Tag Archives: fitness

Living the Warrior Lifestyle

Posted on by
Reply


Years ago I wrote down what I considered to be the essence of living the warrior lifestyle and I called it “The Warrior Code” – original, I know! 🙂

Just so you are aware, here is my original “warrior code”:

  • Warriors train to push their body and mind to the limits, and find new ones
  • Warriors are strong to protect and defend self and others
  • Warriors know that not fulfilling their utmost potential is cheating themselves and robbing the world of their brilliance
  • Warriors are knowledgeable knuckledraggers
  • Warriors strive to always become stronger every day

Not bad, right???

But in the past few years I’ve taken it even further.

From the very start of my warrior journey, I’ve always held that the martial arts are a microcosm of life.

And now, my own personal warrior training has become a metaphor for how I live my live. Essentially, my warrior training has become the overarching guiding philosophy in my life, my business, my teaching, and my interaction with all those around me.

I have reaped the benefits of living the warrior lifestyle and would now like to share them with you.

So I am introducing a brand new coaching program…

Warrior Lifestyle Coaching

We are always told that we have unlimited human potential. But sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.

How do we access it?

One of the hallmarks of many warrior cultures is their ability to delve deeply into the psyche and access the full range of human abilities.

How would it feel to be able to access your full human potential in mind body and spirit?

That’s the goal of this coaching program.

Some of the areas we will cover are:

  • How to motivate yourself for best possible results
  • Ninja tactics for goal setting and attainment
  • Warrior time management – How to get incredible results in your training even on the busiest of schedules. Or perhaps you have too much time on your hands and can’t figure out how to organize it
  • The Warriors mental training – sharpening your mind to a razors edge to be able to handle and instantly respond to any stress or challenges life can throw at you
  • Essential Warrior Philosophical principles to incorporate into your life that will guide & streamline your thinking and decision making ability to rapidly and correctly chose the right path for your life
  • Walking meditation exercises with breath work for problem-solving, deep thinking, rapid change of your energetics state
  • The Warrior’s Mindset training – the happiness principle]
  • How to stop the demon of distraction dead in its tracks and really get shit done
  • And, of course – a completely individualized personal warrior program to get you in the best shape of your life

Sound like something that’s been missing from your training and that you absolutely NEED in your life?

Would you like to reap all the benefits of my 30+ years of knowledge and experience without having to make all the mistakes I made to get here?

Go HERE and complete this uber short application. I’ll review and get back to you within 24 hours!!

(Side-note: if you are unwilling to take the 2 minutes to fill out a short form, are you really ready to make a change in your life? Fill out the damn form like the action-taker I know you are, and let’s kick some ass together!!)

5 Ways to Increase the Effectiveness of ANY Exercise

Posted on by
Reply

Last night at the gym as I was having a post-training conversation with one of my students, and he asked me – “how do you know how to make every single exercise we do more challenging???”

It’s a good question, is it not?

How do you take ANY exercise and make it more effective?

Well, there’s 5 different ways to do that…

 

  • Use a heavier weight. I always say – everything is easy until it gets heavy! This however is not a factor in bodyweight exercise since the weight is always the same. You can however adjust the leverage to make the exercise easier or more challenging.
  • Add more sets or reps. This, unfortunately, is what most bodyweight exercise programs do – continue to add sets and reps. While it works for a little while, overtime, the workouts simply become monotonous and boring.
  • Reduce or eliminate the rest periods between the sets.
  • Adjust the tempo (the speed at which you do the exercise) – making it faster or slower can change the effect and the level of difficulty
  • OR…. and this is a BIG one ….. Increase the sophistication of the exercise so it creates a greater demand and thus a greater training effect on the nervous system

 

Inside the brand new Bodyweight Mastery Program we focus on the last type of progression. We incrementally increase the level of sophistication for each new movement to focus on the most effective way to create lasting change in your strength, endurance, mobility, energy levels, and body composition.

 

Each of the 6 movement patterns have 6 progressions that move in sophistication from basic to advanced over the course of 6 weeks.

6 Movement Patterns Trained in Bodyweight Mastery:

  • Push-up x 6 Levels
  • Squat x 6 Levels
  • Lunge x 6 Levels
  • Frog Press x 6 Levels
  • Core x 6 Levels
  • Isometrics x 6 Levels

Inside the Bodyweight Mastery Program you will progress through 6 unique variations of the 6 foundational (notice I did not say ‘basic”) movements to build a very unique type of strength and flexibility that builds muscle, burns fat, and increases your daily energy all at the same time!!

 

 

 

Which Warrior Fitness Program is Right for You?

Posted on by
Reply

I get asked this question all the time – Jon, which one of your programs should I start with?

And the answer is, it depends on your goals. 

So in this article I’m going to give you a set of general guidelines to help you decide which program is right for you.

Quick disclaimer before we get started: ALL of my programs are designed to increase functional strength, improve mobility/flexibility, and build your health and energy reserves. 

Even though my training is forged in the crucible of martial arts, you do NOT need to be a martial artist to reap all the benefits from any of my programs.

 So here goes…

 If you are a martial artist looking to unlock the methods of internal power which make ANY art powerful and useful then I recommend starting with Integrated Strength, Shadow Strength, or The Power Protocol. 

Each one of these looks at the secrets of internal power and strength from a slightly different perspective to guide you into becoming an all around power house in your respective art.

 If you are a weekend warrior looking for the edge in your strength and conditioning training, I suggest the WarFit Program or Sledgehammer Domination which are designed to build superior levels of functional strength, burn fat, and increase all around endurance.

If you are looking to build up your energy reserves and recover faster from all your training and life stress, I suggest Evolve Your Breathing or Vital Force. Both these programs will balance out your workouts and help build health, energy, and give you the edge in your recovery.

And lastly, if you are a man in the over 40 crowd, I highly recommend Strong(er) Over 40 and Dad Strength. These programs will guide you to growing stronger as you get older, along with building and keeping your levels of testosterone high!

At any age and in any life circumstance, keep training, keep pushing, keep growing, and always keep challenging your perceived limits!

If you want all the best that Warrior Fitness has to offer, then I highly recommend all 12 issues of the Warrior’s Inner Circle. Here is where you get my most up to date training information taken directly from what I’m working on in my own training right now!

 

Hope that helps guide you in your decision making process! If you have any questions let me know!

 

Grab my entire training library of 29 programs plus a free 30 minute coaching call with me and save over $500 here <<==

 

3 Things I Do Every Day for Recovery

Posted on by
Reply

I’m looking at the calendar and this year is winding down quickly. I swear, once we hit September the whole thing just seems to fly by!

And, since this year has been crazy (to say the least) for most of the world, I won’t be sorry to see it go!

But before the year ends, I’ll be turning 49. And, I have to tell you – my training has gotten more intense this year, not less. I feel better and stronger at 49 than I did at 29!

I train hard, but it’s my recovery strategies that I perform every day without fail that allow me to train as hard as I do, and to keep getting stronger (and stay injury free) as I get older!!

I’ve heard it said that if exercise is king, then recovery is queen. However, you want to say it, the key is that your recovery must be equal to, or even greater than, your exercise.

Unless recovery is a priority you will NOT be able to sustain intense training as you get older.

 Here are the 3 things I do every day to keep my body performing optimally…

 

  1. Daily Mobility Training – If you saw my social media posts over the weekend, you know that I highly recommend daily mobility training to keep your body healthy, strong, and injury free. We not only want to have increased range of motion on all our joints as we age, we want to be able to move pain-free as well!

Here is my complete daily mobility routine <<==

 

  1. Daily Breath Work – I’ve been studying breathing exercises for well over 20 years now and it’s something that I do every day to make sure I’m energized and healthy. The one greatest indicator of overall health and longevity is lung function – the greater lung capacity you have, the healthier and stronger you are! Breath is life.

My Evolve Your Breathing Program contains all you need to build lung capacity, increase energy, and create vital health. (also, you can get EYB for free when you pick up a copy of Shadow Strength) My qigong program, Vital Force is also an excellent reference for breath training and energy development.

 

  1. Pine Pollen – I have been adding this to my morning glass of water and it has made a huge difference in aiding my recovery from intense training. While not absolutely necessary, I do find that it helps give me an edge in my training! Get Pine Pollen<<==

A Stronger Core, NOW

Posted on by
Reply

So, I’m in the middle of training one of my oldest clients and one of the exercises in the set happens to be a push-up on a medicine ball.

Now, we’ve done this exercise at least 100 times together, but this time as I demonstrate it she makes an astute observation – “your core is doing all the work, isn’t it?”

“Yup.”

In fact, we’ve had this conversation many times, but repetition is the mother of skill, so I continue…

“Yes. Actually, any exercise, if done properly, is a core exercise.

For example, when you assume the push-up position, your legs are tight and heels pushed back – squeeze the quads. Your glutes are tight – squeeze your butt. And you must brace your core isometrically.

This means you tighten your entire midsection as if you were about to be gut punched – got the image?

ALL movement and strength translate through your core, so the better you can integrate your breathing with your movement with your alignment through the center of your body the stronger, more powerful, and more injury-resistant you will be! (read that again)

The BEST “Core” Exercise

“In fact, I continued, do you know what the best “core” exercise is? A heavy overhead press.

Why?

Because, as we said above, all strength translates through your core and your entire midsection must be braced to support the weight over head. This isometric bracing of your core is a powerful way to get very strong!

Now, when you do that in every exercise (bodyweight or kettlebell or otherwise), guess what you are doing?

That’s right – you’re training your core to fire in every movement which not only stabilizes the body but enhances your strength and power output as well. Add in the breathing and you are superhuman!

Here’s a video on how to perform the perfect push-up.

Note the emphasis on the core tightening and the breathing!

 

Looking to take your push-up game, and your core strength, to the next level?

Master your strength with the Push-Ups for Internal Power program

 

Random Training = Random Results

Posted on by
Reply

One of the biggest problems rampant among many types of fitness programs is that random training yields random results.

It is difficult to measure progress when the parameters are constantly shifting.

In order for the body to produce an adaptation for improved performance in life, sport, or martial art, we must apply specific stimulus as per the SAID Principle (Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand).

This basically means that the body adapts with a specific type of fitness to any demand which is imposed on it.

When the same exercise is performed for too long, the body adapts to the stresses of each set and the adaptations or returns get smaller and smaller.

Once it has adapted to the stress, then it’s time to change or increase the stress or else we fall into that trap of diminishing returns.

Usually though it takes the body a period of 4-to-6 weeks to adapt and then it is advisable to begin changing exercises.

This does not mean that we need to completely throw away everything we have been doing; far from it. An exercise or drill can be changed by increasing intensity, increasing volume, decreasing rest periods, or increasing complexity or sophistication.

Warrior Fitness Training Principle # 9:

Specific Training + Frequent Practice = RESULTS

Instead of training randomly and getting less than ideal (random) results, a properly organized training program with incremental progression of increasing complexity and sophistication will actually prepare the body much better than a set of random skills strewn together with a nebulous outcome in mind.

How do you properly organize a training program for internal strength? <<==

Train the Body, Everything will Follow

Posted on by
Reply
How do you get great at so many different facets of martial art at one time?
 
What one thing can you do to bring up your game across the board, no matter what are you practice?
 

Train the body.

 
✅ Want to get better at grappling? Train the body
✅ Want to get better at striking? Train the body
✅ Want to get better at weapons work? Train the body
✅ Want to become more powerful? Train the body
✅ Want to become harder to throw? Train the body
 

Why does this work?

 
Your body is the delivery platform for every skill in martial arts. Thus, if you properly condition the body, you improve your ability to acquire higher and higher levels of skill across the board. Build a stronger foundation and the tower can go much higher.
 
Once you build a highly conditioned body for martial arts, all your other skills instantly become much easier to train.
 
Instead of focusing on all the many different skills, weapons, tactics, techniques, etc. in the martial arts, look at the one commonality between them all – YOU. To be more specific, your body.
 
If you put in the work at the level of conditioning the body, ALL your skills improve. You are focusing your energy on creating a body specific for budo. This type of training precedes all of your techniques. It builds a stronger, broader foundation so that any skill you choose to work on is automatically improved!
 
Over the past 30 years of training in martial arts, I have been privileged to cross-train in many different arts from Jujutsu to Karate to Russian Systema to BJJ and MMA to Krav Maga and Combatives to Internal Arts and weapons training. In each of these I was able to, not only hold my own, but develop a remarkable degree of skill in a very short amount of time – why?
 
 
Do you want to keep struggling to reach your full potential or do you want a specific, proven, step-by-step system to get you there?
 

The Year of Strength

Posted on by
Reply

I have dubbed 2020 “The Year of Strength”.

Why?

Because in strength is what holds us all together.

The strength of love.
The strength of family.
The strength of relationships.
The strength of community.

Yes of course the strength to physically defend ourselves and others. But also the mental strength to make the right choices. The spiritual strength to move past our own physcial and mental/emotional limitations and still be able to keep going when people depend on us or circumstances align against us.

The strength of character to do the right things even when no one is watching or holding us accountable.

The strength of will to persevere no matter what type of challenges life may throw at us.

In my philosophy, as you know, physical training is the microcosm of the macro. The strength of body translates over into all aspects of our lives and our psyche. Being stronger physically makes all of us more useful to each other and of course harder to kill. 🙂

So look forward to much more coming your way to give you all the tools you need to strengthen all 3 parts of yourself – physical, mental, and spiritual – from Warrior Fitness this year.

Happy New Year, my friends. Let’s make it a STRONG one!

Stronger Every Day!

PS – Looking for a crucible of physical training to put yourself through this year? Want to come out stronger, harder, leaner, and vastly healthier in just 6 short weeks? Warrior Fight Club training starts tomorrow – get in on the action HERE!!!

8 Ways to Fit in Your Fitness

Posted on by
Reply

It’s often been said that if you want something done you should give it to a busy person.  While this may be true of some busy people, namely the ones who are highly motivated, highly productive, and highly efficient, what about all the other busy people?

What about those who are busy through poor time management skills, or maybe those who are simply overwhelmed?  How about them?  Does the task they are given merely get thrown on top of a growing pile of “To-Do’s”, or even worse, shuffled to the bottom?  What if the task they are given, or give themselves, is directly related to increasing their quality of life and most likely longevity as well?  What if that task will help them be more productive at all their other tasks by reducing stress levels, increasing energy, and their overall sense of well being?  What if that task would help them to reduce, remove, or otherwise prevent a host of daily aches, pains, and illnesses that are stoically (or sometimes not so) suffered as things that “just happen” as we grow older?

 

 

Here’s a list of 8 ways for these busy people to fit in their fitness and reclaim a healthy lifestyle:

1.  Plan it out.

Scheduling is the key to successful time management.  Look at your weekly calendar and plan to exercise just as you would plan an important client meeting, a lunch with an old friend, or coaching your kid’s Little League team.

2.  Exercise wherever you are.

Joint mobility sessions can be done at your desk – see here.

3.  Take the Stairs.

Work in an office building?  Take the stairs instead of the elevator.  See how fast you can make it to your floor – beat those lazy suckers in the elevator to your floor!

4. Get outside.

Have a lunch break?  Go outside and go for a walk.  10 minutes in the fresh air will do wonders for you.  Eat at your desk while you work and then go for a walk.  Want to make your walk more productive?  Try inhaling for 5 steps, holding you breath on the inhale for 5 steps, exhaling for 5 steps, then holding the breath after the exhale for 5 steps.  When you can comfortably do that for the entire duration of your walk, increase to 6, 8, 10 steps!

5. Get up earlier.

Get up earlier and workout **warning – this one requires effort and commitment!!**

6.  Exercise together.

Spend quality time with your kids.  Exercise together – see Warrior Fitness for Kids.

7.  Brief workouts.

Got a spare 15 minutes?  Bring the intensity and lose the long, boring workouts.  See the Warrior Fitness WOWs for some ideas.

8.  Isometrics.

These require very little time to be effective, need no equipment, and can be done literally anywhere.

Obviously, this list is neither exhaustive nor all inclusive,  but I do hope it has helped you and sparked some ideas to help you fit in your fitness no matter how busy you are.  What ideas do you have?