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S(3)AFE
Today, let's talk about the madness behind the method we use when constructing an inTENS session. Whether you use the inTENS protocol or not, I thought it might be instructive to have a glimpse into the guiding principles considered for each session. These guidelines are used recognizing that we are (potentially) preparing athletes across two over-lapping areas of focus: MMA/Submission Wrestling &/or Street Combatives. The two facets of focus, while similar in their aggressive natures, have slightly different needs and we try to blend aspects of both for utility's sake.
First, that inelegant acronym S(3) AFE.
S (3)
Agility
Flight
Exercises
I'm sure a wiser man could come up with a more clever formulation than this clunky one but, it serves its purpose. Let's take the points in order.
STRENGTH. Is there really any doubt that any and all combat athletes are best served by possessing high levels of strength? Strength is often correlated with size and, for those who doubt the primacy of strength in combat just why is it again that we have weight classes?
STAMINA. We must leaven our strength with stamina. The pure pursuit of strenght at the expense of stamina is counter-productive to combat endeavors; even a simplistic reading of Cope's Law bears this out. The stamina the combat athlete requires is not just one of continuous aerobic performance but, also, the ability to call upon our strength in long-form metabolic tasks, and minimal recovery times after maximal effort. We must balance these three spokes of stamina carefully so as not to make any of our other guideline efforts suffer needlessly.
SPEED. An often overlooked component in my opinion (practically non-existent in some regimens). Yes, we can train speed in our run as in sprint training, and yes we can train speed in our strength-work by emphasizing bursting/Olympic style lifts, weight-throwing as opposed to weight-lifting. But we need to train just as assiduously speedy recovery as 1 minute between rounds is a woefully short expanse of time and the quick second or two (if you're lucky) in real-world survival will be dependant upon what you are able to do with peak energy output and massive adrenaline wearing after the intial energy bump. We also need to address reaction speed (stimulus response) and specific recognition improvement (the speed at which we can apply said technique/tactic to varying scenarios). It is in aid of the last two points that we stress positioning your combat training immediately following your conditioning training. By making you work when you are already "down" we bypass many of the bad habits that fresh/strong athletes fall into and this method also allows the athlete to feel like "he's walking on air" when faced with combat sessions when he's fresh.
AGILITY. This attribute is key to our twin focuses but it is not neccessarily agility in the traditional sense that I mean. Cartwheels and somersaults in aid of augmenting your training are fine but I mean agility more in the specific operational sense. Sprints conducted in varying terrain, with obstacles to clear. Sprints or lifts preceded by unusual starts (prone, supine, blind starts, et cetera) and even awkward lifting (both lifting awkward objects and off-center lifting as in cleans with a bar-gripped 6" off-center). Struggles againts human beings rarely call for somersaults and cartwheels but, we will struggle with less than ideal burst positons, and lifts with variable load.
FLIGHT. Combat sports enthusiasts can read flight as a command to definitely include sprints and the occasional short to medium distance training. Combatives personell can read this as training the under-valued twin in the "Fight or Flight" dictum. This can be seen as a corollary of the agility guideline in utilizing odd-start sprints and the like but, it also ideal to include movement that goes beyond how fast those feet move in 100-meters. We use quadrupedal movement in myriad fashions, awkward/handicapped sprinting, obstacles to be cleared (over, under, and around) et cetera to make sure that we understand flight to mean more than running. (Flight in this sense also has the benefit of being quite taxing).
EXERCISES. Our last letter in the acronym. No explanation necessary.
Optimally, we strive to address as many of the S(3)AFE elements as we can in each session never allowing more than three sessions to pass without all five being utilized.
These elements are not to be thought of isolated components in the "First, I'll train strength and then agility and then..." sense. Instead, just as we combine the attributes into an inelegant acronym we should strive to combine as many elements as we can into single sessions and/or exercises. For example, an off-center clean and jerk for reps in a designated time can fullfill strength, stamina, speed, and agility at one go. The more elemetns we can combine in any given circumstance, the more stressed the organism (that is, you and me) the better we'll be.
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