Martial Power video series
By Pavel Tsatsouline

First of all I have to say that I have seen every video and read every book by Pavel Tsatsouline, so there shouldn't really be too much left for me to learn from him, right? Wrong! Apparently the "Evil Russian" still has some tricks up his sleeve. This video series is incredible because it takes our knowledge of strength training and takes it into the world of hand-to-hand combat. If you are looking to improve the power of your strikes, this is the best set of materials you can find. The tape series was filmed at a seminar in Arkansas with a mix of people from the Department of Energy, military Special Forces and other elite law enforcement agencies. It was amazing to watch as each member of the audience reach new levels of power as the seminar progressed. The participants also reached new levels of flexibility, precision and efficiency in their techniques.

To be honest, there are no real secrets presented in this tape. It's just a collection of knowledge that you can learn through years of practicing martial arts. Unfortunately, it often takes years of practice in a martial arts school before you are even deemed "ready" for any real knowledge. If you want clear explanations of some of the esoteric concepts of martial power generation, then you will save a lot of time by practicing the drills in this video. One of the best things about it is that with each technique, you get a few simple drills to illustrate how it works, then after performing these simplified drills, you add the new technique to your full movement. This greatly accelerates the learning process. Special Forces guys cannot always plan on having years and years to learn martial arts before they are put into battle. This necessitates a more rapid way to learn, so they turned to Pavel for instruction.

In addition to improving your technique, this is also an excellent guide to training. This is by far the best training material Pavel has put out yet. However, it does not cover Kettlebell training, so that will have to be learned separately. What it does cover is stretching, joint mobility, strength, ab work and more. Tension is one of the keys in everything I have seen from Pavel, but obviously in combat you do not want to be tense all the time. One thing you will learn from these tapes is to master your body's ability to generate tension at the right moment. Many of the techniques are geared towards generating maximal tension in the right muscles to fire a technique, then to relax so that you move quickly and efficiently to your target and then back to full tension on impact to give that feeling of hitting like a brick.

There are a huge number of exercises presented in these tapes. The common pushup is the platform for learning most of the tension generating techniques. However, we get to see the same techniques applied to squats, dips, pull-ups and a variety of other drills. There is a whole tape devoted just to mastering the Pistol and it's worth it. If you have been close, but never able to do one before, after watching this tape you will almost certainly be cranking them out. Same goes for the one-arm pushup. However it does not stop there. There is an excellent section on Dive Bomber pushups and their variations including the one-arm Dive Bomber! There is also a very extensive section on the Handstand pushup. This tape covers everything you will ever want to know about the exercise including the proper body alignment, how to vary it to affect different muscles and how to get peak performance in the exercise. Watching the participants of the seminar run through these exercises was pretty interesting. You could actually see as they were getting stronger. One guy in particular was a beast, he could squat 600 and was performing one arm pushups for reps throughout the seminar! Even he appeared to gain some strength throughout the seminar.

The final tape, which covers abs, also covers a lot about the organization of a training plan. This information is especially valuable and there are some good pearls of wisdom in here. It was a bit brief and is covered a bit better in the Power to the People book, but it covers the "need to know" basics quite well. The two bonus tapes included with each order add an extra bit of value to this series. They actually had a lot of densely packed information on them. One of the valuable insights I learned made my full range hanging leg raise feel much easier than before.

In sum, I think this is the most complete body of knowledge ever committed to film on power training for martial arts. More importantly, it is taught in a clear, easy to understand format that allows you to try it and learn it in minutes and then continue improving from that point on. Will you be throwing around 280lb. badasses liken broken dolls? Probably not, but you will find a lot in here that will help take your training to the next level. Lastly, I should point out that this tape set will appeal to many people who do not really care about fighting. If you look at martial arts as just a platform for learning concepts, similar to how the pushup was used to demonstrate tension techniques, I think a wide variety of people will find these tapes beneficial.

Maximology video series
By Scott Sonnon

My spell checker did not like the word "Maximology", but I'm told by Scott Sonnon that it an actual word. Invented by Russian human performance researchers, Maximology is the field of study that looks at how to maximize the performance of a person in the shortest time possible. The approach this program takes is to sophisticate your training as a means to improve your performance, rather than adding more reps or weight. The first thing Coach Sonnon does in this video series is to discard the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle, in favor of moving towards refinement and sophistication. Instead of emphasizing simple strength and endurance training, the focus here is on the integration of complex skills in multiple planes of movement, while coordinating your breathing, structure and alignment. Sound complicated? Well, it is. Fortunately, Coach Sonnon is an excellent teacher and can put the complexity of Maximology into simple and straightforward lessons. Having seen almost every video he has thus far produced, I can say that this is the best one yet. It was filmed at his recent Circular Strength Training certification seminar in Seattle. For a live video, I was quite impressed by the quality of the camera work and the audio.

One thing I liked about the video is that it has a very "compressed" feel to it. There are no drawn out segments or unnecessary down time. This gives these tapes a very high level of "rewatchability", which I will most definitely be doing. On my first viewing, I simply watched it and soaked it all in, or at least most of it. The second time through, I actually followed along with what they were doing. I sometimes had to watch a demonstration several times and go back and forth between watching it and trying it. This program will challenge you to move in ways you have never tried before, so it will take some time and patience to get everything down. Fortunately, these videos are fun and energetic. Everyone involved, including the participants, are having a great time, which carries over to the viewer.

I expected this series to cover mostly Clubbell work, so I was surprised to find out that the first four tapes cover a variety of unique bodyweight-only exercises. However, they are not your simplistic, run of the mill calisthenics that you see everywhere else. There is some profoundly interesting content in here that most people have never seen before. This is what makes these tapes so challenging. You are pushed to move in ways that you never have before. Much time is dedicated to core activation drills. This material will blow you away and make you laugh at the millions of reps of crunches being performed throughout the country on a daily basis. The "ab work" in here is actually training your body to be more reactive under less than perfect situations and improve your level of performance under real conditions. The discussion of the core work is very thought provoking and will certainly change the way people look at exercise. The tape on Performance Breathing really ties into the core activation segment quite brilliantly. Until now, I did not really understand the value of breathing in specific physical preparation, but it now seems absolutely critical.

The final tape on Clubbells was not nearly as comprehensive as the original Clubbell Training for Circular Strength video. However, this is not a bad thing. This tape takes a small foundational piece of Circular Strength training and expands onto it greatly. There are new details in here that every Clubbell swinger will really enjoy. This is also where Coach Sonnon presents his method of strength channeling. I thought it was an interesting way to approach skill development through the use of complex training. One of the highlights of this tape comes at the end. The participants take turns performing a few reps of the basic arm swing and are then critiqued by the rest of the class. There were some interesting insights brought up by the group members.

This video will not just improve what you already do, but will open you up to things you have never done before. There are so many concepts in here, not just exercises, which I simply cannot wait to explore further. I would call this video series the "thinking man's training program." This series will make a fine addition to any training library and I highly recommend it.

Note on last month's Gear Report:

The ordering information for Charlie Newkerk's Basic Training videos was omitted. If you are interested in ordering, please contact him at newkfit@digital.net. Click here to see the review from last month.