A poor person like me can’t afford a gym membership. Nor can I afford a trainer, who is normally provided with a gym mebership. And without a trainer there is no one around to help me with the new exercise routines and to show how it’s done, right? Actually, wrong. Internet is a great gadget. If I have a question about anything I go to my MSN list and talk to my friends about any doubts and problems I may have. Or I lookup information on other blogs, google or forums.

But what about routines that are not easily explained in words, like stretching? A big advantage of a trainer is that he can actually SHOW you how to do something. An article can only show a few pictures that are often very confusing and depressing…

But keep your head up, o bodytweaker! The great information age has arrived! Now you don’t even have to have a trainer to see how something is done right. Just look it up in video directories! God bless internet!

Jokes beside, here is a list of great video sources and some samples where you can get cool new workout ideas from:

Google Videos - a great source of videos. Doesn’t have a lot, but quite enough.

1. Golf stretching video 1 and video 2
2. A woman stretching in sitting yoga position
3. Another woman performing leg stretching on a railing
4. Lower body stretch
5. 3 women performing stretching on the beach. Hot!
6. 30 min. Video of a marathon preparation class: stretching.
7. A 4 min stretching video with expalnations. 5 star!
8. A woman performing deadsplit
9. Cycling stretching exercisses. Very useful!
10. 5 stretches routine. Rather exotic (tai-chi like) stretches. Cool!
11. Abdominal stretching to tighten up stomach

1. Beginner gymnastics stretching.
2. Angela Joyce performing back stretching. Check out her other 15+ stretching videos on the same site. On your place, I would bookmark that page. Very useful!
3. …Heck, here is a whole list of hundreds more videos: http://www.expertvillage.com/category/health-fitness.htm

1. Stretching video 1.
2. Stick stretching.
3. …wow! this flexibility inspires a lot! also check out her other videos like this one of the splits.
4. Towel stretching, a good idea.
5. …etc.

There are a lot of more videos, but I think these few are a good start and give a good idea of how a stretching routine should look like.

There are also ton of material about yoga, strength training, endurance training, etc. Just look at those websites and use their search functionalities.

What is the sense of big muscles if you don’t know how to use them?
What is the sense of a fancy sports car with no horse power within?

It’s so pitiful seeing all those big guys hitting the gym trying to to get even bigger, spending thousands of hard-earned dollars for expensive bulk supplements that, in many cases, hurt their bodies and cause irreversible health problems. And what’s the aim? A 350 pounds meat pack that spends 3500+ calories a day, but is still a big zero when it comes down to even most simple tasks?

The “bodybuilding” boom of the last few decades has been aiming at “good looks”, but no real quality. That is: isolate the muscle, pump it hard, eat a lot, make it grow. But, where’s the bright logic of homo sapiens here? Who said that big muscles will do better job in a given task? Quantity never presupposes quality and vice versa. There is no logical connection between the two. And as our fathers were “training” for quality, we are training for quantity nowadays. Good progress, comrades! It’s like building a facade and forgetting about anything else.

Now, I don’t want to tell You what to do. It’s a free world (in most cases) and you have a choice just like in anything else: to smoke or not to smoke - you decide. If you are just trying to get big muscles in order to impress somebody then to hell with the quality. To hell with the guy on the other side of the planet who is writing this. To hell with the health, if it stands on your way. Go ahead and impress everybody. Maybe it’s a good aim.

But if your aims lie in deeper virtues, if you are seeking performance rather than the mere “good looks”, if you’re going for the essence and not superficiality, then go with the quality.

Quality doesn’t mean isolating and pushing one muscle till it grows the size of a tumor. Quality means training the whole body: to train all the muscles together so they work in a team as they should be. It means training your nervous systems that controls your muscles.

The neurologists say we only use max. 10% of our brain capacities. The fact is, we use only 10% of our whole nervous abilities. It is said that our muscles have enough strength to lift a car even without having been once to the gym. It’s just that they don’t know HOW to do it. The nerves just don’t give enough impulse to work at 100%. Ever seen a man struck by lightning with several bone fractures? That’s how “hard” the muscles can work given the right impulse.
Now imagine a trained neuromuscular system working at its best. Knowing what to do in a given situation and how to do it. This is an aim far beyond the mere pumping of the muscles. In fact, the question of size is senseless here. They will grow to the size that is needed for the tasks your system is trained for. Muscles are means but not the aim. And strength is only a tiny part of it! Think about increased speed, range of motion (flexibility), better coordination, endurance. THAT is quality.

I’m happy to see that more and more people are realizing this. Today you can find the same concept in what is called “functional training“,  which is getting very very popular, and “kettlebelt training” - the roots where our fitness fathers have started from!

Live strong!

Hiya everyone! It’s so nice to be back. I have been quite busy in the last 5 months finishing my studies… and had a problem with the adsl company. Actually, several problems. They couldn’t manage to install a phone line in my new place for 3 months! So I was all that time without connection! Jeez! Now I know what a junkie feels like in his first few weeks on a drug-free diet

But now its over and I am up and surfing the stream like never before! So much to tell, so little time! Im hiiiiiigh!