Monthly Archives: October 2011

I Need Your Help!

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This is going to be a different post for me today.  A little off track from my usual fitness, nutrition, budo, and motivational fare, but definitely a necessary, maybe even vital topic.  First of all, I just want to say thank you to all my Warrior Fitness blog readers and subscribers.  Whether you are one of the many readers who have purchased my Warrior Fitness book or Striking Power e-book or not (yet! :)), you guys make this blog a sustainable enterprise; without you all, I’d just be talking to myself!  I’m grateful that what I write and how I write it resonates with you and also may benefit you in some small way.

I Was Embarassed!

This brings me to the reason for this post.  A few weeks ago at the Underground Strength Coach Certification, see my review HERE, I was talking with Zach Even-Esh about some new product ideas I had for Warrior Fitness.  I had been thinking for a while about tons of new product ideas I’d like to develop for Warrior Fitness and wanted to bounce some of them off him.  Well, what he said to me blew my mind!  Zach said, “Do you know what your readers want?”  I kind of stammered and looked at him a little confused and said, “Um… well, no.  What do you mean?”  He continued on and told me that while I might know what type of products I wanted to create, wouldn’t it make much more sense to know exactly what my Warrior Fitness readers want and need in a fitness or martial arts product and create something great that specifically meets their needs?  I was stunned.  Flabbergasted actually.  It made so much sense and was such a common sensical approach; I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d never even stopped to think about it.  Sorry guys!  So, in an effort to correct my oversight, what I’d like to do is get your opinion on this…

What Would YOU Like to See?

What type of new Warrior Fitness product would you, my readers, like to see?  What areas in your strength, endurance, conditioning, flexibility, mobility, breath control, agility, do you feel need the most attention?  What part of your martial arts training do you feel can be enhanced by fitness training?  Ukemi – rolling, leaping, falling, changing directions rapidly, taihenjutsu?  How about structural strength for kamae?  Creating and sustaining Flow?

Some areas for consideration (but by no means limited to these!) are:

  • Bodyweight training
  • Kettlebell training
  • Sandbags
  • Old school strength training
  • Odd objects – tires, sleds, stones, logs
  • Ninja fitness training
  • Conditioning
  • Fat Loss
  • Any combination or other!!

Also, think about what format you’d like to receive the product in – book, e-book form, DVD, downloadable video?

So in effect what I’m asking is – please help me to help you!  Let’s get a dialogue going and keep it going.  If I don’t know you, I’d like to.  Any ideas are welcome!  You can respond in the Comments section below, through my Facebook page (hey, do me a favor and “Like” it while you’re there!), email me, or heck if you want to discuss something shoot me an email and I’ll give you my phone number – whatever it takes to really make you a viable part of Warrior Fitness.

Thanks!

Jon

Warrior Fitness is Now Underground Strength Coach Certified!

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There are great new things happening here at Warrior Fitness!  The first being I am now a certified Underground Strength Coach.  This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend Zach Even-Esh’s Underground Strength Coach Certification at the world renowned Underground Strength Gym in Edison, NJ.  What an amazing weekend – I’m still sore!

Zach is a top notch educator, motivator, and coach.  The man not only knows his material, but can walk the walk.  He lives the code and it shows through in everything he does.  Each person received individualized attention and feedback as well as group instruction from both Zach and his coached. The level of coaching expertise all weekend was top notch.  Zach not only taught the participants his Underground Stength system, he created an experience.    

As a quick recap, here is what we covered:

  • Introduction to the Underground Strength Methods
  • Warm Up & Physical Preparation Methods of Eastern European Athletes
  • Underground Baseline Workouts
  • Program Design Methods for all Clients
  • Odd Object Fundamentals
  • Integrating Old School Bodybuilding and Powerlifting
  • Underground Business Strategies
  • and Tons more!

We learned tons of exercises and variations, as well as progressions and regressions to help make them adaptable for all levels of clients.  Together we designed and vetted several workouts for various types of athletes and individuals, then did some of them ourselves!  As you can see, this was no simply sit on your butt and listen to a bunch of people talk followed by a multiple choice test certification seminar.  All the participants were in the trenches going through the adversity together, getting their hands dirty, learning the system by doing.  The level of energy this created in the gym and camaraderie between the attendees was awesome!

Huge thanks once again to Zach and his team of coaches, Big Mike, Travis, and Jen C., from Crossfit Central in Texas to help out with the certification!!

Want to know more?  Start by checking out Zach’s Underground Strength Manual HERE!

 

Product Review: Door Gym

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Recently the nice folks over at Karate Depot sent me a Door Gym to review.  The cool thing about the Door Gym is that it is designed to be used with a multitude of different exercises, not just pull-ups.  This is the perfect piece of equipment if you are into minimalist training and need one tool for multiple tasks! 

Door Gym is very easy to install.  It requires no fasteners, no nails, no screws, and can be installed in the door frame and removed in about one second.  Yeah, it’s that easy!  My wife also loves the fact that it wedges in and will not mark or damage the door frame.  Plus, it took me all of 5 minutes to put it together right out of the package.  Which, if you know anything about my assembly skills, is saying a lot!

Door Gym Exercises

  • Close grip pull-ups / chin-ups
  • Wide grip pull-ups / chin=ups
  • Hammer grip pull-ups
  • Commando pull-ups
  • Hanging crunches
  • Hanging leg lifts
  • Static holds
  • Virtually any type of deep push-up
  • Situps
  • And more…

A great idea for those short on time is the grease the groove method.  Simply install the Door Gym in a door frame that you pass frequently during the day.  Each time you pass it, bang out a quick set of pull-ups or chin-ups (or whatever exercise you choose).  Over the course of a day you will incorporate a ton of volume without burning out.  Try it!  You can be creative, have fun, and get a great workout at the same time with this piece of equipment.

At $49.95, the Door Gym is a great investment in your health and fitness.  Highly recommended by Warrior Fitness!

Embrace the Suck!

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No one wants to work hard for anything anymore.  It’s true.  Take a look around at our modern culture.  Instant satisfaction is everywhere from fast food to movies on demand.  We literally have to wait for nothing.  And, while the convenience is great and quite useful for the most part, it has also has had a deleterious effect on our lives that is sometimes overlooked or unseen.  It has eroded our patience and destroyed our work ethic – at least when it comes to the really hard stuff like physical development and skill acquisition.  Why?  Because these things are not and cannot be had instantaneously.  They require consistent practice and drive.  I mean, c’mon they now have pills to take that burn fat while you sleep?  Are you kidding me?  How lazy can we be?  By the way though, if you get your diet correct and even skip a meal once in a while, you will burn fat while you sleep without the damn pills, but that’s another blog post….

As you may have noticed, martial arts training and conditioning to develop the proper levels of fitness, mechanics, technique, attributes, and that  all elusive sense of flow can be difficult, repetitious, and sometimes downright boring, to be honest.  So how do we keep going in our daily training?  How do we push ourselves through the plateaus and dry spots with enough intensity and consistency to break through to our own personal greatness? (See what some of the historical martial greats had to say about it in this article here.)  My advice is to embrace the suck – yeah, the suck.  Learn to love it.  Crave it.  Become friends with it.  So when it hits, you not only can push through it, but actually embrace it.

Dostoyevsky said to “love your suffering.”

The Chinese martial artists call it, “eating bitter.”

We here at Warrior Fitness call it “embracing the suck!”

Does this make you weird?  Well, yes, but only in some circles.  But for the most part it earns you respect.  Why?  Because most people can’t do it.  Being able to embrace the suck and keep going  distinguishes you.  It differentiates you from the pack.  It makes you a leader.  If you want to be a leader, there’s only one way to do it – lead from the front.  That’s the only way to inspire people – by your own example.  What example do you set for your students, your family, your friends, your kids?

Learning to embrace the suck allows you to, as the great method acting coach Stanislavsky once wrote, “make the difficult habitual: what is habitual will become easy, and what is easy will become agreeable.”  So even embracing the suck is a process which allows us to continue to train with greater intensity and focus, and thus push through even greater levels of suck.

However, the best part about embracing the suck is when the suck ends and you come out on the other side.  You’ve fought the good fight, pushed through the barrier, and overcome the adversity once again.  You’re a stronger person for it.  You know it.  I know it.  So go out and live it!