We are missing the point

I just found an ad for a new Reebok shoe called RealFlex. The shoe is supposed to move with the foot much like Nike's Frees are supposed to do. In the ad, it says "76 Running Buddies." (for the shock absorbing nubby things on the bottom of the thick rubber sole) It then says, "Natural Movement. Perfected." This is the part that makes me scratch my head. Reebok, and it's not just Reebok, is saying that they have perfected natural movement. 


We are missing the point, or we are just arrogant. We actually believe we can "outsmart what we were designed to do" - to quote my better half, Mike McNiff. There is nothing wrong with the way we were designed. We weren't born needing shoes that would correct the movement of our feet. We were born with a perfect design. If we took advantage of that design and moved, we wouldn't be so easily convinced that we aren't made perfectly. If we would just allow ourselves to move the way were made to, we wouldn't need gimmicks that are supposed to perfect our movements. 


And it is a gimmick. How can you make money selling shoes to a growing population of people who are becoming aware that maybe the foot should be allowed to move when they walk or run? You come up with a shoe that "perfects" the natural movement of the foot. You convince people that their body is not made perfect and they need your help. 


Here it is: The body, your body, is wonderfully designed and pretty much perfect. If we did what we were made to do (move) we would not have many, if any, movement issues. We would not be so easily convinced that we need gimmicks like better running shoes, or electronic ab shocking devices, or whatever else you might see. 


Sorry for the rant, but we don't need our natural movement perfected. We simply need to move and explore movement. We need to take advantage of our design, which needs no perfection. 

Fit for Fire

The last few days have been great. I got to instruct a local fire department on my Fit for Fire training program. It's a program designed to improve the cardiovascular health, strength and endurance of firefighters while reducing their risk of injury and heart attack. Heart attacks are the number one cause of death for firefighters. It is a strenuous and dangerous job that places huge demands on the heart and body. 


So far, so good. The program was well received and the firefighters actually seemed to enjoy the training! I think they were amazed that something so taxing could also be fun. 


My training today was pretty good as well. It was forward crawling day:


Spider-man crawling for 80 yards.
Spider-man crawling with 10 pound dumbbells in each hand for 80 yards.
Spider-man chain pull with a 150 pound chain for 160 yards
Spider-man chain drag with 150 pound chain for 80 yards. 
(the chain pull is where I reach and pull the chain as I go, the chain drag is where I have the chain attached to a harness=constant drag)


I was pretty tired after that. 


If you're on the east coast, stay safe!


Have a great weekend!

A Good Weekend

Saturday morning started out with a fun play session, one that I'll have to repeat soon. I had no idea what I was going to do until I got started. That is the fun of a play session though, you get to be creative. I'll try to lay it out as descriptive as I can:

Cross-crawls in the spider-man crawling position. So, I was on all fours, hands and feet, and I touched opposite elbow to opposite knee for 10 minutes without rest. I guess both my brain hemispheres should have been communicating fairly well between themselves when I was done!

After that, I played with the Battling Ropes pole pull system. I basically just got on my knees, or the tall kneeling position, and pulled 1300 foot of rope that was wrapped around a pole. A had a 50 foot rope, so I had to rewrap it quite a few times. My goal was 1/4 of a mile or rope. This took about 12 minutes.

The fun part of the workout, the part I really enjoyed, was performing 20 pushups and launching into a 60 yard sprint. I did this 7 times and I really enjoyed it.

When I got home, I finished an article for Interesting Times Magazine. It's a pretty cool magazine if you have never checked it out. http://interestingtimesmagazine.com/  Hopefully the article will be in the September issue.

Yesterday, Sunday, the message at my church was resting on the Sabbath. My preacher said that the Sabbath was made for man. That we should take time to rest and be close to God. To free ourselves from our busy-ness. So, heading the message, I took yesterday off and had a cookout with friends. I even took a nap! Regardless of what your religious views might be, there is wisdom in resting. And, since their is wisdom in resting, I can only conclude that I am not always wise. As much as I enjoy training and playing, It felt good to rest.


Have a great one!

Fun with Midline Crossing Movements

It may come as no surprise to you, but I love cross-crawls. I think everyone should do them every day. Cross-crawls are a midline crossing movement. For whatever reason, midline cxrossing movements like cross-crawls offer many of the benefits that we discussed in Becoming Bulletproof. But one of the main benefits is that they get both of your brain hemispheres working together and they can help develop new neural connections in your brain. Cross-crawls help you move better. There are other midline crossing movements that may make a great addition to your movement and training tool bag as well: skipping and sprinting.

Skipping is a great midline crossing movement that not only will get both your hemispheres talking to each other, it can also improve your coordination and your athletism. Skipping can be incorporated into a great warm-up, or be used as an integral part of a play session. Skipping can actually be quite fun. That, and it may make you feel like a kid again!

Sprinting is also a midline crossing movement. However, sprinting is a midline crossing movement that is fast and powerful. Sprinting is what your body was made to do. It will make you lean and powerful. If you haven't sprinted in a while you should give it a shot. Just start out easy and don't jump in too deep. Sprinting can really help you find all the muscles you've neglected over the years!

If you're looking for more tools to use in your play sessions and you wnat to get extra benefit from the tools you choose, give skipping and sprinting a look.



Today's play session:

Cross-crawls in a pushup position for 10 minutes. (elbow to knee while holding self up in pushup position)
Battling Ropes velocity for 10 minutes.
Sprints - 80 yards

• half speed x 3
• half speed to 3/4 speed x 3
• half to 3/4 to full x 3

Thats it! Have a great day

We're getting Social

Becoming Bulletproof now has a fan page on facebook. We're trying to get social! The intent behind the page is to create a community where people can come and share their experiences with Becoming Bulletproof, how they are using it in their training, how it has helped them, issues they might be having, or anything else they want to share. The biggest thing we want to highlight there would be the community!

If you would like to check it out and join in on the conversation, here is the link:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Becoming-Bulletproof/229620467082769?sk=wall

I had a fun training session today. It felt as if I were playing! ;)

Supersets of Double Kettlebell Front Squats with 2-24kgs and Explosive Chin-ups for 15 minutes. I was able to perform 14 sets of 5 squats and 3 explosive/plyo chin-ups in 15 minutes.

I then went outside and put on my 40lb x-vest and tried to Spider-man crawl as fast as I could without tripping on myself. I crawled 80 yards in 1 min, 30 seconds. This smoked me, so I thought I'd try it again. I made another 80 yards in about 1 min, 26 seconds.

It was a fast training session, but I felt good!

Have a great weekend!

Tim

What is your Health worth?

Your health should be worth something to you. After all, if you are not physically healthy, you probably will have a hard time really enjoying life. Being healthy unlocks a lot of the joys life has to offer like playing with your kids, going for beautiful mountain hikes, swimming in crystal clear waters, insert your favorite hobby here...

At it's heart, Becoming Bulletproof is about injury prevention, movement rehabilitation, and being physically healthy so that you can enjoy living. A healthy body enables a person to really enjoy and experience life. That is what this book is all about.

Which brings us back to the initital question, What is your health worth. I spent well over $15,000 to learn the material that we have put together in Becoming Bulletproof. Since Mike and I attended a lot of the same courses, that's probably over $30,000 in educational courses that we invested in ourselves. Was it worth it? Yes, every dime. Why did we do this? Ultimately, Because we value our health. Sure, we wanted to learn how to be great trainers and give our clients the best training experience they could find, but at the end of the day, Mike and I simply wanted to know how to become Batman and Superman. We wanted to know how to be bulletproof, the way we were meant to be.

We think we have made this simple discovery. We have poured our hearts into this simple book so that others could also learn how to become bulletproof and live a healthy life. To stay injury free, to regain their movements, to climb mountains. And, we've put all this information together for less than $10. While we value our educational process, the time and the investment it cost us, we don't think learning how to move should cost a fortune. After all, we are only reminding your body how to do what it is made to do.

But believe me, your health is well worth $10. Good health is priceless. It's a gift.
If you haven't read Becoming Bulletproof yet, maybe you should. You're worth it.

Take care!

Tim

The Left out Variable to Becoming Bulletproof!

It turns out that Mike and I left out a very important variable to becoming bulletproof: Sleep! We need to sleep to stay healthy, strong, and mentally sharp. We probably left this out of the book because we weren't getting enough!

In the book, The 5 essential Elements of Wellbeing, they suggest that we should get between 7 and 8 hours of sleep per night. The average person only gets 6.7 hours. Getting to little sleep can adversely effect your health. Your hormones may get out of whack, your immune system my plummet, and you may not be able to retain all of the information you learned the day before. Getting too much sleep (more than 9 hours) can also be bad for you as well.

When you sleep, your body recovers and your brain connects all the dots of the day. Sleep is a reset button. A button that we need to press every day, or every night. ;)

Today's workout was fun. I crawled backwards like spider-man for 80 yards while dragging a 168 pound chain. Then I did it again with a 96 pound chain. After that, I Battled the Ropes with some velocity training: 10 solid minutes at 100 waves per minute. Good Stuff!

Here is a video of what a backwards spider-man crawl while dragging a 96lb chain looks like:

Exercises like this and more are in the Beyond Bodyweight Training System DVD. For more information, check out www.BattlingRopes.com.


Have a great day.

Tim