Firing Up the Cranky Consumer of the Wall Street Journal

Teammates,

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal's Cranky Consumer author (Charles Passe) wrote a survey of the latest "As Seen On TV" products (20MAR). I'm not exactly thrilled that the Perfect Pushup is lumped into the TV product category, because of the stigma associated with fitness gimmicks that have been traditionally associated with infomercials. Despite the company of products we were compared with, we were most pleased with the statement: "No false advertising here..." BUT - the point of this discussion is not about patting ourselves on the back for getting into a major publication - the point is to discuss the author's comment about only the fit should use the Perfect Pushup - THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT ATTITUDE.

From kids to seniors, there's a place for using the Perfect Pushup in your workout. If you haven't run in ages, would you get on a treadmill and crank it up to 10 mph?? No, of course not, like all things in exercise, sport, or hobby, you start slow and work your way up as your body adapts to the movement. One thing I DO NOT TOLERATE are people who discourage people from the very beginning on even trying an exercise - THAT IS NOT A WINNING ATTITUDE.

The job of any coach, trainer or teacher is to encourage and teach the patterns of success. Success for my 67 year old father using the Perfect Pushup is placing it on the wall and learning the rotation; success for my group exercise class that I teach weekly (men and women from the ages of 25-65 yrs) is using gravity as their resistance and conducting "negatives" (lowering yourself to the ground over a 5 second interval) on their knees, on their feet or even on their hips; and success defined for the professional athletes, Special Operations warriors, Fire and Police men and women is conducting two minute drills or longer on the Perfect Pushup....HOWEVER, None of these groups would ever succeed at the exercise until they Tried it and Trained with it. As you turn on your strength - no matter your age or fitness level - NEVER EVER allow yourself to succumb to one person's opinion of what you can or cannot do - who on God's Green earth should dictate what you can or can't do - No, this is your life, you decide what you can or can't do. There are two kinds of people in this world - those that try and those that don't.

You'll never know if you can do something until you try.

Stay Fired UP - I am!

CHARLIE MIKE - ALDEN