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I have worked out with weights, and then with calisthenics for many, many years. Starting in my teens, and continuing now, as I prepare to turn 73 in April. My results have been phenomenal, and as I continue to work out daily, I have turned more and more away from weights and equipment, and more and more rely on calisthenics and virtual resistance.

I have acquired some injuries over time, and the most nagging is the shoulder. Everyone who does heavy pressing movements, particularly the bench press, has problems with the rotator cuff of their shoulders. Me included, even though I stopped bench pressing long ago, in favor of gymnastic ring pushups and dips. These movements are far superior to bench presses, and are highly recommended to all! Far more natural in movement; the joints are also brought through a full range of motion.

However, shoulder injuries will haunt you if your exercise in the standard manner when young, or from sports or other injuries. What then? Should you use bands and/or dumbbells to do lighter, therapeutic types of rotator cuff exercises? Well, you can… but I have found a better method. Far safer, and no equipment is needed.

Virtual resistance is applying force through the limb itself. For the shoulders, just stand relaxed, legs shoulder width apart. Move your arms backwards, from down by your hips, applying force simply by flexing as you move. You can make it as hard, or easy, as you like, simply by applying internal force.

Move forward in an arc, as if you are doing a fly, followed by a row. Do one rep, slowly with internal resistance, forward and then back. Move your arms up a bit, and repeat. Then, move up some more (higher) and repeat. Then, repeat downwards, for five sets, up and then down. Do maybe five cycles, upwards to the sides of your body.

Do this daily, or at least a few times per week. Trust me; this will cure your rotator cuff shoulder problems completely! Gently, yet inevitably, without risk of further injury.

You will probably realize that this form of exercise can be done throughout your body, not only on your shoulders. Try doing a curl, without weights, but only with internally generated resistance. You can make it as hard, or as easy, as you’d like!

Try it with flies, and military presses- generate a lot of resistance. It is just as effective as weights or pulley machines! You can also replicate squats, and deadlifts- generate the resistance within your own body. You can also do bent rows, shrugs, and even pressing outwards, imitating the bench press- but without risk of injury, since the ‘weight’, or resistance, can be nullified in an instant by you, yourself, internally!

And there you have it! Not just a shoulder rehab although that is a perfect place to start, and to show yourself just how well it works. Virtual Resistance!

Now, I don’t stop there: I also do gymnastic ring exercises, dips, presses, and pull-ups, among others. But the fact remains that Virtual Resistance, by itself, can replicate any other exercises, and can do so with perfect safety, and is the ideal way to recover from injuries.

Learn it, and incorporate it into your fitness strategy!

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Our country has been failing, for quite some time. The democrats have become a new party, completely: from the “party of the working man”, which was never really true at all, they have fallen to the level of a totally leftist, socialist/communist totalitarian state, ready to rule over us all!

Donald Trump has changed all that. Not that he’s a perfect person, no one says that. But, he is a real, honest-to-God person that represents us all, in particular real, honest-to-God workers: those of us who actually do a real day’s work, and are proud of it!

NO DEI bullshit, or affirmative action, or anything FAKE. We are back on the track of MERIT to accomplish things, we shall return to honesty and reality. We were dangerously going down the path of the French Revolution, where all of history, and Western civilization itself, was being questioned and reinvented! An awful nightmare, where the basic tenets of civilization, like the days of the week, were being questioned and reinvented.

Just as our own nightmare democrat leftists, were questioning basic gender rules, and leading us into a nightmare scenario of no men, and no women, but instead into a hellish dreamscape of no rules or reality, but instead a land of lunacy where the state decides what is reality. It started with Obama, who was awful from the start, and it has continued until now…

I’ll bet you probably wonder why on this fitness and health oriented podcast I am bringing up such things…. Well, I will say that we were literally on the brink of civilization failing, and now we are saved, for the moment! That is how extreme our situation was, and only now are we starting to see the glimmer of light ahead…

Even in the choice of Robert Kennedy Jr. we are being shown a path to health! He is a path to sanity and life, and thank GOD! The Democrats were leading us into the land of endless medication, and processed food- now we have a chance to escape this nightmare scenario.

Rfk jr. plans to lead us into an uncontaminated world, a world where glyphosate is not pumped into our grains and environment without restriction, poisoning us all. A world where proven carcinogens like various food dyes are banned as well, and a harmful chemical like fluoride, (which does NOT protect dental health!), is banned from our water supplies, as it should be.

And this is all at Trump’s behest, as he hires the very best and brightest to run our governmental agencies! Biden and his traitorous administration is even now selling the fencing we need to protect our borders for pennies on the dollar- just to harm Trump’s administration and keep them from efficiently building the immigration fencing that the American people want and need. This is blatant criminality!

Our future, my fellow Americans, is firmly in our past- we should expect and relish the chance to reenter the American 1950’s, that halcyon time when women stayed home and raised families, and men supported those families on one salary that was not over-taxed so that both spouses needed to work, and a time when patriotism was a given, because our country was a golden beacon to the rest of the world!

We WERE a shining beacon to the rest of the world, a bright light in the pantheon of Western Civilization- and now, under Trump’s leadership- we can and will be again!!

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I think this is a sane recommendation for any person: work out sensibly for one hour, every day of your life! Not too extreme, and not wimpy- you need this hour for strength and flexibility training, not mindless cardio, where you run like a brainless chicken. Such “training” only drains you, diminishes your muscle, not build it, and ignores strength building (the essence of truly working out!).

A true workout is very mindful. You need to ‘think into’ your muscles, flexing them slowly, and intentionally, throughout each exercise. This can be using weights, barbells and dumbbells, or bands, calisthenics, or a myriad of machines. What you use is not really that important at all- sales people will tell you otherwise, but trust me: it’s the intensity that matters. Time under tension, if you will.

I use a combination, gymnastic rings hung up high are actually a near genius exercise device! Instantly scalable, from very easy, to superhuman level. All in a rather cheap, portable package that never wears out, and can target every part of your body. Pushups, pull ups, rows, one-legged squats, dips- you have it all in the rings! Plus, it’s silent, and actually kind of fun, in a way…

You can also add in other things, like heavy deadlifts (on occasion!), along with Jefferson curls, also called stiff legged deadlifts for the lower back- very effective, and very SAFE! As I have aged, I have stopped doing a full routine, and instead do upper body one workout, and the next workout do lower body. Full body, at least at age 72, is too much; better to split the workout for recovery.

To workout for one hour per day should not seem onerous- it is well worth it to spend one hour out of 24, when by doing so you make the other 23 hours far more enjoyable and productive! You will make yourself immune from awful joint replacement operations, and bypass endless diseases of disuse that clog our medical clinics!

Each day, what works for me, and has for many years, is to get up, and stretch and do what I call ‘virtual resistance’ in front of the television. This is simply flexing your limbs, for repetitions, as if you were lifting weights. You supply the resistance from within as you move. Try it with curls: just curl you arms, as if you hold weights. You can make it as hard as you like, simply by flexing! Do it with curls, military presses, shoulder raises- every exercise there is. Cover the whole body, and you will be drenched in sweat if you did it intensely enough, and on top of it you will feel energized, rather than drained as if you had used actual weights.

Do this for about 1/2 hour, while you enjoy your TV program. Then, later that day, go to your rings and weights. Mine are in the basement, yours could be outside, or anywhere really. Rings at least!

I also add in, besides ring pushups and pull-ups, etc. : Superslow pull-ups, dips, and military presses! I watch my big clock on the wall, and do military presses with a dowel, slowly, as I resist my super slow movement up, and then down, for one minute, to a minute and a half. You need a power rack for this, but you could do the super slow pull-up slowly on the rings, bending your legs on both the upward, and the lowering portion. Just make it as hard as you can, for both up and down!

Then, the super slow dip needs a dip station: I made mine out of plumbing pipe years ago. Just go slowly up, and down, for at least a minute.

The beauty is, that there is NO danger of injury, and you are strengthening not only your musculature- but your tendons and ligaments as well! This whole routine should only be anothe

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