Hey Folks, over the next few days TACFIT Designer and Founder, Scott Sonnon shares with us his story as he traveled to Europe to seek out ancient martial wisdom backed by Soviet sport science to bring this rare combination together designing the first Tactical-Specific Conditioning System (TACFIT); used by secret service, counter-terrorism units, fire brigades and military academies.

Scott’s journey didn’t start out so trouble free. Having connective tissue disorder at such a young age he shares with us the difficulties he faced having to overcame theese physical challenges at a young age. So lets begin as we learn why joint mobility training is so important.

*******************

Craig Ballantyne: Hello everyone, this is Craig Ballantyne, and I’m here with TACFIT Trainer Scott Sonnon.

Scott Sonnon: Thank you, Craig. I really appreciate it.

Craig Ballantyne: Hey, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself, because I know who you are and a lot of trainers and some advanced fitness folks might know who you are, but you might be a new to a lot of others, especially to my readers. Then we’ll get into how to make the program work with everyone.

Scott Sonnon: Sure. Thanks, Craig. Basically, I was born with a congenital joint disorder, which made contemporary fitness approaches like power lifting and ultra distance endurance activities impossible, it would shred my connective tissue.

So, much of my youth was spent in agony, because I wasn’t going to let that kick me down but every time that I attempted some type of sport or athletic approach it would just shred my connective tissue.

So, my parents basically tried to support me by finding alternative movement methods and alternative therapies. I’m 40-years-old, so that was 30 or 35 years ago and the approaches weren’t as cutting edge as they are now.  We’re talking like the “Dewey Decimal era”, not quite the “Google era.” We had to hunt our way through a lot of information spending our time trying to find what to do and that led us to martial art’s training.

Martial Arts training had a lot of baggage that you had to sift through; a lot of tradition that were just garbage that had been passed along from one generation to the next.

Over time I stumbled upon the Russian approach, which is basically very much along American lines of trying to be as pragmatic as possible. Take what works and discard the rest. It’s a long story how it happened, but I ended up stumbling into a form of martial arts called Sambo from an American, who was a bronze medalist in the world.

It instantly resonated with me because I could see that he was small and wiry, I’m talking like this guy was a not of muscle. However, he could  hunk guys who were three and four times his size across the mat, you could tell that he as in great shape from how he looked, and he was so much superior to the guys who were large and puffy who couldn’t to perform as explosively or as long as he.

His training methods were unique even though he had only a portion of the Russian approach at the time.  After spending a few years with as a U.S. Team member and competing around the world in Sambo, I petitioned to be the first American to go over to Russia, as an intern. They finally chose me to go over there. I was a world class athlete at the time and there were 16 and 17 year olds outperforming me.

They would send out their seventh string because we were pitiful compared to them. They had such enormous connective tissue strength or joint strength that they would continually outperform us even though we were training hours and hours and hours a day so much longer than they were. I would say we trained even much harder than they were, yet they were still able to outperform us and looked better than we did.

When we came back to the United States, I did my best to try and back all the research stuff that I had discovered. After spending six years it was  a little weird to think of their Special Forces trainers, their Olympic and national coaches, even members of their cosmonaut program.

So, there is a joke that goes something like this. America spent a million dollars developing a pen that writes in zero gravity and the Russians took a pencil. They were low-tech on everything and they had the science to back it up. So, we just didn’t have the science on low-tech information we had all of our science based upon pharmaceutical solutions to things.

So, only in the past 20 years the Soviet Union imploded and all their research basically disappeared. We came back and now not only have we caught up with them, but we’ve actually surpassed where they were because we’re able to apply it on a consistent basis and we have the calories to support it. We have the drive to support it and that’s what happened with our organization.

I selected a group of professionals from different areas to help me support the information that I had discovered in Russia and actually systematize it brought us to the current moment with RMAX International of a group of professionals who are trying to develop a new approach based upon an old understanding.

Craig Ballantyne: How old were you when you first started when you stumbled upon the Sambo?

Scott Sonnon: Let’s see it was 1990. I had been kickboxing at the time and when you wear a size eight hat you basically a walking bull’s eye. I definitely joined the wrong sport.

However, when I was down in Millersville University that’s when I first an athlete by the name Andy Bachman, who was from Caracas, Venezuela. The disparity between Sambo and other styles of a martial art was huge for me. There was a complete absence of tradition and of high focus on science.  

Craig Ballantyne: Very interesting.

As we continue on with part 2 of our interview excerpt with Scott Sonnon, we find out what Ops units are training with these methods right now.

So apparently, a “New Eco Atkins Diet” appears to work for vegetarian weight loss programs.

The high protein vegetarian diet helped improve bad cholesterol while folks lost weight, but other researchers suggest that counting calories remains the key to weight loss, since both vegetarian diet groups in the study lost weight.

This interesting new research study was published today – coincidentally from a group of Toronto researchers – about vegetarian diets for weight loss.  It was a small study, and of course more research is needed, but it suggested you could use high-protein vegetarian foods to achieve the same results as you could with meat-eating Atkins diet success.

The folks in this study lost an average of 8.8 pounds in only 4 weeks – impressive stuff (and also supports our philosophy here at Turbulence Training that “Diet is more important than exercise”.

Interesting…and yes, we could debate whether the soy protein foods are healthy, but what I want to concentrate on is the fact that vegetarian diets are good for weight loss.That should be obvious, but some folks get it wrong by eating too many processed carbohydrates and not enough “real vegetarian foods”.

As you might know, last week I promised the world I was going to reconstruct my diet and go vegetarian for the month of June. I’m almost vegan except for the eggs I eat. Everything else is plant based food.

So how’s it going?

Great. Very interesting, and a big time learning experience. I even have a shocking protein revelation to share with you thanks to my former professor, Dr. Stuart Phillips from McMaster University.

Bodybuilders are going to FREAK OUT when I tell them this…more on that in a second…

But first, let’s review some of my adventures in vegetarian eating.

When I tell my friends about my plan, they always recoil in shock and horror…”aren’t you going to miss your chocolate milk?”, they ask.

And the truth is, I do, a little. But everyday I miss it less and less, mostly because I’ve been experimenting with other foods and finding things to replace it. The great thing about Turbulence Training is that we are “diet-flexible”, and frankly, it doesn’t matter to me what type of diet you use.

You want to eat meat? That’s fine.

Wanna be a full-blown, hard-core raw vegan dieter? Go for it.

Feel like eating cardboard and tree bark? Okay, you’re an adult, that’s your decision.

But back to my experiments…here’s what I’ve tried in the last week and how things have turned out.

1) I tried some gluten free tortillas using Gluten Free Ivory Teff & Millet Flour. Not so good. Even Bally wouldn’t eat them!

2) I’ve tried some spelt flour products, including bread, linguine, and even a “vege patty”. Not bad.

3) Lots of Amy’s Organic Chili, but then realized it was high in sodium. Okay for my diet, but watch it if you are on a low-sodium diet.

4) Multi-grain rice bread…probably won’t be buying it again

5) Hemp Bliss beverage (unsweetened) – this is not so good either…I’m going back to Almond Milk.

So those are just some of the things we are trying…and I really appreciate all the feedback folks are giving.

As you can bet, I’m eating a lot of grains, nuts, and nut butters (cashew butter makes amazing sandwich spread) to keep my calories up, and I wondered if I was getting enough protein. I was having “protein guilt” as Brad Pilon calls it.

So I asked an expert…after all, this protein question is on everyone’s minds…”how do you get enough protein on a vegetarian diet, especially if you want to gain muscle?”

Well, this is going to shock you.

I wrote to my friend Dr. Phillips who is an expert in protein metabolism. He’s completed several studies on protein requirements and exercise, and had a very interesting answer to my question. Here’s what I asked…

Q: Hey, not sure if you know but I’m experimenting with a near-vegan diet for a month…only eating eggs, no dairy. I think I’m lucky to get 100 grams of protein in a day. Do you think that eating a surplus of calories and only 100 grams of protein while lifting can still allow me to gain muscle? That’s only about 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram bodyweight. Thanks!

Dr. Phillips’ Answer:
No problem gaining at all… More than enough protein!!

The rate at which we ‘grow’/hypertrophy muscle is way too slow to need that much protein.

Our real protein needs during muscle building are 0.8 grams per kilogram bodyweight per day or perhaps even a little lower…

****************************
Bet you didn’t expect that answer.

And yes, that is not a typo…he’s talking about grams per kilogram, not per pound. So divide that by 2.2 and you get a whopping 0.36 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day needed to build muscle.

That’s a long, long, looooooooooong way from the 1 gram per pound commonly recommended in the bodybuilding community.

And I can feel their hate building already.

So now I open it up to comments.

What do you think?

Have all the vegetables gone to my head?

Still building while on my “eco” diet,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

Losing fat is simple. All you have to do is stuff your face with fruits and vegetables and you’ll end up eating fewer calories overall and the fat will just melt off your body.

Of course, you’re an 8-year old child living in a grown-up’s body aren’t you?

And you’re going to tell me you don’t like fruits and vegetables.

Then you’ll probably “huff” and turn around, march out of the kitchen and go plop down in front of the TV to watch Scooby Doo without doing your homework, won’t you?

Well, time to grow up. “Not liking” fruits and vegetables is no excuse to not even try and improve your diet.

After all, I was a picky eater growing up, and over the years I’ve learned to like, even love, almost every vegetable I can find. In fact, here’s my daily fat loss diet including my complete fruit and vegetable intake.

Breakfast: 1 pear. And the following mixed in a bowl: 1/2 cup blueberries, 3 oz pecans, 1 tablespoon natural chunky peanut butter. Green Tea.

Brunch Omelet: 4 whole eggs, 1/2 ounce cheese, 1/4 green pepper, 1/4 red pepper, 1/4 cup broccoli, 1/4 cup mushrooms, 1/4 cup spinach, and  diced red onion. 1 apple or 1 orange. Greens drink. Green Tea.

Lunch: Raw broccoli and red peppers with hummus, 3 oz raw nuts (almonds or cashews), 1 piece of fruit. 2 cups chocolate milk if I workout that day.

Dinner Salad: 1 cup spinach, sliced red onion, 1/4 red pepper, (sometimes) 1/4 cup strawberries, 1/4 cup walnuts, shredded feta cheese

Dinner Main: 1 can Amy’s Organic Chili, 1 cup spinach, 1/4 cup mushrooms, diced red onion. 1 apple.

(Sometimes I’ll have a big steak dinner instead.)

Evening Snack: Fruit and/or raw nuts

I’m not a “low-carb guy”, but I have found cutting back on whole-grains helps with fat loss. Plus, fruits and vegetables fill you up more than bread, cereal, or granola bars.

I mean seriously, who has ever had a 250 calorie granola bar and said, “Wow, I’m full.”

NO ONE!

You probably just wanted another (thanks to the sugar and whatever else they put in there to make you hungry for more!).

But waaaaaay back in December, 2005, I discovered that replacing whole grains with more fruits and vegetables helped me take my body fat from 10% to 9% consistently. And that diet was a key in helping me achieve this look all year round. ====>

Not surprisingly, science has found the same thing.

A recent study agrees with this approach. Subjects on a low-fat diet that ate more fruits and vegetables lost more fat than another group on only a low-fat diet.

Why?

The group that ate the extra fruits and vegetables said they were less hungry. They were also able to eat a greater volume of food because fruits and vegetables are not energy dense (meaning they don’t have a lot of calories per serving).

(Reference: Amer. J. Clin. Nutr. 85: 1465-1477, 2007.)

Eating more fruits and vegetables will help you cut calories and stay full longer, so you’ll lose more belly fat with that diet of whole, natural foods.

Bottom line: Fruits and vegetables help you lose fat. And live longer.

Research from the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California studied the food records of over 193,000 men and women and found that an increase in fruits and vegetables intake specifically helped to reduce the incidence of colon cancer in men.

(American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 88, No. 3, 730-737, September 2008.)

Here are some tips from Turbulence Twitter followers on how to get more fruit and vegetables into your diet…

1) Easiest way – make a smoothie with favorite vegs and fruits. Broccoli is
even good that way!

2) I love peppers and hummus, broccoli and hummus really good too.

3) Have a BIG bowl of fruit set out where it’s seen. Then you can graze as you
walk by during the day instead of grabbing junk

4) Make a whole-grain wrap of crushed walnuts, almond butter, and  spinach. Great way to get a serving of spinach w/out even noticing its there.

5) Celery, apples or pears dipped in a good nut butter or paired with some raw nuts.

6) Buy mini bell peppers in packs; eat them instead of chips! Same crunch factor, but healthy! Add tbsp hummus or salsa

And a few quick tips from me:

a) Instead of having toast for breakfast, have an apple.

b) Usually have a side of rice at lunch? Have 1 cup of broccoli.

c) Typically have a bowl of cereal at night? Have an orange and an ounce of pecans (or walnuts or almonds), instead.

It’s very simple to eat more fruits and vegetables, and that way you’ll stay full and lose belly fat.

Let me know what WORKS for YOU! Post your comment below!

Helping you eat your way to fat loss,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

Click here for more info on the best fat loss diet

Scientists from FLLAB (Fat Loss Laboratory for Abdominal Beautification) were shocked earlier this week by a new study that suggests a powerful way to lose weight.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t have to do with the recent discovery of “good fat and brown fat that might burn calories if we give you some drugs” or glorified caffeine pills that claim to boost your metabolism. It doesn’t even have anything to do with Acai gummy berry juice from the mountains of Peru.

When asked about this exciting new discovery, the lead scientist from FLLAB, Dr. Henry Gutbuster said, “What we’ve discovered is so new we’re not even sure how to pronounce it. But it’s a combination of something called ‘diet’ and ‘eggsercise’. And we’re working on getting these into pill form right away!”

And while some daydreaming scientists believe the so-called discovery of “good brown fat” might some day help you burn calories, boost metabolism, and lose weight, when asked about the brown fat research, the good doctor just snorted and said, “If it really works, it doesn’t seem to be doing much good now, does it?”

Another scientist from FLLAB said, Dr. Wilhemena Firmbuns said, “Listen, they’ve been looking for this so-called ‘good fat’ forever, because they found brown fat in mice a long time ago. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if humans have brown fat or not because its not going to stop people from getting fat if they eat at Mickey D’s 3 times per day”.

Meanwhile, throughout the entire interview we did with scientists at FLLAB, a visiting junior scientist from Russia, Dr. C. Ballantov, just kept on yelling, “You can’t out-drug a bad diet!” in the background while senior scientists tried to quiet him down.

“But it’s true you know,” said Dr. Gutbuster while trying to quiet Dr. Ballantov by hitting him with a stick.

“We haven’t been able to find an exercise program that allows our subjects – even our mice! – to eat whatever they want all the time and still lose weight. So you certainly can’t out-exercise a bad diet, and we’ll probably never find a drug that allows you to simply take a pill and lose your belly fat without simply cutting back on junk food and doing some exercise. The hope for a miracle weight loss pill is hopeless.”

So these new research studies on the so-called good fat (also known as “brown fat” in scientific research papers) is just another irrelevant scientific weight loss theory to the average guy and gal on the street.

There are no drugs available that will boost your metabolism. There  aren’t even any drugs available that really do a good job of controlling appetite.

Heck, the only “weight loss drugs” on the market right now come with a warning about how you’re almost guaranteed diarrhea if you use them.

When asked to compare that weight loss drug with his new finding that “exercise and diet” might help with weight loss, Dr. Gutbuster said, “So far, we haven’t found any subjects pooping their pants because of eating less and exercising more. So this “eggcercise and diet” approach looks promising compared to that drug that is currently on the market.”

In case you missed it…part 1 of the “History of Turbulence Training” can be found here at Turbulence Training for Fat Loss.To make that long story short, I was working 16 hours per day and trying to fit in a fat burning workout in just 50 minutes…and that’s where today’s story picks up.

I was just about to bust my tail to get over to the gym. I had to run through the cold, dreary Canadian winter afternoon, and when I got to the gym, I did a quick but thorough warm-up. Unlike most people, I wasn’t wasting my time doing a 5-minute walk on the treadmill, that’s pointless and does nothing to prepare you for Turbulence Training. Instead, I did a bodyweight circuit that was specific to my lifts.

For my specific warm-up, I did bodyweight squats, pushups, and lunges. I also did some light sets of the resistance training exercises as well.

Once I got through the warm-up for the fat burning workout, I then chose the best total-body, multi-muscle exercises and did as many non-competing supersets as I could in the remainder of the 20 minutes.

Non-competing supersets simply mean doing 2 exercises back to back with little to no rest between exercise, however each exercise must not interfere with the other. That tends to be different from classic bodybuilding supersets that tend to focus on the same muscle groups.

In the Turbulence Training fat burning workouts, you want to perform each exercise as challenging as possible, so you want to be fresh, not fatigued.

Classic non-competing supersets include barbell squats plus chin-ups, dumbbell split squats plus dumbbell presses, and deadlifts plus military presses. Heck, each of those supersets are full body belly fat burning workouts in themselves!

The one mistake you must not make with non-competing supersets is to pair two “grip-intensive” exercises together.

For example, using dumbbell split squats and dumbbell rows together in a superset requires too much grip strength, and so both exercises will suffer.

By using the non-competing supersets, you can train your entire body in just 5 minutes, but I added a couple of extra supersets to make a full 20 minutes of fat loss resistance training.

Here’s the legendary first TT-style workout I ever did…

Strength Training Superset #1
1A) Barbell Squats – 8 reps
- No rest.
1B) Dumbbell Chest Presses – 8 reps
- Rest one minute and repeat 2 more times.

Strength Training Superset #2
2A) DB Rows – 8 reps per side
- No rest.
2B) Barbell Lunges – 8 reps per side
- Rest one minute and repeat 2 more times.

Immediately after I did the resistance exercises, I went straight to interval training on the bike. After a warm-up that increased in intensity over time, I did six 45-second intervals followed by 45 seconds of easy recovery interval and then a short cool-down to finish those intervals in under 20 minutes.

Stationary Bike Intervals
- 5 minute warmup (gradually increasing in intensity)
- 45 seconds work
- 45 seconds recovery
- repeat those intervals 6 times
- 5 minute cool-down

Lift first, intervals second. Forget that old wives tale about doing cardio first to burn more fat. That’s just junk.

And that was it. That’s all you need for a fat loss program. Well, that and a quick shower before I headed back to the lab. You don’t need long, slow cardio workouts. You just need short, burst exercise workouts and a the right fat burning diet for your personality.

And since that day, millions of men and women have used Turbulence Training – thanks to the Internet and my programs being in Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Prevention, Oxygen, and Muscle and Fitness Hers. It’s amazing to hear folks finally getting results, rather than wasting time with slow cardio workouts.

Glad to have you as part of the Turbulence Training Lifestyle Revolution.

Tell me about YOUR favorite TT workout…

And just say NO to cardio,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Click here to get started with Turbulence Training