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All Rights Reserved Copyright 2010 RMAX.tv Productions. All rights are reserved. You may not distribute this report in any way. You may not sell it, or reprint any part of it without written consent from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Disclaimer None of the information contained in this manual is intended to be taken as medical advice. Consult your physician before beginning this program as you would with any exercise and nutrition program. Albeit the information and advice in this manual are believed to be accurate, neither RMAX.tv Productions and its officers and employees, nor any members, assistants, volunteers, assigns, or agents of any type whatsoever acting on or in behalf of the aforementioned entity and persons will be held liable for any injury, damages, losses, claims, actions, proceedings, expenses, or costs (including legal) that result from using instructions, advice or exercises in the manual.
Throughout history, the successful warrior has been the ordinary man and woman with extra-ordinary focus. This exposes the truth that success is a trainable and programmable attribute, like strength, agility, endurance and stamina. Don't waste the most chemically rich environment in your daily schedule: exercise and focus upon your personal goals. destitutus ventis, remos adhibe. (If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.) Timing and Grace often await self-effort. Often we cannot wait until the iron is hot to strike; often we must make it hot by striking. - Scott Sonnon
WELCOME WARRIORS... TACFIT Warrior... the program under the program. Yes, there's a completely unique exercise system in Warrior... a tightly sequenced array of "smart" exercises which stimulate the nervous system and body chemistry in the signature fashion of TACFIT. TACFIT never fails, for who dares wins. Qui audet adipiscitur! But this is the Science of Mind-Body Exercise. Theres a program under the program, a mind interwoven with the movement, a more entrenched layer of mental and emotional strategies that intertwine with the exercise. You can stumble about through movements and never touch these methods, like I did for years. But I had no choice but to dig deeper. Genetically, I needed to exploit every technological advantage in order to succeed, not just physically, but also educationally and vocationally. To even rehearse a technique in ghting required specic mind-focusing tactics to combat the neural chaos of my learning disabilities, and lift me to world championship gold. The fog and friction of the commercial battleeld differed little from hand to hand combat: the mental are to the physical as 3 is to 1. Whoever can cycle faster mentally wins in all endeavors. Strategies to rene the minds agility should be our central focus of our material success, and yet... the bodys agility literally programs the mind. A program under the program... which can then be used with all TACFIT courses, and which will infect the weaknesses in all of our daily tasks with a virus of success, the bacteria of discipline. TACFIT Warrior's mental techniques elegantly plug-and-play with any of the TACFIT eet of programs. Lets begin...
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During the entire Twentieth Century, the Russians spent billions of rubles studying the intricacies of human high performance. We certainly had more money to spend, and in no way were they smarter than American scientists, but they did have a fascinating advantage: they have an old culture. Within the Soviet empire were people who had lived in the same locations for not merely hundreds but thousands of years. And that meant that they had folk knowledge that had been proven for countless generations through practical experimentation. Living in harsh environments, there is no room for pretty theory. But there is time for deep wisdom, passed from father to son and mother to daughter. And it was in places like these that the Soviet sports and military scientists ferreted out secrets that, by the middle of the century, would be applied not just to the healing of their people but in the creation of one of the greatest military forces the world had ever seen - second only to that of the wealthiest nation in the world, the United States of America. Remembering that the efficiency of an army is not merely in its weaponry and tactics, but the morale of its troops, one of the core concerns was to build into its training programs not merely physical fitness, but emotional readiness as well. And the most important aspect of this was resistance to stress. STRESS IS NOT THE ENEMY Were all familiar with the concept of stress, the pressures of life that can cause catabolism, immune breakdown, tunnel vision, conceptual inflexibility and just generally screw up your whole day. Well, it turns out that the problem may have been misdiagnosed. Hans Selye, the genius who originally popularized the concept of stress, spoke about five languages, and English was not his first. Before he died, he was quoted as saying that if English had been his first language, he might have been known as the Father of Strain rather than the Father of Stress. Whats the difference?
Well, from an engineering point of view, Stress equals pressure per unit area, whereas Strain equals deformation per unit length. The difference is critical. It is stress that triggers all growth: physical, psychological, emotional, whatever. Think back over your life, and remember the times when you EXPLODED to a new level of potential. Almost invariably, it was in response to something uncomfortable in your life, either the urge to avoid pain, or the desire to reach a new level of pleasure. So long as the stress is handled gradually enough for your body/minds progressive adaptation response to kick in, the only way your system can respond is by growing stronger. If, on the other hand, the stress happens too quickly, or in an unbalanced load, you get STRAIN, and begin to break down. Catabolism. This stress can be psychological as well as physical. Imagined as well as real. Strange as it may seem, your nervous system doesnt differentiate between an actual event and one vividly imagined. The link between mind and body explains both the efficiency and flaw of traditional lie detection apparatus. The stress of concealing information from an interrogator triggers a cascade of physiological events: depth and rate of breathing, pupillary contraction, galvanic skin response, blood pressure, heart beat rate, and more. Thats the bad news. The good news is that the feedback loop goes both ways. If you can control some of these physiological reflexes, the others will often come along for the ride. BREATH, MOVEMENT, AND STRUCTURE One of the core Soviet teachings dealt with the interplay of three major factors in the formation of any physical technique: Breath, Movement, and Structural alignment. The Be Breathed which you will learn in this course, is designed to not merely teach this idea, but to integrate it on an unconscious level.
The Flow State Performance Spiral, which you shall also learn in this course, suggests that in a combative engagement, one explanation for the vast difference between the martial arts master and the student during a sparring session (or between a combative expert and his attacker in the field) is that the Master maintains and improves integration of these aspects, while simultaneously dismantling them in the student. The master is rising up into the Zone while the student is spiraling down into the Void. In fact, the phenomenon of psychological time distortion, where the master has all the time in the world to strike while the student flails in panic, can be attributed to the differential between these two thingsthe Master rising to greater calm integration of these aspects, while the student falls into disarray. The Master experiences stress, but not strain. In fact, the master has programmed his nervous system so that stress actually triggers a re-integrative response. THIS was one of the greatest secrets of disciplines like Combat Sambo Spetsnaz and Systema - that their physical exercises actually taught this discipline whether the master discussed it openly or not. The repatterning of the nervous system doesnt happen on the conceptual level. It happens while learning to move smoothly and efficiently under steadily increasing levels of discomfort and Circulo-Respiratory Distress. And the key to this is two things, just two things which, if you will learn and apply them, will totally transform not merely your physical performance, but your entire life. Years ago, I introduced the concept of Perpetual Exercise to allow our students, combat athletes, police and First Responders to vastly increase the effects of their training. Busy people simply dont have the luxury of training for hours a day (Im the luckiest guy in the world. One of the greatest side-benefits of my own lifestyle: I get paid to work out!). I wanted to give these courageous men and women the ultimate edge. So I asked myself the question: what if I didnt teach exercise in the traditional sense? What if, instead, I taught students not just to sophisticate their physical motion, but to improve the connection between mind and body? What if I taught them to put this new awareness, new sophistication into every step they took, every breath that moved through their lungs?
The puzzle swirled in my mind for years, but I believed there was an answer. It had to be simple, it had to be effective, it had to be safe, and it had to be something that worked for housewives and warriors, athletes and former couch potatoes. The answer, as has happened so many times in my life, came from the warrior arts. I should have known - a warrior is someone willing to put his mind and body on the line for his values, his family, his country. Not merely willing to die - that could be said of a martyr. But someone willing to destroy in order to protect, a step which requires an additional level of mental and moral clarity. There are many archetypes in the psychological pantheon: teacher, healer, artist, priest and warrior. But beneath all of them is the paired dyad of creation AND destruction. For most, destruction is an abstract, a way of putting things. For a warrior, this is an actual physical reality. But even if one elevated the role of the warrior, I couldnt discount the other values. In Chinese martial arts, the highest respect is offered to the Master of the Five Excellences - medicine, art, calligraphy, poetry - and fighting. It is through understanding the way of excellence in each of these that the transcendent knowledge appeared. There is nothing theoretical about this for the soldier, the peace officer, or the martial artist. So I believed that the answer would be found here, where the stakes are greatest, and the rubber most assuredly meets the road. A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY SAMURAI Poring over the collected martial wisdom of the world, the work of the most famous Japanese swordsman in history struck a particular cord. Musashi Miyamoto, Ronin of the World wrote of discovering the art of strategy and that once he discovered it, was able to master a number of disciplines (including art, calligraphy, and sculpture) with no teacher. Re-reading his Book Of Five Rings he gave a clue in his statement, Let your everyday stance be your combat stance. And let your combat stance be your everyday stance. In other words, find the essential something which, properly expressed, will change the nature and function of everything else. Some simple thing or things which you can concentrate upon whenever you are consciously aware, which will change the very complexion and nature of all performance. Ideally, it will change the very nature of your existence, to the point that you are BECOMING this new, more sophisticated being twenty-four hours a day.
Do you see? If such a thing was possible, you would not be practicing medicine one day, martial arts the next, and poetry the day after that. You are merely sophisticating yourself, purifying yourself, and then in each context just being who you are, expressing your excellence in a different arena. As Bruce Lee said, Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. The original, formless self. The masters had found the secret of moving beyond forms to the original energy that creates all excellence. And the Russians, like the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Indian Yogis, had found the breath to be the connection between mind and body. But, just possibly it took Americans to put it all together in a simple, turnkey system, stripped of dogma and revved up like a rocket. And you are about to be one of the very first to experience this Next-Level, 21st Century training. This is the time. 9/11 showed us that there are no battle-lines. We are all warriors now. In a world of crumbling classrooms, we are all teachers. In a world of degraded nutrition and pollution, we must all be doctors. We must all be excellent, 24/7, or we risk being nothing at all.
While some of the intent may have shifted, the core of this program, as other members of the TACFIT family, is efficient, fatshredding movement. My first task was to remember that both First Responders and Householders are busy to the eyeballs, and when we contemplate adding an additional layer to help focus gained physical energy into your life, we cant add time to the most basic components without cheating the very people we are most committed to helping. Solets lay down some basic ideas. 1. Mental Focus. Also known as Goal Setting. Simply put, to know WHAT youre going to do with the energy once you have it. What are the tasks most important to perform on a daily, weekly, monthly basis? What are your long-term operational ends? Without knowing where youre going on vacation, you just load up the car and drive in circles. No way to spend the summer. To use this program to the limits, you need three goals: a physical body-transformation goal (for instance: to lose ten pounds), a career or education goal (for instance: to finish a project or gain X new clients), and a personal/emotional goal (for instance: to spend more /better time with your spouse, to journal for twenty minutes a day, to meditate or ask that special someone for a date) You are going to think about these goals at carefully selected moments during your exercise. You are going to be fatigued, trust meso the representation of your goals must be CLEAR and SIMPLE. A photographable moment would be great: the Dean handing you a diploma, with you in your cap and gown. Cutting the ribbon on your new store. Seeing your new body in the mirror. The referee raising your hand in victory. Exiting that burning building with a child safely in your arms. Being able to SEE the goal magnifies your powers considerably. So: three pictures. Body, Career/Education and Personal Development. If you can hold the image in your mind through the kind of stress youre going to experience, you will create an almost unstoppable torrent of motivation, and the ability to blow through the kinds of barriers that halt others in their tracks. And fear? Sure, it will be there, pumping strength into your heart and muscles. But you wont be afraid of your fear. Wont be guilty, or worried, or ashamed of the fear. Because in life, you either have time to act, or you have time to worry about your fear. Make a choice.
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2. Behavioral Modification. Unless your behaviors, thoughts and feelings are already in perfect alignment with your long and short-term ends, you will find that you must make changes to long-entrenched habits and attitudes. Living systems crave homeostasis (stability). Habits will fight back for dear life! The pattern of Behavioral Modification is as follows: a) b) c) d) e) f) Identify the pattern you wish to change Identify the pattern you wish to adopt Raise your energy level Practice the new pattern Fail Successfully Start over again.
Most people know what they DONT want in their lives, but not what they do. Sojust taking the step to write down your dreams and goals puts you way ahead of your rivals. Most also dont consider that to break a long-standing habit it is critical to RAISE your energy. YOU CANT TEACH AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS That saying is most true when the old dog runs out of energy. The entire TacFit series is dynamite for increasing energy levels for multiple reasons: increased metabolism, improved fat-muscle ratios, decreased muscle tension (taking off the brakes), improved posture, improved focus, and more. But perhaps the most important, little-understood aspect of achieving excellence is Failing successfully. Every champion in any arena knows that he must contest with superior opponents to learn and grow. The salesman knows he has to hear no before hell hear yes. And Thomas Edison knew it would take 10,000 failures to make one measly light bulb. When most people fall off a diet, they interpret this as I cant as opposed to simply grasping that they are experiencing the natural resistance to change that marks true progress. The warrior falls downbut he also gets back up again.
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3. Stress Management. Every fighter, public speaker, artist, entrepreneur or high-performer knows fearjust like the rest of humanity. It is a natural experience, and just a product of the human fight or flight response. The problem isnt fear it is making the mistake of thinking your fear response means you Cannot or Should Not go ahead. The sympathetic nervous system (triggered by danger or competition) generates a cascade of powerful hormones preparing us for action. The parasympathetic nervous system gives us calming effects, and helps us center, relax, and go to sleep. In the modern world, we are more likely to be frightened by unpaid bills than saber-tooth tigers. But you cant just run from bills, and the tunnel-vision and agitation produced by anxiety can prevent us from seeing the options available for resolving such problems, sending us into a negative spiral. The trick is to balance these two systems. TACFIT Warrior does this through having you produce a small amount of anxiety about your coming week before you exercise. Then, when you perform TACFIT, magic happens: as you repeatedly approach circulo-respiratory distress, your brain begins to treat the anxiety chemicals as if they are the product of simple exertion, hitting the reset buttons on your emotions, and voila! You transform fear into pure savage energy to channel into your life. 4. Flow State Performance Spiral, referenced earlier, is a model of high-level human performance. By breaking a physical technique into breath, movement, and alignment, you are bringing a vast number of ordinarily unconscious factors under conscious control. Learn to manage them while simultaneously, gradually, placing yourself under higher and higher levels of stress, and you open the door to a level of excellence previously reserved for the natural athlete, or the special unit soldier exposed to the very highest levels of training.
There is more, much more, but these are the most important things to remember as we move forward.
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The movements contained in such a program must cover all 6 degrees of freedom: heaving (up-down), surging (front-back), swaying (right- left), rolling (bending right-left), yawing (twisting right-left) and pitching (bending front- back). This training principle makes it possible to serve a wide range of individuals levels at the same time, regardless of beginning fitness levels, or even limiting over-compensations and repetitive stress injuries. The entire team can train together, from modern ninja to desk warrior, merely by adjusting level. The same skill families, the same result, but an incredible advantage in developing team spirit. No one need be left out of the training session, ever again. Finally, what about those eternal concerns: building muscle and losing fat? Well, the bodybuilding muscle confusion principle kicks your butt into high gear by never allowing your nervous system to get bored with the exercise. We take this to a whole nother level by scientifically designing the transitions to greater and greater complexity. The result is a body that wants to be prepared for ANYTHING. A commando body. One that is ready for go and not merely show. And isnt that what you really want?
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The specific applications to your program will be: Stoke the core furnace through pitch. Engage the anabolic (lower body) engine with surge. Smoke the forward pressure while adding the pulls with heave. Open the lateral line while recovering from the pulls by returning to the furnace in sways. Crush the ego with core twisting presses in yaw. Recover and process the toxins with natural gymnastics. To understand how truly revolutionary this is for your training, you need a quick briefing on how fitness has evolved.
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Exercise has an evolutionary history which if youre so inclined can trace you through the evolution of human movement potential. Much like the evolution of artistic techniques, how we saw the world was represented in the ways which we believed we were capable of moving. Literally, our movement is limited only by our imagination. What we know of today as strength training originally developed in the early 19th century - the Golden Age of strongmen. Their exercises were actually stunts, and they would compete on stage against one another for the most impressive, or outlandish performances, such as lifting a bleacher full of spectators upon ones back, or pulling a rail car with a chain held by the mouth, stopping an airplane from takeoff with a rope attached to ones hair. Eventually these stunts needed to become more quantifiable as the betting on these competitions demanded something other than subjective cheering from the crowd. Agreed upon lifts, with balanced weights appeared to demonstrate who was the stronger lifter that day. And as a result, one dimensional lifts using enormous dumbbells or bending steel bars for time became the test of the strongman competitor. These were all impressive feats, but crude and unsophisticated in comparison to the athletes of the modern world. These strongman competitions obviously evolved into powerlifting and Olympic lifting competitions - which have a very convoluted and politicalized history themselves. These very short-range, high-tension two-dimensional movements - such as the bench press, deadlift, clean and jerk and snatch, were highly quantifiable, but classified by the 6-D model from modern functional training, these only possessed heaving and pitching - only 2 Degrees of freedom. Later we moved into comparison of the physique produced by the exercise, actually a step backwards from a movement standpoint. As bodybuilding became a sport, how strong you were and how well you could move had no impact upon the competition. It took another few decades before fitness competitions began to push out mere physique by requiring demonstrations of strength, mobility, agility and coordination. This led to the advent of functional strength training, the recognition that linear isolation not only cannot prepare you for the real world, but actually accelerates misuse and overuse injuries and aging. Functional training added tri-planar angular/diagonal movement, and taking unconventional objects and moving them through the three planes. The result created 3D strength training. When the cutting edge of fitness arrived, with systems such as Circular Strength Training and Tactical Fitness, rotary movement sophisticated our potential once again. Adding the three elements of rotation to the three elements of translation doubled our 3D movement to 6D. The rotational aspects of pitching, yawing and rolling to the translational elements of swaying, heaving and surging, finally addressed the totality of human motion. Whether a couch potato or tactical operator, THIS is what youve always really been searching for.
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Structural Alignment
The body is a sea of continuous tension pulling inward - holding us together - laid overtop of a system of compressive struts pushing outward - holding us upright and anti-gravitational. As a result, exercise should be able to teach and refine our ability to absorb force with our whole body and transfer that force outward using our whole body... if we are to maximize our potential as a 6D creation. Regardless of whether youre using bodyweight through a complex range of motion against gravity, or wielding clubbells, kettlebells, barbells, or using a pullup bar, you need structural alignment - the effective and efficient use of those compressive struts for optimal ability to break gravity. The greatest benefits of such exercise should be, not mere muscle growth (although we want that as well), but the increase in neurological efficiency youll gain as a direct result of learning to integrate your body and efficiently direct the sum of its forces. The key to all of this is the integration of the 7 Key Components of Structure: 1) Crown to Coccyx Alignment 2) Shoulder Pack 3) Arm Lock 4) Grip Confirmation 5) Core Activation 6) Hip Recruitment 7) Leg Drive Think of the 7 Key Components as the links in your chain. When each link is aligned, force is transferred smoothly through the entire system. If a link is missing, youll only have access to the force production of the links between that break and your application of force. To put this into a combat context, a warrior who lacks shoulder pack cannot transfer the force of a strike up his legs, snapping through his hips and out the length of his arm. Unless he learns how to integrate proper mechanics into his strikes, he will forever be an ineffective arm puncher. In sports, a baseball player who cannot transfer power from his toes to his fingertips will never hit the long ball. Each exercise in TACFIT Warrior is coached with reference to integrating these 7 Key Components, so you dont just become shredded you learn to harness and apply your bodys full power.
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Movement Sophistication
Due to the conventional exercise community heralding the inviolate nature of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) training, Ive become infamous for stating that most of the fitness world has become SISSified, or Stuck In Simplistic Stupidity. This is the polar opposite of TACFIT training. We dont just move more more weight, more time, more frequency we move better, thank you very much, and we do this by increasing movement sophistication. Bigger isnt better. Faster isnt better. Stronger isnt even better. ONLY Better is Better! When you add in this unique nature of increased sophistication, you dont merely make the exercises more challenging, youre learning a new task. Youre stimulating the nervous system to evolve; your brain to become more powerful. This is a neurochemical super-system here... not some grotesque neanderthal. Youre learning a completely new set of tools that you can access in all aspects of your life. Youre improving the most sophisticated machine that God has ever created. Of course, youre also getting more physique bang for your exercise buck, because what some refer to as muscle confusion is actually increasing the demands that exceed mere muscle growth. Your entire neuro-muscular system improves when you stimulate it with a new skill. This new total load creates a systemic, or anabolic, growth of muscle throughout. Whole body stress creates whole body growth. Remember Component Learning Theory? A complex movement chain practiced as a single movement produces a sum total training effect greater than that produced if the individual components are practiced for the same number of repetitions. TACFIT Warrior incorporates movements that increase in complexity, so your gains compound as your movement ability develops.
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In order to make this tool work for you, you must first learn how to use it. That takes a bit of diligence in the beginning. By journaling your training and by rating these three variables, you will come to a better understanding of your body and you will calibrate your instrument. The skill of rating your performance becomes more finely honed with each use, until eventually you barely have to think about it. But you will have to think about it in the beginning. These are the three variables you will rate after each training session: Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE): the subjective evaluation of your effort on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the hardest youve ever worked. Rate of Perceived Discomfort (RPD): the subjective evaluation of your pain level on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst pain youve ever experienced. Rate of Perceived Technique (RPT): the subjective evaluation of your mechanical performance on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best possible form in that exercise. If your technique is high enough (greater than or equal to 8) and your discomfort is low enough (less than or equal to 3) you can hold even an exertion level of 10 for as long as your stamina, strength and endurance allow.
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As you begin to fatigue and become exhausted, your form begins to fail. Without form, you cannot competently hold the force of your exertion, and as a result, you over-compensate with poor form... leading to aches and pains. As these aches and pains become more noisily defiant, injuries appear. Pouring your effort into your technique, instead of the number of repetitions of weight of the resistance, is what brings you great dividends. With deeper concentration on technique, comes greater physiological benefits - taught to me by one of my colleagues Mike Locke, the man who coached my conditioning to the level necessary to win four gold medals at the 2010 World Martial Arts Games. Like a surfer, you must ride the edge of high exertion, high quality technique and low value discomfort, in order to minimize injuries and maximize results. Poor technique is as trainable as good technique. Every repetition that you repeat poor technique increases the likelihood that you will embed this. Its simply one of the Laws of Conditioning which Ive written about in my early books from the last decade. Whatever you repeat, you will adapt to and make more likely, whether you want that result or not. As a general guideline, when you can sustain an RPT of equal to or greater than 8, an RPD of less than or equal to 3, and an RPE of equal to or greater than 6 over the course of 3 sessions, its time to increase a variable: frequency, intensity, speed, density, volume, complexity, etc. Each of the four days in the 4x7 protocol includes specific target guidelines that you should be aiming for with each of these three variables. We have also precisely calculated exactly which variable to change, and by how much, when it comes time to move on. All you have to do is rate your performance in terms of the Intuitive Training Protocol, and plug-and-play the program. Weve taken care of the rest.
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(*see the specific Program chapter in Part 2 of the manual for the actual program instructions and exercises) Thats how the 4 training days of TACFIT shape up. This pattern is repeated for a total of 28 days or one complete mission. If you are following the traditional 4x7 wave, your schedule will consist of No, Low, Moderate and High days, repeated 7 times in succession for a total of 28 days. There are no "off days. Instead, recovery days are factored into the program that involve short sessions of joint mobility and compensatory yoga.
MicroCycle
CYCLE
No Intensity
Strain Prevention: mobility Strain Prevention: mobility Strain Prevention: mobility Strain Prevention: mobility Strain Prevention: mobility Strain Prevention: mobility Strain Prevention: mobility
Low Intensity
Stress Conversion:
Moderate Intensity
strength
ASSISTANCE
High Intensity
Metabolic Conditioning
CYCLE
1 2 3 4
3
Metabolic Conditioning
6
strength
ASSISTANCE
7
Metabolic Conditioning
CYCLE
10
strength
ASSISTANCE
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Metabolic Conditioning
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CYCLE
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strength
ASSISTANCE
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Metabolic Conditioning
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CYCLE
5
CYCLE
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strength
ASSISTANCE
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Metabolic Conditioning
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6
CYCLE
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strength
ASSISTANCE
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Metabolic Conditioning
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Compensation
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Effective Efficiency
What warrior cultures have understood for millennia and what military scientists have rigorously studied for centuries is the reality that whoever can recover faster from error, surprise and failure, and whoever uses the least effort to accomplish the most, wins. One term commonly associated with the highest level of warrior skills or martial arts is Chi or Ki, which is translated variously as intrinsic energy and maximum results with minimum effort. It is this latter quality, effective efficiency, which concerns us here. Effective efficiency means to perform with greater total results (effectiveness) while using lesser total effort (efficiency).
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If during your moderate intensity season you crest above 85%HRmax, the reps do not count. From a biochemical standpoint, it isn't just as we exceed HRmax but as we rapidly approach it that the "adrenaline dump" happens. This cascade of hormones and neuropeptides crashes through your body like a waterfall. It's psychotropic effects distort reality adversely and impede your ability to function. And you cannot adapt to it. Therefore, any reps that you score approaching or exceeding HRmax, so not count (since they are purely hormonal "superfuels" rather than kinesiologic performances.) We are working to convert training stress into bodily growth and development. But if the body feels the strain then it calls in the shock troops to insure that you can outrun that panther. Complete the scoresheet during your moderate intensity sessions, by listing not merely your reps achieved but also your heart rate, and perceived technique, effort and discomfort levels. You can also keep aware of your breathing as it also indicates intensity level: No intensity: exhale on compression, inhale on expansion. It can be easy to not connect your breathing to movement on a no intensity session, but be sure to deliberately allow exhalation as you compress your lungs with movement (like bending over in spinal circles allow the exhale to happen.) Low intensity: exhale on compression, inhale on expansion; but in some of the more challenging positions, you will find that you need to exhale through the internal resistance, the tightness. Seek to let the tension melt, and return to allostatic balance your normal resting length. Moderate intensity: exhale on effort, inhale on relaxation; if you find that youre able to exhale on compression, that you dont need to exhale through the effort, then turn it up a few notches in intensity until you do. But if you find yourself beginning to exhale very hard, or even feeling the compulsion to inhale and power through the movement, then dial it back. High intensity: resisting the urge to inhale on effort, is the key to high intensity. Stay underneath this defensive bracing reflex, by keeping at a pace that you can exhale through.
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MicroCycle WEEK
No Intensity
Strain Prevention: mobility
Low Intensity
Stress Conversion: Compensation
Moderate Intensity
strength
ASSISTANCE
No Intensity
Strain Prevention: mobility
Low Intensity
Stress Conversion: Compensation
Moderate Intensity
strength
ASSISTANCE
High Intensity
Metabolic Conditioning
WEEK
WEEK
WEEK
1 2 3 4
strength
ASSISTANCE
strength
ASSISTANCE
Metabolic Conditioning
strength
ASSISTANCE
strength
ASSISTANCE
Metabolic Conditioning
strength
ASSISTANCE
strength
ASSISTANCE
Metabolic Conditioning
Routinizing the 7-day Week Choosing the Weekly model of exercise - a four week progression (7x4) - your wave of intensity is a No, Low, Moderate, No, Low, Moderate, and High days, repeated for four weeks in succession for a total of 28 days. Youll be on the traditional calendar work week, instead of the four day wave. This allows you to arrange your workouts so that the High Intensity day falls on the same day each week. For example, if youd like to hit your best effort of the week on Fridays, start with Day 1 (No Intensity) on the previous Saturday. With some good planning youll be able to address all of your other scheduling demands and prevent aborting the mission partly through. If you prefer to train on a 7-day schedule, simply follow the alternate Master Program Chart that we provided in your Program chapter instead of the 4x7 Chart.
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Scheduling on the 4-day Wave If you feel that youre ready to knee-deep into the mission proper, then the 4 day wave will consist of No, Low, Moderate and High days, repeated 7 times in succession for a total of 28 days. The Master Program Chart included in this manual is formatted on this 4-day wave. This is the ideal choice for completing TACFIT Warrior because it most precisely synchronizes with your nervous system and biochemistry so that you gain the greatest results from your work while minimizing the length of recovery needed. How do you add other sports and programs to TACFIT? Though we appreciate your zeal, focus. If you chase two rabbits, youll catch neither - as the proverb goes. If you focus on this one mission, youll achieve all of the results you hoped of... and much more once youre on the other end... results we cant describe, as youll have to experience them to appreciate what youre about to develop and gain access to. You must candidly ask yourself and answer, what do I want from exercise? And if you find that you dont have a specific answer, then you may be cocktailing your training; decreasing your results from ALL of the activities youre doing. Cocktailing is unhelpful because throwing together a bunch of random exercises will get you random results. Its better to focus on knocking down one goal at a time. Trying to go in too many directions at once, gets you nowhere fast. However, life often doesnt give us the optimal circumstances. I get this, because my schedule of travel around the world often presents insurmountable problems to routine. Sometimes, you just have to gut it out and make due with the hand youve been dealt. Here are some suggestions for incorporating other activities into the schedule: Each day of the TACFIT Warrior cycle is tied to a specific intensity level - waved in order to elicit the 47 effect. To make this 47 to work for you, then you should align your activity level with the guidelines for RPE. It can be highly subjective, and there are no hard and fast numbers. Take running, for example. What may be a light recovery jog for a highly conditioned runner may be a Moderate or High Intensity session for someone with little running experience. Logging your training and applying the TACFIT Intuitive Training Protocol to rate your exertion, technique and discomfort will over time give you a precise lens for gauging your output.
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Remember: the goal of the TACFIT 4 Day Wave is to peak on every 4th day. If you siphon off the extra energy youre building during the micro cycle, itll rob you of the results you could be reaping on each High Intensity day. It will help to determine where your chosen activity falls on this spectrum:
No intensity = strain prevention, such as joint mobility, tai chi, light stretching, long walk Low intensity = stress conversion, such as yoga, pilates, heavy stretching, light runs Moderate intensity = strength practice, such as weight training, gymnastics skills, low volume, jogging High intensity = metabolic conditioning, such as sprinting, interval training, high jumps, etc
On occasion, different activities wont match because your body cannot handle the sum total stress load, and then stress turns to strain. Bad news: over-training, injury and illness often result. TACFIT Warrior may be the only training stress you can have, so if you want to continue with extra-curricular training, you may want to consider either scheduling out the others for the month, or lightening your intensity load of the high intensity TACFIT sessions. Perform your joint mobility recovery exercises daily as prescribed, but exclude your high intensity workouts in TACFIT. Keep performing the Strain Prevention program daily, until your scheduling becomes more permissive of higher intensity workouts. As it opens up, then start back on your 4 day wave as prescribed. Lastly, there may be times when Murphy makes a visit and knocks you off the wagon. Just because you get burned, doesnt mean that you cant jump back on... Missing one or two days is fine; just fall back into formation picking up where you left off. Missing 4 or more days means you missed a cycle completely, so restart at the previous 4 day cycle on your calendar to catch up. Time to get on to the actual Warrior Workouts...
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WEEK 1
WEEK 2
WEEK 3
WEEK 4
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Third, you can modify each of the exercises, even in Lite, to be even easier. Exercise #1: use knee-ups only. Exercise #2: only dip as deeply as you can and keep perfect balance, and pain below a 3 Exercise #3: Move as far back and forward as you can with pain below a 3 Exercise #4: Make the circles smaller Exercise #5: Place your hands on a stable chair seat or back, or the wall. This decreases the amount of your body weight you are supporting. Continue to decrease that weight until you can perform the movement without pain, and with good form. Exercise #6: Rest your back against a wall, or sit in a chair, and perform the knee twists to the best of your ability. Fourth, you can reduce the NUMBER of reps per round. Perform one rep perfectly in a 20-second round. Rest. Perform one rep on the opposite side in the next round. And your physical goal? To get to a full Lite performance. And then slowly, at a rate of 1% improvement (or about one rep per exercise per week) climb the ladder. AND WHAT IF COMMANDO LEVEL IS TOO EASY? Well, first of all, congratulations, son, you are definitely new to this world. But until we stitch your red tights together, heres a little kryptonite for you: perform five minutes of a whole-body nastiness first, say Turkish Get-Ups with a sizable kettlebell, Clubbell Barbarian Squats, jumping rope, or your favorite form of self-torture. The magic of pre-exhaustion will bring you back to Earth just fine.
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The 5 Warrior Workouts in Progression: LITE MISSION Sit Up Knee Lift PRE-RECRUIT MISSION Knee Lift Cradle RECRUIT MISSION Basic Spinal Rock GRUNT MISSION Straddle Spinal Rock COMMANDO MISSION Hurdler Spinal Rock
Lunge Squat
Shin Lunge
Plank Pull
Shin Reach
Windshield Wiper
Shinbox Switch
Shinbox Kick
Shinbox 180
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The How-To: Warm Up Mobility Program The Master Program Chart provides an overview of your 28-day mission. Choose either the 4x7 or 7x4 format and follow that chart for the entire 28-days. Heres what to do when you reach each of the four days: Guard Circle
Prone Worm
No Intensity Day: Perform the 6 minute mobility warm-up program for active recovery. Each movement is performed for 60 seconds. AND/OR perform the full 15 minute Warrior Strain Prevention program. Reference the warriorstrainprevention.mp4 video briefing. RPE: 1-2; RPT: 8 or higher; RPD: 3 or lower
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Low Intensity Day: Warm up with the 7 minute warm up mobility program, and perform the 7 minute cool down compensation program. Each movement is performed for 60 seconds. AND/OR perform the full 15 minute Warrior Stress Conversion program. Reference the warriorstressconversion.mp4 video briefing. RPE: 3-4; RPT: 8 or higher; RPD: 3 or lower
Corpse
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Moderate Intensity Day: Warm up with the 6 minute warm up mobility program. Reference the WarriorWarmup video briefing. Complete 8 rounds of the first exercise. These are twenty second bursts, followed by ten seconds of rest. After these eight rounds, take a sixty second rest break and start the next exercise. Reference the printable Mission Calendar for a step by step description of each day of your workout. You can also train along with the follow-along Mission Simulation video for each level of the program: WarriorLiteWarriorLitesim Pre-Recruit - WarriorPreRecruitSim Recruit WarriorRecruitSim Grunt WarriorGruntSim Commando WarriorCommandoSim End your session with the 7 minute cool down compensation program. Reference the WarriorCooldown video briefing. RPE: 5-7; RPT: 8 or higher; RPD: 3 or lower
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High Intensity Day: Warm up with the 6 minute warm up mobility program. Reference the WarriorWarmup video briefing. Complete 8 rounds of the first exercise. These are twenty second bursts, followed by ten seconds of rest. After these eight rounds, take a sixty second rest break and start the next exercise. Reference the printable Mission Calendar for a step by step description of each day of your workout. You can also train along with the follow-along Mission Simulation video for each level of the program: WarriorLiteWarriorLitesim Pre-Recruit - WarriorPreRecruitSim Recruit WarriorRecruitSim Grunt WarriorGruntSim Commando WarriorCommandoSim End your session with the 7 minute cool down compensation program. Reference the WarriorCooldown video briefing. Remember: your Target on the High Intensity day is to complete more reps per exercise than you did on yesterdays Moderate Intensity day. Maintaining the status quo is not acceptable. You are expected to step up each time and conquer new territory. You must learn to differentiate the previous Moderate days RPE from todays target High day RPE and translate that to your physical performance. Our goal is to "trick" you into learning to regulate your intensity levels to a rather precise degree. This goes beyond simply getting in shape or building a pretty physique. You're becoming more sensitive to your energy output, your moment-by-moment condition, and you're learning how to regulate it and the effect that doing so has on your overall system from day to day and in terms of recovery and growth. Youre building neural sophistication at the same time as physical strength. RPE: 8-10; RPT: 8 or higher; RPD: 3 or lower
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TASK
Sets Scored
HRBPM
RPT
RPE
RPD
DAY #
TOTAL SCORE
AVE RPT
AVE RPE
AVE RPD
AVE HRBPM
HRBPM = Heart Rate Beats Per Minute RPT = Rate of Perceived Technique (for all 8 sets total, not each individual set) RPE = Rate of Perceive Effort (for all 8 sets total, not each individual set) RPD = Rate of Perceived Discomfort (for all 8 sets total, not each individual set) Total Score = all 6 of your lowest sets from each task added together AVE RPT = the average of all of your RPTs AVE RPE = the average of all of your RPEs AVE RPD = the average of all of your RPDs AVE HRBPM = the average of all of your heart rate beats per minute.
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The Strongest Survive the Longest - Erik Esik Melland of Projekt Seer
The key to the success of TACFIT is that its not the bigger, faster or stronger athlete alone who wins, but the BETTER athlete. Who recovers fastest wins. Thats what makes the best athlete. And that simple understand has been encoded in our very DNA. Our nervous system has evolved over 100,000 years to make use the most fearsome, the most adaptable predator in the history of the world. Not the T-Rex. Not the Sabertooth. Not Shark or the Alligator. No, the most lethal creature the world has ever known has no sharp teeth, no talons, no armor whatsoever. It is the simply sophisticated attribute of being able to burst very fast, and recover our full mental and emotional faculties faster than any other competitor, that has made us Warriors among the most monstrous foes in the animal kingdom. But we are not beasts. We are not doomed to killing. We can utilize our genetic heritage to advance ourselves on other battleelds, not of blood, but of bounty. We can do this only if we honor our physical excellence... and train under a protocol which resonates with the frequency of our evolution. To burst - to recover - and to burst again. Consider a crisis, and how your body exerts itself. Burst - recover - burst. We need look no farther than in the micro of the macro - in hand to hand ghting. A typical martial art bout involves a 2 minute round: a marathon by any stretch. But the ghters arent throwing a blizzard of attacks non-stop for the entire two minutes. The round can be characterized by short, intense bursts, or volleys of attacks and defenses, interspersed by recovering from those collisions as the ghters stand or separate and begin to circle yet again. Whoever can recover fastest and most fully between those collisions is most often the victor. Not the one who attacks the most often, because the power of attacks diminish like walking off the shelf of the sea, if youre not recovered fully. So, its not just who recovers fastest... but who chemically regenerates the most fully. We use our variation of the Tabata protocol specically due to the nervous systems characterization of burst-recover-burst as the most efcient use of its resources. It responds most quickly and most completely to this way of exercising. (And we havent even gotten to the TYPE of exercises weve selected, created and scaled!!)
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As a child, I dealt with almost daily violence. Due to obesity, impoverishment, learning disabilities, and estrangement, I faced abuse and turmoil. The emotional trauma often much more impacting than the physical fights I faced at home, in school and sprinting between the two to avoid the others. To address the disturbing memories of the violence, I would escape into long walks, which became long runs, which became fantastical adventures of acrobatic, parkour-like gymnastics outdoors. While I performed these jaunts, I would imagine what my life would be like, what I would look like, how powerful I could become, free from daily terror, fulfilled in my pursuits and gratified with my work, family and social life. I had stumbled upon a technique. Unrefined and inaccurate, but effective. Taking the most chemically rich daily experience exercise - and using visual imagery powerfully melded together the two at a cellular level. The secrets have been hidden in plain sight. "Change your mind, change your body." It goes the other way as well: "change your body, and you change your mind." If you can do either, you can do both. Do both... and you change your destiny. Later, in a strange series of serendipitous events, due to my martial art training leading me to become the USA National Sambo Team Coach, I was selected to become the first foreigner to formally intern behind the former Iron Curtain of the xUSSR. There, they exposed me to their methods of "biomechanical exercise" crafted through psychophysiology. Their research confirmed my childhood discoveries that you can rewrite trauma through intense exercise and mental imagery upon a "reframed" attitude. Sport Psychologists have understood and researched this phenomenon for decades, and fringe sciences like Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Total Physical Response have plumbed the depths of the method. The new fields of positive psychology and flow psychology have attempted to look at this process from the perspective of success development. In practice, it's very simple. You just need to follow along the easy, simple steps that are laid out for you on your daily calendar. Fill in the blanks. Sweat with some "smart" (cross-hemispheric) exercise. And Voila. Success. Fat melted. Muscle built. Mobility gain. Pain abolished. And what happens when you do this?
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When you marry the most chemically rich experience of "success" - performing high intensity exercise - with visualization techniques to hold what your goals as real and manifest... you remove any internal obstacles to their achievement. The riddle of wisdom has always been, that experience (courage and confidence) comes after the time that you need it. Through this method Steve and I have unearthed and formulated, you get the courage and confidence that you're 100% going to succeed BEFORE you actually face the challenge. And as we all know... the task is never as hard as we imagine. Facing it. Going through it. That's the challenge. We've taken this Science of Mind-Body Exercise and distilled it into a refined turn-key system, here.
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Lite
pre-recruit
recruit
grunt
commando
task 1
task 2
task 4
task 3
task 4
task 5
task 6
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Lunge Squat
Begin in a standing lunge: front leg foot at, knee over mid-foot; rear leg on ball of foot. Keep feet shoulders width apart. Keep your hands up, and your elbows in to your ribs. With an inhale through the nose, press both knees extended. With an exhale through the mouth, bend both knees until the rear leg knee just barely hovers above the ground. Keep your spine perpendicular to the ground, like a piston moving upward and downward. Only switch legs on the next set. Stay with one stance the entire set.
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Shin Reach
From a kneeling position - hands and shins, extend one of your legs straight behind you with your ball of foot hovering above the ground. Exhale through the mouth as you swing your extended leg to cross over top of your bent leg and if possible touch the ground, as far across your bent leg as possible (without lifting your palms off the ground.) Uncross your extended leg until it returns in line with your shoulder and allow an inhale as you bring your shin back to the original position. This completes 1/2 repetition. Perform the opposite side to validate one full rep.
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Knee-Thru Hip
From a kneeling position - hands and knees (and ball of foot), press off of the palm heels, to lift the knees. Rotate both knees in one direction until the outside of the thigh becomes parallel with the ground. Sit down on the outside of the hip, and bring the elbow of the arm in the direction your knees rotated, to your ribs with an exhale through the mouth. Place the palm back down on the ground in the original position. Press off both arms and the rear outside foot-sword. Rotate the knees inward to ball of foot and hands. Continue rotating the knees to the opposite side with and exhale through the mouth to perform the second half of the repetition.
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Windshield Wipers
From a seated position, feet at, knees bent and sits-bones resting on the ground. Reach back and place your hands on the ground behind you with elbows locked if possible, but keep your shoulders down off your ears (in packed position). You can stay in this reclined position for the full repetition, or you can attempt to stay seated for a greater challenge. As you exhale through the mouth, keeping your feet in their exact place, lower both knees to one side: one shin will be on the ground parallel to your torso, and the other perpendicular to it. Attempt to keep both sitsbones on the ground. If you feel yourself bending at the spine too much, then lean back and place both hands on the ground until you can keep both sits-bones down and touch both knees to the ground. This is the shinbox position. Keeping your feet in the same position, merely rolling over the sides of them, switch all the way to the opposite side with an exhale through the mouth as you pass by your center to perform one full repetition. Performed uidly, it will look like windshield wipers.
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Shin Lunge
Beginning in a kneeling position with your toes curled underneath, resting on ball of foot. Place a rolled towel, blanket or mat under your knees if you feel uncomfortable. Sit as far back toward your heels as you feel comfortable. Exhale and step forward with one leg until at footed. Keep your hips in one line, parallel with your shoulders. Dont leg the rear leg hip open your hips perpendicular to your shoulders. Exhale and extend your rear leg hip forward to keep both hips in one line. Your knee can extend forward over your toes, as long as your heel doesnt lift off the ground. Keep your spine perpendicular to the ground, and exhale as low into the lunge as you can keep the front heel at. Continue your exhale as you press off the front mid-foot in order to return that leg back to a kneeling position. Dont drag your foot; lift your heel to your bottom. This completes 1/2 of a repetition. Perform the opposite Shin Lunge to validate one full repetition.
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Sit-Behind Twist
From a ball of foot squat position, place both hands on the ground and extend one leg behind you as close to your opposite leg as possible. Stabilize on the same side palm as the extended leg, and allow your other arm to come off the ground. As you slide your leg along the ground, let your hip touch the ground and sit down with your top bent leg crossing over your extended leg. Rotate over onto your bottom and grab your top crossed leg with both hands. Inhale through the nose and lift your chest up to your knee, keeping your chin down and keeping your ears between your shoulders in one line (no twisting the neck.) Smoothly relax your spine backward and twist your hands back to your original position. With an exhale through the mouth, shift your weight partially to your hands as you press off your top crossed foot to lift your hip off the ground. Retract your leg back to a at foot squat position. This completes 1/2 repetition. Perform the opposite side to validate one full rep.
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Sit-Thru Stretch
From a kneeling position - hands and knees (and ball of foot), press off of the palm heels, to lift the knees. Rotate both knees in one direction and extend the knee until the knee locks. When the outside of the thigh becomes parallel with the ground, lift your leg as you can perpendicular to your opposite leg. With an exhale through the mouth, extend your bent leg backward perpendicular to your crossed leg (i.e. if your right leg is through at 9 oclock, then extend your opposite leg backward to 6 oclock). Rotate your laces / instep down to the ground. Flex your quad and lock your knee. As you continue your exhale, allow your top hip (of your 6 oclock extended leg) to rotate as far over toward your crossed leg inner thigh. Exhale all the way down chest to ground if possible. Press off both arms and retract the rear (6 oclock) leg back to ball of foot. Rotate to pull the side extended leg inward back to the original ball of foot and hands position. Continue rotating and kick the opposite leg to the side to perform the second half of the repetition.
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Shinbox switch
Begin in one direction of the shinbox position. As you exhale through the mouth, lean back if you must to place your hands on the ground behind you with elbows locked if possible, but keep your shoulders down off your ears (in packed position). Extend the front leg (shin parallel to your torso) until it is locked in front of you; toes skyward. As you extend the rear leg to meet your front leg, begin to rotate your (rst extended) leg, heel toward your bottom - moving toward the opposite shinbox. As that leg moves into place, bend your (second extended) leg across in front of you to complete the new shinbox. Reverse this process to the original side with an exhale through the mouth as you pass by your center to perform one full repetition.
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Plank Pull
On your forearms and ball of foot, press backward to the bear squat position: (ball of foot, bottom to heels, palms pressing backward, belly to thighs). Push back with your palms, locking your elbows (and as a result lifting your forearms off the ground) to load yourself like a rubber band stretching. Bend your elbows and place your forearms back on the ground, and like trying to pull yourself up to look through a window, pull your forearms against the ground to bring your torso forward. Try not to let your knees touch the ground. Exhale through the mouth and drive forward. Continue as far forward as you can keep your spine parallel to the ground. Pull forward until your elbows lift off the ground, pinching to your ribs into a knee pushup position. Tuck the tailbone underneath, like performing an upside-down abdominal crunch. Keep looking down at the ground and dont arch your midback. Flex your quads to squeeze your knees locked. Kick your heels in the opposite direction and pull your toes to your shins. Press backward (not upward like a pushup), spine hovering parallel to the ground to place your forearms back on the ground. Exhale through the mouth and continue to push backward with your entire palm to forearm contact on the ground until you arrive back at the bear squat position to complete one repetition.
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Sit-Thru Extension
From a kneeling position - hands and knees (and ball of foot), press off of the palm heels, to lift the knees. Rotate both knees in one direction and extend the knee until the knee locks. When the outside of the thigh becomes parallel with the ground, lift your leg as you can perpendicular to your opposite leg. With an exhale through the mouth, lift the opposite arm (of the extending leg) off the ground, elbow to ribs, as you extend your leg across to the opposite side without touching the ground whatsoever; ex the quad to lock the knee, pull the toes to the shin and keep the heel away. Keep your palm pressed down into the ground and lat aired to ensure that your shoulder does not sag up to your ear; maintain shoulder pack to prevent over rotation at the shoulder. Replace the lifted hand back down to the original position. Rotate to pull the side extended leg inward back to the original ball of foot and hands position. Continue rotating and kick the opposite leg to the side to perform the second half of the repetition.
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Shinbox Kick
As you exhale through the mouth, contract your core and lean back in the V position - sits bones on the ground, with both legs in the air. Squeeze the quads to lock the knees. Avoid rounding at the back; tolerate some. Kick the heels away and pull the toes toward the shins. Keep the elbows in tight to the ribs. While maintaining the V retract one leg bending at the knee into the back position of the shinbox. When you land in position, retract the opposite leg bending the knee parallel with the torso to complete the shinbox. Kick the front leg (shin parallel to your torso) off the ground, into the air in front of you, until you lock your knee; toes skyward. As you kick the rear leg to meet your front leg, begin to rotate your (rst extended) leg, heel toward your bottom - moving toward the opposite shinbox. As that leg moves into place, bend your (second extended) leg across in front of you to complete the new shinbox. Reverse this process to the original side with an exhale through the mouth as you pass by your center to perform one full repetition.
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Sit-Thru Press
From a kneeling position - hands and knees (and ball of foot), press off of the palm heels, to lift the knees. Rotate both knees in one direction and extend the knee until the knee locks. When the outside of the thigh becomes parallel with the ground, lift your leg as you can perpendicular to your opposite leg. With an exhale through the mouth, lower yourself down chest to hands while the leg extends across to the opposite side without touching the ground whatsoever; ex the quad to lock the knee, pull the toes to the shin and keep the heel away. Exhale deeply to lock the core tightly as if being kicked in the belly. Perform a pushup explosively to rotate the side extended leg inward back to the original ball of foot and hands position. Continue rotating and kick the opposite leg to the side to perform the second half of the repetition.
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Shinbox 180
Lying on your back, lift both legs into the air, held together, locking the knees and pulling the toes toward the shins. Rock slightly onto the shoulder blades; lifting the legs directly skyward, perpendicular to the ground to begin the rock, and placing the tailbone at before rocking upward toward a seated position. Bend one leg to place the foot at to the ground knee bent. Exhale through the mouth and drive the ground with your foot; while doing so drop the inside of the bent knee downward. Allow this inward push to spin you on your sits-bones away from the bent-knee leg. Keeping the opposite leg straight extended, swing around 180 degrees and place the extended leg on the ground. By driving inward with the bent-knee leg and rotating on the sits-bones 180 degrees, the driving leg ends in the rear leg position of the shinbox. Kick the rear leg forward to meet the extended leg and roll onto your back, kicking both legs into the air. Repeat with the opposite leg in the opposite direction to complete the full repetition.
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Sit-Thru 3 Leg
From a kneeling position - hands and knees (and ball of foot), press off of the palm heels, to lift the knees. Rotate both knees in one direction and extend the knee until the knee locks. When the outside of the thigh becomes parallel with the ground, lift your leg as you can perpendicular to your opposite leg. With an exhale through the mouth, lower yourself down chest to hands while the leg extends across to the opposite side without touching the ground whatsoever; ex the quad to lock the knee, pull the toes to the shin and keep the heel away. Exhale deeply to lock the core tightly as if being kicked in the belly. Perform a pushup and press backward locking elbows overhead while rotating the side extended leg inward but continue upward and extend as if performing a 3 leg dog; with the opposite leg extending the knee, foot at and heel down. Begin bending the knee of the leg you just retracted and continue rotating and kick the opposite leg to the side to perform the second half of the repetition.
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Part 5: The Rosetta Stone - Putting it all Together (by Steven Barnes)
Thank you for joining TACFIT Warrior, which we promise you will be one of the wisest decisions you have ever made. There are many pieces to this puzzle, and it would be impossible to describe, in simple terms, everything you can hope to gain, any more than a steak can be described fully enough to nourish your body. You will know, in the practice. Only the practice of TACFIT Warrior will actually open your eyes. But we can guide you to the most efficient and effective use of the program. 1. Read the manuals. From beginning to end. Become familiar with the overall structure, the intent, the basic technologies and philosophies underlying the program. More than y combined years of research went into this, culling thousands of years of mental and physical development history. You cannot expect to understand everything on a single read-through. en, begin to study the TACFIT Warrior 4 Day Diet manual as well... 2. Watch the Videos. e instructional videos, and the follow-along "sim" videos. Note that the exercises are in ve dierent levels of diculty: Warrior Lite, Pre-Recruit, Recruit, Grunt, and Commando. If you have any doubts at all of your tness, begin at Warrior Lite. You do NOT have permission to hurt yourself practicing this program!! Time and regular practice will determine progress. 3. Read the "Nine Secrets of the Samurai" book. is is a core set of values and beliefs for the TACFIT Warrior program, extracted from the famed "Book of Five Rings" created by Musashi Miyamoto, arguably the greatest warrior in Japanese history. e heart of his book are nine principles which, if taken seriously, will lead you to success in any discipline in the world. TACFIT Warrior is, among other things, designed to implant these principles in your mind at such a deep, unconscious level that you automatically begin to employ them in choosing your actions and designing your value hierarchies. But if you are consciously aware of WHY you are studying these principles, WHY and HOW they are critical to success, you will succeed more rapidly. 4. Read and use the Mission Calendars and Charts. Print out the PDF appropriate to the level of your practice. Place them in a binder, and use as a daily journal. is will be your record of eort, challenge, and triumph. ese binders may be the most important document of your progress in years to come.
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ere are FOUR dierent stress levels: 1-No Intensity 2-Low Intensity, 3-Medium Intensity, and 4-High Intensity. ere are TWO dierent basic ways these days can be laid out: e 4:7 Cycle, where the 1,2,3,4 cycle is repeated seven times over the course of 28 days, approximately one month. e other is the 7x4 Cycle, where the same stress levels are repeated on the same days of the week, in a cycle repeated four times over 28 days. e pattern is 1231234. For instance, Sunday is no Intensity, Monday low Intensity, Tuesday Medium Intensity, Wednesday No Intensity, ursday Low Intensity, Friday Medium Intensity, Saturday High Intensity. e choice is yours. On each day you will be tracking dierent kinds and amounts of information. e more you keep track of, the easier your progress will be: "what gets measured gets managed." But never forget: the core of this system is the actual practice. Not thinking about it, reading about it, or writing about it. DOING IT. 99% Perspiration, 1% theory. Without the work, the rest is meaningless. Never forget this. Day 1--No Stress. is is your recovery day. On this day, you rest, and perform joint recovery motion, with very little weight-bearing, concerned only with nourishing and depressurizing the stressed tissues. On this day you will also clarify your objectives. Note the three objective areas: #1--Career #2--Personal #3--Physical ese relate, of course, to Mind, Emotion/Spirit, and Body, the classic Greek Triad that denes humanity.
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#1: Career. is might be "education" if you are in school, or "Mind" if you are retired. An overall goal should be something MEASURABLE AND PHOTOGRAPHABLE. Not "more money" but "increase my net worth by 100,000K." Not learn a foreign language but "be conversational in Spanish" not "improve my education" but "earn my master's degree." #2: Personal. is is the domain of your heart, your emotions, your connection to others and your deep self. e framework of your birth and death. ese are huge issues and they are best approached in small steps. What are the activities that will bring you into better alignment with your spouse, your family, your God, your own heart? Dene them. It may be a certain amount of time per day meditating, journaling, praying, playing with your children, talking with your husband or wife. Deepening your familial and social relationships, achieving deeper awareness, attending church more regularly or reading the Bhagavad Gita. Only you know what you wish, and what you need. But you need to select a goal that can be quantied. Be, have, or do. #3: Physical. e easiest. Good goals are percentages of body fat, weight, running a marathon, earning a black belt, winning a competition, tting into that cheerleader uniform. Nice, easily understood, quantiable goals. What if you can't think of a goal? Try using these as a default until you customize your intentions: doubling your income, doubling the passion and intimacy in your current relationship, and doubling your physical energy. A little scary, right? What would it take to accomplish all three, at the same time? You would have to change as a human being, would have to evolve. And that is ALWAYS a little frightening. But to really progress in life, you MUST have goals in all three arenas -- trust us: whatever aws and negative beliefs that hold you back will hide wherever you hesitate to search for them.
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ACTION STEPS TODAY. What can you do TODAY to move you closer to your goals? 1-3 actions, preferably one in each major arena. WRITE IT DOWN. ALLIES OR NEW INFORMATION NEEDED. It is safest to assume that if you already have the capacity to accomplish something, you'd already be doing it. While you must have faith that you can learn, or grow, to be the person who can bring your dreams to life, you will need teachers, guides, mentors...a tribe of brothers and sisters and allies. Dene them. Dene what you need in order to become the person you need to be to have the goals. GREATEST OBSTACLES IN MY PATH. What is it that holds you back today? If you can dene it clearly enough, you can begin to nd solutions. EXTERNAL: Obstacles outside of you might include competitors, lack of resources, or saboteurs in your environment. INTERNAL: Obstacles within yourself might include fear, anxiety, anger, lack of clarity, creative block, avoidance, lack of focus, etc.
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LOW INTENSITY DAYS Objectives: #1 Career, #2 Personal, #3 Physical. Re-write your goals. It is EXTREMELY valuable to write your goals down as oen as possible. "Knowing" them is one thing. It is amazing how much resistance people have to writing down their goals. is is because they know that this is the beginning of real change, and the beginning of risk. Action Steps is Week. Notice that on the "No Stress" day we talked about what you would accomplish on THAT day. Now we are broadening scope. What will you accomplish by the end of the week? And in "Action Steps is Month" you ask what you will accomplish in the next 30 days. Being able to see long, medium, and short term goals and steps to their accomplishment is one of the secrets to success. PERCENTAGE POINTS EARNED TODAY: If every day you wrote down an approximation of your completed tasks or successful eorts...what eect do you think this would have on your overall performance? Just give yourself a score from 1-100, but be honest. Set it up so that if you had a month of 90% days, you'd be KICKING BUTT in all arenas. Possible ways to score would be: promises kept projects completed successful sales calls time spent with family pages of reading completed subjective mental clarity sticking to diet exercising on-time for appointments
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is is your way of measuring success. 100% would be one of the best days of your life. 90% is an "A", 80% is a "B", 70% is a "C" and so on. Rate yourself so that it is a little painful if you screw up. It SHOULD be a little painful to fail. And it should feel GOOD to succeed. And so long as your goals are arrayed in balance, caring about all three arenas of body, mind, and emotions--you can't go wrong. Set your goals. Set your standards. Track your results... And reap the rewards. A SAMPLE DAY: Let's say it's a "Medium Intensity" Day. You wake up, and ip through your calendar, noting the overall goals. Take a look at what you are committed to doing, and the actions you will have to take to accomplish them. Feeling any trepidation? A little nervous? GREAT! is means that you are actually confronting your issues, actually gearing up for change. Begin your exercise program with your Warm-up program. As your body warms up, think about the fact that you are preparing to take another step toward the destiny you desire. is day will have challenges (sometimes the greatest challenge is terror...and sometimes it's boredom!) but also rewards, if you can focus and ow. Just follow the instructions, and get ready to rumble. If there is fear, discomfort, anxiety, focus on it. Let yourself feel it. Now, begin to practice your chosen level of TACFIT Warrior. Again, just follow the directions. We've done all the work for you--except the sweating part. at's non-negotiable. Sorry. Aer, perform the six exercises of the cool-down. e seventh exercise is a deep rest pose. Although it only asks for a minute of your time, spend more if possible. Record the information in your journal. Now go and jump into your day! At the end of the day, write down your "Percentage Points Earned Today." As you go to sleep, listen to the "Warrior Sleep" program if you like: it will not only take you into a deep and healing night's rest, it will also help prepare your mind and emotions for another productive day of work and play. You can also use the "Warrior Sleep" program to take a nap in the middle of the aernoon. e state of rest it instills is actually deeper than normal sleep!
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REMEMBER THE PROCESS Changing, accomplishing anything at all, involves a cycle of activity and feedback, advancement and retreat. Wisdom is a matter of understanding the cycles, and matching your eorts to the demands of the moment. Being able to take the long view. ere are lots of ways to look at this cycle, and here's one that is very useful. 1)Notice the behavior you want to change. 2) Determine the behavior you want to adapt. 3) Raise your energy level 4) Practice the new program 5) Fail successfully 6) Start over again. You will experience many, many of these cycles as you progress toward any goal. ose who fail invariably miss steps of this process. Most oen, we forget to interpret failure as feedback. Equally disappointing is the human tendency to know what we DON'T want, but not what we want. at one has wasted more lives...
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For twenty years I've taught something called "Lifewriting" that asks you to look at your life through the lens of myth. Specically the pattern called "e Hero's Journey" which was beautifully expressed in the original Star Wars 1) Hero Confronted with a challenge (come with me Luke, learn the Ways of the Force!) 2) Hero Rejects e Challenge ("I promised Uncle Owen I'd work on the moisture evaporators") 3) Hero allowed or forced to accept the challenge ("teach me to be a Jedi like my father") 4) e Road of Trials (Mos Eisley Cantina, Alderan, the Death Star) 5) Gathering Allies and Powers (Han, Leia, e Force, etc.) 6) Confront Evil--defeated (Obi-Wan dies) 7) Dark Night of the Soul (Disaster at the Death Star) 8) Leap of Faith ("Trust your feelings, Luke!") 9) Confront Evil--victorious (Destruction of Death Star) 10) e Student Becomes e Teacher (Han and Luke get medals, are applauded) is pattern, present in all world culture, matches the general curve of learning and action in human life. Compare this to the Behavioral Modication model above, and you'll get the joke rapidly.
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About the Authors Scott Sonnon, National Coach and World Champion
TACFIT was created by RMAX International co-founder Scott Sonnon, a martial arts champion in Sport Jiujitsu, Submission Grappling, Amateur Mixed Martial Arts, Russian Sambo and Chinese Sanshou. Sonnon capitalized upon advances in biomechanics, stress physiology, athletic biochemistry and sports/combat psychology to become a multiple time USA National Team Coach. Sonnon trained for six years with the former USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and Special Operations Unit (Spetsnaz) Physical Conditioning and Performance Enhancement Specialists at the RETAL (Physical Skill Consultant Scientific & Practical Training) Center, and became the first American to be licensed by the Russian government in these studies. He is also one of a handful of individuals outside the former USSR to earn the coveted Honorable Master of Sport the highest athletic distinction recognized in the former Soviet Union. Sonnons peak performance enhancement methods are on the scientific cutting-edge, proving themselves again and again where it counts: in the real world, on and off the field of athletics. He now speaks around the world for noteworthy organizations such as MENSA International (the High IQ Society), FLETC (the US Federal Law Enforcement Training Center), NSCA (the National Strength and Conditioning Association), IYCA (International Youth Conditioning Association), SLLETS (the State and Local Law Enforcement Symposium), the Arnold Schwarzenegger Anti-Aging Festival, NLSI (National Law Enforcement and Security Institute), as well as Universities worldwide. Find Scott on Facebook or sonnon@RMAXInternational.com
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