You know.. practical stuff like jumping up on car trunks with both feet at once exposing yourself to incoming fire like a boss:
All jokes aside, most of this actually does look a lot more practical and useful. The instructor Rob Pincus gave me the heads up in the comments of a past post CrossFit Shooting Range Workout – Operators Only that I made fun of him in.
The one operator with the beard reminds me of Rastafarian version of super derp Rich Graham. Is that a bead in a braided dread beard?
Are you there Jah? It’s me Ras Trent
Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh
Operator Rastafarianism
Yes I… Ras Trent. Ba da ding ding ding ding whooooaahhhhhhawhooaa
Who dem? You no want test me tactical skills.
Oh fire pon operator and fire pon cross fit skills
Special ops jumping up and down on trunks
Instructor Rob likes us to be exposed to the bad guys
Asics cross trainers and some Gap brand khakis
And Black socks too because I’m cooler than you
Last week I read a book about Seal Team 6
And I told my bombaclot parents I would strive to be like them
Excuse I!
Ohhhh Rob Pincus… you do so many nutty drills
Nyabinghi! Plus you fully operating all the time
Unna look ya now
Have you ever noticed how “no beards” suck?
Ba da da da da ding ding ding da ding dong Chuck (points to other guy)
Excuse I for my skanking, give thanks and praise
Me toil part time at Jah 5.11 warehouse
Dub style!
Kydex!
A DVD from Magpul!
Massad Ayoob vids!
Yaka yaka yaka yaaaawwwwwwo
Are you there Jah? It’s me Ras Trent
Are you there Jah? It’s me Ras Trent
Are you there Jah? It’s me Ras Trent please guide me as I operate… *mumbles as he walks past the Rastafarian version of Chris Costa*
Oh stannahoy stannahoy stannahoy stannahoy Jah
Climbing and shooting and running and weights
Red Stripe gunpower the drink of my culture
Next season me might apply to be on the Top Shot
Skiddly whoahhhhh skiddly diddily diddily diddily whoahhhhhh sing.
You guys have any thoughts on this?
Comments
29 responses to “Functional Fitness and Practical Shooting Skills”
That 2 footed power rangers trunk jump would totally kick ass!
Against zombies….
or… small dogs…. maybe….
Possibly armed paraplegics who fell out of their wheelchairs…. not sure.
Or against Call of Duty Mall Ninjas, or most fancy-pants liberals in New York or similar places where men have been, in the words of Brad Paisely, neutered.
I think doing one of these would be a ton of fun and a great experience. Need to know if anyone is doing them in my area!
I think this is great training……..man, i cant even begin to tell you how many times ive been at the gym, lifting weights, practicing my free-form jazzercise….when you know, all of a sudden i had to neutralize that rogue tango on the stairmaster….
Or you could just talk up summer or winter biathlon.
Is the purpose of these exercises to train to shoot with an elevated heart and breathing rate, tired muscles and the like?
As long as the people are not being instructed to use the training as “tactics”. I’ve watched a lot of Rob’s training and can’t imagine that he would. Rob’s training has always to me been some of the better, actually useable in a real world type of training….IMHO.
“FitShot Workouts are as much of a “tactics” session as an IPSC Match is… ie: None At All.
BUT: Both activities (the shooting and the jumping) are actually kinda fun and putting them together is fun too. Putting them together for score against my peers pushes me to perform both well (in the context of the event) and make myself stronger. So: FitShot is Good.
More cops have been killed by laziness and heart attacks than bad Qual Courses”
From his youtube page. I was all set to rip into this, but the guy flat out admits this is no kind of tactical training. It’s simply combining fitness and shooting. Lighten up guys.
Shooting while breathing hard and and tired is always good to practice. Just with that big jump id be worried about ND’s when you dont make it. Is he safetying after the shots?
YEs.
Also, As I am watching him scale the container I thought of something. Knowing how to properly put away your rifle while moving in various ways also aint too bad of a thing to learn, I suppose.
Look up militaryathlete.com
They do this kind of stuff and have a few locations. It’s basically crossfit at a shooting range.
I didn’t look at this as a way to improve your “tactics” but an excellent way to gain control over your stressed out body to put shots on target. I would be down to work out like this if I had access to a range where you could do whatever you wanted (safely). I am always jealous of that being from Socal. We don’t have those here. I give props to Rob and his crew. Not to mention if he found a way to monetize something that allows him to be more fit and a better gunfighter, that is awesome. I will check out more of his vids.
Haha, I just looked into Rob a bit more and realized he has several streams of revenue that are firearm related. The guy is a TV host and publisher. I thought he looked a little familiar.
You should really record that parody. It’d be hilarious. And just fill the video with cuts from DERPerator training video’s you’ve posted.
haha yea. Apparently you and I are the only ones that thought my song was funny. I thought it would go over better than it apparently did :P
Don’t really see where all the hate is coming from. If he found a way to make exercise less boring by mixing it with something fun like shooting, more power to rob. Hell I’d totally go to this class. Not to troll, but what’s wrong with encouraging activities that increase the likelihood that the guy at the shooting range is in shape as opposed to the more usual really really fat guy bench shooting?
Is he really getting that much hate? It seems to me this is about as positive as the internet gets :-D
^ Valid…
Full disclosure: I have written for S.W.A.T. magazine and am currently working on submitting an article on this subject.
Combining exercises with firearms training to simulate the body’s alarm response is the right idea, but their application falls short. The body’s physical responses to an immediate threat are more in line with anaerobic exercse, rather than aerobic exercise. The difference is in the intensity utilized with the exercises, not the duration of their performance. And I use the word “intensity,” in the same manner as exercise scientist…in relation to your 1 reptition maximum, that is, the most weight you can use for 1 repetition. So a squat performed for 2 reptitions is a higher intensity than a squat performed for 5 reptitions. I point this out, because muscle mags incorrectly use the word to reflect the challenging nature of workouts.
While aerobic exercise can induce fatigue, it fails to produce the accelerated heart rate and tunnel vision normally encountered during life and death encounters. Yes, the shooters in the video were experiencing fatigue, however, the goal should be not to seek it intentionally, but to induce such a high level of stress to the body, that it activates the “fight or flight” response.
Now, if you just want to exercise and shhot guns, then go do it. It looks like fun, I admit it. However, from a performance enhancement perspective, there is a difference between adequte and optimum. You choose.
“Yes, the shooters in the video were experiencing fatigue, however, the goal should be not to seek it intentionally, but to induce such a high level of stress to the body, that it activates the “fight or flight” response.”
Ok, I agree. How do you propose you achieve that on a consistent basis for range training other than doing sims or airsoft? Until there is a way to instantly achieve that fight or flight response every time you go to the range I think inducing fatigue is the next best thing.
Jess,
It is JUST “exercise with guns”… not at all supposed to be any “simulation” or “tactical training” or any of that… just trying to encourage shooters to be more fit.
Daron, there are specific methods for inducing the high levels of stress needed…to be exact, the heart rate must reach 180 BPM, or at least, as close to it as possible and heart rate must be reached as fast as possible…within 20-30 seconds. It requires a heavy load (relative to the person’s strength). For instance, doing tire flips with a 500-800 lb tire. The reasoning behind the 180 BPM, is that at that extreme heart rate, the body responds by releasing high levels of adrenaline…which induces the “flight/flight” response. Once the fight/flight response is activated, only then will you experience the associated tunnel vision, tremors of the extremitiies, etc.
The beauty of training in this manner, is that you extract greating training ability/education from every round fired. Also, by utilizing a range timer, you’ll find out where you’re weak and allows you yto focus your time and rounds on imrpoving that weakness. For instance, when your heart rate is near/at 180 BPM, does your time from drawing to first round fire dincrease dramatically compared to performing the draw/fire when rested? The metric I use, is anything slower than 10-15% of “normal,” must be focused on.
Jess, you do not need a heavy load. You need… high intensity, as you said yourself. HIIT-variants do just that. Take a kettlebell and go for maximum swings within 5 minutes. Or do Tabata squats or swings. Hell, row for time. Heart rate over 180bpm? Check. People have trouble counting their reps or doing anything else than the one task they planned to do afterwards? Voilá, instant tunnel vision.
Tierlieb, we’re talking about doing this at the gun range for improved weapons handling. Yes, swinging a kettelbell for 5 minutes will get the heart rate going, but it won’t be practical to do it before every firearm evolution. And also, while the heart rate will be accelerated, any time period exceeding 45-60 seconds moves into the aerobic zone, which will minimize the adrenaline surge. Yes, you’ll be fatigued, but not in the flight/flight stage.
So, in order to make it practical for the gun range, where you don’t want to be spending the majority of your time exercising, the weight needs to be near maximal and must recruit the majority of muscle groups (full body lifts).
And when you think about it, using a large 600 lb tire (I use 6 different exercise implements) is cheaper thn buying barbells, kettlebells and weights. Tire reclamation centers will let you take all the tires you want free.
I can see why you poke fun, but really, this looks like a great time and a great way teach yourself focus under fatigue.
Ammo and trigger time are to valuable, You should train like your gonna shoot and shoot like you’ve trained. The jumping on a car and doing a Tree Pose while you wait for incoming rounds or Sun Salutation’s on-top of a conex again waiting for incoming rounds is very flawed. Anything resembling tactics should get pulled from this fitness program. What if your in a stressful situation and “this” training kicks in? Do I need to make references to VIPER training academy.
Over-thinking, Ryo…
When I run them with students, Fit Shot Sessions represent 5-15 minutes of 2 day Adv. Pistol Handling Courses.. usually with less than 50 shots out of the 1500+ being fired that day. IDPA, IPSC and Target Shooting Drills do a hell of a lot more damage to defensive shooters’ habits.
Was just having a discussion about whether I should grow my beard back, and someone told me that my beard had a song so I had to come check this out. For the record it wasn’t braided or dreadlocked, just tied up. We filmed this on Halloween day, so the bead was a skull. I did it to annoy Rob as much as anything else. The day before was a big pink bow. Kind of glad I didn’t have that in in the video, or the song would probably be entirely different…