I'll Always Have Family

 How many times have we heard that in the Fast & The Furious Franchise? Probably more times than we care to count. But nonetheless, it is a good notion to have in your mindset. You don't always have to be related to someone to consider family, it could a best friend or a great group of people in your life. If you happen to be related, it can be a toss up to being a bonus or not depending on how you grew up or and were around. 

Family is important after all, especially if you want to set an example for kids whether they're your own or grandkids, nieces/nephews, much younger cousins or whatever. Having good habits especially when it comes to fitness and health goes a long way. Training is not always about looking good, as a matter of fact, looking good in most cases is secondary in comparison to being in shape for the things that really matter. From being able to play with the kids, to having fun with your wife/husband in your later years along with making the most of what's possible to be in good condition for those tough days and using exercise as an outlet for getting shit out of your system.

One of the great things about the Dopamineo Bands is that they're not just for adults, but for young kids as well, especially when they have all that energy to burn and not getting them hopped up on soda and candy. If you got a kid that is into sports or needs a good program to use that energy as an outlet, the bands can be extremely beneficial. When you workout as a family, it can build strong bonds and encouraging each other with friendly competition or being together and doing something productive, hands on and build healthy relationships. 

Dad's struggle at times to be in shape because in a lot of cases, they work hard and do what they can to make a living supporting their family. The bands can be a great system for dads because when they can stay in shape, they have that energy to be with with the wife or husband and their kids and keep up with demands. For moms, whether they're a stay at home type or a career woman or whatever, the bands can have a profound impact on their health and well being along with being able to have that drive and strength to tackle many obstacles they face in their lives. 

Training using the bands can also be a tribute to building mental health and strength because having a family isn't easy and you always want the best for those little ones to become strong and resilient as they grow. Fitness is about coming together and making choices that affect everyone later on or even now. Grab the Family Bundle at Dopamineo to kickstart the habit of training together to grow together. At a 15% Discount, you get the Fly, Feather, Light & Stretch bands. Want to save even more? Add in my Discount Code POWERANDMIGHT to get an extra 10% OFF; that's a huge 25% Discount for your family to start training and getting into the habit. If dad is a little bigger than the light bands, you can grab a PAIR of the middle and heavy bands if needed. You have options for you and your loved ones to get in awesome shape together and being a team to develop healthy bodies and minds. You can always create a bundle here as well to grab what you need.

Invest in yourself and your family, be a part of the journey that builds strong individuals and groups of people together. We all deserve to be in peak physical condition and have great mental health. This is one way to help you get there. 

Dopa Yellow Stretch Band For Better Posture

Dopamineo goes beyond just their big bands for intense workouts, they even have 2 types of bands that are incredible for stretching and helping with posture. The first one is their Blue Bolt Band which is a very short implement that you can use for various stretches but also to help with keeping you away from that hump you may create while sitting doing desk work or just working on your laptop. It doesn't stretch out very far, just enough to feel it. On a podcast made by wrestlers, they have this contest to see if anyone can break the Bolt, many tried and all failed. It's one of the most durable bands out there just like the workout bands.

The yellow stretch Band is similar to using a chest expander but it's much lighter to use and for obvious reasons. There are all sorts of exercises you can do with this thing. Do Pull Aparts overhand and underhand, dislocates like you would with a stick or a towel, side bends, deadlifts, punches, shadow wrestling drills and others. Great for aligning the upper back and making the chest pop like the rip expansions of the old timers like Maxick & Arco. Some bodybuilders today use it to keep the shoulders and back from stiffening up. 

It's mainly used for wrestlers and MMA Fighters as a warm up to their regular training doing various stretches and pulls to get the muscles going for the upcoming practice and then use the longer bands as a post practice conditioning workout. It's very versatile and can fit inside a duffle bag or even the pouch in a sweater. Take it out with you to a park or the beach, in your hotel room or on a break at work to get some mobility and flexibility training in. 

I'll use at times to loosen myself up. You can even tie it to your thighs to do side to side walks for the hip flexors which can go a long way to staying mobile for the hips. That particular workout with this band should really only be a few minutes, you can use it for strength if you wish doing chest presses, curls, shoulder presses and all that by having one hand under the knot you make and the other in the middle of the band so it feels slightly heavy but still stretchable. There's even a way to do Isometric Pulls by folding it a bit and pull as hard as you can for 10-30 seconds, it's not going to stretch much, maybe a couple inches and that's it but to keep it there is tough as hell. 

You can do your regular stretches with it by placing the middle on the soles of your feet and do stretches for the hamstrings, hip flexors and low back. Stretching doesn't have to be boring and using a band can help creating a longer stretch by progressively moving the hands up or down on the band. The great thing is, it's nearly impossible to break so the chances of it snapping on you are very slim. The only caution is to be careful how you place for certain stretches cause it can slide so I would recommend wearing shoes that have a good holding spot where the band won't slide as much. That's really it on the cons in my opinion. 

Grab a band or set of bands NOW and get a bad ass deal of getting the yellow stretch band, the blue bolt band and a carry bag for your bands with your order (Buy 1 Get 3). Strengthening those areas go a long way for a good quality life and having solid mobility in your later years. Stretch peacefully but also with intent. Get 10% OFF your order by using the discount code POWERANDMIGHT. Be amazingly awesome. I'll put up a video soon to show some stretches and dynamic pulls you can do. 

Conditioning Circuits With Dopa Bands

Circuit Training has been one of my go to methods for developing a good level of conditioning and maintaining my strength that lasts. Due to the workouts I've done with Darebee's Style of training with Bodyweight, it inspired me to work on that style with the Dopamineo Band. 

In most cases with those workouts, I would pick 5-8 exercises with the Band and see what is possible to do within an amount of time. Now, I may not move as fast with the Band as opposed to bodyweight training because with bodyweight, you don't have to adjust as much and jump in from one exercise to the next just by footing or hand placement or positioning pretty quickly, with the Band however, it can be a bit tricky and the exercise change can be either quick or you have to adjust things a bit slower so the timing might vary. 

My goal however has always been to hit 10 Rounds with any circuit I do because that's just the number I want to accomplish, some will hit 5, others beyond 10 and whatever number they want to achieve but 10 for me is the cutoff point. I also try to keep it within 30 minutes or less. Depending on the adjustment and positioning of my body with the Band, sometimes the workout will go over 30 minutes but as long as my rest is minimal and I can keep going, I'm all good. Regardless, doing circuits with Dopa Bands in my opinion is one of the best fitness methods you can do. You don't need to do tons of reps per exercise, just a bare minimum but you keep going and with little rest, you're actually developing a great level of cardio that means something. 

Keeping to the basic exercises is ideal. If you're more advanced, you can do harder exercises if you wish but the rep count may be a bit less than the basics unless you're training for competition or training to enhance your status with your group. The main point is to not let your ego get the best of you, keep your objective to train at a level where you can come out of it with gas left in the tank than to crawl on your hands and knees just begging the universe to kill you. My main goal with my 10 rounds of work is to be efficient as much as possible, work at a speed that is comfortable to me where my form isn't compromised and to only rest by marking off the circuit and keep going with that until the 10 rounds are done because I never want to be tired or slow down so much that I have to reduce my speed by a big margin. You want to be able to go at a pace that keeps the heart rate going but you're not slowing down or getting sloppy by the end. 

Here's a workout I did yesterday that was not difficult but it wasn't easy either. The reps may not sound like much but when you're cruising through and the speed is pretty hefty, it becomes more than it seems....

Conditioning Circuit

10 Rows

10 Curls

10 Chest Presses

10 Uppercuts

10 Tricep Kickbacks

10 Squats

10 Side Shoulder Pulls

This took just over 25 minutes to complete 10 Rounds. It felt great, I had a hell of a heart rate going and the speed was just right. The first round was tricky because I was adjusting to the pace of the exercises but once I got the rhythm, it just went really smoothly. The great thing about circuits is that you can get a lot done in a short amount of time along with building your level of conditioning, agility, mobility and other attributes rather quickly. The other great thing is that you can do the same exercises but change the workout from a circuit to an HIIT type workout where you set a time for the work and then rest for each exercise. My style lately has been to do exercises at a clip of 30 seconds on, 15 seconds off for 4 rounds which roughly hits around 3 minutes per exercise. If you were to do a total of 5-6 exercises, you can do a full workout within under 15-20 minutes that will develop lasting strength, cardio and speed efficiency.

You don't have to go so hard that you can't do another circuit and there's no point in trying to match workouts with the wrestlers and fighters that do these. The crazy thing is, they do circuits like this after their practice when they're already fatigued and pushed themselves. That's a whole other level of mental and physical conditioning. Imagine doing 2 hours or more of drills, sparring for god knows how long and going over technique over and over until it's planted into your brain, not to mention warm ups that would be a full workout to the average and then doing a circuit after all that. You'd be a fool to try to keep up with that. That's world class level and that is to be respected.

Keep it to a level of fitness that keeps you healthy and at a level that works for you. Don't try to keep up with anybody else, follow your own path and train effectively along with reducing injuries. Stay amazingly awesome and keep at it. Don't forget to use my Discount Code POWERANDMIGHT to get 10% OFF your order and get some of the most durable, flexible and strongest bands on the market today. Train practically anywhere and you can customize your order to suit your programs of Youth Groups, MMA Training, College Wrestling, High School Programs, Olympic Training, World Championships, Upcoming Fights, Boxing Conditioning Programs and more.   

The Uppercut To Squat Exercise

 One of those exercise combos that comes along that is interesting and tricky at first to try out can become a great move to add to the arsenal. You don't need to do a ton of them to get the benefits but just to practice it and learn the mechanics has perks in itself. One of them is the Uppercut To Squat Combo using the Dopamineo Band.

When I first learned this move, it wasn't easy to pick up on and the coordination with the movement of the arms and the band working with you can be stingy but I wanted to learn it since it's one of the staple movements with that system of exercise and physical fitness. I've seen wrestlers, Judo players and boxers do it and the effortlessness is unbelievable. For wrestlers, it's to utilize a blocking technique or part of pummeling which is a basic practice for wrestling drills. 

The way to do it is to uppercut the arms like in boxing but at the same time, coordinate to underhook the band so it lands on the triceps and going around the armpit area. Weird I know but if you start slow with the pull and then up and over with the elbows, it can rub on the body but you get used to it to the point where with speed and technique, you'll barely even feel it. Add in the Squat and you got yourself a hell of a conditioning exercise.

After getting used to it, I did a couple workouts where I added it in and either did 100 total reps or utilize a 30 seconds on, 15 seconds off for 4 rounds protocol I use for other exercises to work on my stamina. It's a pretty fun move once you get the hang of it. The objective isn't to stretch the band out to its peak and do it, that's not the point of the exercise to formulate strength and to use ego to see how strong you are with the band, it's about explosiveness, coordination and relaxing the move itself without making the band so loose that you can't do anything with it. The real objective is to pull enough to keep it firm but not to have it so tight that you can't wrap the arms around effectively. With the squat, that's just part of the process with a basic outlook.

Those that practice it for drills are incredibly fast and just explosive with such power that it gives you an idea not to fuck with athletes of this caliber. You can learn more about the exercise from the guys at Dopamineo and on their instagram there are tons of clips. Below is a video I made, demoing my best version of it. It's a hell of an exercise and doing it enough times in a row will get your heart rate up and work you like crazy. Doing 10 is a good start, once you start hitting 25 or more gearing up to triple digits either in a row or total, you got a great workout. 

Don't forget to put in my discount code POWERANDMIGHT to get 10% OFF your order of these bands. Get one for yourself and/or friends, family. There are extra discounts when you create a custom bundle that would be great for those who want to train athletes in MMA Schools, Youth Programs, Group Classes, Wrestling Practice, BJJ Drilling, Boxing Techniques, Conditioning For Competition and all sorts of stuff. There are bands that work well for young kids too as young as 6 years old. Kick ass and keep being amazingly awesome. 

A Sandbell Leg Workout That Is Simple But Brutal

 I like to test out different things when I train, find a creative way to do things or get ideas and mold them to my liking. One such idea was combining an animal movement with squats using the 70 lb Sandbell. The idea is to duck walk with the Sandbell for distance and then without putting it down, do squats. 

I tested this out by doing a 5 yard Duck Walk with the bell and then do 5 Squats, rest and repeat. Managed only 3 sets before I just wanted to die, it was that nasty. It's one thing to bear hug and carry something like that like a "normal" person but to be in a full squat and walk in that position and do squats immediately after is a whole other level of crazy. The sheer burn or lactic acid in the legs along trying to breathe with a sandbag to your chest. This type of leg training builds some serious strength and muscular endurance. Add this to your arsenal or just as a stand alone and you'll feel it right away. 

Start out with a lighter weight like a 20-25 lb bag and work your way up, it's not as easy as it looks, the less weight, the more sets you may be able to do, once you get past 50 lb or more, it's going to work you with incredible prejudice because you're not just fighting gravity, you're also trying to coordinate and stay balanced while handling something awkward. It's both a strength and cardio exercise. Not to mention trying to hold the damn thing with your arms and your grip will make you stronger too so you're getting a full body workout.

Give it a go, use a Sandbell or just a heavy sandbag and see how you do. Workouts don't have to be very long and when you do something like this, rest well between sets. If you can do this with a heavy bag without stopping the entire workout, you may not even be human. It's a good challenge if you got the grapes to try.