Saturday, March 31, 2007

Bridging- Pros & Cons

When it comes to fitness there is one subject that very few talk about (mostly in martial arts) and thats bridging: Hands alone, head alone and hands/head. There are many people who believe bridging isnt good for you and you're going to snap your neck and ect. These are the people that never bridged in their life and want to give other a bad rap about it cause they feel if they can't do neither can anybody else. Now lets take a look at the pros and cons of bridging and see what we can come up with.

Pro- When done properly it energizes the body by releaving nerve force which causes new life in the bloodstream and to the organs of the body.

Con- First who start out will be fearful of being upside down and are not used to being bent backwards.

Pro- Builds strength/flexibilty/endurance throughout the whole body and with the proper breathing it can a calm and relaxing exercise

Con- Causes of bit of pressure to the head even in the proper position and the trainee must caution himself to not over do it.

Pro- After a period of training and mastering certain elements of the bridge the trainee can use to develop the body and the thickness of his/her neck .

Con- Most people don't see how it builds neck strength and do it improperly.

Pro- Once going through the process of bridging gymnasics (kick over and falling back) the trainee has a key sense of kenistetic awarness of his/her surroundings.

Con- People get scared of not knowing how aware and strong they can be and want to avoid the bridge.

There are many more but i'm sure you can come up with a few more. No matter how you put bridging works like a charm but it isnt for everybody and thats ok we need different structures and people feel limited to what they can really accomplish if they look hard enough. For me I love it and wouldn't be anywhere without it and all its elements and still got a bit more to learn but hey we all have to learn something. Bridging to me makes me feel like a million bucks, if I can pull off a 3 min. back bridge or hold a good gymnast bridge everything else seems easy cause not only is it challenging it builds character.

Once you get over the fear then you know you've come a long way. Keep learning and keep challenging yourself cause thats the only way to grow.

If you want to learn more about the bridge look up these sites that I feel are best to look. For Matt Furey's site go to his daily archives at the bottom of the site and you'll see some bridging articles, great reads. For the other site look for posts in the forum and there should be some there.

www.mattfurey.com

www.bronzebowpublishing.com

Advanced Bridging Course

Yours in Power & Might

Ben

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Push-Ups: Better then the Bench Press?

Thats been one of the world's top questions in fitness and there have been many answers, some good, some bad and some just plain stupid. Heres how I would pan it out by experiencing both. The bench press is the leading exercise in weightlifting and the most famous question "What can you bench" has been going on for decades since the 60's maybe longer. Benching can make you stronger but you will suffer many consequences as you progress to higher weight. Shoulder problems, tendonitis in the elbow, blown out triceps, chest pain, neck problems and torn trapizius joints. There are men and women that are some of the strongest people on the planet yet an extreme few can do push-ups. Whats wrong with this picture? People hitting a hardcore upper body developer and cant do some simple push-ups with their own bodyweight.

What people don't realize (and if they're smart to notice) is that push-ups build the entire body from head to toe from 100's apon 100's of angles. I can name quite a few but hey i'm sure you enthusiasts can come up with them on your own. Push-ups build a different kind of strength then from benching and yet there are very few injuries from push-ups then benching has. Push-ups create the body you want and deserve whether you want to lean and cut or big and burly. After experiencing both i've come to the conclusion that push-ups are far healthier and better yet have far more veriaties then benching.

If you want to build upper body power and become a true fitness machine here are the go to guys.

Ultimate Bodyweight Conditioning- Push-ups

www.transformetrics.com

Yours in Power & Might

Ben

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Gama Fitness

Probably my top 5 program out of tons of books I have on strength/conditioning. A program by the controversal Matt Furey that was formulated after the greatest wrestler of all-time The Great Gama of India who was undefeted in 5000 matches and trained like an animal day in and day out. It was said by many articles of the great champion that he trained in thousands of calisthenics plus hours of swimming, running and wrestling and with these sayings its very exaggerated but at the same time you knew this man of a beast trained hard.

In this course you are taught how to develop strength in many areas including the mind. In each lesson out of 12 you will exercises that focus on ways to get your mind and muscles work in ways that are rarely taught today. If you learn what to do in this course alone you can do anything you wanted to do. It even teaches you how to gain/lose weight through the power of the mind and exercise and the obvious by eating.


Get into it, focus on what you want and just go with maximum force and make goals that will make you happy, feel energized, feel like a strong bear or gorilla and never put a bad thing into it and you will go far. Heres the lessons in this course:

Lesson One- Making goals and what to do to achieve then. this is probably the most important lessons in the course.

Lesson Two- Variations of Hindu Push-ups/Squats that increase muscular strength/endurance and flexibility.

Lesson Three- How to increase speed and explosiveness through hill sprints and various equipment.

Lesson Four- Going beyond the bridge and get into whats called Bridging Gymnastics.

Lesson Five- Keys to building incredible Pull-up strength and overall upper body development in that area.

Lesson Six- Isometrics used by Gama and some of the greatest athletes in the world in a series of non moving flexing and squeezing muscle groups.

Lesson Seven- Building strength and power using the Chest Expander. If you're a combat athlete or strongman you'll love this.

Lesson Eight- Exercises (other then Hindu PU's and Squats) that build great cardiovascular conditioning through the Power Wheel and Jump rope.

Lesson Nine- Stretches that simutaneously build Strength/Flexibility at the same time. Dont always believe in the fact if you want strength lift and stretch for flexibility.

Lesson Ten- Ways of rejuvinating the body after vigerous training.

Lesson Eleven- The keys to gaining/losing weight while training and how it can affect the body.

Lesson Twelve- The Muscle/Mind Connection and how it pans out for daily life and how you can use it effectively to achive anything you want.

This course sells at 215 bucks on Matt's site and well worth the dough but if you feel you dont want to pay that much then go to ebay, you'll see it somewhere. This is by far the course when it comes doing high levels of conditioning even for the elite. Have fun and hope you get a kick out of it.

www.mattfurey.com

Yours in Power & Might

Ben

Monday, March 26, 2007

Strongman And Feats They Attempt

What makes a person strong and powerful that no matter what they do its going to be a jaw dropper? Is it proper training? Is it genetics? Or is it pure fire and determination to pull off such a risky attempt at something dangerous?

Well any one of those things can be a factor but the fact of the matter is there are human beings in this world are just flat out strong as hell small or big they're tough. What are some of the feats these people pull off?

Pulling Boats

Tearing Phonebooks

Deadlifting 800 lbs.

Bending very tough nails

Benching 1000 pounds

Human Turkish Get-Up

Closing The Number 4 COC Handgripper (365 lbs. of pressure)

These are all the things strongman around the world have attempted and some even went beyond what the feat even required. I feel if you want to get strong you have to put in hard work and go through intense mental conditioning to train for your feat(s). I love watching strongman competitions and it never ceases to amaze what these men and women pull off. Theres an old saying "Everyone loves a strongman" and its very true to its highest extent. No matter what you do around the world you will see someone do extraordinary things with extreme objects (weights, nails, books, hammers ect.) and one way or another your jaw will drop and your eyes will pop out.

There are 6 billion people on the planet but just under 1 million are strongman. These are the men with high level talents and pure raw power. You wont find a strongman in a gym lifting pink dumbbells and doing pussy weights on the machines. Those are the big men of the iron game. There are other strongman out there that look like the average joe or jan but have extraordinary gifts. Can you imagine 165 pound man tearing a phone book thats about 1000 pages but tears it with his thumb and forfingers, not likely but there is one out there and he's considered pound for pound the strongest man on the planet for the feats he performs. Can you see a 230 pound man holding a one-arm handstand against the wall on his weak arm. Not likely but there is a guy out there who can do it.

Never asume a person can't be strong cause of his size and age, thats what most people look at and yet feel like an idiot when they see that person do something that they couldnt imagine them doing. Theres a strongman inside of all of us, the question is can you bring it out and will you use it? Never sell short you can't be strong.

If you want to have the strongest hands on the planet these guys will help get you there whether you're a beginning strongman or an world-class powerhouse.

www.dennisrogers.net

www.functionalhandstrength.com

www.oldtimestrongman.com


Yours in Power & Might

Ben

Saturday, March 24, 2007

The Great Gama Of India

Ghulum Mohammed aka. The Great Gama was born into a wrestling family that had a legendary legacy and He was soon to follow. Started training at the age of 8 in the sand pits. He gradually built up tremendous strength and endurance that by age 11 he was to enter in a contest of 100's of young wrestlers. It wasnt a wrestling competition it was to determine what exercises these young boys finished that would sure them as either winners or losers. They exercised with indian clubs, maces, hindu push-ups, squats, bridging ect. Gama was declared the winner by a great margin.

As for his training, legend has it he trained everyday by doing thousands of calisthenics and swam and wrestled for hours. Although the numbers seem aggerative it was clear that this young man had the will and mental attitude to withstand such physical training that within the peak of his career he was 5'7 at nearly 260 pounds of solid muscle and might. He wrestled with the best of them wrestling men that came from europe, asia and the americas and none of them seemed to match the strength and will power of Gama. It was estimated that in 5000 matches he was never defeted and hardly ever taken down.

Many men feared him even the great american champions Frank Gotch, George Hackenshmidt ect. Whoever stepped in the pits or the ring knew that they were in for a rough night and yet never seemed to beat him. I admire this man as a world-class athlete and being strong as a bull and even more with an iron mentality. Nobody can match his strength and athleticism not even today when you have rough and tough wrestlers (real wrestlers not in the WWE). His philosophy and program became legendary and were attempted by many but few can follow up just barely a quarter of his power.

If we had more wrestlers like him today, we'd be the number 1 sport in america and the world but not many people want to see things like this. They rather be entertained then be in awe of what power they really possess. Anywho, over the years Gama won championships, took on all comers and after retirement trained his nephews and they became legendary athletes. Gama will and always be the worlds greatest wrestler. If anyone can match half of what he did i'd love to meet him but sadly I feel it will never happen.

If you want to look at the full story of Gama here it is.

http://www.wrestlingmuseum.com/pages/bios/gama2.html


Yours in Power & Might

Ben

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