Posts Comments

What Business Am I In?

May 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The text for this post came from a speech I gave last week to my BNI (networking) Group…

what-business-are-you-really-in

You may think you know and understand the business I am in, being that I own a gym.  Perhaps you think I am in the business of helping people lose weight, or get in shape (whatever that means).  Or, maybe the business of helping people get stronger or improve athletic performance.  You would be wrong.  Certainly those things are components of what I do, but they are not the complete picture.

Without stepping on the toes of my friends in the financial planning and life insurance industries, I will unapologetically tell you I am in the business of Long Term Care.  How can I say that?

Fat loss, muscle gain, increases in flexibility, mobility, and performance are not end goals, in and of themselves.  They are ALL merely byproducts of better movement.  Whether you are an athlete, martial artists, soccer mom, or business man, and everyone in between, better movement will always equate to better performance, better body composition, and better health.

Exercise Improves Life

Exercise improves all facets of life.  People who exercise regularly are better at their jobs, kids do better in school, they get sick less often, and in general have much higher levels of energy and health.  Exercise does not just improve your biceps, it improves your brain.  That pump you feel in the muscle when doing a curl is caused by blood flow.  That blood flow is not isolated, that is physiologically impossible – it increases all throughout the body, including the brain.  Think about this – your head is roughly 1/8 of your entire body.  If you simply sit at a desk and work with your mind all day long, no matter how smart and productive you may be, you are only using approximately 1/8th of your entire potential.  Descarte was wrong – the mind is not separate from the body.

I say I am in the business of long term care because I teach you much more than mere fitness.  I teach you how to train for life.  People do not stop moving because they get old.  They get old because they stop moving!

Warrior Fitness is not a set of disparate parts cobbled together, but a system based on my life long experience as a physical culturist.  To be able to recreate what I have put into it, you would have to study Japanese, Chinese, and Russian martial arts, strength training, bodyweight exercise, Kettlebell training, oldtime strong man training, sports science, yoga, qigong, etc…

I have put in all the work; done all the research, experimented with the protocols and the programming.  I have given my clients, both locally here at Warrior Fitness Gym, and worldwide the product of it all– a fully developed, cohesive  system  of training the body, mind, and spirit for health, fitness, and performance –  Warrior Fitness

WFBookCover2

Filed Under: General Discussion Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Fitness Dangers for Bujinkan Students

May 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Martial artists need to be extremely cautious when choosing a fitness program to compliment their training.  While the right program can support, enhance, and protect budo practice, the wrong one can just as easily derail it.

Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu relies on relaxed, whole-body power devoid of excess muscular tension to properly execute its techniques.

hatsumi sword

Think about this – each and every action you repeat over and over again encodes in your nervous system and creates change in your body, no matter how you value that change.  Meaning that if you want to train yourself to move softly, subtly, and with relaxed power for your martial art practice yet you perform high tension power lifting exercises at the gym, guess what gets carried over to your budo?  Yup.  Too much tension.

If you are working towards using your whole body as a unit in budo practice so that when one thing moves, everything moves (can you do this?), but you perform bodybuilding style splits and isolation exercises in your strength training, what do you think happens to your functional integration?  Yup.  Bye-bye.

The critical thing to note here is that, as stated above, every action you do, no matter what your opinion of that action is, has an affect on your nervous system.  When 2 actions compete, both lose out.

Shouldn’t your supplementary training and fitness support and enhance your main goal of becoming a more proficient martial artist?  If it doesn’t, you might want to ask yourself what is more important to you?  These are tough questions for a life long, committed budoka to wrestle with – trust me!  I know.  I walk a thin line in my training every day.  But I made my choice long ago… You see, I love fitness, but budo is in my blood.

So when you go looking for a strength and conditioning program to support and protect your martial arts practice, remember something – I have been there, done that, and got the tshirt (several, actually).

The research has been done.  The exercises, protocols, and programs have been rigorously tested.  The results are in.  I have created several Done For You programs that I KNOW will change your Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu practice for the better.  As a 20+ year veteran of the Bujinkan (I started training in 1989), I have put together these programs for you – Bujinkan students and teachers alike.  It’s all here.

Martial Power Cover1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WFBookCover2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WF UG Cover1

 

 

Filed Under: Body, Martial Arts Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Who is This Program for Anyway?

May 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

It recently came to my attention (yesterday, as a matter of fact) that several people are under the impression that my Evolve Your Breathing program is only meant for a small demographic of the population, ie – male martial artists.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but the last time I checked 100%, that means ALL, of the population breathes – am I right? :)

So why would someone assume that a program on breathing exercises for health, wellness,performance, and stress management, applies to just a limited segment of the population?

Let me help – No matter who you are and what sort of activity, sport, or martial art (or none) you are engaged in, your breathing is an essential, and I mean critically essential, component of that activity.

Want to make it better?  Get Evolve Your Breathing.  Period.

EVOLVE_SPOT-1 (2)30 Day Money Back Guarantee

To make this an even easier decision, I am so sure that EYB will increase your energy levels, improve your response to stress, and speed your workout recovery that I am offering a 30 day money back guarantee.
Try Evolve Your Breathing for 30 days and if you don’t like it, I will give you 100% of your money back no questions asked. (well, I might ask one question, like – did you actually try it???)

Take the Evolve Your Breathing 30 Day Challenge today!

PS  – You can also get Evolve Your Breathing at 50% off the regular price when you purchase it as part of one of my Budo Packs!

Filed Under: General Discussion Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation Part 4

May 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Guest blog post by Eric Guttmann, U.S. Navy Officer, Author, Fitness Enthusiast and More!

My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation Part 4 – THE RESULTS: Leaner, Stronger, Faster.

 

For 8 weeks prior to my Navy Physical Readiness Test (PRT) I developed a program focused exclusively on Tire Flipping.  If you have been following these articles then you know that the main goal was to achieve 100 consecutive tire flips with the 300lb tire with an emphasis on tying the breath to the movement.  I will now report on the results that this type of training had on my body and performance as measured by the U.S. Navy.
The Navy’s Physical Readiness Test (PRT) is a two part process that is now called the Physical Fitness Assessment (PFA).  The first part, conducted 1-2 days prior to the physical test measures your height & weight and compares it to a chart that determines if you are within Navy standards.  If you are overweight then you get your bodyfat measured by a tape measure test.  They measure your waist and neck circumference and plug it into a chart with your height and weight that spits out an approximate bodyfat percentage.  Males need to be under 22% bodyfat to pass this assessment and be “within standards.” If you score higher than 22% then you FAILED the PFA.
Because of my bodybuilding and strength workouts I have ALWAYS been over the “magical” weight for my height in the last 17 years of military service and have gotten used to getting my bodyfat measured at every PFA.  Here is what happened at this PFA.  For the first time in 17 years I actually dropped below 215lbs, my exact weight was 211.4lbs.  I did not alter my diet at all, in fact my diet was a little off because I have been eating a lot of Cuban food in Miami and when I take my kids out to eat I would be eating ice cream and desserts with them.  I do make an effort to eat “clean” 80% of the time.  The only thing I did different was the physical training.  So it seems that extended tire flipping, which for this article means 100 consecutive tire flips, is a weight loss mechanism.  Judging by the way my abs and obliques were more defined I would also forward that it is a fat-loss mechanism.
Now here is the really interesting part.  I mentioned that as part of my regimen I added gravity boots.  Hanging upside down helps to decompress the spine and provides extra blood flow to the head.  For the last 17 years my height has always been the same, 73 inches.  When they measured me my height was a little over 73 inches and I heard the Petty Officer who took my measurement say “he is over 73 inches so mark down 74.”  This means I was probably ½ inch taller for them to round up.  This really blew me away!  You hear of people shrinking with age, but have you ever heard of anyone adding a little height to their frame?  This for me is confirmation that the gravity boots add an important component to recovery, spine health, and longevity!
Armed with my two official measurement of 211.4lbs and 74 inches the Petty Officers administering the PFA go to the “magical” Navy chart that determines if I am within “standards” and lo and behold for the first time in 17 years I did not need to do the tape measure test!  Thus, tire flipping and gravity boots have the capacity to alter the body by making it leaner and taller, but let’s see what happens when you are tested physically…
The Navy PRT consists of two minutes of sit-ups, two minutes of pushups, and a 1.5 mile run for time.  There is a chart that determines your score based on the number of repetitions for your age and gender.  There is a max number which means you “aced” the test.  For a 39 year old male (that would be ME) my max scores were 95 situps and 76 pushups.  I achieved the 95 situps and 76 pushups with ease.  I did not do a single situp or pushup in the previous 8 weeks.  I DID do Dru Patrick’s Last Man Standing drill to train my core on my recovery day. Now, the really interesting thing happened with the run.
I do occasional sprint workouts when I get into a groove, but I checked my training journals and had not done any type of running or sprinting for six months.  In other words, the last time I ran was my previous PRT.  Since I do not like running, what I do at the PRT is find a guy with a pace I like and just trail in behind him.  The key is to pick the right pace, too slow and you feel antsy, too fast and you will get smoked before your time.  This time I decided to follow the beat of my own drum and just concentrate on my breathing, just like I do when I do the tire flipping.  While the breath pattern was different the idea was the same – use the breathing discipline I developed through tire flipping and apply it to the run.  I ended up doing a “weird” pattern almost intuitively that was: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, and 4 short exhales.  I felt that the key was in removing the excess waste products and that is what the 4 short exhales at the end of the breathing cycle sought to accomplish.
Keeping the breathing pattern up for the first mile was easy, but after that I noticed that I wanted to change it.  Here is where the discipline kicked in and I forced myself to keep the pattern.  Lo and behold to my surprise I ran it in 11:45, 30 seconds FASTER than my previous runs!  It was also the first time in 5 years that I ran the test in under 12 minutes!  While part of it may be due to being a little lighter, a lot had to do with the breathing discipline and conditioning developed through tire flipping.

In conclusion, the Heavy Metal Strength Meditation was a success!  I dropped 4 lbs of weight and you could make the case that most of it was fat loss, I increased my height, I “maxed” the situps and pushups with ease without training those specific exercises, and I ran the best run I have had in five years.  In case you are curious and want to try it here is the curriculum I followed: My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation Part 3

Very respectfully,
Eric Guttmann
PS As you can see joint mobility is an integral part of the recovery day, to get my FULL Mobility program click HERE:
If flipping a 300lb tire 100 consecutive times is a little out of your league right now then get in combat ready shape using Extreme Military Fitness by clicking HERE and after the 12 weeks you will be primed and ready to tackle on the Heavy Metal Strength Meditation:
If you like the energy in these articles then get Listen Up and read 1-5 pages in the morning to put you in the right mindset to tackle on any task or life change you want to accomplish, whether it be physical, mental, financial, or lifestyle.

Read Eric’s complete bio HERE

Filed Under: Body, Mental Toughness, Mind Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

How I Healed My Neck with Mobility & Breathing

April 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Several years ago, back in about 2004, I severely injured my neck.  At the time it happened, it didn’t feel too bad.  I thought it was something I would just shake off and keep going.  However, when I woke up the following morning, I realized I was in severe pain and couldn’t move my neck.  After panic subsided and I managed to crawl out of bed into a hot shower, I figured the warm water would loosen it up and I’d be fine.  The hot water provided some initial relief, which allowed me to begin to move slightly, but not by much.

Neck pain

Fast forward to later that day at the doctor’s office.  She examined my neck, checked my range of motion (which was non-existent!) and then prescribed muscle relaxants and talked about surgery.  Surgery?  Drugs?  Ummm… no thank you!

Back at home, lying in my bed feeling sorry for myself, I began to think about how I could start to help myself and heal my own neck.  I began to work on mobility far from the source of my pain.  Starting with the fingers and hands, I worked my way up my arms and into the elbows.  Since this felt okay, I tried the shoulders.  That hurt.  So I backed off.  Again and again just working shallow range of motion on the rest of my body until I could reach, and begin to move the neck.  Each time I was able to do a little more, go a bit farther.

When I was finall able to work into my neck, these are the exercises I did:

This was not an instantaneous process by far, but gradually, bit by bit, day by day, and week by week, I was able to increase the range of motion and decrease the pain.  Eventually, I was able to completely restore the full, pain free mobility back to my entire body.

In the video above, I also mention some breathing exercises I did along with mobility to help heal myself.  The main exercise is quite simple, yet extraordinarily powerful.  Using your mind to locate the source of pain, inhale directly into the pain.  Visualize the breath bringing healing energy into the area.  Then exhale from the pain.  Visualize your breath pulling the pain out of the body and expelling it.  Repeat until you feel the pain begin to decrease and the area feel warm and energized.

If you would like to learn more about healing yourself with mobility and breathing, here are the excellent resources I highly recommend:

Evolve Your Breathing

Moving Freely for Life

How to Feel Like a Billion Dollars

 

 

 

Filed Under: Body, Injuries, Stretching/Mobility Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Warrior Podcast with Eric Guttmann

April 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment

In an effort to provide you, my dear readers, with the best information out there on strength, health, fitness, and martial arts, I am interviewing top coaches, professionals, martial arts masters, and ordinary people who do extraordinary things. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bodyweight Conditioning, Injuries, Interviews, Kettlebells, Martial Arts, Stretching/Mobility Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Traditional Martial Artists of the World – UNITE!

April 12, 2013 by 2 Comments

Traditional martial arts all have a long history of intense, sometimes downright brutal, physical training to forge the warrior’s combative body, mindset, and spirit. This training has, up until very recently in history, never been optional. If you did not have the strength of will to endure it and push through then you simply did not make the cut and were not taught higher level skills. Not that you would be considered somehow unworthy or anything silly like that, but you would be thought physically incapable and therefore not worth the teacher’s time to train you. Each school of martial art had its own type of tanren or forging process to harden the aspiring martial student. [Read more...]

Filed Under: General Discussion, Martial Arts Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation Part 3

April 11, 2013 by 1 Comment
Guest blog post by Eric Guttmann, U.S. Navy Officer, Author, Fitness Enthusiast and More!
My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation Part 3 – How I trained to achieve 100 consecutive tire flips
tire
It is amazing what the MIND and body can do when you focus on ONE thing to develop.  As I have written in the previous two articles in these series, the goal of this strength meditation was to accomplish 100 consecutive tire flips with a 300lb tire.  Six weeks after beginning this journey I performed 100 tire flips in 9:55.  I relayed this to my friend Bud Jeffries and he asked me if that was my best time.  I said no, that it was my FIRST time and that I purposely was not trying to go fast, rather I wanted to build a steady pace tied in to the breathing, like a meditation.  Funny thing is, that once an IDEA gets in your consciousness it starts to get internalized and metabolized. [Read more...]
Filed Under: Body, Mind, Spirit Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

10 Reasons I Love Kettlebells by Logan Christopher

April 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

I want to share with you all the reasons that I love training with kettlebells.

1 – They’re Different

Back when I first tried a kettlebell I was pretty much a bodyweight only guy. I had been led to believe that “weights didn’t build functional strength”. The thing that led me to believe this was when I worked out in a gym I didn’t get much in the way of results, but when I switched 100% to bodyweight training I started making real gains. Now I know that it wasn’t the weights themselves that caused my lack of gains, but how I was training. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bodyweight Conditioning, Kettlebells Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Worst Reason Ever

April 3, 2013 by 2 Comments

The other day my daughters and I were sitting in a local diner having breakfast.  As we sat there looking at the menus and discussing  what we were planning to order, my 4 year old looked at her older sister and said – “Hey!  Get your elbows off the table!”

“No way!” replied my 12 year old, “why should I?” [Read more...]

Filed Under: General Discussion Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
«Older Posts