Physical Strategies by Tom Furman » 2007

World’s Fastest Men Documentary

07 Feb 15, 2007

Tom Furman

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Ancient Athletes Better Than Modern Ones?

07 Feb 15, 2007

Tom Furman

Check this out.

We may not be as fit as the people of ancient Athens, despite all that modern diet and training can provide, according to research by University of Leeds (UK) exercise physiologist, Dr Harry Rossiter.

Dr Rossiter measured the metabolic rates of modern athletes rowing a reconstruction of an Athenian trireme, a 37m long warship powered by 170 rowers seated in three tiers. Using portable metabolic analysers, he measured the energy consumption of a sample of the athletes powering the ship over a range of different speeds to estimate the efficiency of the human engine of the warship. The research is published in New Scientist today (February 8).

By comparing these findings to classical texts that record details of their endurance, he realised that the rowers of ancient Athens — around 500BC — would had to have been highly elite athletes, even by modern day standards.

Says Dr Rossiter: “Ancient Athens had up to 200 triremes at any one time, and with 170 rowers in each ship, the rowers were clearly not a small elite. Yet this large group, it seems, would match up well with the best of modern athletes. Either ancient Athenians had a more efficient way of rowing the trireme or they would have to be an extremely fit group. Our data raise the interesting notion that these ancient athletes were genetically better adapted to endurance exercise than we are today.”

Dr Rossiter worked closely with Professor Boris Rankov, Professor of Classics at Royal Holloway, University of London to interpret the details of the endurance of the ancient rowers from classical texts. Many of these texts were originally collected and used to estimate sustainable ship speeds in The Athenian Trireme (CUP, 2rd edition 2000), which Professor Rankov co-authored.

For example, one account talks of the Athenians quelling a revolt in Mytilene on the island of Lesbos in the eastern Aegean. The Athenian assembly ordered all Mytiline’s men to death, and despatched a trireme to carry out this command. The next day, the assembly relented and sent a second trireme to halt the massacre. According to the records of Thucydides, this second trireme would have made the journey in about 24 hours, rowing in shifts and eating while they rowed, so the ship could travel non-stop.

Says Dr Rossiter: “From these details we can estimate the average sustainable ship speeds. Then, using the reconstruction we measured the metabolic demands of the human engine required to sustain these speeds. If the historians are correct, we would struggle to find enough people at that level of fitness today to power the ships at those speeds.”

Triremes were a huge technological advance, allowing Athens to dominate the seas. They had a strong keel, taken forward into a huge spike covered in bronze plates, which meant they could ram and hole enemy ships — a new technique in naval warfare. To ensure sufficient impact to cause damage, the triremes had to reach great speeds — so were designed with more than three times more rowers than earlier warships. By placing the rowers on three tiers, the ship could remain a manoeuvrable length and weight.

The trireme used in Dr Rossiter’s research, Olympias, was built in the 1980s and was used to carry the Olympic flame to Piraeus, the port near Athens, at the start of the last Olympic Games. It is now housed in a museum in Piraeus. Source : University of Leeds

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Thanks for the Great Reviews!

07 Feb 14, 2007

Tom Furman

These reviews are some of the feedback I have received about Concrete Conflict and Conditioning. Thank you very much!

I got your DVD a few days ago and you look like a kid. All that Silat and your knees are fine! That is so great. I really enjoyed seeing the Silat stuff again. I think I’ll be adding much of your conditioning material to my routine. Excellent.

Lorraine Patton, GS Competitor

Video/Audio: Very high quality video and very high quality sound production. Tom took his time to get these right.

DVD Organization: Well organized and easy to move to each individual exercise through the DVD menu.

Content:
At a high level, there are two parts to this DVD.
(1) S&C
(2) Combat Applications

The combat applications give you a taste for how the exercises in the S&C section and the corresponding attributes they develop apply in ‘real life’.

*S&C Drills, Tips, Tricks, etc.
There is some very good stuff in here. Tom takes his MA experience and has developed some interesting exercises. This is not about routines and progressions for base conditioning as much as fine tuning your body for injury prevention and specialized strength/endurance development.

Can you press a lot? Great, but do you have good ROM . . . Tom can show you some cool stuff to do with a stick to help this. His X Press is very interesting and hits the shoulder in a different way. Are your legs strong? Tom can show you how to take some strength/endurance drills for the legs that will open up your hips, improve flexibility, and teach you how to connect your body together for martial application.

Some of his groundwork such depak and sembok squats, burlesque bump, and lunge walk are quite different and felt really good on my hip flexors and hip joint. The knee walk I had to be careful with but it is something I’m going to try out.

*Combat Applications
I was quite familiar with most of what was taught in this section but it was interesting nonetheless. Tom knows his stuff and it shows.

*Who should get this?
If you’re an MA guy who pursues S&C as a means to improve your MA game, this is a good DVD to have.

I sort of feel like this is MA conditioning + Resilient-like exercises + an introductory exposure to SE Asian MA.

I’ve seen Resilient and learned a trick or two, but Tom’s stuff was so good I immediately changed up my joint mobility work to revolve around his stick JM demonstrations. They were that good and they seemed to get the areas I’ve been missing. (I normally do a lot of JS work and Tom’s stick stuff was every bit as valuable IMO) The ‘flexibility stunt’ is awesome . . . something worth doing a lot of for shoulder ROM.

Tom’s around 50 I think, and as such he’s learned a lot about keeping your body working and strengthening it against injury. There is some great stuff in here along those lines.

For me, the DVD was absolutely worth the money. My hands, shoulders, and upper back feel better right now and I’ve added to my bag of tricks things that will keep me going.

Tom’s X-vest and spider crawl bonus material gave me some good ideas as well.

Is it for you? It probably depends on why you train and how you train, but you can learn a lot from this DVD. Tom did a very good job with this and I’ll definitely buy his next one.

A. H.

The S&C part of Tom Furman’s DVD contains many innovative strength, mobility, and resilience drills any hard living comrade could use.

-Pavel Tsatsouline, the author of Enter the Kettlebell! and Super Joints

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Abundio Baet, A Rare Master

07 Feb 14, 2007

Tom Furman

Gat Puno Abun Baet is a rare practitioner whose art has many facets, and he can apply them real time, or teach them to the youngest of children. He is that gifted. Watch the video below. Garimot Eskrima and Harimaw Buno manifest themselves as an art that is complete, integrated, and sophisticated. Abun’s art does not end in combat. He is a healer, an artist, and a chef. I have been fortunate to have attended his birthday seminar one year. His students are top notch and welcome everyone.