Category Archives: Mental Toughness

FREE Stay at Home Workouts

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Since all the gyms are closed and we are all stuck working out at home for the foreseeable future, I want to hook you up with a free copy of my WarFit Combat Conditioning program.

This hard-hitting program will build serious functional strength, torch fat like nobody’s business, and prepare you to face anything – including zombies!

So go HERE and grab yourself a copy on me.

 

This program usually sells for $37 but today you can pick it up for $0.

If you are financially able, and would like to donate something for the program, please do so HERE.

If you are not able to do so, don’t worry about it. Train and enjoy with my blessing! 🙂

 

Also make sure to go HERE and pick up my free follow along Joint Mobility Routine to keep you strong, mobile, and energized!

Health Practices for the Pandemic

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“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”
– Marcus Aurelius

It’s pandemonium out there.

Schools closing,
Businesses closing,
Sporting events and concerts cancelled,
Store shelves empty like it’s the day before the blizzard of the century.

Outside events ARE out of control. But one thing always remains true, no matter what – You and you alone choose how to respond to these events. Everything is within YOUR internal control.

So how do you respond?

Do you feed into the mass panic? Do you feed into the hysteria and FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real)?

Or do you respond like a Warrior, strong in mind and in body?

We humans have a certain knack for overly complicating simple things. We think that if something is too simple sounding, it can’t possibly work. But often the opposite is true.

Building vitality and creating optimal health are simple provided you follow a certain set of simple sounding, time tested practices.

Top 10 Health Practices for the Pandemic

    1. Drink plenty of water. Add fresh squeezed lemon juice first thing in the morning. (yes, you’ll pee a lot. Get over it)
    2. Eat more fresh vegetables and fruit (Notice that vegetables come first. That’s no accident. As for fruit, eat mostly berries and cherries – oh and some apples)
    3. Eat organic, free range, and/or grass-fed meat.
    4. Eat more healthy fats such as grassfed butter, almonds, avocados, eggs – yolk and all!, coconut oil, wild caught salmon – no farm raised fish ever!, extra virgin olive oil.
    5. Limit your grains, or at least go gluten free.
    6. Take cold showers (find out why here)
    7. Get outside on the grass barefoot for at least 20 minutes a day
    8. Go for a deep breathing walk in the fresh air and sunshine or practice Qigong outside.

 

9. Learn how to do standing meditation (see here)

10. Train for strength and power at least 3 times a week (see here)

10.5. Don’t forget to wash your hands. 🙂

Need more help? I am here to serve you.

10X Your Strength and Your Health HERE <<===

Top 30 Testosterone Boosting Foods

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It’s no secret that our manhood is in jeopardy.

Lack of proper nutrition and exercise, processed foods, and environmental toxins are all conspiring to plummet men’s testosterone levels to an all-time low.

Optimal levels of testosterone are absolutely necessary to help us burn fat, build muscle, reduce depression, be successful, and, all other factors aside, it is the very thing that makes us men.

Here are 5 simple, yet powerful steps you can take right now to begin combating this epidemic and bringing back manliness!

1) Limit your exposure to plastics. Plastics contain phytoestrogens that increase the amount of estrogen in the body – not something we want!

2) Strength Training – the proper strength training protocol can boost both testosterone and growth hormone. Testosterone is responsible for both building muscle AND burning fat!

3) Cold Showers – Take a cold shower twice a day. It’s also great for mental toughness!

4) Eat your nuts. – Have a handful of Almonds and 3 Brazil Nuts first thing in the morning and again before bed to increase healthy fats.

5) Vitamins – Take Vitamin D, Fish Oil, and Zinc. All are necessary for testosterone production!

 

The Top 30 Testosterone Boosting Foods

 

These foods both directly boost testosterone and help to limit estrogen exposure.

One important thing to note is that low fat, low cholesterol diets have been the worst thing to happen to men in the past 40 years.

Remember – Cholesterol is the building block of all sex hormones, testosterone included – so eat your cholesterol!

 

  • Grass fed beef
  • Bacon
  • Eggs (free range)
  • Bison
  • Brazil Nuts
  • Macadamia Nuts
  • Almonds
  • Butter
  • Blue Cheese
  • Oysters & other shell fish
  • Broccoli
  • Cauliflower
  • Cabbage
  • Brussel Sprouts
  • Kale
  • Pomegranate
  • Avocado
  • Blackberries
  • Blueberries
  • Acai Berries
  • Olive Oil
  • Coconut Oil
  • MCT Oil
  • Coffee
  • Onions
  • Ginger
  • Parsley
  • Garlic
  • Raw Milk
  • Liver
  • Bonus Testosterone Boosting Super Food – Pine Pollen

 

 

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Need more personalized help?

Want me to work with you one-on-one to create a specifically designed program for you to burn fat, build muscle, increase energy, and optimize your testosterone levels?

Go HERE now to apply for a spot in my distance coaching program!

The Top 3.5 Reasons Training is Hard

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The other day a student said to me during training: “This is hard.”

My reply was, “Well of course it’s hard. You don’t come to me to learn how to do things you’re already good at, do you?” 

But why is this difficult?

In my experience,training is hard for approximately 3.5 main reasons…

1. You are learning new skills. It’s hard to be good at movements, exercises, and concepts that are new to you. Your nervous system must adapt to the new and different stimulus and create, or sharpen pathways to build competence and skill.

2. You must work on your weak points. Working on things you are already good at is fun, but the only way to truly become all-around strong is to eliminate your weak points.

3. Your ego. No one wants to look inept or silly. But the only way to become better means that we must put ego aside in order to learn.

3.5. Superficial Expert Status. The amount of information available today gives people immediate access to any body of knowledge out there, no matter how obscure, in a matter of seconds.  We have all become SMEs – “Superficial Matter Experts”.  We think that just because we know “about” something we actually understand it. No one wants to spend the time and effort required to learn something deeply.

But these reasons are exactly why we need to train. And why we need to train with people who have greater, or more specialized knowledge, higher levels of experience, and greater levels of skill than we do.

This is why I still train with my martial arts teachers. This is why I still have a strength coach. This is why I participate in masterminds and have business coaches.

Because I know that I need to be pushed and challenged in order to grow, just like I must push and challenge my students and clients in order for them to grow.

Ready to be pushed and challenged?

It begins here <<===

How Warriors Train for ENDURANCE

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Warriors Need to HIIT!

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is one of the best ways to train for endurance. It will enhance all 3 energy systems in the body, as well as prime the nervous system to recover automatically during lulls in activity.

Simply put, HIIT alternates periods of high intensity exercise with periods of rest and recovery. It can be performed with almost any exercise and can be utilized both with and without equipment.

The variety and adaptability of this style of training is second to none in results.

How else does improving your endurance through this type of conditioning aid your martial arts training?

I’m glad you asked!

If the benefits discussed above weren’t enough, consider that having a high level of conditioning also aids in learning new skills.

How’s that possible?

To put it simply, when the central nervous system (CNS) is fatigued, the body cannot effectively process new skills, especially technically advanced skills. So, in essence your lack of a general level of fitness and conditioning will actually impede your learning process as you will tire more readily and not have the ability to recover quickly enough during training.

 

  • Want to train more, at a higher level, for a longer period of time?

  • Want to get more out of your training time both at home and in the dojo?

  • Want to build new skills and enhance your technical arsenal?

    My brand new WarFit Combat Conditioning Program will show you how!

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Stronger Than Fear

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Are you stronger than your fear?

Or do you stay in your comfort zone and allow fear to get the better of you?  You can tell every time when you start to push against the edge of your comfort zone – you begin to feel afraid.  Maybe you don’t call it fear.  Maybe it’s resistance.  Maybe it’s discomfort.  Maybe it’s just a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach that goes away if you you stop pushing forward.  Call it what ever you want.  I know what it is.  I call it by it’s true name – fear.

How do you become stronger than fear?  By feeling it, acknowledging it, and doing the thing you fear anyway.  As Mark Twain once said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not the absence of fear.”

Mark Twain Courage

One way to face fear and push past it is by enduring brutal physical training.  This type of training is NOT for the faint of heart.  However, when you go through it, face it, and come out on the other end, you are a stronger person – mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Here is a sample of one conditioning workout with an MMA fighter I am currently training:

My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation Part 4

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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

My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation

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Guest blog post by Eric Guttmann, U.S. Navy Officer, Author, Fitness Enthusiast and More!

Its amazing what you can pick up when you are paying attention.  At the 2012 Super Human Workshop I overheard Bud Jeffries tell one of the participants that if she wanted to get conditioned to work up to 50 tire flips.  That was over a year ago, but I remembered.  I then had a conversation with Bud Jeffries were the subject came up and he mentioned again that if you had to do only ONE exercise to get both strength and conditioning that Tire Flipping would definitely be it.  This spurned in me the desire to focus single mindedly in this endeavor, just like a meditation.  Some regard breath counting as a meditation, I decided to do Tire Flipping as a strength meditation where I count the reps instead of breaths, and since I listen to high energy music when I train, it became my heavy metal strength meditation!

My plan is very simple and I will see what happens when the upcoming Navy Physical Readiness Test rolls around and how my body performs.  Originally I was going to work up to 50 consecutive tire flips. On my first workout some of the staff members at US SOUTHERN COMMAND, where I am currently stationed, saw me and asked me about it.  When I mentioned my 50 tire flips, they said, “Oh yes, we use to have a General that loved tire flipping and he would do 100 tire flips.”

Well, if some General can do 100 flips, then so can I!  So after my first workout and that comment 100 tire flips became my new goal.

Here is my three pronged plan of attack:
GOAL 1: Perform 100 tire flips in one workout broken up in sets of 5 reps
GOAL 2: Perform 50 consecutive tire flips
GOAL 3: Perform 100 consecutive tire flips
OK, since I have never flipped a tire except at that Super Human Workshop over a year ago, I am starting slowly and methodically.  My first workout was 10 sets of 5 repetition with a 250lb tire.  I am currently doing 15 sets of 5 repetitions and next week I am looking to increase it to 20 sets of 5 repetition to achieve my first goal of 100 tire flips in one workout.

Believe it or not the limiting factor is your forearms.  If you are strong and conditioned enough you could probably do 100 tire flips on the first go.  At least I felt I had the strength and conditioning to do this in the first week except for ONE detail, and that was that after 50 reps my forearms where blasted and I could feel it was time to STOP.  When I mentioned this to Bud Jeffries he mentioned how tire flipping trains you in the open hand position which is something we RARELY do, most training is done gripping a bar, dumbbell, kettlebell, etc.  Even if it is a “thick-handled” implement it is not the same as the open hand position used in tire flipping.  Hence the workout is built up methodically to allow your forearms to catch up.

 

Of course if you are deconditioned or have not trained in a long time then you are better off starting with Extreme Military Fitness Basic to achieve the basic levels of strength and conditioning before attempting the 100 tire flips:

extrememilitaryfitnesscover1
What I have noticed is that I go through two stages.  In the first stage the body gets accelerated for tire flipping.  Heartbeat goes up and it is demanding (fun, but demanding).  As the Russians say, “every exercise is a breathing exercise” and I am applying the same rules to my tire flipping experiment.  I slowly get up to the tire and get in that meditative state where I match breath to movements.  Inhale as I slowly lower myself into perfect position and get my grip.  Explode as I exhale and get the tire up to chest level and then a short inhale and another explosive exhale as I forcibly push the tire. Take one breathing step to the base of the tire and repeat.

After about 25 reps I get something like a second wind or I just get in the flow or something, because I merely focus on the breath and then it gets EASIER.  It is almost as working through the effort of matching breath to movements with your heart beating faster during the initial reps that builds a groove and then it becomes a literal STRENGTH MEDITATION!  Again, what will probably stop you is your FOREARMS if they are not trained and strong enough in the open hand position.  Hey, I am the first to admit it, and that is why I am building nice and slow, like a another General here at SOUTHCOM says “easy peasy…”

I will train tire flipping EXCLUSIVELY until I achieve GOAL 2 of 50 consecutive tire flips.  At that point I might add sledgehammers or something, but until that point ALL MY WORKOUTS ARE ALREADY DECIDED!  All I have to do is flip the tire 2-3x a week until I achieve my goal.  I love having this singularity of focus in my training.  Reminds me of that “chop wood, carry water” analogy.  If you have the strength and conditioning (and an available tractor tire) try this with me and let me know your experience.

All my best,
Eric Guttmann

PS – If you want to increase your recovery so that you can improve faster then I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you add my FULL Mobility program to this experiment by CLICKING HERE NOW! 😉

 

Read Eric’s complete bio HERE.

Why Eating Bitter is so Sweet

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The Chinese martial arts have an expression, chi ku, which means to “eat bitter” or “eating bitterness”.  It is frequently used by the master to express to the students training under him the fact that if they want to become masters of  the art in their own right, they must suffer first.  The training is often very rigorous, both physically and mentally demanding.  It can also be extremely boring and repetitive sometimes as the trainees must perform the same movement patterns and work though the same solo exercises over and over again in order to burn it into their nervous systems so it becomes part of them.  This is the only way to do it.

Certainly this type of training is not for everyone.  Yet for those with the physical and mental fortitude to endure the long years of training and hardship, the harsh realities of becoming great, the rewards are vast.  The students develop formidable body skills and enourmous amounts of mental toughness.  For those that make it, they realize the training was intense, but they made it through.  They are now the masters.

As Jim Rohn famously said – There are only 2 pains in life.  The pain of discipline or the pain of regret.

It’s your choice.  Suffer a little now, endure the training, endure the hardships, endure the life adversity, and then look back knowing that you have walked through it and achieved your goal on the other side.

Or, be afraid of the hardship and pain and decide to back off and stay where you are.  The pain of discipline is avoided, yes, but what you don’t realize is that the pain of regret weighs much, much heavier and is in fact the greater of the 2 pains.

Eat bitter now and be able to endure physical and mental hardships in training.  Endure hardship and succeed.  The rewards are so sweet!

muhammad-ali

 

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit.  Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’
– Muhammad Ali

Are You an Action TAKER or an Action TALKER?

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This may be overly simplistic, but to me there really are only 2 kinds of people in the world. You are either an action TAKER or an action TALKER. And all of us immediately know the difference – it’s the “L”, right?  But seriously… Continue reading →