We thought we would bring you some Yoga and also a bit of stretching, such as last week’s Hamstring Tightness workout block, so you could use it as a counter balance for upcoming episodes on pull ups, slow push ups, Kettlebells and a whole range of great stuff. Especially at the end of your day. Yoga can be very restorative and does its magic if you give it a chance and do it a few times a week for 20- 30 minutes. Unless of course you decide to only pursue Yoga as your form of exercise. Probably not the wisest choice but it certainly is much, much better than nothing.

Yoga. What is it? Why has it become so wildly popular? Will it make you slimmer? Leaner? Reduce stress? Much myth has built up around Yoga. First of all let’s remember that there are many different schools of Yoga out there. Iyengar, Bikram, Sivanada, Vinyasa, Kundalini blah blah and—of course my style,the one I was trained in…Ashtanga. All of them have good things to offer. Some are more physically demanding. Some are used as “medicine”, although ALL of them offer health benefits that’s for sure, and they all use essentially the same postures. It’s really all in the system and the mindset that is the big difference. You want to really get slimmer though…… Yoga is not the ticket, but it does have its place in my arsenal that’s for sure.

Ashtanga Yoga is what I was trained in starting in 1992. I had a running injury and and went to a class at the New York Road Runner’s Club. The class was taught by Beryl Bender and her (now late) husband Thom Birch. I was hooked from the first time because it just felt different. I remember thinking

“If I keep doing this it feels like something is finally going to happen. Something good.”

It was a different way of stretching and strengthening. The work was difficult. It made me sweat. A lot! It was a system and I love systems so  I went to it and got great results. My running injury that I had been burdened with for 1  1/2 years was under control in 2  1/2 months. Keep in mind that was back in the day when I was training (running) every day. So like most runners I was very tight, very weak and very unbalanced. I needed something like Ashtanga Yoga very badly.

Today I look at my fitness in a much different way. I don’t compete anymore so my goals have changed. My main goal is to slow down Father Time and so far? It’s working great. My energy is high, strength is hanging tough, stamina is great, flexibility and mobility better than ever. I have used and discarded many “systems” through the years (and still plan to do so) but the stuff that works I ALWAYS keep in my bag of tricks. One of those is Ashtanga Yoga. I don’t practice it as diligently, and disciplined as I used to. Nowadays it has its place. What have I found?

1- Great for recovery from the hard, short workouts that I now need at 49 years old.

2- The breathing practice is a must. Deep breathing is a very important key in everyone’s health and fitness.

3-It does “reduce stress. ” If you are “paying attention, in the moment, concentrating on your breathing there is less worry about the past and future. Each second is slowed down just a tiny, tiny bit. It can help relax my mind.

4- For my money, if it is a hard workout day, Yoga before bed works great. I usually wake up feeling looser and more relaxed. On the other days it is a good way to start off the day. Especially the day after a harder exercise session.

5- Works better for me now if the sessions are 20- 30 minutes. The “Full Monty” that I used to do took around an hour and a half. Too long for one session as far as I am concerned AND too much of one type of work/exercise.

6- When used with more “traditional stretching,” such as the hamstring stretches from Episode 6, it makes things loosen up even more! In future episodes I want to show how to get at the tight inner thighs that are a big bugaboo for many of us.

In Epsiode 5 Dina showed you sun salutes at different levels of difficulty. They are wonderful to use as a warm up for Yoga, OR as a warm up for an exercise session. In Episode 7 Dina has me demonstrate a simple standing series to do after you are warmed up. Here is a dirty little secret though. It is also OK to go straight into these standing poses at the end of your regular workout. When you are still hot. A good “warm down.”

Maybe the best results come when you have done a hard exercise session in the morning and now your day is winding down. Doing a few sun salutes from Episode 5 and the standing series from Episode 7 works wonders to get restorative blood and breath flowing. The tight muscles relax a bit and as you sleep your body uses that work to help you recover. Trust me on this one. It works wonders! Like the title of this post  says Yoga Before Bed. Try it.

Best,

Robert

The newest are credit cards. Now I am the first to admit that the banks are dirt bags in their “jack up the interest rate for one late payment/ hidden fee stuff practices” but each of us also has to bear our share of the blame too. I don’t see that being mentioned much. It is much easier for Washington to stir things up by totally blaming the banks, but people (including me) don’t have to use credit cards. No one FORCES us to overspend.

Same with exercise and your health. You might go to the doctor and he/she tells you you need to lose weight. Cholesterol is high, blood sugar screwed up, digestion a mess, low back messed up, stop smoking, eat better, get out and exercise. Let’s face it. No one forced you to let yourself go. Yes, I know I don’t have any idea of YOUR particular circumstances but——-this is also the only life you and I have got. Mother nature doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone’s circumstances. All she knows is one plus one always equals 2. Work against her and we pay. Work with her and we are usually rewarded. Trouble is we work so hard to work against her.

The last election was something. People were all stirred up about it. You know what I did? I went out and did a workout. You know why? Because the best way I can help out is setting an example for myself and for others. Plus I don’t really do anyone much good if I am not in shape. Remember the traditional airline pre flight speech. “When the oxygen masks come down put it on your self first, then on your child.”  You can’t help out if you are already dead! Oh yeah, in case you were wondering. Yes….I did vote. I just didn’t expect my life to change at all unless I DID something about it. No matter who won. Not the president or any other politician. You got to make your life happen.

I know today it feels like we don’t have control, it happens to me sometimes too. That’s ok. Go out and do your work out anyway. Take the extra time to eat healthier. Prepare some meals at home. Take your lunch to work with you.

Yes, you do have some control. For starters….do the 3 Burpee prep exercises in Fusion Fitness TV episodes 1-4. Here’s episode 1. Do one set of push ups. Rest. One set of squats. Rest. One set of walk outs. Rest. Then if you have them down do a set of Burpees. Do this one time through the first several times then add another trip the the mini circuit. Drink lots of water and go to it. See…you do have some control!

Best,

Robert

Today I did that very thing. I did a bodyweight “300″ session. No weights, machines, kettlebells, elastic bands, stability ball——-just a pull up bar, a jungle gym strap and focus. The body weight “300″ is a workout designed by Steve Maxwell. No it’s not the same “300″ that the actors from the movie “300″ were reputed to have done. really you can make any workout session a “300.”  You just got to learn the ground rules (and mostly that means good form in ALL of the exercises) and have practiced the exercises individually for a few weeks before taking it on. Finishing a “300″ is very gratifying and the results? The results are no joke. Strength, a more chiseled physique, stamina….it’s all good. Here is what I did and even though you may not know what all the exercises are —-that’s not the point. Its not to brag either. Its to show you how much work you can get done in 37 minutes.

Here are the rules:

There are 5 pairs of exercises

Each exercise is done for 30 repetitions

The goal is to pace yourself. That means you have to divide the pairs up. For example the first pair is Pull ups/push ups. To try to do 30 pull ups would wipe me out. Instead I started with 7 pull ups then moved on to 7 push ups.Then back to pull ups again. The second time I did 5 pull ups and 5 push ups. you get the idea.

However many repetitions you do of the first exercise, you have to do that many for the second.

Time the workout. Each time you do it try to do it a bit faster.

Here it is:

Pull ups/Iranian wrestler push ups x 30 each

Deck Squats/Sit ups (feet NOT anchored) x 30 each

Incline rows/dive bomber w/ dive bomber return w/ bear squat x 30 each

Cossack squats/Twisting bicycle crunch x 30 each

Mountain climbers/ 6 count Burpees x 30 each

Whew! I did this particular “300″ in 37 minutes. Feels great. Remember you would not start with such a workout, but you could design something at your own level that would work for you just as well. It is my hope that Fusion Fitness TV will expose you to information and ideas that will make this possible in your fitness and health quest.

Best,

Robert

“My mind is a raging torrent. Flooded with rivulets of thought, cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.”

- Harvey Korman, Blazing Saddles.

Have you ever stopped to think about the guys that posed for those muscled and lean Greek statues that are so famous today? How did they get that way? What exercises did they do? What was their diet? From the ancient records we now know they were strong, flexible and oozed stamina. Judging by the evidence the women must have also been lean too.

More rivulets of thoughts……What about India and the origins of Yoga? We now know that it was originally used not only as exercise for the mind but for physical development as well. Some of the Yoga practices were very strenuous and supposedly used in military training. What about the ancient martial arts systems of Asia? Extreme discipline led to extremely powerful bodies.  It still does. In fact the human body has not changed at all in thousands of years. The same exercises, effort, and discipline that forged the men that those those ancient Greek statues were sculpted from, will work just as well today as they did back then.

Compared to today, the technology back then was nothing to speak of. They had no weight machines, treadmills,  exercise bikes, inflatable balls, heart rate monitors, stretch cords, commercial diets, processed/refined foods or the thousands of supplements available today. They used what they had and the most useful tools they had were their own intuition and experience. They had to feel what would work. Their bodies and minds had to stay connected. Go to any gym today and it is full of people who try as hard as possible to disconnect. Ipods, cell phones, TV’s, magazines. Anything they can do to avoid thinking about what they are doing. No intuition, no mind / body connection.  Simply going through the motions. This isn’t really exercise its just another task kind of like stopping by the food mart to pick up a loaf of bread. Are you one of those people who put more thought into picking out a necktie or a handbag, for instance, than your “workouts.” If that’s you then you are selling yourself way short.

In the past they couldn’t help but think about it. They certainly didn’t spend all their time watching themselves in a mirror at some gym. They didn’t worry if a certain exercise was cutting up their biceps or “sculpting” their asses. They were developing something far more than that. A VERY powerful mind/body connection to strengthen them as a whole, and the whole is ALWAYS stronger than the parts. In fact that is the way human bodies worked back then and they still do today. Many of the “fitness gurus” of 150-70 years ago knew the same thing. Read any of their material and they taught full body exercise. Whole chapters of their books devoted to breathing and digestion.  The aesthetics (being muscular, and lean) came naturally as they worked on making the movements of whole body exercises beautiful. In other words (as the great Buckminster Fuller believed) form followed function.  Today it is exactly the opposite. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times people have asked me how to lose weight or how to make their chest and biceps bigger. They don’t get it. Somewhere along the way we thought we were too smart to listen to the wisdom of the past. Many people today think of their bodies as parts. The last 50 years or so have ESPECIALLY seen a huge swing away from this. Steroids of course have made any results of the last 50 years very suspect as well.

Oh, and don’t forget that physical development (or physical culture as it later became known by) was never looked on as a chore.  It was a vital part of life to improve as nature intends us to. Today many people exercise out of guilt or shame. Just another burden.

This gets to get to the heart of what FFTV is about. Building a leaner, healthier body without worrying about all of today’s nonsense. Fusionfitnessstv is here to help guide you through the marketing of confusion, false promises and exagerated claims. We can all reconnect our bodies and minds. In doing so you get a great side benefit too. Less body fat, stamina, strength, flexibility and ……maybe some more rivulets of thought.

Best,

Robert

Hmmmm so lets see here. You mean if I do exercises designed to strengthen and align my replacement knee it will actually help me? Does that also mean I can strengthen my knees now? Before they get so bad I need surgery? What an eye opener!

Listen, this has been knowledge for thousands of years. Progressive exercise, done in a full range of motion with the correct alignment has fixed countless problems. People in China knew it (many there still do), people in India have known it, even the ancient Greeks knew it. Why don’t most of us seem to know it today? That is one of the many reasons we started this TV show. You can learn ancient wisdom (slowly being proved today by modern science) has to teach you to be the fittest, leanest, strongest person you can be. All you need to bring is the willingness to do it and NEVER GIVE UP. We will show you what to do and how to do it. Ok, end of rant. No due date for first episode yet, but it will be posted here first thing when it is ready to go.