Monkey Bar Gym Training by John Hinds

You can buy this DVD set at this link.  It’s a great place to purchase other fine Lifeline products which are the core of the MonkeyBar Gym philosophy.

Apparently this is a sport in some countries. The fitness effects kind of make it a "sprint" for the upper body.

How to plan and control training for Peak Performance by Thomas Kurz

I’ve owned this book for many years and thought I’d dust it off and go through it again. The second reading was even more enjoyable. The fitness world has advanced and information is everywhere. The question of course is how to organize and decypher this data. Knowledge and application are two different things. Thomas Kurz does a very good job and presenting an extremely organized format for improving athletes. It’s rare that a text will have this much content and not be layered in advertisements, senseless photo’s or other fillers. Pure content is the selling point and you would be hard pressed to find a reason not to have this item on your shelf if you are a serious athlete or competitor. Mr. Kurz has somewhat of a dry delivery which probably has not made him a media darling. He is effective at producing results however. To me, that’s what counts. He walks his talk. The book can be purchased HERE.

Upcoming DVD teaser in this YouTube.

If your trainer can’t get you in shape in a prison cell, get another trainer.

It takes two double sided drive mechanisms to achieve goals. One is inspiration or desperation. The other is that we run away from pain and run towards pleasure.
A fertile environment for such creative soup is prison. Note the picture at the top of the article. It is a cell for prisoners to get exercise in. They are not allowed to mix with the general population ( to use internet slang, they are IGX’ers). The only thing in the cell is a chinning bar, space, and a floor. It may be called Nike fitness. Just do it. This style of training could be called prison training or playground training. You see young males in urban areas challenging each other to contests of will and hormones. They try harder and harder stunts to put on size and strength. Body size and muscles not only have a practical value of athletic prowess but psychological value of being bigger and stronger appearing to potential challengers. This methodology is deeply rooted in the rights of manhood and the desire to be the Alpha Male. Between the incarcerated and the hormone rich youth, you have a crucible formed that contains pain, pleasure, inspiration and desperation. There is no chrome, no ferns, no mirrors, no showers, no aerobic bunny’s. There is gravity, steel, and the application of will. This simplistic view of stimulating bones, muscles, tendons, and organs represents the purest form of physical culture. If these gentlemen can show outstanding fitness that results in weaponry for sociological combat. WHY CAN’T YOU?
If you don’t have the skills, find someone who does. If your trainer or guru or exotic man of mystery can’t train you in a prison cell, fire him.

Activate! Your Dynamic Range Of Motion

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.