Click Below To Start Your TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz mission today
And SAVE $30 If You Act Now…!

Or FIND OUT MORE about TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz by CLICKING HERE…

Several of you wrote in to express your concerns about the 1/2 Swingblade exercise that Scott demonstrated in last week’s blog.

First, we’d like to applaud you for your caution — a smart operative performs a thorough recon before undertaking any operation. That’s how you live to fight another day. Well done.

In this case, your intel is based on a very small part of the total picture.

At first glance the 1/2 Swingblade seems to go against the conventional wisdom of rounding the back and then twisting. Look more closely and you’ll see that you’re actually stabilizing at the lumbar spine — the lower back. There is NO spinal “rounding” (forward flexion), only hip bending and thorax twisting.

That kind of dynamic stability is no easy task, of course! You won’t get there overnight. But you’ll get there if you follow our Standard Operating Procedure.

The 1/2 Swingblade is actually the third exercise in a progression: the Grunt level movement in this particular exercise family. In order to work up to it, you must first master the Pre-Recruit and Recruit variations. The video on this page is your Pre-Recruit tutorial. Begin here.

Mastery of this skill set leads to the full Swingblade — a grueling exercise that will put your core through the shredder even as it tests your coordination and balance.

And that’s the nature of TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz. Other kettlebell programs attempt to teach you a technique — complex or simple — and then adjust standard variables like intensity, volume, speed, duration, etc to increase the challenge. While you can certainly increase kettlebell weight and speed with our program, it isn’t our primary goal.

Rather, the four Missions included in TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz are specifically progressive in their complexity: each mission develops the neuro-muscular efficiency for the next higher level.

Your nervous systems becomes “smarter” or more efficient as you move through the program, and you also benefit from faster results thanks to the “complex training effect” (coupled simple movements provide a synergistic effect greater than if the individual simple exercises were completed for the same volume independently).

The Swingblade progression is an example of the TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz sophistication process in action.

We hope you found it helpful. And we hope you enjoy working your way up from the Pre-Recruit version to the full Swingblade.

Or FIND OUT MORE about TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz by CLICKING HERE…

(m4v version <– Right click and save to disk if you wish to download / Mac users hold control and click)

So what separates TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz from all those other kettlebell programs?

Most other programs focus on working muscle and burning fat using very one- dimensional gross motor movements. That’s fine in the beginning, but it will only take you so far.

TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz trains the nervous system by working with movements that increase in complexity. Pre-Recruit level begins by building attributes with gross motor movements. Each subsequent level of the program — from Recruit to Grunt to Commando — builds on that base, taxing the nervous system with increasingly complex skill sets.

What does that mean for your training?

No more workout boredom
No more injuries caused by your body breaking down from years of repetitive movements
No more plateaus

It also translates to superior results. You melt fat and build muscle at an accelerated rate. Your movements become more refined. You learn to assimilate new skills faster than ever before.

But enough from us.

We’ll let those lucky few who experienced a sneak peek of the program speak for themselves…

Click Below To Start Your TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz mission today
And SAVE $30 If You Act Now…!

Or FIND OUT MORE about TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz by CLICKING HERE…

Having returned from the 2010 World Martial Arts Games with gold medals in Submission Grappling, Sport Jiujitsu and Mixed Martial Arts, someone said to me that I’m an “evil marketing genius.”

The World Games wasn’t marketing. I could have lost. Or I could have won but looked like I was in terrible shape. Either outcome would have been a devastating disaster to my organization. Trust me, those thoughts tried to struggle their way to the surface of my mind each day of the 10 months that I prepared for the toughest fights of my life.

I put it all on the line at 40 years old, against fighters half my age and against those 100-lbs heavier than me. Thanks to my conditioning, my coaches, teachers, team and family, I now wear gold for my country.

It was a long, hard road to prepare for these fights. My job involves regular travel to train special units and federal agencies, but I couldn’t afford to be without some form of resistance training, even on the road. So I took my tools with me. I tagged my federal contractor ID on to my kettlebell so that TSA wouldn’t go crazy trying to figure out what this handled cannonball was, and I went wheels-up for the summer. Even on family vacation, I took a lightweight kettlebell to our island getaway because I needed to remain in peak shape for world games. That’s the great virtue of TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz: it’s not the weight but the gradually increasing complexity of the movements that causes muscle to explode across your frame, and fat to be pulverized so ridiculously fast.

Even as a world-class athlete, I managed to use TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz only 3-4X week and still keep crushing levels of fitness that would give me the time and energy for my job of training the best of the best.

I have to chuckle sometimes, because other kettlebell “experts” look at our training and say that our Commando-level techniques are too difficult for the average person. But in the same breath they claim that our Pre-Recruit level skills are too easy. They miss the true beauty of the system because they’re blinded by a one-dimensional perspective on resistance training. Martial artists have known for thousands of years that you build from simple to complex, from general to specific, from gross to fine. But it’s only in recent decades that advanced biomechanics has come to understand how to make that art into a science. Fortunately, my background with the founders of “biomechanical exercise” accelerated my ability to apply this to everyday people as well as to elite athletes and operators.

TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz, with its four levels of “simple sophistication,” not only catapulted my fitness and physique goals when I was trapped on duty and on holiday with only one lone, raw tool, but it also takes advantage of the nature of the nervous system’s recovery cycle. I could train at level 3 one day, level 4 the next for a high intensity session, and then drop down to level 1 or 2 if I had not recovered from the prior workouts. I still got immense fitness benefits, but at the same time it allowed me to prevent the pains and injuries so many others complain about with strength training. TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz even let me keep going within a session if I began to hit the fatigue wall: I just choked back to a simpler movement but finished the session with great technique — no junk reps.

Practice doesn’t make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. And the incrementally graduated levels within this system allows me to always nurture perfection.

You see, I’ve been fighting world-class athletes for two decades, and have won internationally in 5 different sports. You may think that I’ve only been training harder as the years have clicked by, but actually, it’s about training more intelligently. That’s always been the TACFIT Way: the opposite of hardly smart — intelligently challenging. 20 years ago I couldn’t afford to train recklessly because of my childhood joint disease. But 20 years later, at age 40, I had to have a ridiculous, sickening level of thought going into my preparation so that I could step on the mat against the world’s best, despite my age and despite giving up 100-lbs, and still seize victory.

This is me in the finals throwing a goliath Canadian champion who weighed 289 staggering pounds and kicked like a freight train.

Because I took my obsessive level of research and refinement and created this plug-and-play, turn-key course to kettlebell domination, you only need to follow along and reap the massive benefits — even if you’re like me swimming upstream from the shallow end of the gene pool.

I put myself in harm’s way because I’m a true believer, and because you deserve proof.

For those of you who are already TACFIT Commandos, you’ll see all of our movements encoded in my fights. Yes, we gain that burly shrink-wrapped commando physique, but more importantly, the pain-free high performance machine we were born to drive…

Me at World Games Weigh-ins. 186.5lbs (cutting it close!)

And finally, me in my moment of truth…

Click Below To Start Your TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz mission today
And SAVE $30 If You Act Now…!

Or FIND OUT MORE about TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz by CLICKING HERE…

Discover the 1/2 Swingblade Exercise (Detailed Instructions In THIS Video)

Scott Sonnon was the first Westerner licensed to teach the “Russian System of Training” in Russia — the first foreigner to be licensed in Russia, and the first foreigner to teach to members of the Russian Spetsnaz. This was an unheard of feat for an American, so recently the “Cold War enemy.”

Scott traveled to Russia in search of knowledge at a time when the West was obsessed with the latest gadgets and gimmicks. He knew there was no short cut to peak performance, and so he sought traditional methods that have stood the test of time. Methods that had proven themselves on the field of sport and the field of battle.

Back then, the kettlebell was a rarity in the West. Today it seems to be everywhere. But the training looks nothing like it did behind the former Iron Curtain…

The movements you’ll see in this video are based upon the very same drills that Scott learned in Russia. He taught those Russian drills around the world, and later modified them to become resistance exercises with kettlebells.

Scott has taught these exercises to various combat teams as an international category referee in 6 different combat sports, including the Sambo, Combat Sambo, and Combat Sambo Spetsnaz teams. This is the first time they’ve been released on video.

These movements have been tested both on and off the field, where they’ve proven themselves again and again. They’ve also nailed the “Commando Fringe Benefit” test by creating burly shrink-wrapped commando physiques that look great on shore leave.

Do you have what it takes?

Don’t sound so confident. If you haven’t watched the video above, you haven’t met the “1/2 Swingblade” yet. But you’re about to…

Let us know in the comments what you think of it. Or tell us what your favourite KB exercise is.

Click Below To Start Your TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz mission today
And SAVE $30 If You Act Now…!

Or FIND OUT MORE about TACFIT Kettlebell Spetsnaz by CLICKING HERE…

The main thrust of our operation is just days away. Our mission has been confirmed. We will officially launch the latest version of TACFIT Commando on Tuesday July 20th, 2010, at 12:01 am.

But you don’t have to wait until then to engage the program…

An opportunity has come up for an advanced recon party to go in ahead of the main force. We’re only taking volunteers for this mission, so listen up…

Today we’re giving away THREE sets of the TACFIT Commando ‘Deluxe Deployment Kit’—entirely for FREE!

It will only take a few minutes of your time to enter. The details are at the bottom of this post. Of course we wouldn’t expect you to fight over this without knowing what’s up for grabs…

We’ve DECLASSIFIED the contents of TACFIT Commando. If you didn’t see the full dossier yesterday, you can find it at these coordinates:

http://www.tacfitcommando.com/declassified

We’ve never come across a downloadable program that offers such a wealth of content—and nothing of the quality that you’ll get with TACFIT Commando.

Here’s how you can qualify to win one of the 3 insider pre-release prizes.

How to Win

-
Just leave a short 100 – 200 word message for us in the comments section below, telling us…

“Why is TACFIT Commando the perfect solution to your fitness needs?”

No matter how you cut it, the special price we’re giving you for TACFIT Commando in just a few days makes it an outstanding deal. That being the case, we’re not considering entries that cite solely financial reasons to award these FREE copies of the program. Instead, we’d like you to inspire us. We’ve come up with three categories that we’ll use to judge each entry.

We’ll award one Deluxe Deployment Kit per category.

1. Most inspirational reason.
2. Most exciting story.
3. Most shocking or outrageous reason.

You have until Friday July 16th at 11:59 pm EST to post your entry. The comment section will be closed at midnight.

Scott Sonnon and his most trusted TACFIT Team Leaders will personally sift through every single response before Sunday at 12:01 am EST to choose the 3 winners.

If you win, you’ll be notified by email and given special access to download the complete TACFIT Commando package.

Check your email on Sunday morning. You may just have a copy waiting for you — FREE!

Good luck!

PS – Don’t miss the INSIDER DEAL that awaits you on Tuesday at 12:01 am EST…
…when you’ll also have a chance to grab several EXCLUSIVE FAST ACTION bonuses.

I recently completed an protection assignment for an important Indian dignitary. It was a crowd control situation where thousands of ecstatic onlookers were attempting to push through our thin line of security personnel to touch this famous humanitarian.

They weren’t hostile enemy forces of course, but these well-intentioned people were entirely unaware of the mob they could become, and the threat they created to themselves and to each other through their efforts for a closer glimpse or even a touch of the speaker.

As is always the case when on assignment, the job taught me several new lessons about physical preparedness that I’d like to share with you.

One of the main bodily challenges our security team faced was to create a “gentle wall” between our principle and those who wanted to see her. The cumulative pressure of a crowd requires a specific stance to maintain group integrity. This isn’t a hostile mob, but numbers win. If you don’t hold yourself in a specific lunge, you’ll inadvertently create a breach in the wall, causing people to collapse in on each other. Sometimes that open sluice gate can cause injuries as well. Fortunately, I train every day with these specific positions in TACFIT, and so I’m able to hold even uncomfortable stances with ease.

But sometimes holding position isn’t enough. Even in a friendly crowd, you’ll occasionally encounter that rare individual with a psychotic break, like we had on this assignment. Psychotics off their medication tend to be inhumanly strong because their innate self-protection mechanisms have become unhinged. As protection professionals, we’re still legally and morally required to minimize any damage that these people could do to themselves or to the innocents around them, despite flailing limbs, dead-weight and bursts of insanely strong frenzy.

Restraining hostile individuals without damage requires sensitivity, agility and fast reaction time. Despite decades of defensive tactics training, if it weren’t for my daily TACFIT conditioning I wouldn’t have been able to keep others (and myself) from harm while restraining the subject until our principle, audience and team were safe.

Administrations expect their personnel to observe a “use-of-force continuum”, a graduated spectrum of non-lethal to fully-lethal force options. And yet, despite the  fact that the primary skill set of law enforcement, security and dignitary protection is “soft open-hand control” – non-concussive manipulation of the hostile subject – these agencies and individuals typically allocate the greatest amount of their conditioning time to “high intensity training,” or HIT.

Why is this a problem?

You always perform your fitness training significantly more often than you perform your defensive tactics training. In many cases, it’s a difference of hour(s) per day versus hour(s) per month. But conditioning is conditioning. The central nervous system cannot differentiate between types of resistance. It cannot even differentiate between a physical threat and an emotional/symbolic one. It only knows resistance.

If you’re conditioning yourself for a few hours per month to be able to employ a continuum of force when facing bodily resistance (your defensive tactics training), but you’re conditioning yourself for a couple hours per day to exert either no tension or HIGH tension (your fitness training), which volume of conditioning do you think will win out when you’re suddenly facing resistance from a hostile subject? Of course the high tension toggle switch will win every time. It’s a numbers game.

The same is true when it comes to stress arousal – handling the adrenal dump of sudden, intense, often violent encounters. Daily conditioning in a system that teaches me to maximize my recovery from my maximum heart rate (HRmax) allows me to remain calm and clearheaded in a crisis. Where my heart rate hardly elevated above my resting rate even when restraining a psychotic, others were way beyond their HRmax before they were even within range to try to apply their skills.

And what of those who train with conditioning methods that stress nut-busting high intensity routines designed to push them beyond HRmax – or those that go submax only, or those that don’t teach specific recovery methods at all? It’ll play out exactly like our force continuum example above. That patterned conditioning will rule the day, whether you intend it to or not. They had conditioned themselves to get to HRmax (and beyond) as fast as possible, making them not only useless in a crisis, but a liability to the team, the principle and the crowd.

This raises an obvious question: is no conditioning better than inappropriate conditioning? What about the guys who don’t train fitness at all? Does this mean they’ll respond with proportionate force under stress?

Absolutely not, unfortunately. A couple hours per month (and in some cases only a few hours per quarter) is an insufficient amount of training time to overcome the body’s natural defensive reflex of high tension: the startle reflex, or flinch. If you don’t exercise with a spectrum of tension in your training, when push comes to shove you’ll go rock hard with the highest force response in your arsenal. That’s your body’s natural mechanism for survival. Unfortunately, it presents a legal as well as a survival liability when all you have is a hammer and you need a toolbox.

There are three types of mechanoreception: kinesthetic or movement sense, position or “bone” sense, and force/tension sense. Of the three, this last sense, force/tension – the ability to know the exact degree of resistance you’re facing, and being able to respond with the appropriate level of tension to overcome or neutralize it – is the key to both legal defensibility and operational effectiveness in hostile subject control.

And what about the rest of the time?

Despite the occasional adrenaline-drenched encounter, dignitary protection isn’t usually so dramatic – at least not if you’ve done the proper advance work. We’re often simply standing watch for 8, 12, or even 36 hours straight: on our feet, on cement, on alert.

The physical monotony of long watch can wreak havoc of your awareness, draining blood from your brain and synovial fluid from your joints. Because of this discomfort, team members are often seen fidgeting from foot, knee and lower back pain.

Thanks to TACFIT, my joints are lubricated and primed for long periods of standing by a door or entryway without adverse effect. Despite having had my neck broken and my lower back blown out in martial arts competition, I felt no discomfort even after 5 straight days on assignment. If it weren’t for my daily conditioning, none of this would be possible or preventable.

As professionals, we must train daily how others never train at all: within the full spectrum of resistance that runs through the unique 4 day wave of intensity in TACFIT, as well as in the “sophisticated” tactically-specific skills contained therein.

Training TACFIT-style keeps me and my team safe at all times – or as safe as it’s possible to be when functioning as a human shield.

How you breathe in the field under stress differs significantly from how you breath at rest in the sanctuary of protected walls.

The central nervous system cannot differentiate between a true physical threat and an emotional/symbolic one, so regardless of whether someone’s pointing a gun at you, or you’re facing infantile tantrums, belligerent co-workers or reckless drivers, your nervous system reacts with the same alarm systems.

The following method will be of use to both professionals and weekend warriors, no matter what sort of stress arousal you’re dealing with. It’s a little something I learned while working with Russian Spetsnaz snipers.

Many Sambo fighters, like myself, were called to special operations units due to their hand to hand fighting expertise. But the snipers had an unusual skill set to bring to the “think-tank” we were dropped into. Unlike the armies of other nations, the Soviet/Russian sniper backed up a squad with a long range semi-automatic rifle, for multiple shots on single and multiple targets.

The snipers faced long durations of ultra-slow crawling and even longer durations of motionlessness. One of their exams involved remaining in constant motion for one hour, but only covering 1 meter. Few people realize the stress of ultra-slow motion and motionlessness. They believe that if you move slowly or not at all, you couldn’t possibly be stressed. But the body is always moving even when lying motionless, because we are constantly resisting gravity’s pull.

Unlike yoga “corpse pose” (supinated) breathing meditations, the sniper pose (prone) presents stress challenges to the movement of the respiratory mechanisms: the ribs must widen rather than extend, and they must do so without disrupting the spine so as to avoid “noise” interfering with the rifle shot.

Lying on your back and moving your belly in yoga certainly helps you to de-stress, but the reality of managing a tactical lifestyle — or a modern lifestyle for that matter — involves not stress avoidance but stress management.

The sniper’s meditation is performed prone, with your arms overhead, palms flat, and your mouth on the ground. (Rest your mouth on a folded hand towel if you wish.)

You may adjust your elbows down to parallel with your shoulders if you feel sharp pains, or pins and needs from prior conditions of impingement. If you don’t have existing issues that prevent you from holding the pose, then keep your arms overhead. Holding that position will help you to realize just how much shoulder (clavicular level) breathing you do.

There are three depths to breath:

• clavicular -  lifting your shoulders to relieve pressure to the lungs, and as a result “sucking” in air through the back pressure – which is what most people do
• intercostal – expanding your rib cage to create back pressure, rather than lifting your sternum in clavicular level
• diaphragmatic – moving your belly to allow the dome of your diaphragm to compress your guts, which allows air to be “sucked” to the bottom – rarely used – third of your lungs

The snipers meditation forces you to use the bottom third of your lungs, while minimizing the disruptions caused by the middle and upper thirds.

Instead of pressing your belly down into the ground (as you would press it up into the air in yoga’s corpse pose), feel the muscles of your exhale press down into the saddles of your pelvis. You’ll feel pressure into the earth, but it shouldn’t lift your back. Your ribs should widen, but you should prevent your sternum from “lifting” (pressing your back up by pushing into the earth.) With your arms overhead, keep your shoulders from lifting away from your rib cage, as you might if you were gassing out of breath and heaving your shoulders up and down.

Practice these mechanics until you feel as though you could balance a bowl of water on your back without spilling it as you breathe.

Once you have the basic mechanics mastered, it’s time to begin the real challenge: placing your chin instead of your mouth on the towel. If you have pre-existing neck injuries, you may not be able to do this meditation. If so, restrict yourself to the face-down version.

The typical rifle used by Russian snipers, the SVD-Dragunov, brought with it a particular challenge of eye relief when using the POSP 3-9×42 scope. To meet this, snipers practiced specific optical strengthening exercises. Some look rather crazy, and I use themto scare my kids when we’re playing zombie-chase. In this case, you’ll be practicing the “unblinking eye.”

The average blink frequency interval is approximately every 2 to 10 seconds for most people. When reading, the blink rate decreases to as long as 3 to 4 minutes. The sniper meditation works up to 10 minutes, which doesn’t sound superhuman until you realize you won’t have anything distracting you, like a book, television or computer. You will become fully aware just how much your frenetic mind chatters away as you try to keep one-pointed focus on relaxing your face, while simultaneously managing the stress of controlling your breath so as not to disturb your sniper position.

Begin with a goal of 30 seconds. Relax your forehead, jaw, lips and eyelids — in that order — and give yourself one last, long close of the eyelids. With your eyes closed, take one final large inhale. As you open your eyes, exhale long and go for 30 seconds before you blink.

Focus on a distance of at least 30 to 40 feet away from your current position. Keep your eyes open the entire time. The chattering mind can be disciplined much more rapidly and effectively with open-eyed meditations, because when you’re attending an external object, the mind goes into information gathering mode rather than into processing, strategizing or reflection mode.

When you can exhale for 30 seconds and not blink until the end of your exhale, then blink and begin over. Practice 5 inhale-exhale cycles in a row without blinking to reset the nervous system.

Your nervous system commandeers the “blinking center” of the brain when faced with stress. It’s a defensive reflex, which is why people reflexively blink during startle response, unless specifically trained otherwise. The stress of the sniper position with the objective of not disturbing the spine causes the nervous system to trump out the blinking center of the brain. It’s quite an ordeal.

Do just one set per day, and do it in the morning when your eyes are fresh. Don’t do more than that. You have 20 to 30 sebaceous, oil-producing glands located between your eyelashes, which are invisible to the naked eye. Blinking automatically coats the eyelid and eyelashes with lubricant from these glands to prevent them from drying out.

Roll out of your rack and onto the floor to perform your set before your mobility warmup for the day. What we were taught, and what I use to this day, is to focus upon my “mission critical” tasks for that day. With each exhale I visualize the successful completion of each objective, then move on to the next in sequence of importance, timing and scheduling.

The sniper’s meditation has helped me just as much — and perhaps more — than any yogic meditation, because it “checks” me to see how I hold my intent for the day under stress while remaining steady as granite.

Many of you have written to TACFIT HQ to request a briefing about the benefits of kettlebell training to tactical preparedness.

The classic kettlebell sport lifts (the snatch and the clean-and-jerk) are all about efficiency and endurance. Conditioning is only ever specific, and so the motor skills developed through sport lifts only have specific enhancements in the tactical arena. That being said, one particular meta-skill developed through kettlebell sport does carry over into the tactical operator’s realm: the grinding discipline of refining one skill to mastery. This briefing presents a program which will build that discipline while at the same time improving your kettlebell sport performance.

Thousands of people have used my One Arm Long Cycle (OALC) kettlebell program to successfully improve their numbers in this complex exercise. I used the same program to complete 100 repetitions of the OALC with 32kgs kettlebells in 10 minutes, with one hand switch. I trained with kettlebells for no less than 6 minutes and no more than 20 minutes every day for 3 months to achieve this goal.

The full program is outlined at the end of this briefing.

Here’s a video tutorial on the technique I use for the OALC:

Many people enjoy competing in classic kettlebell sport, just as many enjoy competing in powerlifting, bodybuilding, olympic lifting, and in more recent sports like the Crossfit games. Inherently athletic activities like these – and like martial arts, swimming, running, kayaking, and biking – all offer health and fitness benefits. If you enjoy a recreational sport such as kettlebell lifting, why not progress efficiently within it?

I’m giving you this program (outlined below) for free because I want you to experience success at your sport in the fastest and safest way possible. However, if you’re looking for the most effective way to train with kettlebells as a tactical athlete, you should know that the way the Russian Spetsnaz trained was very different than the training done by kettlebell sport world champions.

The thing to remember is that “sports” aren’t the only way, and are not even the optimal way, to train as a tactical athlete. Tactical athletics isn’t meant merely to augment performance on the track or in the gym, but rather to  specifically prepare you for crisis response.

Participation in fencing, rugby, football or any other combat sport will have an indirect and marginal carry-over to your performance in mixed martial arts, just as participation in the sports of powerlifting, bodybuilding and Olympic lifting will have an indirect and marginal carry-over to boxing. Without specific training, these sports will only contribute minimally, and they may even hinder your performance in fighting.

Training must be specific. The one overriding goal of tactical athletics is to help you navigate your vocational demands with ease and imagination, so you’re able to do your job and get home safely.

I’m not suggesting that there isn’t a lot to be learned from sport champions! You will certainly increase your precision and efficiency by participating in ISSF pistol shooting events. However, all of those skills fall to pieces under the friction of imperfect circumstances, and under the fog of combative pressure. You need scenario based training that is specific to your intended zone of conflict in order to have access to your shooting skills under pressure.

So, too, with your strength conditioning. As a tactical athlete, you must perform a variety of tactically-specific movements that increase in sophistication as you progress, movements that emotionally acclimatize you to the physiological stress arousal state, and which allow you to both prime and compensate for the rigors of tactical engagements.

We employ a tightly-packaged, consolidated approach to this, which we will release soon as an additional plug-in to your TACFIT armory. Stay tuned – but remember to keep your eye on the ball and stay focused on your current mission.

Scott’s Murphy-Proof Progression for classical kettlebell sport.

• The progression is quantitatively sequential. As soon as you lock down one score, you can advance to the next on your next training day.
• Keep advancing in the progression until you can’t complete the current step.

Stay with the incomplete step until you can complete it. (It often takes 2-3 sessions to progress through any one step, though you may advance faster if you use proper 4 day intensity waves, mobility warm-ups and compensation cool-downs.)

The world kettlebell champions I’ve trained and traveled with have suggested that it’s possible to train every day, but remember that this suggestion came from their background of being professional kettlebell lifters rather than fighters. When you’re not a professional kettlebell competitor, and especially when you’re a professional warrior like the guys and gals I teach, you don’t have the luxury of training sport full time. You must tailor your conditioning schedule to ensure adequate recovery for operational readiness.

Milestone 1: Complete one 10-minute session at base reps per minute with 5 rep hand switches

• Begin your OALC non-stop for 3 minutes, with hand switches every 5 reps.
• Find your base reps per minute (RPM); it’s usually around 8RPM when you’re just beginning this type of training. Pace is important for progression, so once you find your RPM stick with it.
• When you can keep the same RPM for 3 minutes, add one minute for 4 minutes total.
• NOTE: Here’s where things pick up speed for a while. It looks as though you’re developing very fast, but I believe this is actually just your technique catching up to your level of conditioning as a tactical athlete. Don’t be fooled – stick to the progression.
• Keep adding one minute per session for as long as you can keep the same RPM, until you can complete one 10-minute session.

Milestone 2: Complete one 10-minute session at 12  reps per minute with 5 rep hand switches

• Drop back down to 6-minutes but add one RPM to your base RPM.
• Repeat the above: add one minute per session until you can complete one 10 minute session at your new RPM pace.
• When you’ve reached 10 minutes, drop back down to 6 minutes and add another RPM.
• Repeat the above until you can complete one 10 minute session at 12RPM.

Milestone 3: Complete one 10-minute session at 12  reps per minute with 10 rep hand switches

• Drop down to 6 minutes and 8RPMs (or whatever your base pace was), but perform one hand switch every 10 reps rather than one switch every 5 reps.
• Work back up the progression and complete a 10 minute session at 12RPM with hand-switches every 10 reps.
• NOTE: Remember that you reached the first two milestones by staying at the incomplete level until you could complete it successfully, and then advancing immediately to the next step.

Milestone 4: Complete one 20-minute session at base reps per minute

• Here’s where you move up in total duration. Drop down to 10RPM, but add one minute for 11 minutes total, switching hands every 10 reps.
• Next, go to 11RPM for 11min. Then increase to 12 RPM for 11min.
• Drop down to 10RPM and go for 12min. Then increase to 11RPM for 12min. Then to 12RPM for 12min.
• Work up to and complete a 20 minute session at 12RPMs, switching hands every 10 reps.

Milestone 5: Complete one 10-minute session at base reps per minute

• Drop back down to 6 minutes and perform a 5 minute session with no hand switch, followed by 5 minutes with the other hand – you’re doing this to find your base RPM.
• Add one RPM per session until you’re up to 10RPMs for 20 minutes with one hand switch – in other words, 10 minutes straight per hand.

You should know that this progression is not always constant. When I went through it we did a lot of jumping around, and we were also adding the 32kg kettlebells into the mix for overload training. But it did allow me to work up to 100 reps in 10 minutes of 1-arm LCCJ with the 32kgs with one hand switch.

Be warned: The 32kgs kettlebells will beat you up, and you may become slow. If you’re taking too long to recover or are feeling banged up, drop down to the 24kgs, and within a couple weeks you’ll be back on velocity with no aches or pains.

This progression might sound complicated but it’s really pretty simple, and there’s a lot of flexibility to it.
Finally, you should also know that as tactical operators there’s no “strict rule” to your rate of progress because your occupational and recreational stresses will be competing with your training stress and recovery. You can and should tinker with the program based on how you’re feeling that day. Your base goal is simply to train as much as possible for just 6-20 minutes per day. That’s what will get you to the 100 rep goal.

Finally, a simple, portable and inexpensive equipment alternative that STILL allows you to train anywhere, anytime! Backed up by Coach Sonnon’s new program, a simple piece of rope turns almost any environment into your own private gym — without the sweat, the crowds and the expensive memberships.

And for those who commit to this exciting new program before the end of day — Friday May 21st — will also secure access to an exclusive video coaching session with Coach Sonnon. This closed door session will provide an intimate venue to ask Scott all your burning questions about ROPE and how you can get the most out of it in your own training.

Coach Sonnon doesn’t even accept this kind of consultation anymore due to the demands on his time. So make sure you don’t miss out on this rare opportunity. Act now, tomorrow will be too late…

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Many of you posted questions about the best type of rope to use for TACFIT ROPE training.

I’ve experimented with many types and thicknesses of rope over the years, in multiple training environments, and I’ve narrowed it down to several optimal choices. I rank them from “best to least” according to how well they meet the versatility needs of the tactical teams I train.

My first choice is always 1″ to 1.5″ diameter nylon rope in a 20 foot length.

Manila is sometimes easier to find, but it tends to splinter in arid environments and to absorb fluids and oils in damp ones. Splinters tear up your hands and forearms, and oils make gripping problematic. Both of these things can get in the way of your training.

Climbing rope works, but at diameters of less than 1″ it can be too much of a grip challenge, especially if you’re just starting out.

I’ve also used braided paracord when I wasn’t able to find anything else. It isn’t ideal, but you can make it work, especially if you create handles out of old bike inner tubes. Wrap them with grip tape, or even duct tape – that’s always easy to find.

30 feet of rope is all you’ll ever need for anchor points 12 feet high or less. This length will be highly adjustable when it comes to moving the hand loops, and there’s plenty of rope to ensure a secure attachment.

It’s always nice to have a bit extra of course, but I usually carry exactly 20 feet to my sessions. I like to save space and pack light, and I know how to manipulate the length very precisely when it comes to anchoring. Until you get really good at knot tying, you’ll probably want a bit of extra length.

I demonstrated the type of knot I like to use in the first ROPE video we posted (reproduced below), but of course there are other choices, each with their own set of advantages, disadvantages and specific uses.

Practice the basic ROPE tie until it becomes second nature. When you’ve got it down and have been training for a while, we can discuss more knot craft. It really is an art form all its own.

My knot tying experience grew out of my work with the Russian Spetsnaz, who used ropes as snares, weapons and hostile subject restraints. I adapted the combative aspect of those skills to our field conditioning needs as we traveled from the icy Baltic to the subtropical Black Sea.

Working throughout such a wide geographical range meant that the art of knot craft became as sophisticated as some of the exercise examples I demonstrated in our TACFIT ROPE videos.

I look forward to sharing these skills with you.

Make your own ROPE suspension training gear…