Bring back Public Hanging In 2014! by Tony Riddle A.K.A @theprepdoctor

Get a grip!

By Gloves Club Founder Tony Riddle.

I look to my children as my educators in movement. They never seize to amaze me, they teach me every day and I get to pass this knowledge on to others. That's right, It isn't just us, that educates them, our kids are our educators too!
They crawl, squat, jump, lift, carry, throw, balance, walk, run, hang and climb all with ease and great skill, fearlessly I would like to add.

In return, I have to encourage, not discourage their movement practice.  I have to show great examples of this too.

If I don't, who will?

Some compromised, frustrated PE teacher who has been entrusted to look after the physical health of my child, that's who!

Well not on my watch!

The irony is;   I go off and study with the best and re-learn the very things that my kids have inherited from me and are already naturally skilled at.  This is what I class as my duty as a parent and a tribal elder, if it is something I have lost. I need to go out and gain the skill to coach them.

In a world obsessed with the intellectual mind.

We of course want them to do well academically, but to take these beautiful movement systems away with "Sit down, Don't move, Absorb this, Get down from there, Come away from the edge and Be careful of that, along with the usual chorus of of fear based crap" is a bloody outrage!

If like my daughters, you were carried around in a sling you would have learnt the pushing, pulling, grabbing and extension reflexes early. If you were kept in a baby carrier, a buggy and a car seat you have had these systems taken away. Bam! that's the attachment theory right there!
We could even be so bold as to call it "the movement connection theory" or "the movement disconnection theory". depending on where your base camp is.

Movement that should come naturally to us all

A baby/toddler will learn to grab and grip earlier than anything else. They will climb earlier than many of their other locomotive skills.  Brachiation is fundamental to us; hanging, pulling, climbing are all just as fundamental to us as running. We were in fact tree dwellers and climbers before we became runners.  (if you believe in evolution like I do ) Yet most can't hang on a bar and hold their own bodyweight in their hands due to their lack of grip strength  for more than 20 seconds, and this is where reductionism has its place. You need to know the code to break the fear and build the layers and strip the movement right back. Look at the end result and be able to trace all the way back to where the individual is compromised, have the unique set of Liam Nielsen skills to select the 20% input towards the 80% of output, and not get caught up in selecting BS movements like the Lat Pull down that have no over lapping theory to that end result.

If you put your fingers out to a baby they will grab and grab on surprisingly tight and won't let go.  If you lift them up, they still won't let go, their vice like grip will remain. You can literally walk around the room with them "ATTACHED/CONNECTED" to you.  I am talking about a baby here. I am not talking about an athletic type, who can lat pull, morning, noon and night, but can't hang for shit and marvels at James bond hanging from an elevator for all of 12 floors!

In fact for a large proportion of the zoo it's like an emotional bomb going off in their head to even think they could carry out what should be natural to them. Don't forget a lot of people have been containerised for so long it would be irresponsible to coach them without the correct prep work. They have lost the "HOW TO" but it doesn't mean they don't have the desire to, or the hardwiring (inherent knowledge). It is more the case that the only perception they have had of exercise is to sit in another container pushing levers like a chimp in an experimental lab. "Push this handle 15x and you will receive 1 muscle group and a protein bar."

Shoulder injuries are just as rife as knee and lower back problems. It's time we all got a grip and started hanging around a different kind of bar! We can blame the compromising chair and footwear for a multitude of sins, but the lack of hanging and climbing is just as detrimental to our innate movement system. That's "innate" not "inept"movement system!

Time to Take The Gloves Off and Toughen UP.

Climbing specifics:

Prep the hand with specific hand and wrist  prep drills as this is where you need to recognise bodyweight. Re-educate the grip and grip strength. Prep the shoulder and the scapula from its zoo cage so that the individual who can't lift his hand higher than his shoulder to change a light bulb can then hang, can then pull with a straight arm, then pull with a bent arm, can then muscle up, can then gymnastic ring pull up and finally can learn how to climb. Yeah, who would have guessed it,  hanging on a bar is actually a micro skill of the macro skill of climbing.

Yes squat, yes go barefoot, but please don't neglect a good hang out with your mates!

Zoe Smith and female Olympic lifting by Tony Riddle A.K.A @theprepdoctor

Abbye Stockton (1917-2006),
professional strongwoman
who trained Marilyn Monroe.
Could lift more weight than most men.

 by Tony Riddle, Gloves Club founder

To those not in the know, Olympic lifting requires a huge amount of skill - skill that is often overlooked as “just lifting a weight above your head”.

The power needed in the two main lifts – the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk – require explosive action in the legs, bum and arms from a deep squat position. This is no sport for posers, nor does it require the focus on crazy reps and little technique like a Cross Fit round. It demands flexibility, technique, coordination, strength and fluidity - a great all round athletic discipline, one that is not to be confused with bodybuilding. In my opinion body building creates false tempos, faulty movement patterns and excessive levers to develop inefficient and injury prone athletes.

Zoe Smith, recently selected to represent Great Britain in Olympic lifting, has certainly put the hours in and has already been involved in many a photo shoot for sponsors. She's also been subjected to a barrage of abuse from cyber bullies, calling her a "butch dyke" that looks like man, and that she'll never get a boyfriend. Nothing could be further from the truth, and she’s trying to raise the profile of the sport by changing the perception of the sport that it is something only men should be doing, or that women who do it are somehow not feminine. She added: "We're getting weightlifting out there and drawing attention to the fact that we're not all actually big. We're making it a normal sport rather the manly thing as people often perceive it.”

Chemical cost = metabolic cost = burn fat, burn and hey presto, strong is the new skinny!

It didn't exactly do
Marilyn Monroe any harm!

For those that have any misconceptions, Olympic lifting is a great athletic conditioning sport; it's great for the all important athletic figure, hitting all the areas that women spend hours trying to tone in the latest glorified Bums and Tums class, or on the latest fad diet. It won’t “bulk” you up, or make you look like a man.

As there is a huge chemical cost in lifting that weight at such great speed and accuracy, it’s the best way to target your legs and bum in a way an aerobics class could only ever dream to do!

So come on ladies. Support Zoe Smith and all the other women getting into lifting, and while you’re at it, why not give it a try yourselves. If it’s good enough for Marilyn Monroe, it's good enough for you….