TacFit Lab - Adrian's HRP: Day #1 - Moderate Intensity

I've introduced Adrian before, and last night over coffee, he expressed his wish to regain the Men's Health cover body of his youth.  For those of you who don't know him, he used to be a national swimmer and part-time model.  Some twelve years later, four of which have been spent married and working in an investment bank, some unfortunate changes have been made.  Adrian, however, is nothing if not an incredibly tenacious natural athlete, and so he has given himself over to me to have some CST magic worked on him.  With that in mind, I've decided to toss him in the deep end with an HRP that incorporates both FlowFit and TacFit - the guy thrives on adversity.

For those unfamiliar with CST terminology, HRP stands for 'Hard Responsible Push', that meaning a repeating cycle of three moderate-intensity days (at a rate of perceived exertion - RPE - of 7-8/10) followed by one high-intensity day (RPE 9++/10).  This protocol yields very rapid results in both conditioning and physique change, but cannot be maintained for more than 28 days at a shot, which must then be followed by two weeks of nothing but joint mobility and low-intensity yoga to decompress the joints and release built-up residual tension before moving on into the next cycle.  Also, each session must incorporate the appropriate joint mobility warmups and compensatory yoga cooldowns for the same reasons.  Failure to comply will almost certainly result in overtraining and injury. 


Objectives follow:


1.) Fat loss and lean muscle gain - 'nuff said.

2.) Increase overall functional ROM, with especial emphasis on shoulders and hips - Adrian is also my martial arts training and research partner and has been a fighter for a long, long time, and a pretty darned good one, at that.  With that in mind, I'm amazed he's come as far as he has with horrible tight shoulders and hips like his - even after having done yoga for about three years (albeit on and off)!.  Throughout this routine, I'm going to prod him to maintain due diligence with IntuFlow to grind away all that immobility and build strength through his newfound ROM with FlowFit, which I find is the best quick-fix solution for bound flow when used in tandem with IntuFlow.

3.) Increase functional attributes for martial arts - TacFit was designed for this.  Again, 'nuff said.

Warmup

Intuflow

IntuFlow basic routine, emphasising all major joints and the 4-corner balance drill, and omitting arm and spinal waves for now.

FlowFit

Learning the flow, mostly at level 2, but with some exercises at level 3 (seated twist) and level 4 (upwards dog press) and one slightly modified from the standard progression (twisted tripod in place of rotating table).  6 flows completed without timing.

TacFit Alpha - 20/10x4

For those of you not familiar with the TacFit protocols, TacFit 'A' consists of 4 different exercises - scaled at four levels of difficulty each - each performed with a Tabata protocol with 1 minute's break after each exercise is complete.  For those of you not familiar with the Tabata protocol, it involves repeating sprint/rest cycles of 20 seconds and 10 seconds respectively,  repeated 8 times for a total of 4 minutes.  And by sprint, I mean sprint - balls-to-the-wall, go-at-it-until-you-die, RPE 10 intensity.  But, as with all things in CST, in good form.  Today being a moderate-intensity day, however, not to mention Adrian's first introduction to TacFit, I eased off on the outright intensity and told him to focus on improving his technique instead.  With each exercise, the final score is the lowest rep interval during each round of 4 minutes. 

1.) Clubbell Swipes @ 2 x 10lbs : 6 5 4 4 4 4 5 7

2.) Pullups @ commando (dropping down to jump-up from round 3 on): 13 8 5 5 5 5 6 8

3.) Ring Pull @ Single Ring: 13 8 8 8 7 8 9 13

4.) Plyo-box jump @ Jump-up: 6 5 5 5 5 5 6 6

Cooldown

Each of the following asanas held for 20 seconds each - both sides for asymmetrical asanas.

1.) Downwards Dog (posterior chain and hip extensor release)

2.) Static Leg Swoop (posterior spiral line release)

3.) Seated Twist (hip external rotator release)

4.) Table (Pectoralis, anterior deltoid, serratus anterior, subscapularis and hip flexor release)

5.) Upwards Dog (Anterior chain and hip flexor release)

6.) Plough (Erectors spinae and hamstring release)

Stay tuned for Day #4, which will be TacFit Alpha again, this time at high-intensity!