The Power of Gratitude

This Thanksgiving reminds me of the power of gratitude--you know, just giving thanks. Giving thanks for all of the things we so often take for granted can bring so much more into your life.

People constantly think about all they don't have. That creates the evil of comparison with others.

A wise man once said you will always find people who have more than you, in money, smarts, strength, good looks, in health, in good fortune, and so on. And you will always find those that have far less than you. In all of those areas above.

The evil of comparing is that we tend to concentrate on those that have more than us, not less. And that is the evil of comparison; it creates envy and jealousy, only drives you away from the people that you admire, by envying them, not drawing them closer to you.

At one time, I complained about an aching knee. It kept re-occurring and bothering me, and I envied a man of similar age that I worked with who could run, even ran in marathons. The more I thought about the bad knee, the more mildly angry I got about my position as being mildly disabled and not being able to run or sprint.

Then one day as I approached a store, I saw a man come out, smiling, in a wheel chair with no legs. He was around my age. He could've been a veteran, don't know for sure. But he was happy and yakking away to another man. And all of a sudden my preoccupation with my knee ended, thinking to myself, look at the fact that I can walk---and he's happier than I am!

If we complain about things, we'll only get more of those things. What you think about, or visualize about (which is merely a mental movie of your thoughts), you will bring about. So if we concentrate on Thanks as in Thanksgiving (which is coming up tomorrow), we'll get more of the things that we're thankful about.

Don't think about your shortcomings. You'll only create more of a world in your mind of shortcomings. Think about all that you are grateful for. What you think about, and thank about, you will bring about. Gratitude brings more of the same into your life, of all the good things you've attained.

Visualize the best, visualize success, and you will bring that about. Remember that thoughts are things and thoughts have wings.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

Dr. Ignarro's Miracle Molecule

Dr. Ignarro, a pharmaceutical professor, discovered a "miracle molecule" which will eliminate bypass surgery, lower and finally end arteriosclerosis, reduce plaque and eliminate arterial blood clots, lower blood pressure, and generally cure almost all problems of cardiovascular disease.

He won the 1998 Nobel Prize for this discovery, but unfortunately his work has never been given very much publicity, due to the fact that the medical profession is finding it too easy, too plentiful, too cheap as a cure for almost all heart maladies.

That miracle molecule is Nitric Oxide. It is the curative component which is found in Nitroglycerine, a vasodilator (expands and thus relaxes a narrowed artery, which reduces chest pain and eliminates heart attacks), and also is the vasodilator which ends impotence (found in Viagara and other E.D. drugs). This would end the need for cholesterol inhibitors like Lipitor or Crestor, because it elimates arteriosclerotic plaque build-up. Nitroglycerine is expensive and lasts only a few minutes, but the key molecule or compound in it can be found elsewhere in less expensive form.

Where to find this? The easiest source of Nitric Oxide (chemically depicted as NO) is an amino acid called L-Arginine. It suppresses an enzyme which inhibits the formation of Nitric Oxide. (Not to be confused with Nitrous Oxide (NO2), which is laughing gas). Believe it or not, it's the same compound found in smog, but it's usage on an individual in supplements that contain L-Arginine, or taking L-Arginine itself, can perform miracles in regards to your heart health. --

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

The VRT Answer for Arthritis

From John Peterson, author of Transformetrics:

I received a great letter from a man suffering from severe arthritis who has obtained exceptional results by performing the Seven Tiger Moves from my book The Miracle Seven. He wrote that for many years he could not sleep for more than three hours at a stretch due to waking up in pain. Now, however, he almost always sleeps through the night with no problem—thanks to the Tiger Moves.

In his letter he wondered what I would recommend to further amplify his results and to sculpt his entire body to the max. Naturally, Power Calisthenics are out of the question.

Without batting an eye, I immediately responded that he needed Greg Mangan's VRT Package (Click here for ordering information). Why? Because with Greg Mangan’s VRT Total Bodybuilding System he can take his desire for complete and synergistic strength and development to an entirely new level with exercises that Greg has specially created to strengthen and sculpt every muscle group in the entire body from head to toe. And better yet, VRT is perfect for people suffering from Arthritis and other joint conditions. Here’s why.

Greg teaches how anyone can positively contract and relax each muscle group at will for maximum strength development and body sculpting, using the power of applied visualization. And because VRT does not rely on weights or machines, there is absolutely no excess gravitational stress placed on swollen and painful joints, ligaments, or tendons. THAT MAKES VRT PERFECT FOR PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM ARTHRITIS OR OTHER FORMS OF JOINT PAIN!

With VRT, not only do you learn how to strengthen muscles maximally, but it also increases blood flow throughout the entire circulatory system even to the smallest capillaries. In addition, VRT greatly enhances your range of motion gently and safely as the strength and development gained through VRT stabilizes every joint with strong, perfectly sculpted, and flexible muscles that literally support the entire skeletal structure while making movement far more comfortable and pain free.

All this in addition to the fact that once you learn VRT you can exercise any time and any place because there is no equipment or weights involved—just your own body. And frankly, it doesn’t get any better than that!—J.P.
Do you know someone who would benefit from the challenge and inspiration of these Daily Transformations e-mails? Please forward them this link to www.Transformetrics.com, and encourage them to sign up in the drop-down box.

The Importance of Feeling

Friends,

It is more than just "visualizing" the resistance to create high tension in VRT. (Or visualizing or 'picturing' your goals, or picturing how you want things to be in your life).

"What you think about, you bring about" is a common saying, but more mportantly, "what you feel about, you bring about" has even more truth. Not just feeling the resistance, but feeling good, feeling elated, feeling excited, feeling gratitude, feeling that real sweet feeling; all these feelings make your entire life better, for thoughts are created by feelings.

Research has shown that thoughts create corresponding feelings (i.e., get mad in your thoughts at someone, and you will just feel the angry feelings swarming around in your system), and likewise, feelings can create thoughts (feel lousy, and suddenly you think that nothing's going right in your world today).

I react to this by going out of my way to feel GREAT when I do VRT, no matter what exercise I happen to create; and if I purposely generate the feeling of feeling GREAT today, and towards everything that I will attempt today, it will actually proceed that way!!

Think about it (no, better yet, feel about it) and give it a try.

Greg Mangan
Mr. VRT

VRT as an Incredible Solution to a Wounded Knee

Friends, John mentioned that the Hindu push-up solved a shoulder injury that he had had from a martial arts workout years before, and Wendy mentioned the "high reach" from the Miracle 7 solved a shoulder problem she had.

Recently I have had my own somewhat miraculous cure. I had a knee injury back in the summer of 2006 when sprinting with kids during an adult/kid game at a Cub Scout camp (I carved a walking stick with my knife, and hobbled around the rest of the week). I had it looked at by an Orthopedist, but he couldn't tell me if I had a torn meniscus or not without a $1000 MRI. So I opted it against it. It took several weeks to heal.

Then, on the this past weekend of August 30th, I bought a small dirt bike for my 13 year old son. It was a used dirt bike, and we both attempted to get it operating correctly by taking rides on it and fiddling around with it. It is a small (80 cc) dirt bike, and I wiped out on it. It was in my back yard. And guess what got re-injured as I got up from the dirt? I severely twisted my left knee, and the injury exacerbated once more.

I put ice on it and bandaged the knee, and my wife lent me a cane to hobble around on during Labor Day weekend. I was upset that this was re-injured and spoil the next however-long weeks until its recovery. Then I proceeded with a VRT-like exercise to strengthen the joint, whereby I laid on my back, and pushed my legs up and down in the air under great tension as though I were pushing a block of stone up a ramp, then pulled down under tension as though pulling back on some heavy springs. All the while thighs and calves were under tension, contraction, or flexion, whatever you want to call it. It was an upside-down squat done in the air. But tension was in both directions.

An hour later my wife came home, and saw me walking about freely without bandage or cane. Amazed, she said 'how did you do it?' I told here about my mini-"breakthrough."

I don't know what happened; but it is completely relieved. If you have knee problems, try this. Something straightened out in the ligamental area of the knee joint. And I'm glad it did. I am not the type who wants to have knee surgery.

--Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

How to Do the Best You Can Possibly Do

Tony Robbins makes a comment on how to get someone to do the absolute best they are capable of in any function, any sport, any situation. The method he refers to is NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

It involves your personal physiology, as the famous early-twentieth century psychologist William James said, "thought follows action, and action follows thought." One follows the other. If you put yourself into the physiology (the actual action of the situation, in other words, the muscular postioning or movements of the body) of the best that you ever did when remembering a situation, you can repeat it.

For instance, to a basketball player who's not doing so well at free throws, one could say, "do you remember the best free throw shot you ever made?" In a moment, he would say, 'why yes.'

If one can remember the best they did in any situation, one could put themselves mentally back into that environment, and physically too. Stand they way you would stand if it were your best free throw. Make your face look the way it would look if it was your best free throw shot. Feel the way you would feel if it was your best free throw ever. Put yourself mentally into the postion you were in, by imitating the physiology exactly the way you would be in doing the best free throw, and you can do it again. And again and again.

Perform this with any situation; golf, a business deal, a workout, preparation for a test or an exam, any sports situation, complete confidence in a meeting, asking out one of the opposite sex you admire a great deal, and hundreds of other situations. Try it.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

VRT versus Weight and Exercise Machines

In regards to a weight-free form of bodybuilding such as Visualized Resistance Training, I would have to quote Lewis Mumford:

"The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end---Man is at last in a position to transcend the machine, and to create a new biological and social environment, in which the highest possibilities of human existence will be realized, not for the strong and the lucky alone, but for all cooperating and understanding groups, associates, and communities."

-The fact that an exercise system such as this has eclipsed the need for machines to shape, alter, and strengthen the human body is notable.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

Strength Analysis and Observations of VRT

A gentleman who wrote to me about VRT had this to say. My response to him follows this.

"Hello Greg, I have been following a program of VRT exclusively for quite some time now, several months in fact. I recently tried to duplicate some of the lifts I had done previously. The results were shall we say, less than expected. The weights felt incredibly heavy and cumbersome. After the session I thought about why this occured. Obviously specificity plays a big role.

I also spoke with a friend who is a physical therapist and runs one of the major rehab clinics in the area. He pointed out that during VRT training you are working in a "loadless" format as opposed to a "loaded" format with weights/other objects. I had heard of this term "loadless" training before. An article by Mel Siff, one of the worlds top sports performance experts, I believe coined this phrase.

My friend David, the therapist, went on to say that in a loadless training situation, yes, the fibers do contract and one can experience a deep cramping sensation. Yet, you are limited in developing strength beacause this type of training limits how many fibers you can recruit. He went on to say that lifting under "loaded" conditions, weights, etc., one can push or pull against some object thereby increasing leverage, which in turn allows one to contract more fibers and produce more strength. Also, with loadless training there is no stability or balance factor as well, which will also cause less fibers to be contracted. Of course there is the obvious, adding extra weight will cause more fibers to contract.

After all this, I have to say that I have never used any type of training modality that made me feel better after a workout. My friend had no explanantion for this. I told him this was commonplace among people who used VRT in their training. I really do struggle with this "losing strength" thing. I know that specificity is the major player here, but I wonder what type of strength does VRT build? Perhaps you can shed some light on these comments. By the way, I have no desire to lift and it is certainly not my contention to cast any negativity toward VRT. This is why I have chosen to address my concerns here, instead of at the forum."

Thanks,
Shane.
=========================
My response:

"Shane, I wouldn't exactly call VRT a "loadless" format vs. one that is "loaded." The terminology can be deceiving. Just my tangent on the definition. I'm sure David, your therapist, understands flexors pulling against extensors and vice versa. Any load can be maximized by the opposing muscle group. Perhaps one can be limited in gaining strength by the quantity of the load put on the opposing muscle group. While the entire musculature is in full balance, the load should approximate the full capacity of the opposing muscle, or isostatic load, in which one could not move a weight whatsoever. I understand fully what he means by balance and stability and the body, in the need to right itself, would perhaps incorporate many more muscle fibers to maintain stability. Muscle fibers in other muscle groups, though.

However, I take to task the amount of the myofibrils that are recruited in any given exercise. In a total state of tetany of flexors and extensors, all myofibrils are made up of sliding filaments, and it is an 'all or none' response, not just some of them, in which the sarcomere is in contraction. One cannot utilize only a portion of the myofibrils in a sarcomere.

I know you like VRT, Shane, but if a brute increase in strength alone is what you are trying to achieve, it would probably depend on how "hard" you do VRT. Is it really an all out effort, so that you can later check on your progress with weights? When you were lifting weights alone, how long did it take for you to increase your strength, and by how much? (What percentage? Like how long a period of weightlifting to go from a 180 lb. bench to a 200 lb. bench?)What I'm getting at, is that it's possible to gain strength faster with weights than VRT; BUT it has been shown that one can increase strength as fast or sometimes faster with VRT, depending on how long it's done, and with how much effort. I am glad to hear it makes you feel good, however. That's a real plus in and by itself."

Greg Mangan

Focus on Goals for VRT

Visualization is a primary function to attain everything that our hearts' do desire. The visualization aspects of VRT will help you make good choices for your future.

All things are a choice. Choose what it is you want or will become.

Once you have chosen your goals, and you have come to a degree of prioritization as to what is the most important, what is of secondary importance and even tertiary importance, the aspect of visualizing and believing comes into play and is very necessary to speed up attainment of the goal.

Focus on the goal and desire it. It is what you want. Keep your mind free of thoughts of things that you do not want. Make that goal real; see it, feel it, even hear it. Create an imaginary situation in which you attain it, using as many of your senses as you can; make that vision as real as possible. Go into a gentle state of meditation, and say to yourself, "this is what I want." Let it slowly subside into your subconscious; in other words, come out of your meditation and forget about it.

The "mind over matter" situation will take over your life and make for you the goals that you engender. All you have to do is believe. And let it take place on its own terms.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

VRT and Neuromuscular Coordination

Various studies have been done on the VRT technique by Russian exercise physiologists in the mid-nineteen eighties. They dubbed this ancient system of exercise "pumping imaginary iron", or more specifically, "mock weightlifting."

A variety of tests were done on factors done on conduction velocity, and their summation was that this system of exercise "increases neuromuscular coordination and speed of movement" as evidenced by an increase of contractions in the sarcomere (muscle cells). Evidently the myoneural junction (junction between nerve and muscle) has a tendency to secrete the neurotransmitter acetylcholine across the synaptic gap at a much greater velocity. Coordination would be directly related to faster movement of the muscles.

Students of the VRT System can find themselves at an advantage in athletic situations regarding speed and coordination; everything from tennis, badminton, track and basketball to running and wrestling.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

Vasocongestion in VRT and Weight Training

The closest form of resemblance that VRT has with weight training is the concept of vasocongestion, commonly referred to as "the Pump."

The brilliance of VRT is pitting a flexor against an extensor, and thus creating a demanding relationship on the vascular network of the muscle group involved, much in the same way as the pump that is created in a weight training movement. The result is vasocongestion, the muscle-swelling 'pump.'

The level of vasocongestion is really a matter of controversy, for for the most part it is not measurable, but it is comparable to the feeling that is generated as a pump from weight training. And as Sigmund Freud said, the "greatest decisions are best left up to feelings." It is with that that I agree 100%.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

Various Places for VRT Exercises

VRT is such an adaptable exercise that it can be done virtually anywhere, anytime, and in any place. Take for example waiting at a bus stop. One could do a standing VRT-style bench press, or VRT dumbbell curls, a VRT tricep press, a VRT military press, or VRT squats. Without moving from your spot. While no one is looking, of course.

The various places and situations where these could be performed is limitless; strolling through a supermarket, for instance, one could perform one-armed curls while pushing the cart with the other arm; stopping to look at the meat while doing squats; doing imaginary one-armed pull-ups while heading down the frozen pizza section; doing imaginary dead-lifts while opening the ice cream freezer door, and other various situations.

Really, just as the imagination allows you to do any one of various exercises, so too are the situations that one can do them in offer an endless number of times and places to do it in. No gym is needed. No special place is needed. It can be done throughout anyone's day.

Greg Mangan
VRT Man

VRT System Keeps Joints Rejuvenated

The system of visualized resistance does a great deal to spare the synovial membranes of the human body. Those membranes are in every movable joint of the human body from the knuckle joints, toe joints, and elbows to the spinal column and neck.

The act of lifting weights, whether dumbbells, barbells, or the plates of a universal machine, compress the synovial membrane and can cause an early and arthritic deterioration of the membrane. Visualized Resistance Training [VRT] can create vasocongestion of the particular muscle group and create an increase in skeletomuscular size and strength, but completely spare the synovial membrane from the gravitational compression that will create "busted up weightlifter's syndrome".

Advocates of VRT never complain of joint problems the way that life-long advocates of weight training do. The spinal column especially does not show any problems related to disc compression [the name given the synovial membranes in the spinal column] or heniated ["slipped"] discs. The suggestion is to try VRT to avoid joint problems of any kind, yet increase strength, speed, and coordination.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

VRT - The Importance of Focus

The element of focus has come up again and again in obtaining the most out of Visualized Resistance Training.

The idea of focusing on a specific immovable object or objects seems to magnify the effect of visualization. As with all goals, if for instance one has a specific desire to be a doctor, while in undergraduate pre-med training one must focus fully and completely on the idea of being a physician, and picture practicing medicine in a hospital or doctor's office. With that specific focus in mind, day in and day out, imagining it with full sensory acuity, the subconscious will take that person to that position which he or she has so desired. Focus will bring it about.

Likewise, the amount of focus one puts into the visualization of lifting heavy weights, lifting a car or an elephant, pushing a semi into the air, etc., will neuroligically push the muscle to its greatest flexion, and its most massive vasocongestion (pump), which forces the muscles to grow.

It is said that "we become what we think about", or "we attract what we think about." With practice on the increase of mental focus, visualized resistance can only become better for the individual.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

VRT: Bi-directional or One Direction only?

Much controversy has come up with students of the VRT system doing the imaginary weight training in one direction, or in both directions...i.e., tension at the outset, and tension in coming back to the start of the movement.

In my original development of this course, I recommended that the movement most clearly be a facsimile of reality; in other words, the movement imitate a real lift, both in the vision, sound, touch, even smell (if that's possible). And that is tension in one direction. But John McSweeney's version, which John Peterson called the Miracle 7, recommended tension in both directions.

I leave this to the individual practicioner. I have done both. I think one direction is the most "megapumping", but one may find more comfort, vigor, and energy in practicing tension in both directions.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

Mastering VRT, or Visualized Resistance

Pierini first posted this in Transformetrics from his martial arts training, and this was also posted recently by John Peterson, whom I quote here:

"It’s about the “stages of development,” in self-mastery, and here’s how I identify them:
1) Unconsciously-incapable
2) Consciously-incapable
3) Consciously-capable
4) Unconsciously-capable

Let me illustrate what I mean by these four distinctions.
Let’s take a little boy whom we’ll call him Jimmy. When he’s only nine months of age, Jimmy’s mother takes him outside on a beautiful summer day, where he sees his eight-year-old brother Jerry get on his bicycle and head for the playground. At this point Jimmy doesn’t know what a bicycle is, let alone know how to ride one, so he is at stage 1) Unconsciously-incapable.

A few of years later, through watching his brother and other kids in the neighborhood, Jimmy has discovered what a bicycle is. But since he still does not know how to ride one he is now at stage 2) Consciously-incapable.
Two more years go by, and for his sixth birthday Jimmy receives a bicycle with training wheels. In time he starts to get the hang of it and before long the training wheels come off. At first he’s really shaky, but if he focuses on what he is doing he can ride the bike. He is now at stage 3) Consciously-capable.

After a few months of this, slowly improving at bike-riding, Jimmy decides that he is going to go visit his friend Andy, who lives two blocks away. So without even thinking about it, Jimmy hops on his bike and pedals over to Andy’s house. Now Jimmy is at stage 4) Unconsciously-capable. He doesn’t really have to consciously think about how to ride a bike. He just does it!

In getting up to speed with DVR/VRT, we all go through these same stages. Take Benny, one of our Forum members. When he first sees Slim “The Hammerman” Farman perform a leverage lift with a heavy sledge hammer, Benny is at stage 2, Consciously-incapable. He is conscious of what he sees Slim doing, but he is incapable at that point of duplicating Slim’s feat of strength.

Then after careful application, deep focus, and a great deal of sweat, Benny finally succeeds at performing what he saw Slim doing. He’s now at stage 3, Consciously-capable.
A few months later, a friend stops by and asks, “Benny, can you really do a leverage lift with a 12-pound sledge hammer?” And without even thinking about it, Benny grabs the hammer and lifts it without batting an eye. Yes Benny is at stage 4, Unconsciously-capable. He can do it anytime, without even having to think about “how” it’s done.

So what does this have to do with DVR/VRT, Isometric Contraction, and Transformetrics? Simply this: There is a natural learning curve for all of us, and it just takes a little time to get to stage 4—but we all get there!
Don’t beat yourself up for not being able to do it all perfectly right off the bat. In time, with focus and application, you will know exactly how an intense contraction feels. Then it won’t be long and you will know exactly what 35 percent, 50 percent, 80 percent, or any other level of contraction feels like. What’s more, you won’t even have to think about it because you will intuitively know where you are in the process."

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

The Meaning of VRT - Visualized Resistance Training

Some more wise words from Gordon Anderson, regarding visualization:

"Visualization unlocks the creative force lying dormant in all of us and it leads through pathways to the unlimited potential of our subconscious mind. The same principle works with negative as well as positive visualizations. People tend to project the negative events of their past into their future and that becomes their self fulfilling prophesy and they continue to get what they expect and visualize even if that isn't what they want."

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"