My Theory On Pro Wrestlers Training

  

>>>>>Don't Believe It All<<<<<

            I've always advocated since I was 20 years old to not believe everything that is said in the muscle magazines especially with a celebrity on the cover. I've never done pro wrestling or even trained to become one but I have put in a lot of study, trained in the old-time strongman game and looked into a lot of athletes and the way they trained so that’s why it’s a theory. Don’t believe all the training you read about a wrestler in a magazine because you may not realize that it’s not all there.

            For the most part when you read about a wrestler’s routine in the magazines or on the net or whatever, you've got to look at another angle from what you're reading or listening to. For the most part I’m not doubting those guys bust their ass day in and out but they're not telling you the whole story. When you read a routine you automatically think that’s exactly what they do, not all true. Think about it, for a full-time wrestler, they travel up to 300 days out of the year at best, they get if they’re lucky a good hour or so of training at the gym or so and eat, than get to the arena for the night’s show to cut promos, tapings and do a 10-30 min. match. There’s no way in hell they can train that hard nearly every day or up to 4 times a week and not be completely exhausted. Most of those guys train pretty simple while on the road and I’ll talk about that in just a bit.

            Back in the old days when the bodybuilding craze was just for those who were actually into it, athletes who traveled a lot like wrestlers did, gyms weren't that popular, you'd be lucky to find one in a few cities in the entire state. Most of those guys relied on what they can find useful but for the most part did bodyweight training and wrestled. Let me give you an example: Lou Thesz, one of the all-time greats who can go an hour with just about anyone who can keep up with him, he probably lifted a few weights here and there but mostly Push-ups, Bridging and Wrestling were his mainstays on the road. Ric Flair; 16-time world champ and the king of hour long broadways, carried a deck of cards with him and at the studios where promos and most of the matches occurred, he would put himself through Push-ups, Sit-ups & Squats, if he happened to find a gym on the road he used it to the best he could. Karl Gotch did practically nothing but Bodyweight exercises on the road and it kept him in phenomenal shape.

            Superstar Billy Graham was practically the first wrestler who took the bodybuilding look and made it the focal point of today’s wrestlers such as John Cena, Batista, Triple H, Scott Steiner and others. When you train like that plus are on the road for practically a full year with only 7-10 days being at home, it puts a whole new level of perspective and how really all that contributes to the way they eat, rested and what have you. Simplistic Training for a Pro Wrestler is doing enough exercise for both strength and endurance that are at a very different level than most athletes and using compound and full body exercises.

            Today, gyms are practically in every damn city in the entire country and provide training for every type of sport or athletic endeavor there is. Most wrestlers today can go to a gym for a little while before heading to a show and be ready for the night’s matches and promo cuts. I'm not putting these guys down because they’re awesome of what they're capable of and plenty of them are in pretty damn good shape but they don’t share their true training ideals because a lot of the public really only looks at the hardcore stuff they do in the gym and think that they have a lot of time in there to stay fit and read about the routines in the magazines or what they might say on WWE’s Websites but the reality is, they do train their ass off but not as extreme as some might put on paper or an online interview.

            Take away the drugs, pills, injuries or whatever those guys endure and take and you have an athlete that trains by a necessity and has to be efficient in their training to stick to be able to matches that can go as long as an hour and many of them can’t unless you're a Antonio Ceasaro or a Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Ric Flair, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels and guys of that caliber. They really do in my opinion do pretty simple exercises but I'm not doubting they do the isolated crap either yet in the end, they can't afford to spend 3 hours at the gym and muster up enough muscle and all that to go into a match or cut many promos in a single and not feel like collapsing. They train when they need to, to be in top shape and keep their build as long as possible.

            So the next time you want to be inspired by a pro wrestler and want to train and be like them, be a little more realistic, use common sense and think about what could be going on with them if they actually 100% trained like they write about in those magazines because you'd be surprised what they go through if it was remotely true. Although I stopped watching Wrestling on TV, I still have DVDs that have wrestlers talk about the real side of how they trained, got into the business and what they put themselves through on the road for that long period of time. I admire some of these guys but I love realistic, no bullshit and fun old school training for any sport or just being in awesome shape as well. 

The Power Of Your Fingers

             What you may not realize is that your fingers have more strength and power in them than you can imagine. What most people do in training is they grip weight in a tight fist or lay down on a bench and lift with the hand slightly opened or they do most bodyweight exercises with an open hand or tight hand squeeze such as push-ups and pull-ups. When you train the fingers however, you're not just building your body, you're hitting a specific place at the same time.

            Our fingers are mostly in tuned with nerves, tendons and bone and the muscle is within the lower arm and the hands. When our brains construct the nerves to move our hands, it sends signals to billions of areas so we can use the hands to build things, lift, carry, throw and many other things. The strongest finger as far as I know is the thumb because it carries more padding and strength in the hand than any of the other fingers.

            When we build strength in our fingers, it helps carry over to other things we didn't think of before. Some don’t know this but I had spinal meningitis as a baby and because of this, my brain went haywire and had some damage somewhere and now I have trouble in some of the nerves in my body especially in my hands. I’m mostly left handed and have great dexterity in that hand plus have more strength on my left side but on my right side, I have trouble moving my right fingers individually. When I was little I used practically nothing but the left side of my body and my brain damage has caused me to think in ways I can't explain but that’s another story.

            Training your fingers in a totally different format can put a whole new perspective in the way you train. The next time you lift a barbell or dumbbell, try lifting with your fingers, it’s very different and very awkward but there’s a point to it. Instead of doing regular push-ups using your palms, do them on your fingers, it’s harder and requires more stability, balance and strength. I like to do animal type movements on my fingertips such as bear crawls and gorilla walks/jumps. I want to work my tendons more and be creative with it so I can do some of the strength feats I do. When you move or train the fingers more in your lifts or exercise you're building powerful grip strength, finger power and turn your fingers into eagle’s claws.

            When you become crazy strong working the fingers in certain lifts, you can lift most likely more weight using your fingers than the rest who use two hands. One of the strongest men that ever lived was Hermann Gorner who not only did great feats but accomplished some using only his fingers including his still world record of a one-finger deadlift of 727 lbs. Most men can't lift that much with two hands so you see, the fingers have more power in them than we give credit for.

            A favorite exercise of mine is doing fingertip push-ups, if you get good at using 10 fingers, you'll want to reduce more of them to add resistance. My best is using 4 fingers (2 of each hand) doing a few reps. I felt compelled to take it to another level. I've tried doing explosive push-ups where you come down and jump with enough power to have the hands leave the floor. What if I tried doing the same thing but on my fingertips? I did it and it was awesome, hurt a little but I kept at it and here’s a video to prove it.

            One of the upcoming strongmen today has some of the strongest fingers I've ever witnessed on film. His name is Matti Marzel of Ferocious Strength who’s done many feats using the fingers such as handstands, push-ups, pull-ups, v-sits, gymnastic bridge and plenty of others. These things have helped him make certain strength feats like a cakewalk such as tearing decks of cards, bending steel, ripping phonebooks, levering hammers and juggling kettlebells. If there ever was a man in the 21^st century who can teach you about finger training it’s this dude here. Build your fingers to create strength that most men can’t imagine and see where it carries to other things in your life. Shatter your personal records and build super strength using the power of your fingers. 

Absorbing Energy Both Positive And Negative

          Like Obiwan says in Star Wars “The force surrounds us, it penetrates us and binds the galaxy together”, the force in reality is surrounding energy. Some look at the force as some blasphemous evil and it’s not even real but yet it very much is. We absorb energy from the moment we were born to the day we die, day in and day out we surround ourselves with some form of energy. The energy that surrounds us has both positive and negative effects. The positive as an example would by energy that has happiness, warmth from within, the negative would be the surrounding energy of gloominess, sadness, fear, anxiety.

            Why do we absorb it? Sometimes it just happens whether we ant it to or not. Think of it this way, you wake up one day feeling happy and gitty, then you turn on the morning news and you watch it for a bit then all of a sudden you start to feel sad and stressed, it’s because you absorbed the negative energy coming from the news and your feelings change. Now I hate the news and prevent myself from watching it because I don’t want to feel those negative effects. Another look at how energy is around us is when you walk into a place and you sense something is up and you can't quite put your finger on it, you’re aware of it but you can't figure out whether it’s good or bad. At times you can sense something great or bad but its all how you absorb it. Sometimes we don't always feel it but also we absorb so much its overwhelming and can have an explosive effect so like anything else, if you do something too much, it’s going to come back and bite you in the ass.

            The energy surrounding our bodies can be our best friend or our worst enemy and from experience I've had both and one or the other has hit me hard, to use the energy to our advantage we ought to use a strategy for both offensive and defensive. The offense is like having an all-star team that just seems like they're unbeatable and can score and power through obstacles like it’s nothing; the defensive is when you have another all-star team that just seems like whatever crosses their path nobody can get passed them, like your own version of Fort Knox with the highest level of security. Picture in your mind what you want for your all-star squads and they can be anyone you want or you can choose to put up barriers it’s up to you. You can use the energy to block out anxiety and stress and you can use energy for how you move and creating powerful spheres that can help you with your strength.

            Use your energy strategy wisely. Sometimes energy whether good or bad can come at us without being aware of it and it can hit us harder and hurt or feel good more than anything physical. Learn to be aware of certain energy and use your imagination to create a powerful team or barrier and use them to your own endeavor. Whether you're an office worker, athlete, fitness enthusiast or whoever you choose to be and going through life in general, you have powerful energy and you can absorb its strength but how you do it is up to you and developing awareness is a key.