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Brian Copeland's
Core Fitness Newsletter

Issue #47 - 7/02/2010

1. Announcement: "Its Been A While, How is Life?"
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2. Take Charge of Your Health: "Running Shoes Make Weak Runners & Ruin Your Joints"
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3. Hall of Achievements:
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4. Training Tip: "If You Aren't Training Your Vision, You Aren't Fit!"
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5. Nutrition Tip # 1: "Shocking Sugar Content of Common Food Products" ......
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6. Nutrition Tip # 2: "Super Salad for Slim Hips and Six Packs"
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7. Testimonials: "Z-Health & Kettlebells"
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8 . Testimonials: "Beginner Kettlebell & Self-Defense Classes"
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9. Featured Product: "Seriously Strong Hands ebook"
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10. Self-Defense / Martial Arts Tip: "The Dehumanization of Teenage Girls"
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11. Recommended Products: "Gymboss, Z-Health, Dragon Door, more" .
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12. Denver Metro Area: "Kettlebell & Self-Defense Classes in Aurora"
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13. Personalized Program Design: "Tired of Not Reaching Your Goals?"

1. Announcement: "Its Been a While, How is Life?"


I'm glad you asked. When I first started my newsletters back in 2007 the goal was to provide amazing information that people couldn't get elsewhere, or had to look really hard for... one to two times per month.

Well I haven't released a newsletter since March! I have my excuses sure... Let's see, two trips to Phoenix, AZ for ongoing Z-Health training, two trips to Golden, CO for more Z-Health training. A dramatic increase in my business which is a direct relation to the ongoing skills I keep acquiring so I can help my clients more and more all of the time.

Then there is also the fact that I have sooooo many people on this newsletter that my ISP's server can't handle them all. In fact I am now having to send out my newsletter in batches each hour as there are so many people on it. No complaints right?

I love writing but I have become very hands-on people focused in my business and leaves less and less time for writing.

In the coming months I may be switching the format of my newsletter over to something that is easier to manage, easier for the servers to handle and easier for you to read... Stay tuned.

I want to thank all of my clients and readers for their support over all of these years and assure you that my commitment to bringing you the latest and best fitness, nutrition, health and self-defense information is unwavering. My commitment to spell checking and grammar is worse than ever... frankly it is a free newsletter, deal with it! Ha ha ha!

Also a quick reminder... I am always warning everyone that swimsuit season is right around the corner... well it is here... are you in swimsuit shape? Why not? Perhaps you need the help of a successful professional... I know one :-)

Brian

2. Take Charge of Your Health:
"Running Shoes Make Weak Runners & Ruin Your Joints"


Watch this video and then let's chat...

How Running Shoes Effect Your Strength
• This is why I advocate for runners to run in a shoe that mimics being barefoot
• Even if you don't run, your every day shoes should mimic barefoot as much as is possible

This is a clip from the Essentials of Elite Performance workshop.

Being a movement professional I am constantly people watching especially joggers. Let me first say that with few exceptions I have rarely seen such a wrecked crew of fitness enthusiasts than runners.

The problems begin with the fact that most of them were never taught how to run with good technique... yes, there is technique to jogging!

The next issue is the running shoe. One of the most costly and dangerous implements ever invented by man.

Really Brian?

Yes REALLY.

There are between 30 and 55 joints in the human foot depending on which facets you count as a joint. Even the most conservative medical book will say there are 30 joints in just one human foot.

Now let me ask you a very important question... Do you think that the human foot is made up of a different types of tissues (bones, muscles, tendons, etc.) than the rest of the body?

Of course it is not. So now another question... Then why would you treat the feet any different than any other joints of the body? Would you just decide to wear a cast on your elbow all day long? What do you think would happen to your hand strength, flexibility and coordination if you wore a hand cast all day long and just took it off at night to sleep?

That's right, you would lose your strength, flexibility and coordination. Now imagine what a lifetime of crummy shoes has done to your foot strength, flexibility and coordination... Even worse, imagine what weak, tight and clumsy feet have done to the forces that are created when your feet contact the ground and transfer kinetic energy up to the joints above? Normally your feet would act as shock absorbers (30 to 55 joints in each remember?) but now you have a foot bone! This does not make your knees, hips and low back happy.

I have written more about shoes in other articles but for now I can't strongly enough recommend you begin to look for shoes that mimic being barefoot. Thankfully there are lots of shoes out today that look like tennis shoes, dress shoes, casual shoes, etc. that fit the bill.

If you are one of my clients just ask and I'll recommend a good shoe for you and tell you exactly what to look for.

Speaking of strong, flexible and coordinated feet... If you are not already doing Z-Health which will mobilize and coordinate your feet while you develop strength by going more barefoot... you need to start with the R-Phase DVD/manual which is Level 1 of the system. This will help you begin building movement fluency in all of the joints in your body including and especially the feet.

R-Phase is all about Injury Rehabilitation, Neural Reeducation and Mobility Restoration.

Get the R-Phase here and become a better athlete now:

3. Hall of Achievements:

Our newest updates:..

A BIG congrats to Comrade Kelly Roberts-Estep for passing her RKC Kettlebell Instructor Certification!!!

• Lydi Rodriguez - Did a bodyweight chin-up
  
  
• Debbie Yenchick - 150 swings non-stop with a 44 lb kettlebell
  
  
• Erich Robinson - 140 swings non-stop with a 53 lb kettlebell
  
  
• Brian Copeland - Quartered 56 poker cards behind my back (full deck + 4)
  
  
• Brian Copeland - Quartered 79!!! poker cards, that is a deck and a half plus 1 extra! And "yes" it was hard!

4. Training Tip: "If You Aren't Training Your Vision, You Aren't Fit!"


Do you believe that vision must get worse as you age? And if so... why? Just because you saw that happen to your mother or father or grandparents?

Did their posture, muscle, strength, etc. also get worse with age? Why?

I'll tell you why, because they didn't train to maintain... Ever heard of use it or lose it?

Have you ever seen a picture of Jack Lalanne in his 70s?

If you look like this in your 70s then you earned it like Jack did!


Some Facts about vision:

• Vision is a skill and can and does absolutely improve with proper vision training.
• 70% of your balance comes from your visual system
• Vision is more than just 20/20. This is static eyesight and is the least useful of all visual skills.
• Vision is dynamic! For example: when driving you are looking at your speedometer (near focus), rear view mirror (quick eye change with near focus), the traffic in front of you (far focus) and being aware of other cars around you (peripheral awareness) plus the need to make quick decisions based on visual input (cognitive visual coordination).
• Vision is the difference between elite athletes and amateurs.
• If you were the last kid picked to be on a sports team during school, it wasn't because you weren't strong, it was because you didn't have good visual skills to be able to play the intense reactive sport well.
  

The subject of vision can get very deep and controversial even. But I promise you that if you set aside 3 minutes per day to practice some visual skills you will notice a difference in your ability to drive, play sports, your strength will increase, your muscles will feel more relaxed, you will enjoy reading more, and you will be less irritated and fatigued while driving.


Here is a quick visual exercise to get you started...

Pencil Pushups Basic:

1. Hold a ball point pen out at arms length
2. Look at the ball point tip
3. Now slowly bring the pen closer to your nose
4. See how close you can get before you see double vision
5. The goal is to not see double vision but rather to see a single tip
6. Over time your eye muscles will strengthen and you can do several reps without fatigue
7. I recommend you test your range of motion or strength on a lift before and after to see how this visual drill affected your nervous system. If your flexibility or strength improved or stayed the same then that is good, if it got worse then you need to do less reps or less range of motion for now.

Here is a video that demonstrates Pencil Push Ups and Near / Far Jumps, another great visual drill:

Vision can be trained every day but it is a good idea to do no more than 3-5 minutes of vision training per day. I recommend during your warm-up before other exercise.

There are sooooooo many other vision exercises out there but you need to get started with one or two first. My clients especially my martial arts students do lots of visual exercises each session! I personally have over a dozen that I cycle through regularly which train different aspects of vision.

By the way I used to be far sighted... used to be. Now I can see really far (almost like an owl) and really close as well.

Train smart! Train often!

5. Nutrition Tip # 1:
"Shocking Sugar Content of Common Food Products"


This Summer Tomato blog offers many eye-opening facts on the sugar content of common foods.
She writes:
"Refined sugars and high-fructose corn syrup are considered by many experts to be the biggest contributors to obesity and poor health in Western civilization.
In her book What To Eat, Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at NYU, suggests that any food that contains more than 15 grams of sugar per serving is closer to dessert than anything else."


Here is a partial list of the foods Summer Tomato posted:

• Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut -- 10 grams
• Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream -- 16 grams
• Starbucks caffè latte grande (16 oz) -- 17 grams
• Subway 6″ sweet onion teriyaki chicken sandwich -- 17 grams
• Yoplait original yogurt -- 27 grams
• Vitamin Water (20 oz bottle) -- 33 g
• Oscar Mayer Lunchables crackers, turkey & American cheese -- 36 grams
• Coca-Cola Classic 12 oz can -- 39 grams
• California Pizza Kitchen Thai chicken salad -- 45 g
• Jamba Juice blackberry bliss 16 oz -- 49 g
• Odwalla SuperFood 450 ml bottle -- 50 g
• Starbucks caffe vanilla frappuccino grande (16 oz) -- 58 g

Article courtesy of mercola.com. Read the full article here: Shocking Sugar Content of Common Food Products


Did you notice that what we may consider healthy food was LOADED with sugar? The Thai Chicken Salad sounded great but do you really know what they put into it? I have a much better salad recipe in this article for you.

Remember, it is really hard to out exercise bad food choices. It is much easier to consume calories than to burn them off. Even if kettlebell swings and snatches burn 20.2 calories per minute a single Oreo cookie is about 70 calories.

Skip the drastic 21 day habit breaker plans which don't work. Make gradual slow changes to your eating habits for lifelong changes that stick. Ask me how.

Brian

6. Nutrition Tip # 2:
"Super Salad for Slim Hips and Six Packs"


Eating is very habitual and asking people to track and or change what they eat often seems harder than pulling teeth. Well psychology and nuerophysiology would tell us that lasting changes need to be built slowly and as painlessly as possible.

So here is an easy to make, easy to buy and easy to eat salad that will give you lots of nutrition, flavor, fiber and help you get a template for how to eat well for life.


Super Simple Organic Salad

This took me less than a minute to make, how lazy are you?

Ingredients:

• Organic pre-washed dark green leafy salad mix. I use mixed greens with herbs or baby spinach salad mix.
• Veggies of your choice. I like chopped purple onion, red bell peppers, various types of sprouts such as alfalfa, onion, broccoli, etc.
• Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Organic Lime or Lemon Juice
• Mustard, I prefer a horseradish dijon mustard for flavor
• Organic Raw Local Honey

Super Simple Steps:

1. My veggies are always pre-cut and stored in the fridge or I won't use them... I recommend you do something similar.
2. Get a bowl and put in 2 pea sized drops of the mustard, about a teaspoon to tablespoon of the lime or lemon juice, the same amount of olive oil and now dip your eating fork into the honey, let some drip off and now use the fork to stir the dressing together in the bottom of the bowl.
3. You will have to wipe the honey off of the fork and stir.
4. Now throw in your salad greens and veggies, mix to coat and eat.

I will always add a protein portion either with a Warrior Whey protein shake or some chicken, grass-fed beef, etc. on the side. If you wanted you can add some meat into the salad. The reason for the local raw honey is that it works like allergy therapy that your doctor can give you to develop an immunity to allergies from pollens. Bees pollinate plants, make the honey with local pollens, the honey introduces it to your system and then your body starts to develop resistance. Pretty cool huh? I have used this and so have several of my clients with much success.


There you have it, a super simple, easy and frankly quite lazy way to make a healthy and flavorful salad.

7. Testimonials: "Z-Health and Kettlebells"

You can't go wrong being a part of Copeland's Core Fitness; Brian knows his stuff!

I've been seeing Brian for over 2 years and have totally fallen in love with kettlebells. First, the classes are fun, you work at your own pace and keep track of your results. Second, Brian's knowledge of kettlebells, Z-Health (which is incorporated into the classes), as well as nutrition allows the individual to get the most out of their sessions.

I've been weight training since 17 years of age and I feel much stronger, more toned and healthier overall doing kettlebell training than all the years of going to the gym and lifting weights.

You can't go wrong being a part of Copeland's Core Fitness; Brian knows his stuff!

If you are looking for pain relief, have acute or chronic injuries or desire fat loss or muscle building or even nutritional advice then Copeland's Core Fitness is the place!

Angela Csargo - CMT, CNT
Massage Therapist, Nutritionist, Owner www.healingcreation.com

8. Testimonials: "Beginner Kettlebell & Self-Defense Classes"

A Whole New Area of Holistic Fitness

Brian is very knowledgeable, humorous and creates a great enthusiastic class environment. He's very attentive to form, details and provides as well additional holistic fitness knowledge to supplement the kettlebell training.

Thomas B. - Colorado

Brian's Class is First-Rate!

Brian is awesome, very knowledgeable, an excellent instructor!
In his beginner kettlebell class I learned a lot about proper form and technique, learned quite a few kettlebell exercises. I am recommending this class to friends.

John S. - Colorado

Excellent Training for a Very Reasonable Price

Brian's training methods were very useful and clearly explained. Brian generates confidence and enthusiasm in his training, he maximizes the personal strengths of his students. Equal to the self-defense training I learned in Korea 40 years ago. They were very professional instructors as is Brian.

Lee - LTC (Retired) US Army Reserve

Straight Forward & Simple, Anyone Can Learn

Brian has distilled the key aspects of self-defense and teaches them in a very straight forward manner. The training is very practical, no katas, formality or very technical moves as other Martial Arts schools I have done.

Brian will give you several simple key moves to disable an attacker that anyone can learn. I have completed the beginner-level class and now will continue on with the more advanced classes.

David Schultz

A Fantastic Instructor

Very knowledgeable, puts everybody at ease, a real pleasure to learn from. I am more confident and have a greater awareness of my surroundings. I am now capable of employing a number of techniques to incapacitate an attacker.

John S.

Very Easy to Understand and Use

I took Tae Kwon Do for a year and they only teach me forms and techniques. I don't think I can defend myself doing forms. I never felt that I was capable of defending myself if something bad ever happened to me.

But with Brian's techniques I feel that if something bad ever happens to me now I'll be prepared to defend myself.

Very easy to understand and use, I really liked the environment, I felt comfortable and safe the whole time. Brian is very professional, responsible and committed to his work. I will refer anyone to Brian as he really knows what he is doing and his classes are fun.

Lydi

Great Place to Start or Further Your Skills

This was my first self-defense course and I can say this is a great place to start or further your skills. The course was very educational and thorough. It was relaxed, comfortable and easy to ask questions. I am much more aware of potential threats and the level at which they are threatening and how to respond to each.

Candra

Awareness & Preventative Tactics

Brian is calm and very effective at getting his point across. He is welcoming and never makes you feel judged based on your ability.
I like how Brian combines techniques to give me the best set of tools for my own personal self-defense. The environment was very calm with lots of room to practice.

Elizabeth R

Reality-Based Situation Training

Brian is a top-notch Martial Arts Instructor whose teaching style is suitable for all levels of fitness. The course is a fun and safe environment to learn life saving skills.

Mirza

If you are interested in starting a beginner-level kettlebell fitness or self-defense class contact me for availability.

9. Featured Product:
"Seriously Strong Hands ebook"


If you are interested in Grip training you owe it to yourself to get Brian Copeland's Seriously Strong Hands - it will guide you through building a Grip you can be proud of - because remember - the stronger your hands are the stronger your body can be!
This is the grip book I should have written a few years ago.

- Brett Jones CSCS, Master RKC, certified Red Nail bender


"In his ebook Seriously Strong Hands, Brian Copeland has put together a no-nonsense guide for the aspiring gripster. Filled with useful tips and no fluff, it is a valuable resource for the beginning grip enthusiast."

- David Whitley, Sr. RKC (tearer & terror of many phone books!)


I purchased your ebook about a month ago. Your ebook very much summarizes all aspects of strength training for bending/tearing. You also give a great plan for improving strength; following this plan leads to success for sure. I just tore a full deck of cards (wrapped in duct tape) in half, so I know what I am talking about... :-)

- Peter Lakatos, RKC Team Leader
Hungary, Budapest



If you are ready to get grip, here is the tool to get you there.

Learn more about it here

10. Self-Defense / Martial Arts Tip:
"The Dehumanization of Teenage Girls"


There has been a series of disturbing attacks on teenagers, by teenagers, in the news lately. Specifically there have been many girls who have been severely beaten, some sexually violated and some left for dead. These cruel acts have been done by other teenage females and their male friends. Many of these have been done in public as bystanders (and even security personnel) looked on and did nothing to help these poor girls. Some of these acts are so sick I won't even mention them.

These cruel acts are more than foolish teenage hormones raging out of control, these acts are utter evil incarnate. The type of blatant disregard for human life and dignity that is required to harm another human being in this way is intolerable.

Now we can discuss the causes of such effects, the negative portrayal of women as sex objects in music videos, especially with a certain type of music, the idolizing of idiot celebrities who beat up their girlfriends, etc. But that doesn't solve our problem right now.

If you care at all about the safety of your family then you would be foolish to simply read this article, consider it interesting, disturbing and thought provoking... but not take action.

Remember, apathy and denial = you lose!

Just imagine a society where there was no violence, where everyone loved and respected each other and no one would ever deliberately hurt another person...

Now step out of fantasy land back into reality. Sure it would be nice but let's face it, we do not live in a society like that and I promise you won't change it in this lifetime.

Now imagine a society where all of the good guys where trained in realistic self-defense. It would make it a lot tougher to be a bad guy. There would be far fewer victims walking around and a lot more prepared citizens.

Let me share a story with you from a mother and daughter who attended my beginner-self defense class:

A daughter brutally killed, two teens date raped

A daughter, recently out of college, living in a apt complex was brutally killed by another tenant. Two teens, not yet 20, date raped within their first two years of college. These three girls, whom I know personally, join too many others who are hurt or killed by someone else. Do I want my children to have to fight-no. Do I want them to hurt someone else-no. Do I want them to know what to do if they are scared or attacked-Yes!. Brian's self defense class is not finesse, it's not fitness, it's not a sport. He provides practical actions and reactions so that if you are ever attacked, you know what to do to get away. I recommend this class for all teens and adults. He couples the escape and defense ideas with responsible situational awareness, and is careful to point out that we all are responsible for using the least amount of force required to defuse a situation. It's a combination that will serve us well.

Janet

This is a good attitude towards violence, Martial Arts and self-defense. No good person wants to ever use self-defense on anyone. No good person who practices violence, or carries a concealed handgun, stun gun or knife, ever wants to use them. But they have them just in case it means the difference between leaving their family father-less or mother-less or going home safely.


If you are the kind of person who still thinks that your protection is the responsibility of Law Enforcement, let me assure you... you will probably never be the victim of a violent attack when a Police Officer is around. But unless you plan on carrying a Cop around in your back pocket and keeping one at the foot of your bed every night your self protection is up to you.

In Aurora, CO there are less than 1 Law Enforcement Officers for every 2,000 citizens. This does not count teenagers, illegal immigrants, people who do not vote and people who don't get counted on the census counts. So in other words, it is probably more like a 1:3,000 ratio. That ain't good!

Ultimately you are responsible for taking care of yourself and your family. You have a job to pay for shelter and food, you have a fire extinguisher, you have locks on your doors... do you have realistic self-defense skills? Why not? Are you nuts?!!

Brian