First, that title is a lie, there will be exactly two-steps taken.
After that, any and all steps taken in addition is a signpost where your body
broke and what you want to work on.
This is a three-exercise warm-up that will wake-up all those lovely
major muscle groups, provide some active stretching, wake-up that spine, and
tell your heart and lungs it’s “Go time!”
When done to protocol and speed it is a sub-5-minute warm-up.
Keeping it under 5-minutes [or as close to 5 as you can manage]
allows you more time to work on the heavy-hitters of strength and tactical cultivation.
The good news about the Never-Stake-a-Step Regimen is that it
serves as a nice just below the redline cardio burner and is enough of a muscle
pusher that those into somatotropics should find it a utilitarian muscle-builder.
Note: This is not meant as a cardio-replacer in and of itself but…if
you hit this Sub-5 with good protocol 3-days per week and use Blitz Drills
on alternating days, which last for a total of a strict 4-minutes, then you
do have a “cardio-replacer” leaving you more time to do the important Two
Skills.
Skill One-Strength. As, yes, indeed, stronger is harder to kill.
Skill Two-Tactical Cultivation. Uneducated warriors kill, wound, damage, hit, tap, or
control fewer than educated warriors.
Being a stronger educated warrior is always net positive.
[The Blitz Drills are explored in detail on RAW 209, not everything
in this world is a giveaway. Consult your Heinlein.]
So, what are these magic exercises?
Nothing magical at all, the three are familiar as hell. The secret
is in performance standards, sequencing, the “gaming,” and the clock.
THE THREE
Squats, push-ups, and wall-walks.
See? Nothing new…yet.
First let’s look at how we want to perform these.
The Squat
Leg endurance is foundational to combat athletes. Boxers, wrestlers,
MMA athletes all have gotta have legs that can go go go.
We can pound the pavement with old school roadwork, or we can go
the equally old school deep-knee-bend method and save ourselves some time and
impact forces.
Note:
For my athletes that worry that squats might “interfere” with their strength or
combat training if this is the “warm-up” implying [correctly] that I intend those
to proceed directly into either strength or combat sessions, I offer…
Hitting your squats first is your price of entry. If your legs can’t
handle squats pre-combat training than perhaps your conditioning is not exactly
on par yet.
Hitting squats prior to strength work acts as both a dynamic
warm-up, a loaded stretch, and a bit of a blow-up that enhances gains when you
step under load.
Doubt it? Try it for two weeks and then look at the changes in your
legs.
Protocol
It does not matter if your squats are military deep-knee-bends,
Hindu squats, Prisoner squats, Zombie squats, Sulky squats or any other variant
that merely changes where you place your arms. What matters is the following.
·
Stand
with your back and heels against a wall.
·
Take
two steps forward [those are the last two we want to make.]
·
Feet
shoulder width apart.
·
Soles
remain flat throughout the top and bottom of the motion.
·
Go
all the way down… “Ass to grass.”
·
Come
all the way up—hips forward at the end of each rep.
·
And
cadence---No bouncing. Lose the idea of CrossFit speed.
·
We
will be doing 100 reps and the proper cadence of a non-stop set puts this
coming in around the 2:30 minute mark.
·
Much
faster than that and you are likely using elastic load to bounce off the bottom
taking away a bit of the “fun.”
The Push-Up
This is another standard so familiar it almost needs no commentary
but…
Most every military unit on the planet uses the push-up as part of
its fitness standards.
There is not a boxer or wrestler on earth who should not be intimately
familiar with this hallmark of floorwork.
Many a good strength trainer uses the Push-Up 35 Test
to see just how strong you are no matter what those bench numbers say.
Well, we will be doing more than 35. What’s your guess? 75? 100?
Nah, a mere 50 but…
The Protocol
·
After
squat number 100…
·
Squat
back down and extend yourself into plank position.
·
Descend
until the upper thighs and chest touch the ground simultaneously.
·
No
ass-up, head down noise.
·
Once
you’ve touched the correct bits of anatomy, push to the top of the motion to
elbows extended.
·
We
desire 50 reps at controlled cadence no bouncing off the bottom elastic load abominations.
Be in control of your body. The bag and the pads are for explosion.
·
We
seek not to break our repetition cadence, that is we want our 50 in one go.
If…we feel the urge to pause come upon us….
·
Do
not stop.
·
Do
not knee-down rest.
·
Do
not pike the hips.
·
Do
not shake the hands out.
·
Rather,
if/when your body says the next rep will not be pure…
·
Drop
to both knees in so-called “Girl Push-Up” position and finish your reps at the
same cadence as a drop-set.
Do not beat yourself up if you must drop-set in the beginning, or
on an offish day, it happens. The key is to keep work rate and the burn going.
The Wall-Walk
A grappler’s stand-by. This builds the back-arch like nobody’s
business.
But even if you are not a grappler, the wall-walk is manna for building
and maintaining a strong and supple spinal column and waking up that posterior chain.
The Protocol
·
After
push-up number 50 push yourself back to standing.
·
Without
taking a step, arch backward looking for that wall.
·
Walk
your hands down the wall until your hairline touches the mat/floor.
·
Pause
for a beat, then walk back up all the way to standing.
·
Do
not merely stop at the top of the hands-at-the-top of the wall walk, come to
the true stand so you must hit the back-arch from standing each and every rep.
How many reps?
A mere 5.
That’s all?
Yep.
Our key here is sequencing.
Recall that we have performed 100 squats, 50 push-ups without taking
one step beyond the two preparatory steps.
It may not sound like much on paper or on the screen but if you
are playing the game right, you will want to take a step.
A breather step.
A “gimme a moment” step.
A “I’m tired and lost my balance on the wall-walk” step.
Goal One:
Take No Step
Goal Two:
Bring it in under 5-Minutes without sacrificing performance protocol.
[If your time is close to the 4-minute mark, I say slow down and
get the full effect, you might be in the realm of “riding the bounce.” Don’t be
that cheater.]
In the beginning you may come in above the 5-minute mark. That’s
OK. Don’t stop at 5 minutes, finish that day’s warm-up.
Sub-5 will come.
When you are consistently hitting 4:30-45 there is a wee little tweak
that will put this back into the WTF! Category without adding reps or adding exercises.
[Another day, another discussion.]
So, a Sub Five-Minute Warm-Up comprised of combat athlete standards
that has a mental game of “No retreat, no surrender!” built into it,
what’s not to love?
[For techniques, tactics, and strategies of Rough and Tumble Combat, Old-School Boxing, Mean-Ass Wrestling, Street-Ready Frontier Scrapping & Indigenous Ability culled from the historical record see the RAW Subscription Service. http://www.extremeselfprotection.com
Comments
Post a Comment