When you were a little kid, before you learned how to read and write, you had to learn the ABCs.
Why should it be any different when you enter into the Combat Sports?
But alas, not everybody sees it that way.
You see, the big problem with today’s training is that not too many people know the ABCs of movement….
And the people responsible for teaching the ABCs are instead teaching you hieroglyphics!
A TWO-PRONGED STRATEGY
In his masterful book, Ferocious Fitness, MMA fighter and coach Phil Ross lays out his strategy to teaching literacy in the Combat Sports…the ABCs, the Reading, and the Writing.
His strategy consists of two parts:
- Skills
- Attributes
Ross defines Skills as what you learn in the Combat Sports practice themselves. They’re tha takedowns in Wrestling, the submissions in BJJ, the Punches in Boxing, the “8 Limbs” in Muay Thai.
Watching the Skills from a competent practitioner is Reading. And doing the Skills yourself? That’s Writing.
THE RESPONSIBLE PARTIES
Likewise, Ross explains that Attributes are “identifiable physical characteristics, physical and psychological abilities and capacities that we identify then train to improve.”[1]
The Attributes are the ABCs upon which the Reading and Writing Skills are built upon.
And while the Combat Sports Community is today tasked with the teaching of Skills, the Fitness Industry is given the task of training attributes.
The problem is…the Fitness Industry is systematically training the wrong Attributes for Combat Sports!
THE FOREST FOR THE TREES
Over the last 3-4 decades, a vast and varied change has come about in the Fitness Industry of the Western World.
It began with the Bodybuilding Craze in the ‘80s and ‘90s, with everybody and his brother promoting Isolation exercises…using single-joints…for maximal muscle growth.
After a decade or two of this, many people started realizing that training the body in Isolation doesn’t mean that it can move well as a whole unit.
The Bodybuilding Isolation craze was literally missing the forest for the trees!
A “The bodybuilders…[are] guys who end up…looking massive, but in a weird sort of way that doesn’t’ look right,” Iron Game legend Brooks Kubrik explained.
“Guys who look like a collection of flesh-colored balloons. They don’t have the look of power.”[2]
ONE FATAL FLAW
Beginning in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, the “Functional Fitness” movement burst onto the scene, dominating the Fitness Industry by the early 2010s.
Instead of Isolation exercises, the Functional Fitness movement was built upon Compound exercises…using multiple joints together in unison for full body movements.
“Train movements, not muscles” was the phrase, and lists of movements to train abounded. Things like:
- Squat
- Hinge
- Push
- Pull
- Carry
- Everything Else (an afterthought, of course)
And not only were they about Compound exercises…they were about loading them heavy.
The Functional Fitness movement has a lot going for it…but it has one fatal flaw that has doomed it to failure.
FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD!
The fatal flaw of the Functional Fitness Movement is the Doctrine of the Lego Man-Pig Spine Thesis.
Beginning in the late 1990s, Dr. Stuart McGill began pushing the idea that the role of the spine is to stay locked in neutral… stiff, immovable, and “braced” to protect itself.
He claimed that the most powerful way to move was only through the arms and legs…but the reality is, it just makes you move like a blocky lego figure.
And while this is fine for moves like Squats and Deadlifts in Powerlifting (see the above “Movements, not Muscles” list), it’s not much good for anything else (which on the list above is simply an afterthought).
However, this was billed as not only the safest, but the most powerful way to move for EVERY activity…from Powerlifting and Strongman all the way down to Walking and Running!
And what’s more…it was tested using pig spines!
You know, creatures that walk on four legs instead of two…
The Gang on Animal Farm would be proud!
LAB COATS DRINK THE KOOL-AID
This whacky Lego Man-Pig Spine Thesis would be picked up by a whole host of big name trainers, guys like:
- Dr. Bret Contreras…
- Dr. Joel Seedman…
- Dr. Kelly Starrett…
- Dr. Aaron Horsich…
- Jeff Cavaliere of Athlean X…
- Even the Venerable Dan John…
- And even the Legendary Pavel Tsatsouline!
They would ban any kind of spinal bending forward, side-ways, up-down, and all-around as “dangerous”. A generation would be saved from the horrors of Sit-Ups, Crunches, and Toe Touches.
Note that almost everybody on the above list has “Doctor” above their name.
But the fancy title and the white lab coats didn’t prevent any of them from drinking the Kool-Aid.
That’s how this steadily creeping craziness would become the official dogma of the Fitness Industry by 2007, being adopted by none other than the National Strength and Conditioning Association itself, among many others.
It was billed as “scientific” and “evidence-based”…meaning that if you’re against moving like a lego figure, you must hate science and evidence!
IN FLUENT ENGLISH?
The reality is, teaching people the Attribute of moving like a lego figure based off pig spine research is deadly to the combat sports…
And straight up painful in walking and running around in daily life!
It’s teaching Hieroglyphics instead of the ABCs.
You teach people Hieroglyphics, and expect them to be able to Read and Write in fluent English?
Not a chance!
Luckily, somebody else was paying attention to the silliness of this idea…
THE TRUCK AND THE ENGINE
Dr. Serge Gracovetsky could be the most interesting man in the world. A veritable polymath, he was a Nuclear Physicists, Computer Scientist, and Electrical Engineer.
After observing the chronic amount of spinal injuries from Military Aircraft pilots’ emergency ejections, Dr. Gracovetsky took his understanding of Systems Theory and their Control Functions to heal the Fighting Man’s original hardware system…the human body.
Dr. Gracovetsky found that when the human body moves naturally, the spine doesn’t stay stiff, neutral, and immovable…instead, the spine flexes, extends, rotates, and drives the entirety of movement!
The spine is in fact, the engine of movement…you can have the most beautiful, heavy duty truck in the world, but if it has no engine, it won’t go anywhere!
And that’s how Dr. Gracovetsky’s findings became known as the Spinal Engine Theory of Locomotion.
FAR DISTANT REACHES OF THE HISTORIC PAST
Dr. Gracovetsky brought scientific rigor to the reality of human movement that has been known for a millennium.
But it would take another veritable polymath to reveal its roots in the far-distant reaches of the historic past…that Polymath would be a fella named David Weck.
Collegiate Football Player and Creator of the Bosu Ball, David Weck discovered that Dr. Gracovetsky’s theory had been duplicated in the practices of Qi Gong in Ancient China.
Not only did he discover that this was true at the Somatic level, but also at the Metaphysical and Philosophical Level.
What he didn’t know was that veritable scholars such as Julius Evola, Maurice Cautrell, Zachary Gill, Wulf Ingensu, and the very Shaolin Monks themselves all have documented that the Qi Gong of Ancient China was a gift to the Asiatic peoples from the roaming, conquering Indo-European Warrior Castes out of the Four Corners of the Earth!
And because of its corruption founded in an Asiatic culture of secrecy and information hoarding, it took a Westerner like David Weck to rediscover and re-connect the Ancient Movement Patterns of Qi Gong to all forms of Movement in Life and in Sports…
Combat Sports in particular…the domain of the Indo-European Warrior Caste!
A PIRATE’S TREASURE MAP
How exactly can you test out the Spinal Engine for yourself, train it for the Combat Sports, and free yourself from the Leg Man-Pig Spine tyranny of the Fitness Industry?
How can you learn the ABCs instead of Hieroglyphics?
It starts with walking…and a Pirate’s Treasure Map.
First you bring one hip up and forward to take a step, and at the same time you bring the same side shoulder down and back.
Meanwhile, the exact opposite pattern happens automatically at the opposite side hip and shoulder.
That opposite side hip is down and back, and at the same time, that same side shoulder is up and forward.
On the first side hip and shoulder, you’ll feel your lats contract all down the side of your back, your hip crease flex, and your glute stretch.
On the opposite side hip and shoulder, you’ll feel your lats extend forward down the side of your back, your hip crease extend, and your glute contract.
Weck calls this training method “The Coiling Core”, and notes that every self-confident Hero walks in this manner.
But where does the Pirate’s Treasure Map come in?
X MARKS THE SPOT
The Whole Thing works according to the X Principle…when the Lat pulls back and contracts, the opposite side glute pushes forward and contracts.
The arms and legs just come along for the ride!
This contralateral pattern on either side of the body forms an X Pattern called the Diagonal Lat-Glutes Fascia Chain, or as the Chinese Qi Gong people call it, “the Waist” or “the Small of the Back”.
Whatever it is you call it, it’s just like the sacred sign found on a Pirate’s Treasure Map…X marks the Spot!
Understanding this is the Key to understanding the Coiling Core.
It’s what makes the whole thing work.
And once you understand it, you can reverse engineer it and train this critical Attribute for yourself!
SECRETS FROM THE EAST
Aamari Rafi of the Tai Chi School teaches best how to feel the X-Pattern in the Hip Flexors (“Hip Crease”), Glutes, and Shoulders with a simple technique he calls “Tai Chi Silk Reeling.”
Take it slow at first, then start going fast. You’ll feel your glutes particularly fire…and this is because the wide 45 degree angle stance works these things optimally. Hit high reps…30x-100x.
Once you get that skill down, you start adding the side bend at the lats (displayed in coaching practice here)…bringing that shoulder down and back. Bringing the shoulder down while bringing it back is key!
Once you understand that, you can start putting it all together, in the style the Chinese like to call “Phoenix Turns Back”…you can also do this in a Crunch Arm Position too.
Then try the Horse Stance Boxing: the key is the wider than shoulder width, 45 degree feet stance to teach these Coiling Core mechanics as in Tai Chi Silk Reeling above.
And before anybody gets excited, it’s a training tool, not meant to be actually used in combat…
The possibilities for training the Coiling Core are endless. Examples from our Oriental Friends include:
- Waist Shake and Arm Winging (kinda weird looking)…
- Alternating Step Up, too…
- Push Palms Sideways, too…
- Shaking Head and Tail, too…
- Breathing Posture, too…
The point of these is not that they are magic. The point is that they display the Coiling Core principles in action in a variety of ways.
It’s like being able to read a children’s book once you’ve learned the ABCs
Once you see the pattern, you can’t unsee it!
LIKE A PRO IN NO TIME!
“I’m not a Theorist,” my good friend James Lafond told me the other day. “I’m a Curator.”
His words hit home…because I’m a Curator, too!
At Pulp Fiction Renaissance, I like to give you…the reader…the best sources available to help you achieve your goals of Indo-European Warrior Caste Glory.
And the Coiling Core is the ABCs of doing just that.
So if you’ve experimented with above on your own, and want to take your research and training to the next the level, then the check out some of these guys below:
- The aforementioned David Weck is the guy who got the ball rolling in applying Theory to Combat Sports Practice in a clear, intelligent way. Check out his Youtube Playlists and his Instagram to see it all in living color!
- While David Weck took this information into a sporting context, Naudi Aguilar took the same research and applied it to rehabilitative and general human movement. Check out his Podcast and Instagram for the big picture!
- And finally, the training conglomerate Functional Patterns has broken all of this down into a simple, easy to learn way…taking even the most helpless cases from zero to hero. Check out their Youtube and Instagram for the how and the why!
At the end of the day, I’m riding this trail myself…and I’m bringing you along for the ride!
So throw out the Hieroglyphics, and learn the ABCs…you’ll be Reading and Writing like a pro in no time!
Pulp Fiction Power to you, my friends!
Sincerely,
Richard Barrett
09-27-2024
Written at 2:01 PM, somewhere in the USA…
Sources Cited
[1] Ross, Phil; with Gallagher, Marty. Ferocious Fitness: A Fighter’s Proven Action Plan to Develop Blazing Power, Animalistic Strength, and Killer Conditioning. Dragon Door Publications: Little Canada, MN, 2016. Pg. 35.
[2] Kubik. Brooks D. Chalk and Sweat: Dinosaur Training Workouts for Beginners, Intermediates, and Advanced Lifters. Brooks Kubik Enterprises, Louisville, KY: 2010. Pg. 105.
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