Efficient Defensive Fitness Concepts
Grant CunninghamRob Pincus and Grant Cunningham discuss what people can do to get into shape with the goal of staying safer. The vital areas are diet—looking at food as fuel and the ways that different types of food/fuel affect the body—and physical activity that increases flexibility, range of motion and stamina to build the power we need in a fight.
Rob, one of the areas that I think that you've been pioneering in, is the idea of fitness as an important part of self-defense. Now I'm aging. You will someday age too, trust me. But as I age, it's getting a little harder to stay in shape and I realize it's important part of staying safe too. For sure.
What can someone who looks at fitness as part of a total self-defense package do, particularly maybe if they're a little out of shape now, what can they do to get in shape, to make themselves safer? Diet. Diet definitely is the number one thing. When I say diet, I don't mean go on a diet and try to shed a pounds or something like that. I'm not changing behaviorally the way you approach food.
And looking at food as fuel, looking at the way that different types of fuel affect your body and are processed by your body. I think that's the number one thing, you know. If someone looks at me and says they have a weight problem and they put grains in their body, it's not gonna change. If you're eating, if you, "I wanna drop some pounds," but you're eating bread, it's not gonna... You're not going to do nearly as well as you would if you just cut that out.
And now I'm not saying cut it out like a 1000 %, but you cut it out five days a week, six days a week, you just don't take in those heavy, complex carbs, you're gonna be doing much better. Some people, for some people it might be sugars that are really their downfalls. So especially processed sugars, right? So good, cut that out. Cut the sodas out.
Don't don't look at me and tell me you have a weight problem and you're drinking a Mountain Dew. So, if it's weight that's holding you back I think that's actually with a little discipline that's an easy, scientifically that's an easy thing to fix. The aging issue in terms of really developing skills, right? Developing fitness, what people think of, I think is overplayed. I think if people worked on that diet, right?
Maintaining a good weight and a good fuel, food relationship. If people worked on range of motion and flexibility, I think that they would feel much fitter and they would be much fitter. They'd be much more capable, so let's get back to the root right? This isn't like fitness for the sake of fitness, is fitness for the sake of safety and personal offense. If you don't have a lot of extra weight to carry around and you're more agile and mobile and you have a bigger range of motion, you're more flexible.
You're less likely to get injured. That's gonna allow you to train more, develop more skill. You're gonna be more coordinated, more dextrous because you're lighter and quicker. So I think those are the places I would focus. So there's your, it sounds silly sometimes , but something like a yoga approach, right?
Where you're using your body, there's a lot of strength that can be developed there. You're not gonna bulk up and be big muscular but you're gonna get the range of motion. Your diet's gonna help you keep the weight down. And I think that's a great baseline regardless of what age you're at. I think for me, certainly range of motion is good for me.
Of course, stamina is the biggest issue because I know that particularly if we get into it, a hands-on sort of encounter, stamina becomes a huge issue. For sure. Somebody who's outweighs me or is a lot stronger than I am, is going to suck my energy very, very quickly. All this stuff helps with as well. It'll help you with that baseline.
I think it's important to remember that the kind of stamina that you're looking for, just picture a track event. Picture a collegiate or Olympic level track event. You wanna look like the people that are running 400 meters in less. You don't wanna look like the emaciated long distance runners. I think we have to be careful about overplaying the stamina in terms of cardio, right?
We don't wanna do that marathon running thing. What we want to be able to do is develop our body's anabolic ability to burn quickly and be powerful in that sense. And that will affect our stamina overall. And that's another piece of the science. As we know that we can work in very, very, very short times at very, very high intensity.
And it still affects our ability to process that cardio energy that long-term stamina will still be increased. If you only work in the cardio, if you only work on the treadmill, you may get really, really good at running that marathon, but you won't have that power that you're gonna need in the fight. So, we try to kind of downplay that side and it's great because you're more efficient if you just work really intensely for a short period of time. And it works across the entire spectrum of energy burn. So there's still hope for me?
Absolutely. I'm gonna go to work.
being a baby boomer, and having gone through stage 3 cancer and open heart, with arthritis in just about every joint, building strength through weight lifting for strength is what is needed. some sort of aerobic exercise is also important. lifting weights will not make you look like a body builder and is used a lot to help us old people gain strength at any age. to look like a body builder takes a lot of time and reps. women will react the same way. to get to look like a body builder takes more time and reps than most of us have. i agree with the starches, keep them very limited, protein and vegetables are the answer. take it from some one that dropped 100 lbs but did not eat enough protein and eat my muscles to supply the body. as for the arthritis well move or lose it, as they say. the gun is the equalizer, muscle and size can out do even a well trained fighter that is why they have weight classes. of course good reflexes pay big dividends also. that can make the ultimate difference and even out class strength and size. so genetics play a big role but you can always have a well trained trigger finger but do not skip the protein or exercise. that is why we have equalizers. we all can not spend 4 hours a day training. i have been there and done it but not anymore.
What about us babyboomers that are not only aging, but also sometimes hampered by disabilities?
Take it up one more notch. The next level of self defense....food is not just fuel, it has the power to be defense against illness and has the power to cause disease. Food is energetically and physically what you actually are. It is the first weakness (next to dehydration...water, wow that's a whole additional big subject) and the best line of defense. Food is neglected first in most folks' self defense plan, and is the easiest (and hardest) part of real situational awareness. If you are really nourishing yourself with food choices, you are winning the game. PS. I teach yoga to martial artists.