Month: September 2017

Brandon’s No Excuse WorkOut

The following workout routine (or body movements) are taken liberally from various fitness channels, and are designed to strengthen and condition the entire body, with maximum efficiency. Movements can be mixed up or done in longer duration. Please understand that this is only meant to supplement and help as a guide and no way, shape or form takes the place of one on one train with a coach near you. Please understand that it is my lifelong passion to help adaptive athletes whether they a walker, crutches, are in a wheel chair or simply do have mobility in one area or another in their body. There is almost a way to be stronger and healthier, you only need to be able to set aside your excuses. You have to be willing to sacrifice what you are. For what you can be. If you any questions, please find my contact information below.

 

Pushups- kneeling or standard way. sets of 5 on up

 

Push up plank- hold for as long as possible in lock out position

 

adaptive burpee- sets of 5 on up (lie flat on ground, perform push up, slide knees under you and come to kneeling position and back down).

 

hip ups- eventually you want to do these with some weight

 

adaptive kneeling air squat- sets of 5 on up

 

inverted row or pull up, if you do not have access to a bar bell, you can do rows with dumbbell, kettle bell or even a gallon of water.

 

weighted squat with dumb bell

 

Floor press with kettle bells, dumbbells or barbell

 

adaptive burpee to standing, thus, after you come to kneeling position, you can use a walker or anything near you to stand up. Then lower self back down for next rep.

 

This is called a no excuse workout for a reason, you can do these every day to build or tone muscle and break a sweat.

 

Let me know if I can help further, as always drink plenty of water, eat lots of protein, lots of green, some fruit and stay away from processed junk.

 

Blessings,

 

-Brandon

Email: Brandon.Ryan1984@gmail.com

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What Makes A Good Leader?

I read recently that “there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.” Which makes think Okay, I am a leader, where can I not only confess that I’ve failed but where can I improve? Because ever leader will fall, but the strongest admit where they have fell short and look to improve. They don’t make excuses and they damn sure don’t blame others for their failures. Everyone is a leader in some capacity, be it in a family, a job whatever it is. It’s time to lead the way, forgetting what lies behind and pressing on toward the goal. Strive for excellence, strive to be better than you were yesterday. Don’t look down on others (that only makes you prideful and arrogant) but instead, learn to help others to their feet, help make others better. Show others that they can be better, why? If nobody else will, then who? Step up and get after it. Out!

Adapt And Rise

Our excuses to not take care of ourselves are no more.

The reasons we have to not better ourselves, don’t stand up to what the modern day adaptive athlete can do.

Being born with Cerebral Palsy, I was told that there was a low chance of survival, and if I lived. I wouldn’t amount to much. If you heard this story before and feel like you’re reading the same blog over again, I’m sorry but this is my story. And I will gladly proclaim how God took a frail child and turned him into a warrior.

On this day, maybe you feel down and out, depressed, suicidal, feel alone and feel like you could never amount to much. I get it, I’ve been there, but I’m here today to tell you that you can rise above and conquer all of that. Maybe you have bad health, or hate the way your body looks. Okay, lets start making changes right this second.

Maybe you have no use of your legs, okay, you can have a strong upper body!

Maybe you have one leg or arm, that just means that you have to be willing to adapt to your circumstances. There are ways to adapt upper body lifts to those with only one arm. If you have a prosthetic leg, awesome  there’re so many ways you can adapt exercises and functional movements to fit your needs.

Have an autoimmune, still not the end of the world, take the journey of finding good coaches that can help you. Go slow, listen to your body. And go fourth in your journey.

Please understand that, in no way do I intend to sound un-compassionate. Nor am I implying that any of this will be easy. It is because of compassion and love, that I am imploring you  today to not sit in your excuses and settle for anything less then your best.

Do I have my bad days? Yes,  but warriors rise after they fall, they get up after a needed rest.  Greatness comes from darkness, use the pain, use the hurt to drive forward to a better tomorrow. I’ll say it again, there are no short cuts, no self help books or remedies that can make the journey any easier.

What will help is hope. faith. Love and community. These are real things with eternal significants. Whatever is holding you back today, whatever is keeping you from progress. Face it. Don’t give it authority a second longer. Your life matters. Make the most of it.

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Live In The Now!

 

 

What if I told you that you can do more than you think?

What if I told you that you were not a product of your environment?

What if I told you that you and I aren’t necessarily bound by age?

What if I told you that those negative thoughts in your head are lies?

What if I told you that you were better than the excuses you make?

What if you could live the most amazing life? Like right this moment, would you?

I know, that last line sounds like some well-paid motivational/prosperity preacher, who never had a rough day in his or her life. If you interpreted it that way, I can tell you that that was not my intention. In fact, the days that suck won’t go away anytime. They will sadly be like a gift that keeps on giving, be that as it may, it is not an indication of what the rest of our journeys will be like. If we are mentally, physically and spiritually determined to not let it be that way. I hear athletes and some parents talk about their glory days, how if they were younger they could have won that match, won that game or lifted that amount of weight. It’s all crap. It had to be said, if only the human mind and soul would be liberated from that one bold face lie. What good is life, if all we think about was yesterday? It only means that you’re not really living life, but are coasting through life and not really living it. Yesterday is gone, so what are you going to do, now, in this moment? Are you going to let your past define you? Or your current circumstances? It’s all a lie to keep you trapped in the darkness. Put everything behind you, learn from it, but put it behind you. Set new goals, work your way up to the weight you “could have” crushed. Better yet, aim for me.

Crush the person you once were, be better than that. Be better than that so that you can be better for your friends and family. Be better so that you can leave behind a legacy for those after you. You are so much more than your prime, or what doctors told you or the excuses we make for ourselves or others. You owe it to yourself, and others to do so. What matters most in life is not the amount of money that we had in our bank accounts, the cars we had, the house you had etc. What matters, is what we did with our time and what we did for others. In the words of Garth from the cult classic Waynes World LIVE IN THE NOOOOW!

 

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Why I don’t Think Being Inspiring Is A Bad Thing.

 

 

For those that have followed my blogs, know that I embrace the term of adaptive athlete with open arms. Furthermore, the term adaptive athlete, didn’t exist ten years ago. Obviously, my father had a lot to do with getting me started on that journey with martial arts and weight lifting. But when I discovered CF, I do anyone knew what was about to happen. The moment I saw it, I wanted to try it, but I was hesitant in a few ways. One, I wasn’t sure how my body would respond to it and two, wasn’t sure how coaches would respond to someone like me. Would they baby me? Or would they simply send me away?

The moment I saw Steph Hammerman doing CF on YouTube, the green light in me switched on. I loved that coaches were so willing to adapt to the context that she was in. To me, it was far better than any amount of money spent on physical therapy at a hospital. Fast forward a few years and now there is competition specifically for us adaptive athletes. How I personally feel about some of them is a whole other blog entry. But the point of this particular entry is, people like myself frequent social media posts, largely because of the platform that I have to inspire others to get off the couch and start improving their lives one step at a time.

That doesn’t sound bad, right? In fact, it might seem motivating and inspiring, right? Well… Some people have a problem with the word inspiring or people telling them about how inspiring they are.

To a point I get it, we want to be treated like everybody else. I get it. But I will respectfully raise a few points of my own. One) You can’t keep others from being inspired by you, in fact the person that is inspired by you, will go to their friends and speak of how much they are inspired by you even though you may not want to hear it. Two) this is the platform we have, and it’s not going away anytime soon. This is not about any sort of special treatment, that’s not even what adaptations are about. But giving everyone an equal chance to perform at their best. Finally, I would respectfully suggest that inspiring others is what the fitness community is all about, for no man is an island to themselves. We can keep to ourselves and stay in our pride, but where is the joy and fun in that? Our community shines much brighter when we can encourage each other regardless of age or ability. Get used to people being inspired by people such as you and I, Because people are always watching us and as such that should be more than enough to be an agent for change.

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