Healthy Abs

            When it comes Abdominal Training what many people think it is, is that you’re doing sit-ups, crunches and using crazy gadgets to get six pack abs. They believe if you do good ab work, you’re strong and healthy plus you look like a million bucks. Not so true. Just because you have a great waistline, ripping muscle all over the core area doesn’t mean you’re strong and healthy, some crack addicts have six pack abs.

            The real thing about having healthy abs doesn’t always concern on what’s on the outside but what is inside that counts (sorry had to use a intro line from Aladdin). A powerful core is not just muscle but the strength within the internal organs and the core isn’t just the abdominals  but the obliques, lower back and the transverse muscles all working in unison. When you isolate the abs you’re missing out on the other important muscles that tie together. Back in the early 20^th century, men like Eugene Sandow, Maxick, Otto Arco, Alexander Zass and others didn’t rely on sit-ups, crunches, machines and gadgets because they didn’t exist back then, they relied on what they were training in certain lifts, isometric contractions and Muscle Control. These men were the pinnicle of Physical Perfection and they are still admired to this day.

            Although some of the old-timers had great musculature, it wasn’t about looking great. It was about achieving strength and health from both inside and outside. You can have the most muscular abs on the planet but if you can’t move and your organs are shot than what’s the point? Some people believe if you have a 29 inch waist and weigh less than 185 lbs and are around 6’ than you’re awesome looking and have a triangular torso with mighty abs to show off, it doesn’t happen for everyone. Sit-ups and Crunches can give you some muscle but if your neck and back are weak than you’re not going to get anywhere. Believe it or not, some of the strongest and healthiest people in the world don’t have six pack abs but are still agile, flexible and supple. To get the most benefit for strong and healthy Core Strength and power it’s important to tie in as many muscles as possible throughout your training.

            To build a powerful core, you play around with exercises that target that but the whole body comes into play. Lifting odd objects, strengthening the neck and back with Bridging, doing basic Gymnastic Movements, moving like a wild animal takes a lot of core strength, contracting the abs during plyometrics to protect your back from injury and even Sprints develop powerful abs because your whole body is fired up and you need to stabilize the core as you run because if you don’t you’re wobbling and could hurt yourself. Powerful abs is not always about the look, however, like the old-timers you can have great abs and still be extremely strong. One of my friends Logan Christopher is around 6’2 and about 190 lbs. or less, that’s pretty skinny for a guy that tall but yet is one of the strongest athletes pound for pound and has an extremely powerful core with great musculature. It’s true to build a powerful body, you need a powerful Core because the muscles there give a protective shield, helping you make the most out of your training.

            I’m 5’10 and around 255 lbs. I don’t have six pack abs and quite frankly don’t really care but at the same time my core is very strong and mobile, flexible and supple. Without a strong Core I can’t fall back into a bridge, I wouldn’t be able to bear crawl efficiently, my stretching wouldn’t be that good and most of all without a strong core I couldn’t hold a bridge or do the TNT Cables/Chest Expander very well because I would collapse and my body wouldn’t be able to handle it. So you see even for a big man like myself, it’s still possible to have strong abs and still have strength to keep going. Cardio and crunches won’t help your cause, it takes real training to get what you want and it’s very basic. Start out slow and build up, believe me it feels like a dead end at first but as you get better, you’re getting closer to being strongest you can be.

            If you want six pack abs than go for it but look to old school methods to help get you there and have fun with it, if you don’t desire to have muscled up abs but still want strength you can do that too. Be awesome and kick ass on your journey wherever it is.

The Journey To Super Muscle

           We all share a certain journey in our lives, our journey starts usually when we’re born but also there is a journey where it’s not always where you’ll go in life, it could be something you want to go after. In the case of strength training, some of us in the Physical Culture world are on a journey to create Super Muscle. What is Super Muscle you might ask? Is it having a big burly body like a Mr. Olympia? Is it having the body of a Powerlifter or is it having a body that can do all sorts of things? That is entirely up to you and what your goals are. To me, Super Muscle is having a strong, powerful and enduring body and learning to use it in many ways like lifting heavy weights, doing tough bodyweight exercises kind of similar to a Gymnast and doing high octane conditioning using various tools and programs that keeps you functional and channeling your inner power.

            There are people who say because of a certain age or genetics; they can’t build a great deal of muscle mass. Not true. Sure you may not look like another Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronnie Coleman but you can build good solid and mighty muscle. Back in the golden age of Physical Culture there were men and women who at first were sickly, weak, overweight, and thin down to the bone but somehow managed to build crazy amounts of muscle and this was long before steroids and high level supplements became the stuff to build muscle. To give you an example, a man named Maxick who was a sick kid, didn't have a chance in hell in his youth to live a long and healthy life yet persevered and became a legend in weightlifting and bodybuilding by becoming one of the first men in his weight class (145 lbs.) to lift double bodyweight in the overhead press and was able to control the muscles in his body to move any which way he wanted. No matter what your age or by genetics big or small, you can create great muscle.

            In my opinion, Functional Muscle is far superior to today’s Bodybuilding type muscle. By functional I mean using your body to levels where it’s useful and can be used in a variety of everyday situations. Bodybuilding muscle is isolating specific parts of the body and not being able to use it in most everyday situations. Take for example my friend Bud Jeffries, one of the strongest men in the world (drug-free I might add) who’s around 6’1 and over 275 lbs. yet when you first look at him he doesn't look like the functional type of strongman but yet he’s extremely agile for his size, very agile and one of the most conditioned athletes of any size. He is one of the embodiments of Super Muscle.

            On your journey to develop Super Muscle, remember to work with other attributes because just building muscle isn’t always going to cut it. Learn to be agile, work on flexibility, build your balance and very importantly exercise your tendons an ligaments, they are the very foundation for your Super Muscle development otherwise you’re building useless muscles that can bite you in the ass. Here’s some ways to build Super Muscle…..

Lift Odd Objects

Practice Isometrics

Do Hard Bodyweight Exercises

Learn Muscle Control

Be Flexible

Do Thick Bar Lifting (Fat Gripz are optional to put on the bar or dumbbell)

Self Resistance Exercise

            All of these are very useful and you don’t have to do all of them, pick what works for you and run with it. Building Super Muscle isn't some thing you can get overnight, it takes time but you don’t have to punish yourself. Have fun, use your imagination and be creative. Your results will come when you make progress a little each time to make big gains. Do what works for you and have a blast with it. It’s only a matter of time before you achieve levels of strength you never believed at first but now are in your grasp.

            Picture yourself getting there, be mindful and get into the habit on never giving up what you want.

Arm Wrestling Training For A Super Grip

 Testing one’s strength has been a quest for as long as mankind has been around; fighting for survival or just sport, strength has been the test of wills through physical, spiritual, emotional and mental endeavors. One of the biggest tests for man’s ego or even to prove himself is through Arm Wrestling.

  Back in the day when internet didn’t exist and phone lines were the talk of the town plus the only entertainment you can really find was in a vaudeville theater or watching a silent movie on the big screen for a nickel a pop, people needed to do something to keep themselves interested. Men worked on the farms or in offices in the city or sometimes they became entertainers and put on acts to entertain the crowd. Kids played ball in the streets and some even took up what was called Wrist Wrestling where they gripped their hands as hard as they can and do their best to slam the other’s wrist to the table and jump for victory.

 Arm Wrestling isn’t just a full on test of grip and people will only say that if they haven’t actually done it. I’ve had my fair share of losses and very few wins to tell you it’s a hard and demanding sport where you have your whole body engaged in a tight spot and it takes just as much power to keep from getting slammed as the one doing the slamming. It makes up a powerful grip once you get the basics down and learn from a few masters here and there.

 There are many guys in the world of Physical Culture who have at one point done some Arm Wrestling and were fierce at it. One man whom I consider the Great Gama of Arm Wrestling is the heavyweight powerhouse Ian “Mac” Batchelor, no one can match the level of strength this man had in his time and his unorthodox style of training is just as hardcore as his unprecedented wins over countless opponents. Another legend in the sport is a man that just defies logic in the realm of strength and for a man his size it just seems so impossible until you actually learn what he does and that’s Dennis Rogers. He became a strongman first by becoming an Arm Wrestling champion and winning countless awards and recognition, because of that, he dove into finding things that he can destroy and tear up that no one in the world can do. The way he does things is just surreal and if you want to learn about his specialty feats check out Legendary Strength and find out his secrets to incredible grip strength.

 People have this distinct notion that if you want to be strong, you have to use a gym, hate to burst your bubble pal but most gyms can’t handle the levels of strength being presented. You can build grip without ever leaving your house or you can take it on the road with you. If there’s anyone out there today other myself, Dennis Rogers, Logan Christopher, Ryan Pitts or Bud Jeffries for that matter who can teach you the value of grip strength it’s up incoming strongman of unlimited potential is my boy Matti Marzel. He has the distinct power of having some of the toughest hands in the world, bending and snapping steel, tearing decks of cards from very odd angles and tearing up phonebooks in several pieces like tearing a piece of paper. His fingers are so strong he regularly holds himself up on his fingertips and is working on being an elite rock and rope climber and is ripped to shreds and is one of the closest to having that Bruce Lee type physique. You do not want him on his bad side and he’s no pushover in Arm Wrestling, he has on occasion taken down guys twice his size and puts them to shame with his iron cord like arms and wrists. 

 One of my secret weapons for building strength in Arm Wrestling is using my Chest Expander which you can get at LifelineUSA.com. I take this apparatus and I use fairly medium to heavy cables and use one of the handles on my door and start simulating an arm wrestling technique or match and work up to 50 repetitions as best as possible. I also work on the wrist and do curls and rows to get that edge for that specific grip and work in high repetitions so I can focus on tendon strength. This is a great device because unlike weights that uses gravity, the rubber cables is fighting back from having you extend the cables out almost similar as if you’re in a match and your opponent is keeping you from moving him.

 Another great an inspiring thing about sports or just wrestling in general is that many little guys (under 200 lbs) are extremely strong when they have the right tools to just make your jaw drop. You wouldn’t expect a small guy tearing up guys twice their size and making it look easy as pie. Never underestimate the little guy because he can hurt you and have a big smile on his face doing. Dennis Rogers has made that believable and so has guys like Maxick, Farmer Burns, Matti Marzel, Bruce Lee and others that can just give you hell.

 Working the tendons is one of the most crucial keys to your success in developing your grip and one of the best methods is doing Isometrics. Being able to hold a certain position and make it as hard as possible without ever moving teaches you how to build strength from many angles. Arm Wrestling Isometrics is one of the most fun ways to build that level of strength that just raw and powerful. Get strong and find cool ways to develop your grip to a superhuman level.

Abdominal Training For Superior Strength

When you think of Ab training, you mostly hear about crunches and little side bends and mostly isolating the Abs with little rockers and machines. This is not real world Ab strength training. Our body’s core is all the muscles of the Abdominals from below the breast line all the down just to the top of the sexual organs.

 A lot of people think if you want six pack abs you need to do this many crunches, eat less, do 100’s of side bends and whatever crap that others come up with. Not saying a six pack isn’t a bad thing but really what does it really matter when you have a washboard stomach that can’t take a punch and your organs aren’t strong enough to hold off diseases? Karl Gotch once put it that there are two types of muscles for an athlete or bodybuilder and that “Conditioned Muscle” & Counterfeit Muscle.” These two variations have obvious statements but let me clarify a little, conditioned means that it’s strong, can take a lot whether in a workout or a fight, it’s useful, functional and the organs are strong, counterfeit means basically it looks awesome but than no further than that as you can have great development but that won’t amount to anything if you’re prone to injury.

 Real Abdominal training comes from training the entire body as a unit while keeping a major focus on the Abs. If you look back over 100 years ago, the old-time strongmen had some of the most powerful Abs on the planet. Men like Otto Arco, Maxick, Sandow, Farmer Burns and others all had what would be called punch-proof Abs. Their developments were off the charts and this was long before machines and gadgets. They developed this kind of strength and power by utilizing Muscle Control, full body training, Gymnastics, various sit-ups and Deep Breathing. They became so strong that would be able to handle certain feats that were beyond their own bodyweight. This type of training didn’t take hours a day and never isolated yet some of them had muscles that are still better than the bodybuilders of today.

 One of the true kings of Muscle Control was Otto Arco of Poland. A master of abdominal training that had the ability to wrestle, lift heavy and was one of the purest acrobats in the world at that time. Many came after him but there is only one Otto Arco and unlike bodybuilders today, Arco not only looked incredible but had pure strength and power to back it up. For one of the first 3 men in history to lift overhead double bodyweight it was a real feat to be reckoned with. The ability to control any part of his body was a sight to be hold and very few then can match and chances are slim to none no one can match him today.

 Another facet of phenomenal Ab Training is the Bridge. To most the bridge is either a neck, back or a shoulder exercise but really it is an exercise that works the core to a level unlike any other. If you don’t have good solid strength in your abdominals, the bridge will be difficult to do. Holding a posture is one thing but to do lethal and acrobatic maneuvers is a whole different ball game. Ever heard of the burpee? I’m sure you have, it’s a staple of conditioning that’s practiced in many areas but what about the Bridge Burpee? This makes a regular burpee look like a cake walk as you fall into a bridge either on the hands, head/hands or head alone and you kick over and back, if you’re really athletic you would do this then stand back up. A good bridge builds functional and powerful abs and with power of deep breathing, your core will be difficult to hurt.

 A key ingredient in all of Physical Culture is one of the most neglected forms of modern training and that’s learning to breathe. We today take our breathing for granted but what if I told you that your breath is the source of all your power and strength. Breathing gives us life. We can go long periods of time without food or water but we can only hold our breath for only a few minutes before we start to give out and die. The number one secret to true core strength is in how you breathe.

 You don’t need the skills of a gymnast or the body of bodybuilder and neither do need to have the skills of a wrestler, all you need is a few minutes a day of working your body as a unit and focus on the abdominals. Muscle Control is a healthy practice as it teaches you how to use your mind and body’s connections and with basic gymnastics that anyone can learn from a humble beginner to an advanced athlete. The stronger your core inside and out, the stronger your whole body will be. Learn to take control of your body and your strength & fitness will skyrocket to levels you can’t imagine.

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.