Thirty years ago, I certainly sounded like a madman when my university students would arrive in my class. What professor would say such heretical things? I left the university system, and decided that I would teach those who were interested in hearing the truth as I understood it, not the truth as had been canonized.
Fitness has changed dramatically since then, when sharing “natural movement” was considered for fringe fanatics like martial artists, yogis, gymnasts and dancers.
Over two decades ago, I consolidated all of my discoveries traveling the world and studying at the feet of truly great masters. I called it “Circular Strength Training” as a signpost to building movement rather than merely muscle, to developing the system, rather than only the segment, to addressing the whole rather than just a part.
But in this grand unified theory on human movement potential, we can get easily lost within a single modality, when even at our earliest training experience, we know that there are three aspects to training: warmup, workout and cooldown. In CST, we express this with three, overlapping rings.
Each ring has its own dedicated intent with differing approaches as a result. The warmup intends to restore mobility. The workout intends to activate a movement chain. And the cooldown intends to compensate for the residual tension.
Because of these different intentions, each process holds its own direction:
- Mobility – from the head, downward.
- Activation – from the core, outward.
- Compensation – from the root, upward.
There are many different modalities in health and fitness, and unfortunately professionals can argue about which is the “best”, when they haven’t first considered where in the ven diagram of the three rings they’re addressing. As a grand unified theory, they all work synergistically.
My martial art and my yoga both infected my view of fitness, for I cannot perceive it compartmentalized into isolation. It ALL will fit together once we repair through nutrition our ability to listen to our intuition, address all three rings of fitness, and make injury-free recovery the primary goal.
Very Respectfully,
Scott B. Sonnon
Train Inside the Framework
Every program in our current Strength Training Month specials was built on this exact architecture. Not as separate modalities competing for your attention, but as expressions of the same Circular Strength Training framework working synergistically across all three rings.
Whether you are restoring mobility, activating the movement chain, or compensating for accumulated tension, there is a program in this collection designed to meet you where your training needs it most. Original TACFIT Clubbells are also back in stock and shipping now. Explore everything currently on sale and find the piece your practice has been missing.
It’s been 23 years since I was in Beta Cadre and almost 20 when I went to Bellingham to get recertified in 2008. Those were great times and I met a lot of great people, especially at Beta Cadre.
Getting back into some clubbell work recently and need to start on the mobility ring. Years of heavy competition kettlebell lifting and a hip replacement in 2018 have me all locked up.
Dave, it is so great to hear from you! We are so grateful to the Beta Cadre and all of our community members from the “early” days. You all helped shape the TACFIT we have today and we will never take that for granted. We are here if we can assist with anything (restore access to any previous programs, etc).
At one point in the ancient times I bought every VIDEO TAPE Coach put out :).
I think I had access to a lot of the old Tacfit programs when you were still RMax
Send us an email at info@tacfit.com, we can help restore access to those programs (the ones that were digital)!
Which program would you recommend to learn about the fundamental ideas of circular strength training? I have over 10 years of experience in kettlebells and rings/gymnastics and have been working with clubs and maces for three years now. As far as I understand this covers only one of the three rings. Please recommend material that addresses the other two rings and the general concept.
Best regards from Germany
Hello Felix! Thank you for your question. We would be happy to provide as much assistance as needed. There are a few ways to approach this. If you wanted to practice the individual components, you could look at programs like Intu-Flow 101 for the Mobility component, Prasara Yoga for the compensatory component, and something like Six Degree Flow or Commando if training bodyweight, or any of the tool specific programs for the third component of the Circular Strength Training.. Another option is to consider that the majority of our programs, in particular the “Legacy” non-101 programs, include all 3 components by program design. All begin with the mobility training, then the actual workout, then the cool-down. This is what we mean when we say programs are designed under the Circular Strength Training approach. Our favorite if you are talking Clubbells would be King of Clubs! But you really cannot go wrong with any of them! If you have additional questions, please feel free to contact us directly by email at info@tacfit.com