Years ago a remember a story about a karate fighter who was entering full contact competition. This was 1975. He said his philosophy was to emulate Muhammed Ali. He claimed that Ali would never look for the one punch kill or what some call, "The Big Punch", but rather hit his opponent often, frustrating him and almost allowing him to knock himself out. He looked at the constant barrage as a pathway to a bigger goal. He never set himself up for that one big shot and was never disappointed. He used a series of smaller goals that carried less weight in terms of failure and he collected them to capture his prize. This idea has massive implications in terms of better choices and goal setting. It is used by addicts when they say, "One day at a time". They don’t think of the big picture of being clean in terms of months, years, or even weeks. They focus on the short term and use a series of small goals to collect and make the long term goal without thinking about it.

The point of the story is that changes in behavior are decisions whose time has come.
Big decisions have a huge psychological payload. That is why people can spend a lifetime avoiding them. A more elegant approach is to get good at making a lot of small decisions and letting them add up to life changing behavior. Think of Ali’s punches wearing down the opponent until his arms drop from exhaustion and frustration. It’s like Bruce Lee said,.. "The Art of Fighting Without Fighting". Reframe lots of small aspects of your life as positive decisions or mini goals. If the alarm rings and you get up and go to work, you pay your mortgage. That’s a win. I know, you’re saying, "But I do that every day!" Yes, true, but what if you didn’t? What if you stayed in bed and ate waffles all day? You would be out on the street and fat. You are therefore currently making life changing decisions on a daily basis and you never realized it. Applying this to fitness, health, weight control, or learning a new skill can be surprisingly easy. Business people spend millions of collective dollars every year on organizational systems. The all carry digital tools, Moleskine’s, or exotic planners. The have complex and unique task list methodologies that cover their jobs, errands, personal lives, and spiritual requirements. Why not actually include things you do every day, and small chores that will lead to big shifts in your comfort realm? The idea is to get creative and break down things like clean eating, exercise, and meditation into bite size pieces. Keep it small, keep it focused, and the goals will appear in the rear view mirror.

3 Facts On Lats

Try this and see if it works.

1. Pullups to the Chest. 5X5. Do whatever you can to do this many or more. Assisted pullups, stepping in a Jumpstretch Band, partner assistance, etc. For many, this will be easy. For others real hard. If it is impossible, use a pulldown machine with the form that is explained above.

So there you have it. Pullup, Pullback, and Pullover. Three Facts on Lats.

Activate! Your Dynamic Range Of Motion

Allowing convicts to lift weights as a means of reward or to dissipate stress is extremely controversial. This ARTICLE provides some framework and the opinions that follow are quite illuminating.

I read an article about organization that made a real impact. Usually these articles deal with what type of pen to use with your new Moleskine. This one was effective however because it fit several categories. It was simple, it had visual impact, it had a track record, and it involved a celebrity. That should be the acid test for almost anything in your life of importance in your life. The writer of the blog used to do stand up comedy. He wanted to increase his effectiveness and sought out someone who was already effective. He met Jerry Seinfeld at a comedy club and took a few moments of his time to ask advice and pull some nuggets of knowledge from this master comedian. Jerry told him to be a better comedian you needed to write everyday. Seinfeld had a simple, but highly effective process for this. He bought a large, yearly, calendar for his wall. He took a red marker and drew a line through each day he took the time to sit and write. Now the hard part, keep the line going unbroken. The more days you connect, the more you write. The more you write, the better you get. The better you get, the closer you are twards your goals of being an effective comedian. The rest, of course, is history.

How can you apply this to physical training or effective eating? Pretty simple. The dietary part is pretty easy. Just strike through the days you eat correctly. Don’t strike through the days where you eat a bucket of Zagnut Bars. Training however, is more of a challenge. The human body adapts to the stress of training during periods of rest. That would mean you HAVE to break the line, right? No, not exactly. Rest and recovery have to be considered part of the formula so a simple adaptation of the original idea is needed. Why not mark rest days as BLUE instead of RED? That doesn’t mean sitting on your rear and watching Celebrity Rehab. That means you should assign things like QiGong, stretching, Yoga, joint mobility, breathing exercise, and walking to your "off days". That way they have purpose and actually weigh something.

What happens if you break your chain? Start over. See how long you can keep your chain going. 33 days, 45 days, 182 days. It doesn’t matter. If you cycle through templates, back off weeks can be all blue and you can even set dates for competition far ahead and reverse engineer your though process. What about vacations? Well hopefully you still walk, eat reasonably, and do some stretching, swimming, and possibly more dynamic activities like hiking, scuba, or even rock climbing. There is NO reason to break the chain if it is dynamic, flexible, and embraces common sense.

I’d strongly suggest one chain for diet, and one for activity since those embrace the double edged sword that we all wield in the war of achieving physical goals.

If you are interested in a hard core fitness opinion that is delivered with a tongue in cheek style, I’d suggest you check out Scott Helsley’s Ration Fitness Blog.
His recent post on the use of Jumpstretch Bands for training included this photo.

It is not uncommon for athletes to dynamically load their bench press, squat, deadlift, or dips/chins, it was the angle of pull that was interesting. Scott choked the band to a kettlebell far back from his center of gravity. As most of you know, the lats have a wide range of movement. I primarily think of "down and back" when I think of using the lats. Other’s think of using a pulldown machine for endless "lean back pulls" with ridiculously light weights in their local Bally’s. Scott’s arrangement passed several simple tests for my ever inquiring mind. One, it looked challenging and different. Two, it was bare bones cheap. It also fit the "prison mentality" which is a huge component of my personal training philosophy.

On the first try, the answer was simple, … This is an incredible exercise. I think it provides a nice, anatomically sound, pulling movement. The pullups felt different than anything I had tried before. I kept the angle of pull exactly the same for every set, changing it remains as a neat variable for future workouts. The bonus part is when you can no longer pull yourself up. You have several choices. The first is to use a lighter band. The second, use NO band. The third, choke the band onto the chinning bar and step into it for assisted chinning. What about the fourth option? That option is the lat shrug. It is a simple motion that can occur when the arms can no longer bend ( the weakest link in the chin / pull up ). You simple contract the lats by pulling the shoulder blades down and back. In this case the band arrangement provides incredible resistance for the motion. Actually it feels almost perfect. It’s so good that you could actually use this as a separate exercise. That’s what legendary Mr. Olympia Larry Scott did. He learned the exercise from sword and sandals actor, Mark Forest (Lou Degni). Forest would actually put his wrists on the bar and not use his fingers. He felt this isolated the lats. I don’t personally think it makes a difference. If you choose to do it without doing the pullups first, use a heavier band, and really blast out the reps. You can move quickly since the band dampens momentum. I think higher volume in this case would be a nice change of pace from low reps and sets. Any numerical variation of sets and reps should work however. Be creative. The results could be stupendous. Look at Scott’s back.

The origin of this post is from this training forum.

Before the 1980 Olympics it wasn’t uncommon for us to do the following:

We were training at the OTC at the Springs and I think it was 1978 and a buddy challenged me to see if I could do a wall sit for an hour.
Basically in a sitting position with your back against the wall, legs at 90 degrees. Arms hanging down at your sides.
Legs were shaking like a banshee at the end but I did it. Some squirt supposedly bested my time of 60 minutes with 61, but he didn’t have a witness… you know how that goes.

 I lost my Dad tonight. He was born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania on April 5, 1923 on Canal Street near the old Heinz plant. He died on January 6, 2008. He was married to my Mom, Helen Buchinsky Furman for 56 years. My Mom passed away in 2002. They met before WW2 and wrote to each other during the War. My Father enlisted with his friends into the Marine Corp. They wanted him in demolition since most men of ethnic background coming from Pennsylvania were coal miners. His specialty however, was Photography, and he served as a combat photographer with the 2nd Marine Division in the South Pacific Theater. He was in the Gilbert Islands, New Zealand, and in the Battle of Tarawa. My Father was back home for shore leave preceding what would have been the invasion of Japan, when VJ day was announced.

My parents were married in November of 1945. My Mother gave birth to my Sister Diane in 1949.  We lost my sister in 1981. She was a Registered Nurse in a Pain Clinic in Pittsburgh at the time. It’s very difficult to write with any more clarity at this time. All I can say is that I will miss him. There is an empty spot in my soul. He was my hero.