Progression For Improvement...Not Taking Your Body To The Limit

When I finally got out of the hospital after the three surgeries on my legs, I was cleared to start rehabbing. For those that don't know my story, you can find it in the archives of the blog. What i'm about to say might piss people off and even may confuse them to what they were "taught" at the gym by those so called "experts" that tell you the only to get better at something is to push the limits. For the most part at least in my experience is complete bullshit and I don't care what your reaction is, I'm telling it from my point of view and outlook on my philosophy.

Training early on in my self-rehab was a pain in the ass, i'm not going to lie, it hurt and I couldn't do much but I never pushed it to the absolute limit otherwise i'd be back in the hospital. I started out doing only squats, push-ups and bridging; couldn't do jack for squats, barely can handle a few push-ups and was nowhere near my nose touching the mat. I instinctively learned how to progress through those exercises without pushing myself too hard. I was determined to improve my body's ability to heal and progressed little by little everyday without fail and why? Because if anyone was going to screw it up I rather have it be me than putting a burden on some Physical Therapist. I believed down into my soul that I was going to improve. Once I hit greater numbers I moved on to other forms o exercise and training and used that same philosophy of progression.

The truth is, the more you push to the limits the greater the consequences become to get injured, out of commission and doing something you'll end up regretting. I get it that you want to find out how far you can take it and in a certain period of time. It's human nature to test the limits and when it comes down to it in certain situations we either go all out for a specific purpose or something else. Our bodies are very well equipped with a natural healing, cooling, heat & nervous system but if we compromise those natural settings, how can we properly function in good, solid health? When you progress through natural productivity and mindfulness with the intuition to listen and feel how your body reacts when it is starting to reach its peak you're starting to see the bigger picture. Its very difficult to control how our Adrenaline hits and we are so pumped we forget what's going on in our body and lose sense of what's happening in our surroundings.

I've taken my body to heights I had never experienced as a teen so since I was 21 years old I've hit levels of strength some people I know thought was ridiculously impossible; like being able to one-arm hang on your weak arm at far over 200 pounds is no easy feat, it doesn't look like much but when you had an illness that nearly killed you and switched your brain chemistry that hit the nerves in your body it becomes rather miraculous. How about not being able to do one pull-up at 18 to do multiple reps by 22, do over 20 handstand push-ups in a row with only less than a few weeks of handstand training, go from hurting after 10 squats to doing over 1000 in less than 6 months after surgery. This isn't to brag or show off my accomplishments, its to remind you that if you're willing to progress with intent and belief on improving yourself, you don't need to push the limits. Progression unlocks the door to ultimate strength and doing so as injury-less as possible. Pushing your limits in my opinion 95% of the time will make you weaker than stronger because you can only be so strong or fast or endured for a short period of time.

I hear about all those injuries people put themselves through with some of those crossfit workouts where there is no regard for safety, recovery and progression and just bust through regardless of your body's ability. It's not just crossfit, its other areas as well. In sports, military, law enforcement and survival training are the only true areas where pushing to the limits is in my regard because they train that way in order to fulfill a requirement of specific conditioning, training and mental toughness that the rest of the population can't seem to comprehend. We are taught to train the same as pro athletes or world-class military men and women and that's not practical. Train to improve, not to go balls out because it looks cool. The body is not meant to be put on that level of stress and if you believe you can train the same as these high level athletic people than you're more naive than I thought; even the highest level of athletic and tough people have gotten injured, broken bones, killed during drills & even have made multiple mistakes where it cost others either lives or other problems.

Progress through your own area of mastery with the intent to become stronger, faster and more endured on natural levels of the body's abilities to be strengthened, recovered, levels of stress (Physical & Mental) and the functioning of your brain. That's right your brain is affected in how you train because if you push too hard regardless of what you can do, the brain sends waves into the nervous system and will break down your ability to function by the stress of your organs, tendons, joints, ligaments and muscles you keep trying to build. When you progress through realistic application and the will to improve; overtime you will learn to deal with greater stress, your organs can flow with greater ease in advanced levels of training, the strength in your brain can send more powerful neurons into your body to deal with greater strenuous holds or movements and your joints can take more physical demands. When you push the limits, its going to peak whether you like it or not and your body will begin to break down starting with your nervous system, keep pushing, your tendons can split and you'll break out pieces of what's holding you together in the first place, keep pushing even further, your organs will break down and by then if not beforehand you could die and for what, just so you can be the tough man in his big boy pants?

Be smart about your training regardless of what it is; you are one person with one body that sheds the same blood as the rest of us. Do what works for you but also listen to your body. Push it on a scale that helps you get better without hurting yourself or going to failure. Don't throw your body away just because you wanted to be a big shot and wear the big boy panties, strengthen to become better not to grow weaker.    

Isometrics & The Animals

Got back into Isometrics lately doing the Self Resistance style pitting muscle against another muscle so I can put on some definition. This is mostly due to changing things up and getting my mind out of boredom. No I'm not giving up on my animal exercise but I might tone it down to a few times a week instead of everyday because as much as I love it I get bored easily.

Making a certain method an integral part in your training can possibly enhance your strength and conditioning so that's where the Isometrics come in. It hits your muscles from a static position with max effort or at near max effort. Most don't realize that this particular method is one of the most difficult to concentrate on because unlike moving your body or a weight, your focus needs to be on point of the muscles you're pushing or pulling. Next to Sprints, Isometrics are the next best thing to burning off fat and building dense muscle plus being able to do it wherever you want.

Doing Animal movements can be taxing so its important to know when to back off and keep your joints healthy and your tendons strong. Some animals you can do everyday but a number of them require jumping or brachiating and that is something to watch out for if you're not used to it. Its fun as hell but you got to protect your body too. I took a day off of animal stuff due to some crazy weird thing with my right foot, just walking on it felt like a crowbar hit it so I stepped back but didn't stop training, just went a different route.

Animals do Isometrics too but not like us humans where we are so damn analytical; animals use a natural state of it to survive in some cases like the Sloth when he holds on to a tree branch; you know how much strength you need just to hold in that position for a period of time? Its crazy. The big cats when they stretch, they flex every muscle in their body, ants hold up to 50x their body weight as they carry food to their home; that's pure isometric strength there.

Do some Isometric Exercise and you can't go wrong.

New Influence By Superhero Beast Boy

Unless you're a hardcore DC Comics Reader and a fan of Teen Titans, not many know about the young superhero Beast Boy. I just learned about him a couple days ago while watching the new DC Animated Movie Justice League Vs. Teen Titans. Hell of a story and one of the best coming of age stories I've seen in a while. The one character that caught my eye that I believe stole the show was the young and green skinned kid named Beast Boy (real name Garfield). His power is the ability to transform into any animal that he has seen whether illustrated or up close; that to me is one hell of a superpower and has struck me in the heart because I love doing animal type movements.

How he got his powers is more tragic than awesome; growing up with parents that practically abused him and ended up contracting a disease that is deadly to any animal including humans except for a West African Green Monkey. The only way the kid can be saved was by being injected with a serum that turned him into a Green Monkey to wear off the deadly virus.  Unknowingly, this cured him but with a heavy price as it kept his green skin from ever turning back to its natural color and surprisingly gave him the ability to morph into any animal of his choosing through his mind. Some good came of it as he went on a path to make something of himself and join up with a group of kids that were a team of basically the younger version of The Justice League the Teen Titans.

For nearly a decade I've practiced different styles of Animal Movements that always has me running back to no matter what I tried otherwise. It has become a part of me to practice this form of exercise and conditioning; my love for it grows everyday and I do my best to get better and be in better shape for it, its the only form of exercise that is fun to me and it's helped shape my philosophy towards fitness in general. Learning about this Superhero just hit me like a strike of lightning, I find myself drawn to this character because like him when I set my mind to an animal I start moving like one, the only drawback is I can't morph into one like him which makes me a bit jealous but what can you do.

The ability to become an animal as you see fit is a very awesome thing to do; in the real world we can't have that luxury but we can adapt to move like one and picture ourselves in our minds to be that animal. Imagine having the strength of a gorilla, the speed of a cheetah, the endurance of a tiger & the agility of a gibbon; being able to hone your body's abilities to strengthen your muscles from the most awkward angles and moving with crisp precision of a wild animal. Just seeing this Superhero and having that ability has now convinced me that moving like an animal is my destiny and embrace it more than any other method. I don't mind lifting heavy weight from time to time, smashing a tire with my Thor Hammer or slamming a Sandbell to the ground but nothing compares to moving like a wild animal. It gives me greater purpose in my fitness journey and allows me to be free without stricting to a single method of rules and sets/reps that determines strength or endurance.

Move like an Animal & you can't go wrong......

Animal Kingdom Conditioning: Survival Of The Fittest
Animal Kingdom Conditioning 2: Call Of The Wild
(Get The Kids Involved) Wild Animal Fitness For Kids
Animal Workouts DVD
Animal Flow 2.0

Not Just Primate Muscle

Many love to see muscles whether big or small on a man. For the most part, being muscular in a realistic sense (not bodybuilding muscles of today) can make you look intimidating but never underestimate the power of what's within your muscles. To me muscles are cool to look at from time to time on some people but in the end, I always wonder if there's real strength behind those muscles? Believe it or not a small portion of the muscle building world has very strong people. The reason why is not just the muscles but the strength of the tendons and ligaments that truly hold the muscles together.

Since I've talked about animal moves lately I should warn you that when you train this way, you'll build muscle but not grotesque looking muscle and you'll be strengthening your joints and the tendons throughout your movements. This builds functional muscle or what I call Primal Muscle. This goes beyond the world of muscle muscle muscle and digs deep into the cortex of your body's natural order of things. Building Primal Muscle takes work, a lot of work but it doesn't have to be boring and dull, it can be fun, exhilarating and very unconventional.

When you strengthen your tendons, you're strengthening the entire core of your physical structure and over time your body begins to change; abs begin to show, denser muscle begins to appear in your shoulders, arms, back, feet & legs, solid power in your fingers, elbows, ankles and knees plus new found flexibility and stamina. You won't see the type of muscle that's in a magazine where it's painted, brushed & photo-shopped, there will be real useful muscle that can be used in any situation and can amplify your way in sports, military, law enforcement & competition. Some of the very best athletes & personnel have used animal moves to build speed, power & intense strength and you can do the same.

Work & play towards developing primal muscle that is useful, practical and realistic. Doesn't matter how old you are whether just a little kid burning off energy or someone older wanting to relive their youth in a different format it is possible when you do the moves that suit you and your goals. Kids love imitating animals and don't care how goofy they look and people who want to do something fun will test out different things. Build Primate Muscle folks, its an adventure.

Daily Animals

Regardless of your training whether for competition, conditioning, strengthening or developing a highly good looking physique there always should be an animal you aught to do between workouts or on your days off. Animal training builds the muscles in different positions that other exercises can't touch. That's because most exercises have an up and down, side lift position as oppose to an animal exercise that hits you from so many angles its not even funny. When I do other workouts like circuits, bridging, VRT or whatever I do my best to move around like an animal the rest of the day because I love to move and keep my body energized.

People like to cram their workouts within a short period of time (an hour or less) and that's fine more power to you but I feel regardless of time, do little things throughout the day so you stay freshed until you're ready to pass out at bed time. When I travel and am around people I don't always have time for a major workout until its night time; I make it a point to exercise no matter what I'm doing, do some work while waiting at the airport, do some jumping movements before my family photoshoot back in march, do isometrics at a restaurant while waiting or in between eating my food. Unless you're at a job 24/7 you can make time to exercise regardless of how busy you are.

Do something for me this week or during your current regimen, on your days off or in between sets of your exercise, do one animal that you like for 5 minutes; it can be 1 minute here or there, 5 minutes straight, 2 min. in the morning, 1 min. in the afternoon and 2 min. at night or however you do within a total of 5 minutes. If that animal is too difficult for you, do bear crawls or hop like a frog in place I don't care, you only have to do one animal for 7 days straight. Build a habit of doing something different that you don't normally do or haven't done before. Don't just rush into an advanced movement, start slow, get the mechanics down, learn the awareness of your body's positioning.

Animal movement is far better for you than those machines at the gym, sure they're good from time to time but unless you're in rehab or plan on doing a bodybuilding comp, stay away from the machines as much as possible and use your natural body to move. Its scary and it may look silly but you know what, you might burn off more fat and build denser and defined muscles just by moving your body around for a few minutes in different directions. This gives you a complete outlook of being an overall trainee. To learn more about animal style training check out my Wild Kingdom section at ben-bergman.branded.me. Get your daily animal in, no matter what. Have fun and be safe.