Written by Jay Pierce
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Still here? Good let’s go….. First off let me say sorry, sorry that you are a feeble excuse of a human being. If I have offended you then maybe you should stop reading and shovel some more pizza and beer into you mouth.
I am not here to sweet talk you; I don’t care if you love me or hate me. I am here to train you as a Modern Day Warrior, fit for the challenges of the 21st Century.
I have been training for about 10 years, and I have seen every fitness gadget you can imagine and I have used them all too. Every month there is a new gadget launched that according to the hype promises to ‘build the best body of your life, faster than ever before!’
I am fed up with all the so called ‘Fitness Gurus’ with the fake tans, and the so called athletic bodies that they allegedly got from using product XYZ.
What I am going to teach you in this site is how to achieve a functional and athletic body. I can’t promise you that in 12 weeks you will look like a Hollywood Alister or a ProWrestler, but you will be a lot stronger, fitter and more confident than ever before.
I can hear some of you feeble readers moaning ‘I want short cuts’ or ‘I want the secrets to a life with 6% body fat’. Well my lard laden friends, if that’s what you want then go and check out ‘Burn the fat, feed the muscle’ I believe you can buy that fluff packed book for $40.
Anyway, I should be down to the serious people by now. I will get rid of the other dreamers later.Are you fit enough to train?
I have designed a brief questionnaire so that you can evaluate your current fitness and level of health. I am very conscious that the vast majority of my readers will be people who are relatively out of shape both mentally, physically and spiritually.
Before you go any further I highly suggest that you spend 5 – 10 minutes answering the questions below, so grab yourself a pencil and pad and answer the following questions as honestly as you a currently able.
1. Have you experienced unexplained weight loss in the past six months?4. Do you have a bone or joint problem that could worsen as a result of physical activity? Do you have pain in your legs or buttocks when you walk?
5. Do you ever become dizzy and lose your balance, or lose c onsciousness?If you have answered yes to any of the questions above, I suggest that you consult your Doctor before you even consider altering your diet or engaging in any form of exercise.
If you’re over 40 years old, I still suggest that you get the all clear from your doctor.If you don’t know why you should exercise, then all I can say is that you must have been living on a dessert island your entire life! The benefits of regular exercise and a healthy lifestyle have been demonstrated in the media for many, many decades.
You have been told how a constructive Diet and Exercise regime can:* Improve your mood
* Increase Self Confidence * Improve your sex life
* Increase flexibility
* Decrease your stress levels * Decrease your cholesterol count * Help you lose body fat
* Tone muscles
What I find very interesting is that the more knowledge the western world gains about exercise and nutrition, the more obese and complacent that society becomes.
Take a look at the list below, how many of the following sound familiar to you:* Obesity
* Depressed
* Anxious
* Stiff joints
* Fear
* Stress
* High Cholesterol
* Poor sex life
* Poor skin, hair, nails etc * Pessimistic outlook on life
Can you relate to any of the above, if you can identify with just one on that short list, then my friend it is time that you re evaluate your lifestyle.
Anyway, I am not here to Mother you, I am not going to give you pages and pages of information on Exercise and Nutritional Science. What I will give you in the following pages is the exact same information that I use on a daily basis, this information gives me the energy levels of a 5 year old, and the laserlike focus of a cruise missile!
Follow me; it’s time to see if you can think like a warrior.
The World Health Organization states that approx. 2 million people each year die from lack of physical activity.
Can you think like a Warrior?‘Don’t think you are, know you are’ that was what Morpheus said to Neo in the film the Matrix. That one quote perfectly defines the mindset of the warrior. You can read every book ever written on the subject of Diet, Fitness and Motivation, but I will guarantee you one thing, you will never achieve your goals of losing weight or reaching your peak of physical fitness.
The reason I say that is because you have not applied the mind set of the warrior. In essence the mind of the warrior is not a logical mind, of course logic does play a part but it is not in control of the warriors mind. The driving force of the warriors mind, is the belief that he has in himself.
This is what Morpheus meant when he said that famous quote ‘Don’t think (Logic) you are, Know (Faith, belief) you are. Don’t get me wrong, logic does have a valuable place in the mental arsenal of the warrior, but it is not the driving force of the warrior.
Interesting FactAntidepressants and antianxiety medications account for approx. onefourth of all prescriptions written in the United States of America every year.
Belief is what will get you through those hard days, when you are detoxing from your caffeine or cigarette addiction. Logic could never hope to reassure you that tomorrow will be a better day.
A big part of my business is dealing with clients on a Motivational and Training basis, my core teachings revolve around belief. Most people don’t believe me that it is as simple as believing in yourself and your abilities. It’s a bit of a cruel trap really, we keep searching because we often believe that transforming your life can’t be as simple as believing in yourself.
When you were born you had self belief in abundance, there was no negativity inside of you. If you wanted to pick up a toy, you wouldn’t sit there and try and rationalise and analyze it. This is what most people do today, I believe the term is called Paralysis by Analysis.
What I teach my clients is, after they have completed their workout they should spend no more than 5 – 10 minutes analysing it.
Below are a few simple questions I ask myself after each work out:These questions don’t take more than 10 minutes to honestly answer, I suggest that you incorporate similar questions into your training routine.
If you don’t have a journal, I suggest that you start keeping one. They are an excellent tool for monitoring your progress.This is a very generic goal, but you will be surprised how many people mutter these exact words when I ask them what their goals are. A better example would be:
Example: I want to lose 20 pounds in 6 monthsSo if your long term goal is to lose 20 pounds in 6 months, we could safely say that your medium term goal would be 10 pounds in 3 months for example.
Once you have your medium term goal in mind, you then need to start breaking it down further. So for example we could say that your short term goal would be to lose 4 pounds in 4 weeks. Once you have hit that short term goal, you then set another short term goal for month 2 and so on and so forth.
Some people even prefer to break these short term goals down into daily goals, so taking the weight loss as an example. You could set a daily goal of consuming 500 fewer calories to help meet your month one target of 4 pound weight loss.
Now it’s your turn:Grab your notepad and pencil and spend the next 20 minutes thinking about what your long term goal is. Don’t force it, for some people the answers will come quickly for others it may take some time, just be honest and write down what thoughts come into your head.
Once you have your long term goal (long term can be anywhere from 6 months to a year or even longer) it’s time to start breaking it down into medium and then short term goals.
It’s more than Positive thinkingDid you know that the human mind can’t tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined? If you believe with all your heart that you are slim, then your body will eventually change to reflect what you believe. Sounds great doesn’t it. The only problem is that most people have a few positive thoughts and a few thousand negative thoughts every day.
Thinking in a negative way is one of the fastest ways to destroy your energy levels, and it’s not just your negativity that can destroy your energy. Have you ever walked into a room where people have been arguing, did you notice how negative the environment was? How did that make you feel, you may find that if you entered the room in a positive mood, your mood soon changed to reflect the mood of the rest of your environment: I.E NEGATIVE!
A lot of people start off with good intentions to think only positive thoughts; they do the positive affirmations every day but eventually the negativity kicks in, then they start to beat themselves up.
I use a form of guided meditation that I find particularly useful. There is no limit to what you can achieve with this meditation, I personally use it every day to aid me in my understanding of my true self and my training and spiritual objectives.
Try it for yourself and see.The following Guide meditation was created by Edwin Steinbrecher, he has written a fantastic book that goes deeper into the guided meditation process, if you are serious about developing your mental tools then I suggest you purchase ‘The Inner Guide Meditation: A Spiritual Technology for the 21st Century’
The great thing about this guided meditation is that you don’t need to be able to obtain a deep sense of relaxation; you can even do it while you’re washing the dishes!
Here is the basic meditation as taught by Edwin Steinbrecher:Close your eyes, and invent a cave around you as if you have just walked into the cave and the entrance is at your back. Allow the cave to structure itself as it will, large or small, welllighted or dim, smoothwalled or rough. Try to be like blank film receiving impressions accept these impressions uncritically as they come to you from this environment. Try not to edit what comes.
Be as sensory as you can. Is the cave moist or dry? Feel the weight of your body as you stand on the cave floor. What kind of floor are you standing on? Feel it with your feet. Is it flat and smooth or rough and uneven? Feel the texture of the floor under your feet. Is it sandy, rocky or gravely? Feel the air around you. Are there currents, or is the air still? Smell the air. Notice the color impressions that come to you. Use all your senses.
Be sure you are observing and sensing this environment while being in your body and looking out of your eyes. Don’t be watching an image of yourself!
Next……When you can feel yourself in the cave, even though things may still be vague at this point, move forward and to the left, away from the entrance further into the cave, and find some kind of doorway or opening there on the left that will lead you out into a landscape.
Then………Take a step out into the landscape when it appears, feeling the new type of ground under your feet. Is it soft or hard, grassy or rocky? What is around you? What is the scene like? Let all these impressions come to you, and let them solidify. What seems to bein the distance? What is the weather like? Be there as totally as you can.
Then in your mind, call for an animal to come to you. Let it be an animal you don’t know (not a familiar house pet or some other known outer world animal, e.g, your friend’s horse, the neighbours cat, the lamb you had when you were a child), but not a fantasy animal like a unicorn or griffin. Ask the animal to lead you off to the right to where your Inner Guide awaits you.
Concentrate on following the animal, and try not to anticipate the Guide. If the animal appears to meander or stops, give it permission to take you directly to the feet of your Guide.
Once with your guide…………..Start receiving impressions about the figure. Begin with the feet. Are his feet bare or in some kind of footwear? Then slowly work up the body. Allow impressions of what the figure is like to come to you uncritically, again as if you were blank film. What kind of dress or costume is he wearing? What type of body does he have? Is he fat or thin? Is he tall or short? What kind of hair, if any, does he have? If the figure is hooded, ask him to throw back the hood. Is he wearing anything on his head? Is he bearded or clean shaven? What kind of feeling do you get about him? Is he an active or passive man? Gentle and introverted or extroverted and out going? Is he dressed in the clothing of any particular occupation, trade or time period; any particular country or region of the world?
Does he hold anything in his hands?Be sure to ask the figure if he is your true Guide and if he has the power to protect you in the inner realms. Generally a false guide will answer “No” to this question or he will disappear. Then ask the figure to take both of your hands in his. Feel the hand contact as much as you can. Feel the texture of his skin. Is his hand warm or cool, moist or dry? Is the skin smooth or rough? Now, with your mind, give him permission to let you feel his feeling for you. If you don’t feel total acceptance and love or caring, you’re with a false guide. There is no love from a false guide.
What if you don’t get your True Guide the first time.If you cannot feel it, stay where you are and look to the right of where the false guide is or was. Another male figure will be there or at least nearby. Feel where the love energy comes to you from and creates a warmth in your chest, and look in that direction. Go through the earlier process of allowing the Inner Guide to appear clearly to you, and ignore the false guide if he is still hanging about.
Remember that the above is the brief guide to meeting your Inner Guide. I highly suggest that you purchase the book for the full background to this fantastic tool.
Your true Inner Guide can open whole worlds that you never thought or dreamed possible.
You maybe were wondering why I have included a section on breathing. Well the answer is easy, most people don’t breathe correctly. The human body can abstain from consuming food for about 3 weeks, and from consuming water for about 3 days, just try holding your breath for 3 minutes and you will soon discover how important breathing is.
Did you know that incorrect breathing can cause:* Muscular Tension
* Mental and Physical Exhaustion * Decrease Athletic Performance * Increase aches and illnesses * Headaches
* Fatigue
* Stress
* Anxiety
* Poor circulation
For the warrior correct breathing is a very important tool, more important than diet and maybe even more important than cardio training.
Take this short test to see if you are breathing correctly:* Place your hand on your abdomen area.
* Place another on your chest.
* Now breath normally and deeply if you wish. * Which hand moved first or the most?
* If it is the hand on your chest, oh dear you failed.
If you think this exercise is easy, then think again. You maybe able to perform this exercise easily whilst relaxing in your garden. What if I remove you from your peaceful surroundings and place you in the subway at rush hour, people rushing past you, pushing you out of the way, and maybe even swearing at you.
Are you still breathing deeply?This section on bodyweight training is going to be no different; I am not going to claim that I have created all of the exercises that follow, like some other so called fitness experts.
But I will guarantee that I personally use all of the exercises in this section, and I personally know the benefits and drawbacks of each of them.
So without anymore delay, let’s get training.There is a simple answer to this, Functional Fitness and Strength! If you thought that you would get ripped muscles and 21 inch biceps, then sorry dude but your reading the wrong book, but some how I think you already know that.
Training using your own bodyweight will give you ‘real world’ strength, not the type of strength that you can only sustain for a few moments in the gym, whilst you are showing off to you buddies.
If you want to see what old school functional fitness looked like, then take a look at the old school wrestlers like Gamma. These guys had functional strength by the bucket load. Some of the modern guys who are bringing this way of training back into ‘fashion’ are people like Matt Furey and Pavel Tsatsouline.
Basic Bodyweight Exercises* Hindu Squats * Hindu Pushups * Back Bridge These exercises can, and should be performed on a daily basis for optimum benefit.
Hindu Squats1. Start with your feet shoulder width apart and your toes pointing forwards, your hands are pull in tightly to your chest. Inhale
2. Keeping your back straight, lower yourself until your thighs are parallel to the floor.3. As you lower yourself to the floor, your hands are behind your back, making a kind of swinging motion as you lower yourself.
4. As you move toward the parallel to the floor position, you should simultaneously raise your heels from the floor.
5. Now swing your arms upwards and push off your toes, raising your body to a standing position.6. As you raise your body, your hands come in front of your body. Your arms will continue to rise until they are level with your chest.
7. Once you have arrived in the up position, you pull your arms toward your chest in a form of rowing motion. Make tight fists with your hands and pull. Your arms should be close to your sides when you pull.
8. Inhale as you pull your arms in, and then exhale as you lower.4. Bend your elbows and lower your body in a circular arc, until your arms are straight. Your chest should be up and your hips will be able to the floor
5. Look up towards the ceiling, Breathe out.Back bridging is a very controversial exercise, if you have any spinal or neck problems then I suggest that you avoid this exercise. Otherwise it’s full steam ahead. Let’s have a look at how Matt Furey teaches this exercise.
1. lie down on a soft mat (a yoga mat is ideal for this exercise) with your back facing down.4. Once your on the top of your head, arch your lower back and push your chest forward. Your aim is to touch your nose to the mat behind you.
5. Rock back and forth, trying to go further each time. Please take your time, chances are you will not be flexible enough to touch your nose to the floor straight away.
6. Go back and forth 10 – 20 timesThe Royal Court exercises that Matt Furey suggests in his book, Combat Conditioning are very effective and I personally use them in my daily training routine with great effect. Using the Royal Court for 15 minutes every day will change your Body and Mind from a feeble human being into a fully fledged warrior in no time at all.
I personally recommend that you perform these exercises 3 – 4 times per week. If you follow these simple exercises for 6 – 8 weeks, you will see a huge increase in:
* Flexibility * Strength
* Mental Focus.
There has never been such a
controversial topic as the human diet. This diet can be debated for eons, and it has been. If you asked a raw foodist what they considered to be the right diet for humanity, the fist answer you get would be Organic Fruits and vegetables with a few nuts and seeds thrown in.