APH-2025-166

Overview:

• 6-Week Focus: Ben Galper Basic Grip Program
  • As written: 4 sessions x 4 weeks, extend to 6 weeks to allow for grappling.
  • Limit sessions to 60-minutes (including warm up and support) to allow recovery.
• Weekly Objective: Fitness sessions should include (A) leg focused warm up, (B) Budokon animal movements in warm ups, and (C) supplemental neck strength and hamstring stretching.

Assessment:

• Sleep Quantity (hours): 7.5
• Sleep Quality (1-5): 3
• Mood (1-5): 4
• Soreness (1-5): 1

Introduction:

This session introduces what I call “rebound training”, or active recovery. The goal of which is to “feel better afterwards than when you started.”

There are a lot of ways to tackle this, but conceptually you can think of the session as “an extended warm up” with an emphasis on having fun. We still want to train. We still want to be focused and intentional.

This will be explored much more in future sessions, but for now we want to learn to manage intensity appropriately. To do that, and still have fun, we’re going to use some grappling-friendly movements (hinge and carry) and energy systems (anaerobic capacity). Pay attention to what feels good, where you need to improve, and paint a mental canvas of your current training needs and recovery status.

Warm Up:

• Air Bike x 10 minutes (easy pace)
  • Even nasal breathing.
  • Cover the dial with a shirt or towel and use a stopwatch.
• 2 x 10m each:
  • Lunge + Cossack Squat
  • Deck Squat + Broad Jump
  • Duck Walk
  • Panther Crawl (or Bear Crawl)
  • Rack Carry

Flow: Calisthenics and plyometrics can be a great two-for-one warm up in that you can target mobility and the aerobic system at once. However, you may need to develop the sensitivity to that pacing first. To aide in that process we’re blinding ourselves to external metrics on the bike (watts, speed, calories, rpm) and paying attention to internal metrics (stress, dialogue, breathing).

Work

• 3 Rounds (not for time):
  • KB Swing x 30 seconds
  • Recovery Breathing x 30 seconds
  • Front Plate Carry x 1 minute

Flow: The swings should be fairly heavy. Recovery breathing typically means some combination of a longer breath cycle (fewer breaths per minute), a longer exhale (in proportion to the inhale), and breathing through your nose (instead of your mouth). Don’t try to force a particular cadence. For the plate carry keep the load above your hips and below your shoulders. I’d recommend about half the weight of the KB used for the swings; but if you’re up for it shoot for the same weight.

Finisher:

• CARs, 1-2-3-4-5 each:
  • Hip (each side)
  • Shoulder (each side)

Flow: Pay attention to the quality of movement. You should be able to really strain and take your time on the singles and doubles. However, if fatigue starts to limit the quality of your articulation , stop on whichever set that is and keep it as a reference point to cap sets at in the future.

Notes:

• A panther crawl is similar to a standard bear crawl, but the butt is lower, knees and elbows are pinched, spine is flat, and the emphasis is on slow contralteral movement.
• Results (Austin):
  • 75 cal (3:3 breath), 2 x 35# KB
  • 70# KB, 65# plate
  • CARs 1-2-3-4

Review:

• Difficulty (1-10): 6
• Performance (1-10): 7

Identical to: Ollin AH01