Finding Balance and Bending-Training Tips

Merry Christmas!!

Actually, make that not just Merry Christmas, make that Blessed, Wonderful, Merry, Prosperous, Loving, Outstanding, Fun-filled, Power-Enhanced, Dual Exhaust, Leopard Skin Seat covered, Joyous, Peaceful Christmas!

Not to take away in anyway from the holiness of the season, we do honestly hope that all of you are blessed this time of year and we hope you're all actually planning to get away from any kind of down-spiritedness and have some real fun.

Balance is one of the biggest keys in all of life. I believe God wants us to be balanced. Wherever you stand in your belief about God, your life. training and every part of your being will work better in balance.

Why did I mention balance in this thought about the holiday season? Because when you grow into being an adult you get caught into all of the responsibilities and pressures of life, most of us don't have any way to balance out that serious side. I'm all for and all about living a disciplined, accomplishment-oriented life. But what's the point in all that work and accomplishment if you don't literally take time to enjoy things. Life is way too short to spend every minute thinking about training or working or bills, or plans or whatever it is that might distract you from being "in the moment" and having fun.

Let me tell you another little secret about this. The more purposefully fun you make every part of your life the more you'll complete on the serious accomplishment and work side. We can't all do the thing that we love to make a living. But we can make living enough fun to be energized and happy even when we're doing things we don't particularly enjoy. Balance takes discipline. It seems odd to mention the idea of discipline when you're wishing people happy holidays and telling them that they ought to have fun. But most of us are so trapped into the working mode that we're literally going to have to discipline our minds to be able to let go. To be able to block out the things that are a worry and be focused on joy.

Here are a couple of tips:

1. Consciously cultivate a joyful mindset and refuse to have it messed with. We spend a lot of time building discipline in our training and in just getting up and going to work every morning. Use that power to choose happiness and then treat it not as a chore, but as a matter that you've already settled in your mind and will not be shaken off.

2. Find the joy in giving. Give something to someone unexpected. Not only do you make them happier, but also you make yourself happier.

3. Lifters tend to use visualization all of the time. So visualize/concentrate on building a joyful feeling into your workouts. I've addressed this in other materials, but if you do this long enough it has a Pavlovian effect. You will constantly associate being happy and it will become automatic to be boosted in your mental state while you train.

4. Don't take yourself or anything else so seriously. I spent a long time learning this because I was so goal oriented in training, that if I didn't make every goal on the moment I had it planned I'd be highly upset for long periods of time. Balance your motivation with the fact that you don't have time to waste being upset on minor things.

5. Hang out with kids. They have an amazing ability to help you be happy. If you sit back and learn from them you will see that even though they may take the smallest things seriously enough to cry over them, they also have the innate ability to bounce back ridiculously fast and be just as joyful just as quickly.

6. Be considerate of others. Understand that sometimes your attitude can make or break someone else's day. Strive for the place where you are strong enough that no one changes your peacefulness. But realize that if you consistently put out joy to other people you'll get it back.

7. Find the things that bother you that keep you from having fun and settle those situations. I can tell you this; when you've settled all of your spiritual questions and know what your relationship with Jesus Christ is, it's a lot easier to accept happiness.

8. Don't be afraid to be happy. Many people get so wrapped up in their own misery, it's the only thing that comforts them. Get past that and don't be afraid to be fun, silly, spontaneous. whatever. It's much better to be constantly surrounded by joy and comfortable there than it is to be constantly surrounded by ho-hummness to the point where you're not happy any other way.

Alright... Enough, let's go on to some training reports, last weekend and training tips.

SAVANNAH, GA. THE DENNIS ROGERS SHOW

Well we had a chance to hang out with Dennis in Savannah last weekend. Let me tell you. if you get the chance to go see one of his shows, you should DEFINITELY go! In fact if it's anywhere close to you and he probably will be sometime soon, you should kick your own butt if you don't go.

Dennis has by far the most successful and polished strongman show an dis by far the most successful professional strongman since the Vaudeville or Golden Era of professional performing strongmen. (With the possible exception of Paul Anderson.)

One of the coolest things about his show is that it's totally on the up and up. There are no tricks. In fact he shows you all the possible ways to do the feats that he does by trickery and tell you ways to test the materials to make sure that they're for real. Plus, the feats he does are so phenomenal, especially when you see him up close and in person that they're hard to believe.

I sat in a hotel room with him, not two feet away and watched him tear a deck of playing cards into eighths. That's right people.. EIGHTHS! He halved it, then tore the half in half, then tore THAT half in half. The last piece is so small you can only grab it with your thumb and the end of your forefinger. And he did this at about 11 at night, after flying on a plane, and having been up for 20+ hours with only an hour or two of sleep the night before. With no preparation, he just grabbed the deck, took about five seconds to breath and focus and did it. Plus, he's got to be one of the nicest guys I've met in a long time. It was a truly enjoyable weekend for us.

We'll put up some pictures and write up a little more fully the stuff that I saw and learned with him last weekend. AND he should be out with his first training course very soon, probably before the end of January. Not saying that to commit him to any kind of date, just telling you that you should be excited because his arm and hand training methods as well as his feats of strength training are absolutely incredible. You won't want to miss out on his courses. I know I won't.

JANUARY 28, 2005 - ST.CLOUD, FLORIDA

We're going to be performing with several friends from The Power Company at a church in St. Cloud. It will be an awesome strength show as well as a powerful ministry. We'll have the exact time and location soon.

MARCH 12, 2005 - MOLINE, ILLINOIS

We just finalized the agreement with the Quad City Mallards minor league hockey team. They host an All Faiths Night every year and bring in a Christian speaker/performer to open up their night before the game. Well this year. it's me. We have an incredible show planned for the night. You won't want to miss it if you're in the area. I'm working on some new, secret feats to perform. You won't see anyone else do them again if you don't attend.

This is the first on our exhibition/ministry calendar for the year, but booking dates are filling up. If you are interested in having us come to your church/area/business/school/athletic organization in 2005 you need to contact us soon.

We'll have more on this soon.

POSSIBLE SEMINAR IN THE MOLINE-CHICAGO AREA

I have a few friends that we've been talking back and forth about putting on a seminar with for a few months. Because of the timing of the exhibition with the Mallards, that may work out perfectly for us to put on a training seminar. We'd like to hear from you about the interest in having one in the Chicago/Moline area.

Shoot us an email and we'll be working on setting up the rest of the details.

TRAINING TIP

Had a little PR yesterday. I bent a Grade 8 bolt. So this tip is going to be about a couple of different areas of training.

First - BENDING -

Lately I've been bending lots of nails. But I've also moved on to bending a few other things, longer bars, spikes, even playing with horseshoes. Bending is one of the best as fastest ways to increase your grip, forearm and upper body strength. Bending has a unifying effect for all of the muscles of your upper body. It forces them to use their strength, in a functional manner and from multiple angles. Pushing and pulling in multiple directions at the same time. One thing I'm finding helpful is to alternate volume with maximum effort. Bending is a progressive strength exercise but it's not exactly progressive in the same way that weights are. There are significant progression styles, but some of the major jumps in strength levels of bending are pretty big.

For instance in progression you can start out with a seven inch piece of steel and progressively cut shorter lengths by say quarter inch sections until you're down to say five inches and then you can go up to heavier steel. You can also bend different types of steel; round stock, square stock, hot-rolled, cold-rolled, etc. There is quite a bit of variation from one batch of steel and the company that makes it to another. The same applies for bending nails. There's a lot of variation in company to company in 60-penny nails. You can look around, buy a few from different manufacturers and then you'll have several different strengths to work with. The alternative volume and maximum effort seems to be the style that most of your top-level benders are using.

For instance, in last weeks bending workout I did 20 bends. 18 - 60-penny nails, 1 piece of quarter inch square stock and one grade 5 bolt. This week I only did three bends. But I jumped immediately to a grade 5 bolt and then immediately to a grade 8 bolt and then worked on a 12" spike.

Here are a couple of more ideas that may help your bending. Do wrist lever work. I like to do mine with a light and heavy indian club from any direction I can think of. Sledgehammer levering works great for this too. Get a descent pair of pads to use. Either the Ironmind pads or suede leather. Start easy and learn the basic form. Alternate sessions of higher volume with sessions of maximum effort. Rest between your sessions just like any other strength training. Learn some alternate styles from your major bending style to work other areas of strength in your hand. I predominately bend double underhand, but am also learning double over, Terminator-style and some brace type bending with some different objects; spikes, etc. Alternate where you put the bending in your workout. Sometimes do it first when you're strong, sometimes do it at the end when you're tired, sometimes do it in the middle while you're breathing hard to up your conditioning for not only your hands, but your lungs as well. Alternate the types of steel you bend and the strengths that you bend in one workout.

For instance, when I did that volume bending last week, I bent three or four 60-pennys, then the quarter inch square piece, then the grade 5 bolt. The grade 5 bolt was muuuuch tougher so when I finished the rest of the workout, bending the other 14 - 60-pennys, my hands were already pre-fatigued so you can go harder without using harder steel.

Second - SOMETIMES YOU'VE GOTTA PUT YOURSELF ON THE SPOT -

When I bent that bolt yesterday, it was as a souvenir for an older pastor friend of our family whom I greatly respect. He came to visit and he always asks me what I'm doing in the strongman world now so I went to show him that and give him a little piece because he's a friend. I was going to bend a 60-penny nail for him, just because I knew it would be very easy and it wouldn't make any difference to him as far as the strength of the steel, it's just the idea of bending a nail that big. BUT. I didn't have one with me. However I did have a grade 5 and grade 8 bolts. So because I had to do it in front of him it forced me to focus harder and to get more mentally and spiritually connected and I was therefore stronger. What was very hard last week with the grade 5, melted this week. I suspect most people find that. I know the people who have come and worked out with me do better than they expect for themselves to do, because they're on the spot when they do it in front of me. I don't think that every workout should be like that, but there's a little trick you can use to force more progress out of yourself.

Occasionally do your workout in public. Invite somebody over to watch or workout with a friend, or go to a new gym, or film it. These help you to get feedback and overcome barriers by getting a stronger focus. It always helps to have another little trick in the bag to use to further your training.

COMING SOON

New articles. Look for new articles on our site by me as well as some other new and really high-level authors. Also we're going to have new articles by me up at multiple places around the net. We'll keep you posted.

DON'T FORGET

All our books are now in eBook format as well as standard print. You can get them anyway you like. The eBook has just been exploding. People really want the information and with the eBook you can get it right now.

Also don't forget to check out our Odd Object Lifting and our Alternative Conditioning Series. Nobody else has as complete a series of training with these implements in the world. Our videos for lifting stones, logs, and barrels each cover 50 different exercises you can do with each of those implements as well as actual lifting of some pretty heavy stuff. 300 - 500 pound logs, 200 - 500 pound rocks, and 150 - 400 pound barrels. Exercises for working every part of your body and completely different ones that you've probably never seen before.

How about the Hindu Style of Rock shouldering?
How about a Turkish Get up holding a 200lb stone?
How about a Barrel Clean-press-kiss and shoulder?
How about a barrel suplex or overhead squat?
How about a Log Steinborn lift?
How about a log Continental and Twist?

Each of our Alternative Conditioning videos averages 100 exercises per video. (Some have 100, some have 110, some have 90, etc.) Exercises for working every part of the body, the whole body together or combination exercises working multiple areas at the same time. All of the basic elements for each of these exercises as well as unique ones that we've developed or picked up from hardcore friends.

Powerful, muscular, and aerobic muscular conditioning with each of these types of implements. Indian Clubs, Hammers and Maces, Isometric Ring, Cables and Portable Power Jumper. People are getting into killer shape using these videos and are always amazed at the versatility of these implements.

Don't miss out on this. Buy them now so you can really get ready with this powerful information and motivation for 2005.

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