The other day I saw a picture of myself from 2008, doing the kneeling back bend stretch in front of a reclining Buddha statue in China. I put the picture up on my Instagram page and someone asked, “Can you still do that?”

I’m not a fan of this question as it implies “I think you’re too old to do that now.”  

Most people go along with the “age narrative,” telling themselves from a young age, that they are “too old” for various activities. In some cases this is wise, but in many situations, the “I’m too old” idea is nothing more than a self-imposed delusion. 

It’s not that you can’t do it; it’s that you haven’t made up your mind to “make it happen.”

When I was 20, I wasn’t able to do many of the things I accomplished at 35, 40, 55, and so on.

After going through a rough period in my late 40’s and early 50’s, with various eye injuries and surgeries, which led to weight gain, inflexibility and much more, I wondered if I would ever get back to being anywhere close to what I once was. 

Various drugs I was given caused my body to balloon almost beyond belief. Along with the bloatage came stiffness of virtually every joint in my body.

At this point I dropped the prescribed drugs, put myself on enzymes and herbs, and this helped tremendously.

Yet, what about repairing the side effects that lingered? The weight gain. The stiffness. 

This is where I discovered the healing power of meat, especially when consumed abundantly and almost exclusively. 

Getting carbohydrates, in all their forms and guises, out of my body, allowed my body to make a miraculous recovery. Most of the excess weight dropped off from eating meat alone – and when I was able to begin seriously training again, going back to the program I outlined years earlier in my Combat Stretching DVDs, helped me get my strength and flexibility back in a monumental way. 

So when I read the words, “Can you still do that?” below the picture of myself doing the kneeling back bend stretch, I had my son, Frank, take a few pictures for me. 

I got into the position within seconds and Frank snapped a good one. 

Upon seeing it, someone asked, “What is the secret to your longevity?”

Ask me that in another 40 years, I thought. 

But if you want to know the secret to my flexibility, I can answer that now. It’s called Combat Stretching.

Get it and you’ll see why it works wonders all over the world. 

KATN!

Matt Furey

By the way: Long-time Furey Faithful follower, John Torres, posted something yesterday that made my day. He wrote:

“I’m actually laughing at myself now. I’ve tried every stretching program, before, and after Combat Stretching. Needless to say, Combat Stretching IS THE BEST. Two days later, I am feeling as flexible as a cat. Forever grateful, Matt Furey.”

Thanks mucho, John. It works every time, doesn’t it?

When you see your average person stretching, you are observing what NOT to do. On top of that, the stretches that most coaches teach are useless and unnecessary.

Before people begin formally exercising, you see them stretching their muscles. This is wrong because the first order of business is not the muscles, it’s the joints.

Lubricating your joints activates the release of synovial fluid; it also moves the qi or vital energy through the limbs. From head to toe you want to learn how to circulate your joints so that the you increase your energy and get prepared for more vigorous action.

Or you rotate your joints so thoroughly that your brain-body is buzzing and there’s no need to do anything else. This is something you can do before heading off to work, or before going to bed.

It’s never a good idea to work only on muscular flexibility while ignoring joint mobility.

This is why one of the central components of my Combat Stretching DVDs addresses dynamic stretching and joint rotations.

Every joint that is tight is negatively affecting the positive balance you want to experience in the rest of your body. Tight ankles send signals to your shoulders. Tight hips send messages to your knees. And a stiff neck makes Jack and Jill’s connective tissues so tight they tear.

Be on the positive side of this stretching solution.

Notice how those who stretch their muscles before training jump from one stretch to the next and never get loose.

Loosen your joints the way I teach in Combat Stretching and notice how everything flows when you train.

Then when it comes time to stretch your muscles, make a note at how much more flexible you have become, with hardly any effort at all.

KATN!

Matt Furey

Earlier today I created a video on the unsung benefits of Hindu squats. 

I haven’t written or spoken about this benefit too much before because I always thought it was obvious. But I’ve grown weary of all amateurs who are telling people that Hindu squats are for your “quads.”

They’re not. 

Hindu squats give your quads some work, but they are not supposed to be the primary mover and shaker in this exercise. If your quads are blasted after 20-25 repetitions, then you’re doing something wrong. 

If you can last for 40-50 repetitions, this is an improvement, but it’s still nothing to brag to grandma about.

You cannot get to hundreds, much less thousands of consecutive repetitions of Hindu squats, you cannot develop the springy elasticity of the body, if your quadriceps are the main body part you are working. If they are, you’re stuck in “muscle-think.”

True, what I am stating is a mind-bender for many.

The bodybuilding industry has polluted the minds of so many for so long that it’s nearly impossible to imagine outside the box. It’s not much different than believing in the four food groups, the food pyramid or that moderation in all things is good for you.

Misinformation galore. 

Years ago, I spoke with a martial artist who insisted that doing more than 25 Hindu squats in a row was “boring.” I told him that a fighter who cannot concentrate his mind for longer than 25 repetitions lacks mind power and concentrated focus. He couldn’t dispute me on this one. 

Think of it in terms of skipping rope. How good is a fighter who can only last for 25 jumps? Or one who is bored after 25 reps. 

Physical training is also mental training. 

Greatness comes from practicing the “same old boring exercise” until you realize it’s not boring at all. It was your mind that was polluted.

One exercise may save your life, or give you a reason to live.

One exercise can turn your world into a whirld. 

Just as the secret to meditation is focusing on one thing, the same is true with exercise.

It all gets back to the power that is unleashed by focusing on one thing, or one exercise, such as Hindu Squats.

Focus on them until you learn how to do them without getting a “quad pump.”

When you’ve nailed this one thing, you’re a rare human being.

Your mind is now a powerhouse that can’t be beat. 

KATN.

Matt Furey

P.S. By the way, in Expect to Win – Hate to Lose, I wrote about the monk that I met in Japan, who was declared a Living Buddha after running 1,000 marathons through the mountains of Mt, Hiei, in seven years. After doing so, he asked to do it again as he believed he could do much better. It only took him six years to run 1,000 marathons on his second go-round. The same old boring exercise turned this man into a living saint. 

There are three secrets to increasing your flexibility that are “lost” to most people.

The reason these secrets are lost is due to erroneous advice from ignorant physical education teachers or sports coaches.

You didn’t know any better at the time, so you accepted their advice as fact, even though it was faulty.

The mind is a funny thing. The first thing you hear often gets precedence, even when it is not deserved. 

Said coach told you, “Don’t bounce when you stretch. Bouncing tears muscles.”

Indeed, bouncing can tear muscles… IF you do it in an idiotic fashion. On the other hand, if you bounce with intelligence and a sense of feel, it can lead to quick improvements in flexibility. 

The second secret is wiggling, which is NOT the same as bouncing. If you get into a position where you feel “stuck,” you learn to squirm around and find a different pathway that leads to the promised land. 

The third secret is playing a game with tension and relaxation. You move into a stretch in a relaxed manner until your nervous system forces you to come to a halt. Relaxing further can help a bit, but it’s also a potential time-waster. 

What to do?

Alternate between tension and relaxation. Squeeze the muscles you are stretching isometrically, then let them go. After you relax, test yourself to see if you can go further in the same stretch. You may be stunned with what you learn about your body when you do this. And it’s usually HUGE.

In fact, tension and relaxation work in tandem so well that you can double your flexibility in a single session. ’tis why I began telling people this over 20 years ago. I’ve watched people who were stiff as steel learn how to achieve their flexibility goals in record time. 

Will it happen to you if you apply the techniques in Combat Stretching?

Of course.

But ONLY if you watch the videos, learn the stretches and DO them.

Combat Stretching is not one of those courses uniquely positioned by marketers who tell you that you don’t need to do anything but “watch the videos,” and in so doing, you’ll “instantly download flexibility into your system.” 

Nah, doesn’t work that way. 

You’ll need to do some work as you learn to become flexible. 

And that’s the bottom line, my friend. Do you want to LEARN?

If so, I can teach you. 

If you want it, the sky becomes a place where you go beyond your previous limitations. 

Start NOW and you’ll be thrilled with your newly found flexibility.

Matt Furey

By the way…

Be sure to follow me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRKuE125AOA

Now that I think about it, I’ve never been to a single New Year’s Eve party in my life. Nor a New Year’s Day party.

This might seem strange to you, but for me it’s perfectly normal. I don’t go to parties and I don’t host them.

Perhaps I could let my hair down a bit, but it’s a little late for that.

The best news I have to report this year, so far, is I got my fifth workout of the new year in this morning.

That means I was training, not freaking partying, on New Years Eve. In fact, on the eve of 2022, I was doing squats and pushups and practicing martial arts.

A friend of mine, who trained with me in the morning on New Years Day told me that most everyone he knows was still drunk and/or hungover when he got out of bed. They thought he was crazy to go train with el Furecat on the first day of the year.

Aren’t you ‘sposed to be taking it easy?

Hell no.

The key to kicking ass and taking names in 2022 isn’t crafting New Years resolutions, setting BIG goals that SCARE YOU, taking massive action or getting out of your comfort zone. None of those strategies work, no matter who touts them.

Yes, these ideas SELL. That’s true. But they don’t work because they are unnatural. 

The natural way to success is recognizing that you can ONLY take one step at a time; that you only get to take one breath at a time and you only get to live one moment at a time. 

Resist this idea all you want. It doesn’t matter. Nature will continue being nature, requiring that you take one step and one breath at a time.

The is why the concept of massive action leads to anxiety, depression and feelings of failure. It’s an unnatural system.

Look at it this way: 

The gyms will be filled for the next week; then there will be a drop off. A week later another drop off will come, and by the end of three weeks, the gyms are back to normal. That’s the truth. 

The DOERS will keep on doing, regardless of what year or what day it is. The DOERS takes one step at a time. They are consistent no matter what. 

Each year there will be more DOERS coming aboard, but you won’t be able to see who they are until the first 21 days of the New Year have passed.

Why? Because it takes 21 days to form a new habit.

Sure, you can change a habit at any time, but getting that habit to stick is another matter. A new habit has to be repeated… repeatedly, for it to stick. 

If it’s a good habit, you need to guard it, even when you think it’s installed. It can still slip away at any time if you’re not ON IT.

If it’s a bad habit, that’s a different story. You needn’t guard your bad habits because they have a not-so-funny way of taking control of you. 

One of the keys to eliminating bad habits is to banish them one at a time.

Again, not massive action. Not a complete overnight overhaul.

One change at a time that you consistently follow over the course of one year represents a monumental shift in your life. 

This is one of the reasons that I advocate DAILY exercise; not the garden-variety three times per week notion. 

Animals in the wild don’t train two or three times a week. They move to survive and to thrive. 

As an aspiring humanimal, I train every day, not only to keep my good habits, but to see how much my mind-body can accomplish. 

If you’ve already partied your way into 2022, no worries. I’m only telling you what I do and why.

Either way, once you GET FOCUSED, everything shifts and changes. Immediately. 

Make today the start of YOUR new year – and the beginning of creating a New YOU. 

Begin or end your day NOW with my international best-sellers, Combat Conditioning, Combat Abs and/or Combat Stretching. 

And let’s see how far you can go with your mind-body this year.

Kick ass – take names.

Matt Furey

P.S. My son is home from college and we’ve been cranking out videos on my YouTube channel. Be sure to check this one out and subscribe.

Ole Farmer Burns knew a thing or two about a thing or two. And when it comes to working your shoulders, he stands on the top of the mountain.

The Farmer may not have understood anatomy the way we do today, but he was darn sure that the shoulder is the joint with the greatest chance of things going wrong.

Your shoulder is the most complex joint in the human body, with 17 muscles that tie into it. Your shoulder allow you to do the simplest of tasks, such as shaving, brushing your teeth or lifting a drink. It allows you to push, pull, twist and throw your arm in multiple directions and from a wide array of angles.

If you have any weakness in the shoulder complex, your chance for injury increases substantially, and that is before something nasty happening to you that exposes you to injury. As a combat athlete and martial artist, I have experienced the agony of getting slammed sideways on my shoulder, or having my arm twisted and torqued behind my back. I have also learned over the years the best ways to recover from this type of injury.

And let me tell ya, the Farmer nailed the healthy shoulder protocol better than any modern day weight-training method. Using nothing more than breathing movements, calisthenics and self-resistance exercises, the Farmer teaches you how to strengthen and heal your shoulders FAST.

The secrets are contained in Lesson in Wrestling and Physical Culture, a 1914 by-mail course that I’ve been teaching from for years. Although most of the course is devoted to teaching wrestling holds, what you learn in Lessons 1 and 3 alone, is worth the price of the book many times over.

Build yourself a pair of bullet-proof shoulders that are flexible and strong from every conceivable direction and angle. The Farmer knows what to do.

Now make sure you learn what to do, and follow through with action.

Order Lesson in Wrestling and Physical Culture NOW and change the life of your shoulders for the better. 

Matt Furey

Over the weekend I received a surprise in my email inbox.

’twas from Phil Campbell, a master speed coach and author of Ready, Set Go! Synergy Fitness – a book I have raved about for years, as well as his more recent Sprint 8: Maximum Results. Minimum Time, which is another gem on sprint training and its profound positive effect on fat loos and muscle gain.

In his books, Phil teaches how he transformed his middle-aged body and ran a 4.7 40-yard dash at 50 years of age. Absolutely phenomenal, eh? So I think the man knows what he’s rapping about.

Anyway, the big surprise was what Phil wrote about my Combat Stretching program. Here goes:

“Matt Furey’s Combat Stretching gets results! Every athlete needs to get it and follow it to improve performance.

In recent years, a few studies have been taken out of context in an attempt to prove static stretching is not beneficial. This is a ridiculous conclusion.

Matt Furey doesn’t go with the crowd. He teaches what works and his Combat Stretching works.

As a speed technique coach for 40 years, I can tell you flexibility is the secret weapon in speed improvement. If you want to help a young athlete improve performance by improving speed, get “Combat Stretching.” It works, and you’ll physically see and feel flexibility improvement within days.

I didn’t say you will like stretching. I personally dislike it. No, I hate it. But the truth is athletes will not live up to their potential unless they are doing a flexibility program like Combat Stretching.

If you are an aging adult like me (age 70 next year) and your aren’t combat stretching, stop taking the pain supplements and follow Matt Furey’s Combat Stretching. Your lower back, shoulders and knees will thank you.”

Phil Campbell, M.S., M.A. FACHE-R, ACSM C-PT.

Thank you so much, Phil. I’m thrilling you are using Combat Stretching and getting results. Your email made my month. Keep me posted on your progress.

Matt Furey

BTW, if you already have Combat Stretching and you want to find out about Phil’s Speed program for athletes, go to 40speed.com

It only took 15 years for them to catch on… slightly… but we’re now starting to see some “western” fitness trainers touting the benefits of walking/running in reverse.

If we take a look at Christmas past, you’ll note that el Furecat was teaching “reverse training” as early as 2003, but didn’t formalize any of it into a best-selling course until 2007.

That course, Dao Zou, begins with easy exercises, then builds to a crescendo, showing me swimming backwards (in the 3rd DVD), doing the butterfly, the king of all strokes.

Naturally, being able to move the way I move in reverse, led me to becoming adept in many other areas as well. For example, with a pen in my hand, I learned to write cursive, with either hand, in both directions.

When you learn the internal and the external components of reverse training, you are doing far more than what is observable physically.

One of the greatest benefits of Dao Zou is that it engages your brain and nervous system, promoting a coolness and calmness rarely seen, and at a level that cannot be matched with regular walking and running.

I’ve put in tens of thousands of miles in reverse, so I have definitely experienced and lived what I am talking about.

Want to be cool, calm, collected and have a mind that is unstoppable… even in reverse, then…

OrderDao Zou NOW.

It’s a game changer.

Matt Furey

In the fall of 2002, I did a series of seminars in the U.K. and Ireland. ’twas London herself, though, where a martial arts master told me the following:

“I did 500 Hindu squats the first day I received your Combat Conditioning book and DVDs in the mail. I wasn’t able to do all the reps without stopping, but I knocked them out in about 30 minutes. I wanted to prove to myself that your workout was no big deal. And I could barely walk for about a week after.”

I was stunned with this man’s story. His grit and determination are part of what have made him into one helluva martial artist. Yet, I think he would be the first to forewarn you, “Don’t be an idiot. Make haste slowly.”

As for myself, I didn’t do 500 Hindu squats in a row the first day I learned the proper form. Nor did I do 500 cumulatively throughout the day. I did a couple sets of 40 and one of 20, and I was finished. And that was too much, as I was sore for three days. Yes, I was still able to walk. I did enough reps to be sore, but not even close to as sore as my friend in the U.K.

Over a period of weeks and months, I was able to knockout more reps per set. But I was making one big mistake that was holding me back. That mistake was doing squats every other day. When I switched to EVERYDAY, my results shot up much, much faster.

If you do as the U.K. martial arts master did, you cannot do Hindu squats the day after you trained because you abused your body beyond belief. But if you begin with a “slow and steady” mindset, you most certainly can do “at least some” Hindu squats everyday.

Once I embarked upon daily Hindu squats, I was able to do 100 in a row for the first time within a couple more weeks of training. Keep in mind, though, I’d been doing them 3x per week for many weeks prior to the upgrade.

After doing 100 in a row, I learned a few secrets that enabled me to blast through numerous plateaus. In hindsight, I realize it took longer to get to 500 in a row than I expected when I began the journey, but once I was there, the time it took seemed, as the song says, “like a flicker.”

One of the unheralded benefits of doing Hindu squats everyday is how it changes your brain. When you become the type of person who refuses to skip a day, this mindset transfers into other areas of your life. You become super-focused and productive. Anything you put your eyes on, you accomplish. And you do it with far greater ease than most.

The benefits of doing Hindu squats on a daily basis are numerous, but make sure you begin slowly. The trick isn’t how many you can do the first day; it’s becoming the type of fitness phenom who can do some every single day.

Some people, believe it or not, should only do 1-5 repetitions the first day. And they should make no attempt to double that number in the beginning. Just prove to yourself that you can stick with a program of 1-5 reps daily. Prove to yourself that you can set a simple daily goal and stick with it. Do you realize that most people can’t and/or won’t. Sad but true, weakness runs amuck, and the best way to stop being mentally weak is doing something that begins to physically strengthen you.

Always start small and allow yourself to naturally and spontaneously make improvements, without forcing yourself into it.

People who ignore this message and do tons of reps the first day, tend to be the types who NEVER do them again. Why? Because the exercise itself is a reminder of the trauma they inflicted on themselves.

So ignore the pop-psychology of “getting out of your comfort zone,” and “taking massive action.”

Start slowly and be consistent, and the time it takes you to do 500-straight Hindu squats will, in retrospect, seem as though it flew by.

Kick ass – take names.

Matt Furey

P.S. If you don’t have the Combat Conditioning book and DVDs, then you’re avoiding a life-changer. You want results, then follow the Furecat.

P.P.S. You already have the program and you want to go to the next level, to 500-Hindu squats in a row, then make sure you get the coaching I offer on my membership site.