Pavel Tsatsouline Kettlebell Strength Training Weight Lifting Workouts Exercise and Flexibility Questions & Answers.

Relaxation in combat comes from continued pratice. All beginners experience and go through what you are going through. Scott's work teaches you economy of motion, fluidity, relaxed movement and frees the body of tension. His movement education system also works on releasing 'fear reactivity'. It is a great compliment to any martial art. Go to his RMAX.tv site. Steve Maxwell

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Will, The halo can be performed by holding the bell by the horns or by the ball. At Maxercise, we use both variations. I also like using a barbell plate for the halo. I do not have a time line on the weighted mobility DVD. Steve Maxwell

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The deck squat is indeed a great total body conditioner and one of my favorites. There is a lot more to it than rolling back and touching your feet to the floor. Most people do not reap the complete benefits of the exercise because they do it incorrectly. When you squat, imagine sitting the pelvis forward between your feet. There should be no impact as you sit down and roll back. In fact, if you squat down correctly, you should be able to do it on cement without injury or discomfort. As you roll back, the legs stay bent at 90' and the spine is extended into a shoulder stand. This is where most people miss out. They do not extend and lengthen the spine. Keep a slight arch in the neck. From this extended spinal position in the shoulder stand, a sharp exhalation takes place while simultaneously straightening the legs. This action literally makes the feet drop and hit the floor. This exhalation from the diaphragm releases spinal tension and allows the feet to involuntarily touch the floor behind the head. Then, with abdominal tension, one uses the momentum gathered from the foot strike and rolls back into a tight squat. If the feet tend to be to close together, the heels can be clicked together on the roll through to spread the feet to at least hip width on the recovery. This is a highly sophisticated movement that has great carry over to many martial skills and is an outstanding strength/endurance/cardio movement in it's own right. Steve Maxwell

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of laying down or sitting with heavy weights and standing up. It is a very old exercise. I have seen pictures from the late 18oo's and early 1900's of wrestlers performing this exercise with globe barbells. Steve Maxwell

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The progression through these routines that you ask about is being able to do them with minimum effort and a complete release of stored tension. In all likelyhood, you will not be able to most of the drills in the begginning. As you progress, you coordination, breath control, mobility, suppleness and strength in the extreme ranges of motion will improve greatly. Body Flow is all about the ability to move. Pounding out snatches and doing presses and deadlifts is not going to help your martial movement. Steve Maxwell

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There are tons of ways to close the gap on an opponent to engage in grappling. First of all, in order to punch you, the opponent is only an arm length away. Time the clinch at the end of the opponents punch or kick. You can also feign a kick, punch or combination and clinch as the opponent reacts. A great way to execute a morote gari (double leg take down) is to throw a punch or slap and drop in for the legs when the assailent reacts to the punch. It is all about timing and precission. Practise regularly against partners trying to punch you while wearing big 16 oz.boxing gloves. Wear a mouth piece. The big gloves are a bit easier to see, don't hurt as much if you mess up and will take some of the fear out of the drill until you build your confidence and skill. All of my jiujitsu students from white belt to black can clinch any professional level striker with ease. The clinch will only work against an aggresive assailant who is comitted to trying to really punch you. A good striker who 'lays' back and waits for you to try and clinch is very dangerous and can knock you out. The secret is not to force the clinch. If he doesn't come after you, do not clinch, keep your distance. The more aggressively he comes, the easier it will be to close. You may find yourself in a upper body clinch or a lower body clinch. Having an arsenal of upper and lower body takedowns is important. Steve Maxwell

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Clubbells and kettlebells are both excellent for different reasons. I use clubbells for their specific strengthening effect on my hands, wrists, elbows and shoulders. They are one of the finest tools for the grappling arts. Kettlebells are great for back, leg, hamstring and shoulder power. Both are great for cardio and strength/endurance. But why limit oneself to one or the other? Clubbells can be used for swings and snatches and kettlebells can be used for circular movements just as a wrench can hammer a nail and a hammer can loosen a bolt. Both tools have their strengths as well as weakness. Front squats with clubbells are very awkward and hard to load while kettlebell front squats are user friendly because of their design. Heavy military presses are better with kettlebells because, once again, of leverage and design. But try swinging a kettlebell in a full mill or try doing pendulums with a kettlebell. Not a good idea unless you enjoy ripping your shoulders out of the socket. There are specific conditioning attributes that both give. It all depends on what you want and are trying to accomplish. It isn't either or. Mix them together all you want, but know why you are doing it. Steve Maxwell

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GTG is a technique to increase specific strength or endurance levels utilizing frequent bouts of submaximal efforts. The idea is that strength is a skill and that the more one practises that skill, the better they will be at that particular lift or exercise. Skill is a central nervous system adaptation. You are working the brain to muscle connection with this frequent practice. The trick to not 'burning out' is to keep the efforts submaximal and not go into deep levels of fatigue. Freshness is an important factor. One wants to use a high enough level of resistence as to provide meaningful stimulus, but so heavy as to produce fatigue. There are many ways to incorporate this technique, depending on ones goals. Daily training, multiple sessions throughout the day and ladder sets are the most popular. GTG is used for one movement, at the most two, for a period of a two weeks to two months. Other training can be done around the GTG workouts, taking care not to over training. For example, let's assume a trainee desires to increase his pullup numbers. He could apply the GTG in several ways; a single daily bout of pullups starting with about 60% of his max. He would attempt to add one rep every third workout; he could also do several sets of pullups spaced at various intervals throughout the day, making sure that his last set of the day is as fresh as the first; he also could do ladder sets twice per week (because daily training might impractical for him). He would start with one rep, then two and so forth until he begins to struggle,he then starts the ladder sequence again at the bottom with one rep and works back up until he once again begins to struggle. When one rep becomes very difficult, he would call it a day. In the ladder sets, fatigue plays a greater role. The rest would be the amount of time it would take a real or imaginary partner to do the same. This is an example of an endurance ladder. Power ladders can be done using the same sequence with heavy weight. The reps would be done at the top of each minute up to 3. Steve Maxwell Steve Maxwell

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Scott Sonnon is one of the most knowledgeable coaches that I know regarding body structure, function, movement and control. I whole heartedly reccommend his CST and workshops. Tom Phillips was there expanding his already vast training knowledge as well as many other RKC's.I really had fun and enjoyed being a student for a change. Steve Maxwell

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Ben, Fitness training for increased work capacity does only negative things to the body. Fitness training is a stress that makes the body tired, exhausted and weaker. The only direct result from exercise is an injury. Increased fitness capacity comes from rest. It is during rest that the body can make the neccessary adaptations to the imposed stress. Time between these bouts of stress are neccessary for the body to do it's repair work. Martial arts training mixed in with all that other stuff is not allowing your body enough down time. Crossfit training is a sport in itself, a fitness competition if you will. It is not neccessarily appropriate for the martial artist who may be working toward specific goals or competitions. The same with kettlebells. Martial artists who try to train like competitive GS sportsmen are making a mistake IMO. Martial arts are strenuous enough in themselves. Practising them frequently is the only way to get really good. It all depends upon what you want to accomplish. One thing for sure, you can't have it all. Grappling training is in itself, a strenuous form of resistence training. This leaves little time and energy for supplementary training. You can't be good at everything. Keep the supplementary trainig to twice per week and in some cases, even once per week if you are starting to burn out. Believe it or not, you will drop the excess body fat quicker if you slow down a bit. Right now on your current schedule, your cortisol (stress hormone that increases fat storage) must be through the roof. You can bump up the supplementary stuff when you are not training so much BJJ and kickboxing. Steve Maxwell

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Craig, Glad to hear of your success with this very fine exercise. You hit the nail on the head with your theory. By segmenting the back extension (by rolling the back into extension) one vertebrae at a time, it realigns the spine and strengthens the erector spinae muscles more effectively. Most people go into extension at the bottom of the movement and move from the hips and glutes. The spine does not articulate and moves as a solid unit much like a deadlift or kettlebell swing. By 'waving' the movement, each part of the spine is worked. I use this movement successfully all the time with myself and many clients, with and without back problems. Steve Maxwell

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I use Body Flow a number of ways. Sometimes as a tension releaser after heavier work, especially after hard grappling training and sometimes as a stand alone workout. Body Flow can become a great strength/conditioning workout by itself. Try mixing explovsive quad squats with swoops and elevated scorpions for 20 minutes and you will see what I mean. It is very versatile and is offers a great deal of variety Steve Maxwell

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Shawn, You are making a classic mistake on the deck squat form. There is supposed to be a shoulder stand for a brief moment between each roll back. This places the pressure squarely on the shoulder blades and not the neck. The feet still touch behind the head on the floor, but there is no neck strain. The cervical spine keeps a small curve and never flattens. Steve Maxwell

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When a person has a poor bottom game, they are nervous and fearful of being put on the bottom. I see this with a lot of guys who come from other grappling styles like wrestling or judo. Some of these guys are really tough and hard to sweep, but they are almost in a near panic state over being put on the bottom. They are so uncomfortable at the idea, that sometimes they become almost 'frozen' in their top game. They only try to hold the fight and not go for the submission or are content to just make half hearted attempts to pass the guard. When your bottom game is really good, you have no concerns about being on the bottom, so being swept is no big deal- you'll just come right back and either sweep or submit from the bottom. When both the top and bottom game are balanced, you have no concern about where you end up, so you can let fly and play a more confident game. This makes your pass more dangerous because you are not affraid to take more risks. Steve Maxwell

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Brad, I enjoy using my Power Wheel and the pike up is one of my favorites. In an effort to make the pike up exercise more productive, I started doing Janda situps and extended leg crunches first before strapping the power wheel on. I also elevate my hands on a step when doing the pike ups.By placing my hands the same height as my feet, I get a much more intense abdominal involvement. This no longer makes adding extra resistence to the wheel necessary to make the exercise more difficult. Try this stratedgy at let me know how you make out. Go from the janda's and crunches to the pike ups without rest. Steve Maxwell

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If you opt for a slower rep count, then the number of reps will have to go down. 3 reps done very slowly may take the same amount of time that 6 faster paced reps would take. The total time of work would be the same. Many feel that slower rep tempos load the muscle structures more efficiently and safely.They point out that higher speed involves momentum and less efficiency and often excessive forces being placed on the connective tissue. If you want to do a slow rep pace, then don't worry about doing exact rep counts as perscribed in most routines. Most of the routines posted are based on a much faster paced rep speed. Doing the same amount of reps at a slow pace will greatly increase the length of the set. This may not be condusive to your goals. Usually fast reps are utilized when the amount of repititions are the end goal. Being able to crank out X amount of reps is a goal unto itself. Slower, more controlled intense rep counts are used when efficient muscle loading is the concern and the amount of weight or number of reps is not the goal. For many, it is the numbers game, reps for the sake of reps. For others, it is efficient muscle loading for improved health and performance in some other activity. Steve Maxwell

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It is not uncommon for fighters in many weight class sports and martial arts to 'cut' weight through drastic means before a tournament or fight. It is a form of cheating and should not be condoned. Some fighters will dehydrate and starve in an effort to drop to a lower weight class so that they will be bigger and stronger than their opponent on fight day. The prevailing idea is to be as light as possible while trying to maintain as much strength as possible. This is sound however the methods many use to accomplish this are very unsound.Instead of lossing the weight properly over a period of time, they try to quickly lose it through water loss to gain an unfair advantage. This only works if there is a fairly long time between the weighin and the fight. Dehydration of only 5% bwt can result in a 15% strength loss. Dehydration and starvation are very hard on the kidneys, liver and adrenal glands, not to mention the whole hormonal system. In some sports, like wrestling, it's a tradition to cut weight. It is based on erronenous thinking. It is not uncommon for an athlete to be 10 to 15 pounds heavier than the weight they weighed in for on fight day. All this would stop if weigh-ins were done immediately before the fight. In BJJ, the confederation started weighing fighters 15 minutes before they fight. Your weight class is called, everyone steps on the scale, one after another, in front of the referee. You must present a picture ID to the official as you step on the scales. You are given a weight allowence for the uniform. If you miss weight, you're automatically are disqualified and your opponent gets a bye. If you dehydrated, you suffer the consequences, as there is no time to rehydrate. If al weight class sports would adopt this protocol, abuse of the scales would cease. Steve Maxwell

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