“There are two kinds of Marines in Recon,” a friend said, “Swim Team members and Barfighters. You my friend, are a Barfighter.” I looked back quizzically. He continued.
“Swim Team guys are tan, they’ve got cool tattoos, they’re in awesome shape, and they blow through hard training without sweating. They look like recruiting posters and they’re all about the badges and medals.”
“And Bar Fighters?” I asked, bemused.
“Bar Fighters maybe don’t look the best with their shirts off. They may not out run or out swim anyone. But you know in a bar fight you don’t have to look behind you to see if he’s backing you up. You know when a guy is about to break a chair over your head, a Bar Fighter will take that guy down.”
A large percentage of humans have lower back pain due to a number of different reasons. Most look to get the back fixed or stretch out the hip flexors to help loosen up the lower back and relieve pain.
Well guess what? You're doing it all wrong. See, our body is full of systems that keeps us in-sync. When one system is weak and not used much, the other systems have to work harder to create compensation, which leads to the pain you feel as a result of that.
Working unilateral lifts into your warmups is a great way to activate specific muscle groups more effectively, Chris shows you how to better utilize the half kneeling overhead kettlebell squat in this week's mobility tip.
Mental toughness is what makes champions.
That’s what we’ve all been taught anyway. It seems like everyone believes that “tougher” is better. Leaders and coaches are always preaching about how to develop mental toughness and how people need to “toughen up”.
I think there is a huge misconception out there. If you have the wrong idea about mental toughness, your thoughts and actions towards developing it can actually be harmful.
Brooke Explains how you can eat what you want and still feel good and maintain that apex predator body by living a healthy life instead of worrying about your day to day meals.
Being a law enforcement officer is one of the most rewarding careers out there. As law enforcement officers, we have the ability to positively impact so many lives on a daily basis.
The sad reality, however, is that not every life can be saved and not every problem can be solved. And just like anyone else, cops have people at home relying on them to be dad, mom, brother, sister, husband or wife.
When I was a senior in high school I was dead set on joining the army and heading to basic training as soon as possible after graduation. My Dad, a retired 1SG who joined during Vietnam to see the world told me "the army will be there, take your summer and backpack around Europe. You may never get the chance to again". He told my brother the same thing. Neither of us listened.
By this point in my life, I have spent a significant amount of my life in Africa and the Middle East in support of the Global War on Terror (GWOT). I have done so in a variety of capacities that encompass a lot more roles than the “Call of Duty” image that Joe Taxpayer has of United States Army Special Forces.
While “Direct Action” is certainly a mission of Special Forces, it’s really justone of five primary missions that often take a lot more of our focus than just “putting warheads on foreheads.” In particular, Foreign Internal Defense and Unconventional Warfare require very diplomatic and relationship-centric approaches to be successful. These tactical requirements often result in genuine and truly caring relationships.
On these more diplomatic deployments, I have forged some truly meaningful and lifelong friendships. In fact, we call each other “brothers.” We get together any time we have a chance, and when we talk on the phone my wife rolls her eyes, knowing that it might be a while before I hang up.
That brothers in combat develop such strong bonds is hardly shocking. But what may surprise you is that many of these friends aren’t from my detachment or even Americans.
Why do I feel tired and have to drink more and more caffeine to stay alert? Caffeine binds to adenosine in our brains. Adenosine is a neurotransmitter that makes you feel tired. Normally, our brains reabsorb adenosine and we naturally lose energy at a relatively slow rate. After we consume caffeine and it dissipates our brain absorbs a ton of this chemical at one time. The brain in turn grows more and more adenosine receptors as we drink greater amounts of caffeine, meaning you need to consume more and more of it to feel the same effect. This also leads to crashes and eventually withdrawn symptoms.
As athletes who push ourselves, we all know what it feels like to be out of breath. Bent over, hands on knees, gasping for air, trying not to choke on the sweat and snot dripping down our faces…
There’s so much more to being out of breath than just the overwhelming feeling that Death is trying to start a casual conversation with you. Breathlessness, also called dyspnea (pronounced: dispnia) for my fellow nerds out there, is a complex set of symptoms that can be broken down into three dimensions: work/effort of breathing, air hunger, and chest tightness. Breathlessness as a whole has both sensory and affective components. The sensory component of breathlessness refers to how you would characterize the intensity of what you’re feeling, and the affective component refers to how you would characterize your emotional response to it.
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