Old Time Wrestling & How It Can Turn You Into A Machine

When it comes to conditioning for wrestling there are many ways to do it. Look at how Dan Gable conditioned the most dominant team at University Of Iowa for 21 seasons with 15 National Titles. His methods were second to none and should be learned by any type of coach for the sport or athlete for that matter. At the same time there was a man who took conditioning to a very unique level and because of his teachings he conditioned a wrestler by the name of Frank Gotch. His name was Martin “Farmer” Burns.

In his course Lessons In Wrestling & Physical Culture he uses a form of deep breathing to help regain and maintain health, strength and fitness. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything in this course and I highly recommend you check it out at http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competition/Burns/lessons/lesson01.htm.

 Without question he was one of the most unorthodox wrestlers/teachers there was at the turn of the 20^th century. He developed techniques in both fitness and wrestling to create the ultimate package to see who is tough enough and who is willing to take his training to a whole new level. Farmer himself had wrestled sense he was very young and had a staggering number of victories losing in only 7 matches. At age 50 he can still take down and mangle an opponent within seconds. At that time being 50 was ancient and the average age wouldn’t go beyond 60 let alone 50. So that should tell you how powerful this small man was and weighed no more then 175 pounds. The techniques he taught not only gave a wrestler a chance to win matches but also to save his own life. This was important for the common man of that period when survival was needed the most.

 Another key factor that he taught was very important and that’s pacing ones self. For a wrestler it’s a game of chess and you must be steps ahead of your opponent but it must not be quick nor faster then needed. When you get accustomed to the conditioning it teaches you to pace yourself and conserve your energy while your opponent wears out his. This became very complex and effective that it still stands today for MMA Fighters. Its no wonder the Farmer was ahead of his time.

Because of these effective strategies it was passed on from generation to generation. One of them was a wrestler who took the name Gotch and made a name for himself in Europe, Japan and a stint in America. His name was Karl Istaz (Gotch). Like the Farmer himself Karl took conditioning to a degree far beyond what most would consider today as insane or brutal. Either way it became apparent that if you want to wrestle your conditioning comes first. This goes hand and hand like a horse and carriage, one without the other is worthless.

If you want to see Gotch & his students in action then go to Scientific Wrestling and pick up a copy of Conditioning For Combat Sports 1 & 2. There might be a Interview DVD in there as well which in my opinion is treasure among treasures as Karl sits with Scientific Wrestling Owner Jake Shannon as they discuss the old-timers, a bit of Karl’s Career and his fond of conditioning. If you choose to do so I would also recommend you pick up the Authoritive  Encyclopedia Of Scientific Wrestling series. It’s a series of books filled with interviews, wrestling techniques and definitions of wrestlers and holds. It even has some on the Farmer. As a man of history and Physical Culture I encourage you to find your own history and learn from the best in the game. 100 years ago Burns helped carry on a wrestling tradition that still stands today and his techniques are not only more unique but even more effective today but yet is becoming a lost art. Help carry on a tradition that is sacred and willing to fight for.   

Becoming Tarzan

Can that really happen? I mean come on who the hell wants to be like the ape man? Well it turns out more people then you know. The fitness on this guy is incredible. He can swing through the trees and climb with the best of them and is strong as hell. It’s no secret that Tarzan is the type of athlete some of us wish to be. Have a great physique, profound strength & stamina and the natural functional ability to handle everything thrown at him. To me he’s a mans man.

If we want to try to imitate the conditioning of Tarzan we must first observe his behavior. He learned what he can do by observing the only family he knows and that was the Gorillas of the jungle. He learned how they walked, climbed and swung through the vines of the forest. He learned to understand their strength and power through fierce battles and studied their anatomy. Contrary to popular belief Tarzan was pure genius. He learned how to survive by learning from possible one of the strongest species on the planet.

Now that you have observed what he does its time to put that into play by practicing the movements. Now before I go any further I just want to state that yes Gorillas have different body structures then we do and have a advantage that we can never imitate but it’s not a bad thing to get really strong in the areas that we can work on. Practice how they walk and how they hang on trees (a pull-up bar or a soccer goal would be better suited). Learn to move the best way you can. Focus on the whole body and not just the muscles but the tendons as well. I know you’re probably sick and tired of reading about tendon strength by me but the fact of the matter is if your tendons aren’t strong enough you won’t get very far in your quest to be super strong.

Doing a workout like this alone can be very rewarding in terms of building strength, stamina, flexibility and not to mention muscle building from having HGH levels shoot through the roof. Moving like an ape can be the ultimate jungle workout for you because you don’t have to spend a lot of time doing it and it gets you out in the open air like the Ape Man himself. Is there really a course on this particular type of training? I believe so and its in Ed Baran’s Animal Kingdom Conditioning Courses: Animal Kingdom Conditioning & Animal Kingdom Conditioning 2: Call Of The Wild. These 2 courses alone can create the ultimate jungle workouts and I believe the Ape/Monkey Exercises are well worth the price for both courses. You can still do the other animals but the Ape Exercises are closer to us humans and its time we start getting into shape.

Why not get a course for the kids with Wild Animal FitnessFor Kids? I’m sure you’ll find some ape training in there for your little ones and it won’t look like training but playing and having fun because that’s what real training is about is having fun. Do you need the strength of Tarzan? No, but you can become stronger then the average human and dominate your life by becoming the strongest you can be.

Creating Your Own Style Of Training

Its difficult to realize that you can in-fact become your own personal trainer. The first thing to do this is to learn as much exercise as possible. The more you learn and observe your own physiology; you will find your own routine. Another goal to keep in mind is keep track of your workouts and a journal is the perfect tool for this. Whether you want to workout 3X a week or 7X a week keep track of what you do.

Anybody can learn to be their own trainer. It took me a few years to finally understand it but now I can create any workout I want with the amount of exercises I know. Now you don’t need to build years to understand it. Having a personal trainer isn’t a bad thing but the problem is a lot of people get discouraged and many trainers don’t teach the value of your own experience and train for you. Very few can and I happen to know some. The easy part is exercising the hard part is learning on your own. Observe yourself and learn the movement of an exercise you want to master. Really you don’t need to do 20 exercises in one workout just do no more then 8-10. I train 7 days a week up to 3 times a day because that’s what I’m comfortable with and it makes me happy. For you once a day 3 times a week is doable.

Nothing in fitness is more enjoyable in knowing your own style of exercise and my best advice is to learn everything you can. Do what you can learn what you want to learn. Becoming your own trainer can bring you a lot of benefits in your life. You don’t need to pay for a gym/trainer, you save money which you can use for other things that are important in your life like your family. I have learned well over 500 exercises in my lifetime maybe even more but do I need to do all the time? Hell no I don’t even like some of them. That’s another beauty about being your own trainer you pick the exercises you want to accomplish a goal. If you don’t know where to go to learn then you’re in luck because these are the best that I know of that will take you to great heights and they all give you something you want to accomplish. Go click on the links below and find what interests you.

Legendary Strength

Stronger Man

Lifeline USA

Lost Art Of Hand Balancing

Dragon Door

Stronger Grip

CoreForce Energy

Bodyweight Exercises For Women

Superhuman Pull-ups For Powerful Upper Body Strength

Pull-ups by any means are one of the difficult forms of training because not many people train on them and those that do know very little about progressive safe training to get higher reps and get stronger in the entire upper body. That’s where Dutch National Champion Gymnast Cees De Kok & Concert Pianist extraordinaire Garin Bader come into play.

They will teach you like they have taught me the 5 key ingredients to gain super strength in your pull-ups. Now what are the 5 secrets to super strength in Pull-ups?

1. Grip Strength:

Not many people realize how important your grip is in doing pull-ups. You can grab the bar and try to do as many as you can but if your grip can’t handle it what makes you think you’ll be able to do great numbers. Garin & Cees will show you the proper ways to grip the bar and not just grab and hold but using alignment and proper gripping. Also they will show you exercises that not only are essential for pull-ups but how to develop powerful hands.

2. Shoulder & Back Isolation/Synergy

This secret will reveal what you need to combine the strength & flexibility of the shoulders and back in different components. Lets face it pull-ups are for mainly back strength so if you can’t strengthen the back how are you going to do pull-ups. Again you will find some interesting concepts on properly isolating the back.

           

3. Optimal Arm Training & Positioning

Without proper positioning of the arms not only will pull-ups be that much more difficult but can result in injury. Arms are one a main key to doing pull-ups so if you want to get good at them then you need to strengthen your arms as best as possible. When you do pull-ups the biceps have a major role because with the pulling muscle it flexes the muscle and creates a powerful surge of muscle fibers just like triceps are for push-ups with the exception of extending so it’s important to have good arm training & Garin/Cees will show you how. You’ll be impressed.

4. Isolation Exercises For Chain Of Strength

Now they say isolating isn’t for overall body strength but in this case I think we can make an exception. The reason why I’m saying this is because for pull-ups you want to have the strength in your upper body from your grip to your abdominal muscles. Developing the areas needed will set off a chain reaction when you do get to the actual pull-up training. Learning proper isolation wouldn’t be a bad thing in this case because the exercises you learn in this segment don’t look like isolated exercises that much anyway but they will help you in the long run to having great strength in the pull-ups.

5. Mindset & Putting It All Together

The mindset for pull-ups is quite different from what most people think. Do you do better at pull-ups counting up or counting down? This answer will blow you away. I tried it for the first time comparing the two and I found which one was easier and I kept it ever since. That’s just a piece of what you will find out but when you start putting these secrets together you will find that your strength has more meaning and can accelerate your reps if you find the proper usage.

My best number in chin-ups was 21 and my best in pull-ups was 17. I’m also over 235 lbs. My average however wasn’t that great until I got this course. Now my average in chin-ups is around 12 and pull-ups around 10-12 as well but before that in workouts I wouldn’t go higher then 7-9 either way. As an athlete and strongman I need proper back and grip strength for the feats I perform but you don’t have to be an athlete or strongman to use this course. It can be used by anyone who is willing to give pull-ups a chance and build a powerful upper body. Once you learn the 5 secrets to Superhuman Pull-ups, there’s no turning back.

Indian Clubs: From Wood To Steel For A Fierce Grip

For centuries wrestlers of the Middle East have been known for a number of things but the two main ones are wrestling and swinging different objects. The Clubs have been a stable point for wrestlers as long as the sport and for good reason. They train the body in neither ways nor weights or bodyweight exercise can touch. Sure the athletes used some weights and almost exclusively bodyweight but the clubs give a different advantage, one a wrestler needs for stable conditioning and that’s the grip.

Have you heard of the Great Gama or WWE Hall Of Famer The Iron Sheik? These two in my opinion are the biggest names in Middle Eastern wrestling. Gama is from what is now Pakistan and the Sheik is from Iran but yet both countries carry the sport of wrestling as the major sport almost to the equivalent to what America is to Baseball. The clubs were played a big role for how they trained and wrestled. Gama is said to have wrestled in 5000 matches and never lost once. That should tell you what kind of condition and how strong he was. The most important picture of the true great one is of him holding a 80lb. club which is the representation of the world title.

The Sheik is of a totally different realm to wrestling but similar in some ways. He was once an Olympic wrestler who was once a bodyguard for the Shah Of Iran. He became a professional wrestler and was trained by Wrestling Legend Verne Gagne at his training camp in Minnesota. He went on to become of the most charismatic villains in the history of Professional wrestling and held Tag Team Championships and even the WWE Title at time or 2 and rivaled with two of some of the most popular wrestlers in history and that was Hulk Hogan & Sergeant Slaughter. He can wrestle with the best of them and a trademark challenge he made was none other then the clubs. He challenged anyone who can keep up with him swinging heavy clubs or the Middle Eastern term Jori and no one was able to keep up. Now that may have been for storyline purposes but without a doubt the clubs are no joke.

I have played around with the Jori myself and I can safely say they will kick your ass one was or another. Start out 5 min. with these things sounds easy right? Think again. Yeah you can keep swinging for a bit but your grip will start to tire and when that happens your form becomes sloppy and you will need to rest. Yet without question this will help your grip in ways you can’t imagine. Remember my post about building tendons? Well the clubs are no exception. You can get fit with these bad boys pretty quick and it doesn’t matter if they 2 lb. or 50 lb. you will get an awesome workout out of it and its fun. If a workout can’t be fun then what’s the point?

Now for those who are paying attention you will find that the clubs that I have been mentioning are mostly made of wood. What kind it’s hard to say. Nowadays you can get clubs made out of wood, rubber and steel. You can find the wooden clubs at a few places such as http://www.oldtimestrongman.com/indian_clubs.html or at http://www.indianclubs.com/. Now for the steel patented clubs you can get those at Stronger Grip ran by my bud and grip master Ryan Pitts. He’s plenty of variations for the clubs including a hybrid of Thor’s Hammer. You can use it as club swinging for training or use it in your hammer training. That to me is genius. Feel the power in your hands as you help continue a tradition for the last millennium and how you can help it grow by training these implements to how you see fit to your training.

When you swing these clubs I want you to picture for a moment as if you were back in time where you were training in the pits of Indian wrestling ring and you are warming up with clubs getting ready for battle and then you just man handle your opponent. Now are these specific to wrestlers? No they can be used for strength, flexibility, stamina, and rehab and to help gain an advantage in whatever you do. I have friends who are strongmen and they use them. It’s important we help restore time honored program that has been used as long as the culture. Put yourself into the hands of these powerful tools and become a fitness machine.