Strength,Length, Race, Pace, and the Hard Facts.

OK I'm not gonna be fancy here. So I'm just gonna get straight to the points, first one being strength.

STRENGTH
When talking about strength it can be a confusing topic. There are people who know all of the aspects of stregnth, they are experts. I'm would not consider myself an expert, I only write about what has worked for me, and new ideas that may work for you. Often because people don't really know whats strength is and that there are different types of strength. They believe that the guy in the gym with the biggest bench is undoubtedly the strongest. The main ones that we common people should know about are isometric strength, "isolated" stregnth ,as I call it, and functional strength. To break it down quickly, a good example of isometric strength would be like a gymnast holding himself up on the rings. It is basically the strength of your muscle in a locked unchanging position. What i like to call "isolated" strength is the type of strength you use when curling barbells or doing triceps curls. You are using one muscle group for one motion, and its usually a motion that wont be used in real life. Functional strength is real life strength, like the kind you would use to balance, fight, move heavy objects, climb, lift yourself, and throw things with. to me this is the ultimate strength. The question is though, which do you want? Let me tell you why I think that functional strength would be best for anybody. First off, alot of those big stictly -looks bodybuilders that you see on TV or not functionally strong. In fact, their functional strength is usually no better, or worse then the average person. Here's why. When they do all those retarded single motions ( usually unrealistic motions) they are training their bodies to move and function that way. So when it comes time to lets say, pick up a heavy object they , instead of doing it in one or two steps, they break it down into curls, shoulder presses, and other slow retarded, uncoordinated motions. Where as a functionally strong person can pick it up and toss it with superior speed and coordination. By separating their muscle groups, bodybuilder type people reduce there bodies ability to act as one, and that weakens there functional strength and coordination. Keep in mind I'm only talking about people who strictly train to get big bloated bodies. It is not cut and dry. There are excercizes that bodybuilders do that can enhance functional stregnth. Some bodybuilders train for both .You can do both, but one will usually dominate. So all that im sayin is if you want to get into realistic every-day type strong, do not only do curls, bench press, squats, and shoulder presses (etc).The best way to gain functional strength is to simulate the motions that you will realistically face in YOUR lifestyle, except, you must make these motions harder, using different muscle groups together. I'll show you how in my upcoming post on "TRAINING FOR WILD STRENGTH". The most beautiful thing about this kind of training is that you can make it customized to perfectly coincide with your daily work. If your a guy/girl who hauls stuff, you can make your body adapted for that kind of work. Now I also will write on how to use methods similar to body building to make you look good, but there wont be many posts on that.
Isometric strength is pretty good for toning you muscles and for tasks where you have to haul things or hold your body in a certain position, like when rolling a ceiling or hanging on to a bar or branch for a long time so that you don't fall to your death ( hey you never know what might happen). basically isometric strength is achieved by tensing you muscles in a certain desired position to achieve endurance and strength in that position, which mean it may not necessarily increse the strength of a full motion of that particular muscle group. And like with functional strength training, the beauty of it is that you can get creative! You can , by using a certain set of rules , make your own workout up. That's right, you can invent new exercises, who needs to follow the same old boring crap that works well for some but not others. In fact we should all make our own workouts up because we are all different! Thats not to say that you shouldent take advice from a fitness veteran. I do that myself sometimes. But you can still be creative and you dont have to do those boring classic movements . All it takes it knowledge of how the body recovers and adapts. Ill have a whole post on it later!

LENGTH
If you've been in a gym, you've probably heard the old excuse "your legs are shorter. Its easier for you to squat because you barely have to travel" or "its easy for you to bench that, your arms are half my length. Anybody who has ever said that , I have one thing to say to you: cut the shit, you sound like a little wimp with your invalid excuses. The truth is that if you are taller, the fact is, your supposed to have more muscle than the little guy anyway. If your arms are twice his length and just as thick as his, then your a bony skinny guy and that's why you cant lift it as easy as he can. People say " its easier for little guys to gain muscle, they have less space to fill out" I say, EXACTLY, less space, less arm, less muscle. What I'm saying is, that if they are two guys who haven't worked out ever, and ones tall and the other is short, the tall guy should have more muscle to support his longer bone. If you are tall and you are truly working as hard as the little guy, your muscles will be bigger than his because everybody's body adapts to the activities they do. If you have longer arms, and skinny muscles, no shit its gonna be hard to pick things up. Because the longer arm has to deal with increased force everyday, the muscles around it should be naturally bigger anyway. In short, if your born big, your supposed to have bigger muscle to support your body type. Little guys do not have long arms, so as a result of not dealing with the added stress of having long arms, they naturally do not have as much muscle tissue surrounding it. S in short, its all even for big and little guys. So if that little guy can bench more than you its not because your disadvantaged, its because for you HEIGHT, you are WEAK. Your SUPPOSED to have more muscle tissue than him, not the same amount. Its all about proportions. That's all i have to say on that topic

RACE
OK have you ever read anything stupid on the Internet like: "whites naturally have more upper body strength" or "blacks can punch faster, and have more coordination" or "Asians have a hard time building muscle" OK let me pull out some examples, for the first lie id like to pull out Ronnie Coleman. He is black and has immense upper body strength. For the second lie Id like to pull out Chuck Norris, and Bruce Lee. Neither were black, they could both punch fast and were extremely coordinated. For the third lie I'll bring up James Chan. He is Asian and is ripped and strong. I've asked him for fitness advice several times,and believe me he knows what he's talking about. Look him up hes got a blog( ha ha, way better than this !) and a couple books out. Now back to my point. Certainly no race is "superior" in strength or fitness. Even though different races are adapted for certain environmental necessities ( Kenyans and running, vikings and lifting) That doesn't mean that one is superior. It just means they are adapted for their environment. If your a pure blood race than you can grasp on to what stimulates your body type to excel by using what your race is adapted for. But the reason I dismiss those factors as crap is because in America, the majority of people are mixed. Almost nobody is completely black, and many white skinned people have unknown African ancestry, as well as Asian ancestry, or Asians having white ancestry or black or Indian ancestors. An interesting fact is that even if you are 98 percent Caucasian, and only 2 percent African, you might inherit a ton of stuff from your 2 percent African genes. This is because gene selection is random at reproduction and even with only 2 percent of your ancestors being African in heritage you might possibly inherit most of your physical traits from them, and not as many from your European ancestors! Now grant you, if genes are randomly selected and 98 are European and 2 are African, you'll probably inherit the European, but i was just making a point. In New Orleans, many different races have lived together in the same neighborhoods, with little to no racial tension. Through hundreds of years you had African, Caribbean, Spanish, French, Native Americans, and Italians marrying each other and having babies. This is because New Orleans is one of those places, because there is such a mix, where in no matter if your black, white ,Chinese, Spanish, Cajun, or green, you usually don't have your own separate culture based on your color. You all share New Orleans culture nobody really seperates on color because so many are mixed. Its all the same because its a very strong distinct culture that everyone shares. All races can even be found in every "hood" .Why am i saying all this? Let me finish and you'll see. When a great mix is made, lots of people are mixing lots of genetics, and you never know what traits will be inherited. Black, white , and Asian is not a race : Jamaican, Ethiopian, or French and Greek, or Chinese and Vietnamese are all distinct races in their own right with differently developed physical abilities. Shoving them all into one category because of color is unfair and disrespectful. An example is that Kenyans are known for running ability, and south Africans are not, yet both have black skin. So what I'm saying basically is that we in America are all so mixed and have inherited so many physical traits from so many races, we cant make assumptions based on skin color. Because skin color is just one trait, you have inherited many more traits than just skin color. My skin is white and some of my friends whose skin is brown can't jump nearly as high as I can or jump fences as quick, or run away as quick as I can. On the other hand, they may have more strength muscle-wise than me. One of my friends is 25% German, and 75% mix of African races. He did not inherit good jumping or running abilities, yet he is a slugger, and very strong. So don't ever think that you will or will not excel at something because of your color. Look at dogs with all of the specialized breeds. If you have a mutt as a dog he might exhibit traits that you will never know the origin of. He may track better than a blood hound,look like a lab, and be afraid to swim! Even disregarding genetics, I believe that one can excel in any sport is he/ she believes that they can, and pours their heart into it. I rest my case.

PACE
When you lift weights, you gotta know what your true desire and goal is. If you want explosive power, the best way to go is to lift the weight (without sacrificing form) as fast and explosive as you can. However if you want more solid strength that will hold up longer, you will want to lift that weight slow and even. Its the first fitness formula you need to know : what you put into your body, is what you will get out. If you train the body to throw a 100 lb body bag ( punching bag) , that's what you'll be good at . Im not telling you carelesly throw around heavy objects that are heavy, and make uncontroled jerky motions. like I said you must make sure that you use proper form ( see Inventing Your own Workout)

HARD FACTS
If you don't agree with some or any of this that's just too bad for you, but you can yell about it if you want to! What I say is just mostly common sense that we become blind to in today's society of constant distractions. We often forget those little things that everybody knows when we constantly have society telling us how to do things.