Hudson

Jumping jacks, any sort of bagwork or shadowboxing, anything that raises your heartbeat. Nutrition really is the key though. As for the cereal and bread, that's cool if it's whole grain (no processed sugars and grains, white bread is definately bad), try eating that stuff early on, and eating the high protein low-carb stuff in the afternoon. Do cardio in the morning, it'll raise that metabolism up.

Well, supplements have their advantages. At the rates some people train, supplements may be necessary. Also, a protein shake is much easier to put down compared to a chicken breast after a high intensity workout. Besides, you can't isolate and get the same type of results with food - supplements work faster and better, and you don't get all the extras tagged along with food. Compare a creatine loading phase to trying to get the same amount of creatine from say, beef, or steak. You'd easily be tacking on 500-1000 more unecessary calories just to get the naturally occuring creatine from the food. Supplements are isolated, higher quality, work better, easily absorped - but don't get me wrong, I still believe food is the most important thing in nutrition.

Go out back, dig a hole in the ground so deep you can barely jump out of it, and start jumping, when that becomes easy dig a few more inches out of it, keep digging until you can jump 12 feet. All seriousness, this is probably one of those balistic white-fiber training things, and aside from strapping on ankle weights and jumping, I imagine sprinting could be beneficial.

The clips are... interesting? In the one titled "Catch Front Kick", anyone else think the man in the pink shorts' footwork is a little odd?

Hehe, that's MY style! I was being totally facetious, and I certainly didn't mean for you to spawn a thread over it. It's something I say to a friend of my who is a Muay Thai stylist and has the philosophy that trees and poles make the best leg training partners. I just pray he'll be able to walk when he's older. But since we're on the topic, my REAL philosophy is more of a property of equality (You get out of it what you put into it?). There is, after all, no such thing as something from nothing, yet it seems to be what people go after these days. You know, lose 30 pounds on Miracle drug X, stack 10 pounds of quality muscle on with Miracle Supplement Y, etc;

I'm an uncle (To 5 little nieces and 2 little nephews, ages varying between 12 years to 6 months) and I'll say that my nephews and nieces stay fit just mainly because they want to go outside and play instead of watching TV and play video games. (Except the oldest one, who would marry his laptop computer, which he has had for almost 4 years) I know at the kwoon the young kids like imitating the Sifu and look up to him so they love to do all the exercises but they never do anything extreme. I would strongly disagree with anyone actually training their children with weights or to any extreme, a growing body is much more fragile and prone to long-term injury. But I think the best exercise for children is youth sports, soccer, basketball, things like that. They develop motorskills, social skills, and let them stay healthy and have fun, which is the most important thing.

1200 to 1600 calories seems a little low, isn't the normal reccomended amount 2000? Sounds like you're skimping out on breakfast, which, on a whole is never really a great idea, for any reason. Avoiding carbohydrates seems to be all the rage, but you shouldn't be hurting yourself if you take in good carbs in the morning, some good whole grains (Don't eat white bread!). By the way, apples and yogurt do contain carbohydrates, and you're eating them, so carbs aren't exactly killing you, are they? Anything you do athletic or as cardio is going to increase the amount of calories you're allowed to take in (Which doesn't mean you could eat McDonalds and run a mile, because the quality of the food always matters) As a general rule, in the morning, let yourself wake up (Don't eat first thing), meditate, run, stretch, shower, groom, whatever, then eat a big enough breakfast to give you the energy you need to start your day correctly. Oatmeal, eggs, whole-grain toast, all good things to take in during the morning. Lunch can be a fair tossup between carbs and protein, making sure you get your veggies. Dinner should contain the least amount of carbs, something like grilled chicken or some tuna. Don't eat fried foods, don't eat foods high in saturated fats, don't eat lots of sugar and processed junk. If you can't pronounce half of the ingredients, you probably could do without it.

I have to pick one? I'd suppose the military press, although one exercise for shoulders seems sort of... unfinished.

I do pull ups with a rather wide grip and palms facing out - I was under the impression that if the palms face the other way it's more of a chin. You really do have to focus when you start doing pull ups, they're great because of the forced symetry (As opposed to machines which people can cheat more easily on.) You also have to make sure you're using the correct muscles, it may be possible to get up using your arms but the goal of pullups (at least how I do them) is to hit the lats.

On the same note, I can post links to articles about how creatine is great for your heart - so, to each his own I guess? As for liquid creatine, I agree with SevenStar on the shelf life thing. I don't take creatine anymore but I experimented with several creatine brands a while ago and found that the Isopure powder worked the best for me. But I'm pretty much addicted to the entire Isopure line, and everyone is different, so it's more or less up to you to find a creatine supplement you like.

Do bodyweight and isometric exercises. It's free (Unless you count the taxation on your body), and I believe that between the two they can give you the strongest foundation as far as muscle endurance goes, as well as being quite strong pound for pound. Heres an easy bodyweight routine: Week 1-4: 3 sets of 30 pushups 3 sets of 50 crunches 3 sets of 30 leg raises 3 sets of 30 free squats X sets of X amount of chins (Until you get to 50) Week 5-8: 3 sets of 50 pushups 4 sets of 50 crunches 4 sets of 30 leg raises 3 sets of 30 squats x sets of 5 wide grip chins (until you get to 50) Weeks 8-12: 3 sets of 50 pushups 1 set of 30 triangle pushups 5 sets of 50 crunches 5 sets of 50 leg raises 5 sets of 50 Squats 5 sets of 10 wide grip chins After that you should be able to play around with what works best for you, also cardio (swimming, running) would help out alot. As for isometrics, you'll have to search google for that, I can't list them off the top of my head.

This all reminds me of Rex Kwon Do.

This is the whole thing about Walking vs. Running for burning fat The deal is that you need to burn calories period, it's true that if you run you'll burn more carbs (Carbs burn more easily then fat, so when your body needs the energy most it burns the carbs), but you can easily double the amount of total calories burnt. If you compared running 30 minutes to walking or jogging 30 minutes, the running would win by sheer calorie loss. Think about it - to lose weight, you need to burn more calories then you take in daily. So if I take in 2300 calories, burn 2000 from daytime activites, and I walk for half an hour (Burning maybe 150 calories), I'm not really getting anywhere. Sure, I burnt fat, but I still have the leftover calories which get stored as fat. But if I run and burn 350 calories, now I'm -50 for the day, which means I'm losing weight.

"Once in a while" is not enough for back work - understand that a strong back is almost like the pillar of strength in everything you do. Stretching it is good but it must be worked like any other body part. With dumbells you can do bent over rows, and you can do pull ups for your lats. As for legwork, again, a Gazelle resistence session is more like slightly muscle fatiguing cardio then it is a leg workout. Luckily the legs are fairly easy to train, but probably the most painful (I hate leg training.) Squats, leg presses, calf raises, lunges, they will build strength much better then the Gazelle will. Understand that your legs are powerful muscles, and in order to grow beyond maitenence muscle (What you require of them daily in walking around etc;), you will need to consitently train them with heavy weights. You probably want to get some heavier dumbells. If all you have is dumbells and a gazelle, then you can get the most out of leg training by doing dumbell lunges and calf raises. Not sure about dumbell squats, although I'm sure you could try that. Also, a pretty cool exercise I saw were tricep dips - look them up on google, if you can incorporate those that'd be great for what you're doing.

Work on them with four fingers first, then remove a finger when you get comfortable with those.

Like I said, I was guessing about the broadsword thing.

You can't. I've never seen a single guy train with full intensity his entire body in one day. That's why people split body parts up into different days. I'm not saying you can't train without a split, but for full effectiveness (no matter what your goals) it seems a split is more effective. I know theres no way I could do legs and back on the same day and effectively work whatever came at the end. That's why when I train certain parts have their own days (i.e. Back Day) and the ones that aren't singled out are not adjacent or are compounded (for lack of better terms. Example: Legs and arms, chest and shoulders) As for whoever is doing inclines, flyes, dips, flats: That seems like a bodybuilder chest routine. I'm not knocking bodybuilders, they train a fairly balanced physique and they're not exactly weak guys, just different from what MA's need. Once a week is baloney though. It's minimalist (which will get you minimal results) and no physical trainer I know will suggest you work out once a week. Would you practice your martial arts once a week?

I study a style of Kung Fu that isn't too popular, but you could probably find it likened to a Shaolin style with emphasis on dragon philosophy in everything we do (Movement, strategy)

Yes, drunken weapons and animals certainly do exist. I know of two very popular sets, Drunken Straightsword and Drunken Staff. I'm sure there is one for the Dao as well. And Zui Quan is widely accepted as the popular contemporary drunken fist set.

I think that our grips must be different on the bench press, because I do not get a triceps workout from the bench (Sure, they're in there, but it's more of a chest/delts thing for me), also I am curious to what the problem is with kickbacks, it's very interesting to me because I have them in my routine (cables).

Oh, and in case you don't believe in Frog/Toad style kung fu, you will once you get a chance to see Stephen Chow's newest film

Bench, squat, deadlift? That sounds like you're minimizing to a powerlifting routine. While I'm all for power and compound exercises, adding a few more terms to your weightlifting vocabulary wouldn't hurt. For one, chins are exercises I can't live without. And having some sort of curls wouldn't kill you either, as well as adding in something that focuses on the triceps, which will get hit in your "basic movements", just not as effectively as some would like. Tri extensions, kickbacks, pushdowns, etc; (Don't really need all of them, I'm not trying to confuse you here by saying you need a million isolation exercises) they're all movements that you'll see in martial arts, and shouldn't be without. I agree with not digging into the muscle mag routines, they're useless to anyone who isn't on a gigantic supplement stack or worse yet, as you mentioned, steroids.

Yes, I do. The first few sets we train are at some level qigong, regulating breath and muscle tension etc; etc;, the third set is very much like the Lohan Qigong. We also practice iron body, iron arm, and iron leg, but they're much more practice then they are technique.

Five deadly venoms was funny, but there was nothing factual in it at ALL. (Weren't they Chinese ninjas?) http://www.kungfu-taichi.com/servlet/kungfoo/Action/Resource/ResourceKey/1191 Check that out.

Yup. Just learn to drop everything you are at the door and let the instructor mold you into a better person - sounds cheesy, but its true. Theres no room for ego, just do what your told, stick with it, and in 7-10 years, you might get to boss people around!