Old School Combat PT: The Hazards of Regularity, Sliding Interlock Solutions & The Back Battery by Mark Hatmaker

 

Let’s begin with a prickly quote to set our stage. The following is quant Nassim Nicholas Taleb on how systems can become fragile even when the intent is to improve, as is the case with conditioning training.

“Our ancestors mostly had to face very light stones to lift, mild stressors; once or twice a decade, they encountered the need to lift a huge stone. So where on earth does this idea of “steady” exercise come from? Nobody in the Pleistocene jogged for forty-minutes three days a week, lifted weights every Tuesday and Friday with a bullying (but otherwise nice) personal trainer, played tennis at eleven on Saturday mornings. Not hunters. We swung between extremes: we sprinted when chased or when chasing (once in a while in an extremely exerting way), and walked about aimlessly the rest of the time. Marathon running is a modern abomination (particularly when done without emotional stimuli.)”—The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

The above quote view is meant to provide the course-correction for what follows; Mr. Taleb [and numerous studies] supports this disdain for steady-state approaches to fitness or most things in life.

Variability in conversation is spice.

Variability in the arts or any stimuli, including natural scenery adds stimulating vigor to the organism and keeps attention firing and popping.

A diet of the same conversation [or same conversational topics] leads to staleness and loss of engagement.

Non-varying scenery begins to atrophy the sensory-system.

Consider this…

We can render the optic system blind to vertical stripes or horizontal stripes or any deprived stimuli, simply by raising the organism in a specified stripe-deprived environment.

A particularly cruel experiment along these lines was conducted with kittens.

One group of kittens was raised in an environment devoid of horizontal stripes, the other group had no exposure to vertical stripes.

When released into environments that contained both stripe variations, the optic system of these cruelly treated kittens rendered them unable to process the deprived “stripe” leading them to bump into the vertical uprights of tables and such obstacles if they have been deprived of the vertical stimuli.

Jungle Blindness

Rain forest explorers of earlier centuries mention the malady of “jungle blindness.” Those raised in thick rain forest where vegetation allows no vistas beyond a few yards led to the phenomenon where when indigenous peoples were first exposed to open plains outside the jungle, they could not sufficiently gauge distance having been deprived of this varying stimulus in the day-to-day.

In all else the indigenous peoples were functionally fit—but faced with open vistas, they encountered problems of inaccurate evaluation. For example, a man in the distance was judged to be close but very small.

Steady-State Conditioning as Jungle Blindness Correlate

Likewise, conditioning that pursues the same mode, be that set exercise patterns, set sequences, set intensities, even set times leads to a remarkable specificity effect that, in the long term, hamstrings the wished-for attributes to respond in modes outside of the set parameters.

The Possible Toxic Nature of Steady State Conditioning

Above we touched on the likely limits of exercise/conditioning as a prescribed specific, now let us move on to the concept of toxicity of exposure.

One can become inured to certain levels of stressors.

This holds for many stressors from exercise to the alkaloids in certain vegetables and beyond.

We may be inured or even strengthen in the face of such stressors if the dosage is managed and non-regular; this can hold for infrequent doses of substances that would otherwise be harmful. We have such an effect with radioactive materials.

Steady long-term exposure leads to harmful effects in the organism.

Whereas calculated small dosages in infrequent intervals is the base mechanism behind certain cancer therapies.

Occasional stressors to the system—say a bungee jump, polar plunge, speech before a crowd if one is adverse to such things winds up providing a short-term stress dosage that winds up invigorating the nervous system.

Whereas, long term steady-state stress, say a daily commute of 90 minutes both ways in heavy traffic can over time weaken the cortisol saturated organism.

It is not the commute or the traffic itself; in isolation these are neutral, it is the repeated regular exposure that may cause the harm—just as with stripe-deprived kittens.

Steady-State Conditioning is, By Definition, Slow Dose Stressor

But…many conditioning regimens are constructed along just such regularly scheduled stressors.

The regular 45 minute spinning session, the lifting workout comprised of the same Big 5 day-in, day-out.

We miss the iatrogenic effects [self-harming] of these regular exposures because we read the handful of benefits in a few strictly defined areas and assume progress across the board.

The Peloton devotee may see the improvement in targeted heart rate on a fake hill climb and makes assumptions of progress outside this domain that may not take into account the myriad of factors outside of the task-specific game of the fake hill climb.

The heavy squatter may see plates accrued on the bar and assume a hardihood that exists nowhere else but beneath that bar.

Cross-Training Rears Its Head

It is to combat such steady-state hazards that many turn to cross-training to “round out” the “game.”

That is, “I lift 3 days a week and pound pavement two days a week.”

Which is in essence taking two forms of steady-exposure and combining them, which is not a solution to the steady-state conundrum at all.

Or we pursue the randomized route of “I did deadlifts and pull-ups yesterday, today it was running a 5K, and tomorrow it will be working on my handstand walk.”

This randomized tack comes closer to a steady-state solution but those who have great experience with the randomization also realize that it confers no great gains in any single area.

Specificity of exercise is pursed because, well, it works.

It can improve the performance in the given endeavor, but…

As we’ve already said, it may forsake or assume gains elsewhere when in fact the steady state may be to our kitten-stripe-deprived detriment.

The randomized approach helps to stave off staleness but its “covering many bases” approach can lead to less steady improvement in desired endeavors.

Enter Sliding Interlocks

Old School thought had a solution to this conundrum.

In a nutshell, primary movements or attributes were prized [16 Attributes to be specific]—progress must be made in the primaries but it was also recognized that grinding on the primaries day-in, day-out would lead to staleness in the soul, and in the end limit performance in tangential endeavors—the athletic equivalent of jungle blindness.

This dilemma was solved by never [never ignoring a primary—which randomization must do by definition] but making each session have a new version of the primary slide by another new version of another primary.

An example to illuminate, we’ll feature a mere two primaries: The Thighs/Hips and The Back.

Rather than hit the same 2-3 big squat exercises, or pull-ups and perhaps rows for the back, a staggering variety of Leg Choices and Back Choices would be on the table.

Each of these would be hit in their own revolving turn.

Not merely as periodization, that is, “I’ll do back squats and wide-grip chins for 4-weeks and then switch”; this approach is merely altering the numbing commute route every four weeks.

Rather each and every session featured a new take on the primary from a revolving menu of effective exercises.

The revolving nature meant that each session is a different stimuli but the primary needs are never ignored.

Each primary had its own set of revolutions so even the pairings and sequencing would seldom repeat.

That is, just because you did Gorilla Squats for Thighs/Hips and Arch Sways for back today does not mean that pairing will repeat anytime soon.

The Sliding Interlock Approach allows true progress to be made with all aspects of conditioning without staleness setting in or falling prey to the steady-state cortisol conundrum.

Variety is indeed the spice of life, and it turns out the fuel for physical performance but that variety must still adhere to hitting all 16 of the Combat Athletes Primaries.

Anything less may be causing a bit of blindness to some stripes in your physical performance environment.

An Unleaded Interlock Sidebar

The Unleaded Conditioning Program is constructed on just such a Sliding Interlock Methodology. For example, Unleaded:The Back Battery [to be released January 1^st] uses a Sliding Interlock of 12 Exercises designed to be slid over the Interlock of the already released Chest Battery. And…The Back Battery requires not one weight—just y-o-u. Does it work? The photos of this 57 year-old man who never misses a dessert says my anecdote of one is, well, yeah it does work.

You would choose Exercise 1 from the Back Battey & Exercise 1 from The Chest Battery and hit your 3 sets: Set 1 Back, then directly to Set 1 Chest and so on until the 3^rd set where one of the 3 Random Stressors are Applied as Set 3 is always the Robust Set. [The Chest and Back Battery details all exercises and 3^rd Set Robust Protocols.]

Day 2 you move on to #2 in each roster. Playing them as interlocks, staves off staleness, allows you to train primaries each training day, and keep the metabolic fire high reducing need for “extra” cardio. Interlocking all 16 Primaries IS the “cardio.”

For more on Old School Combat Conditioning thought try these articles.

Old School PT Training Arrows

12 Signposts for Training 

Or, skip the reading, jump aboard and embrace progress like you haven’t imagined.

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