!RMAX International, PO BOX 501388, Atlanta GA, USA | 678-867-7629 | www.tacticalgymnastics.com

“Who survives, who wins, depends on how quickly you r e c o v e r w h e n movements deviate from the expected.”

by Scott Sonnon, World Martial Arts Champion, USA National Coach, Master of Sport, Federal Law Enforcement and Military Special Operations Tactical Fitness Contracted Consultant

No, this isn’t some attempt to attach an incendiary term like Spartan to a workout in order to appear hardcore. This challenge acts as much as an opportunity and offer to our warriors, as it does act as a correction to the combative conditioning inaccuracies of the original “300 Challenge” inspired by the motion picture, “300.”

I’m here not to toot my horn nor blow smoke up the asses of real action guys and gals. I’ve fought at an international level in 5 different martial arts and won gold in each. I consult federal law enforcement and military agencies and contract for the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. I serve those who serve and protect our communities.

So, I ain’t here to solicit contracts. I’m here to clear up some inaccuracies, and set the record straight on how research and experience has shown fitness to affect tactical readiness.

The original “300 Challenge” used to train the actors for the movie involved a specific protocol of completing 300 repetitions of specific movements as fast as possible (AFAP). Now, I’m not going to tell you that you need to stop your Physical Exam Batteries, quit practicing your 1.5 mile run, stop your sit-ups, push-ups and pull-ups. (Actually, in the future, I’ll show you techniques and tricks to ace the exam, or better... annihilate them.) Doing exercise AFAP definitely helps you. But power, output over time, isn’t the primary consideration for tactical gymnastics.

Combative engagements are characterized not by sustained tempo, but by repeated collisions and retranslations with periods of brief recovery and reorientation. The late USAF Colonel John Boyd described this as a “loop” of Observing the threat, Orienting upon an opportunity, Deciding what to how to respond to the op, and Acting out that strategy (OODA). If you truly want to be “fit” for “tac” then you need to include protocols which focus upon:

• moving through waves of intensity from 100mph to a dead stop and then back to 100.

• moving the body through multiple planes (retranslating)• recovering as fast and fully as possible during the brief respites;• and visualizing the goal clearly before and during performance (how smooth of

an operator are you in your technique: are you king or crap?)

T A C T I C A L G Y M N A S T I C S ™ :RMAX INTERNATIONALT h e A r t o f M o v e m e n tT h e S c i e n c e o f F l o wb y W o r l d C h a m p i o n M a s t e r o f S p o r t S c o t t S o n n o n

QUICK START GUIDE! PAGE2

!RMAX International, PO BOX 501388, Atlanta GA, USA | 678-867-7629 | www.tacticalgymnastics.com

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2011 – RMAX.tv Productions. All rights are reserved. You may not distribute this report in any way. You may not sell it, or reprint any part of it without written consent from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

TACFIT® is a registered trademark of Sconik International, LLC

Disclaimer

None of the information contained in this manual is intended to be taken as medical advice. Consult your physician before beginning this program as you would with any exercise and nutrition program. Albeit the information and advice in this manual are believed to be accurate, neither RMAX.tv Productions and its officers and employees, nor any members, assistants, volunteers, assigns, or agents of any type whatsoever acting on or in behalf of the aforementioned entity and persons will be held liable for any injury, damages, losses, claims, actions, proceedings, expenses, or costs (including legal) that result from using instructions, advice or exercises in the manual.

WARNING:  This  eBook  is  for  your  personal  use  only.      You  may  NOT  Give  Away,  Share  Or  Resell  This  Intellectual  Property  In  Any  Way

Read the entire manual top to bottom: even if you’ve walked the TACFIT path before, many new layers and features have been embedded to prepare you for the full Tactical Gymnastics system.

Read it over again in the weeks to come.

This book serves as your field manual, so you need to be totally familiar with it.

There are 2 Missions included in TACGYM Spartan Challenge: • The Full Mission.• The Regressions.

• Download Spartan Challenge instructional and Follow-Along videos. Study the movements carefully.

• Print out the scoresheet.

• If you cannot complete an exercise with good form, drop down to the regression and continue. (If you can’t finish with a regression, then you’ve done your job. Take a break, and fight again another day.)

It couldn’t be simpler. Everything has been laid out for you day by day. All you need to do is fill in the blanks... and sweat, of course.

™

®

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DEFINING TACTICAL GYMNASTICS! PAGE3

!RMAX International, PO BOX 501388, Atlanta GA, USA | 678-867-7629 | www.tacticalgymnastics.com

TIME is the most critical ingredient here. How do we perform repeatedly over time? Time is the top of the pyramid of importance, because it renders the needed energy system of the activity. For tactical fitness, we need the ability to perform at intense task, rapidly recover and retranslate to another intense task. After we establish the appropriate timeframe, then we can select the skills necessary to enhance the mechanics of our discipline. When we understand the mechanics, only then can we choose the tools: the chains of tension, or movements, and the type of tools to elicit those chains of tension. (see the model left.)

For the Spartan Challenge, you’ll be performing the EMOTM protocol for the timeframe. I’ll describe that in a moment. Next, I want to describe what it means to recover.

Recovery is a known term, though frequently neglected activity. All your progress, growth and results happen during the recovery periods between your workouts; never during them. So, for all your hard-chargers out there, if you’re not taking the time to recover, you not only aren’t getting better, you’re getting worse. Each time you exercise without recovery, you’re destroying the body, not building it.

Nutrition is king for recovery between workouts and missions. But that’s not the recovery we’re discussing now.; let’s call that recuperation. Recovery regards how to RESET between “collisions” - between rounds, sets, reps and even within an exercise repetition itself (how to recover one part of your body while the other continues in a different movement.)

To reset between bouts requires switching the nervous sy s tem f rom acce lerator ( the sympathetic) to the brake (the parasympathetic).

To recover rapidly you must:

• stop moving around, to avoid keeping your foot on the accelerator;

• on mid-foot, with your body completely relax, chug your body up and down by bending at the knees and hips. We tend to hop on ball of foot and do this, but that keeps the posterior chain tight. Midfoot keeps the calves relaxed and allows us to “vibrate” the residual muscle tone of the prior exertion. Tension only relaxes when you send it the frequency of its tension, like a tuning fork. The faster you return to full, resting length of a tissue, the quicker you’ll have maximal power output again for the next collision.

• find your heart rate and a clock (if possible), because you need to create a bridge from the controllable (your voluntary nervous system) to the uncontrollable (autonomic nervous system).

• exhale long, slow and deep into the belly through the mouth, for the longer, slower and deeper you exhale, the quicker your heart rate drops under the radar (heart rate maximum) of excessive arousal. The lower your heart rate, the faster you return complex and fine motor skills to function. If you train only at high intensity, then under stress, that’s what you’ll be conditioned to do; and at high stress >145BPM, you lose fine and complex motor skills. Who recovers fastest wins!

If you want your exercise to be tactical fitness, then it must regard this formula: how fast can you recover from high intensity output. That’s your litmus test. Not how big, strong or fast you are. Those are great attributes. But if you can’t recover from the first impact, from surprise, error, or the unknown, then bigger, faster, stronger isn’t better. Only better is better.

Tactical

Gymnastics

“The ability to change energy state rapidly. To turn, rotate, or twist faster than your opponent. And most importantly, to sustain that high energy state in the grueling turns that rapidly bleed out an opponent’s size, s t r e n g t h a n d s p e e d advantages.

The ideal fighter accelerates in rotation the quickest, and moves the fight into this rotation where he holds distinctly superior virtues.”

THIS TACTICAL GYMNASTICS PROTOCOL! PAGE4

!RMAX International, PO BOX 501388, Atlanta GA, USA | 678-867-7629 | www.tacticalgymnastics.com

The Spartan Challenge uses the EMOTM protocol, one of the 6 in the TACFIT “Metabolic Wave” which cascades through various energies so that you can maximize recovery. Power output is critical, but secondary to how fast and fully you can recover from putting out power. This is the essence of TACFIT and the Tactical Gymnastics system.

Everything internal and external will attempt to distract you from this marathon. When you have a job of this caliber to do, both mental and physical stamina will be required. Depend upon pace. Find the tempo which allows you to complete all 10 repetitions smoothly in 30-40 seconds. This gives you a minimum of 20 seconds to recover before the next round.

To recover, stand up, shake out your arms, legs, even your face. Big explosive exhales, or sighs. These are “survival” breaths, and teach the body to switch immediately to the opposite side of the nervous system: the parasympethetic, which turns off the sympathetic, the one responsible for the 4Fs (fight, flight, feast or reproduction.)

Don’t try to space out the repetitions across the full minute. You won’t make it. Having a few seconds here and there doesn’t give you quality recovery. You have to trick your mind into realizing that faster you go, the better quality recovery you’ll have (if you keep good form.) Go as fast as your form can hold it.

You will face three challenges: the Dive Roll, the Base Switch and the Tadpole Sprawl, in the full version, with regressions available for each challenge: the Crawl Roll, the Birddog and the Mountain Cimber. Record each round that you complete all 10 repetitions in 60 seconds. If you don’t complete all reps, then when the next minute begins, start over. You only get a point if you get all 10 in 60.

If you find that you’re hitting 2 consecutive rounds of incomplete repetitions and not scoring, then take a full

60 second break to recover and g e t b a c k o n t r a c k . I m m e d i a t e l y jump up and find your heart r a t e . S t a r t c o u n t i n g . Exhale for the entire minute if possible while lowering your heart rate in the process. If you cannot exhale for the entire minute, then exhale out of the mouth squeezing your belly. Relax to allow a short, soft inhale through the nose. And return to your deep belly exhalation. The heart rate slows on exhale; increases on inhale. Since the goal of TACFIT as a system is to recover as fast as possible, focus on your exhale.

You are only scored on the lowest level complexity level. For example, if you perform 2/2 reps of Dive Rolls, 2/2 reps of Base Switches, but only 2 reps of Mountain Climbers and not the full Tadpole Sprawls, then you don’t score the full round. The Spartan Challenge is all 10 reps at full complexity. But you can’t coast your way there. You’ve got to bridge the gap. Perform the regression if you can’t keep good form and continue with the full rep. You’ll get there next time or the one following. When going through Hell, keep going. Just keep using the appropriate skill.

To “Defeat the Beast” you need to score 30 points in 30 minutes of the full complexity levels.

Remember to perform an effective warm-up to prepare the joints and muscles for work, and an effective cool-down to compensate for the tension you’ve created and release it before you leave your training field.

The following pages will give you visuals on the challenges involved in the Spartan Challenge.

Each Minute on the Minute (EMOTM)

!! 5

Spartan Challenge I: Dive Roll

Begin Standing. Dive forward to ball of foot as you reach out.

Choose one forearm to roll over. The forearm rotates like a conveyor belt to protect your head and neck. Keep the elbow, hand and hand relatively in one line. Both feet and hands should leave the ground to differentiate the dive from a crouch roll.

Move your head to the side of the palm planted post. Begin with pinky outward (away from feet). As you roll, pull with the rotating forearm so the thumb rotates upward and eventually over (away from feet).

Exhale as you round mid-back. Completely miss your neck and shoulder, by pulling the roll to first make contact with forearm, and then shoulder blade. Bring knees to chest as you rock down your spine back to the original position.

Tuck the leg that was originally forward under, until the shin is flat, to stand back for the next repetition on the opposite forearm.

Continue your momentum forward until establishing a lunge position. Push back off the front leg to a standing position for the next repetition.

Tactical Gymnastics

!! 6

Spartan Challenge II: Base Switch

Begin in quad squat position.

Lift one arm as you prepare to sit through with the opposite leg.

Exhale and sit lifted knee through between posting foot and hand.

Keep elbow tucked and sit all the way under until both feet are flat to ground.

Only then extend lifted elbow into crab position.

Lift the hand and foot opposite of the starting position. Tuck the lifted foot underneath between posting hand and foot and return to quad squat position.

Tactical Gymnastics

!! 7

Spartan Challenge III: Tadpole Sprawl

From a flat foot squat, exhale and lead forward into hands and feet position, knees to outside of elbows.

Exhale and kick feet straight backward while keeping elbows bent, belly tight, and glutes strong.

Lean forward with your chest toward the ground to take the weight off of your feet. Begin outwardly rotating your feet, dropping your heels to the ground.

Exhale completely as you contact the ground with your chest, bell and hips. Inside of feet touch the ground. Press your upper body upward with the inside of your knees and heels touching the ground. Do not bend at the lower back.

Contract your knees outward and upward until on your shins and eventually back to original position flat foot squat.

Once you re-establish a flat foot position, only then return to a standing position to begin the next repetition.

Tactical Gymnastics

!! 8

Regression I: Crawl Roll

Begin on hands and knees. Shift weight from flat foot to ball of foot as you reach out to elbow extension.

Choose one forearm to roll over. The forearm rotates like a conveyor belt to protect your head and neck. Keep the elbow, hand and hand relatively in one line. Feet should remain on ground until back contacts the mat to keep this at the level of a crawl and not advancing to a crouch roll.

Move your head to the side of the palm planted post. Begin with pinky outward (away from feet). As you roll, pull with the rotating forearm so the thumb rotates upward and eventually over (away from feet).

Exhale as you round mid-back. Completely miss your neck and shoulder, by pulling the roll to first make contact with forearm, and then shoulder blade.Bring knees to chest as you rock down your spine back to the original position.

Immediately move to hands and feet to alternate forearms and roll across the opposite side.

Tactical Gymnastics

!! 9

Regression II: Bird Dog

Begin on hands and knees.

Keep elbow locked and extend arm behind ear as far as possible while keeping opposite arm solid to the ground. At the same time, extend the knee - opposite to the lifted arm. Keep two hips in one line. Lift the knee, while actively dropping the hip. Keep both shoulders and hips parallel to the ground. Exhale as you lift.

Recover back to hands and knees.

Perform on opposite side for one repetition: right arm, left leg - leg arm, right leg = 1 repetition.

Tactical Gymnastics

!! 10

Regression III: Mountain Climber

Begin in stand position.

With an exhale through the mouth, squat straight down glutes to heels. Keep spine perpendicular to the ground. Avoid bending forward. Imagine sliding your back down the wall behind you. Your feet may turn outward, but attempt to keep your feet parallel, and keep your knees over your feet (not over the outer or inner edge of your ankles.)

Place both hands on the ground and extend one leg backward with an exhale. Avoid lifting the hips. Your opposite knee may be on the outside of your arms.

With another exhale, switch legs, but keep your hips down.

Retract your second leg and recover to a squat position, by pushing back with your hands. Do not stand up until you have established mid-foot contact with the ground on both feet. Don’t stand if you are on ball of foot. Lift your crown up, as if pulling a chain skyward: let the links of your vertebrae fall underneath.

Tactical Gymnastics

SPARTAN CHALLENGE SCORESHEET! PAGE11

!RMAX International, PO BOX 501388, Atlanta GA, USA | 678-867-7629 | www.tacticalgymnastics.com

Coach Name Athlete Name Date

Resting Heart Rate Heart Rate Maximum

205.8 – (0.685 x AGE)

Target HR Beats per MinHI = 80-100%HRmax = ?BPMMOD= 60-80%HRmax=?BPM

Average HR Beats per Minute

TOTAL SCORE

SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)SCORED ROUNDS (1 = POINT; 0 = NO POINT)

1 6 11 16 21 26

2 7 12 17 22 27

3 8 13 18 23 28

4 9 14 19 24 29

5 10 15 20 25 30

TACGYM Exercise Regressions

Dive Roll Crawl Roll

Base Switch Birddog

Tadpole Sprawl Mountain Climber

DIRECTIONS FOR SCORING THE TACTICAL GYMNASTICS SPARTAN CHALLENGE• Record Program Name, Coach Name, Athlete Name and Date.• Record Resting Heartrate.• Calculate Athleteʼs Heart Rate Maximum.• Calculate Target Intensity in heart rate beats per minute: for High Intensity days 80-100% heart rate maximum; and for Moderate Intensity days 60-80% heart rate

maximum.• Record Scored Rounds (1-30).• Record Heart Rate Beats per Minute after Program Completion.• Record duration between end of program and return to resting heart rate; not applicable without heart rate monitor.• Calculate Total Score (add all round points).• Record Average Heart Rate Beats per Minute to compare with Target Heart Rate Beats per Minute span.

RMAX International, PO BOX 501388, Atlanta GA, USA | 678-867-7629 | www.tacticalgymnastics.com

The TACFIT team was created by Scott Sonnon, a martial arts champion in Sport Jiujitsu, Submission Grappling, Amateur Mixed Martial Arts, Russian Sambo and Chinese Sanshou. Sonnon capitalized upon advances in biomechanics, stress physiology, athletic biochemistry and sports/combat psychology to become a multiple time USA National Team Coach.

Sonnon trained for six years with the former USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and Special Operations Unit (Spetsnaz) Physical Conditioning and Performance Enhancement Specialists at the RETAL (Physical Skill Consultant Scientific & Practical Training) Center, and became the first American to be licensed by the Russian government in these studies. He is also one of a handful of individuals outside the former USSR to earn the coveted “Master of Sport” —the highest athletic distinction recognized in the former Soviet Union. Sonnon’s peak performance enhancement methods are on the scientific cutting-edge, proving themselves again and again where it counts: in the real world, on and off the field of athletics. He now consults for agencies such as the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, FLETC (the US Federal Law Enforcement Training Center), SLLETS (the State and Local Law Enforcement Symposium), US Army160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (NSDQ), NYPD Academy, US Customs and Border Patrol Office of Air and Marine, Israeli Defense Force LOTAR Counter-Terrorism School, and the Wingate Institute.

ABOUT THE FOUNDER

Scott was “Born to Lose. And Built to Win.” Against all odds, Scott became a champion, and has shared the discoveries he

made along the way.

M a s t e r o f S p o r tSCOTT SONNON

C h i e f O p e r a t i o n s O f f i c e r

R M A X I n t e r n a t i o n a lWORLD CHAMPION NATIONAL COACH

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