Getting The Most Out Of Push-Ups Without Wearing Out Over Time

I have written before that I'm not the biggest fan of Push-Ups but I do know their value for those who want to do them. I don't particularly hate them, I just have no patience or will to do them in high reps anymore plus my shoulders aren't meant for certain variations so I do them mainly now for demo purposes which you'll see below with a few videos.

For decades and even over a century for that matter; Push-Ups have been the cornerstone of training the body anywhere and anytime. They've been used all over the military, law enforcement, fire fighting and in Martial Arts. In reality, they're a highly valuable strength & conditioning tool of training. The problem however is that most mainstream fitness maniacs treat it as a joke without realizing it. There are variations not meant for some people yet some trainers will force it upon them because "they're good for you." Not necessarily the case. 

Some teach to do a certain number in a row or do a certain amount in a day to describe or assess how fit you are. You can progress to higher numbers because at some point, they can become too easy to do but that can also be dangerous. Over time, you can put wear and tear on your body from doing ridiculous amount of reps like 500-1000 a day or more. If you want to continue making progress into your older years, you could do less reps with harder variations or keep a basic principle of sticking to variations that work for you and do them either slower or faster. The most I've ever done in a workout was 600 and that took an hour and a half and never hit that number since. It becomes boring after a while.

There's always going to be some arbitrary number that tells you how fit a general consensus says you are but where is the real logic in it? There's a huge difference in doing 50 perfect pushups than doing 500-1000 sloppy ones over the course of a workout or entire day. You see some guys either going halfway down or use "tension" style push-ups and it looks like their body is going up and down in places where they're not in sync. Ever see those crossfitters doing push-ups? Most of them look like they're flopping like a fish out of water and put themselves in the hospital for shoulder breaks, elbows twisted and joint manipulation in the wrists and hands. I've seen their handstand push-ups and those guys need psychiatric help just to understand the technique. Horrible.

The best push-ups are the ones you can control and be connected with the rest of your body. Bad wrists? Make it a point to adjust the fingers or do them on your knuckles, do them with handles that keep your wrists neutral. Is your back slouching or putting your ass higher in the air on variations that are meant for keeping your body aligned? Fix your posture so you don't cause an injury otherwise good luck getting those hospital bills paid. 

Some people can get away with being weird looking in their push-ups because of either their arms are structured differently or have shoulder alignments that work with variations others can't but don't try to compare yourself to someone who's either been doing them long enough or haven't done them at all. Recovery is important as in all aspects of training, some will tell you overtraining is a myth but it isn't. If you do too much with very little recovery, you're setting yourself up to be hurt and don't fall for that "I can get you to 500 Push-ups a day in less than 6 weeks" bullshit; not everyone is meant to do that neither that number is needed to be fit and conditioned. 

You can make a variation harder not by speed but by tension. Even with less reps, slower and controlled push-ups tackle the muscles differently and gives you amazing benefits of muscle building and being connected to the mind and muscle format. Let me give you example: For the military push-up variation; if you could do 500 reps at a pace that allows you to do that, could you do the same amount of reps if you each rep was 5-10 seconds long? Most likely not and the strength ratios are completely different as well so who's stronger? The truth is, you can't really compare the two, it's just different. 

When you're young you can get away with (almost) being a little sloppy and recover easier but as we get older, we can't be doing stupid shit unnecessarily and learn to be in greater control. The more you can control how you train, the better you'll be in the long run. 

Have fun doing push-ups but also be safe so you can enjoy them without putting yourself in harms way doing variations that can tarnish your success.

Are Rants Just A Rant? Or Is There Something Behind The Scenes?

 It's easy for many to get mad at the world or at least their surroundings and mouth off how messed up it all is on social media or just Youtube for that matter. When you repeat certain grievances over and over and over it doesn't really become a rant anymore; it just manifests itself into pure hatred for your fellow man and get off on pissing people off to "wake them up." What's really the endgame to all that, what do you really expect to accomplish when you're pissed off on everything you talk about?

Is there really happiness in your life when you tear others down? If that's the definition of happiness for you, you need some serious help. Especially when these "old school" men who believe they're the center of attention and feel like they can just rip people apart especially women to shreds because they're different from you. Sometimes I think when it comes to guys like that, there's something behind the scenes because rants and being pissed off doesn't just come out of nowhere. Maybe you're pissed off at your own offspring, maybe you hate living where you are or maybe you just have the right to get off on seeing and putting others' misery ahead of your own existence. 

Most likely you're just pissed off cause you hate seeing what's in the mirror and are so angry with yourself that you can't control what you want others to do so you turn to bigotry, political loathing (against anyone who votes democrat) and pure hatred for human beings. It's sad but also pathetic at the same time. Being a man is more than just what you project it to be or feel the need to puke up what you feel a man is. As a species, we are a complicated bunch and we fight each other over some of the most ridiculous crap and the majority of the time has nothing to do with us or the people in our lives. We are also our worst critic and start to beat up on ourselves more than anything. The truth is, you're hurting yourself more than you try to project your hatred onto others.

A REAL MAN doesn't need to tell everyone how pissed off he is at the world around them or even in his own city over and over, if you have that much hatred in your black heart, why not just make it useful than useless. Productiveness starts in the mind, if you want to change something, start with yourself and find a better outlook so YOU can be happy. A REAL MAN doesn't NEED to tell people how weak they are, weakness has different meanings for people and sometimes (not always) it isn't a choice. Weakness can be mental, emotional or physical but all three have a a connection, sometimes people are born with a bad genetic makeup, have deformities that they can't completely control or have been in environments that have shaped their psyche to at times extreme circumstances that it's all they know or understand and nobody can tell them otherwise. When you talk about men being weak, are you really talking about yourself or you just hate how men are today that they should just die and be left in the gutter? 

We get mad at ourselves and we don't always know why or even realize it until it becomes more than it should've been. Let's not be like a Amber Heard and make so much shit up we start to believe it in our own heads. I wish in this world we can all just get along and have a better understanding of each other but it really is just a pipe dream and there are certain people out there who just regurgitate their own crap onto other people and think that's the way to help the world. That's not a happy life and it certainly isn't the kind of life that people live long with. Get some help, be better as a human being and stop torturing others with your bullshit about how people should be. Instead of "rants", share what's good in the world, share how proud you are of the people around you and be thankful that you live to see another day. 

Exercise is a hell of a way to get those endorphins kicking and having a better way of expressing yourself.

Isometric Training has many benefits and can do your body a lot of good without ever moving a muscle.

Be wild like a little kid and go do some Animal Movements. Be free to express your inner animal.

Burn off fat like a furnace with some Sprint Training.

Get your anger out productively using a Slam Ball and get the most out of that "happy hormone" at the end.

Challenge yourself with your weight training using Fat Gripz and power up your muscles like crazy.

Take your workout anywhere and train wherever the wind takes you. You've got 0 Excuses for that.

Condition your mind by reading a good book or something that references your favorite Franchise that puts a different perspective on life. 

The Foundation That Starts The Spark Of What's To Come

We all start somewhere and build from the ground up. The beginnings of your journey into a world that has so many possibilities it can be overwhelming. We at times become over ambitious and start out with far than we can handle or can't do exactly what we are told to do. For me, it just started with three exercises: Hindu Squats, Hindu Push-ups & The Bridge. Those three were the genesis of what made me fall in love with Physical Culture and classic/ancient conditioning methods. Yours could be completely different and that's great, we all have our sights and paths to the realm of physical well being and progressing into a conditioned human being.

Getting the most out of your training doesn't start with trying to be Superman or Wonder Woman on the first try. Even those superheroes had a journey that started with figuring out how their powers worked, how to apply them and what paths they needed to choose in order to become the ultimate version of themselves. For us humans, sure we don't have super powers or have advantages or anatomy that gives us superhuman attributes but we all started somewhere. Even bodybuilders started out weak and not knowing what the hell to do, but they persisted and went to great lengths to become something they wanted to be (even most of those lengths took them down a horrifying path). Everybody has a different journey.

Sometimes it takes longer to get results and you may need to adjust from time to time but there are no excuses for quitting because if you stay the course, something will come along and you'll be in awe of what you'll receive with your hard work. I know these days, many want results now or want them to come so quick that it be too easy. That's not how REAL RESULTS work my friend. It's tough, a long road and sure things might spry upward, but your journey doesn't end when the results come or not. They take time, patience and a mindset that a lot of people are afraid to figure out. 

I started small and gradually built myself up. I didn't start out doing 3 minute bridges and 500 Squats, I was weak from not being able to walk for nearly 3 months and needed to build those tiny baby steps; so tiny in fact that it was daunting at times but I kept going little by little down to the smallest fraction. As Philoctetes from Hercules once said "Giving up is for Rookies", I want to add "Persistence makes you LEGENDARY." 

A journey may have moments of tranquility, effortlessness and flow but often times, it'll beat you down, hold you by the balls and make you beg for mercy but that's where you need to fight and keep scratching and clawing. Eventually, things will come to you and you'll be reaping in the rewards. Your foundation, will set the tone and spark of what's to come and with consistency, determination and the mindset of doing little things each day will result in big things in the end. 

Become LEGENDARY in your own journey and make the most of what is possible even in bad times.   

Adding Isometrics To Build A Strong & Muscular Body

Building muscle isn't always easy for some people and many would go to extremes to build a body so muscular that it looks like they can't wipe their own ass. Often, genetics does play a role in how you develop muscle. It could be quicker but for others, it takes longer to build the muscle they want. The real problem is that people want something right now and magically have a better body in a matter of days than weeks/months/years. 

Now when those say "oh he's built like that because he's a genetic freak and it's impossible to look like that otherwise", haven't done their homework on the old timers and how muscular they were despite starting out looking so sickly, they've should've been put out of their misery sooner than later. It's true some develop muscle at a greater rate than others but it's not all that black and white. Let's take Herschel Walker for example: He's looked fit since his college days and even in his 60's now I believe, he's got greater muscle development than men half his age. You forget, he didn't start out looking like he was carved from granite, he was a chubby youngster in rural Georgia that couldn't keep up with other kids his age. He made a change and not only busted his ass to get where he wanted physically, he achieved his muscular potential over and over throughout the rest of his life and continues today. 

One of the greatest posers in the early 20th century was Otto Arco who many in the physical culture world argue was the most muscular man of his era who had a build you thought would be from steroids; they weren't. Steroids were non-existent in his time so how the hell did he develop such a powerful body despite being less than 5'6 and 150 lbs soaking wet? He achieved his genetic and muscular potential through many methods including weight lifting and gymnastics but his greatest method was the style of Muscle Control: The ability to flex and relax the various muscle groups at will and portray the type of body they make charts out of. He looked a man that people would make statues out of and looked like a greek god of ancient Athens. Muscle Control is another form of Isometric Training. 

Alexander Zass was another legendary strongman that utilized Isometrics to not only build a muscular body but had strength very few in his time possessed. How did he get so damn strong? Before the events of WW1, he was a traveling strongman, lifting crazy things and doing feats that wowed crowds throughout Europe and Russia but during the war, he was captured multiple times and was shackled to the floor with chains that weren't made to snap and break. During his confinements, he would push, pull, grip and find every angle he could think of to rip those chains apart and eventually he did. He shattered the links in those suckers and even bent the bars of jail cell window and broke out. He was caught a total of 4 times and each time, he broke out and escaped. He would go on to built an act that consisted of bending steel bars, lifting things with his teeth and even made a course for Isometric Training with a customized device of a chain with handles so others can learn to get strong from many angles without ever moving a muscle. Today you can do some of the same exercises with the World Fit Iso Trainer.

All three of these men had used Isometrics to aid in their development and had some of the greatest physiques the world ever knew and did it without the use of steroids or PED's. Many before and after them got great results as well including myself. Below are a couple pictures to give you an idea. The first one is of the Back: To let you in on a little secret, I don't do pull-ups that often and was never consistent with deadlifting and weight training for the back. My muscular potential was developed through hard work of Bridges, Hammer Training, Animal Movements & heavy rows and pulldowns with fat gripz training over the years but when I add in Isometrics in addition, my strength goes through the roof and put greater development of the muscles surrounding the Back. 

The second picture is my left arm zoomed in. For close to 17 years, I've built my arms through all sorts of training but Isometrics and various Feats Of Strength have given my arms the best genetic natural development possible. No steroids, no growth hormone or TRT, just old fashioned hard work and training. Thick and solid but not looking like a bodybuilder. I was never able to achieve arms like some of the old timers but because of steel bending over the years, thick handle work, push-ups, crawling, handstands and other forms of Isometrics, this is the best I got and I'm very proud of it. If you've ever seen my arms zoomed out especially the forearm development, you know that it took a long time to make those results happen. 

Make Isometrics a part of your regimen and see results first hand of what you can achieve. You don't need to be built like me or anybody else to achieve your greatest potential, you've got your own journey and your results will come with consistency, recovery, mindfulness and being aware of what works best for you.  

Are Fat Gripz The Key To Major Upper Body Strength?

 I first learned about Thick Bar Training around 2003-2004 from Iron Man and showed some of the things used for it. I didn't touch a thick handled dumbbell or barbell till about 2007 or 2008 and it was at my friend Logan Christopher's house. It was pretty heavy and only held it for 10 seconds, couldn't do anything else with it. When I finally got around to wanting to do more Thick Handle Training, I learned about the Fat Gripz and how they can be attached to dumbbells, barbells and machines in seconds. 

Thick Bar Training has been around for decades, even more than a century because the old time strongmen worked with them. Reading more about it in Brooks Kubik's Dinosaur Training book, I wanted to see what I can do. When I went to the gym in 2018-2019, I would attach the Gripz to the dumbbells as heavy as about 50-60 lbs and they were tough as hell to handle. Did a 225 standing overhead press with them for a few reps and that almost killed me. For years before that, I used them to attach to the handles of the TNT Cable System from Lifeline Fitness. 

When I used them for the TNT Cables, that put in a new perspective on making things interesting to train with. Whenever I need a boost or a challenge for strength training that's what I would do. I would work with about as heavy as I can handle and do mainly Overhead Presses, Curls, Pulldowns, Rows & Chest Presses. Talk about alternative to weights. These can be just as challenging if not more so than a hunk of junk iron weights because with the fat gripz, its forcing you to work even harder than usual and every fiber of your being comes into play. 

Thick Bar Training challenges even the strongest of men and strikes fear into many that would run away at the very sight of it and for good reason. Fat Gripz are no joke and will test you in ways that makes muscle building all that much more torturous yet sweet at the same time. First off: In most cases when lifting, your grip will give out more often than most muscle groups and the bigger diameter of a handle, the less weight you'll end up using. If you're even a 600 lb Bencher, you wouldn't even come close to that if you tried with a thick bar, it's almost impossible. 2nd: With Thick Bar work, you're firing far more than just the muscles used in any specific upper body exercise, your entire body has to be in unison and it tests even your core strength to be stabilized enough to control the movement. 3rd: Controlling the lift or movement itself takes far greater concentration than with a regular implement. You could get away with being a little awkward with a lift with a implement that's normally what 1-1 1/8th inches in diameter but with a handle at 2 inches or more, you can't be sloppy, your form has to be damn near perfect otherwise you'll easily slip out of holding it. 

The power of Fat Gripz training can even give a boost of testosterone as it forces you to fire the nerves into the muscles on a larger scale and attack the system with a vengeance. Doing compound exercises with a thick bar or fat gripz does produce another level of boosting testosterone. Muscles will grow pretty fast with Fat Gripz training but also the recovery and rest will be different as well because even 1 or 2 sets can wear someone out rather than a typical 5-8 set workout with a particular exercise. 

One workout I did with Fat Gripz & The TNT Cables was to go as heavy as I can handle and do 4 exercises for 1 set each. The objective was to do as many reps as possible in 90 seconds for each exercise. This to me was one of the most brutal workouts I've ever done and my forearms were pumped like crazy. They were thick and I was feeling a burn rarely ever taking place. I would rest as long as I needed between exercises and I didn't count the reps, I just kept going as much as I could for that 90 second set. On the exercises, I would stop for maybe 1 or 2 seconds to catch my breath and keep going, they were hard as hell and you can't possibly know what that feels like until you've done them yourself. 

It would definitely put a little more lead in your pencil if you catch my drift. I normally don't go for the pump but I just wanted to see what I was capable of. That's the beauty of training, coming with things that are fun to do and creating challenges for yourself you don't normally do. When I really need some upper body muscle work, Fat Gripz & TNT Cables are a way to go and they're easy to travel with.  

Get a set of Fat Gripz, more than a fraction of the cost to an actual thick bar. Most gyms don't have thick bars because for one, the average person or even bodybuilder is afraid of them and two; even by the intimidation, the space isn't that great either. The Fat Gripz can be attached to most dumbbells and barbells plus a machine. The most weight I lifted with these attached to a barbell was a 315 thigh deadlift and I thought that was crazy to do. Imagine the kind of strength and muscle you can develop with these bad boys, they are a pinnacle of learning the difference between boys lifting weight and men lifting weight. Go ahead, I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU!!!!

Below here's a video of doing Fat Gripz Curls with a 100 lb Resistance Cable. Without the Fat Gripz, I can do as many as 25 in a row but with those things attached, I can only manage 16 here and that was killer on the biceps and forearms while maintaining good form and not trying to cheat (you can't really cheat with these cables). 

Here's what I did with the same resistance but without the Fat Gripz...