Posts tagged naked

Training Naked – #2

Written by Hans Hageman

I hope you enjoyed your weekend and our last newsletter!

This is the second of three emails on our new exercise DVD, “The Sulaxmi Method.” In the first email, I talked a little about the journey. This one talks about the tremendous value of bodyweight exercise. When you rely on your body instead of machines, you are training “naked.”

At Brownstone Fitness, one of our major goals is to get people moving the way humans were meant to move and to help them perform their daily functions in an effective, pain-free, and powerful way. Bodyweight exercise is an important tool to accomplish that goal.

A mistaken belief – that is reinforced by big gyms and equipment manufacturers who want you to spend a lot of your money with them – is that you can’t get the same results with your own body that you can with machines. Many people think that bodyweight exercise is too boring with only squats, pushups, and pullups (which most people can’t do anyway!) in the arsenal.

Well, resistance is resistance, whether from a machine, a barbell, kettlebell or your body. Changing body angles and leverage can increase or decrease the difficulty of bodyweight exercises. As far as boredom, you’re only limited by your imagination when it comes to using your body as your exercise machine.

I’ve done it all – Nautilus, Hammer Strength, barbells. Everything has its place. Machines can have an important place for people who are trying to rehab an injury, or an elderly person who hasn’t exercised in a long time, if ever. There is no better tool than a barbell for an athlete who wants to get strong and powerful in as short a time as possible.

If you want to lessen your chances of injury, work your body in the way it is designed to move, have control over your body as it moves in different directions under various loads and speeds, have a fat burning tool that can go with you on vacation, and save on a gym membership, then bodyweight exercise is the preferred vehicle. This is something that gymnasts, elite military operators, and prisoners in state and federal penitentiaries have known for years.

Its unnatural to separate the body into a collection of bodyparts. Do you want the coordinated, supple strength of a leopard or the physique of a Frankenstein? Shouldn’t we train to move and look better instead of improving our ability to lift more weight?

Years ago, I was like a lot of people who decided that I wanted results as fast as possible. When I was growing up, my home was the residential drug treatment center that my parents started and ran. A lot of the men coming through the program were ex-felons and Vietnam veterans. For those who exercised, weightlifting (specifically a lot of bench press and curls) was the way to go. This influence, along with the advent of Nautilus machines got me heavily into weightlifting and eventually bodybuilding.

A few things in my life caused me to reevaluate my training methods. Leading students on work trips to places like Sudan, Senegal, India, and Nicaragua left me with little choice other than to improvise with calisthenics. I saw how lean and strong I became during my military training with nothing but bodyweight exercise. Becoming a father, and starting independent schools in two countries left me with little time to go to the gym. A severe knee injury where I tore my quadriceps tendon also limited my options. I got firsthand experience of how you can not only maintain conditioning but increase your lean muscle and energy through the use of bodyweight exercise.

I now use several tools for both myself and my clients but bodyweight exercise remains central to any program I use for them or myself. Not only is it a way to develop the kind of body that most people want but it’s a way to improve balance, coordination, creativity, a sense of play, and awareness. What better way to become Strong, Sexy, and Serene?

Next time, I’ll give you the inside scoop on how we came up with the name, “Sulaxmi.” Until then, go ahead and order the DVD here and become eligible for a free, half hour quick start coaching session by phone.

Train Naked – Do You Like What You See?

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Written by Hans Hageman

This post was inspired by a discussion I had with a couple of colleagues about workout attire and what it communicates.  If you thought there would be more “interesting” pictures of the staff of Brownstone Fitness, you’ll have to join the contest on our membership site to see those!

There are a few ways to train naked
I’m not going to discuss the most obvious method of training this way and for safety reasons, I’m not advocating it.

Do What You Can With What You’ve Got
This kind of training has to do with simplicity and a minimalist ethic. Pavel Tsatsouline has popularized it in his Naked Warrior book. The concept is that you should be able to get stronger using nothing more than your own body.

It’s interesting how addicted some people have become to exercise machines. This affliction seems to run deeper in men. It is one of the reasons we only have a couple of guys training in our “machine-less” facility. You can fake and cheat on machines. Working with your body tells you the truth. My theory is that a lot of men can’t handle this kind of truth.

True naked training involves mainly bodyweight and things you can pull up to and jump on. It has many benefits. It saves time and money. You’re less likely to get injured. You don’t have an excuse for getting out of shape when you travel. It has a lot of meditative qualities. You’ll move with more grace. You’ll become more creative and improvisational.

You’re Exposed
Then, there’s a third meaning. Hard training can tell you a lot about yourself. We often don’t like what we find when we push the limits and do the hard thing. Exposing ourselves to ourselves is very uncomfortable and most of us avoid it. For most guys, a hard workout is a couple of extra sets of (light) bench presses and curls. For women, it’s doing an extra half hour on the elliptical machine. Where are the pull-ups, the sprinting, the deadlifts, the handstands and cartwheels?

When you actually work to reach real fitness goals, you will find out about your courage and mental toughness. You will learn about your self-discipline. You will be able to examine and display your values. Make a public commitment to do the hard thing with your diet and exercise and people will discover whether you are capable of doing what you say you will do – Oh no! That integrity thing!

Our desk-bound lives don’t provide us with a lot of opportunities for introspection and challenge. We allow ourselves to be forced into autopilot. This has inevitable consequences for all our relationships.

Figure out a way to train naked. Stand out. Do it often enough and you’ll end up liking the reflection.

P.S. At Brownstone Fitness, we don’t always train naked. We also include kettlebells, barbells, clubbells, ropes, and accountability. Give us a call to find out what this looks like in a firm but caring environment.