Animalize Your Exercise

 What do a tiger, a gorilla, a spider and a kangaroo all have in common? Every one of them is super S-T-R-O-N-G. Do you see a gym anywhere in the wild, no and so how do these animals stay fit and powerful? Simple answer because they have to be for survival and to take down what their food is for the next few days. They scratch, claw, climb, maneuver and have super strong tendons to boot. If there’s anything we should imitate it’s the strength of a wild animal.

 Am I saying weights aren't worth it, of course not they have their place but unless you have a truck, I highly doubt you’ll be able to travel with heavy equipment. Animal training is the type of fitness that can be done just about anywhere at any time. To get the best out your training, start where you’re at even if it’s taking little steps, you learn to progress. Once something becomes easier, challenge it at that level. People talk about doing 30 minutes of cardio and an hour of weights 3x a week and maybe throw in some of that aerobics crap that has god awful club music in the background.

 Want to know how many hours a week I train for the things I do, it’s not 10 hours, not 6, def not 4, it’s less than 2 hours and this goes on all week long. Training with this type of duration gives you rest, plenty of time to recover and still be able to do things you love to do, isn't it fun to gain than the average person?

 Kids today have it worse than when I was a kid. Back in the 90’s, there were issues like heart disease and such but obesity wasn't at a high level of concern, once I left high school, that’s when the obesity generation blossomed, it’s not on adults anymore, more and more children and teenagers develop bad habits. When I graduated high school almost a decade ago, Ipods barely were getting off the ground, ipads didn't exist, Myspace was the top social network and texting wasn't that big yet, today these kids have way too many privileges and don’t have the right sense of earning those privileges.

One of my biggest concerns for these kids is the way they socialize, half the time they’re texting friends but when their sitting next to them, they get bullied on Facebook and deal with pressures of having the newest cool gadget while trying to look cool for their peers. Damn sad if you ask me. Teaching the kids how to exercise not for punishment but for fun and learning how to push yourself productively and safely.

One of my mentors Matt Furey let his song Frank watch Winnie The Pooh but Frank had to earn that privilege so Matt tells him “Do your exercises first, pick ones you want to do an how many reps and when you’re done you can watch your movie.” Frank was hesitant at first but he did it and was proud of himself and was so excited to finally put on the movie. That to me is wicked cool because you’re not punishing your kid or forcing him to do it but if he/she wants something bad enough, sometimes they’ll have to earn it but encourage them to choose what they can do. It teaches how to accomplish something, it sets boundaries, rules and structure without making it look like you’re in hell.

 A child is already fit when it’s born, it’s very flexible and is learning on it’s own to strengthen themselves. As we get older, we lose sight of how we can stay fit and healthy; you start eating too much junk food, not enough exercise, no play time and rarely socialize anything with a pulse. Teaching the Way Of The Animal at a young age can set the tone for what they can develop, better brain power, strengthen muscles, define motor skills, productive competition, learning a sense of accomplishment, bring up self-esteem if you’re depressed, more relaxed if you’re hyper and create a better physical, emotional and spiritual state.

 Another component of training like a wild is something we've all striven to find, freedom. You’re out in the open and free to move and have fun while building your body to its natural state of muscular development and breathing deeply for a higher form of super endorphins. There are many ways to train like an animal, you can play tag, roll a dye, treat them as cartoons, train for 5 minutes or 1 hour it’s up to you that are true freedom. A key to freedom is to not analyze the workout hell don’t call it a workout call it going out and play, pick the way you want to do it and run with it, don’t worry how bad you are or if the other guy is better, just have fun and imagine yourself in the wild.

One of the beauties of being human is that we have a certain set of hormones. Men have Testosterone, Women have Estrogen and we learn how to balance these hormones for optimal results. As we get older, our hormones begin to go down by as much 5% a year by age 30, I still think its 25 but I could be wrong. In order to keep a balanced hormone levels we train according to our levels some people train hard and fast, others train mostly with for form and endurance but the principles still applies and because of Animal Training, it helps build those hormones we need to keep looking naturally young, have a spring in their step, live with confidence and happiness and if you’re looking to keep that spark with your significant other, it’s not a bad idea to train like an animal and fool around like an animal.

A lot of people look at exercise as a punishment or something they feel they have to or just don’t do it all. This type of thinking is why people hate to exercise and feel they won’t get results. Instead of thinking this way, shift gears a little just a little. Start with what you can do, instead of going through the motions like a robot, think as if you were that animal, you’re either running from a predator or catching your prey, picture as if you’re a gorilla defending your community, an ibex climbing the highest of mountains with ease, feeling graceful like a heron and one of my favorites a Mandrill just looking it was carved from granite with powerful washboard abs and the strength to break a man’s wrist if you grabbed it. Imagination is a beautiful thing to practice and using it with animalized training makes it that much more fun and exciting.

Last but not least about the great benefits of moving like an animal is that it’s very simple, just imitate as if you saw a wild animal at the zoo or on TV. Granted there are moves far beyond our limits but the ones we can use can give us strength that the average human can’t fathom. Never need to over analyze how you should move and which arm or leg goes where and if you can only move either straight or sideways, just do go with it, you’re learning to use muscles you normally don’t know that are there. Simple is better period. Give it a chance. Train with kids if you have them because whether they know it or not they crave structure and want to learn how to be better people and this can help that in ways that I can never explain. Have fun, be yourself and get your ass happy because nothing is more sacred than being happy.

Kids & Exercise

When you’re a baby, everything is new to you and you explore all sorts of things. Babies are the most observant at this stage of life. As things progress, you begin to crawl, stand, take a few steps than before you know it, you’re off and running. As we get older, we lose sight of being observant and wanting to explore and new things.

 “The world is a mighty big place” which was said by great author and Physical Culture specialist Brooks Kubik. As we get older, the ability to learn increases but the will to learn is very different. Exercise should be one of those frontiers that needs to be explored as much as possible to see what works for us and what doesn’t, gives us the best results, helps us recover after a hard workout and what to use to make our bodies stronger. Wild animals are no different except for the fact they don’t know or even realize that they’re training. A young cub or ape learns its environment through movement and observing the surroundings plays with its own kind to train them for survival.

 Getting older is something we can’t control but we can also grow younger by using the right mindset. Taking a lesson from Peter Pan who never grew up (Unless you saw the movie Hook), he gave us the chance to see what it’s like to have fun and smile with the best of intentions also fighting for what we believe in. My best friend’s dad is the ultimate grown up kid in my opinion and although he lives a responsible life helping his wife and having raised 4 kids, he still treats everyday as if it were a kick ass day (most of the time).

 Training like a wild animal teaches both kids and adults how to have fun and not worry of just exercising but making it worth while and get to explore new ideas of movement and wonder. Kids today need more of that structure than ever before because of the rise in obesity and children not getting enough exercise in both school and out of school. When I was a kid going to daycare, I ran around all the time and playing with the other kids and doing wild and crazy imaginative stuff, I still get to do that for myself now in my late 20’s and still wanting to explore and shoot for new ideas to play around with.

 Kids deserve to be healthy and strong and teaching them a structured form of exercise is not only to keep them from getting diseases like heart problems and diabetes but exercise has been shown to increase the strength of the brain which means they can grow smarter in certain cases so the blood flow is just right. You don’t even have to tell them its exercise it’s more like play and adults can learn this too. Play tag, race, and create an obstacle course or whatever you’d like to do but also do it with them. Family exercising is a great thing to do not just to help you get in shape but for your kids as well and only needing a few minutes before they play video games or watching TV. There are kids however that have certain issues like a disability or are hyper even at a low self-esteem and exercise can help balance those things out.

 Nap time is crucial for a child’s development when it comes to growth and giving the adult some time to relax, put the kid through a little animal exercise by helping him pick out his favorite animal, play with him and sooner or later he’s going to want to sleep whether he likes it or not.  Children need structures but it doesn’t need to have corporal punishment or as a way of torturing the kid but to help him enjoy his disciplines and giving him/her the chance to learn responsibility in a safe and fun manner. It’s all about giving them what they deserve without them ever knowing it.  

Gorilla Power & Creating Animalistic Strength

Lions are known as the kings of the Jungle but I feel the incredible hulks of the Jungle are of the Gorilla. Gorillas have strength that surpasses more then 10x of the strongest men. Yes they're structure is different when it comes to walking but yet with chimps they're the closest to us humans, they have hands, they have feet and have torsos that resemble a human. They walk different because they're arms are longer then their legs and need to adapt to walking on their hands.

I personally feel that if we were to get strong then we need to reverse evolution from our modern methods of today. Today in most fitness circles we can't compare to the old school ways of training and that's most likely a good thing. Today we have people who are more overweight then any other time in world history, we have gyms that have just lost its roots to whats really important and looking good and being overly cautious has taken over. Very few of those that know the real secrets to strength & health look to what the animals and early men have done to become strong. Animals don't lift weights and try showing off their muscles, they use their strength to survive and early men strived to survive harsh weather conditions and move boulders to help shield themselves and swam to catch fish, run as hard as they can to get away from predators and used spears to kill their food of some of the wildest beasts of the time.

Getting strong using weights has its own benefits but modern trainers make it look like a joke and those old-timers from the golden ages of strength would be rolling in their graves. If you're going to use weights, do the simplest one's and stick with that, Presses, Pulls, Abs, Grip Work and basic leg training is all you'll ever need. Isolating muscles is only good for one thing and that's rehab other then that it's useless. When it comes to weights, the simpler, the better...Dumbbells, Barbells, Kettlebells and a few odd objects here and there is all you'll ever need.

When you learn to become strong, its best to look at not only the muscles of the strongest animals or the strongest of humans but take a good look of how strong the tendons are. I'd say the best animals with the strongest tendons are Gorillas and Wild Cats because they have to reach, climb, crush and pounce while defending against predators and/or fighting for food. It's better to pull a muscle than tear a tendon. Huge difference between the 2. Pulling a muscle recovers quicker, tearing a tendon however can put you out of commission a lot longer because the tendons are the things that help keep the skeletal structure together while the muscles are the tissues that cover the skeletal structure. Tendon strength creates a chain reaction of how strong you really are. Take a bodybuilder for example in this day and age. He's more into building muscle so he can look as big and powerful as possible but does little to no training in the tendons and chances are he's going to get injured quicker then any other athlete including fighters and major sporting athletes.

Developing Ape strength without weights is very simple an doesn't take that much time to learn or do. Look at the basic things they do, climb, walk, pull, push and move in awkward positions. Learning basic elements in their evolution can help you become 3x stronger then the average human. This of course means you won't build the strength that they do because its the way their structured and their nature is used but that doesn't mean we can't adapt. Some of things they do might seem silly but if you're open minded and look at another prespective you might realize that you can become stronger using those so called "silly" stuff.

The only time you'll ever see an Ape lifting weights is if researchers experiment to find out how strong they are in that area and if you see some knucklehead meatball of a bodybuilder trying to lift some weird looking weight. Apes carry strength that makes most weightlifters look like chumps and who's to say we can't try to imitate and build superior strength ourselves. We can really learn the true secrets of creating Animalistic Strength with the simple points of observation, experimenting and adapting. In the world of fitness it's not a bad thing to turn reverse evolution and become the strongest person we can be.

Bear Crawls

The bear is the largest land carnivore in the world. It is one of the most powerful animals in the wild and its strength is so extrodinary that it can snap a man's back with the strike of his paw. Pushing boulders like its child's play. Wouldn't it be awesome to have that kind of power and strength? I as an athlete would like to think so. Of course we can never have that kind of power and speed but we can become stronger then the average wo/man. All you have to do is get on all fours and begin to run, now be careful we don't want to be tripping over but this exercise alone can increase your cardiovascular conditioning to levels that are out of this world. It is one of the most simple exercises but yet most people don't appreciate the benefits of it. Your HGH levels jump up giving you that inner strength and power and ferocious lung power and because it makes you breathe hard you'll be burning fat like a furnace and only doing this for a few min. each day can get you in awesome shape. Its better to do this outdoors because of the space but if the weather is bad its not a bad idea to do it indoors and have a little fun. Just make sure you don't knock anything over. If you have kids do it with them not only is it having fun but they're getting their exercise in and thats what we need to have our kids doing more often to get rid of obesity. Picture yourself as a bear and moving and chasing down a rabbit for dinner. Once you get into the mindset the results will become much quicker and much more efficiant.