Taste In Music

I have at times posted on social media what I listened to in my workouts. It's mainly Heavy Metal and Hard Rock from such bands such as Metallica, Van Canto, Five Finger Death Punch, Halestorm, Sirenia, Godsmack and others but the real roots to my love for music was long before these bands ever existed. I had read about Kenny Lynch (Singer of the 60's song Up On The Roof) who died recently and listened to that version of the song and it brought back many memories from my childhood.

As a kid in the 90's, I did listen to bands like Alice In Chains, Sugar Ray & Rappers like Snoop, Dre & Ice Cube but my big love of music at the time was bands from the 50's-70's. My mother exposed me to some of the best from the past like the Beach Boys, Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Temptations, The Drifters, Jan & Dean and the Marcels. Both my parents were teenagers of the 1960's and heard that everywhere but in my generation, it was more of a dying art and very few kids and adults in their 20's at the time barely even knew who these bands were. Just about everywhere my mo took me in her little Honda CRX, I listened to the oldies on CD or on Cassette (For you young kids out there). 

Living in Santa Cruz, CA was purely beach bands of course but one of my favorites that I lost count listening to by the time I was 12 was the Drifters- Under The Boardwalk. It was so fun listening to that on the way to the Beach Boardwalk and as I got older, I would do the Bass Line of the song. I would rock out to CCR even to this day and I always carry a smile on my face even on those hard days.

My family on my dad's side would go to Lake Tahoe every year since the early 70's and for two weeks out of the year, we would be crammed to 1 or 2 cabins (Now 3) and have adventures that would last a lifetime. One of those memories was one day me and my aunt were driving back from somewhere and she would pop on a tape of different bands and the two I remember really on that day was the Marcels- Blue Moon & Moody Blues- Knights In White Satin. It was funny how she described White Satin saying it was about a knight falling in love with a princess, when it was clearly not. 

Whenever I went to any beach, I always heard a Beach Boys song in my head or remembering the lyrics to Jan & Dean's Dead Man's Curve while driving with my mom. It was engraved into me at an early age this was some of the best music of any generation. Although I like some music that's played today, nothing will ever beat the classics and that Doo Wop  style like Blue Moon or hearing the harmony and pick me up tune to My Girl by the Temptations. 

These groups and songs are alive because of the memories we have. Even in the dark days of racism, segregation and Civil Rights acts, there was beautiful and kick ass music. Hell, even the best guitarist of that era was Jimmy Hendrix man, whaling it at Woodstock with the NATIONAL FREAKING ANTHEM (The GOAT of all versions of our American Song). With the emergence of Black Sabbath, CCR, Led Zeppelin, you had a generation that thrived on rebellion and sticking it to the man. Music today even with those my age, it doesn't have the same affect and the will to stand up for something through music. 

In Junior High, I was in the Choir and did shows at schools, an Assisted Living Facility and even performed once or twice at the Coconut Grove in Santa Cruz doing different songs like Downtown by Petula Clark and Tears In Heaven by Eric Clapton. My memories of that time was meeting a girl who was in my class and I ended up having my first make out session with and getting to meet Jack O'neill the Surfing Mogul on our bus (I think it was that same weekend lol). Those were definitely fond memories. 

The more I write, the more memories just keep popping up. With a strong memory, music is really a factor in it because whenever a certain song comes on, I get chills and remember certain moments as if they happened 5 minutes ago. It's a part of your soul and brings a certain happiness to your heart and that's what music of that early era is to me. 

It doesn't matter if you're young or old, these groups and sons are Timeless.  

The more I write, it seems the more memories keep popping up  

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Isometrics & The Legendary Charles Atlas

In the world of Physical Culture, Isometrics and the name Charles Atlas are synonymous but it's not in the same context some people have been led to believe. For decades, for the most part in a funny sense, it was believed that Atlas and Isometric Exercise was part of the same system. Many "experts" and "gurus" alike thought that Dynamic Tension was based on exercises using Isometrics. In truth, it really wasn't and if anybody says different, never understood what Isometrics and Atlas' system really was used for.

There's no denying that Charles Atlas (who's real name was Angelo Siciliano) was one of the most famous men in the history of modern exercise and an advocate for the method of Isometrics. He was a 2 time winner of The Most Perfectly Developed Man award and that contest ended after his two reigns because it was believed he would win every year almost like the Mr. America contest when John Grimek won it twice but the only difference was the contest continued but only a person can win it one time and never participate again. Atlas was a name planted in the brains of many american boys at the time and was a hero to those kids who were skinny during the 30's.

The ads that everyone including many today remember were featured in the back of popular comic books, featuring a young man that was very skinny and bullied, getting sand kicked in his face by a strong and muscular jackass prick. Being embarrassed and ridiculed in front of gorgeous young women, the kid who was named Mac, vowed to never feel like that again. He orders the Charles Atlas course and builds himself up into this superhero looking specimen using only a few chairs and his own bodyweight. The next time Mac goes to the beach, he sees that same jerk giving another boy a hard time and pops him one square in the jaw. With that act of heroism and along with his muscular physique, he got swarmed by pretty girls just going gaga over him.

It's a kick ass tale that truly belonged in a Superhero Story yet it was very true. That really did happen to the young Angelo before he became the man we all know as Charles Atlas. Now why would anyone believe that Dynamic Tension & Isometrics went together hand in hand?

What got most people to believe was the word Tension in the name of the course. Atlas believed in tightening the muscles like we do with Isometrics. The biggest difference is that he applied movement while tensing the muscles so with a name like Dynamic Tension actually means Moving With Tension. Isometrics in Greek means same-length (Iso-Metric) so say you do a Bicep Curl, you're using so much force but you're not moving the muscle as oppose to the word Isotonic which means same-tone (Iso-Tonic) meaning as you use force or tension, you move the muscle in a powerful fashion. Isotonic Exercise is what Charles Atlas taught.

It is said that Atlas learned some of the Isometric And Isotonic Exercises from a guy named Alois P. Swoboda who had one of the first Mail Order Fitness Courses but in reality, the exercises mainly came from another Physical Culturist named Bernarr MacFadden who had courses such as Muscular Power & Beauty and Vitally Supreme. To tell you the truth, I tend to go the route of Macfadden since many of the Atlas Exercises showed up in one of Bernarr's books more than 2 decades before Atlas and business partner Charles Roman revolutionized Dynamic Tension. Atlas also used similar exercises from the legendary Fitness Guru and Vaudeville Strongman Earle Liederman.

There you have it guys, the answer about Charles Atlas & Isometrics. Contrary to popular belief, Atlas did use Isometric Exercise but never taught them. The exercises in Dynamic Tension however, can be made into Isometric Exercises. How cool is that to take exercise and use them in a different context that can still be beneficial? 

Can Strength Be Built Using Isometric Exercise?

Many people around the world debate and think about what the best system is for building strength; from my point of view, a solid program should have you train your body from the inside out. In the terms of building real strength and not just looking strong, Isometric Exercise isn't as popular of a method like many of us physical culturists want it to be and our job is to help educate on the reasons why it can possibly build strength and its purpose in not just exercise but for overall health.

Isometrics in a nutshell, builds tremendous strength out of the tendons, ligaments and the nerves out to our muscles. I've done both styles of training that includes isolating the muscles and targeting the muscles in a compound setting of using multiple muscle groups in a given exercise. Don't neglect the internal principles that could actually bring greater stability to your body within and outwardly.

Frankly I have found that I've gotten stronger both within a short and long-term stand point than with just about an other method I've practiced. Performing styles of Isometrics doing short but crazy intense periods and long holds using less intensity to target the muscles and the surrounding areas for a different effect. Using a program like 7 Seconds To A Perfect Body utilizes the way you maximize the intensity of a contraction for 7-12 seconds. This will give your body a mighty chance of developing strength.

The tension and the intensity of a contraction are the deciding factors that produce muscle growth. Lifting a weight is the external stimulus that makes the muscles tense or contract because the body sees the weight as heavy and recruits many fibers of the muscle to move the weight. Now the more difficult of the weight lifted, the more the fatigue builds up. Isometrics forces you to maximize the level of contraction off the bat and making those muscle fibers fire and fatigue within seconds.

With the combination of Muscle Control and training the large muscle groups, Isometrics lets you get a powerful CNS response that goes into building great endurance along with muscular size. From performing feats of strength such as steel bending, phonebook tearing and rolling a frying pan to helping people move, shoveling snow and even going up flights of stairs, Isometrics have been a blessing and has kept me from being seriously injured in the long run. Make it a part of your regimen and find out the benefits in your health and well being.

If you travel a lot or aren't into doing bodyweight isometrics, check out the WorldFit Iso Trainer.

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