In the world of fitness today, we are taught to do this or that, do aerobics for cardio, low reps for strength, bodyweight for endurance, weights for power, crunches for super abs and cardio machines to burn calories. Some of this is all well and good if you're into that kind of thing and want to learn them but really its about following your instincts. If you truely want to be athletic and have a body that you dream about then you must learn to use your instincts. Training is not always about looking good, having big muscles, being ripped to shreds, its about heart, about passion, the will to push through and the power to strive for survival.
When it comes to Animal Fitness, you don't need to be an expert and jump through exercise to exercise, just practice the basics. Look at young animals in the wild whether it be a baby bear cub, tiger, chimp or a bird. They don't build their bodies by running to the nearest gym to pump some iron, they learn to survive by practicing and playing with their kind. Learn to use their strength and power so when they grow up they're strong, powerful, a lean, mean, fighting maching. Just moving and becoming strong is not always good enough. You must become that animal, move like them, become your primal Animality.
Cardio these days is way overrated with the machines, the jogging, the ridiculious aerobics classes and so on and so forth. Why not just go roam free and be whatever you want. Go to a park, go to the playground, hell go to your local school after hours and just have fun. Now you may live in a place where you may not have those things like in a big city or whatnot so whatever room you have in your home, use it. Moving like a wild animal makes machines look like a cake walk. You're moving in awkward positions, swtiching your body around in ways that you can't do on a machine or lift on bench. Just a few minutes a day is all the cardio you're going to need.
Ever see the Tarzan movies? The one most people remember these days is the Disney flick back in the late 90's and if you're from an older generation its the stories of the ape-man from the johnny weismuellers to the george scotts and Mike Henrys. What do they all have in common? They show Tarzan learning to survive in the jungle with only the things that surround him, his body, the trees, his awareness for danger and the ability to move in ways you can't get from weightlifting or going to a gym. If he can learn to survive like that, what's your excuse?
What would you do if you couldn't go to a gym? What if there were no machines, no weights, no racks? You had nothing but your bodyweight and you wanted to get in shape, what would you do? You'd find the best ways to get in shape or sit on your ass and die. This is where you learn to your instincts and get your body into the best shape possible. Train like Tarzan.
Training like a wild animal takes practice, patience, the will to learn. It doesn't take 30 minutes to an hour to get started. Begin your journey with one minute. Pick a few of your favorite animals and do 20 seconds of each and that'll be your workout. Each workout, add just a few seconds and learn your way around and before you know it you're having fun and you don't even realize how long you did it. This is the beauty of it.
Having fun is a major key. When you get into the mind of it being fun and you love doing it even for a few minutes, your conditioning will soar and your body will become lean, powerful, strong and agile that will impress others and also make them jealous. Now unlike all that bodybuilding magazine crap that tells you to have a set up of this amout of exercise and do this many reps each exercise and do it for hours on end that won't happen with your animal workouts. You pick your animals, do distance or reps doesn't matter or switch from one to the other with very little rest or do a little time and take a breather. You have the freedom to do whatever you want, its your choice.
With patience, imagination, practice and have an open mind to have fun and treat it as play and not work, you will build a body you can be proud of and you will to unleash the animal in you that is nothing but powerful, strong and won't let anything stand in your way. Become the animal you were born to be. Unleash your Animality.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Bringing Gama Back To Glory
Even as a small boy growing up in the Punjab in India, Ghulam Muhammad was destined to be a great athlete and at the age of ten won contests that displayed grueling exercise tasks including squats, club/mace swinging and wrestling and was last standing out of 400 wrestlers in one of these contests. Nicknamed Gama, he trained in the Sand Pits of a wrestling ring and just took over everyone around him becoming a feared wrestler on the mat not just in practice but in competition. By the time he reached his 20's he was the most feared wrestler in his country and continued to be throughout the globe as he took on all comers and oulasted them all never losing one match in his entire career. Even the top champions in America at the time wouldn't dare challenge him, even guys like George Hackenshmidt wouldn't take him on.
His conditioning was second to none and had routines that would make a world-class champion walk away. He swam, wrestled, swung the mace and clubs, did push-ups, squats and some bridging thrown in there that would go beyond the limit of most men even at Gama's size at 5'7 260 lbs. As heavy as he was, he moved like a little man and had the strength of a siberian tiger (slight exaggeration) but also his routines sound a bit over-exaggerated yet he trained harder then almost anyone before or since his time.
As his legend grew, the exercises he once used started to fade in the mainstream and only very few outside of the middle east ever trained on them. This all changed when a little known catch wrestler named Karl Gotch started teaching these very same exercises to his athletes in Japan and places around the USA and became a big deal. Taking on an athlete named Matt Furey, Gotch had put him to the test time and time again and Furey kept coming back for more. Because of Gotch's influence, this upincoming businessman of fitness put out a series of courses on these same exercises minus the clubs and the mace. Putting three exercises together called the Royal Court which consists of the Hindu Push-up, Hindu Squat & The Back Bridge.
In one course he made, naming it after the legendary Indian wrestler himself, Furey brought variations of the three main exercises and took them to a level beyond his own imagination. He then added some supplemental exercises like Hill Sprints & The Power Wheel as an added bonus along with a plethora of things to use in your arsenal like stretching and Isometrics. Gama Fitness became a cornerstone for what Bodyweight Exercises can accomplish for you.
One key element that Gama posessed was the ability to throw opponents as big or bigger then him as if it was childs play and that one element came into being Isometrics. This system of training teaches you how to build strength and speed without ever moving a muscle yet still burn fat and build functional strength that's off the charts. Unlike other exercise systems, Isometrics helps you find the weak spots in your body and strengthens them to increase not only your physical power but more importatly your internal power.
This course to me is one of Physical Culture's greatest creations and it gives you a prespective on how to use your bodyweight in ways that's beyond tradition in the modern era. It was one of the first courses that got me started and taught me how to be my own trainer and give me the chance to change my body and my overall strength. It truely is Bodyweight Training at it's best.
Another key element is what Karl Gotch refers to as "the most important in physical conditioning" is the Bridge. You will find that it takes more then just getting into position and holding, it takes skill, keen awareness and flexibility to fal into the bridge from standing. Practicing this takes on a whole new meaning to the words "holy s*it." Never have you seen stuff like this before and if you want to take it to a whole other level which in my estimation is the peak of Bridging Training is Here and you will learn things that will amaze your friends and your athleticism. You don't have to be a wrestler or gymnast to do this stuff.
There will never be a course like this again because it gives you tools for lifelong health, fitness, strength, flexibility and endurance. Want to learn the old secrets of the indian wrestlers from yesteryear and for centturies before, get your ass over there and grab it asap.
His conditioning was second to none and had routines that would make a world-class champion walk away. He swam, wrestled, swung the mace and clubs, did push-ups, squats and some bridging thrown in there that would go beyond the limit of most men even at Gama's size at 5'7 260 lbs. As heavy as he was, he moved like a little man and had the strength of a siberian tiger (slight exaggeration) but also his routines sound a bit over-exaggerated yet he trained harder then almost anyone before or since his time.
As his legend grew, the exercises he once used started to fade in the mainstream and only very few outside of the middle east ever trained on them. This all changed when a little known catch wrestler named Karl Gotch started teaching these very same exercises to his athletes in Japan and places around the USA and became a big deal. Taking on an athlete named Matt Furey, Gotch had put him to the test time and time again and Furey kept coming back for more. Because of Gotch's influence, this upincoming businessman of fitness put out a series of courses on these same exercises minus the clubs and the mace. Putting three exercises together called the Royal Court which consists of the Hindu Push-up, Hindu Squat & The Back Bridge.
In one course he made, naming it after the legendary Indian wrestler himself, Furey brought variations of the three main exercises and took them to a level beyond his own imagination. He then added some supplemental exercises like Hill Sprints & The Power Wheel as an added bonus along with a plethora of things to use in your arsenal like stretching and Isometrics. Gama Fitness became a cornerstone for what Bodyweight Exercises can accomplish for you.
One key element that Gama posessed was the ability to throw opponents as big or bigger then him as if it was childs play and that one element came into being Isometrics. This system of training teaches you how to build strength and speed without ever moving a muscle yet still burn fat and build functional strength that's off the charts. Unlike other exercise systems, Isometrics helps you find the weak spots in your body and strengthens them to increase not only your physical power but more importatly your internal power.
This course to me is one of Physical Culture's greatest creations and it gives you a prespective on how to use your bodyweight in ways that's beyond tradition in the modern era. It was one of the first courses that got me started and taught me how to be my own trainer and give me the chance to change my body and my overall strength. It truely is Bodyweight Training at it's best.
Another key element is what Karl Gotch refers to as "the most important in physical conditioning" is the Bridge. You will find that it takes more then just getting into position and holding, it takes skill, keen awareness and flexibility to fal into the bridge from standing. Practicing this takes on a whole new meaning to the words "holy s*it." Never have you seen stuff like this before and if you want to take it to a whole other level which in my estimation is the peak of Bridging Training is Here and you will learn things that will amaze your friends and your athleticism. You don't have to be a wrestler or gymnast to do this stuff.
There will never be a course like this again because it gives you tools for lifelong health, fitness, strength, flexibility and endurance. Want to learn the old secrets of the indian wrestlers from yesteryear and for centturies before, get your ass over there and grab it asap.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Becoming A Stronger Man
When you look at super-heavyweight athletes, almost 99.9% of the time you wouldn't think that they have the same amount of strength as they do with endurance because lets face it, when you think of endurance body wise, you look at much smaller guys that can go for long periods of time, you think of ironmen, triathletes, marathon runners and even Olympic decathletes. However there is just that one of a kind athlete that has the rare respect and reputation for being a strength athlete as well as having the endurance to back it up. That one of a kind athlete is super strongman Bud Jeffries. I believe without question he is only man on the planet that can squat 1000 pounds from the bottom position and also have 3000 rep marathons with a kettlebell. At 5'11 and nearly 275, he is without a doubt one of the very top guys if not at the top of superhuman heavyweights that can do both at the same time. There are great trainers out there that can teach you either strength or endurance but never has there been a man that can teach both and be a big man to boot.
In one of his epic masterpieces Twisted Conditioning he teaches the best ways to shape up for strength an endurance at the same time which in some cases has never been written on paper before and it brings out the best for one who wants to have the strength of a gorilla and the endurance of an Ironman. In one way to look at it in order to train at both levels at the same time takes creative thinking and the way certain things play out in order to culminate together into one colossal program. Most people train for strength and very little on endurance, however the same can be said by those who train for endurance but never take up strength training, now there are no excuses why you can't train both.
One of the greatest bodybuilders of all-time John Grimek had a body that looked like it was carved out of granite and sculpted into this beautiful and awe dropping masterpiece but he was one of the very few that had the strength to back it up. He was also an Olympic weightlifter at a time when you either had to be a bodybuilder or a weightlifter and he was both and was one of the very best in the art of Muscle Control. He was probably in my estimation one of the last of his kind to be strong and looked the part at the same time. Once steroids started itching their way in the the lat 60's early 70's, that natural and wholesome tradition of becoming strong and shapely started to fade. Yes many guys busted their ass in both the bodybuilding world and the strength world but after guys like Grimek, Pearl and Park it just lost its natural state and became a steroid-infested industry.
There are an extreme few drug-free bodybuilders, lifters and overall athletes that keep that natural, hard work and iron will power from becoming a dead art and my boy Bud is right up there with them along with some awesome individuals who share the same goal. Drug-Free for those playing the home game means all natural and no steroids or P.E.Ds (Performance Enhancing Drugs) and there are orginizations out there that support that concept especially in Powerlifting, Bodybuilding, Football, Baseball ect. but doesn't have the respect it deserves.
In another epic course by Bud called Massive Functional Muscle, he teaches you that you never should choose to do this or that, you can either be a bodybuilder or a functional athlete, you either do high reps for endurance or low reps for strength. In reality you can do all the things you can think of and do it without the need of steroids just like the old-time strongmen of yesteryear. Look to guys like Sandow, Hackenshmidt, Arco, Maxick, Sig Klien and others of the early generations of strength. Screw the modern establishment and learn what you want to be and turn yourself into the athlete you dreamed of when you were small and fragil and wanting to be a giant among men and have the strength and power of a grizzly bear.
Do you want the body of a greek god and have the strength of a bull? Do you want to be able to run for miles and lift the heaviest of weights? Do you want to have the ability to train using push-ups and sit-ups while swinging a heavy kettlebell in the same workout? The only thing from stopping you doing all these things is you. There is no excuse to what your potential may be and you have nothing standing in your way.
Your imagination is the key that unlocks all your potential. You have the power to make it happen just need someone who can lead you on that path and very few can do it as awesome as the southern stud Bud Jeffries can. Never settle for less then what you want to do and on't let anyone stand in your way of becoming the strongest person in and out that you can be.
In one of his epic masterpieces Twisted Conditioning he teaches the best ways to shape up for strength an endurance at the same time which in some cases has never been written on paper before and it brings out the best for one who wants to have the strength of a gorilla and the endurance of an Ironman. In one way to look at it in order to train at both levels at the same time takes creative thinking and the way certain things play out in order to culminate together into one colossal program. Most people train for strength and very little on endurance, however the same can be said by those who train for endurance but never take up strength training, now there are no excuses why you can't train both.
One of the greatest bodybuilders of all-time John Grimek had a body that looked like it was carved out of granite and sculpted into this beautiful and awe dropping masterpiece but he was one of the very few that had the strength to back it up. He was also an Olympic weightlifter at a time when you either had to be a bodybuilder or a weightlifter and he was both and was one of the very best in the art of Muscle Control. He was probably in my estimation one of the last of his kind to be strong and looked the part at the same time. Once steroids started itching their way in the the lat 60's early 70's, that natural and wholesome tradition of becoming strong and shapely started to fade. Yes many guys busted their ass in both the bodybuilding world and the strength world but after guys like Grimek, Pearl and Park it just lost its natural state and became a steroid-infested industry.
There are an extreme few drug-free bodybuilders, lifters and overall athletes that keep that natural, hard work and iron will power from becoming a dead art and my boy Bud is right up there with them along with some awesome individuals who share the same goal. Drug-Free for those playing the home game means all natural and no steroids or P.E.Ds (Performance Enhancing Drugs) and there are orginizations out there that support that concept especially in Powerlifting, Bodybuilding, Football, Baseball ect. but doesn't have the respect it deserves.
In another epic course by Bud called Massive Functional Muscle, he teaches you that you never should choose to do this or that, you can either be a bodybuilder or a functional athlete, you either do high reps for endurance or low reps for strength. In reality you can do all the things you can think of and do it without the need of steroids just like the old-time strongmen of yesteryear. Look to guys like Sandow, Hackenshmidt, Arco, Maxick, Sig Klien and others of the early generations of strength. Screw the modern establishment and learn what you want to be and turn yourself into the athlete you dreamed of when you were small and fragil and wanting to be a giant among men and have the strength and power of a grizzly bear.
Do you want the body of a greek god and have the strength of a bull? Do you want to be able to run for miles and lift the heaviest of weights? Do you want to have the ability to train using push-ups and sit-ups while swinging a heavy kettlebell in the same workout? The only thing from stopping you doing all these things is you. There is no excuse to what your potential may be and you have nothing standing in your way.
Your imagination is the key that unlocks all your potential. You have the power to make it happen just need someone who can lead you on that path and very few can do it as awesome as the southern stud Bud Jeffries can. Never settle for less then what you want to do and on't let anyone stand in your way of becoming the strongest person in and out that you can be.
Monday, February 27, 2012
When Wrestling Was Fun To Watch
I grew up a 90's kid, watched the saturday morning cartoons, obsessed with The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, there was Keenan and Kel and at night it was Jeapordy, Wheel Of Fortune, Seinfeld and great tv shows of the time but nothing got me more hooked and more tuned in then Professional Wrestling. The very first event I watched on TV that I can remember was Wrestlemania 12 and it was the coolest thing I saw. I saw a 7 foot deadman piledrive a bad ass giant, saw a ringmaster with a million dollar belt, I witnessed a grown man in gold kiss a scottish wrestler on the lips but the one match that caught my eye and the one I still will say to this day was the greatest match in the history of televised events was the Iron Man one hour marathon between the Heart Break Kid Shawn Michaels vs. Bret The Hitman Hart for the WWE Championship. That was the match that started my journey into the history of the sport and gave me the chance to learn about the very best in the sport from its early days in the sticks to the epic era of television.
When I began watching the Monday Night Wars between Raw and Nitro, it was the most fun I ever had as a fan watching these awesome athletes of all shapes and sizes doing the things that they did best. Unlike a lot of fans I wasn't very much interested in what the character was but what happened in the ring that put most of my attention to. Watching these guys jump off the ropes, doing suplexes, power slams, cage matches, 6 man tags and the incredible physiques they had. Yes I was a fan of the NWO and Degeneration X but none of that mattered unless they wrestled in the ring.
I went to a few house shows at the Cow Palace in San Francisco and the old San Jose Arena before it was changed to the HP Pavillion and was at 2 big PPVs and a Smackdown show and it was the most epic time of my life as a fan of the old WWE and WCW. Because of this I became obsessed of what wrestling really was and studied the old school days of the sport going back as far as ancient egypt to presidents and kings being wrestlers to the PT Barnum era of the ACT shows to the epic battles of Frank Gotch and George Hackenshmidt to Ed Strangler Lewis being the transition from real wrestling becoming a profitable industry of characters to Television where Lou Thesz was the talk of the globe. I was also obsessed with how the wrestlers trained and what they did to become stars other then becoming a character.
Even during the early days of television wrestlers with an amature background broke into the business and brought their styles to a whole other level. I will still say to this day from the clips of matches I saw of the early TV era that the best amature wrestlers that made an impact on Pro Wrestling were Lou Thesz, Verne Gagne, Gene Kiniski, The Briscos, Dory Funk jr., Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson. There were guys just as good but none had an impact like those mistros of the mat.
I can never imagine the training wrestlers went through to break into the wrestling business. I mean sh*t the easy part was training in the ring and building a charcter but to put all that infront of hundreds of thousands of people was just brutal. I've seen clips of guys aching and begging for their lives for the torture to stop. I've heard stories of Hulk Hogan training from Hiro Matsuda, Eddy Sharkey who trained guys like Road Warriors, Bob Backlund and Jesse "The Body" Ventura who took these guys to limits that you can't imagine unless you were there and don't get me started on guys like Walter "Killer" Kowalski who was a conditioning machine who taught the art of the business to future WWE Hall Of Famer Paul Levesque aka Triple H.
I've been through torture workouts myself in my later years after being a teenager but never have I or ever want to be put through that kind of training but that also put me on my quest for being in condition and strong. Conditioning is your greatest friend and nobody put that concept better then the late Karl Gotch. It doesn't matter whether you're in wrestling or in other sports, you can have the techniques down to a science but if your condition is poor you might as well get out the door.
I wish there were matches that were just as good if not better then the matches going on today in WWE's PG era which I have no idea what that concept is nor do I care. There are some great wrestlers today like Rey Mysterio, NCAA standout Jack Swagger, College champion Dolph Ziggler but the one guy that really brought his amature status to the ring and brought a whole new meaning to the words Wrestler and even going back to the place where he first gained fame in the Olympics is Kurt Angle. This guy in my opinion is our generation's Dan Gable and he took wrestling in ways that will never be duplicated as far as wrestling goes not rassling. There are a few guys that are good to watch these days but it doesn't live up to the era of my teenage years where you had guys like the Rock, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker and quite possibly one of the funniest cats in the business as well as one of the greatest performers Chris Jericho.
They don't make wrestlers like them anymore and the very few guys that are good to watch every now and then like Randy Orton, John Cena, Kofi Kingston and CM Punk just had me lost interest as a fan of that part of the business and rather watch the guys from my generation to the day days of Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Harley Race, Ricky Steamboat, The Road Warriors, Bob Backlund and believe it or not Macho Man Randy Savage. Nowadays I watch real wrestlers like Brock Lesnar, Matt Huges, The Shamrocks, Tito Ortiz, Josh Barnett, Randy Couture and the great Japanese wrestlers.
Although I have lost interest in the few years of WWE wrestling, WWE gave me the chance to learn and love wrestlers of the past and transition from the loud characters and chair swinging lunitics to the kick ass submission style and scientific version of wrestling. Its all how you tend to look at things. Whether you're a fan of wrestling ingeneral or not its really how you love to watch your heroes and watch the great evolvement that unfolds whether its cool or not and find the best to watch and learn for yourself.
When I began watching the Monday Night Wars between Raw and Nitro, it was the most fun I ever had as a fan watching these awesome athletes of all shapes and sizes doing the things that they did best. Unlike a lot of fans I wasn't very much interested in what the character was but what happened in the ring that put most of my attention to. Watching these guys jump off the ropes, doing suplexes, power slams, cage matches, 6 man tags and the incredible physiques they had. Yes I was a fan of the NWO and Degeneration X but none of that mattered unless they wrestled in the ring.
I went to a few house shows at the Cow Palace in San Francisco and the old San Jose Arena before it was changed to the HP Pavillion and was at 2 big PPVs and a Smackdown show and it was the most epic time of my life as a fan of the old WWE and WCW. Because of this I became obsessed of what wrestling really was and studied the old school days of the sport going back as far as ancient egypt to presidents and kings being wrestlers to the PT Barnum era of the ACT shows to the epic battles of Frank Gotch and George Hackenshmidt to Ed Strangler Lewis being the transition from real wrestling becoming a profitable industry of characters to Television where Lou Thesz was the talk of the globe. I was also obsessed with how the wrestlers trained and what they did to become stars other then becoming a character.
Even during the early days of television wrestlers with an amature background broke into the business and brought their styles to a whole other level. I will still say to this day from the clips of matches I saw of the early TV era that the best amature wrestlers that made an impact on Pro Wrestling were Lou Thesz, Verne Gagne, Gene Kiniski, The Briscos, Dory Funk jr., Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson. There were guys just as good but none had an impact like those mistros of the mat.
I can never imagine the training wrestlers went through to break into the wrestling business. I mean sh*t the easy part was training in the ring and building a charcter but to put all that infront of hundreds of thousands of people was just brutal. I've seen clips of guys aching and begging for their lives for the torture to stop. I've heard stories of Hulk Hogan training from Hiro Matsuda, Eddy Sharkey who trained guys like Road Warriors, Bob Backlund and Jesse "The Body" Ventura who took these guys to limits that you can't imagine unless you were there and don't get me started on guys like Walter "Killer" Kowalski who was a conditioning machine who taught the art of the business to future WWE Hall Of Famer Paul Levesque aka Triple H.
I've been through torture workouts myself in my later years after being a teenager but never have I or ever want to be put through that kind of training but that also put me on my quest for being in condition and strong. Conditioning is your greatest friend and nobody put that concept better then the late Karl Gotch. It doesn't matter whether you're in wrestling or in other sports, you can have the techniques down to a science but if your condition is poor you might as well get out the door.
I wish there were matches that were just as good if not better then the matches going on today in WWE's PG era which I have no idea what that concept is nor do I care. There are some great wrestlers today like Rey Mysterio, NCAA standout Jack Swagger, College champion Dolph Ziggler but the one guy that really brought his amature status to the ring and brought a whole new meaning to the words Wrestler and even going back to the place where he first gained fame in the Olympics is Kurt Angle. This guy in my opinion is our generation's Dan Gable and he took wrestling in ways that will never be duplicated as far as wrestling goes not rassling. There are a few guys that are good to watch these days but it doesn't live up to the era of my teenage years where you had guys like the Rock, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker and quite possibly one of the funniest cats in the business as well as one of the greatest performers Chris Jericho.
They don't make wrestlers like them anymore and the very few guys that are good to watch every now and then like Randy Orton, John Cena, Kofi Kingston and CM Punk just had me lost interest as a fan of that part of the business and rather watch the guys from my generation to the day days of Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Harley Race, Ricky Steamboat, The Road Warriors, Bob Backlund and believe it or not Macho Man Randy Savage. Nowadays I watch real wrestlers like Brock Lesnar, Matt Huges, The Shamrocks, Tito Ortiz, Josh Barnett, Randy Couture and the great Japanese wrestlers.
Although I have lost interest in the few years of WWE wrestling, WWE gave me the chance to learn and love wrestlers of the past and transition from the loud characters and chair swinging lunitics to the kick ass submission style and scientific version of wrestling. Its all how you tend to look at things. Whether you're a fan of wrestling ingeneral or not its really how you love to watch your heroes and watch the great evolvement that unfolds whether its cool or not and find the best to watch and learn for yourself.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Historical Physical Culture
I believe that the real golden age of physical culture started with the industrial revolution and its first major superstar was Eugene Sandow. He was the Arnold Schwarzenegger of his day. He had strength beyond belief, can wrestle with the best of them and had one of the most powerful physiques of his generation next to the Russian lion himself George Hackenshmidt. During this time on till about the early 60's, the strongmen were the rockstars of their day. In the vaudeville era where theaters flourished with acts of all shapes and sizes ranging from acrobatics, magic, comedy and others but usually the Strongman got it's biggest applause of what they were capable of doing. Sure there were guys who faked lifts and certain stunts but the legit men and women put on a show that can still be talked about to this day.
One of the coolest things that these men did was challenge the audience to their special lifts and put up prize money to whoever can lift and handle it as good or better but safe to say, far too many tried and failed. One of the strongest men of all-time The Mighty Atom, had men of all shapes and sizes come up and try to bend one of his signature spikes and only a handful ever did it and one of them became his one and only student and he was dubbed the nickname, Slim The Hammerman. Atom and others just captivated audiences all over the world showcasing their unbelieveable strength. Some carried horses across the stage, some lifted elephants off the ground, others lifted weights from odd angles and even others would hold a weight in one arm and have a totally different type of apparatus in the other (e.g Barbell and kettlebell, look up Arthur Saxon).
Some still talk to this day about the great impact the old-timers gave and encouraged us to become strong, vibrant and powerful. Some old-timers however have been forgotten and were only mentioned by those who had seen them or read about. I don't believe for a second that those who had been forgotten were that at all, they were just lost in history until one learned how to find them again and there are a few who have done just that. Learning fitness and strength is really learning about our own history as there's information out there that are as good or better today then any modern method of the last 40-50 years. There really are secrets of how the old-timers trained for the things they've done and some of that info is lost in history but now you can find some of that lost treasure here.
I am a firm believer in old school bodybuilding and whether using weights or bodyweight alone, the old school ways are far better then the crap that's used today. Sure some modern methods are good but that's an extreme few. Bodybuilding today is bigger then life and it has its share of ups and downs and almost none of the men and women of today have a damn clue of what true bodybuilding is. In the old days (long before steroids) guys trained to get strong and used natural methods to put on muscle in ways that can never be reached today. If I had to choose between Ronnie Coleman and John Grimek i'd pick the latter. Unlike Coleman, Grimek had a physique that's still unmatched to this day and had the wicked strength to go with it. Sure Coleman is a strong mofo and can move weight as good as anyone but Grimek can actually move his body better. The point is, guys like Otto Arco, Maxick, Grimek and even Reg Park for that matter are the real deal of what it takes to get strong and powerful. Are they even close to the guys of today, hell f*cking no but its also vise versa, guys today interms of health, real strength, power and vibrancy are no where near guys like them.
Reg Park was really one of the first men of his era that showed he can have a powerful physique and the strength to back it up. He was the first bodybuilder to bench press 500 lbs. That was unheard of at that time and the bench press itself was itching its way to becoming a synonum for what someone's strength is. I believe that Park and Bill Pearl were the last of the all-natural bodybuilders that had real world-class strength to back up their physique. They can lift, they can pose, they did it all without ever needing steroids or PED's. They ate good, they trained hard and were actually healthy. Reg Park was the man that got the great Schwarzenegger himself on the track to becoming the most famous bodybuilder of all-time.
In all fairness you don't need steroids to become strong and powerful. The physique stars of the early era didn't need them cause they weren't around then and still don't really need them for that purpose. Media has really to blame whats wrong with how one looks. If you want to be a bodybuilder today, you need steroids, if you want to get ahead in sports, you do steroids, you want a quick fix, you take steroids its all real bullsh*t. Yes genetics play factors but that doesn't give you an excuse to build the body you want naturally. Usually these days if one looks a very muscular guy there's at least 2 things on his mind, "He must be on roids" or "he was born to be that big." I don't always believe either one of those things. Look at guys like Maxick, Charles Atlas an others, if you saw them before they got strong you would've thought they were swizzle sticks just waiting to get their ass kicked and never had a chance in hell of having a phenomenal physique. Maxick was a sick child and didn't have much to look forward to as he was tol he was too weak, too frail to do the simplest activities yet he became one of the first 3 men in history to officially lift more then double bodyweight in the overhead press and had the some of the very best muscle control that no one was close to duplicating. Charles Atlas was a 97 lb weak teenager who would be the target for mos of the bullies in his neighborhood and once had a girlfriend who left him for s tronger guy yet managed to put on nearly 100 lbs of muscle in a few short years and was crowned the most perfectly developed man twice.
Never assume that one is strong because you think they were born that way. In my opinion, the old school methods of physical culture are far better for you health wise compared to the crap used today. Learn your history and find that it doesn't take a whole lot to learn how to be strong. Work hard, create goals, imagine yourself being strong and muscular eat good and use basic principles. Its easy to learn now as it was back then. Let me ask you this, if you didn't have your chrome and fern gyms, your little bity weights and your machines, how would you be able to turn your body into from a weak state to a muscular state? You'd be surprised on what you can find.
One of the coolest things that these men did was challenge the audience to their special lifts and put up prize money to whoever can lift and handle it as good or better but safe to say, far too many tried and failed. One of the strongest men of all-time The Mighty Atom, had men of all shapes and sizes come up and try to bend one of his signature spikes and only a handful ever did it and one of them became his one and only student and he was dubbed the nickname, Slim The Hammerman. Atom and others just captivated audiences all over the world showcasing their unbelieveable strength. Some carried horses across the stage, some lifted elephants off the ground, others lifted weights from odd angles and even others would hold a weight in one arm and have a totally different type of apparatus in the other (e.g Barbell and kettlebell, look up Arthur Saxon).
Some still talk to this day about the great impact the old-timers gave and encouraged us to become strong, vibrant and powerful. Some old-timers however have been forgotten and were only mentioned by those who had seen them or read about. I don't believe for a second that those who had been forgotten were that at all, they were just lost in history until one learned how to find them again and there are a few who have done just that. Learning fitness and strength is really learning about our own history as there's information out there that are as good or better today then any modern method of the last 40-50 years. There really are secrets of how the old-timers trained for the things they've done and some of that info is lost in history but now you can find some of that lost treasure here.
I am a firm believer in old school bodybuilding and whether using weights or bodyweight alone, the old school ways are far better then the crap that's used today. Sure some modern methods are good but that's an extreme few. Bodybuilding today is bigger then life and it has its share of ups and downs and almost none of the men and women of today have a damn clue of what true bodybuilding is. In the old days (long before steroids) guys trained to get strong and used natural methods to put on muscle in ways that can never be reached today. If I had to choose between Ronnie Coleman and John Grimek i'd pick the latter. Unlike Coleman, Grimek had a physique that's still unmatched to this day and had the wicked strength to go with it. Sure Coleman is a strong mofo and can move weight as good as anyone but Grimek can actually move his body better. The point is, guys like Otto Arco, Maxick, Grimek and even Reg Park for that matter are the real deal of what it takes to get strong and powerful. Are they even close to the guys of today, hell f*cking no but its also vise versa, guys today interms of health, real strength, power and vibrancy are no where near guys like them.
Reg Park was really one of the first men of his era that showed he can have a powerful physique and the strength to back it up. He was the first bodybuilder to bench press 500 lbs. That was unheard of at that time and the bench press itself was itching its way to becoming a synonum for what someone's strength is. I believe that Park and Bill Pearl were the last of the all-natural bodybuilders that had real world-class strength to back up their physique. They can lift, they can pose, they did it all without ever needing steroids or PED's. They ate good, they trained hard and were actually healthy. Reg Park was the man that got the great Schwarzenegger himself on the track to becoming the most famous bodybuilder of all-time.
In all fairness you don't need steroids to become strong and powerful. The physique stars of the early era didn't need them cause they weren't around then and still don't really need them for that purpose. Media has really to blame whats wrong with how one looks. If you want to be a bodybuilder today, you need steroids, if you want to get ahead in sports, you do steroids, you want a quick fix, you take steroids its all real bullsh*t. Yes genetics play factors but that doesn't give you an excuse to build the body you want naturally. Usually these days if one looks a very muscular guy there's at least 2 things on his mind, "He must be on roids" or "he was born to be that big." I don't always believe either one of those things. Look at guys like Maxick, Charles Atlas an others, if you saw them before they got strong you would've thought they were swizzle sticks just waiting to get their ass kicked and never had a chance in hell of having a phenomenal physique. Maxick was a sick child and didn't have much to look forward to as he was tol he was too weak, too frail to do the simplest activities yet he became one of the first 3 men in history to officially lift more then double bodyweight in the overhead press and had the some of the very best muscle control that no one was close to duplicating. Charles Atlas was a 97 lb weak teenager who would be the target for mos of the bullies in his neighborhood and once had a girlfriend who left him for s tronger guy yet managed to put on nearly 100 lbs of muscle in a few short years and was crowned the most perfectly developed man twice.
Never assume that one is strong because you think they were born that way. In my opinion, the old school methods of physical culture are far better for you health wise compared to the crap used today. Learn your history and find that it doesn't take a whole lot to learn how to be strong. Work hard, create goals, imagine yourself being strong and muscular eat good and use basic principles. Its easy to learn now as it was back then. Let me ask you this, if you didn't have your chrome and fern gyms, your little bity weights and your machines, how would you be able to turn your body into from a weak state to a muscular state? You'd be surprised on what you can find.
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