Fluff vs Tough

Some people walk into our centers expecting air conditioned indoor spaces, hydraulics, a steam room and mirrors. Maybe a polite receptionist and even more polite, soft spoken trainers walking around with electronic BMI calculators… If you are one of these people you will be sorely disappointed.

Combat Kinetics is not a Gym or Studio. we are a sports club and everything from our programs and methodology to our physical locations reflect this. Here are a few things most people who work out are used to that we dont subscribe to with our programs. If you ever played any kind of sports or even played outdoors as a kid in school you will be able to relate fairly easily to the reasons i have laid out here.

Air Conditioning:

Air conditioned bedroom all night, air conditioned house, air conditioned car for your commute, air conditioned office all day. We as a race have managed to cocoon ourselves in a fully climate controlled environment for most of our lives. Dont you think its a good idea to let your skin breathe, your body to sweat naturally and allow the organism that is you to function in a non climate controlled environment  for at least a little while a few days a week?

Air conditioners dehydrate, cool your warmed up (see what i did there? ;) body down and encapsulate you in an unnatural environment. You will hardly (if ever) find any athletes training with AC or any good coach who endorses such enviornments in everyday settings.

Mirrors:

The Bodybuilding gyms of old had a couple of “Posing Mirrors” for bodybuilders to check out their physiques and development of their bodies for competition or general aesthetics. In modern times we have managed to skew this into “spotting mirrors” which basically means mirrors plastered everywhere for people to check their “form” for movements as simple as their bicep curl or their military press. People have just become too reliant on looking at themselves while they exercise (how much of this time is spent correcting form ill let you judge for yourself)

Have you ever seen a judoka doing a 360* rotational throw with one leg up in the air “Check his form” in the mirror?Have you seen a sprinter who explodes off the block with every single muscle in his body working explosively with perfect alignment “Check his form” using a mirror?  Gymnastics? Yoga? Bharatanatyam?  Yeah I thought as much! Do you know why this isnt the case here? Simple… Its because they learn to effectively tap into their neuromuscular connect, “feel” the proper form and correct themselves. Focus on the right things and you will create kinetic linking chains that will last a lifetime.

Music:

This is something where there is no absolute but as with almost every sports coach in the world we might allow athletes to “tap  in to their zone” by listening to their favourite motivational song BEFORE they start a training session/competition and/or AFTER to bring them back from that focussed state. But during training its all about bringing that internal energy to the table, finding your push and listening to the coaches instructions.

Combat kinetics dosent have music in their classes because we would like you to have all your focus and attention on your form, breathing pattern and instructions from your coach. We would like our students not to be dependent on music to activate themselves during class, as with any other serious sports training protocol.

Machines

This one has been done to death and if you havent yet heard read or watched all the research on the drawbacks of machine supported workouts you’ve probably been living under a rock. Just in case you have let me just give you a quick run through!

Isolating muscles and following machine guided pathways work well for rehabilitation of some injuries and for hypertrophy training bodybuilders (should also include free weights) follow. So if you arent a bodybuilder and youre looking for true fitness, Gpp or athletic ability across the board, machine assisted workouts should be completely avoided or make up not more than 10% of your training time (cable machines, etc).

Back to basics and solid science:

So yeah, nothing flashy or unnecessary… Just your body, a few training accessories and your coach. What you will find at  a typical Combat Kinetics club is a bunch of lorry tires, mooring ropes, kettle bells, trx straps, worn out judo mats, taped punching bags and iron weights.

We don’t have a receptionist. Our Coaches are not gym trainers who have completed a 2 week course to get “certified”, they are all superb martial artists and have won their titles through competition and years of training. They will remain calm and quiet until your training starts… We have found “madam please see if you can try one more” doesn’t work as well as “10 more! GO! GO! GO!! This is all you!!”.

We do not believe in apologies, excuses or mediocrity. We want commitment and dedication. We will get you ripped, fast, athletic, powerful and give you some wicked fighting skills to boot. Before you can say “cardio” we will have you hitting your head on a wall wondering why you wasted so much of your life in those color coded techno gyms running in the same place for 30 minutes and chasing mirrors.

This is real fitness. We build bodies that last a lifetime. Don’t work out on a machine… Become the machine. See you guys at class!