Monthly Archives: May 2006

Observe this man:

The text reads: "This version of the posture requires considerable strength in the neck, shoulders, and back requiring years of practice to achieve. It should not be attempted without supervision."

Actually, it should not be attempted at all.

In this position, blood pools in the head (the head does not have valves within the veins for venous return to occur to force blood back towards the lungs for re-oxygenation).

Also, the cervical vertebrae are literally being compressed and crushed.

Furthermore, it does not take great strength in the arms, shoulders and back to do this ‘position.’ In fact, it takes no strength at all.

But it takes great strength to get out of it!

I have no real beef with Yoga. But I do take issue with people putting themselves into positions or performing certain exercises for the purposes of improving their health that actually cause them harm.

Hey I care! So sue me!

It seems like my Yankees are dropping like flies. (Non baseball fans please forgive me but I must blog on this!)

Back pains, hamstring strains, sore this, ruptured that – it’s like a plague upon the house that Ruth built.

Someone get some lambs blood quick!

But that’s too gross a solution (mind the pun). Besides, do you know how many lambs you’d have to sacrifice to smear it over every gate opening at Yankee Stadium?

I’ve got a better idea.

Slow Burn and some good old fashioned low back strengthening.

I wrote a letter to the Yankees way back when Don Mattingly played in the 90’s and was suffering from debilitating back pain – pain which eventually ended his amazing career just a year shy of winning a championship ring.

So sad because Donny Baseball deserved to win one as a player.

The letter explained how lumbar strengthening could cure Donny’s back pain and that the machine required to do the job (along with my help gratis) was easy to get and cost a mere 4K – the price of about 6 or 7 beers at the stadium.

Of course, my letter fell on deaf ears. I mean, who the heck is Fred Hahn to tell us, the Yankees, we need to strengthen our players using Slow Burn, quit stretching them like silly putty, halt all sport specific drills (the very sort that injure them on the field for crying out loud) and purchase a good lower back machine.

The gall of them to ignore me!

But, had they listened to little old me, I am absolutely certain Don Mattingly would have played a few more years and won that ring as a player.

If they would listen to me now, they would not be suffering from the injuries they are plagued with today – save for the ones that occur regardless of how strong you are like broken wrists (poor Matsui yeeouch!)

and torn rotator cuffs from throwing baseballs faster than a cheetah can run.

Any ideas on how I could get them to hear me are welcomed with open ears!

And thank you all for allowing me to blog-beat my chest a bit on this issue this fine morning.

Check out the June issue of Allure magazine. On page 139 you’ll see the outcome of our gal’s 8 week leg makeover fat loss results! Not too shabby.

And while it’s a nice spread, the editor goofed on the results. (Why is it that magazine editors always botch the information you give them?)

Our gal, who they call Susan, lost a whopping 9.8 pounds of fat (not 5), 3.8 inches off her waist, 1 inch off of each thigh and 1 inch off her hips all in 8 weeks  exercising for only 1 hour a week and sometimes less.

Every other gal exercised almost everyday for an hour at a clip and we got the best results!

In fact, she went from average to ideal on the body fat percentage chart and that is no easy feat.

So check it out when you get a chance.

I’ll tell ya – I’m stumped.

I’ve hired 2 professional companies to think of a Serious Strength tag line and neither one could not come up with anything better than I could.

Right now we are using ‘Results. Not Typical.’ But I don’t like it. You’ll understand why later.

Some were so bad I was shocked.

"Yeah, like what?!" I’m sure you’re thinking.

OK – I’ll indulge. Here’s a couple they came up with:

"The Workout That Doesn’t Work."

"The Body That Builds You"

Some were OK, but most lacked punch and more importantly, an overt benefit.

What is an overt benefit? An overt benefit directly addresses a strongly felt need.

Let’s take Fred’s Shoeshine Shop as an example. A feature of my shoeshine shop is that I alone use Spanky’s shoe shine cream. However, Spanky’s shoe shine cream is a feature – not a benefit. I mean, so what that I use Spanky’s shoe cream – who gives a hoot?

What does Spanky’s cream do for the customer?

Spanky’s cream allows for a faster shoe shine. AH – a benefit emerges. Fast shoe shine.

Now we’re talking.

But a fast shoeshine is a mere benefit – not an overt one.

How fast of a shoeshine is the question.

A 30 second shoe shine

Now that’s overt.

So on my shoeshine shop sign I remove:

Spanky’s Cream Shine

and replace it with:

The 30 Second Shine

Business triples in a week.

Of course, I’d better be telling the truth or biz will crash to a halt pretty fast.

But here is the problem. You can believe a 30 second shoe shine is possible.

Most people cannot and will not believe the concept of a 30 minute a week fitness program. In fact, it directly opposes the world view of how much exercise is needed or why bother.

And when your product’s major selling point sounds like major snake oil, you’ve got a major problem. Result: You are ignored.

None of the marketing pros I hired got either concept all that well.

I’ve made a personal commitment to you that that every single blog you read will educate and offer you something of value, hence the title: "This Blogs For You!"

So here’s the value of this one.

Anyone who submits a tag line that gets used as the Serious Strength tag will receive an autographed book and DVD and 5 complimentary training sessions with me personally at Serious Strength which NEVER expire. So for all you ‘out of towners’ you can always come to the gym whenever you visit NYC.

Those who can never make it to Serious Strength will receive an autographed book and DVD and may gift the 5 sessions to a local friend.

You’ll also have the satisfaction that you created the tag when we go public – someday.

Send all submissions to [email protected]

I’ll alert the winner, if any, on this blog. You may offer as many tags as you like. Alliteration is always a plus as is honesty.

Reminder: "Just Do IT" is already taken.

Think Overt Benefit. Think honesty. Think gut level. Think easy to understand and grasp.

Folks these days, according to Seth Godin are so inundated with information they will ignore everything they see unless a product is so different and overt it is like a purple cow in a valley of brown ones.

Even then…

Good luck to all! I’m excited!