Strength and Power - The Weapons of Mass Destruction - Mark Buckley

Strength and Power - The Weapons of Mass Destruction

Mark Buckley

"If we are able to attack an inferior force with a superior one, our opponent will be in dire straits’" - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

To condition a fighter for war, the methods used must reflect the relentless and violent nature of the sport.

Traditional weight training –although effective at making the fighter look the part does little to improve athletic performance.

The over-reliance on machine training and body building type protocols only serves to DETRAIN the fighter –with isolated training techniques building isolated biomotor abilities.

‘The body knows nothing of muscles –only movements’ –Karl Bobath

Training needs to address the Biomotor Co-dependence of the sport with methods based on movement patterns not muscles.

Top: Isolated training techniques building isolated Biomotor abilities, not skills or functional movements.
Bottom: Integration exercises generally develop multiple Biomotor abilities and when properly prescribed will develop relevant motor patterns.
Reference: Paul Chek ‘Movement that Matters’

Paul Chek, a leading authority in strength and conditioning, developed the ‘PRIMAL PATTERN™’ system to train athletes within the parameters of motor learning and performance –a system based on years of clinical observation correlated with motor learning research.
It is surmised that most sports can be broken down into any single Primal Pattern™ or a combination of these Primal Patterns™:

Squat
Lunge
Push
Pull
Bend
Twist
For example:


Picture courtesy of Paul Chek Seminars

Throwing a ball –which is a similar biomechanical sequence to throwing a punch; is a chunking of the following Primal Patterns™

Lunge (A)
Twist (B)
Push (C)

Picture courtesy of Paul Chek Seminars

If a fighter is deficient in any one of these three key movement patterns or lacks the skill to integrate them into the Generalised Motor Program of throwing a punch – their ability to express this movement with strength and power will be drastically reduced!

To learn more about this ‘Primal Pattern™ system I strongly encourage the reader to review the book ‘Movement that Matters’ by Paul Chek.

Training with CRITICAL MASS™ allows the fighter to train in accordance to both their Biomotor and Primal Pattern™ profiles.

As I stated at the beginning of this article – To condition a fighter for war the methods used must reflect the relentless and violent nature of the sport. CRITICAL MASS™ training is a punishing way to achieve this and its application is for one reason only –to develop strength and power to a level of unstoppable force!

The CRITICAL MASS™ exercises demonstrated in this article are very advanced. If you have a strength training history of less than 2 years or a background of isolated training techniques – you need to progress very slowly.

When performing each exercise use the tempo (speed of movement) that is best suited for your training level:

Beginners: Slow – Moderate tempo.
Advanced: Fast – Explosive tempo.

These exercises are brutal and will challenge both your physical and mental fortitude – but stick with it and remember:

"Winners never quit and Quitters never win" - Ali