Now there are many benefits of having a strong core. In last day’s post Flow Coach, Scott Sonnon gives a few tricks and tips in order to get more volume out of an exercise so that you can hit that high intensity workout.

Proper form and technique is something we have to keep in mind with all levels of exercise. TACFIT Commando programs are specifically designed with this in mind guiding you through pain free movements. Today were going to discuss how to strengthen the most common injury most people have.

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Craig Ballantyne: All right, Curtis in Las Vegas and Mark from Chicago ask a good question. So people who have shoulder injuries that do exercise like the tripod overhead and the arm swing, how are those done properly to avoid shoulder injury or do they need to be modified or avoided if somebody has preexisting shoulder injuries?

Scott Sonnon: Okay. That’s a great question. There’s obviously a surgical limit to certain exercises. Let’s say you’ve had a disc fused in your neck, there will be movements that you will not be able to do. In the tripod overhead, I’m assuming that you’re talking about the Israeli Special Forces TACFIT challenge. I used with the IDS and their secret service. Now, this is a Commando level movement.

The basic version of the tripod overhead extension is where your feet and your hands are flat, and you’re in a crab position with your legs together. The basic motion is being able to press your hips up until you have full hip extension and your head is in alignment with your spine so you look like a table belly up.

If you CAN’T do that without pain or pins and needles in your shoulder or running down your radial nerve then you’re at the surgical limit, and you should not do the exercise, because that’s the screening test for whether you can work up to the overhead extension that you see in the Israeli Special Forces challenge.

If you CAN do this without pain, but you can’t perform the table position with one arm your legs separated then you should stay at the full table position. You’re still getting 100% of the fitness and medical benefits even though you’re doing it at a lower level.

I know it’s really cool to do complex movements, I get it, and I’m a fan, but the point isn’t to do the higher level movements. The point is for there to be an option to increase the complexity so that the nervous system can create more fingers in your brain. It increases the plasticity this is the technical term used in neuroscience.

Your brain becomes more complex, which is the same neurological phenomenon that happens when you experience A SECOND WIND. It happens when you are in a circular respiratory distress, you’re breathing really heavy, you’re panting, you have cold sweats, and you have little phantom pains, all of these things.

People think that this is the limit of their conditioning, that’s just a first gear. If you’re able to step through that safely, I’m talking without pain or pins and needles, and you step through it. The brain makes it easier for the rest of the body to continue the rest of the activity.

So, if you start with a primary exercise, in this case, the table, and you’re able to do the 20/10 program. With a lower sophistication, you’re still going to be able to hit that second gear getting that second wind and that’s really where it starts to happen with the fat burn and the muscle gain, because the brain forces a change to happen in the body. As long as you don’t have pain and pins and needles.

So you first have to screen the movement, in this case with the shoulder, if you can do the table without pins and needles and without any local sharp pain in the shoulders then do that movement. Soon as you can do that movement without feeling pain than the next time you do it separate your legs and lift one arm off the ground pointing it at the sky.

The next step is to take the arm overhead to get the full spinal arch. The HEALTH OF THE SPINE is directly related to backward flexion. If you can’t flex your spine backward it’s an unhealthy spine basically.

So, the goal is first to get it into normal alignment then slowly encourage backward flexion. Each one of the motor progressions is a screening for the next subsequent one. If you have pain choke down in sophistication until you can do it without pain.

Remember that you have to do the mobility exercises to prepare for it. Then the compensation exercises afterwards to unload the tension so that you don’t diminish the movement. That’s the other end of the spectrum.

The cool down is absolutely critical to your ability to do the next workout. Remember bigger is not better, faster is not better, stronger is not better, only better is better.

Craig Ballantyne: Awesome. That’s it for today’s post. Join us tomorrow where Scott Sonnon explains how to properly perform another compound exercise that uses muscles in the chest, shoulders, triceps, back, abs and even the legs. Click here to read part 9.

Hey folks, there’s no doubt that high intensity and low intensity exercise such as a Tai Chi program, or a light Pilate’s work out can also be very beneficial.

In part 6, of this interview series TACFIT Commando Designer and Founder, Scott Sonnon recommends integrating“circuit style” training into high and low intensity level programs.

Now today, we’re going to look at what a new person coming to TACFIT can expect.

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Craig Ballantyne: What can an average person who works out and has been doing more traditional weight training, some interval training, a little higher intensity stuff except to feel like after those first workouts?

You mentioned having more energy as soon as you’re done, which is going to be great compared to you know most people who do these work outs until they’re completely exhausted. Tell us a little about the physiological response they’re going to have from the first couple of workouts they’re going to have?

Scott Sonnon: Okay, it’s a solid request. So, basically what happens to be if we move in a way that is a natural to the range of motion of our joints, this is what tactical means, and when we think of tactical we immediately think of camouflage, for some reason, but we’re all neurological predators. The way our nervous system is organized is to be able to survive in a crisis. We have binocular vision; our eyes aren’t on the sides of our head like fish.

So, when we move in a certain way that opens up all of our joints throughout the movements we get flushed with this sudden influx of energy. All of our energy isn’t locked in cold storage; it takes a high intensity workout to not just give us the movements to release that, but also the intensity to burn off the barriers to releasing that energy.

When we go into a workout, say there are six movements from a very basic movement to some of them you may not have seen before. You’ll be able to do them right away because there are four levels of sophistication to each movement. The basic three levels we call recruit, grunt, and commando.

Everybody gets to use the same family of a skill. If I’m doing a push up and the guys who are training next to me may be doing a ply metric screwing push. It’s the same skill family but we all train together. I can do the same basic gross movement even on my knees, the point isn’t to do the movement but to complete the program with the caveat that I must progress in complexity, to BECOME BETTER not just bigger.

Bigger, stronger, faster is fantastic when it’s necessary, but it’s only the first step, it’s sort of like nutrition. Calories in, calories out isn’t all of nutrition, but it is the first step. We have to first be able to consider what we’re putting in our body and what we’re putting out energetically. The same is true when it comes to movements.

We also have to realize that only better is better. So we have to improve the movement that we’re doing. These six exercises you could be doing a basic knee push up; there are little tricks that we give you to be able to put out more volume. If we know how the core works, it is like a Coke can, you know you have a bottom and a top on the can. The only way to truly crush the can is to spiral twist it and then press it together and that’s the way our core works.

We have the transverse abdominals that we have to pull in. We have the rectus abdominals that have muscle (six packs) on top we have to crunch down. However, we also have the pelvic wall on the bottom which we can only do by squeezing, gals you know it as Kegels, guys you know it’s the muscle that you have to squeeze in order to avoid peeing. We have to pull up the bottom of the can as we crush down with the tight exhale to push the diaphragm down and that crushes the can.

If we don’t have a solid core then anybody that has children knows that when a child’s having a tantrum trying to pick up that child is like trying to pick up a 200 pound sandbag. The sand just pours out the other side, and you have this really awkward heavy thing to try and pick up. A 200 pound plank is much easier to pick up because the weight is evenly distributed, so the tighter the lighter. The goal is to make the body as tight as possible and that means it’s as light as possible.

We have to start with the CORE so that we can create a union between the upper and lower bodies. Every technique has little components to it in order to get more volume out of it so that we can truly have high intensity. Even though there are only six movements that we have to do there are little tricks and tips to each one of those movements and the protocol that we do them is very important.

The first protocol that we use is 20 seconds of work with 10 seconds of rest, also known as Tabata protocol. It’s the first in six protocols, six programs that we use in TACFIT. This is the entry level, because we have to trick the nervous system.

Nobody can tell us that we need to work harder. To be able to actually do that requires some type of motivation that doesn’t come from our mind. You can’t tell the mind to do more you have to tell the spine to do more.

So, “In 20 seconds I have to do as many of these as I can, and then I have 10 seconds to recover before I have to do it again,” that encourages us through time to be able to push harder and recover faster. And there are specific recovery methods during those 10 seconds. THE 10 SECONDS are more critical than the work.

Recovery is king workout is queen. It tends to be viewed the other way around. It’s the recovery methods that we need to focus on in the 20/10. So, the methods that we use are, they can seem a little strange, but it’s amazing the change in numbers that happens.

If you think of doing one activity for 45 minutes, let’s say riding a stationary bike unless there’s some type of program on the stationary bike that encourages us to have the intensity our mind can’t push to high intensity.

When we compress it to 20 seconds we can push hard for 20 seconds chemically. We can push really hard and in those 10 seconds we can RECOVER before the next set. It’s much different than doing the same thing 45 minutes in a row. Twenty seconds is short enough that the spine can push, 45 minutes, we lose focus. It’s like Zen Buddhism, 45 minutes of the same activity.

Being able to hold your form, most people are damaging themselves every single time they’re taking another turn of those pedals, because if the minds not absolutely prepared to handle the technique than the body starts to find a cheat, it tries to find the easiest way to accomplish the activity.

In 20 seconds, we can hold our attention. We can actually use high intensity and use these little tricks and tips that will give us all the benefits that we need. Twenty seconds are more important than 45 minutes and that’s the first protocol, the 20/10.

That is it for today. We’ll be back tomorrow with part 8, as the TACFIT author  Scott Sonnon answers more questions on complex movements.

After all my crazy travel plans this summer, I decided to get out of the big city and spend the weekend at Momma B’s. Ol’ Bally the Dog loves my mom, and follows her around the house and her garden wherever she goes.

It’s quite cute to watch the two of them.

It was also a bit of a sad trip home, as it was the first time I’d been there since workers knocked down and buried my dad’s silo (if you don’t know, I grew up on a farm and my passed away 2 years ago, and my mom decided his rickety old barn and silo should get knocked down).

I’m going to post some pictures on my blog and Facebook page later this week…I have a few shots of the 80 foot silo tumbling down. More to come… ===>

And now there’s nothing left but a hill of dirt where his silo and barn once stood. Seems so strange. You’ll see when I add those photos on Friday.

But back to my mom…

…she’s made a huge improvement in her health and fitness in the last decade. She retired in 2004 and since then has become much more active, exercising almost every day.

She now has two rooms in the big old house where I group dedicated to her workout area, with a treadmill, yoga mat, stability ball, and dumbbells.

Yep, she’s 68 and using Turbulence Training. Pretty cool. So if she can do it, so can you!

And more importantly, she’s made some dramatic improvements to her diet. She eats even more fruits and vegetables now, snacks on raw nuts, and uses Prograde Protein in her smoothies.

Plus, she uses the ONE supplement that almost everyone should use.

Fish oil.

Why?

Because these contain heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids.

I just read a review study from the September 2010 issue of “The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry” where researchers from the University of California concluded that the omega-3 fatty acids help your heart because:

- They are anti-inflammatory (protecting your heart)
- They help you reduce triglycerides (a bad fat in your blood)
- They are anti-thrombotic (which means omega-3s fight blood clots)

These are just a few of the methods by which omega-3 fatty acids protect your heart.

And so on one hand, it was good to see that my mom had a bottle of fish oil in her fridge this weekend…

…But on the other hand, taking a spoonful of what I call “fish juice” is pretty gross. Especially if it dribbles down your chin. Double gross.

So that’s why I’ve gone back to Omega-3 capsules. And I’ve bought my mom some of the same brand I use too.

The capsules I use are from a company that I’ve partnered with called Prograde, and their omega-3 fatty acid brand is called “EFA Icon”. I get mine here and you can too:

=> The Best Source For Omega-3 Fatty Acids to Protect Your Heart

Have a great week (with some free stuff coming tomorrow),

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

A lot of folks have been asking about my diet. So I’m going to outline what I eat when I’m at home…As you’ll see, I eat a lot of raw food, very few animal products, and a lot of fruits and vegetables.

Oh, and I eat a LOT of carbohydrates too. I think the carb-phobia the diet world has is overblown. If you get your carbohydrates from raw fruits, raw vegetables, raw nuts, and whole grains, you’ll have a simple time losing fat.