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Workout structure If I shouldn't be doing the sealrangerpjsniperspecialforces high intensity all the time workouts, what should I be doing? Couple different options. But either way you'll be doing high intensity no more than twice a week. No seriously, don't jack with the formula. I told my Squad leader once "Don't f*ck with the system or the system will f*ck you back". He found out the hard way. I even found out as well despite my own advice. The CNS burnout as noted above and pulled my piriformis trying to be 'hard core' which really means stupid. Here's what Pavel had to say in a recent conversation on the subject "Com. Nathan, training on deployment should differ from training stateside. At home you can frequently push hard. On deployment you never know when the balloon might go up and being smoked is not an option. 'Easy strength' training like low rep/low volume weighted pullups and pistols is in order. KB basics like swings and get-ups, done daily but not to exhaustion, almost in the GTG format. Training daily is important because it trains you to recover faster (as long as you use moderation). Daily mobility work is a must. Pimping the Tacfit and 4X7 formula So the high intensity of Crossfit like programs is decidedly bad when going into a burning building or firefight as it fries the CNS and may make you too sore to function properly. For the last couple months I've been following a 4X7 format. Basically you scale your levels of intensity over a period of 4 days. This makes recovery already planned into it, not just randomly. You will do these 4 days for 7 cycles following the body's natural energy patterns of peaking every 4 days and and even higher peak on the 28th day. It's really advanced when you look at the science, but in application very simple. Here's an easy explanation blog post 'The importance of 4' You start with a moderate intensity day, the next day in the cycle is your high intensity day, then the day after you slow down to a no intensity day and last a low intensity day. For example in the Tacfit model of this four day cycle, your moderate day is your strength day. You can work kettlebells, Olympic lifts, power lifts, gymnastics what ever strength program you want as long as you keep the intensity to moderate. Your high intensity day would be a 20 min conditioning circuit at high intensity. The no intensity days are your full joint mobility drills that you also use as daily warm ups such as Intu-Flow. Don't under-estimate the no intensity day, it is not an 'off' day. Coach Sonnon states in the Tacfit program if you can't do anything else make sure you do some of these mobility drills daily. They are the most important thing you can do while running high level missions. I have no idea how it works, but I've seen significant improvements since starting Intu-Flow a couple years back. Things you wouldn't even expect like reaction time improvements, coordination and balance on top of the dramatic improvements in range of motion. An example in the video below. Low Intensity days are your light stretching yoga type stuff. At first I resisted the Prasara, a form of moving yoga, cause let's face it chicks do yoga. I didn't want anything to do with it. But I did find significant health and relaxation from stretching every day. I got a 15 min follow along video with my Bodyweight Exercise Revolution E-Book, so I tried it out. I realised it was basically stretching but more along the lines of PNF. I like it minus the lame names. I still won't call it downward facing dog, the jail buddy position seems more appropriate. But it also happens to be one of the best posterior chain stretch/relaxers I've ever experienced. Took me a full month to get into full position. The easiest way to explore this as a beginner is through Flowfit, which is a tutorial from beginner to advanced. It's also speciffically reccomended for Tacfit. Trying to jump straight into the regular Prasara practices can be quite difficult without this simple groundwork. But enough about my ass in the air. The following video warm-up is a combination of Intu-Flow and Prasara designed for tactical applications. You can do something like this as a warm-up for both moderate and high intensity days. Several of the exercises are in this video
An intro into the TacFit system by Coach Sonnon
So how can I do this if I don't have the Tacfit program? Here's the blue collar poor man's version. Moderate intensity day- Westside for skinny bastards or Starting Strength High intensity day- Pick a named Crossfit workout that is approximately 20 min, for example Cindy: As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of 5 pull-ups 10 pushups 15 air squats No intensity day- Make 3-5 rotations with your neck, shoulders, arms, thorax, wrists, fingers, hips, knees and ankles Low intensity day- Find some yoga poses for your tight areas and hold them for a count of 5 breathes. I used the same counting method with regular stretches too. Another very excellent source that isn't very expensive at all is the E-book mentioned above by Coach Murdoch and Steer Bodyweight Exercise Revolution. This should be a must have item for deployments. It literally requires no equipment. Most 'bodyweight only' programs usually require a pull-up bar or something else. In the General Athleticism section, the high intensity day is along the lines of the example Tabata workout but with some special exercises that follow the no equipment guidelines. Beast of a workout, but no soreness the next day and no CNS burnout, which is our goal on deployment or active job status. Here's something else that's pretty cool from Coach Sonnon on the question of tacvests and airpacks. "Yes TACFIT® was designed with your tacvest in mind. The spinal rocks in particular aid in you internal management of core activation and spinal recruitment. The mat relays specifically were crafted to optimize the architecture of your joints for power generation and ground ambulation."-Scott Sonnon I'm not so sure I like the Tacfit Kool-Aid yet, smells funky. What are other options? Along the same lines, conduct a strength program like Westside for Skinny Bastards, paying particular attention to the 'In-Season' template. Do this approximately twice a week or so depending on your missions load. I would still highly recommend doing the Intu-Flow or some other joint mobility work daily, your future career and health will thank you. Just the strength plus daily missions should serve you well, but if you're gonna be operating in higher elevations doing some conditioning work is probably warranted. Keep them to roughly 20 minutes and simple. The kettlebell workout in Nathan's 9mm's is an excellent base. To mix it up toss in a Crossfit named workout or a Tabata workout. Do these the day after your strength work and again approximately twice a week or every fours days depending upon mission load. Move fobbit or I will crush you with this tire!! Crossfit-The good, the bad and the not that ugly, your buddy would hit it The Kool-Aid for Crossfit, Gym Jones or any other program of high intensity all the time is a strong brew. But that doesn't mean it isn't valid. It has a lot of good things going. Bodybuilders get smoked cause they have to do actual hard conditioning. Triathletes get destroyed by having to lift things heavier than their bike for the first time. Everybody but the gymnasts get crushed by the bodyweight exercises. There is a ton of balance in the crossfit program....from a strictly exercise standpoint. Where there isn't balance is in intensity level. It's high intensity all the time three days on, one day off. A lot of the fire service, special ops and swat teams have been pimping the Crossfit. It is good, but it's not ideal for those of us in those professions. I do like it and there is a ton of resources on the crossfit site. The individual workouts are excellent, they just need a different format which are be covered above. But I can't live without my Crossfit!! Well guess what there is a way to do it without total burnout. But it is NOT to be done during active mission status. It's called a hard controlled push. Push hard for 4 weeks. Then take two weeks at a low intensity working on strictly recovery and compensation. NO hard training, just active recovery in a style as guided by the Low Intensity day described below. Self-discipline is the key here. Another version I've found to work with other programs is three weeks of increasing intensity followed by a down week. I've mainly used this in periodized models where the down week was learning the new exercises and getting the weights to the right level. Then for three weeks steadily increase either the weights or total reps. It's a bit harder with program semi-randomized like Crossfit and would take an enourmous amount of discipline to maintain the appropriate levels of intensity. I wouldn't reccomend this format for time dependant workouts. It works best with stregth workouts that you can more easily have discipline over the volume and intensity. This article from the RAW Program pretty much sums up the good and bad of Crossfit type workouts- Are Crossfit and Gym Jones Compatible with RAW (Word doc.) Read the whole article here
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