OdinLife – Odin Life – Strong Liftz

Interview with Photographer / Adventurer Daniel Kordan

OdinLife — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 03:52:33 +0000

Daniel Kordan has been fascinated by the possibilities of photography since early childhood.

“I grew up at beautiful lake region under Moscow exploring wild nature, spending most of my free time in the nature. I graduated the art painting school when I was a kid. Mix art, nature, constant activities and you’ll receive a summary – art of Landscape photography.”

“Life started swirling me, pushing me into the rush. University, hard work on my quantum physics thesis, family and friends… But there is always a pleasure in the pathless woods: places I always returned and always admired. Nature is my inspiration, with all the beauty and variety of colors and compositions.”

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

“Lucky for me during my study at Institute of Physics and Technology I gained experience not only in physics, but also in mountain climbing and hiking, guiding tourist groups in winter and in summer. I became a guide of photo-workshops and chief editor of “Continent expedition” magazine. We wrote awesome articles travel and adventures all over the world competing even with National Geographic.”

“I live in the world today, but there are places on Earth, I attached with by my soul. It’s villa Gaia in Tuscany I live mainly these days. I love Lofoten islands, with their remarkable atmosphere of fishing villages, sailing adventures, incredible hikes and northern lights dances during the winter time.”

He has won several awards in photography, including: Golden Turtle’ 13 Nature nomination winner, National Geographic Russia contest 2013 winner, Best of Russia’13, ’14 ’15 winner, bestphotographer’13, Trierenberg Super Circuit award (best landscape photographer). He has been featured in publications and in such magazines as Digital SLR Magazine, UK, Photography week, Photography Master Class, National Geographic, Discovery, Photoworld China, Digital Photo (Bauer Media) magazines. His key clients are Nikon, Apple, Gazprom Neft’, S7 Airlines, and RedBull.

“I am spending most of my time in Norway at Lofoten islands and in Tuscany at our villa Gaia, guiding groups from Europe, UK, US, Asia and Russia.”

Daniel’s equipment:
Nikon D800, Nikon D810,
Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8,
Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8,
Nikkor 14 f/2.8,
Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8,
Nikkor 50 mm f/2.8.
Tripods: Gitzo.

OdinLife.com: What inspires you to travel?

Daniel: Our planet was given to us to explore it. We are here not to produce money for money, but we are here to feel, listen and explore our beautiful world. When I see first rays of sun, beautiful colors in the sky, they inspire me to move forward. These are simple things that drive me: sunsets and sunrises, walk in mountains, sounds of waterfall and singing of birds in the trees. I just feel happy and in harmony in the nature. And even more happy when I am able to share the beauty of our world with others and inspire them to travel and feel the same.

What is the most memorable trip you have had in recent memory? Tell us about it.

The most recent very exciting event was the Altiplano project:

There are not so many places in the world where you can enjoy absolute dark sky. Light pollution is in the cities and even small villages. Besides, it’s hard to get the very clear sky. Altiplano suits as the best possible place on Earth to observe stars. So I planned a month-road trip for astrophotography.

The most incredible experience was on the flooded Uyuni! It was hard to believe our eyes and senses. It seemed that we float in the open space. Our spaceship is parked in a distance, and stars are blinking with blue, red and yellow colors. You stand in the deep night with stars above you, aside from you and underneath! It’s space on Earth, isn’t it?

Of course we expected difficulties on our way.

First of all, high elevation. Photography session was on 4000 – 5000 m above sea level! We needed 5-6 days to acclimatize and next spent 2 weeks at Altiplano, full time at 4000 – 5000 m! Of course, its hard to move and hard to breath. But due to proper planning, we were safe and healthy.
It was incredible experience to drive in the night on the flooded Uyuni salt flats. Literally you can’t see a thing, just absolutely black tunnel in front of your car. What you feel is just how your car going through the mess of water and salt. It’s very easy to get stuck on the dangerous surface. Usually it’s up to 5-10 cm of water above the salt, but sometimes it go deeper. We made a gps track during the daytime to this exact place and followed it precisely in the night.

Favorite Photo taken so far?

http://kordan.35photo.ru/photo_686741/#author/686741

Might be this, but all of them are very different

What would you tell someone that wants to travel but is afraid due to budget or other reasons?

I travelled since I was a student with not a penny in my pocket. There is always a way if you dream!

What are your favorite things to do to prepare for a trip to new country?

The most exciting is to read about the place I’d like to visit and seek inspiration in films and videos. I love to speak with local people and talk to them planning all stuff.

What’s your next big project?

The next project is our “Two poles” expedition from Arctic to Antarctica by yacht. We started from Sant Petersburg and continue through Svalbard, Greenland, Azores islands to the South pole!

Any last tips for new travelers and photographers?

Don’t be afraid to explore and to grow! It’s possible even with very low budget – just hike in mountains, travel with friends.
Publish your photos, listen for critique.
Don’t make pause in photography, even when you are at home – learn, watch and prepare your future trips.
Dream and make a wish, and everything will happen!

Where can people follow you online?

https://www.instagram.com/danielkordan/

DanielKordan.com

https://www.facebook.com/dk.scape

Motivation

OdinLife — Sun, 25 Sep 2016 04:14:56 +0000

Find the strength from within.

Fitness Motivation Quote – You Want Something? Go Get It. Period.

The Best Project You’ll Ever Work On is You – Fitness Motivational Quote

“For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger. – Fitness Motivation Quotes

Best Forearm Workout Exercises

OdinLife — Sun, 25 Sep 2016 00:51:08 +0000

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE BEST FOREARM EXERCISES AND HOW TO CREATE FOREARM WORKOUTS THAT REALLY WORK, THEN YOU WANT TO READ THIS ARTICLE.

The forearms are the calves of the arms.

You can have everything working up top but it’s a shame if it tapers off to spindles.

Forearm training serves a purpose greater than vanity, too.

It builds your grip strength, which is vital for progressing on your major pulling movements like the row and deadlift. It can help you progress faster in your chest and shoulder pressing as well.

To see why, hold your arm out in front of you and squeeze your hand into a fist as hard as you can.

Notice how all the muscles in your arm and your shoulder engages?

Well, in this way, training your forearms with the exercises in this article will also train your arms and shoulders.

The bottom line is the bigger and stronger your forearms are, the better your arms are going to look and the better you’re going to progress in your weightlifting.

And in this article, I’m going to show you exactly what you need to do to get forearms that would make Popeye jealous.

So let’s get to it.

Understanding the Forearm Anatomy

Your forearms are comprised of several smaller muscles, which are divided into two groups:

Flexors
Extensors
As you can guess, the flexors are used for flexion at the wrist and fingers and extensors for extension.

(Flexion is a bending movement and extension a straightening one.)

Flexors are also responsible for pronation and extensors for supination.

(Pronation at the forearm is rotation that places the palm facing down and supination is rotation that places it facing up.)

Here’s how the flexors look, which are on the inside of your arm:

And here’s how the extensors look, which are on the outside:

We could dive deeper into the musculature and talk about the various superficial, intermediate, and deep muscles, but it’s not necessary.

All you need to know is one set of muscles flexes the wrist and fingers and pronates the arm and another set extends them and supinates the arm.

The Simple Science of Effective Forearm Training

Building big, strong forearms is fairly straightforward.

Do a lot of heavy pushing, pulling, and curling.
Do a handful of additional forearm exercises as needed.
In fact, some people find that #2 is unnecessary–that heavy chest, back, and arm training alone is enough.

Many others, though, (including me) find that grip weakness limits progress on #1 and forearm training is an easy fix.

So, while your grip strength will naturally improve through a proper weightlifting program, there are quite a few grip exercises that you can do to speed up the process.

The Best Forearm Exercises

Given the function of the forearm muscles, the exercises that train them best are the exercises generally used to increase grip strength.

Let’s take a look at each.

Hand Exercisers

An extremely effective way to train your forearms is to train your “crush grip.”

This involves nothing more than hand flexion–closing your hand around an object and squeezing–but it’s great for building strong forearm flexors, wrists, hands, and fingers.

One of the easiest ways to improve your crush grip is to use a hand exerciser…if you use it properly.

You need enough resistance to allow for a full range of motion but not so little that it barely challenges you or so so much that you can barely budge it.

Here are the two hand exercisers that I like most and recommend:

Gripmaster Hand Exerciser

The Gripmaster is a good place to start training your crush grip.

It comes in several tension levels (I started with medium and worked my way up to black) and I also like that it allows you to train each finger independently. This is great for strengthening the weaker links in your grip like the pinky and ring fingers.

“Captains of Crush” Hand Exerciser

Once you’ve defeated the black Gripmaster, you’re ready for the big-leagues.

And in grip trainers, that’s the Captains of Crush gripper.

They’ve been on the market for about 15 years now and are quite popular in bodybuilding, powerlifting, and strongman circles.

You have 11 strength options to choose from, ranging from 60 pounds to an incredible 365 pounds, and a good place to start if you’re coming off the Gripmaster is 60 or 80 pounds.

If, however, you’re an experienced weightlifter that can overhand deadlift 300+ pounds without straps, you can probably start with the 100-pound model.

How to Use the Hand Exerciser

The first thing you need to know to use a hand exercise is how to set it properly in your hand.

Next you’ll need to know how to build a “workout” with a hand exercise and how frequently you should use it.

Here are the basic guidelines:

Use Proper Form

If you’re an experienced weightlifter, you know how important proper form is.

The difference between doing an exercise correctly and incorrectly can be night-and-day in terms of progress and results.

As silly as it may sound, hand squeezes are the same way.

Full squeezes are far more effective than partial squeezes. And no twisting your arm or body to gain additional leverage!

How to Structure Your Hand Exerciser Workouts

A hand exerciser workout is fairly simple:

Do 5 to 6 sets of squeezes per workout and shoot for 8 to 10 reps per set.
Rest 1 to 2 minutes in between sets.
Ultimately, your goal is to successfully do 5 to 6 sets of 8 to 10 squeezes per set.
Once you can do this, you’re ready to move up to the next level of resistance.
You can also increase the difficulty of your sets by including “squeeze-and-hold” reps.
You do this by fully squeezing the hand exerciser and holding it closed for 10 to 20 seconds (start with 10 seconds and work up from there).

Many people like to end their sets with one squeeze-and-hold rep.

Barbell Hold

The barbell hold is a brutally simple forearm exercise that’s easy to include at the end of a workout.

Here’s how to do it:

Shoot for a hold time of 10 to 20 seconds per set and once you hit 20 seconds, raise the weight by 10 pounds.

Work with that weight until you can hold it for 20 seconds, raise, and so forth.

Plate Pinch

The plate pinch is another simple forearm exercise that only requires a couple weight plates.

Here’s how it works:

Start with two 10 pound weights and, like the barbell hold, go for a hold time of 10 to 20 seconds per set, and once you hit 20, add weight to the pinch.

The most common way to do add weight isn’t to jump up to a 25 pound plate, though–it’s adding another 10 pound plate to the pinch (for a total of 30 pounds).

You can stack 10 pound plates like this until you run out of hand room and then move on to heavier plates.

Oversized Grips

Thick bar training has been “a thing” for decades and oversized grips are an easy way to incorporate it into your training.

They’re popular because you don’t have to add or change anything about your workout routine–you simply snap the rubber grips onto the barbell or dumbbells and you’re ready to go.

That said, the marketing tends to be hinky, so take it with a grain of salt.

No, oversized grips aren’t “powerful muscle builders”…but they are a cost-effective way to train your forearms and grip.

I’ve used them quite a bit and found that I like them best on my pushing and curling but not my heavy pulling.

The reason for this is simple: you can’t pull nearly as much weight with them than without, and the amount of weight you have to strip off the bar just isn’t worth it.

You can, however, use them when you warm up for heavy pulls (and then take them off when it’s show time).

Dumbbell Farmer Walk

This is an old school strongman exercise that will never lose its place in the pantheon of forearm builders.

Here’s how it works:

Shoot for 30 to 40 feet walked per “set,” and once you’re able to move a given weight for that distance, move up.

The Ultimate Forearm Workout Routine

The forearm muscles are very resilient, but training them too frequently becomes counter-productive. And especially if you’re also doing a fair amount of heavy weightlifting as well.

That’s why I recommend you follow these guidelines:

Use oversized grips on your push exercises and curls and when you warm up for heavy pulling.
End one of your regular workouts with 2 to 3 sets of barbell holds.
Personally I did these after my weekly back workouts.

End one of your regular workouts with 2 to 3 sets of plate pinches.
Put a couple days in between these sets and the barbell holds.

I did my plate pinches after my weekly leg workouts.

Do 6 sets of the hand exerciser per week.
I did these on the the 2 days per week that I don’t lift weights.

And just so it’s clear, here’s exactly how I laid my routine out:

Monday

Chest with oversized grips

Tuesday

Back and barbell holds

Wednesday

Arms with oversized grips

Thursday

Shoulders with oversized grips

Friday

Legs with plate pinches

Saturday

Rest and hand exerciser

Sunday

Rest and hand exerciser

Simple enough!

The Bottom Line on Forearm Workouts

In many ways, forearm training is like ab training.

If you follow a sensible weightlifting routine and have good genetics, you may never need it.

If, however, you’re struggling to gain size in your forearms and your grip strength is lacking, this article can help.

Like abs, you don’t need to get fancy to build your forearms. You just need to get stronger in the handful of simple exercises outlined above.