is called FMT a.k.a Focused Muscular Tension kind of the Charles Atlas Tension exercises. There are a series of exercises in FMT and all of them require a focus on the muscles being worked so not only am I building certain muscular power in my training but also keeping my mind focused and breathing deeply so that when “Resting” I’m really adding more flow to my muscles by giving them oxygenated blood. This is one way to look at building your Chi or life-force in your body so you can keep your body going more smoothly, more focused and not just resting the muscles.

            Deep Breathing is a key factor in any exercise because it can make a huge difference in how weak or strong you are. Correct Breathing with natural flow of your body’s movements creates a much more complete image on how you build muscle, utilizing the stabilizers and where you’re focused in. If you plan on doing this, experiment with your own style of muscle control, mix things up to get a feel for what has you flowing and keeping that “Strength/Endurance” factor that helps you down the road to burning fat, building natural and functional muscle and tendon strength.

            When I say mix up I mean keep doing what you've always planned on training but after each set do a Muscle Control Exercise and mix those up and try different ones. This is after you've mastered the Muscle Control Exercises in and of themselves because if you haven’t you’re not going to find that same effect that controls the flow of your muscles and the blood you want flowing. At first these exercises may be a bit unusual and feel a bit weird but keep practicing, find the ones that keep you interested and fresh.

            This is the beautiful part of Physical Culture where you learn how to listen to your body and find different exercises that build a puzzle of how you want to build your body without the need of those crappy supplements and steroids that eventually destroy your body more than give you that life-long process of health, super strength and crazy vitality. Be bold, be different, utilize what works best and throw out what doesn’t. It makes life interesting, more open and more beautiful. Take it in and experiment with it.