Flex Friday

 Every now and then, I'll post up my progress and show off a bit of my results. It's never a bad thing to show what you've accomplished as long as you're being humble about it and not act like a dick thinking you're hot shit. It's never easy building muscle and your body reacts differently to various types of training. I'm proud of what I've obtained and doing my best to keep at it. That's all you can do right?

Results are what you've put into it and the outcome is what it is. I've never wanted to really look like a bodybuilder and quite frankly I don't have the discipline to look like some monster out of a comic book, I'd rather look like the old timers or at least a rugged guy that can go if needed. I didn't really start putting on any real muscle till I was in my 20's because as a teenager, I was strong in some things and did shot put and discus but I looked pretty normal and didn't have much muscle to write home about. 

As great as my results have been for me at least, I don't believe I've even peaked yet. For the most part, I just do my best to stay in shape so I can do things with my wife, friends and family like going on hikes without tiring, swim and play with my nephews in Tahoe, chop wood, play basketball, play the animal dice game with one of my nieces, climb stairs without getting blown up, go on walks, being flexible and mobile and other things. I train to enjoy life as much as possible cause this is the only one we have. 

To tell you the truth, it's not easy for me having a picture taken. As long as I can remember, there was a picture taken at every damn get together with my family on my dad's side. From family photos to random moments in time, someone took a picture of it. Most of the time I didn't smile cause it just didn't seem to work in a lot of cases, being self conscious is a bit of an understatement. I didn't start really being comfortable with my pic being taken until about 10 years ago or maybe later when I started showing my results or taking a pic with friends. My smile didn't even really come out until we took engagement photos and our engagement party. Actually now that I think about, my wife was truly the one who brought out my smile. 

When it comes to my results, I do my best to find a good angle and go with it and if I smile, great if I don't, I don't fret about it. I don't have a pretty physique, shit I'd rather look like a prime Arn Anderson or a 50's Dick The Bruiser (names you normally don't see on here). With the weight loss however, I think I've got better definition and my shoulders pop a bit more but I'll take what I can get and keep improving. 

I do love having muscle on me though, I've never been shy of that and it has protected me for a long time, kind of hard to pick on a guy up close who's got some beef on him. I bounced once for a band I knew and nobody tried me, I can handle a mosh pit as much as the next guy and going to downtown Santa Cruz at night when the crazies, hookers, pimps, gang bangers, homeless and junkies were as common as a corona, never once got jumped or robbed and the majority of the time I was walking around with no back up. Around here, it's a lot more subtle and peaceful. Don't have to worry at all cause unless you're in Spokane, WA it's not as nuts as it was when I lived in California. I don't recommend testing any theories though but it's nice to feel safe when you don't look like a bean pole or a guy that seems skittish in a weird neighborhood. 

I believe in training to not always look like a Greek God (if you wish to do that, awesome but no one around this type of blog is looking for modeling jobs) but to train so you can handle yourself if needed and have enough muscle that is tough and not brittle. Strong tendons and ligaments should always be a priority but it's not so bad to have some old school muscle on you either. 

From Isometrics to Dopa Training, Hammer Work and Animal Exercises, there's something you can do to keep yourself in top condition so you can live the best life. Keep being amazingly awesome and train accordingly. Don't forget to punch in POWERANDMIGHT for your 10% Discount at Dopamineo and get some of the best resistance bands on the market today.    

Forearm Development

          

             One of the most neglected part of the body is the lower arm. If you trained it well you have developed a powerful grip, strong tendons and your lifts can become much easier to handle. Developing the forearm can be done in many ways but not always what you think. In the magazines you see the wrist curls and reverse wrist curls and that’s just about it. Bodybuilders pump up the muscle to make it look bigger but in the end that’s all it is a pump. In the world of old school physical culture however you can develop the lower arm in ways that make bodybuilders look like little chumps.

            There are a lot of ways to get a strong and developed forearm and some of them have nothing to with isolating the muscle. Want to develop a powerful grip, work your hands in different ways like Fingertip Push-ups, Bending Steel, picking up Odd Objects and moving Partial Lifting. For Bodyweight type training, work your fingers in different exercises like pull-ups, chin-ups, Isometrics pulls and pressing into walls all of these work the lower arm like crazy. Some people like using grippers (and I’m not talking about those dumb little colored ones that has 5 pounds of pressure) which you can close for a number of reps but one of the things I've experimented with is just closing and holding it locked. If you can close the trainer/#1/#2 relatively easily it can get boring just repping it out all the time, instead, close it and see how long you can last, developing that crushing strength in a different way.

            An important look at how the forearm is developed is not always through Muscle Building. Just doing that alone is just a closed minded way to build your body and you can only build so much muscle till you get injured. However, if you work the tendons and ligaments of the hands, wrists and elbows, you’re building strength in a way that makes you more powerful and far stronger in the long run. Arm Wrestling Training really works well for forearm development because you’re building on tendon power as well as muscle. When you train in this manner, work on high repetitions somewhere up to 50 reps per arm per set. The stronger your tendons are, the stronger you will be.

            One last thing to look at for building a super strong lower arm is to use a thick bar, this puts more stress on the lower arm because you have to grip hard enough to hold on to it. Thick bars make you work far harder than a regular bar. Say you’re doing a bench press with a weight that you can do 10 good reps with a regular bar, put in a thick bar with the same weight; your reps will be cut down to about half the amount. Since thick bars are very expensive, there’s another way to make a bar thicker, grab yourself some Fat Gripz. These babies you can take to any gym and put on any normal bar or dumbbell, you can even put them on your in-home pull-up bar whatever you’d like to do to make it a little more challenging.

            With Fat Gripz and the way you train hard, you can build up more natural growth hormone and develop muscle and strength at a more rapid rate because the more of the muscle fibers break down, the more muscle gets developed and because you’re working the body at a different pace and difficulty, your strength grows later on as well. I love building strength in my grip and its fun doing something that’s out of the norm and you develop muscle an strength in a way most will never get. Take your time and remember, even Popeye wasn't born with those big forearms; he had to develop them someway. These are just ideas to give you a sense of how to create your own style of forearm development and help you achieve a level of strength that’s just insane.

Muscle Control For Arm Wrestling

You’re on the table, arm is locked and loaded for the match of your life, muscles contract and you’re ready for battle, ready, set and go.Muscle Control is one of the best forms of conditioning your body to contract and relax whenever you want. You can use Muscle Control for just about anything, even lifting an imaginary weight. In an arm wrestling match, it’s not just how strong you are or if you have the biggest arms on the planet, it’s the ability to contract the muscles needed and the strength of your tendons to keep your opponent at bay. Imagine yourself in a match and you’re teaching your body to use the specific muscles needed and eventually it becomes a full body contraction.

 The key thing to understand about Muscle Control is using the Mind/Muscle Connection that incorporates your ability to think into the muscles you want to use for whatever you want to do, in this case learning to Arm Wrestle. Now it’s important to do some Arm Wrestling training while working on Muscle Control but for now I want to teach you how to think so you can train smarter, not harder. Practicing various tension levels gives your body an opportunity to learn how to contract, the harder you contract, the less reps needed to move, the lighter, you can move more.

 

 

 Another key ingredient to using Muscle Control is another version called Isometrics. This gives your body something to learn on how to contract from different positions. In Arm Wrestling, you need to pull down from different spots in order to increase strength for that position. Pulling power is the thing that separates the men from the boys in an arm wrestling match and you have to be able to use your body from all sorts of directions. Whether for 6 seconds or for 3 minutes an isometric contraction brings in that powerful energy that keeps you strong and tight.

 Contracting on commend can be one of your biggest assets because if you’re in a match and you’ve used up enough power to where he’s about to go down, you bring in that extra source of power that just blasts his arm into the table. Practice this when you train, whether with cables or weights or even just on Muscle Control alone, learn to use your mind to find the right timing to contract and relax when needed to. Don’t always waste energy contracting so hard that you’ll pull a muscle or rip your arms out of your socket; Muscle Control takes practice and listen to your body.  You are strong both inside and outside and with practice, you can get stronger, learn to focus and imagine how strong you want to get, you’d be surprised what will come out of it.

Handstand Push-ups For Total Upper Body Strength & Power

When I got into bodyweight training I started doing it for recovery in my legs and build up to a ridiculious number of squats. After that I began finding exercises that were very difficult to do and getting up past 15-20 would be in the realm of dreams for most people so I gave the handstand push-up a try. At first I couldn't hold a handstand on the wall for more then 5 seconds before I fell on my ass. I kept at it and learned various techniques and in a short period of time I was hitting numbers that most people at my size can never imagine. It is difficult to hold a handstand let alone do 1 rep of a handstand push-up. After getting stronger in this I did a little research.

For the most part if you want to get good at start something you have to start with the basics. Some people think they're more advanced but if you asked them to do a basic thing they won't get within an inch of what they say they can do. Learning a foundation is a key to great success if you want to go beyond what you're capable of. Take my friend Logan Christopher for example, here is a guy who looks like he can be a very limber individual but if you put the 2 of us together most likely at first you'll probably guess i'm the much stronger one right? I mean hell i'm 240+ pounds and can do things not many people in the world can do but I hate to disappoint you guys but the truth is, Logan is actually pound for pound stronger then I'am and I'm not ashamed to say this.

Back to my research, I discovered many techniques on how to do handstand push-ups and tried many variations but nothing has come close to what Logan teaches in his Ultimate Guide To Handstand Push-ups Course. This book will take you through all you need to start learning the basics, intermidiate and advanced variations of the handstand push-up. After learning just a few techniques from him I've become much more aware of where I'am, where my hand placements need to be and how to make the exercise harder or easier within seconds. As far as I know I'm one of the strongest men in the world to press up his own bodyweight at a considerable heavyweight level being 240+ lbs. but that still doesn't make me the smartest man in strength and conditioning. You can be strong but in order to get there you must learn balance,corridnation, flexibility and a good amount of strength.

I will tell you right now Logan & I weren't the best at what we do at first. We had a tough road to go on but with will power and a constant founding of determination and motivation we made it through but yet we still have a lot to learn. Thats the thing with all of us is that we all have a road to go through and we all need to find a source of motivation to keep us going. Why not start with a great teacher who can help you and encourage you to do the best you can be.

In the course there will be chapters on......

Basic Handstands

Handplacements For Targeting Either Shoulders Or Arms Or Both

Wrist Exercises To Warm Up

Advanced Techniques

How To Build Iron Claws For Handstands On The Fingertips

Isometric Techniques If You're Stuck

Frequency In Doing Handstand Push-ups

Specific Workouts

& More..............

I encourage you to pick up The Ultimate Guide To Handstand Push-ups. This book will help you skyrocket your strength and it can help your pressing movements in the weight room. I firmly believe that Handstand Push-ups are one of the best exercises for gaining massive strength in the upper body and building mental toughness with your awareness and sense of Kinestetics.

Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups