Combat Conditioning: Are You Training for Weakness? by Mark Hatmaker

 

[The following cocktail twins pleasingly with a prior offering: “Face Under Pressure”: A PT, Combat & Stress Hack.]

Good grapplers know that good mat-movement upright or horizontal is about excellent positioning for the aggressor and creating poor positioning for the defender.

Good strikers know that to have good power is to have good posture and structural alignment in the midst of striking and that to feint or bait poor alignment in the defender steals power.

The wise combat-a-teer trains assiduously for structural perfection whether in motion or stock-still.

I’ve said nothing disagreeable or new to this point.

Veterans stay with me a wee longer as we use a thought experiment that can easily be taken to the real world to test what we have established so far.

Yes, what proceeded may be obvious, but even obvious hypotheses should be put to test to ensure that what is obvious is also true, as more often than we realize, obvious is sometimes just legend, dogma or simply familiar “truths.”

The Overhead “Lock-Out” Test

For this hypothesis test you’ll require a partner and a barbell.

Load it with a weight approximately one-third the bodyweight of the partner.

Have the partner clean and press it to the locked-out position overhead.

[BTW-Don’t really lockout—keep a quarter inch of muscle-cushioning/ “play” between you and true skeletal lockout, the Old Timers were scrupulous on that. Why? Ask the rheumatoid arthritic knees, elbows, hips, etc. of long-time full lock-outers.]

Once the weight is comfortably controlled overhead, stand behind your partner and slowly [slowly] use the finger of one hand to push on the right side of your partner’s head. Do so until they say, “Stop” or you can go full bore and the partner can pitch the weight forward to escape. [Assuming you are using bumper plates and/or have a safe drop-zone.]

This slow taking the head out of spinal alignment alters structural integrity and reduces the ability to perform the lockout to full-strength.

We could repeat the single finger push on the left side of the head, or pushing on the back of the head moving the head to the fore, or pulling on the forehead so that the chin raises.

All will result in less stability, less ability to handle the locked-load.

If we were to skip being gentle and shoved the head with any alacrity the drop would be exceptionally dramatic and dangerous.

Our experiment demonstrates that strength is more than a function of muscle, tendon, and ligament, it is also a function of alignment.

The lockout proves the ability to handle and control a given load, the shove proves that alignment plays a LARGE part of what we do in most all performance—from locking out a weight to sitting in a chair.

The single finger did nothing to alter the strength of the muscle, it merely altered a corresponding vital factor.

[See Unleaded Volume 1: The Pliant Physique for more on this “small habits” of motion leading to impediment and even injury concept.]

Let’s Take it to Combat

The good grappler mitigates the power of that whom he desires to crush by altering alignment in the same way as we “stole strength” in the lockout test.

We use a deliberately placed elbow pry to steal resistance to that top-wristlock, we alter the orientation of the radius and ulna to “eat” the strength of the arm stronger than ours, we pronate the foot to make locking the powerful leg a literal snap, et cetera.

Submissions are more than cool moves; when performed scientifically, they are exercises in destructive structural alignment.

In striking, particularly to the old timers and those who desire to save the fists in the street, the incessant probes to the head are less about the intent to meet bone on bone than to inspire head-movement that “steals power” from the opponent’s strikes and opens the way to “soft” targets.

[It is for this very reason that “head movement” in striking arts is a misnomer. It is rather upper body movement with the head a structurally locked section of the rest of the torso-encased spinal column. Head-movement only steals power and balance, whereas upper-body movement that takes the head with it, well, now you’re talking.]

There is a wealth of unusual but mighty useful material on the “Shotgun” strengthening aspect of this spinal extension that we will be covering in an upcoming volume of Unleaded.]

Allow me to repeat the title of today’s sermon… Combat Conditioning: Are You Training for Weakness?

We are not asking if you are drilling your combat tactics correctly—we will assume that.

We are asking if your conditioning is weakening your combat tactics?

Keep all we have discussed regarding the value of alignment—peruse the following questions below.

·        Do you dip your head while doing push-ups? [Particularly those last painful ones we squeeze out, you know what I’m talking about, all that head-wagging in aid of “Just one more?”]

·        Do you tug your head forward on sit-ups, crunches, SEAL-style flutter-kicks?

·        Lean that head side to side while cranking out reps on those heavy hammer curls?

·        Lift that chin on pull-ups?

·        Allow your head to sag on the down portion of burpees?

·        Twist or rock the head while under a heavy bench load?

·        In short, do you break any head-neck alignment when performing any [ANY] conditioning exercise/drill?

Likely the Special Forces dictum “How you train is how you will fight” is to the fore of your mind more often than not—if it ain’t, it oughta be.

Often though, we get a bit slippery about being scrupulous with our mechanics when what we do does not resemble the fight itself.

That is unfortunate, as I presume, we are engaging in conditioning activities to better our combat game, our survival chances and if we choose to steal our own power while we train, what exactly do you think will happen under combat stressors where we require all this sought for power?

“How you train is how you will fight.”

Old school boxers, wrestlers, combination fighters, physical culturists from Sandow to Arthur Jones all stressed proper alignment and scrupulous head position.

[Side-Note: There are a precious few exercises where the old timers not only permitted but mandated altering head-position, rare circumstances where altering head position increases power—we’ll cover these useful anomalies in an Unleaded volume.]

The wise fighter seeks to steal power and alignment from opponents and preserve power and increase power in their own endeavors, even endeavors that in no way resemble the fight—just maybe these stress under load moments and a few minor corrections can spell a large difference in your own demonstration of power.

[Again, I stress that read in conjunction with “Face Under Pressure”: A PT, Combat & Stress Hack an increasingly clear picture of old school ways reveals itself.]

Want more deep-in-the-weeds training hacks see our Unleaded Old School Conditioning Series.[Our Unleaded Conditioning Programs are chockful of such under-utilized in-the-old-school-weeds hacks.]

[For more Rough& Tumble history, Indigenous Ability hacks, and for pragmatic applications of old school tactics historically accurate and viciously verified see our RAW/Black Box Subscription Service.]

Or our brand-spankin’ new podcast The Rough and Tumble Raconteur available on all platforms.