Importance of the Abdomen
“All my attention, all my training, all my thinking is centered on my abdomen.”
—Mas Oyama
Stop Interrupting!
“Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are busy doing it."
—Dan Inosanto
Women’s Fitness Misconception #1
“I stay away from big weights because I don’t want to develop big, masculine muscles.”
No woman will lift more weight than powerlifters and Olympic weightlifters, period. Women come in all shapes and sizes, but for the most part do the women in these videos look jacked or masculine?
Let’s begin with Olympic weightlifting. A woman takes a barbell weighing as much as she does or more, and explodes it over her head in one movement (the snatch), or in two movements (the clean and jerk). Each movement involves a full squat (hamstrings to glutes), and standing up with this large weight held overhead. The weight is huge. The range of motion is very large. This almost sounds like a receipe for extreme muscle development. So: do these women look like men?
If the Olympic weightlifters are like Ferraris, powerlifters are like Mack trucks. They lift slow and strong with the bench press, the squat, and the deadlift. They spend far more time under tension than Olympic weightlifters, generally perform longer sets in training, and require less flexibility than Olympic weightlifters. They also, in general, handle larger loads. So, should’t these women get jacked? Let’s see.
Since I am a kettlebell guy, I offer this female kettlebell instructor swinging a 70-pound kettlebell with strength and power, who does not have muscles of extraordinary size at all.
For more pictures of this woman, check out the website of Delaine Ross, RKC II in Atlanta, GA.
And finally, for my pièce de résistance, what lady would not want a body like this one, doing a nice, clean triple with—of all things—a man on her shoulders?
Hooters Girl Squats A Guy - Watch more Funny Videos
In sum, women do not naturally have the hormones to grow huge muscles if they pick up anything heavier than a three-pound pink dumbbell. Please, let’s lay that one to rest or throw it in the closet by the thighmaster.
Let there be no mistake. Heavy iron is not just for men wearing backwards ballcaps and screaming while they “feel the burn” in the cable crossover. Lifting heavy weight is a skill to be developed with finesse and attention to detail: traits just as common to women as men.
The Cyclical Nature of Sport Science
“Sport, like art, advances in various spheres to a point where technique replaces imagination and basic instinct. When that happens there has to be a return to basic principle.”
—Alan Rose
RKC Code of Conduct
The RKC program is not just a trainer certification, but a school of strength. A school proud of what it stands for: the gold standard of instruction, integrity, and quiet professionalism.
I am an RKC therefore I shall:
- Represent my school with honor in my professional and personal life.
- Treat my ’victims“ with respect and tough love.
- Carry my strength with modesty. Remember that my job is to teach, not to impress.
- Never overstep the boundaries of my expertise and be humble enough to say, “I don’t know.”
- Never stop improving my instructor skills and enhancing my own strength.
- Conduct myself as a gentleman or a lady in public places, including the internet. Exhibit restraint, the hallmark of a professional.
Should I violate the code, my certificate may be revoked.
Online Client Receives “First Rate Education”
I've tried many different work out schemes before, and worked with at least 4 different personal trainers. Most of them left me barely able to walk the next day, but Albert was different. He tailored workouts to my body and focused on quality of sessions and not quantity of reps. The most valuable thing he has given me was a first rate education in how the body builds muscle.
It's easy to work out for an hour with those tapes or whatever, but through his work outs, I have gotten more solid results from a half hour or less. I have become much stronger, and bigger while not having exercise routines take over my life, and interfere with my job.
The only downside to this, is that some of my favorite shirts don't fit anymore. Oh well! I'd gladly give up a few shirts for my increased strength, increased ability to help my coworkers, skateboard faster and longer, play pick up games of other sports and not feel destroyed the next day, and I look and feel better than ever before.
After working out 2 months with him, I understand how to tailor my own work outs so that I can keep getting stronger, and live my life without my body being too tired, too weak, or too fragile to have fun with all the things that life has to offer.
Shawn W Ramirez - Sackets Harbor, NY USA
Rudyard Kipling Explains the Soul
Body and spirit I surrendered whole
To harsh instructors – and received a soul
—Rudyard Kipling
Warrior Diet Mistake #1: Under-Undereating
So you tried the Warrior Diet, and you felt just terrible. You were absolutely famished by mealtime, and your blood sugar and energy levels plummeted faster than Barack Obama’s approval rating. You felt light-headed and your workouts starting looking less like the Rocky Balboa training montage and more like “Sweatin’ to the Oldies.”
So you gave up saying “It just didn’t work for me.”
Well, guess what? It didn’t work for you because you didn’t do it right. As they say in the RKC community, “It’s your fault.”
The diet is roughly based on the eating habits of primal man and certain warrior cultures of antiquity. The premise is that eating too frequently diverts the body’s resources away from producing energy and towards digestion.
It makes intuitive sense: after Thanksgiving dinner everyone sits down ostensibly to watch football, but in reality they just can’t move. It’s not because of the two pounds of ham, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and pumpkin pie are weighing us down.
Therefore, the Warrior Diet advocates eating little during the day and then eating a single meal large enough to supply the body’s needs in the evening. After the large meal, you rest, relax, and spend time with your friends and family.
In a nutshell, it’s based on a daily cycle of under-eating and over-eating. Those terms were chosen carefully: I deliberately DID NOT use the words fasting and binging. Or starving and gorging.
Rather, under-eating means eating just enough to get by. When you under-eat during the day according to the Warrior Diet, your energy levels will increase. If they drop, you haven’t done it right. But there is no formula: you have to experiment and find what works best for you within the objective of keeping total consumption and insulin secretion low. The Warrior Diet is a also a thinking man’s diet. You have to pay attention to how you feel.
A good place to start out as a Warrior Dieter is with the 80/20 rule. Try to eat 80% of your calories at the evening meal, and the other 20% spread out through the day. Do not get out your food scale and measuring spoons. The Warrior Diet is not that kind of diet. Just follow the guidelines for what to eat during the day, and make sure you are eating enough to avoid low blood sugar and that famished feeling.
From 80/20, you will have a great base from which you can make changes as needed. And you make not need to! 80/20 is perfectly in line with the spirit of the diet, especially if you’re eating lean protein, green vegetables, and nuts and seeds during the day.
Just make sure, as your workouts get back to where you can hear Aretha Franklin start to fade until the synth of the Rocky theme song drowns it out, that your kettlebell snatch looks better than old Sly Stallone’s does.
What Shall Not be Defended
“Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Want Security? Don’t Make Mark Twight Laugh
“You ask about security? What you need is uncertainty. What you need is confusion; something that forces you to reinvent yourself, a whip to drive you harder.”
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