My favorite herbs that I have taken are the Ant Extract, Pine Pollen Powder & The Pine Pollen Tinicture . These alone have taken my strength & stamina to another level and even helped out putting up more hormones and expanded energy that can only be described as freaking amazing.
Be sure to check that out as well as everything else they've got.
In Bodybuilding the guys would do up to maybe 10-20 exercises per body part to sculpt the body for competition. Granted these guys are competitors and they do other stuff than just training to get as big as possible but also cut fat at the same time. For the average person and those who rely on building functional strength & health you don't need to do that many exercises to get the greatest benefit. In my training alone these days I do at least 20-24 Exercises for the entire body not for each area of the body.
Learning from guys like Brooks Kubik, he teaches that your best bet is to use a minimal amount of exercises for certain muscles however, you don't need to do a ton of different exercises but do very few and hit the muscles hard. When you utilize a few let's say for pressing, a couple solid pulls, 2-3 for the legs, some ab work using no more than 4 exercises and a few for the grip your total is right around 18-20 exercises all together but putting your heart and soul into beating them in submission. In Body-weight Training, you could isolate the muscles but for the most part you don't need to do a ton of different exercises but only a few that really hit the spots you need.
Karl Gotch once said that you don't need to do much for doing a lot; what that means is that you dont need to do everything at once but do enough to where you're making every exercise count. Push-ups, Squats, Core Work and Grip are the foundation and when you add pull-ups to the mix you don't need to go any further unless you have a specific goal in mine. Some people like to do hundreds of reps in the push-ups and squats, do a couple hundred sit-ups and leg lifts and do as much as 100 pull-ups but in reality that's only one way out of many others that can get you top notch results. Sure you can do a few exercises in circuits, you can do them with low rep schemes or go at random and see what you can do. I like to keep my reps to a minimum, I have done over 300 Push-ups & Squats in a single day plenty of times but that to me becomes boring and when it gets boring there's no excitement. That's where my current training comes in with Animals & Bridging.
I have over 30 Animals at my disposal in a workout and on certain days i'll hit all of them, on others only a few but I make the workout short and to the point because no matter what animal comes up, you'll be using your whole body one way or another and you can get exhausted within only a few minutes. The longest workout I ever did with animal movements is no more than 35 minutes and that's at advanced levels. With the bridging, I do a minimum of 4 exercises and do no more than maybe 7. Bridging Exercise when done properly doesn't need more than 15 minutes to really feel it, you'll notice it in less than a few. Last night all I did was the Wall Walking, Chest To Wall, Front Bridge & Back Bridge that's it yet had a major high, got every muscle worked, stretched my spine like crazy and felt very strong at the end.
The big point here is that if you want results in on of the best and highest forms possible, you don't need to do a lot of exercises to get the best benefits. Some things come in small numbers yet can create the biggest impact. Train accordingly and make the best of what you have and you will find that it's not always how long you can go, it's how you made an impact in the time you have.
Be sure to catch up on my site and find courses that suit your needs. These alone can turn you into a machine with little amount of time. There are beginner courses and there are ones that will take you to heights you didn't think were possible and most of the time, doesn't take more than 30 minutes a day to get top notch results. Stop on by @ ben-bergman.branded.me and take up on the best quality books, dvds and travel equipment in the world today.
The old format from my website @ ben-bergman.branded.me just didn't have very much to offer and there were too many things that didn't have much to do with me and catered to an audience where I felt didn't have the right spunk. So this past weekend I spent many hours coming up with a new and far better format that not only had me using my personal favorite methods of exercise but wanted to generate another audience where there's something for everyone.
My site now is purely Body-Weight Training based with a little section for minimal equipment mostly for traveling. Body-Weight Training is free but there are always a chance that someone may not have the right resources to learn or cant find anything specific. That is why the site has divided sections for specific people that can learn top of the line training from the very best around the world and in the U.S. Some courses are more than a century old, others are more current with up to date routines for the beginner and advanced trainee. If one were to become a trainer, there are a few places they can go to for exams or a workshop they can travel to and get hands on training from mighty trainers.
A women's section is also there for the sole purpose on giving the opposite sex an option that she doesn't need bulky muscles or train the same exact way as a man because let's face it, women have their own levels of strength and want a physique that's more sleek, healthy and filled with muscle that is functional for everyday life. There is a section dedicated to methods such as Hand Balancing & Muscle Control where men and women can learn time tested exercises that were used from the very best more than 100 years ago and have a glare of light shining to this very day. I don't want to reveal all the sections otherwise why go? So I'm sharing with you a piece of the action and you can see for yourself what can work for you. Your body is your own gym, learn how to apply it to styles that have proven to build functional muscle, create high levels of endurance, staggering agility and have you stretched like never before.
A new age is coming and I'm here to help you find the best resources for your fitness needs and share with you quality courses from amazing people and legends you may have never heard of. Come to the site, browse around and bask in the excitement and wonderful ways you can develop the body of your dreams. Whether you're starting out or want to progress higher in your training there will be something there for you.
Mastering your Body-Weight isn't easy by any stretch whether you're small, big, overweight, thin or whatever and many people believe or lead to believe that Calisthenics is nothing but a warm-up and doesn't require a lot of strength. I feel sorry for those who actually believe that and whoever told them that is a piece of crap period. Sure there are certain exercises are very simple to learn but overall the hardest thing is not always the consistency but finding the right challenging exercises that take you to another level.
I have done Hand Balancing in the past doing enough to wear I held a free-standing Handstand for a short but amazing amount of time especially at my size. The ultimate form of upper body masteryb is without question the Handstand. For decades, athletes from all over the world have done some form of Hand Balancing in their lifetime; from wrestlers to acrobats, gymnasts, bodybuilders, Trapeze Artists, Weight Lifters and many others. Did you know the most successful bodybuilder of the 30's and 40's was in fact a master Hand Balancer? His name was John Grimek; he held Weight Lifting Titles, Mr. Universe Titles, a 2-Time Mr. America Winner, Olympic Champion & one of the best Muscle Posers of his era credited many of his accomplishments to Hand Balancing. One of the greatest wrestlers of his generation Karl Gotch believed that when you became good at Handstands, you had mastered your body-weight pretty good.
It is one of the most difficult aspects of training because for one just getting over the fear of being upside down makes many people cringe and further more it's more than just holding with your arms; your core, your legs, shoulders, wrists, chest and hips all have to be in sync with each other otherwise you will fall on your ass or worse. It's also a very distinctive form of Isometrics where once you can hold a Handstand whether using a wall or not you are developing an insane level of strength and focus that can carry over to other areas of your training. Some of the strongest pressers in the world have used Handstand Push-ups as one of their main exercises since lifting your own body-weight isn't easy enough.
If you're willing to learn you don't need to go to a Gymnastic School to get lessons although having a coach can most certainly help your progress, you can learn Hand Balancing in the comfort of your own home. For building the strength to do Handstand Push-ups against the wall my best pick would be Legendary Strength's Ultimate Guide To Handstand Push-ups; this book will take you from basic holds to little tid bits of being able to do the push-ups and learning some major differences just from the way you tilt your head. Really cool stuff. For being able to do them free-handed without any wall I put my money on Eddie Baran's Gymnastic Handstands Course; this book/DVD Combo will teach you the fundamentals of Free-Standing Handstands from holds to push-up to even able to walk on your hands in a straight handstand. Be able to do amazing things and do a skill not many can do.
Now if you want to take it a step further and gain skills only less than a handful of an entire population can do why not learn the steps from Calisthenic Kingz Official Guide To Mastering Handstands & Handstand Push-Upsand built up to being able to do one of the most difficult push-ups in existence The Diamond Handstand Push-up. Order all three courses if you want or pick any of the three, whatever works for you. Doing Hand Balancing is a lot of fun and once you really get into it, it becomes more like play. Ed Baran didn't get into Gymnastics until the age of 35, imagine that for a second; most men that age are retired and had their time, Ed was just starting and now over the age of 50 he's still at it and has one of the most impressive physiques around. It's never too late to learn so what's truly stopping you from doing something awesome? Here's something really cool, just last year before turning 31 I did a video of doing a Free-Standing Handstand Push-up when I was roughly at a Body-Weight of over 250 lb. You think a 180 lb. man has a tough time, add 70 lb. to that and it is one of the rarest things around. See the video below....
Many years prior to that I made a video when I was roughly mid-20's doing Handstand Push-ups at around 235 lbs. starting in a HEADSTAND. I swear to this day I don't know how I did it or what but I got it on film and it was really awesome I was able to do that. One of these days I aught go after this feat again. Who knows, check it out below....
Many things are possible when you are so damn passionate and put in the work that drives you and gives you something to strive for. I made it possible by training hard, smart and working towards that goal and I did it in less than a few years, took me more years just to be able to do one FSHSP and the courses I learned from didn't come until years later. I know if you work at it and practice you can definitely get there faster than I ever did. Make it happen.
Lately I have been combining two of my personal favorite methods of exercise & that's animal movement and the variations of Bridging. Since integrating these methods together in separate workouts throughout the day and evening I'm feeling leaner and more muscular in areas that I have forgotten to build on.
The Animals are my strength & cardio go to method because of the way you move in awkward positions and filling up the lungs with oxygen while putting the muscles and tendons to work as you move in the positions themselves from the shoulders all the way down to the feet. The Bridging Exercises are my go to for Flexibility, Agility & Conditioning of the entire muscular structure. Holding a bridge in the three positions (Back, Front & Gymnastic) for 1-3 minutes each is a hell of a stretch and really unlocks the muscles in the spinal areas. More than just holding, I also rock back and forth in both front and back bridges, wall walking into a bridge and touching my chest to the wall; these exercises alone really hit the spot and open up the body in a very unique way that only up until almost 20 years ago that Fighters/Wrestlers and Yogis knew about in modern western culture.
You can create combinations of different methods however you want but I feel that when you integrate Bridging with Animal Exercise, you are developing not only strength & flexibility but creating a well rounded physique that gets you lean and mean when practiced regularly. Now that doesn't mean you jump into holding advanced bridges and animals off the bat. It takes time and patience plus some exercises may not suit everybody so adjust according to your body and fitness levels. After nearly 12 years of doing these, I still have things to learn and master so don't feel bad if you don't get things going right away. Go at your own pace and be able to do things that are comfortable at first and when they become easy, move up to the next level. For some, it may take a few weeks, others months or even years to really hit advanced stages in both methods.
The best thing to do is have fun and pay attention to how your body feels; this isn't a contest to see how far you push yourself. Like with every form of exercise it's important to be careful, not so damn cautious that fear is really striking you in the face but to do the best to your current abilities. Here are the best courses for these two methods.....
