scrappers bodyweight conditioning video

The first tape starts off by clarifying the most frequently asked questions about the workouts. Before each workout he explains in detail how to do all the exercises correctly. The workouts are progressive and each one is slightly more intense than the last one.

The first tape has two workouts on it that can be done either indoors or outdoors. He has constructed these workouts so that you need minimal equipment and you can do them pretty much anywhere with a bit of space.

The first workout lasts about 30 minutes and is the least intense workout of the series. The second workout is more intense with a wider array of exercises incorporated into it. It lasts about 50 minutes.

The second tape involves sprints and, if you have access to equipment, chin-ups and pull-ups. As such they are best done outdoors. These workouts are very intense. The first workout called a sprint/pull up workout lasts around 25-30 minutes. It starts off with a load of circuit type exercises and then launches into the sprint pull up routine. After this comes more exercises and another sprint pull up routine.

The second workout he calls a quick sprint workout. It lasts about 10 minutes and is designed as a short, sharp, intense workout that you can do if you are pushed for time. This is just a continuous workout without any rest periods and involves various exercises and sprints. The final workout on the second tape is called a 5-10-5 workout. This is a culmination of all the exercises from the previous workouts. It is the most intense workout in terms of volume in the series: 40 to 45 minutes of pain. He has grouped a whole load of exercises and sprints together into one block, and does a pyramid of these exercises from 5 up to 10 and back down to 5 again.

The workouts on the first tape have been written up on his web site, www.trainforstrength.com so that you can print them off to follow, but the workouts for the second tape have not, so you will have to write these down from the video yourself.

Almost everything that Scrapper does on the tapes is based on pyramid, so that you start of easy, build up to a peak, and then come back down again. In this way the warm up is incorporated into the routine. In some of the workouts he does an individual pyramid for each exercise in turn, in others he groups the exercises together and treats the whole workout as a pyramid. With the more intense workouts you find that you are at the limit of your threshold for the whole of the second half of the pyramid even though you are reducing the numbers each time.

Each workout is an all over body workout with all sorts of different exercises. Some that you will have seen before, and other weird ones that will make you hurt in places that you didn’t know existed. There is a lot of variety to give you a complete workout and to offer you lots of alternatives should you not be able to do any given exercise.

Quality of the Tapes

The material on the tapes is very good. They are designed in a way that is very flexible. They do not need any specialist equipment and can be done pretty much anywhere. He has incorporated lots of different exercises and variations so that everyone can do something. If you are injured and can’t do a particular exercise then there is a whole list of other alternatives to chose from. If you can’t do the most intense version of a particular exercise then there are about 5 other variations of differing intensity to chose from. He emphasises the point that he doesn’t want you to passively sit there and watch. Even the sprints on the second tape can be replaced by skipping or jumping jacks if you don’t have access to an open area.

The way in which he trains is quite unique. The structure of the workouts is different to what most people will be used to doing with lots of pyramids and combinations of exercises grouped together. Many of the exercises were completely alien to me, and some were quite amusing to watch. He also has a unique way of counting on some of the exercises. He doesn’t count individual reps, he counts groups of reps and gets you to count each group. This he tells you is to regulate your breathing. A lot of this seems weird at first but you soon get used to it.

Whilst it is evident that Scrapper is freakishly fit the tapes are very much about making you fitter. He emphasises the point that the purpose of these tapes is not impress you or intimidate you but to motivate you and show you how you can get better. This is why the workouts are very progressive. They gradually increase in intensity so that the fitter you get, the more you do. And within each workout there is a lot of flexibility so that you can adjust them to your capabilities.

The workouts are very specific to MMA. All the exercises involve using your body weight instead of an abstract metal weight, and they provide an all over conditioning workout. But they are also specific to MMA in the type of fitness that they target. MMA is inherently Anaerobic (the break down of energy without the presence of oxygen, associated with brief, intense activity). There are short periods of near maximal exertion followed by periods of active recovery. And the workouts on the tapes are based around this principle.

At the beginning of the first tape he says that the workouts are designed to be interactional. You are supposed to count with him, keeping the same pace and pattern as him throughout the workout. In this way it is more inspiring and motivational because you want to keep up with him as he cranks out 15 dive-bomber push-ups at the top of another pyramid. This is fine for the first two workouts, which can be done indoors. However the remaining workouts have sprints involved and need to be done outdoors, so you will need to take a copy of the workouts with you unless you can set up your video outside.

The presentation on the tapes is very much a no frills, no bullshit, to the point delivery. They are easy to understand, and everything that you need to know is there. There are no gimmicks, it’s just the workouts, and what you need to know about them, nothing more. To the point where the camera work and the sound are not great studio quality. There is a lot of background noise and on the second tape the sound is slight ahead of the picture. In making the tapes he has clearly ignored the quality of the video and just concentrated on getting the message across. Some people might be annoyed by this, but for me the tape has the same appeal as your local hard-core, "meat head shed" gym. Their sole purpose is functional and efficient. No garnish just hard work and the bare essentials.

The only gripe I have about the tapes is the first workout on the second tape: the sprint/pull up workout. At the end before he gets to the last sprint pull up section he says that the battery on the camera ran out so he misses this last section out. I thought that he could have done it again so that you get the complete workout on the video.

The videos cost $39 for both which I think is excellent value for money. That’s approximately Ł25 for two videos.

Conclusion

On the whole I liked these tapes. The workouts are tough but "you’ll get out of it what you put in" and they work. The video quality is not fantastic but its clear enough to get the point across, and besides the material covered more than makes up for it. In his own words "Purchase these tapes only if you are serious about getting into the best shape of your life."

More information on the videos can be found on Scrappers web site:

www.trainforstrength.com