New ways to move and develop your body. Expand your physicality but also your mentality.

These are some unique bits and pieces of our training we filmed while we were waiting for our furniture and other decorative elements for our new studio.

Although a gym and having lots of equipment is useful, your bodyweight offers an endless amount of possibilities and ways to develop the body. A lot of people think that once they can do 10 different push ups and pull ups, that's all they can do with their bodyweight.

Tiger (or Tigress if you are a woman) strength sequence is a sequence of different isometric holds. This tiger strength sequence here consists of 3 different isometric holds.

1. hold: forearms is vertical in relation to the torso. 

2. hold: forearms is in a 45 degree angle in relation to the torso.

3. hold: forearms are in 90 degree angle in relation to the torso

These movements will thoroughly target the upper traps, shoulders and chest muscles.

You may also feel your whole body heating up if you are not used to being in low positions such as this. This is another good reason to work on holds like this.

Although it is necessary to do traditional repetitions, isometric holds can be immensely powerful when used properly. If you are not sold on this sequence yet - try it yourself and feel how powerful these holds are.

Hold the 3 holds for 15-30 seconds each. If you think your head and body can handle that, you can extend the sets to 30-60 seconds. However, if you are a regular human, you should notice how surprisingly tough and effective these holds can get.

By mastering these 3 holds you should notice great improvements in your overall athleticism, pressing strength and also in your shoulder health (greater stability leads to injury prevention).

The upper part of this movement we learned from Jiang Yu Shan in Taiwan and it is part of Qigong health and strength practices. 

Holding this intervened hand position doesn't just improve your shoulder mobility but it also locks your arms and upper back nicely in place. 

When you do this exercise in the kneeling position, you eliminate all the unnecessary movement from your knees and a lot of movement from your hips as well. 

The result? You can focus on articulating your core amazingly well. You can lean sideways to develop the obliques. You can lean forward and backwards to work the abdominals and the spinal muscles. 

For a lot of people just kneeling in a position like this (In Japan this is called "Seiza") is a great way to stretch the quadriceps and ankles. 

Too much sitting is known to cause problems. But what if you could use sitting to fix problems?

Sitting on the floor with your legs and back extended is challenging for most people. It can be shocking how hard just sitting in a simple position like this can be. You don't have to sit for a long time, often just 30 seconds or less is enough to feel the power.

Sitting with straight legs and a straight back also forces you to use your hip flexors, lower abs and upper spine muscles. Take your time and stay in this position.

You can vary between straddle and legs together. Adding back and forth movement helps to learn to control the tilting of the pelvis and the interplay between abdominals and hip flexors.

Did you know human being's shoulder capsules can move so much and so well?

Shoulders are far more complex than people think and far more diverse than the scientific view of the body allows us to understand.

We are not anti-science but if we followed the scientific way of training, we would be very stiff and would only be able to move in very rigid and limited patterns. 

Movement like life is just too complex to ever fully "grasp" and quantify which is why moving is more an art than a science. Science is a lot about putting boxes and limitations on things when in reality there are no limits.

Yet, the correct path from tight and "stuck" shoulders to mobile and flowing shoulders is to start with simple movements and gradually expand your ability to move.

This means that you should first master all the 4 articulations of the shoulder girdle: depression, elevation, protraction and retraction (we go deeper into this in Athlete 20XX).

Once you master the basic dimensions, you can add more dimensions and angles to your movements until you have mastered all the angles and positions. 

First, you move in a very 1-dimensional way. Eventually, the dimensions disappear and you flow like water without form. This same principle applies to all articulations and movements of the human body. 

In the last article Back to the Roots we mentioned that we have something good coming out in a couple of weeks. It has been a couple of weeks already! 

Good things take a bit longer than originally thought but we should have everything ready in the next 1-2 weeks. This will be 100% FREE.

What you will learn will also be unique and something that will be useful for both newcomers and people who are already using our programs. A new person will also make her entrance. 

Stay tuned.

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