How to rapidly get stronger in ANY athletic skill—
by internalizing and mastering the universal
principles of strength…
The Naked Warrior ideal: chase the dream—and achieve peaks of strength you never dreamed possible—with a systematized set of strength-skill secrets
Half a century ago, a group of high-level martial artists published a semi-fictional book Secret Fighting Arts of the World under the pen name John F. Gilbey. One of the stories perfectly illustrates the Naked Warrior ideal. This ideal is a star on the horizon. You will never reach it, but chasing it will take you higher than you have ever dreamt to go…
Here is the story. The author meets a secretive martial arts master who, after a remarkable demonstration of his deadly skills, throws an unlikely challenge: "I will promise that any trick that you can do which involves the hands or arms, I can do also. This is the mark of a true master: not that he can do sleights that others cannot, perhaps because they have never tried, but that he can make his body do anything that someone else can do."
Gilbey reflects:
This was a fine gesture, I thought. Unfortunately, he was on rocky ground here. For it had long been a hobby of mine to learn any unusual and difficult gymnastic tricks that few others could perform. Through great exertions, I have become able to do possibly the hardest three gymnastic exercises in the world. Few people can do any one of them. So far as I know I am the only one able to do all three. The exercises are:
(1) Extended push-up from prone position, fingertips and toes stretched as far as they will go.
(2) Five chin-ups on overhead bar using only one arm (I can use either arm).
(3) Rafter-walk for 25 feet. Using only fingers and thumbs, grab overhead studding and supporting the weight of body, go hand after hand for the required distance.
...I was tempted to go graciously without complying but I thought: he has issued the challenge. Let’s see what he can do with it.
So, not attempting to disguise my pride, I showed the exercises.
When I was done, he commented that it was a fair exercise. And then he did each one with an élan that I could not muster. There was no end to the man. With mixed emotions—crestfallen that he had achieved the tests and overawed by his ability to master his body—I bade farewell to him. I came away wiser.
Become stronger AND wiser in your training—so you can conquer ANY physical challenge you put your mind to
Our goal is to make you come away from the Naked Warrior course wiser and stronger. You should be able to take a look at a great many strength feats and exercises—and quickly reverse-engineer them. You might not be able to do them yet—but you will know exactly how to train for them.
First we will teach you the Naked Warrior battle tested abdominal and tension drills—the very foundation of strength. These drills have been greatly refined since the publication of
The Naked Warrior and
Bullet-Proof Abs a decade ago.
Then we will teach you the key bodyweight strength exercises. No time will be wasted cataloguing a multitude of exercises and their variations. With the millions of degrees of freedom possible for our bodies, it is an endless and pointless process: giving you the fish and making you dependent to come back for more. Instead we will teach you how to fish. Once you have internalized the universal principles of strength, you will be able to quickly apply them to any new strength or gymnastic skills.
"The knowledge of some principles easily
compensates for the ignorance of some facts."
This quote by philosopher Claude Helvétius appeared in the late Prof. Yuri Verkhoshansky’s last book. It perfectly describes what we do at the Naked Warrior certification.
Naked Warrior, the book, featured only two exercises, the one-arm/one-leg pushup and the pistol. To these two fundamentals we have added a third—the front lever—because certain strength techniques are hard to learn without a pullup type exercise. Not impossible—one US military special operator quickly worked up to a one-arm chin using the Naked Warrior one-arm pushup techniques—just hard.
How to go from "zero to hero" in the three classic bodyweight powerlifts
The Naked Warrior certification features the classic strength triad—a push, a pull, a squat. The bodyweight powerlifts.
You will learn the "from zero to hero" progressions in the big three—radically improved since the book’s publication. More importantly, we will field strip these exercises. Being able to do the moves is not enough. A professional strength coach must be able to take each exercise apart to its smallest pieces, "clean" it, "oil" it, and then put it back together strong.
Boxing great Jack Dempsey commented:
You see: by the time a fellow becomes a successful professional fighter, nearly all his moves are so instinctive, through long practice, that it’s difficult for him to sort out the details of each move. Accordingly, it’s nearly impossible at first for him to explain his moves to a beginner. He can say to the beginner, "You throw a straight right like this." Then he can shoot a straight right at a punching bag. But the beginner will have no more conception of how to punch with the right than he had before. That’s the chief reason why so few good fighters developed into good instructors. They failed to go back and examine each link in each boxing move. They tried to give their pupils the chains without the links.
Attain the body language and strength of an elite gymnast
At the Naked Warrior cert we literally reverse engineer the body language and strength of an elite gymnast. Any skill-based discipline possesses what Russian sports scientists call the "model technique". Anyone who has competed at a high level in any sport knows how many years of practice it takes to approximate it.
You must also be aware that compared to an athlete groping for the right technique in the dark, one who is expertly coached will progress at lightning speed. Grizzled coaches have their secret toolboxes of "shortcuts". Shortcuts in the best sense of the word—stunningly powerful cues that hit home and spare hundreds of hours of frustrating practice.
Here is a telling example: Russian boxing coaches tell young fighters to "feel the elbow in the fist". Go ahead, try it, punch a bag visualizing that your elbow is inside your fist. You—and the bag—will be impressed by the solid power of your punches.
Strength is also a skill, there is even a term in Russian sports science: strength-skill. The Naked Warrior has systematized strength-skill secrets from a wide variety of disciplines:
• From the breathing and stance subtleties of ancient martial arts, to cutting-edge neuroscience research.
• From powerlifting alignment cues to the latest breakthroughs in spine biomechanics.
• From arm-wrestlers’ strength tricks to state-of-the art physical therapy techniques for waking up unwilling muscles.
• From old time strongmens’ "knacks" to Russian weightlifting research.
• From a firearms instructor’s skill set to yoga visualizations.
• From kettlebell tips to Eastern European gymnasts’ secrets…
For the first time in history this rich and diverse body of knowledge has been organized into a logical and simple system for delivering instant strength gains.
First of its kind, the Naked Warrior certification workshop will teach you how to apply this concentrated knowledge to a battery of the most effective bodyweight strength exercises, for a powerlifting-quality workout anywhere, anytime. And build a terrific foundation for strength training with any tool—be it a kettlebell, a barbell, or a rock.
Bill Fox, RKC, an impressive athlete who can do things like pullups with two 70-pound kettlebells, gets it:
Kettlebells, bodyweight drills, and barbells, are just tools. The "purity" of a training program comes from the purity of one’s intent when they train, of one’s will. If instead of training for martial arts, you treated your training as a martial art, then you would be on to something. George Mattson, in his classic text on Uechi Ryu Karate, The Way of Karate, wrote, "Karate means "empty hand"—the hand the instrument of the body; the body the instrument of the will. The aim is to develop a synergism of the will, the nerves, and the muscles which manifests itself in the maximum possible controlled release of energy."
Drug-free national bench press record holder Jack Reape, RKC pointed out that learning how to make a bodyweight exercise harder will teach a lifter how to make a barbell lift easier. There is a great synergy between different resistance modalities for an intelligent strength athlete.
Shortly after Pavel’s kettlebell demo at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2001 expo, Bill Kazmaier, powerlifting and strongman legend, stopped by the Dragon Door booth. He casually picked up a heavy kettlebell and held it on his pinkie with his arm out to the side and parallel to the ground. He shrugged off the amazed onlookers and casually explained, "I just know how to use my body".
Pavel had watched his lift and could not disagree. Although the kettlebell appeared to hang on the pinkie, its weight still rested on the webbing of the palm. Kaz’s palm faced up which engaged his stronger front delts. He raised his rib cage, which created a lean back effect without leaning and brought his huge pecs into action. Finally, he let the arm "wedge" into the shoulder blade which in turn was leaning on the opposite shoulder blade, a sophisticated maneuver gymnasts use in the iron cross. For a biomechanics junkie it was poetry in motion.
Kazmaier was new to kettlebells and could not have known the Russian gireviks’ pinkie trick. Given his bodyweight, it was also safe to conclude that he had never done an iron cross. Nevertheless, the great athlete intuitively and immediately figured both out.
"I just know how to use my body".
Dr. William H. Calvin points out that experts have "stored up a lot of simulated scenarios" and have become "particularly effective in appraising a novel scenario and advising on a course of action". Which is exactly what Kaz did. Such body mastery is the Naked Warrior ideal.
The Naked Warrior bodyweight powerlifts are what Gray Cook, RKC calls "self-limiting". You could have poor technique and weak abs—and still improve your bench pr
ess or jerk. Good luck cheating the one-arm/one-leg pushup!
Your legs and back could be seriously dysfunctional and heading for big hurt—yet you still could up your barbell squat through sheer will power. The pistol will laugh at you if you try.
You could "clean" a heavy bell, bar or kettle, with the ugliest technique and end up in the ER. You could never do it with the front lever.
In summary, "bodyweight powerlifts" (not just any bodyweight exercises!) enforce the high tension and perfect motor control of a strength professional. Charles Poliquin reports how two high level gymnasts who had never touched barbells benched 350 after a couple of weeks of practice. No surprise.
In addition to the "zero to hero" progressions on the three key lifts we will teach you handstand pushups, neck bridges, and some other moves. Not because you could not figure them out by yourself after learning the "troika", but as examples of new applications of the same principles.
Discover:
• The 7 key principles of Naked Warrior™ strength
• The 3 "bodyweight powerlifts":
- One-Arm/One-Leg Pushup
- Pistol
- Front Lever
• …and a set of tested progressions "from zero to hero"
• A battery of knockout abdominal drills for superior strength and development
• A package of insanely effective instant strength techniques (up to 50% immediate improvement!)
• A big toolbox for troubleshooting the most difficult clients
• The 5 key principles of Naked Warrior™ strength program design—and a crystal clear road map for applying them to yourself and your clients
• What it takes to finish your strength workout with more energy than you started with
• Guidelines for seamlessly fitting bodyweight strength exercises into a barbell or kettlebell regimen
• The truth about isometrics (it is not what you think) and the 5 rules you must obey to squeeze the most out of isos
On to the specifics of what you’ll get:
One-Arm/One-Leg Pushup
• How to use the common plank as an assessment—and how to turn this boring aerobics class stand-by into a power tool with a dozen unique and challenging variations
• How to use the wall to amplify the plank’s difficulty and effectiveness
• How to properly perform the one-arm pushup (if your shoulders are not parallel to the ground and your chest is not brushing the deck, you are kidding yourself!)
• How to position your hand for perfect balance and shoulder safety in the OAP (very different from what you are accustomed to)
• How to engage the lat in the OAP with a powerlifting technique for extra power and shoulder health
• What you could learn from the modern elite powerlifting bench press technique—and what you should not
• How to use the Naked Warrior™ patented "corkscrew" technique for best results
• There are three ways to do a negative: to yield, to collapse, and the correct one. Master the "active negative" and see an immediate jump in your strength
• What to do with your hands and your feet for a strong OAP
• The secret to properly using the pec in the OAP
• How to take your brace and your OAP strength to the next level with the Naked Warrior™ unique "compression suit plank"
• How to "knit" your full body strength for OAPs, punches, and bench presses with a special isometric exercise
Pistol
• Discover five ways of working up to a pistol (take your pick)
• Learn how to troubleshoot the typical problems—such as a limited range of motion, knee strain, a short waist, a large stomach or thighs,
and the inability to maintain balance
• Get a pistol mobility tool kit—and the secrets to making the hamstrings flexible to the task
• Develop pistol stability with unexpected strongman exercises—and make your back, knee, and ankles more resilient when playing sports
• Learn sophisticated pistol "footwork" from the arsenal of Eastern European track athletes, needed to make your feet and ankles healthy and strong to bang out pistols
• Use a Russian weightlifting coaching tool for the strictest pistols possible
• Learn the preferred pistol style of old time strongmen
• How to instantly brace your midsection in bodyweight pistols—and get a strength boost—with a technique from a spine biomechanics lab
• How to protect your back with a pelvic alignment subtlety known only to a handful of world record squatters
• What it takes to prevent your hips and feet from getting tight from pistols
• How to avoid this typical mistake that can be hard on your back
• Understand the crucial differences between the techniques of heavy pistols and repetition pistols
• How to develop superior "steering strength" in your pistol using subtleties from three martial arts stances
Front Lever/Pullup
• Stop doing bodybuilding style pullups and master the "tactical pullup". Tactical pullups are not just for gun carrying professionals. "The tactical pullup IS like the pullup maneuvers I did for years as a gymnast," emphasizes former top national gymnastics competitor Mark Reifkind, Master RKC
• How to master the gymnastics’ "hollow position" and dramatically increase your strength in pullups, a variety of gymnastic skills, and many athletic applications (e.g., wrestling)
• …an
d how to "clear" the negative effects of the hollow position on the body
• How to amplify your strength in pullups and almost any other effort and develop killer abs—with an ancient karate subtlety of pelvic alignment
• How to instantly add a couple of reps to your pullup max with an empty water bottle.
• How to finesse your pullup groove with a wooden stick
• How to use the same stick for a brutal old time strongman exercise to take your pullup and ab strength to the next level
• How to make a quantum leap in your pullup 1RM strength with a special isometric exercise
• Improve your power and endurance with a unique drill from a Russian special forces dive school
• How to instantly improve your pullup performance using a special plank
• How to train your pulling strength around an elbow injury
• Discover the pullup groove all top pullup performers use
• How to use the Naked Warrior™ patented "zipping up" technique for another quantum jump in strength and resilience
• Understand the crucial differences between the techniques of heavy pullups and repetition pullups
• Discover the "Russian rest/pause" technique for taking your strict repetition pullups into the 30s
• How to do hip pullovers—a staple exercise in the Russian military
• How to own the straight bar muscle-out
• If you are decent enough at pullups—learn the front lever in the quickest manner possible
Hanging Leg Raise
• Learn the strict HLR technique—it is much, much harder and more productive than you thought
• How to stretch your back and hamstrings so they don’t get into your HLR’s way
• How to amplify your hanging leg raise, pullup, and kicking power with a never-seen-before technique for squeezing every ounce of force out of the external obliques
• How to link the upper and lower body into an unstoppable bundle of power
• How to unlock the strength you never knew you had by learning to use the muscles between your ribs
• Learn real hardcore HLR progressions (nothing lame like "windshield wipers"!) and effective regressions for beginners.
Handstand Pushup
(against a wall)
• Why and how the gymnastic handstand needs to be modified
• Why you should focus on this unexpected body part to hold a strong and long handstand
• How to build pressing strength with handstands
• How to build your handstand pushup strength and the deep muscles of your midsection with headstand leg raises
• How to progress from the handstand to the full (hands on boxes, going down until they are level with shoulders) handstand pushup
• Avoid the alignment mistake made by 99% of the people who progressively
increase the HSPs’ range of motion.
• How to apply old time weightlifters’ military press groove to the handstand pushup for spectacular results
• How to train your pressing strength around elbow and shoulder injuries
Neck Bridge
• How to avoid the typical mistakes that cause neck and back injuries
• How to bridge like an old time strongman
• How to work every muscle in your neck and f
eel like a million bucks
And More…
• Understand "feed-forward tension". This gymnasts’ and arm-wrestler’s skill can increase your strength by 20%, according to Russian research
• How to instantly—and measurably—increase your strength in almost any exercise with Loaded Stretching
• Learn the intricacies of "power breathing"—and its different types—applicable to different efforts
• Learn the abdominal exercise documented to recruit your abs at 170% (this is not a misprint) of your maximal voluntary isometric contraction
• Learn how to "strain" properly and to complete an impossibly hard rep using a professional lifter’s mindset
• Learn how to make the quickest strength gains possible with a radical Eastern European training model of the artificial controlling environment. In a Russian study two groups of young gymnasts worked on a technique requiring considerable strength and skill. The control group, which followed the conventional methodology, took over a year just to be able to do the test drill two or three times. The experimental group, which trained following the ACE methodology, could ace the tough drill twenty to sixty times in a row on their own after only a month! Learning this methodology alone is worth a lot more than the price of the course.
Back to Bill Fox:
Think of each session as a simply another day at the dojo, even if you’re in your basement or back yard, wherein you will practice and develop your skills. It makes no difference whether or not you practice a martial art (but of course you should) because your strength training is now a martial art. What you’re working on is not your triceps, so you can punch harder, but your ability to impose your will on your body: to harness your central nervous system, breath, and intent to connect your mind and body.
Each rep is a skill movement. If not performed with concentration and intent it’s meaningless. As in the martial arts, progress, in terms of weight lifted, reps done, will not always be linear, but approached in this manner, there is no reason that something of value can’t come out every session. A far more rewarding way to train in the long run.
SBS™
CERTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS
(SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
The instructor candidates must pass two tests:
1. Teaching safely and effectively.
2. Strength test.
The teaching test is administered at the end of the course.
Candidates have a choice of taking the strength test during the course or submitting a video up to 6 months after the end of the course.
The strength test for men is the one-arm/one leg pushup. One side is tested.
The strength test for women is a one-arm pushup with feet at shoulder width.
In rare cases a highly accomplished, national or international level coach or athlete may be exempt from strength test due to a chronic injury.
The candidates who successfully pass the two tests will be awarded a Specialist in Bodyweight Strength (SBS™) certificate.
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Naked Warrior™ Certification Workshop
Twin Cities, Minnesota
Saturday, October 13—Sunday, October 14, 2012
Saturday: 8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Sunday: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Register on-line or call 1-800-899-5111 for credit card orders.
Mail check to Dragon Door Publications, 5 East County Rd B, #3,
Little Canada, MN 55117
Tuition: $1,695.00
$300.00 fee for cancellations or transfers, no exceptions.
No refunds on cancellations after October 5, 2012
Workshop Code # WNW001
Workshop reference: Naked Warrior Certification Workshop
Now available: pay for your workshop in three equal, monthly installments.
You will be charged one third of the published registration fee, discounted or otherwise, at the time of your registration. Your credit card will be charged 30 days and 60 days later for the two subsequent amounts.
Simply proceed with your registration and when you arrive at the shopping cart check the box indicated to pay in three installments.
- Extreme Early-Bird Registration Discount: Register and pay by July 20, 2012, fee is only $895.00 (Save $800.00)
Extreme Early-Bird Registration Discount:
Register and pay by August 19, 2011, fee is only $1,195.00 (Save $1,000.00)
- Super Early-Bird Registration Discount: Register and pay by August 10, 2012, fee is only $1,095.00 (Save $600.00)
Super Early-Bird Registration Discount:
Register and pay by September 23, 2011, fee is only $1,595.00 <(Save $600.00)
- Excellent Early-Bird Registration Discount: Register and pay by August 31, 2012, fee is only $1,295.00 (Save $400.00)
Excellent Early-Bird Registration Discount:
Register and pay by October 21, 2011, fee is only $1,795.00 (Save $400.00)
- Still a Great Deal Early-Bird Registration Discount: Register and invest by September 14, 2012, fee is only $1,495.00 (Save $200.00)
Still a Great Deal Early-Bird Registration Discount:
Register and pay by November 25, 2011, fee is only $1,995.00 (Save $200.00)
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A map for the location and a list of convenient hotels/motels will be provided to all registrants.
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