"Bud Jeffries is a sick, sick man!"

Funny how within the training world and training lingo a really great compliment can sound extremely odd. A friend of mine sent this post from a forum to me because it referenced me and the martial arts book. When you first read the above title you don’t know what to think. Good? Bad? I don’t know. But if you’ve been around the training world long enough you understand that what that means is someone came up with a training routine that is either ridiculously difficult or heinously painful. Usually references unbelievably productive as well.

Well this is exactly what the sand bag exercise from Super Strength & Endurance for Martial Arts is. I hesitate sometimes to even talk about it because it’s completely unique to the book and it IS brutal. But an unbelievable way to take your grappling and physical power to another level.

What is referenced in the message below is just one of the exercises for the sand bag from the book, but a very unique one. Check out this message.

Posted on the Dragon Door forum:

“I recently purchased (Bud’s) Twisted Conditioning vol 1&2 and also his Super Strength and Conditioning for Martial Arts in E-book form. Absolutely the best 75 bucks I have spent in a long time. If you don't already own these you are doing yourself a great disservice.

In the third of those books he tells the poor unsuspecting reader to take his/her sandbag and using a rope attach a cable set to it. Secure the cable set to an immovable object. Now do what I can only describe as the old bear-hug turn and toss throw so popular in bar-room brawls without actually throwing the sandbag. Return to the starting position and repeat on other side.

Now attaching the cable set to the sandbag was something that had honestly never occurred to me. So I rushed down to the basement, used an old gi belt to attach a cable set to a pole just above waist level. The sandbag was 100 lbs and I used a single loop made of L.L. magenta cable. I backed away until the cable was at about 10% stretched and did the exercise as described. 3 sets of 5 later I was feeling pretty good. Then I said to myself "Hey why not use this to add a new dimension of resistance to other bag moves?" So I did 2 sets of 5 bear-hug squats facing the pole, 2 sets of 5 with the pole on my right side and 2 sets of 5 with the pole on my left side. Finally for the sake of a complete circle I tied the gi belt around my waist attached the set it and did 2 sets of 5 facing away from the pole. All the squats were done with the cable stretched between 50% and full stretch (2x cable length). In the end I was tired but not wiped out.

Yesterday I woke up and wished I hadn't. I was sore in places I didn't know I had places. Why in God's name did my ribs hurt, I asked myself. Had I gotten in a fight? Every muscle in my torso was fighting for full attention of my CNS. My traps felt like I had Andre the Giant standing on my shoulders all day. The rest of the day is a blur.

Today I am still sore. I have discovered a sure-fire way to tell if you have worked your posterior chain past the point of reason. That is when you look down and every muscle from your hamstrings to the base of you neck tightens up. My ribs still ache and my entire abdominal girdle is on slow burn. The soreness in my legs isn't too bad, but the hips are more sore than they would normally be.

Bud Jeffries is a sick, sick man.

Thank you Bud.

I'm going to lie down and die now.


Chris”

Chris – so glad you enjoyed the sandbag exercise also so glad you got the idea of pulling the sandbag not just in the position shown, but using the cable attachment to make it tough and brutally effective for lots of other training. The cable attachment really does put this exercise over the top. Not only do you have to support and move the weight of the bag very similar to holding an opponent, but you have to turn or move against the strength of the cable as well as lift the actual bag. REALLY like grappling a live opponent. Lifting their weight plus overcoming their resistive strength and an incredible strength and endurance builder.

Thanks also for the great endorsement. The material in those books will take you over the top. The rest of you reading out there, if you haven’t heard of or tried this exercise, well now you know what it is and have a rough estimate of how to do it.

If you want to read more about it and some more incredible training get Super Strength & Endurance for Martial Arts

Or do like Chris did, pick up the whole enchildada – The Training Trio – and save some bucks at the same time.

By the way you can do that cable resisted exercise with any odd object. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a sandbag. If you think THAT one is tough, wait till you read about the sandbag sled drag.

Hope this gives you another exercise to light a fire under your training. I know it will and when it does, big results are right around the corner.

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