This is a must read. I took this from Scott Sonnon's blog over at http://www.rmaxinternational.com/flowcoach/?p=305 

July 18, 2008 – 4:13 am

What is your primary fitness attribute? The conventional cross-training community defines the array of foundational fitness attributes as follows:

1. Cardiovascular/Respiratory Endurance - The ability of the body systems to gather, process and deliver oxygen.
2. Stamina - The ability of the body systems to process, deliver, store and utilize energy.
3. Strength - The ability of a muscular unit, or a combination of muscular units, to apply force.
4. Flexibility - The ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint.
5. Power - The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.
6. Speed - The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement.
7. Coordination - The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement.
8.  Agility - The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another.
9. Balance - The ability to control the placement of the bodies center of gravity in relation to its support base.
10. Accuracy - The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity

Each of these 10 attributes above require a characteristic in order to function. None of these attributes mean anything without the most a priori virtue of fitness: mobility. Mobility is your very existence.

• Without mobility, your lungs do not breathe, your heart cannot pump and your skeleton cannot move.
• Mobility is the prime requisite of strength and power for without mobility, the muscle cannot maximally contract (even “isometric” strength training is internal movement against an immovable external resistance.) 
•  Mobility is the foundation of sports and athletic performance for it enables speed, agility, coordination and accuracy. The less mobile you are - the slower, less agile, less coordinated, and less accurate.
• Mobility defines range of motion and flexibility. You cannot have range or flexibility without it.
• Without Mobility, you cannot acquire or refine new skills.
• Decrease your mobility, and you accelerate the aging process: we are as young as our mobility!
• Diminish mobility and you increase pain! The body despises immobility and sends you noisily defiant messages when you refuse to move.

12 years ago I coined the terms “joint mobility” and “circular strength” to refer to this most critical attribute of fitness upon which all others are built. In the decade+ that I’ve been traveling the world speaking to various strength and conditioning, fitness, yoga, wellness, academic and clinical organizations, I’ve seen Mobility elevate itself most appropriately to the #1 Attribute.

•  I’m not the strongest man, but I can perform strength feats that most people on the planet cannot, such as single arm swiping the 45lbs Clubbell and holding the record for most single arm 25lbs Clubbell Mills in an hour (1,433).
• I’m not the fastest man, but I’ve finished a 42 mile / 68km “ultra” distance marathon in just under 14 hours.
• I may have been branded the “most uncoordinated athlete” in high school, but I’ve performed at the Bolshoy Theater in Russia.
• I may not be the toughest man, but I have won international championships in Russian Sambo submission fighting and Chinese Sanshou kickboxing against far genetically superior opponents.
• I’m not motorically gifted (due to an array of childhood physical and mental “disabilities”), but I’ve become a sought-after yoga guru presenting in 9 countries on different aspects of motor development and accelerated human performance.

The only reason that I’ve been able to accomplish these achievements has been because of Mobility. If you haven’t seen it already, here’s a short video sneak peak at where you can go with your mobility development.

Most people (named the “Late Majority” and the “Laggards” by Malcolm Gladwell in his book, “The Tipping Point”) await the appearance of competing products rather than investing in the innovator’s visionary release. But with the increased number of professionals teaching mobility, the public is beginning to realize Mobility is not a gimmick.

I created Z-Health years ago as an early experiment into systematizing joint mobility; now operated by a former student of mine, Eric Cobb. Pavel Tsatsouline credits me for the mobility exercises in his book on the subject. Steve Maxwell, a former student, credits me in his videos. Each of these new competing products in the market place reinforces customer faith that the original innovation is the “real deal.”

What can you do right now? Begin by performing circles with each of your joints everyday: neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, thorax, lower back, pelvis, hips, knees, ankles and toes. Start with 3 circles in each direction. Don’t go into, but rather around pain. Only shave off the tension; don’t force it. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst pain, go to a 3: it should be uncomfortable but not very uncomfortable.

The benefits are astronomical! Mobility is life! MOVE IT OR LOSE IT!

Flow Thyself™,

In my profession (teaching), a lot of teachers and students just don’t like Mondays. In fact in Japan it is often called ‘Blue Monday’. They say that it is the start of the week and their energy levels are always low.

I find this completely contradictory to my own feeling because on Mondays, my energy and mood is always peaking. One of the reasons why it may be like that is because I always workout on Monday mornings. So with that in mind, I have decided to contribute to helping you get energized on Mondays by giving you a Workout of the Week (WOW). These workouts are short, intense, comprehensive (strength & conditioning wise), and done with minimal equipment so that you too can start your week with a bang. 

This week’s workout:

Beginner:

Pull-ups (any kind)

Pushups (any kind)

V-ups

Burpees (squat thrusts if you can’t do burpees)

·            Designate the number of reps per round for each drill (around 3-5).

·            Do as many rounds as possible in 10 minutes. Try to increment rounds each successive workout

·            Train 2x a week for up to 3 weeks.

·            After that switch to harder variations of the drills mentioned above or check back for more!

Intermediate:

Overkill (conceived while listening to this track from Metallica's Garage Inc. Album)

5 One handed swings

5 Cleans

5 Jerks

5 Windmills

Repeat on the other side

X5 rounds for time

·            Men use a 24kilo dumbbell/kettlebell. Women can choose either a 12 or 16 kilo bell.

·            Finish the reps of each drill before moving on to next WITHOUT setting the bell down.

Let me know how it goes. All the best!

The step up is a drill that is readily used by all kinds of people ranging from average Joes to elite athletes. It is simple in its execution and requires one to simply step on a bench/high step/chair/elevated surface with one leg and then step off. It is a ‘bang for your buck exercise’, which means you get the most out of it because it works the glutes, hams, quads, and many other stabilizers in the core. Furthermore, you can do it with bodyweight, a barbell, dumbbells, or kettlebells. To view how this drill is done with instructions, please visit this link http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/BBStepUp.html

Looks fairly easy to do right? Certain factors do however exist in doing’ the perfect step-up’. Factors include height of the step, and the gap between the leg and the step. A higher step targets the hamstrings, while the lower step targets the quads. Also a further distance between the leg and the step targets the gluteus muscles while a closer one targets the quads. An excellent article outlining this in detail can be found at http://www.straighttothebar.com/2006/09/the_stepup_a_real_squat_altern.html

Now the question that I started asking was what happens when the leg is at a 90 degree angle? How is the tension distributed in this scenario? How can I test it? I don’t have any adjustable steps or means of adjusting step height at home (I am a desk jockey), so what I could I do? Then it occurred to me, that if just kneel on the ground with one leg and have the other one bent, I got myself a right angle! All I have to do next is to stand up!

I tried it and noticed I was hitting a lot of muscles in my leg and my Rectus Femoris was getting a major workout as well. But surprisingly, the one extra area that this drill was hitting was the Vastus Medialis, which is often pointed out as a weak link, for runners. I went further and tested this style by adding a kettlebell. At first I racked one kettlebell in front and although I got an awesome workout, my form was somewhat comprised from slightly leaning forward and the stress eventually ending up on my knees. Then I tried it again sometime later by locking a bell overhead on the leading leg side. This time my back was straight (because of the bell locked overhead), I had to focus more on each rep (balance and controlled movement), and my body was tight like one unit. Eventually I got to a point where I was moving fluidly.

The video below shows how I did it. I know you are thinking that it looks like the up part of a Turkish Get Up (TGU), but it isn’t. The support base on a TGU is much more solid and you can use both legs to get up. Here it is essentially one, but it is hard to tell on video. Others will say it looks like a lunge or an overhead lunge,but it isn’t that either because a lunge is a sudden forward movement or plunge. A good example of an overhead lunge can be found at http://www.pponline.co.uk/node/38180

Take a look at the video and you will see what I mean.

Standing up this way made this drill really effective in hitting the the leg muscles and especially the Vastus Medialis. It was a surprise discovery and felt very different from the way kettlebell C&Js or even step ups hit them. Furthermore my legs got a major workout in a very short amount of time. As a supplementary drill, I can definitively see a crossover for people playing sports that require a lot of single leg stability and grounding like baseball pitching, fencing, kicking sports, and even grappling takedowns. Some important tips to remember in executing this drill effectively are as follows:

• Warm up well
• Keep the lead leg’s knee bent at 90 degrees. Knees stay behind toes at all times during this drill
• Keep weight evenly distributed on both legs before the ascent (start up) phase.
• Work one leg at a time and move in a controlled fashion. Focus on each rep
• Use an adequate weight. A weight that allows you to move fluidly. No need to overload.
• 3 sets of 5 reps once or twice a week is more than enough. Don’t go overboard please. Stay safe
• Stretch your quads thoroughly after you are done

That is it. Give it a go. Let me know how it goes

I first learned about the six degrees of freedom after reading Scott Sonnon’s blog at http://www.rmaxinternational.com/flowcoach/ . He says that the human body moves in six different planes of motion. His program is called FlowFit and is part of his Circular Strength Training®. FlowFit basically takes the body through each of these planes of movement in circuit style. The 6 Degrees of Freedom are:

• Heaving - movement in the vertical plane (up and down)
• Surging - movement in the sagittal plane (front and back)
• Swaying - movement in the frontal plane (lateral or side-to-side)
• Yawing - movement in the transverse plane (twisting around a central axis)
• Pitching - tilting in the sagittal plane (rolling forward or backward)
• Rolling - tilting laterally (bending to the side)
  

Naturally we don’t move in any one plane of motion all the time, and it got me thinking that for fitness what he was saying makes sense. If you exercise only one or two planes of movement, you are likely to build imbalances. In China, you can clearly see Tai Chi practitioners walking backwards in the park to balance out their walking leg muscles. So this kind of wisdom has really been around for a long time. If you do a YouTube search for Flowfit, you are likely to see a lot of yoga based moves. However it can be transferred to other tools like the kettlebell. Here is a workout I did for my moderate day in all six planes with a 24kg bell for 5 sets of 5 reps without putting the bell down and finishing each drill before moving to the next:

• Tactical Lunge Figure 8(L,R)
• Walking Swings Sideways (Swing step left, swing step right)
• Rack& Jerk weight overhead(right)
• Overhead Squat (right)
• Windmill(right)
• Rack& Jerk weight overhead (left)
• Overhead Squat(left)
• Windmill(right)

A very short and sweet workout which left my heart pounding hard!! The intensity was just awesome and unexpected!

If you are not familiar with the above drills or don’t have a kettlebell (yet), you can try a bodyweight version that doesn’t require any equipment. Some of these drills hit multiple planes. Google them if you are not familiar with them. They can easily be found. Here is a sample workout for beginners that is short, sweet and simple. Designate a certain number of reps and move from one drill to the next without a break. Repeat for 3 to 5 sets:

• Hindu (Dive Bomber)Pushups
• Grasshoppers
• Walking Lunges(forward/backward)
• Lateral Lunges(left/right)

If the above drills don’t look appealing for whatever reason and you are wondering about alternative ways to hit these six planes, you are in luck. Some activities that hit these planes are:

• Soccer
• Basketball
• Table tennis
• Ballroom Dancing
• Tai Chi
• Yoga
  

Well there you have it, a quick and simple way of making your workouts comprehensive and time efficient. Moving in six planes is well worth the application. Let me know how it goes. All the best!

Here is a cool way to not only give your toddler(s) awesome exercise, but to remove any stress they might be feeling.

1. Gather some old newspapers and flyers (around 10-15).
2. Sit down with your child(children) and start tearing them to shreds together(a stress buster for both)
3. After everything is torn, you let your child (children) play and enjoy in the mess for as long as they like.
4. Once they are finished, get a plastic bag and start cleaning up the mess, putting everything in the bag together.
5. After everything is tidy, tie the bag tightly so it looks loosely like a ball. Now the fun begins.
    

The kids will throw and toss the paper ball in all sorts of ways such as:

• Overhead throws
• Diagonal throws
• Lateral throws
• Kicking
• Forward tossing
• Highland throws
• Chest pass (like basketball)
• Dragging and tosses

 This method is safe and gives the kids a great overall body workout with the FUN factor way high. Eating their meals and taking their naps after this kind of play is guaranteed.  Give it a go!

Reference: Kodomo To Tanoshimu 101 No Asobi

Translation- 101 games you can play enjoy with kids

In the era of globalization, one of the 'benefits' that everybody is getting is more work and less sleep. And naturally as this piles up it leads to all kinds of health issues down the road. Some companies do however take the welfare of their employees seriously. A good example of this is BMW, who offer their industry 'secret' flex time schedule at their headquarter manufacturing plant in Germany. There are perks available like having their employees spend a lot of time at home, giving them plenty of sleep/rest both at home and at the company HQ (they have bedrooms), and eating healthy gourmet style food at the company's cafeteria.

Not all corporate companies have capitalized quite as effectively on their employees' recovery and well being quite as well as BMW has. Large corporations everywhere still have small cubicles that are filled mainly with binders and paper making them extremely claustrophobic. This flextime schedule in reality finally gave BMW the edge over their main rival-Mercedes. As a result BMW produces a lot more cars now than Mercedes, who in reality was the leader before BMW's implementation of this program some time back.

Moral of the story-Looking after your own health and recovery will help you perform optimally at work. Sitting on your rear end all day is just downright not healthy. It blocks adequate blood flow and compresses your spine just to name two. Furthermore, if you workout before going to work, and sit on your rear all day long, then you can expect delayed recovery, joint/muscle stiffness, and longer onset soreness.

With that in mind I have put together a lower body stretch routine that will effectively increase blood flow and wont take up too much of your time. Keep in mind that again there are numerous ways to increase blood flow from various stretches and moreover, other techniques such as reflexology pressure points, are also highly effective. However, the application of some of the pressure point techniques may be confusing in the beginning, therefore I have kept the scope of this article to only stretching (maybe in another article).

Before beginning, keep in mind that these stretches will not make you run faster, jump longer, kick higher, make you a mystic, or allow you to do Van Damme style splits on two chairs. Their only intention is to increase the blood flow in the major and minor muscles (which normally get no attention). So the key is to hold each stretch anywhere from 20-30 seconds max for as only as far as you comfortably can. If you have any medical restrictions, I strongly urge you to consult your physician before attempting any of these.

Drill 1 should be done first. After that you can choose however many stretches you need to loosen out. You don't have to do these stretches everyday.

Drill 1-The Hip Swivel (Warm-up)

1. Stand up from your chair keeping your feet parallel and about shoulder width apart. Make sure to keep your feet parallel and on the ground throughout this drill
2. Keep your back straight.
3. Put your hands on your hips.
4. Keep looking at a permanent point either in front of you or on your work desk.
5. Bend your legs a little and sink your weight down into them.
6. Now slowly and gently move your hips and pelvis around in small circles. Once you get accustomed to this, start to make bigger circles and increase the speed. Don't go very fast though.
7. Do 10-15 rotations one way and then repeat it the other way.

Drill 2

1. Sit on your chair and place your right foot on the middle of you left thigh If you look down on your groin area, the legs crossing should form a distinct triangle.
2. Push your right knee toward floor. Don't lean over. Stay straight. Focus on a point straight ahead
3. Hold the stretch for desired time.
4. Repeat with the opposite side.

Drill 3

1. Sit on chair with feet on floor and knees bent approximately 90 degrees. Cross thighs by placing back of knee on thigh of other leg.
2. Grasp the shin of the top leg by hands
3. Lean forward pulling body toward legs.
4. Hold the stretch for desired time.
5. Repeat with the opposite side.

Drill 4

1. Sit on a chair with each leg forming a 90 degrees angle.
2. Cross one leg over the thigh of opposite leg.
3. Lean down by keeping your back straight and lowering your torso toward your thighs.
4. Hold the stretch for desired time.
5. Repeat with the opposite side.

Drill 5

1. Sit on chair your with feet wide apart. Bend over and position shoulders between knees.
2. Reach for the floor under the back of the chair.
3. Hold the stretch for desired time.

Drill 6

1. Stand with one foot on chair or bench. Take of your shoe if you need to.
2. Bend over.
3. Reach towards the floor.
4. Hold the stretch for desired time.

Drill 7

1. Sit on edge of the chair. Position heels on the floor with knees straight and legs locked.
2. Keep your back straight
3. Reach toward your toes or bring your torso toward your legs.
4. Hold the stretch for desired time.
 
Drill 8

1. Stand up with feet together and face your side towards your cubicle wall
2. Stand slightly greater than arm's length away from the wall. Make sure the wall is not flimsy. Otherwise you might just tip it over, and cause serious injuries to your neighbor.
3.  Place closest hand on the wall and opposite hand on your hip. With legs and hip straight, lower hip toward the wall.
4. Hold the stretch for desired time.
5. Repeat with the other side.

Drill 9

1. Stand facing a chair, approximately two feet away.
2. Place one foot on the chair. Take your shoes of if you need to. Also make sure the chair doesn't move.
3. Slowly lunge forward by bending forward leg. Stand straight
4. Make sure to keep pushing rear leg's hips forward. Hold the stretch for desired time..
5. Repeat with the other side.

Well that is it for now. I hope you find these drills invigorating.Let me know how it goes.

Sources:

NHK Japan Documnetary-BMW

www.exrx.net

Recently, I have started playing table tennis and have been excelling in all areas of the game. In university I played ping -pong recreationally and always lost, even when I tried to win. Basically, I was never good at this sport. But fifteen years later when I started playing recreationally again, I noticed that I won quite often. At first I thought that the skill set of my opponents was the contributing factor. But that theory got ‘smashed’ relatively quickly because all have them had been practicing table tennis competitively for three or more years. Some of them were lifers. So what was causing this change? I can only think of one thing-kettlebells.

Table tennis burns about 281 calories an hour for a 70 kg (155lb) person, which is the same as swimming moderately for that time. However, on a non-recreational level it is a sport that requires excellent hand-eye coordination, technique, mental awareness, physical stamina, and explosive speed. A competitive game of ping-pong can leave one drained and tired.

With that in mind, here are some of the drills that I use and have seen being used to give players competitive leverage from a strength & conditioning perspective. Since the readers here have varying fitness levels, I have categorized these drills into two categories-beginner and intermediate. I have also used drills that give the most bang for the buck. Please note-Intermediates should use a kettlebell that allows them to move quickly. A 24 kg bell should suffice for most drills.

Beginner

• Jump rope- jumping keeps the player nimble, focused, and the endurance levels up. All combinations are ok. But the focus is to jump for extended timed sets, just like the Olympic teams do.
• Burpees-hate them all you want, but they are great for endurance and explosiveness. They will also teach you how to breath properly, build pace, and use the body as one unit when done long enough (self correcting exercise).
• Pistol (one legged squat)-this drill is excellent for not only strengthening the leg muscles, but also for rooting and improving ankle, knee, and hip stability. A must for a core driven sport.
• Hindu Pushup (Dive Bomber Pushup)-pushups is a staple of the Chinese table tennis camp. However they tend to tire out the shoulders in my opinion. Table tennis needs resilient shoulders as opposed to high rep strength endurance; therefore Hindu pushups fit the bill a lot better.
• Planks-a great simple way to build core strength. There are many cool variations of these that can make them more challenging.

Intermediate

• Kettlebell Swing-the foundation drill in the kettlebell system of training. It is a short movement and there is nowhere to pause for a rest. This builds a tremendous amount of long haul endurance and not to mention the core. But another subtlety in the correct execution of this drill is in its rooting. From a table tennis context, one handed swings combined with timed sets and minimal hand switches will go a long way to build endurance, grip, and mental awareness which diminishes very quickly during a game.
• Strict Pull-ups-also referred to as a tactical pull-up. Apart from building strong backs and shoulders, you will learn how the whole body acts as one unit. By the way, for correct shots and smashes in table tennis, the shoulder must stay in the socket and the lat activated. See any similarities ?
• 1/2TGU- excellent for core and shoulder resilience. Do these for timed sets. Although standard TGUs are great also, 1/2 TGUs for time utilize the core more and have excellent crossover to the table tennis smash.
• Overhead holds and walks-add these to increase your shoulder’s resilience and strength. I can’t state it enough times that the shoulders, especially on the playing hand takes a severe beating during tournaments.
• Kettlebell back dragging-go outside on a lawn, hold a kettlebell by the handle, and drag it backwards for a desired number of yards or meters. Go as fast as possible with good form. Repeat for a few times with short breaks. If this hurts your back, just loop the bell handle with a towel or a rope and begin dragging. This is an excellent drill that comes in handy when an opponent smashes your shot. You have to run back, leap up with literally cat like reflexes, and smash it back.
• Dead Snatch-numero uno for building explosiveness. Do these for a timed set of five minutes and enjoy the pain. Your legs get sore from this drill in exactly the same places as playing table tennis competitively. Coincidence?
• Figure 8s-excellent non-static drill for the core. You need to time your breathing with your hand switches. Very good for motor coordination.

Well, that is it. These are some of the drills that will help you in your game. Please feel free to drop me a line if you have any comments or suggestions. Now get smashing!

If you live in the first world, then I have a question for you. What is your excuse for:

1. Not eating right
2. Not getting any or enough exercise
3. Not setting your goals
4. Not trying to work on your weaknesses
5. Not enriching your lives and the lives of others

Some of you reading may have some legitimate excuses, but believe me many don't. People are cabable of making huge changes to themselves and others around them even in their current capacity.With all hardships taken, there comes ease. With every challenge taken comes its reward. If you had the desire but couldn't go through with it, I have posted a video below to restart your motivation. If this kid in the video can do what he can do, then I am sure you can also go after and achieve whatever it is you are after. The video below speaks for many of us. Turn your desire on, change the gear and steer towards prosperity.