Barefoot Running, Milk, 100 Words by CF and Squats

Are humans supposed to run in shoes or barefoot? Are humans supposed to drink milk? What does Crossfit think about fitness in 100 words or less? Are your squats not improving? Today is a bit of a Strength, Conditioning and Health Mashup. Hope you like it!

Chris at Conditioning Research has been having a run of posts about the merits of running barefoot versus in shoes. Very interesting reading.

Foot Strike

Basically, when we run in normal running shoes, our heal strikes the ground first. This generates significant shock through the lower leg area and contributes to many lower limb injuries. The proper method for running barefoot style is where the ball of the foot

Fire sword

Great pic. That is all.

Image by MattTheSamurai

News: Man Attacked by 6 Muggers

A 19 yr old man was walking alone down an alleyway in the UK shortly after midnight on a Friday night. He was subsequently attacked by 6 young males who were wearing hooded jumpers with their hoods up and were aged 18-19yrs old. They punched and kicked him and stole 85 pounds in cash.

Police are appealing for information.

Know Your Environment

This attack could have been avoided. And it will be pretty self evident for subscribers and regular readers of Low Tech Combat as to all of the points that just scream out BEWARE!

Firstly, the victim was walking down an alleyway late at night. A Friday night as well. This is a high risk area for Robberies

New RossTraining Compilation Video

I haven't seen this one before today. Its a compilation of some of his stuff from 2003 to 2008. I know I haven't had any strength and Conditioning stuff up for a while so check out this video. And if you like it, go and check out his site. Its awesome!


For more, go to RossTraining

What I like most about his stuff is that it is geared towards combat sport athletes such as boxers and MMA fighters. For the non fighters, this is still the stuff you want to do. It is still the kind of attributes we all need. We just won't develop them to the standard of a fighter who trains very deliberately for 3 months or so to get into the ring or octagon.

Practicalities and Realities from the Blogosphere

There has been some really interesting posts in the martial arts and self defence area of the blogosphere lately and I wanted to mention them here for the readers of Low tech Combat.

Firstly, Mark from MarksTraining has written an excellent post comparing self defence and fighting skills and discussing if aptitude in one means you have aptitude in the other automatically, plus more.

And I quote from his post:

You can be the best fighter in the world. You can have the best grappling, the strongest and fastest punches, kicks that can knock anybody out, and a self belief attitude that can never be shaken. Does this mean that you are an expert in self defense? No. Does it mean that you have a basic level of self defense skills? Maybe.

So accurate. Self defence, well at least complete self defence across the Full Spectrum of Low Tech Combat, involves so much more than just fighting skills.

News: 69yr old Ex Wrestler Fights off Muggers

69yr old Tony Edwards told Police that the two muggers would be easy to find. They've each got a lump on their head. One lump says 'Tomato Soup' and the other one 'Mulligatawny'. He was carrying two cans of soup and a loaf of bread in a plastic bag and swiftly struck them with it.

The Event

Mr Edwards was walking to the shops at night (which he doesn't normally do but had nothing for tea), looking down at the ground. The ground hadn't been surfaced and Mr Edwards didn't want to fall.

Mr Edwards explains "Suddenly these two jumped me. I told

New LTC Video: Know your Pre Attack Indicators!

I am excited to present to you, Low Tech Combat's very first video for your viewing pleasure!

It is an analysis of a CCTV attack which I have shown on this site previously. It breaks the attack down and pinpoints the various key indicators which should have clearly shown to the victim that an attack was very close, if not imminent.

Here it is.




Watch on YouTube


Please leave feedback below or at the YouTube site. It is my first one, and there will be others. I aim to improve them with each new release and need your help in ensuring the videos are the best they can be. Please leave not only feedback on this video but feel free to offer suggestions on ideas for other videos as well. Let me know what you want to see!

Thanks very much for watching it.

And also, PLEASE SHARE IT! Feel free to embed it on your own sites! Email your friends, Tweet about it, Digg, Stumble, whatever you do :) I feel the information on the video is important and would like it to reach as wide an audience as possible.

Aliveness: Common Sense or Controversial?

People have asked me about Aliveness via Twitter, and I thought the best post to begin 2010 with is by discussing Aliveness in some detail. But first, here is a video by Matt Thornton.



I think Matt Thornton discusses some very valid points. Before going on any further, I just want to point out that it is not only MMA and bjj that utilise Aliveness. Aliveness can be seen in the best Reality Based Self Defence (RBSD) schools, weapons based martial arts as well as Law Enforcement, high end security and the military training packages. These areas will be discussed in some detail later.

Aliveness is not new. Indeed, introducing Aliveness into training is one of the key achievements of Jigoro Kano and his Judo at a time when such training was rare. Alive training is also a feature of Muay Thai, which has