Two Ways To Achieve Sports Mastery (When You’re Struggling Financially)

Alright guys, I didn’;t want to bore you with a repeat of what I mentioned on GumRoad, if you would like to know what I talked about on GumRoad you can always click here Two Ways To Achieve Sports Mastery - The Other Way! - Bradley Abbott (gumroad.com). In this segment I am going to show you TWO main ways to achieve MASTERY over your sports performance when you are struggling financially. I am gloing to break it down step by step and talk about how you can do exactly the same thing to achieve your goals, and I think you’d be surprised!

Okay, you will learn:

1. How to achieve Sports Mastery through the principles of three unique philosophies and methods: a) the principles in SunTzu’s book ‘The Art Of War’, b) General Physical Preparedness, and c) The Russian Conjugate Sequencing System.

2. How to APPLY them to your training!

3. How to use Cold Eposure to train your nervouse system prior to your personal best or competition.

You ready? GOOD, then let’s get started!

In the beginning I just "‘dipped my toe’ in the proverbial pond of general physical preparedness, meaning, I just started to apply what I had learned. General Physical Preparedness was created in the old Soviet Union (1922-1991) and is based around developing an all around base for all of your components of fitness, for example, Scofield and Kardouni (2015) described General Physical Preparedness (GPP) as an “all-encompassing state of physical fitness whereby cardiorespiratory endurance, anaerobic endurance, muscle strength, power, flexibility, and mobility are developed and maintained. This means that you build a solid base which first starts out with recovery, and rehabilitating what needs to be rehabilitated and these prinicples connect strongly with the Russian Conjugate Sequencing System (RCSS), that uses a sequencing method to gradually build and incorperate the specific skills and develop the necessary fitness levels in young potential athletes so they can compete (Myslinski, 2019).

I used this method to gradually build up my fitness, and at the start of my programme 4 months prior to competition, I knew three things: 1. I didn’t have the required time I needed to fully train myself, 2. I knew I was struggling financially at the time, and 3. I HAD to do it anyway, because I cared! So I started off with just thirty-minute walks without a ruck (that developed later, post-competition). I was extremely tired and had been out of any exercise for a while at this point, so I knew I needed to start small and work up, but work my way up fast! As I was walking throughout my recovery mesocycle (fitness cycle that follows the four seasons, (Edgely, 2021)), I was asking myself questions, such as, ‘how am I feeling respiratory-wise?’, And ‘What do I need to do to improve this lack of cardiovascular endurance?’. It amazed me (in a bad way) just how out of shape I was, it wasn’t pretty! Istarted to take notes…

I kept reading into it and developing my plan as I continued on with it, and YES, I absolutely adpated because it was necessary. I was learning, going by ;trial and error’ each time. I used my notes as a tool to learn from and change my individual sessions gradually. I walked 3 times per week at the start, and performed three strength-based prehab sessions, which involved a ‘Pull-Day’, a ‘Push-Day’, and a ‘Leg-Day’, however, because of the financial situation I was in at the time I used the fitness equipment I had in the house, and these pieces of fitness equipment were as follows:

• dumbbells

• a barbell

• a kettlebell (which I used very sparingly)

• and two resistance bands (one of which I actually purchased after starting this programme, cost: £4.99)

And learning from Ross edgely’s book ‘BLUEPRINT’ not to mention other reading from the Strength and Conitioning Journal, I started to apply specific swimming-type movments using resistance bands, and strategically placing them at the end of my workout as a funcional typoe movment in the Base Mesocycle. It looks like this…

1. Recovery mesocycle used more generalised movments for joint and tendo recovery and strengthening such as:

• 2-3×30-40 seconds passive hang for shoulder prehab and tendon strengthening purposes (literally hang off of the surprisingly sturdy stair railing near the bottom of the stairs, pulling my feet off the florr when performing the passive hang)

• 2-3×10 dynamic hang (This was adated - laid on my back on the floor with my heads above my head clutching the stair pillar to fix myself, and raising my feet about 2 inches off the floor and moving them from left-to-right repeatedly for 10 reps on each side)

• 3×10 standing barbell bent-over rows with light weight (the goal is to allow yourself to actively recover by keeping the volume and the intensity of your training low in this phase)

• Standing dumbbell or barbell curls (light weight, 4.5kg - 25kg depending on barbell or dumbell usage)

2. Base mesocycle used increased volume but kept the intensity low, for example:

• If a barbell bent-over row was being performed, I would be using 3×12-15 instead of 10 reps, but kept the weight the same.

3. The walks I increased to 40 mintues or decreased to 10-20 minutes depending on whether or not I was working that day.

A sample of what I did in my fitness cycle is below…

Now for the nervous system training…

To perform these methods successfully (because there’s more than one way to do a cold plunge or cold shower), I followed the works of no other, than Wim Hof “The Ice Man” who has broken more than fourteen wolrd records. This man Climbed Mount Everest in his shorts! And crossed the dessert in his shorts ONLY, with barely any water at all! He has complete MASTERY OVER HIS BODY.

1. I started by exposing myself to cold showers for 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, etc…

2. I read about his specific breathing techniques, both out and in the water, because it’s very important to note, they’re very different!

3. I practiced the breathing out of the water for the first few weeks, and then

4. the breathing techniues used in the water the weeks that followed.

• Main breathing technique I used in the water: a) breathe in deeply, and slowly, b) breathe out even slower, c) relax into the water, d) become atuned with our body and ‘Feel’, and e) PRACTICE (Hof, 2022).

All of this training took four months (which isn’t as much time as most should make for themselves to prepare for competition), and incorperated the principles of GPP, RCSS and Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art Of War’. I need to follow these principles and adapt them accordingly to see what worked the best and the most economical for me. I had to incorperate training specifics such as, what I’ve come to enjoy calling, ‘the swimming plank’, which basically means:

1. You are in a high plank postiion to start

2. You raise your right arm and left leg off the floor simultaneously

3. Your right arm is the arm that’s grasping the resistance band that you’ve attached to a sturdy place in your house (for me, it was the stair railing)

4. You keep your right arm extended out with a slight bend

5. You move from the right shoulder, pulling the resistance band down to the floor for 2×10-12

6. Repeat on the other side, or alternate (which is how I did it)

Above is the closest image I could get for you guys, that actually resembles the type of movment (as said before, it’s quite a unique movement specifically designed for swimming). Lets take this one step further and say you wanted to train for boxing, then you’d shadow box at the end of a strength-based session. Or, you wanted to traing for cycling, but couldn’t affor to purchase a bike or fix your current one, what do you do? Easy, cycle abs, cycle abs with a resistance band that only costs you £4.99 - Decathlon | Sports Shoes, Sports Gear & Sports Equipment. You could also use a bag, backpack filled with a bag of flour for weight, when you do your cycle abs to progress with cycling strength.

I hope this has helped break things down for you guys and showed you examples of how to adapt your training to your envronment, and given you an economical solution to your training.

Thanks for reading! Love you guys!

Brad

Resources:

Decathlon Store, Online, resistance bands. Cited: Decathlon | Sports Shoes, Sports Gear & Sports Equipment. Accessed: Wednesday 21/06/2023.

GumRoad, ‘Two Ways To Achieve Sports Mastery - The Other Way! Cited: Two Ways To Achieve Sports Mastery - The Other Way! - Bradley Abbott (gumroad.com). Accessed: Wednesday 21/06/2023.

WordPad, Own Laptop, Laptop Screenshots. Completed: Wednesday 21/06/2023.

References

Edgely R. (2021). BLUEPRINT.

Hof W. (2022). The Wim Hof Method.

Myslinski T. (2019). The Development of the Russian Conjugate Sequencing System. Available at: Final Thesis cleveland1.doc (elitefts.com). Accessed: Wednesday 21/06/2023).

Scofield, DE., Kardouni, JR.. (2015). The Tactical Athlete: A Product of 21st Century Strength and Conditioning. Strength and Conditioning Journal 37(4):p 2-7. DOI: 10.1519/SSC.0000000000000149

Tzu S. (This Edition, published 2021). The Art Of War.

Picture Appendices

Barbell bent-over row:

Passive hang:

Dynamic hang: