Tag Archives: tire flips

There is No Off Season for Warriors

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Get ready stay ready.

There is no such thing as an off-season for a warrior.

As a warrior, we don’t train with the goal of “peaking” for a particular event, fight, or game. That being said, our training requirements are also a little bit different than the average athlete.

We must consistently train for multifaceted development of all-around fitness, conditioning, and readiness rather than training specific strength qualities, or body parts, individually on a cycle-by-cycle basis.

As a warrior, we need to be in a constant state of preparedness, ready for whatever real life may throw at us. Otherwise all of our years of training are no good to us when we actually need them.

No Warm-up!

When a sudden, violent encounter happens, or in the event of an emergency, you don’t have time to warm-up. You have to be able to act immediately.

But how do you prepare yourself to move into action without the benefit of your joint mobility routine, foam rolling. preparatory stretches, and warm-up reps????

I keep a 400 lbs tire in my garage gym. Several times a day, with zero warm-up or preparation, I will just flip the tire a couple times and then walk away.

What if you don’t happen to have a 400 lbs tire handy?

Simple.

Here’s a list of a few things you can do to stay ready at a moment’s notice:

  • Load a barbell with a challenging weight and keep it in your basement/garage/living room. Lift it several times. day with no preparation
  • Install a pull-up bar in your house. Every time you pass it, do several pull-ups with zero warm-up
  • Every time you enter a certain room in your house (I use the kitchen), drop down and do a random number of push-ups, squats, or bodyweight exercise of your choice.
  • Keep a heavy kettlebell next to your desk. At random intervals throughout the day, do 10, 20, 30 swings. Try to get to 100 a day.
  • Shadow box during the day.
  • When walking outside, suddenly sprint to a telephone pole or randomly execute some rolls/breakfalls.
  • Show up late to your martial arts class once in a while and skip the warm-ups (tell your teacher I said so!) 🙂

This stuff is not hard. You just have to be aware of it and do it on a regular basis.

 

“The warriors heart is ruled by preparedness, and nature’s heart, or God’s heart, is fundamental. The heart also governs the Warrior’s physical kamae. Therefore, if there is no unity in spirit and body, you will never understand the reason for being a martial artist.”

– Masaaki Hatsumi, Bujinkan Soke

Wow – what an awesome idea!

Read it again.

You must train so that you are more prepared than any challenges you have to face in life.

Enhance your own physical preparedness and gain an unfair advantage in your training HERE.

My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation

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Guest blog post by Eric Guttmann, U.S. Navy Officer, Author, Fitness Enthusiast and More!

Its amazing what you can pick up when you are paying attention.  At the 2012 Super Human Workshop I overheard Bud Jeffries tell one of the participants that if she wanted to get conditioned to work up to 50 tire flips.  That was over a year ago, but I remembered.  I then had a conversation with Bud Jeffries were the subject came up and he mentioned again that if you had to do only ONE exercise to get both strength and conditioning that Tire Flipping would definitely be it.  This spurned in me the desire to focus single mindedly in this endeavor, just like a meditation.  Some regard breath counting as a meditation, I decided to do Tire Flipping as a strength meditation where I count the reps instead of breaths, and since I listen to high energy music when I train, it became my heavy metal strength meditation!

My plan is very simple and I will see what happens when the upcoming Navy Physical Readiness Test rolls around and how my body performs.  Originally I was going to work up to 50 consecutive tire flips. On my first workout some of the staff members at US SOUTHERN COMMAND, where I am currently stationed, saw me and asked me about it.  When I mentioned my 50 tire flips, they said, “Oh yes, we use to have a General that loved tire flipping and he would do 100 tire flips.”

Well, if some General can do 100 flips, then so can I!  So after my first workout and that comment 100 tire flips became my new goal.

Here is my three pronged plan of attack:
GOAL 1: Perform 100 tire flips in one workout broken up in sets of 5 reps
GOAL 2: Perform 50 consecutive tire flips
GOAL 3: Perform 100 consecutive tire flips
OK, since I have never flipped a tire except at that Super Human Workshop over a year ago, I am starting slowly and methodically.  My first workout was 10 sets of 5 repetition with a 250lb tire.  I am currently doing 15 sets of 5 repetitions and next week I am looking to increase it to 20 sets of 5 repetition to achieve my first goal of 100 tire flips in one workout.

Believe it or not the limiting factor is your forearms.  If you are strong and conditioned enough you could probably do 100 tire flips on the first go.  At least I felt I had the strength and conditioning to do this in the first week except for ONE detail, and that was that after 50 reps my forearms where blasted and I could feel it was time to STOP.  When I mentioned this to Bud Jeffries he mentioned how tire flipping trains you in the open hand position which is something we RARELY do, most training is done gripping a bar, dumbbell, kettlebell, etc.  Even if it is a “thick-handled” implement it is not the same as the open hand position used in tire flipping.  Hence the workout is built up methodically to allow your forearms to catch up.

 

Of course if you are deconditioned or have not trained in a long time then you are better off starting with Extreme Military Fitness Basic to achieve the basic levels of strength and conditioning before attempting the 100 tire flips:

extrememilitaryfitnesscover1
What I have noticed is that I go through two stages.  In the first stage the body gets accelerated for tire flipping.  Heartbeat goes up and it is demanding (fun, but demanding).  As the Russians say, “every exercise is a breathing exercise” and I am applying the same rules to my tire flipping experiment.  I slowly get up to the tire and get in that meditative state where I match breath to movements.  Inhale as I slowly lower myself into perfect position and get my grip.  Explode as I exhale and get the tire up to chest level and then a short inhale and another explosive exhale as I forcibly push the tire. Take one breathing step to the base of the tire and repeat.

After about 25 reps I get something like a second wind or I just get in the flow or something, because I merely focus on the breath and then it gets EASIER.  It is almost as working through the effort of matching breath to movements with your heart beating faster during the initial reps that builds a groove and then it becomes a literal STRENGTH MEDITATION!  Again, what will probably stop you is your FOREARMS if they are not trained and strong enough in the open hand position.  Hey, I am the first to admit it, and that is why I am building nice and slow, like a another General here at SOUTHCOM says “easy peasy…”

I will train tire flipping EXCLUSIVELY until I achieve GOAL 2 of 50 consecutive tire flips.  At that point I might add sledgehammers or something, but until that point ALL MY WORKOUTS ARE ALREADY DECIDED!  All I have to do is flip the tire 2-3x a week until I achieve my goal.  I love having this singularity of focus in my training.  Reminds me of that “chop wood, carry water” analogy.  If you have the strength and conditioning (and an available tractor tire) try this with me and let me know your experience.

All my best,
Eric Guttmann

PS – If you want to increase your recovery so that you can improve faster then I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you add my FULL Mobility program to this experiment by CLICKING HERE NOW! 😉

 

Read Eric’s complete bio HERE.