Crawl for a Mile

They (someone) used to say you can never judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. There is wisdom in this saying. All too often we make assumptions about things before we do our own research and investigation. We take information, whether it be about people, eggs, cholesterol, bread, strength training, or whatever, and we judge it - good, bad or indifferent. Few of us ever really seek experiential knowledge. Admittedly, it is easier to just take information and let it form our opinions. But, if we really want to know something, we should set out to experience it, to learn from it. 

Take crawling for instance. I believe crawling, specifically spider-man crawling, is perhaps the greatest way a person could move, or train, if they wanted to build a strong, resilient body. Spider-man crawling builds foundational strength - the strength that all other strength, including absolute strength, is built upon. If you have this foundational strength, you can safely increase your strength potential, whether it be your absolute strength, your strength endurance, or both.  

Let's be honest. When it comes to strength training, most people probably don’t think about crawling around like a spider. Yet spider-man crawling will absolutely increase your body's ability to move better and it will make you stronger. Do you want to increase your overhead pressing strength? Spider-man crawl. Do you want to improve your squat? Spider-man crawl. Do you want to be able to nail the naked warrior pushup? Spider-man crawl. 

How does this work? The answer may be multifaceted. Crawling is a foundational pattern that is wired into your brain. You were made to crawl. It is your gait pattern, your contra-lateral gait pattern. This contra-lateral gait pattern is a developMENTAL pattern, it improves and develops your brain. Crawling actually nourishes your brain and creates new neural connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. It literally ties your brain together and in doing so, allows your body to move more efficiently. This movement efficiency improves your mobility and it helps with strength, but that is not where most of the strength benefit comes from. The real strength benefit from crawling comes from the fact that crawling ties your body together, it connects YOU as an X. The center of your X, your core, is knit together through this simple movement. The stronger your center is, the more injury resistant you are,  and the stronger your entire body can become.

Spider-man crawling is "gentle, reflexive strength training." It literally weaves your body together. Every time your hand or foot touches the ground, you are stimulating reflexive strength through the sensory nerves, or mechanoreceptors, in your hands and feet. These nerves send information to your brain and your brain sends information to your muscles telling them to contract. Try this yourself. Just baby crawl and notice how your triceps fires as soon as you place weight on your hands. If you pay attention, you will fill your lats fire too. Guess what, this is happening in the muscles you don't even know about like your rotator cuff muscles and even your obliques. The same thing happens through your feet as you spider-man crawl. Almost every single muscle you have, your stabilizers, your prime movers, all of them, are effected and "trained" by spider-man crawling. Every step sends a signal for them to contract. Every step gently and reflexively ties you together (Your X is tied together - from one hand to the opposite foot), laying a foundation of strength. 

Even if you could place the wonders of it's reflexive strength building nature aside, spider-man crawling is still the way to go if you want to have a solid foundation for strength. When done for time or distance, spider-man crawling places the body under a tremendous amount of tension - safely. Time under tension builds strength. Spider-man crawling also reinforces the gait pattern - it requires and builds coordination. Coordination helps build strength. Spider-man crawling can also improves your body’s movement patterns by increasing mobility and improving stability. Better movement opens the door for safe, effective strength training. For those of you who also enjoy adding metabolic conditioning to your training, you’re in luck. Spider-man crawling even builds tremendous cardiovascular health and stamina. It will give you the "heart of a racehorse", as Pavel Tsatsouline used to say. 

If you want to maximize your strength potential and resiliency,  spider-man crawling is strength training at its best. It is a foundational strength building exercise. Foundational strength is needed for all forms of strength, regardless of your definition of strength. You cannot have a solid structure without a well laid foundation.

Remember, do not judge this information, and do not take my words for fact. Experiment with spider-man crawling for yourself. Experience it. Spend some time learning from it. Crawl for a mile in my shoes, so to speak, before you dismiss this or embrace this. You have absolutely nothing to lose from spending time implementing this simple, safe exercise into your training program. Try it twice a week for a month. Try to work up to 10 straight minutes of spider-man crawling nonstop. Once you can do this, you are really strong. You'll certainly be a lot stronger than you were before you tried it.

Opposite limbs move together. Keep the butt down, this is not a bear crawl. 

If you want more information about the wonders of crawling check out Becoming Bulletproof, available on Amazon and here!

It's Not What You Know

You can know all kinds of things. You can know how to build a house. You can know how to keep your lights separate from your darks. You can know build muscle and burn fat. You can even know how to solve almost everyone's financial problems. But it is not what you know. It is what you do. 

We all know things: Good things, Right things, True things. But, we don't all do what we know. Doing is what changes your situation. Doing is what matters. Doing is the place where what you know is met and partnered with action. It doesn't matter what you know if you don't do. 

Tim, what are you talking about? 

Do you know how to eat healthy? Okay, tricky question. But, do you know how to eat "healthy" food? Sure you do. So, do you? Do you always act on your knowledge of how to eat healthy foods? Do you even act on that knowledge 60% of the time you make a food decision? Flip this around: Do you know that McDonalds is not serving grass-fed beef, baked french fries, natural whole-sprouted grain buns, and preservative free foods? Yes, you know you know this! Will you still eat there anyway? Will you let your kids eat there? Be honest. 

You see, it is not what we know. It is what we do. 

You know right now that spending 20 minutes a day getting in some good movement (walking, playing, exercising, biking, insert activity here) is very good for you. Will you do it, every day? Even if you know that good movement is the/a secret to youth, health and life? Did you know that? It is. 

Moving every day, like you were made to move, is the key to staying young, healthy and strong. Yes, even simple movements like crawling will help you retain and restore the body that you have wanted to own your whole life. It is true, and it is stupid-simple! Now, you know that. There is potential power in that knowledge. But the real power, the kinetic power, in that knowledge only comes with action. 

You have knowledge. Valuable knowledge. Will you act? 

Be honest. Will you move every day? Will you act and take the body, the health, you want to have? 

Most people have lots of knowledge; potentially powerful knowledge. But yet they don't use it. Don't be like most people. Be an outlier. Be a kinetic powerhouse. Be a doer. 

To Be, or Not to Be

It is the question. Many of us answer this question every day and we don't even know it. Other ways to phrase this question would be "To live, or not to live", "to thrive, or to survive", "to engage, or to withdraw", "to fight, or to give up", "to stand, or to sit". 

Every day with make a decision to have an adventure, or to merely exist. More days than not, we most likely decide to exist. I am guilty of existing. I have wasted too many days existing and not living. But no more. 

I have learned that life is meant to be lived. Yes, I know. That is so profound. But really, we were made for more than just waking up, brushing our teeth, going to work, surviving the "jungle", coming home, fixing dinner, picking up socks, brushing our teeth, and going to bed. We were made for adventure. 

Do you understand how WONDERful the human brain is? Our brains are better designed, and more capable than any supercomputer will ever be. Our brains are constantly "on", constantly learning, adapting, growing, and changing. They are literally sponges of information and assimilation. You are never not learning. There are more neural connections in our heads than there are stars in the universe. These connections "feed" to stay healthy. We nourish them through adventure. Our brains crave MOVEMENT, music, knowledge, information, stimulation. Adventure - living, playing, learning, discovering - nourishes our brains and keeps them healthy and resilient.     

The brain, though we age, is capable of growth and change throughout our entire lives. The old adage that you can't teach an old dog new tricks is baloney. Even if it were true, it is not true for you. You are not a dog! Your brain is amazing and certainly capable of learning new tricks. In fact, your brain loves learning new tricks. It craves learning new tricks. 

One of the best ways to starve the brain is to do nothing. Doing nothing - our typical day to day life filled with tons of sitting, TV, or other thoughtless activities - starves our brains. Doing nothing weakens the neural connections in our brains. Sitting 8 hours a day, for example, robs the brain of proprioceptive and vestibular input (sitting robs the brain of all the rich information movement feeds it). When our brains get robbed from all this stimulation, this adventure, it starts to degrade. We lose our ability to think as sharp, we lose our balance, we lose our attention spans, we lose our ability to move well, and then we age - rapidly. 

A healthy brain that is fed a rich diet of movement, thought, and even music is a brain that thrives. A healthy brain that thrives leads to a healthy body that thrives. They are not separate. They are more chicken and egg related than anything: You need one to have the other.

Boredom is a brain killer. Get up and feed your brain. Nourish your brain through movement, through adventure. Get out side and purposefully set out to discover new things: go on hikes, climbs, walks, try to learn new skills like surfing, slack-lining, or even swimming. You were made for adventure. It keeps nourishes your brain and it keeps you healthy. In other words, BE.  

God's Athletic Academy

This may or may not interest you. But whatever your opinion, or beliefs, I am sure there is a ton of valuable knowledge and information to be learned. This is going to be really cool

From John Brookfield: 

We are very excited to introduce God's Athletic Academy to the Christian community. God's Athletic Academy is the ultimate in physical training and wisdom, which is based on God's biblical word and principles. These biblical principles are taught during the workouts that one goes through and each workout or class is structured around different scriptures and biblical lessons. God's Athletic Academy trains people to reach their ultimate levels in physical fitness while learning wisdom principles that help them succeed and be successful in all aspects of their lives. We know that this can only be done by developing a personal relationship with our lord and savior, Jesus Christ.

God's Athletic Academy was developed and created by John Brookfield who made Jesus lord and Savior thirty-three years ago. John is also a multiple world record holder who has set a variety of world records when it comes to sustaining strength and power over time. John has authored seven different published books and produced over one dozen instructional training DVDs on the topic of strength and conditioning. In fact countless professional, college and high school sports teams use John's training systems and methods. He also works with Military Special Forces units and law enforcement agencies who apply his training principles. 

God's Athletic Academy was actually created when John asked God to reveal to him the best way to train a human for ultimate physical human performance. The key word here is reveal. Every method and training system in God's Athletic Academy is completely different than you will find in any other training system or gym in the world. John is quick to tell you these methods, principles and systems came directly from God and not from man.

GALATIANS CHAPTER 1 VERSE 12: FOR I NEITHER RECEIVED IT OF MAN, NEITHER WAS I TAUGHT IT, BUT BY THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST!!

You will quickly find that all the principles teach anyone the importance to stay on task and work through difficulties to be successful in every aspect of their lives and in particular teach those attending the importance to growth in Christ Jesus and find their spiritual gifts and develop their talents for the kingdom of God. God tells us the importance of expanding our territories and teaching others. The importance of staying on task and expanding our territory is crucial but seldom understood in today's world. For example, when God gives us a vision and we move forward in faith we usually have no idea how long the task will last and what we will encounter, however to be successful we must persevere and not give up or change our course. These Godly wisdom principles are one of the things that are taught and developed in God's Athletic Academy.

For more information on God's Athletic Academy please go to www.GodsAthleticAcademy.com or contact John Brookfield directly at John@powerropes.com.

On the weekend of April 27th, we will be conducting our first certification course in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. The certification will last from 9 am to 5 pm on both Saturday and Sunday. We are excited to teach and disciple those who attend and even more excited to watch the doors that God is going to open for all of us!! 

Two Sides to Every Story

Imagine you had two sons. Son #1, you spend all your time with. You take him fishing, you play catch with him, you just love all over him. Son #2, you don't spend much time with at all. In fact you only spend time with him when you need his cooperation. Obviously, your relationship with Son #1 would be solid. It would feel natural and right. And, your relationship with Son #2 would pretty much be non-existant, it would be very forced and awkward at best. 

No one would do this on purpose, I know. I hope not anyway. However, we do this every day when it comes to our bodies. WHAT am I talking about? You have a dominant hand, say your right hand, you use it for everything. Guess what: you have two hands. At best you only use your non-dominant hand, say your left hand, when you need its cooperation. Your relationship with your left hand is just like the relationship with Son #2, forced and awkward.

If I haven't lost you yet, hang in there. Can you throw a football? Sure you can. Now, can you throw a football with your non-dominant hand? Can you throw it in a way that does not look like a "girl throw?" No offense to any ladies who may read this blog.  Why can't you throw well with your other hand? Because you don't spend anytime building a relationship between that hand and your brain. You have two hands, two feet, two sides. Most of us only spend time building a relationship with our dominant hand, foot, or side. As a result, using the other side of our body is very awkward, clumsy, and just plain difficult.

Hold on, this gets deeper. By not using our non-dominant hand, by not cultivating a relationship with our non-dominant side, we are neglecting half of our brain. The opposite side of your body is controled by the opposite side of your brain (Think in terms of an X. The X shows up everywhere in your body.)  If you don't use your left hand, for example, you are starving the right side of your brain. And, you are missing out on nourishing your brain, making neural connections, thus making your brain more efficient. The more nourishment your brain receives, the healthier and more efficient your brain becomes -> the more efficient your body becomes. 

Basically, learning how to use both sides of your body makes a healthier, smarter, happier brain which leads to a healthier, more powerful, more graceful body. Yes, the simple act of learning how to throw a football with your left hand can improve your health - globally. Learning how to kick a ball with your left foot can make you stronger. Learning how to brush your teeth with your left hand can make you smarter. 

You have two sides. The more time you spend developing a relationship with your non-dominant side, the more capable you become. You will be able to think better, move better, and perform better. Think of it this way:

There are two sides to every story. When both sides of the story match up, you have a solid, reliable story. You have harmony and you have a good foundation.

Your body is so amazing. Learn how to use it and enjoy it in all the ways it was meant to be used.  

It's Called Moving

I am embarrassed. Not because of anything I've done, but I am embarrassed because of how things have become. My kids told me this morning they may not be able to go outside for recess at school because they have PE today. I thought, "Well, that doesn't sound too bad." Then they informed me that in PE they were doing Cup Stacking.

CUP STACKING

What? This is their PE topic. PE - PHYSICAL EDUCATION. Cup Stacking. And, because of Cup Stacking, my kids may not get to go outside and have recess. Does this sound right to anyone? Our country has lost its way. There was a time when kids were athletic. And those athletic kids grew to be athletic, healthy adults. Now, thankfully, our kids will know how to stack cups and take them down again. Now we can be sure that their hearts are healthy and strong and that their bones and muscles can withstand the rigors of life.

In case you are a cup stacking enthusiast, I understand the argument is that cup stacking helps learning. BALONEY. You want to know what helps learning? It's called moving. Moving, the way we were designed, is what helps with learning. Do you know why? Moving nourishes the brain. It builds and shapes new neural connections. It literally feeds the brain and KEEPS the brain healthy. Moving makes smarter, more capable kids. Not cup stacking. Cup stacking further compounds the art of not moving. We don't need more of that in our schools. 

Schools - the learning institutes - are doing all they can to stifle real learning = the ability to think, by not allowing quality moving in the day for our kids. This is upside down! It gets worse, too. Where I live, dodge ball and kick ball are banned. Why? Because someone is a target. They are getting singled out and someone is trying to hit them with a ball. So, we ban dodge ball. That seems logical: we take away the ability to judge speed and distance, the ability to avoid collision, the ability to anticipate movement - we take away fun - all because we are concerned for safety and self-esteem. Again, moving, learning to be athletic, builds self-esteem. Not cup stacking. 

We really need to wake up here people. If you love your kids, if you love your grandkids, we have to get back to our roots. We need to move. We need to play. We need to get "exercise" and sunlight. We need to experience the thrill or potential thrill of falling off a monkey bar set. Heck we might even need to climb something one day. Wouldn't it be nice if we knew how? 

Anyway, I could talk about this 50 pages from now. Wake up.

WE WERE MADE TO MOVE.