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.