Star Wars Slamboree

Conditioning comes in many forms and utilizes different aspects for building lung power, long-term strength and endurance. Some exercises to develop solid conditioning are very useful like certain bodyweight exercises like Hindu Push-ups, Hindu Squats, Punching Sit-Ups, Step Ups, Bear Crawling and others but it's not always easy to stay interested. It takes a lot of discipline to do these things and not just for a sport but to stay in top shape in the long run.

Certain equipment can yield incredible results with being in great condition like Battling Ropes, the Clean & Jerk for reps, airdyne bikes and so on but how far does it go with certain equipment? You can't always take a rope or a kettlebell with you on the road, so you do what's possible with what you have in the moment. In my garage gym, there's plenty to go around to get in a brutal workout but very few can top the Death Star Slam Ball.

Slam Balls are a phenomenal workout tool especially for developing conditioning in an explosive manner. That sudden burst of speed and power and firing up the lungs with great intensity. From time to time, I'll play around with the DSSB and make up little things to get going or use as a finisher. From circuits to finishers, it can kick your ass in ways very few can.

This thing weighs no more than 20 lbs but even that can help turn you into a machine with the right exercises and tempo. Just slamming it alone for 30 seconds will get you winded but what about rotational movements, tossing it over the shoulder or picking it up and pressing it over head? One of my favorite exercises is to toss over the shoulder for as many reps as possible in a certain amount of time. I once did 62 reps in 5 minutes with this exercises and that was a hell of a lung burner.

Unlike a Stormtrooper, don't miss on having the best tools to get you in awesome shape and do so that is fun, tough and full of awesome results. Slam away and obliterate the unwanted fat like the Death Star destroying a planet. It is good to be in shape but it's also fun being a geek/nerd at the same time. It is more common these days to be a part of Fandom and be in awesome shape.

It Is Time For A Fresh Start

The New Year is upon us. Many people starting fresh with goals, resolutions and more. For me, it's not goals or resolutions but creating intentions. I intend to take things one day at a time, build relationships, work with better enthusiasm and keep away from the damn forums lol.

This year has been a hell of a rollercoaster, some great, some awful and others pretty damn amazing. Got married, read a few more books, had many reflections on who I'am supposed to be as opposed to who I WANT to be. Learned a little more about myself and what keeps me happy and developing acceptance. There were a few times I've lost sight of myself and focused so much on what others thought of me instead of what I truly thought of myself.

I will admit, I got caught up way too freaking much of the forums online. My brother in strength, Bud Jeffries advised me so heartedly to stay off of them, my wife did the same thing and I'm ashamed that I didn't listen or even hear enough with the best intentions. I was addicted, getting frustrated with myself and was driving myself crazy almost daily with updates of the latest thread that was putting a mental strain on psyche. It was like a train wreck that I couldn't help but stare at and just felt miserable but in awe at the same time.

I've been called many names on these different places, a couple I've mentioned on this blog and got caught up in engaging and making it seem like I have split personality when in reality, I couldn't see what I was really doing and that was pouring gasoline on the fire in my mind and giving those jerks what they wanted. One forum had a couple people that were cool with me but others intended to call me out and just sucked me into the rabbit hole of "keyboard fighting" and I hated that I put myself in that position. The other was nothing more than a bunch of guys who spend their time calling out someone else and play school girl gossip games of "who can we go after today?"

I have to let that part of me go, one day at a time. I love my friends, my wife, my family and I appreciate the positive feedback I get from time to time. I know I'm putting a target on my back for some and it is time to just accept for what it is, although they're being negative and I've been negative towards them, I do appreciate in some sick and twisted way of what they do because if you don't get the best from both positive and negative points of view, how do you know if you're doing something right?

There's always going to be some troll or some group that will criticize everything you do and make up their own assumptions without knowing a damn thing about you on the deepest level. I pity them and I hope they find peace someday. Anyone who has truly been around me for an extended period of time knows who I really am on a deeper level and has accepted me for me. All in all, I can get along with just about anybody young or old and I do my best to treat people the way I want to be treated and I help those I love and care about without hesitation and if I have your back, you know I don't shy away from it.

A fresh start isn't about changing who you are, it's about learning who you become from moving forward and taking things one day at a time, it's a journey and no matter where it leads you, make the most of what you have and love with the best intentions. Those forums aren't meant for me anymore, I have made friends, I've made "keyboard enemies" and I don't regret WALKING away from them. It's time to make 2020, the best year to come.

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?