American Style Bull Fighters

Hope you are all well and that your training and lives are all moving in a powerful, positive direction. Let us not forget to be thankful in the good times and even when circumstances seem dark. Every minute of every day that you have is a blessing from God and can be an opportunity. An opportunity to grow stronger, to get closer to God, to your family and to have peace and joy. Strength is always seen aggressively. It makes people nervous. Large, strong, physically intimidating looking people are almost always pre-judged by their appearance. They're assumed to either be non-intelligent, one dimensional, aggressive, violent, and other stereotypes.

Because I am one of these pre-judged, I feel like I can talk to those of us who pursue strength without any pretense. Many people, especially young men not only see strength in this way because of their ignorance to it, but because of a need to assert themselves, WANT to see strength this way. They want to either see the strongman this way or be themselves perceived in this way. Rough and tough. But I've been in this and around these kinds of people for a long time, there's no fooling me here. After a while, the tough guy thing gets old and you will need to seek some peace and balance in your life.

How do you know when you've become strong? When you cease to worry about being viewed as the strong, tough guy. When you've developed the confidence enough in yourself and your abilities, that you don't have to project them out in an aggressive way. Many of the toughest people I know be they strongmen, fighters, powerlifters, whatever the case may be. are also some of the most humble and gentle people I know. They have no need o flaunt their toughness, because they know its there. That strength gives them the power to be gentle. To pursue the reality of a need for spiritual, mental and family completeness.

One of the major reasons that we put out this newsletter and many of our informational products is to get people to see strength in a deeper way. To be able to give to them the gift that's been given to me. The ability to be confident. To be strong. To be vital. To be in charge of your life physically and therefore able to connect to the deeper mental and spiritual. Be thankful for your strength, there are many who don't have it. Many who don't understand it and many who just don't know what they're missing.


AMERICAN STYLE BULL FIGHTERS. AND WE THINK WE'RE TOUGH?

Last week I got the chance to watch a little of the American Freestyle Bull fighting Championships on the Outdoor Life Network. I've done a lot of tough guy sports. I've lifted a lot of whacko heavy things. Things that most people are afraid to try. I've been a fighter and that's some tough business. But these guys just might take the cake.

Let me briefly explain what they do. Many of them work as rodeo clowns, which means that their job is to protect bull riders and keep them from getting killed by distracting a 2,000lb bull. One of the biggest, meanest and possibly deadliest animals on the planet. In freestyle bull fighting there's no cowboy to protect, only the bull fighter in the ring with the bull by himself. In freestyle bull fighting they use smaller Mexican fighting bulls, still probably 800lbs or better. It's bloodless. They don't kill the bulls like the Mexican matadors. The bull fighter gets points for artfully dodging the bull around the ring for about a minute. The closer and more dangerously he dances with the bull the higher he scores.

Things like jumping over the bull as it runs at him, "step thrus," where he side steps the bull while turning his back to him, grabbing the bull by the horn and jumping along with him, etc. One bull fighter absolutely amazed me. To start his round he turned his back to the bull pen, when the bull came roaring out he jumped purposely allowing the bull to hit him in the calves and caused him to turn a backflip over the body of the bull as he ran underneath him. No fear at all. Think about that the next time you get a little nervous trying for a heavy PR or do a little sparring. Talk about tough. One guy had a wrist broken during the early part of his round in a little close encounter with the bull. He didn't even consider calling the round short, he just kept going. Think about that the next time you have an ache and pain.

These are guys whose lives depend on their body's ability to move. Their conditioning and agility as well as nerves of titanium and probably being tougher than they are smart (I know a bunch of us who are guilty of that), so we're going to dedicate a little training routine to them this week.

One of the things that they did during the show to demonstrate the different moves was to take a small two-wheeled handcart or dolly and pretend it was the bull. This allowed them to use an implement that moved like a bull (the rear end has to turn to turn the front end), and slowly demonstrate the different dodges that the bull fighter does. It struck me how that kind of agility would be great to have in real life. Great for fighters and athletes because it's very applicable to what you do, i.e., moving around in the ring or on the football field or self defense, basketball, baseball. or what have you. Also how this could be combined in a routine to help create those qualities of quickness, balance, coordination, control, agility, along with conditioning and strength.

So here's how we're gonna do it. We're going to combine heavy barbell lifting, an alternative conditioner, and the "bull fighter" agility drill. So the first part of this workout; pick a heavy barbell exercise you'd like to do for singles. This could be squat, presses, deadlifts, whatever. You're going to perform a warm up set or two as well as a little bit of light jogging, general movement to warm up and get a sweat going. From there you're going to do 5 to 10 progressively heavier singles. Between each single you do 30 to 60 seconds of the bull fighter agility drill. Move back and forth as quickly as possible. If you have a small dolly and a partner you can do it by simply having your partner chase you around with the dolly. Now dodge it, but stay close. Don't flat-out run from it. Work on your lateral agility, being able to change directions, body positions and the feet you drive off of. Kind of like a sprint, but only for a few steps in each direction and then immediately change direction. If you don't have a hand cart but you do have a partner you can improvise this by simply having the partner chase you or chase you with a stick. (I guess the bigger the stick, the faster you move. LOL), don't go out there and whack each other, just get some good movement. If you don't have a partner, just imagine you're being chased and move around.

Finish the routine by picking an alternative conditioner, I.e., a bodyweight exercise, kettlebell exercise, Indian clubs or sledgehammers or cable pulls, etc, and do 5 sets of that mixed with 5 rounds of the bull fighter agility drill.

In this routine you've lifted heavy, done some high reps and built some athletic qualities. You should be sweating like a horse and desperately out of breath if you're doing it right.

Have fun and no complaints. Sometimes we all need to toughen up a little bit.

As a side note, this routine might seem a little funny especially to you hardcore lift guys. I can just hear you now, "What kind of a goofball routine is this?! He wants us to pretend WHAT!? I just lift heavy stuff.. I'm too macho to do anything else." Well try it. The drill itself is really a simple movement based, sprint type agility drill. See how heavy you can lift when you've just sprinted back and forth for 45 seconds and your heart is beating at 180 beats a minute. The good thing though is that if you do this a few times, you actually can lift quite heavy when you adjust to it and your heart becomes efficient. This conditioning carries over. You'll feel it. The whole routine shouldn't take you more than 20 minutes and you get strength and cardio at the same time.


NEW ARTICLES

There is a new article up on our website, Outlaw Strength. It's about not being afraid to train the way you want to train. To operate outside of the established system. Talks a little bit about some of my thoughts and answer some questions about competing. It's got a nice little routine in there for you to try. Be sure to check it out!


COMING SOON

I have a new article that will be up on Dave Whitley's site The Iron Tamer,very soon. It's entitled, "Are You Really Getting More Fit?" It talks about how you define fitness, the essential components you should be training for and how to get functionally fit and strong.


NEW INTERVIEW UP ON DRAGONDOOR

Interview with Bud Jeffries. This is an interview that I did while attending Pavel Tsatsouline's RKC certification (an awesome course, get there if you can). It has some good background stuff and discussion on training philosophy you might find interesting.


DON'T FORGET TO CHECK OUT:

Our Alternative Conditioning Series. If you're looking for something unique to add to your conditioning and you strength in an unusual way, then any one of these videos or the whole series is just what you're looking for. 5 videos in all. Probably the most unique conditioning material on the net.

If you've never swung an Indian Club then you missed out on one of the traditional strength implements used all over the world. There is nothing like it for building supple strength along with killer endurance.

The heavy club or mace and sledgehammer if you will, are the big brothers to the Indian club. Phenomenal for building striking power and conditioning. They're also gripcentric exercises so you get incredible hand and forearm work from using them.

Cables are one of the most unique forms of conditioning around. They allow you to do things you can't do with weights, even bodyweight exercises. You can work from angles that you probably never thought of. There is also probably nothing more like human resistance than a cable. It's very applicable for combat strength. The harder you pull the harder they get. Lifeline has made a cable set that's lightweight, inexpensive and you can get hardcore strong with. No more creaking, pinching steel springs. These rubber cables are durable and hardcore. No one else has a cable course like that one we have. We have an exercise system using three different cable lengths. The Iso-Ring for short, close movement, the standard length cable set for upper body power (also great for shoulder health) and the Portable Power Jumper, a long cable set that is phenomenally versatile, especially for the legs and whole body training.

These would all be excellent to use in the routine outlined in today's newsletter and to shock your body for new strength and endurance and in ways you never thought of.