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You are here: Home / Archives for CrossFit

Training to Train, Part I: Misadventures in n=1

08.24.12 By Patrick 13 Comments

Always keep a training log
Unlike athletes in a sport, we don’t really have “the big game” or “the main event” to prepare for. Instead, we often find ourselves training…to train. I recently did have to prepare for “the big game” in the form of the Level 4 Krav Maga instructors course. Through much research, experimentation, and trial and (lots of) error, I think I have put together for myself a pretty good training method that served me very well for my latest adventure at Krav Maga Worldwide West LA. Just so there can be no claims of false advertising, I’ll disclose now that I will detail this method in Part II of this series. Part I will focus on the methods used and lessons learned from the training for the first three instructors courses.

This post has been a work in progress for over a year. I didn’t complete it because it felt… well, incomplete. It wasn’t until I finished the Level 4 instructors test that I knew I had at least reached a meaningful mile marker on what has at times been a bumpy road of self-education. I offer what follows not as a paradigm of exercise science or as some sort of look-what-I-can-do braggadocio. I wasn’t training for a powerlifting meet or the CrossFit Games, so while it was important to get stronger and faster, I wasn’t concerned with adding a truckload to my total or shaving seconds off my “Fran” time. I just wanted to kick ass, and the methods outlined below had varying degrees of success and failure. My hope is that if you find yourself needing to prepare for an event such as this you can have a much less steep learning curve by avoiding my missteps. Alternatively, just find a good trainer and pay him or her handsomely to fuss with the minutia for you!

One more note: For those people who can just naturally kick ass without any regard given to specialized training and nutrition—I hate you with the fiery passion of one thousand suns.

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Filed Under: Krav Maga News, Strength & Conditioning, Training Tagged With: Bas Rutten, CrossFit, metcon, paleo / Primal, Ross Enamait

Robb Wolf’s Paleo Solution

10.13.10 By Patrick 2 Comments

The Paleo Solution
An absolutely integral part of fitness is diet. We get questions from students about nutrition, and since Krav Maga is a “Self-Defense, Fighting, and Fitness” system, I suppose it’s appropriate to address here. Know, however, that if it were up to me I’d add nutrition to politics and religion as topics to avoid discussing at parties!

Let me begin with disclaimers. Krav Maga Worldwide does not endorse a particular diet or nutrition plan, and—as with most every post—I am offering this solely as my own opinion. Next, though I think doctors and nutritionists who push the USDA Recommended Daily Intake and most pharmaceuticals are completely out to lunch [pun mostly intended], I am neither an MD nor an RD. What follows are my own opinions based on what I’ve learned and experimented with. Finally, even though I’m one of the Paleo Solution podcast’s six listeners (you’ll have to tune in to get the inside joke), I have been offered no incentive to write this.

I came to learn of the Paleo lifestyle about 18 months ago and have been very happy with the changes it has made in my overall health. If you want to improve how you “look, feel, and perform”, I can recommend no better way of doing so. Outside of Professor Loren Cordain, perhaps the world’s leading expert on Paleolithic diets, the two people at the forefront of bringing this lifestyle to the masses are Mark Sisson and Robb Wolf. Mark’s excellent book The Primal Blueprint was released last year. Robb has now codified what he has taught to clients, seminar attendees, and podcast listeners into a new book, The Paleo Solution – The Original Human Diet.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: General Info, Krav Maga News Tagged With: CrossFit, liver shot, nutrition, paleo / Primal, Robb Wolf

Augmenting Krav Maga Training, Part I: S&C

08.03.10 By Patrick 9 Comments

Strength & Conditioning

I often get the question (typically after a grueling drill that leaves students gasping) “How do I improve my conditioning?” More often than not, the answer is “Train more Krav.” But sometimes your personal schedule doesn’t align with the class schedule, or maybe you train every day and still feel your fitness isn’t where you’d like it to be. For the former, some of the ideas in this post can “fill the gaps” in training. The latter case can use this post to strengthen weaknesses for an overall training improvement.

For the great majority of practitioners, Krav Maga alone will more than meet their needs and desires for fitness. Krav Maga will certainly get you faster, stronger, and develop a bigger gas tank, but having a solid base level of strength and conditioning makes all of those attributes in the context of Krav easier to develop. Once you’re strong and fast in general, you can focus on coupling those attributes with the specific skills of Krav Maga instead of just trying to catch your breath between front kicks.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: General Info, Krav Maga News, Krav Related, Strength & Conditioning, Training Tagged With: Bas Rutten, burpees, CrossFit, fundamentals, kettlebells, metcon

Scenario-Based Drills

10.31.09 By Patrick Leave a Comment

A good drill is not only a realistic simulation but a way to train a broad base of skills. Last night we did a warm-up that was to simulate sport-style training in Krav Maga with timed rounds and similar work capacity demands. Today we did a drill that was to simulate a self-defense scenario.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Combatives, Drills, Groundfighting/Grappling, Krav Maga News, Krav Related, Strength & Conditioning, Training Tagged With: burpees, CrossFit, push-ups, Ross Enamait, squats, Tony Blauer

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