Tag Archives: short power

Strength and conditioning for escrima and other combative sports. Introduction, barbell warm up and KB step ups.

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Latosa Concepts Sprinters step ups with kb

Latosa Concepts Sprinters step ups with kb

I hope ya’ll are doing well. This is going to be the first of a series of entries and videos about the strength and conditioning aspects of combative sports/arts. What we’ll be showing is ment as a supporting aspect of escrima. Let me repeat, it is a supporting aspect of training escrima and other combative systems. Strength and conditioning training does not make anyone good at escrima.

Latosa Concepts Zombie 1 The next blog entry her on the  Latosa Concepts Escrima blog should be about testing our abilities in the possible Zombie Apocalypse ;) Boys have to be boys! He HE!

Back to today’s subject. To start with if you are going to train something athletic ( Combative sports fall into that grouping), you are going to experience muscle imbalance because the sport or combative art that you do builds up specific movements patterns. Some movements are left on the wayside in many cases. That might mean weak stabilizers for the shoulder blades as an example.

M. Andersen (group leader for LC Århus ) & I have been training partners for a while now. We have helped each other with training ideas and done a lot of weight training together. At one time, we had a routine of warming up with escrima for 30-45 minutes and then doing som ARRRG lifting. To name a few, we have done basic and advanced strength drills ( example: deadlifts and variations ), kettlebell training based on high reps and low reps, and explosive training that helps to build general speed when doing escrima ( or other self-defense arts and sports ) The list is too long to write all the training forms here.

In this first entry of the series we’ll look at one of the warm ups that I do and one box exercise for the core and legs (quads) and the supporting muscles.

To start with, I like to follow a planned subject for a while then switch up to something else for a while. An example could be barbell training  for a month then kettlebell training for a month or so. Lately, I’ve been doing a push day and a pull day, understood as squats and lunges are part of the push day.  Deadlifts and hip extensions are seen as part of the pull day. This way the whole body is worked each time I train. This helps with the hormone response because large muscle are used each training session. I am an old farts now!

Once you understand what’s going on in the human body you learn that the muscles, hormone ( Endocrine ) system, nervous system and digestion system are all tied together in  much the same way as described in the previous blog entry about the body and mind.

The video below shows a barbell complex that I like to use as a warm up. It’s not the only type of warm up that I use, but it is one of 4 or 5 standards. It’s good to have some different warm ups to match your mood and the training you will be doing. Range of motion  and the combining of different joint movements helps dial the body in to make it work better.

Complexes are a great way to help teach a person how to tie movements together. The most simple example is the thrusters exercise, they are a good example of letting the energy from the leg movement transfer to the arms and help push the barbell over head. For people who do not know what a thruster is … start with a squat and when you feel that you are generating speed, push the bar straight up over your head. Make sure you can do overhead press with out problems before doing this.

If we look at an escrima movement there are situations when a pushing movement from the legs releases an attack with the arms. All this happens because the core is capable of letting the energy transfer from the legs to the arms/fist/stick/etc.

A word about the sprinters step ups, I do some times. It takes a while to get your end range strength up to this variation. Beginners should start with a lunge position with both feet on the floor. Do them naked! Yes I wrote naked, That means only with your body weight. You may even have to start from a normal standing position.

The last note about the way I recommend people train is this: Mix the explosive exercises in with the strength and normal hypertrophy exercises. Don’t forget to think about stabilizers. An example could be what I did on my pull day yesterday.

  1. Deadlift single based on a ladder (the weight gets heavier w/ each set) for strength,
  2. A cable pull version that I’ll be showing latter for core, stabilizers and hypertrophy,
  3. A glute-ham exercise for explosive training
  4. A Pull-ups version for the correction of my back

Well that was a lot of writing to lead into the video.  My fingers are a little tired! ;)

Stay Proactive in Life and Training
CW & MA
Click on the link below to see the video. Youtube or WordPress is doing something strange right now.

Lær Escrima med Latosa Concepts, Filipinske Kamp Kunst. Nye medlemmer

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Effeciency of movement and Escrima. Latosa Concepts Terminology

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I hope ya’ll are doing well. Flow and efficiency of movement are the topics for this blog entry.

The guys and I were looking at fma videos before training thursday. The topic of flow came up. I thought I would combine flow with efficiency of movement. They are related in many ways.

Arnis , kali, escrima and silat, all have differing ideas of what flow is and what a figure-8 should look like. They all have common ideas as well. When we look at a figure-8, it is a very good example of flow. Imagine the right handed traditional figure-8  ((right, left …closed) (right, left …open)) The first strike feeds the next strike with power and speed. It is a cycle of movement, energy, and speed. You might say that it’s rolling energy.

If we follow this train of thought, we are equating flow with rolling and constant movement. (We’ll talk about the mental energy aspects another day.) Some FMA’ers will understand flow even easier this way. I have described a type of a gyroscope like apparatus inside the body as a way of understanding flow even when the figure-8 is tight and might even look like it is squarish in movement. This imaginary apparatus, that I have inside me, helps to redirect the flow and energy away from the usual order of attack. With time, the flow can take place inside the escrimadors body (using the gyroscope like ability), giving the ability to change direction and work outside the traditional figure-8 flow (order of strikes.) This is where GM Latosa’s understanding of the figure -8 kicks in and starts to make it’s appearence.

Is short power the use of flow? You can bet your sweat pink panties on it! It all gets back to the understanding of energy and flow. A traditional figure-8 can be very large in size (we’ll stick with the single weapon figure-8 here.) Imagine the shape of the flat eight wrapped around you. Let the whole body work, from weapon tip to your ankle. Now start to imagine the ends of the figure-8 moving more towards the front of you with in the confines of what we call the box. Now start to let the extreme movements of the body joints start to get smaller and smaller while retaining the power and energy of the large figure-8. You are now doing a kind of short power. There are more secrets but you get the idea.

This is where we start to look at efficiency of movement. We have to look at time and space as well as energy and flow. Do you recognize GM Rene’s Concepts? Remember speed, timing and distance. Space = time (relative to speed) in the situation we are looking at right now.

What is efficiency of movement? In my book, it’s not wasting movements. Every movement has a purpose … even the ability to have multiple purposes. This is also very relevant for what the guys are working on for the second grade. They should be able to push off from both legs in multiple directions. Who out there has heard their trainer say keep your knees bent or feel the ground under your feet? I hope there are quite a few of you who answered … yes I have. It’s all part of being efficient and not wasting movement and energy. Balance begets power, balance begets speed, timing and distance. Hopefully you see where I’m going with this as well.

Flow and efficiency of movement intersect to create something very fluid and tight at the same time.  Flow in it’s most pure form leaves windows open for the attacker to use. Efficiency of movement can be very tight and lack energy if we don’t supply it with large amounts. When we put them together we have something special.

When we add power mechanisms to the mix to help keep the energy going, the intersection of flow and efficiency of movement moves towards the efficiency end of the graph. This takes time and experience, but what does not take practice, time and experience. How many people practice their art while doing strength training. As well as doing corrective exercises that help to avoid injuries that come from the repetitive movements of the art, we should be doing physical  training that supports our martial art / fighting system … at least if we want greatness.

Understanding how power from the hip joint can add to the flowing energy of the figure-8 makes life easier on us old farts. Looking at our shoulder blade area as a second hip makes things easier as well. Using the torque of your body as a way to supply energy works well also. Hopefully you see where I’m going with this as well.

Here’s a tip for you before I stop bending your ear. Try to free form to music. I like to change the music up. Last time, I did it was to some classical music. I have used hard rock, R&B, hip hop, and country rock. Try to pick a music that promotes flow. Open-8 training works easily for this as well. If you train with bladed weapons, use them. I love doing it with an espada y daga set. After that put some music on that gets the Mike Tyson in you to start pumping out the short power and explosiveness. If you can do that, try putting them together. If you can do it, you are at the intersection of efficiency and flow. Well done! BTW, you have also played with the mental aspects of flow in the process!

Proactive in Life and Training

CW

Head Instructor for Latosa Concepts, Filipino Martial Arts

Short power and body mechanics drill

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I hope ya’ll are doing well. Here’s another old post from when I was with WCE. There will be a few more from the PTC site. That site will be for my thoughts on fitness, nutrition and the like alone. All self-defense and Latosa Concepts will be here at this site. Enjoy! CW

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When doing short power training we have to figure out which distance we are working on. That’s easy here, short distance. What is short distance? If you look at GM Latosa’s description of the range of short power you will se what we are working with.

We can break it down this way. What do I want to use to generate power? Answer: Body movement and explosive movement. What starts the process? That answer depends on our understanding of our body and it’s triggers. Why use the body? Answer … time, space and distance & energy.

I worked on a training drill with GM Latosa in California. In order to do it, stand in front of a corner with it pointing into you.  It looks like this:….. I < ……. Now start torquing your hand into the wall with each suppressed hit. Hold your elbow against your body the whole time. One version of a trigger here is when the hand starts to rotate ever so slightly as it goes forward and starts the shoulder action. If you want to go Karate you can use the rotation of the hand to activate the shoulder reaction at the end of the suppressed punch. I train both versions. The latter gives the version of the “1 inch punch” I use. This can also be used as a follow up punch without pulling the hand back. This happens at longer distances as well as short!

All this is something that has to be training in to the bodies muscle memory. This means warming up with this drill for the next 6 months. For any instructors that might want more  in order to add on to this drill and other aspects of it, contact me personally for extra drills. All these movements are ways to generate power and speed which transitions from unarmed to small weapon to large weapon use and back to unarmed again. Elbows strikes, punches, pushes & pulls, disarms, locks & breaks benefit also from the drills.

Be Proactive in life and Training

C W

Latosa Concepts Strength and Conditioning 4. Fig-8 swings.

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I hope everybody is doing well. As mention before, I have been digging in the videos for some more strength and condition exercises which are relevant for Latosa Concepts and FMA in general. The video with the video is a mix of some older videos, but you can get the idea.

When we look at the body mechanics that are used in combative training and many sports it’s easy to see a rotation and a lateral movement together. Our bodies move in all three planes of movement in some situations. The trick is to get our body used to working in all three planed with timing and power as well as balance. If you have other things to do like most people it’s nice to combine training sessions. I like to warm up with shadow boxing with knives and hand weights. If we I am at a place that has a bag it’s even better.

We can take that idea even farther with exercises that combine movements that resemble what we do in self-dense training as well. In some cases we can use whole movement that transition to self-defense and in other we can use sections of a movement. The video start with a quick shot of a fig.-8 swing with a more combative stance rather than the normal stance.

After that a standard swing is shown. Note if you can’t do the progression shown in the video. DO NOT DO THE FIG-8 SWING!!! In the 1-hand swing you are working the anti-rotation aspect as well as the extension of the hip/ posterior side. Don’t forget the static strength needed to keep your shoulders packed. After that there are some progressions shown. If those are no problem try the fig-8 swing with the normal stance. If that goes well and you don’t have any back pains you may be ready for the adjusted stance shown in the video.

If you try this do it with a lighter weight to start with. The nature of the movements used will work on many small muscle you have forgotten about or just didn’t know you had. I recommend you work with the technique for a while before going heavy. I always do it with a 16 kg the first few time I start doing again. With that said I have done this type of training for a while now.

The day I had the camo tee-shirt on I did some rest based training. A triset with the three exercises shown and all the rest I feel I need to do them correctly. It’s not quite an edt in which there is a specific time … lets say 15 min. In rest based training you go when you feel you are ready and do a fixed number of sets. I did 4 sets. That 20 fig-8 swings 20 squats and 15 push-ups…. repeat 3 more times. The next day I did pulling movements.

With regards to the backpack. It’s simple, get some sand and a backpack you don’t give a hoot about. The one I used in the video is almost history now. 35-45 kg seems to be more than it is made for.

Be Proactive in Life and Training

CW

Latosa Concepts Strength and Conditioning 3. Mixed video clips.

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I hope ya’ll are doing well. It was about time to put this video. I am still playing catch up and clean up. I ran across these clips and thought they would give a few people some ideas. Not everybody has all the training experience we have. I have also updated some of the posts as well as putting some more up. Enjoy and have a great day.

Be Proactive in Life and Training

CW

Interview with GM Rene Latosa

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GM Rene posted this on his wall. Click on the picture link.

Enjoy the interview and have a great day.

Be Proactive in life and Training

CW


Latosa Concepts, FMA. Change things up!

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It’s been a  while since an escrima blog entry has been posted. It’s about time. The theme my training partner (MA) and I follow at the time is a good place to start.

What do you do when you train the martial art or self-defense you train? Think about that and try to find a pattern in the drills and exercises you perform. You should understand why the drills are built up the way they are to get the most out of them.

We are major believer in:

- Preempting

- Learning to attack /counter attack before learning to defend

- Training to win

- Being ready for any attack

- Changing drills up from time to time

The list goes on. Why train to win? If you spend the majority of your time putting your self in a defensive scenario or in a bad situation you will get used to not fighting tooth and nail to avoid those situations. Don’t get me wrong here. There is a place for catastrophe training. There are also groups that are forced to train catastrophe training more than the rest of us because of  tactical reason and laws. There are also advantages to catastrophe training, stress acclamation etc. The problem comes once again when the person/group get too used to being in in a bad situation and forgets to bust their balls to avoid it.

Getting back to changing training routines up to avoid only training one way. MA and I like to train sparring and feeding drills to help us keep attacking /counter attacking no matter what is thrown at us. We do it for a period of time then change weapons or do it unarmed. We have trained together for quite while, this means the transition from no weapon to a cutting weapon to 2 blunt weapons is no real matter. We are getting back to Transition.  As part of the feeding drills we continue the attack flow to make sure we have won the situation.

What happens mentally here? We risk forgetting that the bag guy might still be standing. One of the drills we just started is the good guy starts with a preemptive attack. The BG follows up with one or a series of counters. Depending on who you are you might experience a difficulty continuing the preemptive flow because of the resistance. There you have one way to get something out of a simple change … mental strength and perseverance. Another might be the ability to read the BG’s counter in mid stream and change your own attack as a result. There you have it another reason to change things up … the ability to read your attacker/the assailant.

I had a client a while back. He was being stationed in a different kind of security job. The new scenario meant it was time to program his thought patterns so he was ready for the potentially seriousness scenarios that could arise. His reaction in such cases will have to be much harder than those from his former job assignment. We are getting back to the tactical requirements of situations and jobs here.

When thought patterns change the seriousness of the preemptive attacks and counter attack have to change as well. look at the two situation and see the difference. An every day example could be when a teacher has to control a student that is swinging his arms in an attempt to hit the teacher … more out of frustration. The second is less common, she is attacked on the way to the car after an aerobics class. In the second case she should be thinking about total survival which means there are no rules.  How many people have trained situations in which there are no rules? And how many people have rules for the no rules training?

So let me ask you this … Have you changed your training routine lately. If not, shake things up and train in a different way to stay on top of the game.

Just to round things up, GM Latosa has almost finished his new website. Check it out.

Ya’ll have a great day

Be Proactive in Life and Training

CW


Latosa Concepts power mechanism video 2

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I got around to putting the next video up. This one show another aspect of power generation for striking power. I will try to put another video up to round the subject off. In This video you can see another way to generate power and speed for weapons training as well as unarmed training and so on.

To all the guys in Haderslev Denmark. Thanks for a great workshop, ya’ll did a great job and put in a lot of hard work last night. Have fun working with all the tools we worked on.

Ya’ll have a great day

Be Proactive in Life and Training

CW

http://youtu.be/gSzdx_XBNSU

 


Latosa Concepts power mechanisms video 1

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I have promised to take the camera with me when I train for a while. I finally got around to it today. I was at Butcherslab in Copenhagen today. Before warming up and doing some overhead squats and other exercises I filmed the video below. There will be some more video to go along with it in the future.

As always keep your questions coming, use the contact form here. That’s it for now, ya’ll have a great day.

Be Proactive in Life and Training

CW