More On The Bigfoot Walk Exercise

 Walking in a half or even quarter squat for an extended period of time can really fire up your legs and give that little jolt of energy. I have written recently about what the Bigfoot exercise is and how it's done. The benefits of it alone are pretty cool: It's a bit challenging but also has strong benefits for building incredible strength endurance along with powering up the tendons and ligaments especially in the knees. If you've had previous injuries or have trouble doing a squat, make that a priority before doing this exercise.

In my last article about squatting, I mentioned that when it comes to certain variations, it's better to do what gives the individual benefit more than how superior squats may be. Once you hit a certain amount of reps, where do you even go after that? You're not trying to break numbers like Gama or the legendary Karl Gotch, you're sure as hell not trying to always man up somebody over an exercise. Hitting something like 500 or more is awesome but that's not the full extent of how interesting squats can be. 

In wrestling or boxing, hell in most combat sports, you're in a certain squatting position or stance that can be closed in or have a wider base but for all intents and purposes, you're not squatting ass to grass the entire time unless it's to make an explosive move like a slam takedown or a wrap around for a suplex or some kind of set-up for a submission move. Your stance is roughly in the quarter squat position and you're shifting in various stages. Take out fighting for a second and think about how you go through bushes in a forest, you tend to squat down a little in order to efficiently move through. When a S.W.A.T team moves in on a target or has to keep a steady hand as he moves throughout a mission, he's in a particular stance for balance and effective shifting of the legs. 

When you move in this squat position that is called the Bigfoot Walk, you're training your legs to be strong and explosive when needed, it's part of a series you can find on youtube that coincides with other Animal Exercises. Walking like the Wonkavator going in various directions, you're maintaining a level of tension in the legs that can be just as effective as doing hundreds of full squats. Try it for yourself. Walk in a half squat or even a quarter squat for let's say 5 minutes and if your legs don't burn at all, than you've got some pretty strong and durable legs. Move like a wrestler or boxer and feel those legs tensing up. I started out moving in this exercise for 3 minutes a day, bumped it up to 5 for a bit and started today at 6 minutes. It gets you breathing a bit and has that TUT feel (Time Under Tension) while moving.

Yeah it looks goofy at first and seems like a silly move but when you put it into perspective on how guys like Gotch, Marciano, Ali, Mark Shultz, Dan Gable and others move in this position over an extended period of time in bouts, it gives you an idea of how powerful those legs are and make explosive movements at a moments notice and rarely get tired. Can you imagine the strength and durability your legs would be if you moved this way for even 10 minutes a day? Your legs would be hard as stones but explosive and full of stamina. For exercise purposes, only a few minutes is really needed and you don't have to be as explosive as a wrestler or boxer but it does bare some awesomeness when you can do this exercise in various ways and keep yourself strong in the process. 

This is an exercise you can do just about anywhere and if you don't have a ton of space, you can move in micro steps or hold as an isometric in various postures keeping the knees bent. Start with one minute and work your way up. Once you can go 5 minutes without standing up straight, it's a good chance you got some serious power going. 

Be strong, have fun and keep being amazingly awesome.

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Take A Walk To Get Stronger

           Walking is the simplest thing in the world. You put one foot in front of the other and you’re off. Walking is both a mind and body tool. You can lose weight by walking, you can build great ideas from walking and you can get stronger both inside and outside from walking, walking while training is a powerful tool as well. A course called Muscle Reminders has one part on how to exercise as you walk. Another great tool is Lifeline USA’s PowR Walk Pro where you use cables for your arms as you walk an alternative to using little dumbbells. There’s always a way to make yourself strong as you walk.

            The one exercise I’ve been experimenting with lately is the farmer’s walk. This exercise consists of one or 2 objects that you pick up and start walking with whether it be kettlebells, dumbbells, gripping a sand bag in each hand or whatever. I like to use buckets because it’s cheap and easy to set up. You can get a bucket at just about any hardware store as big as you need it. I got my buckets at Wal-Mart for about 5 bucks each and they’re huge. I feel it up with water and a rock/stone I have around the yard. I get it set up and grip the handles then pick up and start walking around the yard. The weight comes out to 123 lbs. total and it’s brutal.

            To make the farmer’s walk more of a challenge, I use my Fat Gripz and attach each one to the handles. Now this makes things more brutal and it will get you breathing hard quick even more than if you just used the handles. Imagine picking up that much weight with the handles being thicker and needing to grip harder just to keep from dropping them. Some use a little pipe to attach and that’s great too if you want but I like the fat gripz because they’re available right there.

            Building mighty hands while walking is pretty bad ass in my book. This helps build your grip like crazy especially if you’re in sports or a weightlifter/strongman or whatever you’re into. Grip strength is essential for overall development and when you use thicker handles your body goes into overdrive and you can be breathing harder faster than usual. You don’t need weights but if you got em, go for it but using simple tools can also be beneficial and can cost you far less money and still get more bang for your buck. Take a walk on the wild side and utilize it to build strength, get in great condition and develop stamina like a madman.