Guest blogger: Paul McCabe, Fitness Professional. Paul is using the Perfect Pushup Mobile. He’s on the footbridge that crosses the Thames between St. Paul’s Cathedral and Tate Modern.

Said Paul, “I found Perfect Push Up to be a very effective and versatile piece of equipment – not only does the twisting motion of the handles provide an extra workout for the forearms and wrists whilst performing a press-up, the extra height given by the handles allows for a deeper press up working the chest and shoulders even further. The fact that the unit is portable is great for anyone who wishes to train when they don’t have immediate access to a gym.”

More Marty — and it’s a PERFECT Saturday! Amazing what Marty does with the PPU/exercise ball combo. Stay tuned for Coach Marty Heilman’s spin on Perfect Pullup rotating handles.

A day in the life of Coach Marty Heilman. His home base is Frog’s Gym in Encinitas, north of San Diego, California. Tomorrow, CHARLIE MIKE will spotlight Coach Marty putting the Perfect Pushup and Perfect Pullup handles through their paces — prepare to be amazed!

Guest blogger: Beth Rodden, Perfect Athlete Ambassador

Hello fans of Perfect Fitness! My name is Beth Rodden and I am a fellow fan as well as a professional rock climber. Sounds kind of crazy, I know, but I am extremely lucky to be able to pursue my passion of climbing as my career. I spend most of my time climbing, surprise surprise or traveling, doing slideshows or clinics. And in between, I LOVE to bake, absolutely love it! Unfortunately I am allergic to dairy, so I am constantly looking for the perfect dairy-free dessert, usually including copious amounts of chocolate and sugar. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

So, back to Perfect Fitness…..the products are amazing! I always had wrist problems doing conventional push-ups, and climbers are always dealing with elbow problems from doing too many pull-ups, but the Perfect Pushup and Perfect Pullup seem to squash those problems by allowing the joints to move freely in their natural motions. Check out my workout:

30 Crunches (legs in the air)
10 Pushups
30 Seconds in Plank Position (hands on PPU) alternating each leg in the air for 5 seconds
5 Pullups
It may not seem like it from my petite appearance, but I am a total hammerhead when it comes to working out. The Perfect Fitness products allow me to exercise until exhaustion without being prone to injury. I started climbing in the climbing gyms, so whenever I am able to get into a good gym for a workout it is like going back to my roots. I have also fallen in love with the mountains, and make my home in Yosemite, which allows great access to the best climbing in the world as well as being able to live in the Sierras, the most beautiful mountains in the world.

My favorite product is the Perfect Pushup Mobile because I have perfected living out of a suitcase and the Mobile fits perfectly [no pun intended] wherever I find myself, be it hotel room or campsite. Being a climber I try to work on opposition movement and exercises, which always include push-ups. From Calgary this spring, to South Africa this summer and then back in the Sierras for the fall, I hope to see you out in the mountains or in the gym.

Good luck with your personal fitness goals. Grab a friend, put on your favorite playlist, and try a new exercise. The most important thing is to have fun with whatever you are doing, that way you’ll continue doing it for a long time.

CM SEAL Team blogger: Marcus Colburn

It’s simple to suggest eat less, exercise more and you’ll lose fat.
Unfortunately this advice does not explain why your friend can indulge in pizza and beer and stay shredded all summer while others need to put a microscope over every food that enters their mouth.

As you know, not all metabolisms are created equal and research has proven that some of us can burn fat faster than others. If you feel like you’re doing everything right but still unable so shed those last few pounds then let one of the following advanced fat burning tips and tricks below work for you.

Getting shredded can not be left to chance with the mentality that you hope it works. In order to shake the last few pounds of fat you must combine as many of these techniques as possible so that you experience a huge difference in the mirror as you say:

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL WHO’S THE MOST SHREDDED OF THEM ALL?

Here are 23 of the exact secrets I used to cut 23-pounds of fat in 10-weeks that lead to the photos that declare victory!

1. Follow a specific, pre-set nutrition plan so that you know exactly what you’re supposed to eat and what times and in what amounts. You will be less likely to cheat and more likely to follow your plan. Print it out and post it on your refrigerator.

2. Read labels because you must be precise about your food intake and ensure your food plan matches exactly with what you’re consuming or how in the world can you help yourself?

3. Go slow & if you fall back, break into a run — just keep shooting for “PERFCT”ting it each week.

4. Tweak, re-evaluate and re-tweak. If you’re not losing, tweak ONE variable for the following week while keeping everything else standardized. Re-evaluate your progress and continue this feed back loop each week.

5. When tweaking a variable in your training, make small changes instead of big ones. For example, add one extra 45-minute cardio session next week if you plateaued, not 3 extra cardio sessions. If you’re doing 2 interval workouts, add a third.

6. Did I say small changes are responsible for big changes? If you’re eating 2 slices of whole wheat bread on meal one, drop it to only 1 slice instead. Dramatic nutrition or cardio changes is unnecessary. Remember it’s a “HUMAN RACE” not an immortal race!

7. Plan to raise your caloric intake one time every five days, minimum.

8. Start doing interval training and build up to at least three 20-minute workouts at 85% intensity.

9. For interval training, rely on the classic and effective 1-minute hard followed by 1-minute easy protocol for a total of 10 intervals.

10. Incorporate steady-state cardio on a empty stomach before breakfast. If you’re on a ultra low-carb diet then this is not necessary however “regular” cardio in a fasted state can help your body to resort to using more fat for
fuel.

11. Drink a big black cup of coffee or have an espresso before you do fasted cardio before breakfast.

12. Incorporate a liter of water before you do your cardio in a fasted state in the morning.

13. If possible, perform strength training in the evening and perform your cardio in the morning. This requires more dedication but can be very effective for your quest for “PERFECT” ion.

14. Train hard with high speed strength movements often. Challenge your buddies! Be prepared to move from 3-days or 4-days of strength training to at least 5-days of strength training a week.

15. During fat loss, the details of the workout are not as important as muscle building. Focus on intensity and finishing the workout knowing you held nothing back.

16. Keep rest periods between 30-60 seconds.

17. Don’t worry about the length of your workouts, even if they last up to 1.5 hours.

18. Don’t plant to eat perfectly without any unplanned cheat, I mean “TREAT”!

“IF YOU’RE NOT cheating/TREATING, YOU’RE NOT TRYING!”

19. Eat as many fibrous vegetables as possible like broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and/or asparagus to name a few.

20. Eat your first meal earlier than you are currently eating it now. Having your first meal around 6 am and your last meal around 6 pm works the best for the majority of people.

21. Treat your weight training workouts as if you’re trying to build muscle. Keep the STRENGTH moves harder & heavy duty to keep your muscle mass and maintain your metabolism. Believe me, if you do pullups in crazy ways with a friend holding you down or pullups with your buddy pullin at you. You do more good for yourself then the aveage joe does at the gym & you’re more functional too. Make sure you stretch all muscle groups as you get warmed up in between sets!

* “Stretching is like doing steroids without messing with your hormones that scream later!”

22. Only bring food items that appear on your meal plan into your home.

23. Set a deadline for the day you want to be shredded and ripped.

Just one of these tips above could be the game-changer to get shredded at last. Your instincts will tell you which ones to begin leveraging starting today.

Feel free to add your own tips to mine at the CHARLIE MIKE blog!

P.S. I’M PULLING FOR YOU ON MY PERFECT PULLUP BAR!
“TRAINING IS NEVER OVER“
MOJOFROG OUT…

Teammates – Here’s the Standard Operating Procedure for ordering Perfect products if you’re a service man or woman serving overseas.

1. Call this toll-free number: 1-877-974-7733. Choose Prompt #3 to place an order.

2. Hours of operation: 8am – 5pm, Monday through Friday, Pacific Time.

3. Have your credit card and APO address handy. For security reasons, we do not accept credit card numbers through email.

4. All military orders receive a 10% discount.

5. Finally, let us know how our products hold up for you in the field. Suggestions, feedback and comments (positive or negative) – we want to hear from you. Send your stories and pictures to getfit@perfectpushup.com, post comments to CHARLIE MIKE, or join our newest Perfect community: The Perfect Fitness Forum.

Though many of the products we invent at Perfect Fitness are based on my experiences suffering through daily SEAL physical training routines, we spend countless hours searching for products that are truly Perfect – and by Perfect we mean they in some way Perfectly simulate the natural movement of the body so you can get the absolute best possible result. If you have a suggestion on making a product even better – we’re all ears – we care about your health and your success – so let us know your thoughts!

CHARLIE MIKE — ALDEN

CM SEAL Team blogger: Tom Rancich

Memorial Day has always had an identity crisis. Even in the very beginning, it was only for Union soldiers, not merging all “Decoration Day” activities until after World War One. In 1971, Memorial Day became the last Monday in May instead of May 30. This move, designed to create a three-day weekend, irritated many by adding to the day an air of celebration instead of reflection: picnics, parades, ballgames, sales — the start of the summer party. That doesn’t bother me: somewhere in the 1.5 million soldiers remembered every Memorial Day there is certainly someone who would have really enjoyed another picnic, parade, ball game or day shopping. Some of those sacrificed would have liked one more party or one more prayer. It’s all good.

I remember some of my teammates and shipmates who didn’t make it. Neal, as nice and stand-up a person as ever walked the earth, died in combat in Afghanistan, alone and outnumbered in the Tora Bora mountains. There was Brian, a Bostonian, killed in Afghanistan when his HMMV hit a mine; I served with him at SEAL Team Four. Woody and Jeff, shipmates who died when our helicopter crashed, and Steve, another teammate who died in the same crash.

Steve was laughing a split second before we crashed, a joyful expression forever etched in my mind. Pete was one of my phase officers at Basic Underwater Demolition School. He was a great guy who was killed in South America in a training accident. Mark and Brad, two more SEALs, were killed in training accidents. I didn’t know either of them well before I was assigned to do the investigations into their deaths. I remember explaining the circumstances of Mark’s death to his widow, as his three-month-old son lay cradled in his mother’s arms. Tragic.

Philosophically at least, Memorial Day is easy for me, because I have people to remember – people who were alive and full of potential one day and dead the next, people with whom I laughed, partied, worked and went to war. On Memorial Day, and many other days, I remember them. But, I wonder, how do I remember someone I never knew? Though estimates vary widely, the nation’s military war dead since the Revolutionary War number more than one and a half million – one and a half million faces of a national treasure. How do you remember a million and a half people you never met? Or more precisely, how is it that you memorialize them as unique and precious individuals with hopes, potential, and dreams – individuals who had people that loved them, to whom they were more than just a name on a list? I’m not sure you can.

It is certainly not possible to know them all or even who they all were, so perhaps it is inevitable that they become part of a long gray line. Still, it is important to honor those lives and remember, if not the individuals, at least that they were individuals, individuals so diverse in their interests and aspects as to be impossible to merge.

Memorial Day must at least remind us of the extraordinary cost of war and the critical responsibility to carefully understand what it means to add names to the Roll of Honor before committing soldiers and civilians to combat. Everyone in today’s military is a volunteer, but that doesn’t lessen our responsibility to spend those lives sparingly and only with the deepest of consideration, even if we are afraid. That those volunteers are more at risk is a fact; that they volunteered is moot; that they deserve to be at greater risk is false. Fear cannot be our motivator. It is important to honor the sacrifices of a million and a half individuals by committing to be at least as courageous as they were.

I don’t know how our founders had the courage to stand against the world’s superpower for a bunch of liberal ideas that had never been successfully put into practice, but they did. From that moment on we owed them and every person who gave up life or limb in defense of “inalienable rights” a debt of gratitude. No, more than that. We owe them the guarantee that they did not die in vain.

Since 2001, we have added more than 1,600 names to the Roll of Honor. From Crispus Attucks, the first to die as a United States soldier, to the soldier that may die today – you were my brothers and sisters in arms. I did not know you all, could not know you all, but I remember.

Synopsis: Thoughts on Memorial Day.
Credits: By Tom Rancich
Source: The Martha’s Vineyard Times, May 26, 2005

“We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”
George Orwell

Guest blogger: CM SEAL blogger: Tim Grizzell

It is now that time of year again. Summer will be officially “kicked off” after this weekend and the season always seems like it is gone in the blink of an eye.

More importantly, Monday is Memorial Day – a day of remembrance and a day of emotion for this is the day we honor all of the men and women who have died while in military service. I served in the United States Navy SEAL teams for seven years and defended my country. I was proud and excited to protect the rights and freedom that we all enjoy here living in the best country on the planet, the United States of America. I am so patriotic that the hair on the back of my neck still stands up every time I hear the Star Spangled Banner. It gets me fired up! I consider myself lucky and fortunate though that I did not have to give the ultimate sacrifice – my life.

I am married to the most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world. I am fortunate to have a healthy “fire team” of two boys and girl who I get to raise. I live in a beautiful neighborhood. I have the opportunity to chase my dreams and live life to the fullest.

What is great about our country is that it does not matter what your background is or where you come from – you have opportunity. The world is at your fingertips. We have this great opportunity because of all the men and women who made that ultimate sacrifice.

So, this weekend we all need to take a moment and honor all the fallen sailors and soldiers and all those who have served. This is a time to be with friends and family. It is a time to be thankful. It is also a time to think about what is important in life! I can tell you right now that it has nothing to do with green paper.

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!! Hoo Yah!!

Fair winds and following seas…

Tim

CM Teammates: Great news – a three day weekend that kicks off summer is here! Weather’s getting warmer, days are getting longer and we get an extra day to enjoy it all…that’s the basic meaning of Memorial Day to most Americans – and that’s great – it’s what liberty enables us to do – celebrate! Just a little reminder that ye ole “Decorating Day” as they used to call it in the military – pertaining to decorating the graves of our fallen veteran brethren – has a special meaning to all those who have served and to family and friends of those who have served.

I remember being deployed to Bosnia in 1997 and celebrating Memorial Day “in the field”. An Army Colonel in the Special Forces (Green Berets) met with us to recount and extoll the stories of those who had gone before us and had paid the ultimate sacrifice for our great country. As we prepared for our mission, he reminded us that very few Americans have the privilege of serving our country let alone being the position to defend it. That not only do we have to act with honor on the field for those that have done so before us but also remember that there is another generation counting on us. Then he read us a note from child of a school that had been selected as our sponsor school while we were deployed – her note was simple and sweet, “Thank you for keeping me and my family safe – we love you.” She had added a couple of crayon pictures depicting hearts, sunshine, and her family. To an outsider that may not seem like much, but to those of us who were deployed (and especially those of us who were fathers at the time – I was not one of them) – it meant a whole helluva lot coming from someone we had never met nor probably would ever meet.

My point – have an Awesome Memorial Day and as you do, take a moment to thank a veteran in any way you can – from sending an e-mail to stopping by a national cemetery to greeting a Vet on the street – the simplest things in life often have the biggest impacts, and saying thanks to Vet can mean more than you can imagine.

Happy Memorial Day – GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS and, of course,
CHARLIE MIKE! ALDEN

N.B. Teammates, CM SEAL bloggers Tim Grizzell and Tom Rancich, two fellow veterans, will be sharing their Memorial Day reflections this weekend as well.

Guest blogger: Gary Lai of San Francisco

There are things I hate now and my body hates me for it:

Work.
Time.
Fast food.
Gravity.

The idea of sitting in an office chair for 9 hours out of the day makes my back scream at me to just end it all already. And no matter how many ergonomic stretches I do, how many 10 minute walks I take, how many nutrigrain bars I eat, it’s not going to change the fact that my gut will get big enough that I can use it as a coaster for my Klean Kanteen water bottle (yes, it’s water in there and not soda…most of the time). I’m too groggy in the morning to work out. Nights are for work related happy hours, which ultimately result in me going home with a 20-piece chicken mcnugget combo meal (mmm…bbq sauce). That leaves an hour window during the workday to get a workout in. Yes, I think my coworkers would appreciate me coming back smelling of stink. Gravity…well…causes sagging.

To counter these debilitating factors, the Perfect Pushup has kept me from going downhill. The Perfect Pushup is true to his namesake. At work, we have a hundredpushups.com challenge going around and it may be easier to do regular IMPERFECT pushups, but I’d rather do pushups the right way so that I can get the most out of each individual UP! When my coworkers are doing their 20,25,15,15,25 set, I’m definitely behind in time, but I feel in the end, I’ll be more satisfied with my progress.

You’ll definitely notice the difference. I’m working muscles I didn’t know I had. I think the biggest part is that my wrists aren’t dying at the end. Keyboards do that for me. I already have a set of the Perfect Pushups at home, but have a set at work definitely encourages me to utilize the moments when I need to step away from my 3 wall box. Thanks for making a simple product that has some great advantages and benefits.

Cheers,
Gary Lai – San Francisco