Becoming a convict

Hello once again

There seems to be a lot of debate on the dragondoor forum concerning the new book Convict Conditioning and if you already have it or have never heard of it I'd like to share with you my thoughts on it today.Many of you know I'm a BIG fan of bodyweight training so this automatically caught my interest.After careful consideration of the merits of the material and what my goals are I have decided I will devote 2010 soley to this combined with the shaolin workout.

I believe this is a great program for most fitness trainees regardless of your current level of conditioning or strenght.If you think about it what is more practical and functional in everyday life and recreation than learning to master your own bodyweight?The book gives you a clear cut plan to easily and safely progress through the various exercises to very advanced levels.Even someone who hasn't exercised in years can do this.

I realize many will disagree but as I've said before I can't see why people want to mess with heavy weights when they can't handle their own body properly.I suppose it stems from peoples early gym experience.It's easier for a trainer to stick you on a machine and tell you to push or pull then to make you have patience and properly perform basic bodyweight exercises.I'm not against weight training but I am anti machine except for rehab purposes.

So ladies especially if you want inspiration as to what bodyweight traing can do for you rent a DVD of say Terminator 2 or GI Jane and look at Linda Hamilton or Demi Moore.I will keep you informed on my journey in the coming year and share my thoughts and experience.Feel free to post a comment or a question.

Happy New Year

Thoughts on 28 days if the Shaolin Workout

So I finished my 28th day yesterday and had a lot of fun doing it.I enjoyed the concept of each day building on the previous one and even the meditations weren't as boring as I thought they might be.For those of you involved in martial arts you'd probably find the movements in this workout to be very basic.However I think anyone could benefit from this as the progressions become more advanced and the whole concept is that everyone no matter how skilled can improve every day.I consider myself very flexible and able to move pretty fluidly thanks to yoga but I still enjoyed this.

So how did it benefit me?In several ways it made me appreciate the need for active flexibility more.Second it gave me some different takes on joint mobility.More specifically I found my upper body wasn't as flexible as I thought but it helped me a lot there especially in the lateral plane of motion.Without focusing on it my speed of movement has increased a lot.The punches and kicks were great and helped improve my power.Overall it's made me feel lighter on my feet and improved my posture.

I would definitely recommend anyone to add this to their training arsenal.It's fun,very effective,and can be done anywhere.Through this and prior experiences I find my practice moving more and more towards training movements and not muscles.Moving more away from weights and more towards mastering my own body.So on to the next adventure!I'll keep you posted on what's up next week.