Mutaz Blog

Long time ago, I heard this bit in Tim Ferriss’s interview with Pavel Tsatsouline, who was a physical-training instructor for Spetnaz back in the 1980, about strength training.

Everything but your neck and face. Everything below your neck, you’re going to contract. It’s not for folks with high blood pressure, heart condition, and that’s true for pretty much any type of training. But for everybody else, it’s an extremely powerful tool. 

So you get down in a plank. You make fists, okay? You contract your abs. You contract your gluts. You contract your entire body. You pretend that somebody’s gonna walk by and kick you in the ribs, which again, somebody might, at least in my course. 

And Andy Bolton and other top power lifters [inaudible] this technique. They swear by this. Because this is the abdominal training for strength. This is not just some nonsense that you do cranking out the reps. 
So to sum up your abdominal training, find whatever abdominal exercises that you like. It can be the plank, it can be some kind of a sit-up. It can be something from your book, The Four Hour Body. It can be from my book, The Hard Style Abs. It can be something else. That’s not important, as long as it’s a good exercise that’s been recognized that it does work. 

And three times a week, do three to five sets of three to five reps. Okay, folks? Just remember this. Three to five sets of three to five reps. Focus on contraction. Don’t focus on fatigue. Don’t focus on the reps. And I promise, if you do these two things for several months – you work your grip in this manner. You work your abs in this manner. Everything that you do today is gonna be stronger. I don’t care what it is. It’s a bigger deadlift. It’s a tennis serve. It makes no difference. You’re gonna be stronger.

I understood it inherently, but never thought deeply about it, until I made a connection today. See, back in college days, I used to practice Kyokushin Karate. One very critical element in practicing martial arts is the ability to go from 1 to 10.

Let me explain what that means.

In your normal every day life, your body is usually relaxed, muscles are not intense, you aren’t preparing for an attack or anything. Your strength level (or energy level) is at 1. 1 out of 10.

When you are – for example – defending yourself  from someone, and you go for an attack, ideally you want to hit them with your full strength/energy. That would be a 10. 10 out of 10.

In martial arts sparring/fight, ideally you want your body to be at a state of 1. Relaxed and focused. Then when make the hit, you jump to 10, then go back to 1 after the hit. This will preserve energy and stamina, while ensuring you are hitting with the full mighty strength you have. 

Right as you are hitting, for a split second, your entire body is tightened. Every muscle is clutching. You are exerting tremendous pressure internally to every part of your body. So that it all comes out as concentrated energy in the punch or kick you are performing.  

Before that split second, when you start the movement, your stomach is already doing the same thing. We keep that pressure exertion in the stomach until the movement ends. 

Similarly, when you are defending against a punch or a kick, your stomach becomes like a rock for a second, and the body part you are using to defend.

Now imagine doing this in every move, in every practice and fight. Every time someone is punching a mat, this whole motion happens. Every time someone kicks a sandbag, this motion happens. The entire practice time is basically 1000s of these split second moments. 

Even when doing a Kata, this is true. Even though they look like static movements. They are meant to be practiced in that way. 

Where are we going with all of this? 
The other day, I suddenly got this epiphany in the gym, trying to apply Pavel's advice. It suddenly clicked. Why are martial arts practitioners so strong? Yes, it’s the punching and kicking and the push ups and the setups. But if we dig deeper, it’s the underlaying immense strength that these practitioners exert on their bodies, for 100s or 1000s of split seconds per session. Over time, it builds up incredible strength in the body.