Extreme Human Performance of the Week: Amazing Hand Balancing by Encho Keryazo

WOW!!!!

AMAZING Movement here by Encho? Keryazov from Bulgaria

Notice how he makes the insane LOOK easy.

Notice that his physique is very proportioned and symmetrical, just like his movement.

A hat tip to Chris at Conditioning Research for this one!

Comments?

Rock on

Mike T Nelson

PS

This may be a bit much for you to start with (smacks forehand), but check out the link below on how to do a perfect pullup

The Perfect Pullup and Chinup

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New Video from Damien Walters : Beyond Parkour and Gymnastics

Wow, I had to hit pause and rewind a few times.

Insane off axis work.  Amazing timing!

A must watch!

If you want to know how he trains, how tall and what he weighs and many other tidbits,  see my interview with Damien below

Interview with Damien Walters

Comments?

rock on

Mike T Nelson

PS

Don’t miss out on the free conference call tonight about how to gain more muscle with less fat using biofeedback.   Go HERE now! Gym Movements Biofeedback Free Conference Call

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Make like a monkey – more crazy movement!

Thanks to my buddy Shawn for sending me this one!  Sweet!

Extreme Movement is a combination of information from joints + eyes + inner ear!

Off to a broomball game Friday night and then out with some of the guys/girls in town for Grip n Rip and it is going to be a blast. I will have to bug out at around noon on Sat from Grip n Rip since Jodie and I are headed to Baja Mexico for some R and R and to get in some kiteboarding! Whoo ha!

No worries, as I will have some posts already keyed up, but I may be very late on comments; so please bear with me. Heck, they said they have internet but from what I heard I would be surprised that the internet is actually working though.

rock on
Mike T Nelson

Damien Walters Show Reel Video- How Do you Want To Move?

Damien Walter is a freak. You must watch this!

How Does He Train?

See this exclusive interview below

Damien Walters Interview

How Do You Want To Move?

Is Your Training Getting You Closer To Better Movement?

If Not, Why Not?

The Answer Is Coming Soon. The Movement Will Be Here……

rock on
Mike T Nelson

PS

Damien Walters I am not, but I will be working on the back flip again later in 2010 (must…..graduate……first)

Hardcore Parkour

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The Science Behind Biofeedback

I’ve been getting some great questions regarding biofeedback as of late, which is awesome. I am glad to see others asking questions and taking action. Kudos to you!

One of the questions has been around the science of biofeedback

• Is there any science?

• What does the science say?

• Who is this Mike T Nelson character and is he qualified to answer any of this?

• Why is he wearing a lab coat?

Find out below

Mike T Nelson Background

The Science of Biofeedback

Comments

What are your thoughts? Leave me a comment below and let me know!

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

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Damien Walters has nothing on these guys; so they get the Extreme Human Performance of the week.

If you want to see some really wicked cool stuff, you need to see the Damien Walter post and interview below

Damien Walters Crazy Movement and Interview: Real Parkour and Gymnastics

If you want to see my work on a handstand, check it out below.  This is from earlier this year and to be perfectly honest I have not worked on it much since then.

HARDCORE PARKOUR!

Mike T Nelson

I see a fair amount of shoulder “issues”   A simple test is to have the athlete bring their arm out to their side and all the way up while keeping their palm down and elbow straight and stop when they hit tension.

Have them do the same thing out in front.

If they don’t have a good range of motion (ROM), overhead lifting will NOT be a good idea!  Why would I put a kettlebell in their hand if they can’t get their arm over their head withOUT weight?

How to fix it

“He who treats the site of pain is lost” —Karel Lewitt, M.D

Not everyone who has less than stellar range of motion will have pain, but most that have shoulder pain have decrease shoulder ROM.

While my goal is not to directly get rid of their pain, I know that by getting a full range of motion a vast majority of the time their pain will go away.  Better movement almost always results in less pain.

Here is a video of a pre and post Z-Health joint mobility work

What Did We Do?

While every case is different, here we did some LEFT ankle mobility work (this athlete has some extra hardware in his left ankle and a scar from the said hardware), neck mobility work, and right wrist mobility work.

In general, from all the shoulder issues I’ve work with I find the following to help a vast majority of the time.

Mobility work for the

• Opposite foot/ankle
• Opposite hip
• Thoracic spine
• Same side hand/wrist.

While it is not this easy all the time, about 70% of the time it really is if you are doing the drills correctly (I love the Z-Health R Phase and I Phase drills for this) and you can reassess the athlete after EACH drill to know if you made them move better or worse.    A gait assessment and simple shoulder ROM test (both taught in the Z-Health R Phase certification) work awesome.

Since we are targeting the nervous system directly, we should see and IMMEDIATE change to know if the athlete is better or worse.  Gone are the days of sending them home with scap wall slide, stick ups, external rotation work, etc and then they come back 2- 6 weeks later to see if they worked or not!  We can now tell in SECONDS if the drills we did were good or bad.    This is critical since every athlete is an individual.

But I Do “Prehab” Exercises and They Work!

I am not saying that those other exercises never work or are “bad”, my point is that I believe there is a much faster way to get an end result.  You can now get great results with some simple looking joint mobility work and a reassessment protocol if you target the nervous system directly.

Any comments, let me know!

Rock on!

Mike T Nelson

PS

If you are interested in more info about the Z-Health R Phase cert, drop me a line(Mike T. Nelson) by clicking HERE with the subject “Z-Health Cert Questions”

Updation

I have a bunch of cool videos shot and some more “hacks” for range of motion, but my dissertation is taking longer than I thought, so I will have them up this Saturday.

It seems my header on my blog went goofy, so I am working on that and hope to have it fixed early next week.  Still working to get it more compatible with our Mac friends too.

In the meantime, I have a very special treat for all of you!

It is a true honor and privilege to have a very special guest post from By Josh Hanagarne, World’s
Strongest Librarian.

Be sure to check out his awesome blog at

Worlds Strongest Librarian

Take it away Josh!

Moving My Body, Saving A Life

By Josh Hanagarne, World’s
Strongest Librarian

Has your body ever betrayed you? How about your brain? Do they ever seem like they’re doing whatever they want? Do they ever seem to want different things?

I ask because I can answer YES to all of those questions…and then some. I was in Washington D.C. one sunny day when I suddenly punched myself in the face as hard as I could. This surprised the other people near me, but they weren’t surprised as much as I was.

But all I could do was look down at my bloody shirt and think, I need to do laundry.

Tic, Tic, Boom

In 9th grade I got diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome and we all thought, “Hmm, this is sort of weird.”

Tourette’s makes you do two sorts of things:

1.You move involuntarily
2.You make noises involuntarily

For about ten years it was just a nuisance. Then I went one round with myself in D.C. and things started ramping up from there. I screamed uncontrollably until I got a hernia from the pressure. I dislocated fingers. I chewed my mouth to pieces, and so on.

And on and on and on. And if it sounds miserable, it was.

Things are no different now, but things are wonderful

For nearly 15 years, my body was my enemy. Rather than engage it, I chose to ignore it. That didn’t work very well. But later when I got into weights and kettlebells, things changed. I learned to dominate this sack of flesh and it began to change.

My symptoms didn’t change. They never will. But the discipline I’ve picked up along the way makes everything seem bearable. Once you’ve picked up kettlebells and worked hard, nothing else feels as intimidating. Not even the knowledge that either one of my hands might break my jaw at any moment.

If it happens, it happens. As long as it doesn’t interrupt my training, I’ll keep smiling. Getting stronger is the answer for me. But the point came where I couldn’t figure out how to maintain my rate of progress.

Mobility – The Missing Ingredient

I recently spent one week training with “Unbreakable” Adam T. Glass in Minot, North Dakota. Adam knows a lot about the body and how it works.

I’d dabbled in mobility work before. Mike T. Nelson of this very website did a ZHealt session with me before the RKC and it cleared up some lingering problems for me.

During the week with Adam I learned that Mike is one of Adam’s coaches. We spent more time that week talking about mobility than anything else. I had no idea that I knew so little. But rather than be intimidated, I was inspired and excited.

It’s hard not to be when you start hitting personal records (PRs) again. After about 5 minutes of Z-Health work, Adam fixed my shoulder that had been bothering me for a year. Five minutes after that, I pressed a 92 lb kettlebell with the arm that hadn’t pressed for that year. It was a huge PR and my eyebrows shot up just as quickly as that kettlebell.

I could go on all day about this, but I won’t

If I could say one thing to you and have it stick, it would be this: forget what you think you know about the body. I would love nothing more than to pick Mike’s brain for a year and be one of his guinea pigs.

I thought it was fun to get stronger, but feeling my body move better is satisfying in a different way. And the two are inseparable. I had used weights and kettlebells to take control of my life again. Now I’m seeing that mobility work will let me take control of the weights and kettlebells at a much higher level.

No matter where you’re at in your training, no matter what your relationship with your body is, both can improve-drastically.

Find someone who knows more than you do about the body. Help yourself and let them help you. You cannot overestimate the potential of a perfectly functioning body. And the perfectly functioning body is the one that breaks records and reaches its potential.

I hear Mike Nelson is pretty good at this stuff.

I’ve seen these principles of mobility in action. My training saved my life. Mobility is improving the rest.

Josh Hanagarne
Get Stronger, Get Smarter, Live Better…Every Day

About the Author: Josh Hanagarne, RKC, is the twitchy giant behind World’s Strongest Librarian, a blog about living with Tourette’s Syndrome, kettlebells, book recommendations, buying pants when you’re 6′8″, old-time strongman training, and much more. Please subscribe to Josh’s RSS Updates to stay in touch.

Extreme Human Performance of the Week: Brett Favre to Greg Lewis TD Toss

Due to my crazy schedule I have not made time to watch a full Vikings game for some time, but today Jodie and I were hanging out for a bit and after she left around half time I debated about watching the rest of the Vikings vs 49ers game.  Everyone knows I should spend that time working on my dissertation if I ever want to graduate, but my butt seemed like put crazy glued to the coach.

It was a back and forth game the whole time and it did not look good for the Vikings near the end.  They were all out of time outs and only about 1:30 left on the clock and they needed a TD.    Yikes.

In the past it would be a complete stumblefest as they would attempt to get a score, but would end up pissing away precious seconds on each play and all Vikings fan leave pulling out their purple hair.

This time was different!

Brett Favre and Greg Lewis to the Rescue!

Brett Favre lead them right down the field and had brilliant time management on the clock.   With only seconds left he threw a strike to Great Lewis who made an AMAZING catch in the end zone.  He went up and knew exactly where his entire body was in space, made sure his left foot was inside the line and dragged his right toe.  You have to watch the video below, especially in slow motion.  Stellar throw and dynamic catch.

What Did We Learn Today?

All exceptional athletes have an amazing movement map -  they know exactly where their body is in space at all times.   This is a combination of visual, vestibular (inner ear “balance”) and joint information to the brain (proprioception).   If you want to go from here to Chicago, a detour through the UP of MI is not the best route!

Each one of the these components can be trained also, but rarely do you see them trained; even at an elite level.  Virtually every athlete needs to start with joint mobility (I personally love Z-Health for this) to enhance their proprioception and thus their overall movement map

Better map = better performance

Congrats to the whole Vikings team and Brett Favre and Greg Lewis for the Extreme Human Performance of the week.

Who else watched the game today?  What are your thoughts?

Rock on

Mike T nelson

Here are some cool video before and afters with a Kettlebell Swing.

For those new to Kettlebells (KBs), the KB Swing is basic, foundational exercise.   It works to great tons of power by using the hip to snap the KB forward.

BEFORE

KB Swing before any Z-Health Mobility work. Notice the height of the KB at top, “up” shoulders and slow hips.

AFTER

KB Swing after 40 min of Z-Health Mobility work. Notice the increase in hip snap and this was after a short training session also

HOW?

I actually did not use many standard exercise cues to get her body to do a better kettlebell swing.   We just upgraded her nervous system.  Think of it as upgrading the software on your computer.

Better software = better performance

If your athlete are not learning at the rate you want them to, maybe they need a better movement map to create a “smarter body”   Smart bodies learn fast.

Want More?

If you want to know exactly what I did to improve the KB Swing in this case, drop a comment below.

15 comments by this tomorrow (Friday) at midnight (Central Standard Time) and I will have a follow up post on what I did and why.

Rock on

Mike T Nelson

PS

Feel free to pass along this post to others that are interested and get them to post away here!