Handbalancing & Could You Use It For Training????

In the Golden Age of Physical Culture where exercise and nutrition were at its dominance and Strongmen ruled the world all over there were a great deal of those men and women who were exceptional hand balancers ranging from Sandow to weightlifting legend Doug Hepburn. This was another source of training for them as it gave them not only upper body strength but a powerful kinesthetic awareness.

 They had learned from acrobats in the circus and wanted to imitate them, some did and others wanted another form of strength. Today rarely do you ever see strongmen and other experts in fitness doing this form of training. These days the only way to see true hand balancing and awe dropping feats is from its show-business orgins now known as Cirque Du Soleil where the world best acrobats/gymnasts perform. Its just awesome seeing someone hold themselves up o they're hands and on objects, but imagine doing something not as far fetched as this but can do it yourself. Wouldn't that be awesome?????

  I certainly have done some HB and have been able to hold up on my hands for a few seconds but even then it feels incredible. So to answer your question from the main title, YES!!!! You could use it in your training cause been able to hold handstand without a wall takes balance, skill, coordination, strength and well rounded flexibility. All those into one single thing that could turn into a powerful show of moves and then some. Now is it for everyone???? No but most could depending on your weight-to-body ratio and structure. Where could you learn it, its 100's of dollars to see Cirque De Soleil, most hand balancing books are worn out and out of print these days but there is one place that gives you the secrets and teaches the true art form of it. Look below to go to it.

Hand Balancing Mastery Course

Ultimate Guide To Handstand Push-ups

Hand Balancing Stands

Free Handstand Video

Lost Art Of Hand Balancing


Yours in Strength & Health

Ben

My experience W/ the Push-up Power T's

These 2 little peices of equipment have made a huge difference in my strength training. These were a gift from my good friend and brother of physical culture John Peterson and believe me what he told me about them I didn't believe it until I tried them out. Got them and the moment I tried my first rep it was disasterous to say the least and here i'am a guy who can do 12 pull-ups at a bodyweight of 220 pounds, can knock off 200-250 push-ups within a day and hold out a sledgehammer until it touched my face and back and yet I fell on my face trying to do a push-up with 2 crazy looking T handles. It wasn't easy getting in the right position and struggle to keep balance. I trained at him hard and learned to channel my mind/muscle connection and low and behold I did 5 reps with the best form possible. Now you must understand that if you have an idea of what isometrics is then you know how difficult they are, now lets add movement to it. You have to contract every single muscle in your body just to keep balance and takes in deep deep concentration. I'am not up 18 reps in a few sets within a very short amount of time with 13 consectutive reps in a single set. That takes a ton of strength and if you're not winded after doing that many you're either not doing it right or you're superman.


Check them out at www.transformetrics.com go to the forum and look for topics on them.

Yours in Health & Strength,

Ben

Push-ups!!!!!!!!

It doesn't cease to amaze how many people are missing out on the wonderful benefits of push-ups.........If there was one type of calisthenics that could give you strength, flexibility and endurance plus not to mention an awesome physique it would be the push-up and its variations. Many physical culturists around the globe for the last thousand years made the push-up they're ideal training exercise.

 Now a lot of people plus the "experts" say the push-up only works the triceps, shoulders, upper back and chest and if they want to be stronger they should do the bench press. Now if you really looked beyond then just running your mouth you would know that the push-up actually works more muscle groups then the bench press.

 It takes good strength/endurance to work all those muscle groups at once. There are hundreds and hundreds of variations of push-ups and even the most basic ones can turn you into a beast of a man, for women your working the muscles you wanted toned. When you hear someone say "when you do 50 or more push-ups you're only building endurance not strength" well how many people can actually do 50 push-ups even better how many can do 50 push-ups using a different variation, like:

Handstand Push-ups

Planche Push-ups

One-Arm Push-ups

Fingertip Push-ups

Superman Push-ups (Arms Extended)

Now point someone to me who can do any one of these 50 times in one set full range......

Never fall for the "push-ups are ok but Bench will make you stronger." You can get strong on the bench no question but with a heavy price, the heavier you lift the more prone to injury then doing push-ups.......When you master the push-up and the way you are comfortable positioned you can have not only an awesome physique but the strength, flexibility and endurance to show it.

Training To Be At Peace!!!!!

I haven't been on in a while.....Been working on new training principles both mentally and physically while having fun in both Swimming & Gymnastics. But today or should I say tonight since its 11:23 pm I want to talk about being at peace with your workouts:

We all start out not knowing what the hell we are doing so we sometimes move too fast to get where we want to go. Almost everybody goes through this so heres a tidbit to make your progress seem like childs play. When you begin your workouts learn where you are right there at that very moment in time. What is it do YOU want to accmplish in your training? When you start to exercise learn to cope with the space around and keep an open mind to your exercise. Keep as best form as possible. When you exercise smile be positive with yourself. No excuses for what you can or cannot do. When you are done with your exercise put yourself in a state where there was never a dull moment and theres always room for improvement.

You are never bad at what you do, but you are always going to do better, question is how do you want to be better. Being at peace is a big difference then cranking out reps, anybody can do reps but not everybody can be at peace at what they do. When I train I wanna think of my body as the universe and my mind is what I want it to work on and thats not only hitting reps but where i'am right there in my moment my only moment. When you work on your own moment in time and you are alone in your own training wherever you are you can and will be at peace and theres no better time then now this moment.

DVRs For Muscle Building!!!!

Dynamic Visualized Resistance. This type of training teaches the person to control what kind of resistance they imagine. Lets do a bicep curl for example: You imagine that you're lifting the heaviest weight possible it weighs a ton and only you have the power to curl it. Now flex your entire arm as hard as possible and start to curl that weight until it nearly touches your shoulder. What you just demonstrated is tackling your mind/muscle connection.

The exercises for this particular bodyweight training can create the body you want, you want powerful muscular arms, back, chest, abs, traps then add high tension and do low-medium reps. If you want that tone athletic look and being lean and mean then ease up on the tension from medium-high reps. This is a form of muscle control and body sculpting without the wear and tear on the joints and tendons from weights.

I have a thick muscular body at 210+ and all I do is this type of exercise plus other types of BW training. If I had to pick the number one system that creates the outmost form of muscle control its DVRs. You can do these anytime and anywhere and they will energize you throughout the day and you can get functionally stronger and when you have the ability to control your muscles anyway you want then you got the secret to rejuvinating, theraputic and muscle sculpting exercise.

Adding a Variety To Your Grip!!!!!!!

We all do various things to add grip strength, use weights, kettlebells, self resistance, Isometrics......Towels???

How in the hell can someone use a towel to add grip, I mean dude the only thing a towel is good for is something you dry yourself off with when you're done with the shower or drying off at the beach. Now what i'm about to reveal if most of you don't know this or never done before this is something to look at. Take ant type of towel, now take a bucket. Put about half to three quarters of water in that bucket. Take the towel and put it in the bucket and get it as wet as possible. Now take one end of the towel and start twisting the water out back into the bucket and work your way down. Seems simple and easy right? WRONG!!!!!!!!! This is one of the most brutal exercises you can imagine and will infact pump your lower arms like never before. If you can make it all the way to the other end of the towel then you have some great strength/endurance in your wrists and forearms. This not only can give you a great pump but if you're into bending then damn you're gonna have some strong hands man. Don't take my word for it try it out for yourself. You only need a towel, a bucket of water and a little commitment you can develop strong powerful hands all in a few min. a day. Check it out and tell me your arms don't get tired after doing half the towel.

Yours in Power & Might

Ben

Whats More Important? Doing Something Easy Or Something Hard?

In this world too many people want to take the easy road to get ahead of the compitition. Same thing happens in Bodybuilding and overall fitness. Yes bodybuilders work hard to build their bodies but yet they rather do roids then show true hard work. Not all of them do this but most. But what is doing something hard? Overtraining, Putting more effort or simply just put everything into it. We've all done all three but I feel the most effective is add effort and the hard work will pay off. Nothing should be taken the easy way out. If they did there wouldn't be the fun in having a challenge for yourself of what you want. You can't have someone make goals for you, you have to make them. For fitness there are many versions of hard work but no matter what you do there is always something there to challenge you and you have to put in the effort. Heres an idea: The easiest thing to do to quit but the hardest thing to do is to keep doing what you love. Which are you willig to take?

Ben

Pull-Ups for Grip Strength!!!!

We've all seen someone do a pull-up but do you actually know what kind of strength they're building? Its not just pulling strength or building a powerful back but in fact they are building phenomenal grip strength. But now very few people know how to develop grip strength through this exercise. The exercises in this type of training build the grip in great many ways. From the type of exercises I've used it helped my bending strength a great deal. For a beginner hanging from a bar is a great start and even the advanced trainee can benefit from this as you can do various ways to tag the entire body to its core to create a grip that can crush steel (take it from me I do a lot of bending) and add a little power to your weightlifting if you so chose. You can increase the reps in your pull-ups if you are stuck. Now we all know if you have to get a phenomenal physique you have to tie the body together as pairs, Back/Chest, Triceps/Biceps, Hamstrings/Quads. Pull-ups are a piece of the puzzle its up to you to find the other pieces.

Pull-up Strength Training Workout

Yours in Power & Might

Ben

Same Fitness Routines Are Boring!!!!!!!!!!!!

When you go to the gym and you see the people training what are you actually looking at? Never mind the posing or the sweating or the talking but at the way they train. If you look hard enough most people at the gym do the exact same routine and most of them look sluggish and yet they feel they're getting something done. Thats the biggest peice of bullshit i've ever heard. When you train certain routines get boring after a while and you feel theres no way to change things up here's a tip: Change shit around instead of doing the exact same exercises in the routine why not change the exercises around to change momentum or add/take away certain things or even heres an idea completely change the routine and try something different. When you do the same things over and over again you're not only screwing up your body but you're losing your sense of creativity and adventure in your training. Its not easy doing something different but it is easy not to and to me thats just not acceptable. When I train I lijke to change things around in every workout and confuse the muscles and tendons i'm working to make better progress and add progression. Sooner or later that routine you've been doing for years is gonna haunt you for life cause thats all you're gonna think about and when you go to the gym you're gonna find out you're not happy not excited and even not enthusiastic cause thats what its all about being able to enjoy the moments of training and living in a world all your own, how you gonna achieve that with the same old shit all thw time. Not saying exercising is bad its not but exercising to the point where when you train you're already gonna know whats happening before hand. Don't. Matter of fact get rid of that shit in your brain and do something out of the ordinary whether you like it or not it'll impact the way you think. I love not knowing what i'm gonna do, I know what to work on but I never know what'll happen when it does cause I want to experience exercising like its brand new and always leave something to enjoy. Enjoy what you don't know and never stop learning cause you're never gonna progress in life if you stay in one spot.

Yours in Power & Might

Ben

What is required to Bend Steel????????

This was a similar question asked to Slim The Hammer Man and a ton of other physical culturists and men of steel. Now before we get to the answer heres a little tidbit:

Bending Steel when done properly can toughen your hands, wrists and build a mighty grip that no other system can touch. Crushing steel with your bare hands will make you one of the strongest of men. The old-time strongmen knew of the ways to bend and knew of the ways to break them. A lot of them paid a tremendous price but a few have reached heights that no man anywhere of anytime can match.

Now the answer to that question. If you want to bend steel then its simple just bend steel. When it comes to feats of strength you should practice the feat in itself through isometrics and through sheer will of the mind. When you can bend the toughest of steel you're a man among men. Its not required to do something else that'll make your feat perfect its an option but if you want a mighty grip you gotta bend what you want and hammer it.

Wanna learn how to toughen your grip like never before. Then check this out.

www.dennisrogers.net

Yours in Power & Might

Ben