The Never-Take-A-Step Combat Warm-Up by Mark Hatmaker

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