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 1st] 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 3rd 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 3rd 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.
Or, skip the reading, jump aboard and embrace
progress like you haven’t imagined.
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