Flow Through Your Workouts

Going hardcore in a workout isn't always a bad thing and people just push themselves to the brink of collapse is the boost to their ego; but going hardcore doesn't always mean you should a lot of the time unless it "may be" a micro workout of some sorts. Flowing through a workout where you're challenging yourself but it feels to you almost effortless is one of the coolest things you can do.

These days because of the inspiration from Vahva Fitness, my brain has been fiddling with ideas and coming up with flows and combos, learning the flow routines from Vahva and developing better flexibility and agility with great energy and enthusiasm. It's almost like the excitement never stops and have used specific flows for my flexibility, conditioning and coordination. Taking a few exercises and putting them together to create something fun to do is what is keeping me coming back.

My favorite exercises to use in my flow training are the Over Reach, 180 Degree Jumps and the Scorpion. Utilizing these three with other exercises and you've got a hell of a foundation. I even will use them in a freestyle manner where they randomly go with other exercises in a workout where I come up with exercises on the spot. This routine I do here, would be considered freestyle since I didn't have the exercises in a specific order and was coming up with stuff at the top of my head.

Some workouts I'll just do a couple moves and just switch from one to the other like this demo of the Scorpion & Over Reach Combo to work my flexibility and coordination. One exercise I've learned lately that I'm still figuring out how to do properly is called in Vahva Fitness the King Crab. It's not an impossible move but to coordinate it and move in the manner can challenging since you're up off your heels and walk sideways. I did a video of just Holding The Position in an Isometric format to build strength so when I do more of the movement, I'm use to being in that position. I like to use themes every now and then and this move made me think of a scene in Fantastic Beasts: The Secret Of Dumbledore where the main protagonist has to go through a cave and these "Fire Crabs" are ready to strike him and he has to move like them to distract them. 

 When it comes to conditioning, flows can have a profound impact depending on how you do them. When you use jumping movements or crawls in a sprint like fashion while quickly switching from one thing to another can really fire up the lungs. A workout I did yesterday was a combo of the Scorpion, Over Reach and Bear Crawling. Do the first two moves than do a 5-10 yard crawl and walk back and repeat for as many rounds as possible. I did about 10 and that was enough. When you get out of breath, walk it off until it has subsided and keep going, don't sit down or bend over and heave, breathe deeply and keep things flowing. Vahva also has great workouts that target various muscle groups but also shows you step by step how to do a flow properly and progress by adding speed and smoothness. 

Another great combo that will get you out of breath is just crawling and jumping as in Crawl for a distance, get into a squat and do a 180 degree jump or just a regular frog jump and crawl back. Do that for 30 seconds to a minute and you'll be panting like crazy. You can see the video of that below. Workouts should never be boring and moving from one thing to another fast is a great way to get you going. Bodyweight Training is more than just simple pushups, squats, pullups and lunges; you can create things and open up a whole other door to exercising that is limitless and full of curiosity. 

If you really want the complete package and take on a whole plethora of challenges, flows, athletic specialization and conditioning programs, check out the Trinity Bundle from Vahva and combine them for workout regimens that will test even the most elite athletes. Be strong, get conditioned and be amazingly awesome. 

Animal Documentaries And Their Inspiration To Move Like A Wild Beast

Sometimes, watching TV can be a good thing, especially when it comes to true stories or documentaries. I'm a sucker for a good documentary if it's on Aliens, Baseball, Nature, Serial Killers or Ancient History. It fascinates me whether some of it is a little fabricated or twisted around but there's always some form of truth in there. Nature Docs are one of my favorites and have several in a collection from the Planet Earth Series, Dynasties, the study of Primates, Wolves and others. 

If anything, they inspire me to train like an animal in the wild. Just getting up and crawling, jumping or flat out mimic an animal just for the hell of it. Certain streaming services these days are actually pretty cool especially with Nat Geo on Disney+ or the Nature Docs on Netflix because it's not just trash TV or movies or countless shows but being able to actually learn a thing or two and have some fun in the process. I've seen practically every Nat Geo show on Disney+ from The Wild Series to White Wolves, Primal Survivor and Docs on Animals in America. Every time I watch them, I want to get up and go play as a wild animal.

Animal Docs aren't just to teach the behaviors and seasonal rituals animals have but also showcase the landscapes and homes they build, the bonds they develop, the playful fighting amongst cubs, the way they battle each other and how powerful they can truly be. Would you ever get in the middle of a fight between big horns, tigers, bears, bison or elk? As humans, we're the only species that can take in very close quarters of a fight and live to talk about it most of the time, but if humans were even within 100 yards of a fight between testosterone fueled wild animals, you'd be lucky to even still be breathing. Imagine two fully grown bears that weigh up to 1500 lbs at best just whaling on each other, would you even be dumb enough to get within 50 feet of them? You would either have to have nerves of steel or just have some kind of Death Wish.

The closest I've seen to a fight between animals was wild deer outside my garage window and it wasn't even a full on battle, just messing with each other, if it got out of hand, glass shattering and walls broken would be inevitable. I've also seen a teenage moose strolling in the backyard once and it made a normal size horse look small. It's incredible what we are able to observe but even more incredible to develop our bodies using natural resources to build strength, athleticism, stamina, flexibility, explosiveness, conditioning and other major attributes using our own bodyweight, pushing/lifting rocks, carrying logs, taking down trees, dragging something heavy and anything else in between.

Crawling, Jumping, Balancing, Sprinting and other movement patterns create the natural order of what the human body is capable of. We crawl as babies, we jump onto things, we develop awareness that helps us balance and we become explosive and channel that flight or fight mode. As adults, we don't always crawl as much as we had to as little ones, jumping improperly has led to many injuries and/or fatalities and most of the time, sprint either for recreation or if we're being chased down. As we got older, being natural dwindles and we let age and our faults define us and consume us. Even if we utilize nature even a little bit, there's still some of that order left in the world. Learn to crawl again, play like an animal in the wild, have fun in your exercise and use your imagination. 

We need to realize we're part of nature too and sure we'll always be far more advanced than a wild animal but that doesn't mean we can't learn from them and use nature as a way to strengthen ourselves physically and mentally. Their specific skill sets are extremely powerful and jaw dropping and if we even used a smidge of that to make ourselves stronger as a species, think about the good that can come out of that.  

What Is My Fascination With Tarzan????

             Ever since I was little watching guys like Arnold, Stallone, Ford, Van Damme, Jet Li, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and others, I always wondered what a picture perfect athlete would be like. Yes I even got a kick out of Brendan Fraser in George Of The Jungle being a Tarzan wanna-be. As I got older and transitioned from a weightlifter to a bodyweight guy I loved the way certain athletes moved through the air like a gymnast or an acrobat in the circus and how they’re built not like a bodybuilder but like a real and graceful athlete. In reality (contradiction I know) Tarzan to me is the picture perfect athlete.

            The beauty of Tarzan’s development is that he is forced to adapt to his environment in the jungle, swinging, climbing, moving in awkward positions and being free out in the open. There have been a lot of Tarzans in films over the years from Johnny Weissmuller to George Scott to even the original Highlander Christopher Lambert. To train is to think and very rarely you see that today in your commercial gyms and health spas because too many people just go through the motions, hop on the treadmill reading a book or watching TV, even blasting their ipods while lifting weights not even paying attention at times to what they're doing.  

            When it comes down to it, they say the lion is the king of the jungle but I believe when it comes to sheer power, size, forced to adapt and having the most powerful grip strength pound for pound are the primates like Apes and Monkeys. You won't see a lion swing through trees jumping from place to place, he'll run, chase and wrestle you to the floor but an Ape can crush your bones just by squeezing them and have tendon strength that most animals don't have. The Wrestlers of the Jungle are the Gorillas and Chimps, the acrobats are the Gibbons and smaller primates. They move with power yet with grace at the same time. Yes they're structure is a little different but yet we can adapt to what can work for us.

            Training shouldn't be a hassle or something you need to punish yourself with but what it can be is an adventure. Think about it, being out in the open, having fun, putting yourself in different situations with practical application and having the time of your life. If you can't get outside due to bad weather or there’s trouble out or whatever, you can still have fun inside and maybe not move so much like a wild animal but adapt to what you have and the space you have to do what you can. Karl Gotch once said “adapt and improvise” this meant that you can do things anywhere at anytime but yet improvise with what you have to make use of what you can do. Be open to ideas and have some fun.

            As some of you know, one of my favorite styles of training is moving like an animal in the jungle, stalking its prey, jumping and speeding up on an object, using my imagination to make things more exciting. As of late I've been trying different things and one of them is a system called MovNat which is using only your body and the environment to create different situations which are used in crawling, jumping, running, lifting, climbing and carrying different things to build your body from adaptation. Erwan Le Corre is the founder of this type of training and is one of the fittest guys in the world today. It’s pretty interesting considering some of the things he does is almost a spitting image of Tarzan. Check out some of his Youtube stuff. It gives you a different perspective to how you move and put yourself in different ways to adapt and improvise in a practical and safe way.