The Horsmen

[pyrrhic0369]

Functional fitness program produced in 2008 by the frogs. It's a combination of CF, Mil Athlete, Gym Jones etc. It works in month long cycles, each with a focus on strength, work capacity, etc. If interested shoot me a message with your e-mail and I'll send you the PDF. This is old news to many but to me it's the cat's pajamas.

[The Fat Guy]

Why don't you post the .pdf here?

[Patrick7]

Added the link minus the photos. I went through the four months straight through with good results but some workouts take a long time.

[SOTB]

Ha! I'm digging their forward....

[Patrick7]

I have the one with pictures but its a huge file and probably not good to open on a gov/work computer. I just need to find their music selections.

[J4ke175]

Is The Horsemen still floating around? I followed it pretty religiously on my last deployment about 3 yrs ago. I am just wondering if there have been any modifications or if the same guys have other projects out there.

[Polypro]

What's 'un-functional' fitness? Shit ain't complicated, although that's *exactly* what people selling "fitness" stuff want you to believe: "too complicated, take my money and just tell me".

[0369]

Originally Posted by J4ke175

Is The Horsemen still floating around? I followed it pretty religiously on my last deployment about 3 yrs ago. I am just wondering if there have been any modifications or if the same guys have other projects out there.

Not to my knowledge. I haven’t done it in quite a while. It’s pretty brutal.

[Hot Mess]

Originally Posted by Polypro

What's 'un-functional' fitness? Shit ain't complicated, although that's *exactly* what people selling "fitness" stuff want you to believe: "too complicated, take my money and just tell me".

Jacking a bunch of steel? Is bench “functional”? No, not really. Are curls “functional”? No, not really. As I’m sure you know, pre-GWOT you were either a runner or you jacked steel, I preferred the latter. It took a few years but people started to say, we don’t really need to run 5 mi but we need sprinting speed. We don’t need to bench 315lbs but we need to pull ourselves up over a wall fully kitted up. So a lot of these programs looked at the fact that guys need to move and carry a load over different planes.

So yes. People with PhD’s and experience came up with fitness protocols that are “functional” for a given job. Am I going to pay $135 a month to workout with a bunch of people, no. Will I pay $25 a month for thought out programing that has an end state, yes. “Fitness” means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Endurance runners probably don’t think I’m very “fit”. And I don’t think guys with gigantic arms who can’t run are “fit”. My definition of fitness is defined by the requirements of my job, for me.Thus for me it is “functional fitness”.

As Mark Twight said, “find out what the difference is between working out and what you’re doing”.

[Polypro]

Originally Posted by Hot Mess

Jacking a bunch of steel? Is bench “functional”? No, not really. Are curls “functional”? No, not really. As I’m sure you know, pre-GWOT you were either a runner or you jacked steel, I preferred the latter. It took a few years but people started to say, we don’t really need to run 5 mi but we need sprinting speed. We don’t need to bench 315lbs but we need to pull ourselves up over a wall fully kitted up. So a lot of these programs looked at the fact that guys need to move and carry a load over different planes.

So yes. People with PhD’s and experience came up with fitness protocols that are “functional” for a given job. Am I going to pay $135 a month to workout with a bunch of people, no. Will I pay $25 a month for thought out programing that has an end state, yes. “Fitness” means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Endurance runners probably don’t think I’m very “fit”. And I don’t think guys with gigantic arms who can’t run are “fit”. My definition of fitness is defined by the requirements of my job, for me.Thus for me it is “functional fitness”.

As Mark Twight said, “find out what the difference is between working out and what you’re doing”.

When your car slips off the jack, your body doesn't know if you're bench pressing or doing whatever the "functional" equivalent is - it just "sees" load, starts activating muscle fibers, and firing motor units. I have a pool solar cover that I have to move in the winter, weighs a couple hundred pounds and is awkward to move - the next winter after Conventional Dead-lifting, it was 'like buttah' to move - pretty "functional".

Nothing creates the most strength better, than "pushing/pulling steel" due to the never ending ability to create progressive overload in 1.25lb increments and up. If there was, the record holders would be doing whatever that was, be it Power or Olympic Lifting. The most strength is never a negative (and this is different than hypertrophy ((size)) - you can train strictly strength and "not get too big" see: weight classes in power-lifting) if that is a worry. Plus, without Anabolics, I think "too big" is a bit over-worried about. I'm on 180mg of Test Cyp/week and still can't get "too big" LOL!

I'm not saying that climbing walls fully kitted up is bad, I'm saying that getting your weighted pullups as high as you possibly can by hanging 45's off a belt and doing strict, dead-hang pullups from a bar (instead of that dying-fish "kipping" BS) will only help you more (that was a better example than the Bench - but apples to all conventional Weight/Power/Olympic training).

Activity specificity (aka sports specific training) is also important, so you are correct that you also have to "climb that wall" too. Luckily, a smart training program should do all things, it doesn't have to be "this or that, not both".

But conventional Weight/Power/Olympic "pressing steel/rubber" is absolutely "functional", because absolute strength is never a negative.