Monday, June 16, 2008

Jack Lalanne....Fitness Pioneer & Living Legend

They call him the "Godfather" of Fitness and they call him a legend. I believe that not only the 2 are true but they even go beyond the great wisdom of the man. He is one of my greatest influences and inspirations to be fit and be happy with myself. The story of this great man has more words then I could ever write. I'll do my best to put it in my view of this powerful infuence to millions of his students:

At a young age little Jackie was like a lot of the young boys of the early 20th century, sickly, ate a lot of junk food and had short fuses. He was hooked on ice cream and the such and didn't exercise and just didn't put in the effort to give himself the change. At age 15 his mother took him to see one of the biggest names of the fitness industry and that was the late legendary Paul Bragg and he talked about nutrition, daily exercise and a clean living and that changed Jack Lalanne forever. At the height of the great depression that destroyed people's financial and emotional well being, Jack learned the power of exercise and nurtition and opened the first Health Spa in the U.S that gave people the oppertunity to change their lives and physical as well as emotional success. He created machines that would revolutionize the fitness industry and encouraged people from all walks of life to get fit and become a new and a new well put human being. All this around the ages of 22 and up. He made a solom vow to get people fit the best way he knew how. He studied many things from under the sun from chriopractic to nutrition to anatomy and physiology. Within 20 years after his successful practice as a physical culturist and lecturer he decided a very rare thing that only the physical culturists of the past did and thats to stay fit and strong after the age 40 when at that time most people barely lived to be 50. This was such a shocking hobby at the time for just about every american in the U.S and he proved that by doing 1000+ push-ups and 1000 pull-ups in over an hour on a tv show in 1954. Doing this feat and things before this feat gave him the oppertunity to do something never seen before in the history of television and thats teach his methods of exercise on a weekly exercise show. This became the longest running fitness show in TV history. At each birthday every few years or so he would put himself in a situation where he would do a feat of strength/endurance that he felt fit his fancy and every feat he did never was broken again. Throughout the years Jack continued to practiced what he preaches and still does it to this day at the age of 94.....Thats not a typo, 94 years young and still has the strength of men nearly 3 times his age. Who else can say that about someone let alone men his age who can't walk nor move without assistance. To quote him about his practice "I can't die, it'll ruin my image" that is by far one of the best quotes ive ever read and all I can say is Jack is an immortal human being and very rarely you see men of his stature in this day in age.


It is an honor to have this man as one of many influences of physical culture and continue to read and listen to his powerful wisdom and humor cause in todays society looking good is the way to go to get ahead in life but he never believed that to be true and nor do I. He sais it best "Exercise is King, Nutrition is Queen put them together and you got a kindom."

To find out more of this Living Legend go to:

www.jacklalanne.com

Yours in Health & Strength,

Ben Bergman

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

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

Monday, June 9, 2008

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

Sunday, March 30, 2008

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.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

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.

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