Circular Strength Training
What is Circular Strength Training?
The Circular Strength Training® (CST) System is the “flagship” professional certification course at RMAX International, resulting in a 22.5 hour training examination conducted at the 3-day seminar. CST was pioneered by Scott Sonnon, and the RMAX International Faculty Coaching Staff continue to build on his insights to evolve a more refined, coherent, cohesive and comprehensive approach to becoming a movement specialist. CST has rapidly emerged among the premier training modalities in the health / fitness and strength / conditioning arenas.
The CST “brand” of movement-based exercise is different from other comparable training such as those offered in functional fitness, tactical training and movement methods.
The following is exhaustive. Practitioners do not need to know all of CST in order to receive 100% of the benefits. However, the deeper you go, the more you can uncover…
CST uses a total “vocabulary” of joint mobility drills to ship nutrition, lubrication and shock absorption to the active joints for optimal efficiency, rapid recovery, and pain and injury prevention. Unlike pathologically-based mobilization methods which are based upon a “trauma lens” of movement, CST is based upon developmental neurophysiology for the organization of joint mobility drill sequencing called Intu-Flow® (”intuitive flow”).
CST uses the “toolbox” of body-weight movements (from yoga to martial arts) in order to “clean the slate” of the over-specializations (compensations) which result from life, injury, attitude and each and every successful exercise/skill performed in a prior cycle.) Named Prasara Body-Flow™, this Compensatory Movement™ Technique unloads the functional opposite of any repeated movement in order to preserve benefits and prevent drawbacks.
CST involves more than mere compression to stimulate adaptation in progressive resistance. Clubbell® swinging - the oldest fitness tool and the first martial art in ancient Russia, Persia and India - combines traction to strengthen not just muscle but also connective tissue protecting the joints while building strength. In addition, since the Clubbell is swung, torque allows force production to increase exponentially rather than geometrically; instead of adding plates, the displaced center of mass swung twice as fast produces four times the force.
CST has evolved a precise sophistication of the warm-up, work-out, cool-down triumvirate. Tri-Ring Integration™ design technique seamlessly interweaves joint mobility to prime the specific acting joints with nutrition, lubrication and shock absorption, multi-planar progressive resistance to re-balance adaptions from the prior cycle of training, and compensatory movement to unload the functional opposite of the exercise selection to maximize results and minimize over-compensations. This formula creates a dramatic result significantly greater than the sum of its individual 3 parts.
CST represents the next stage in movement evolution. What began as linear, militaristic calisthenics, developed into “functional” training with the addition of angular/diagonal motions. Circular Strength Training adds in the missing rotary aspect of tri-planar biomechanics through Dr. Nikolai Bernstein’s work. Unlike standard “muscle-based” physiology, CST provides a language to movement, called the 6D Matrix™ - doubling capacity from tr-planar to six degrees of freedom. Basic certification includes 5 stock follow-along programs: Cardio, Strength, Athleticism, Core (ventral)/Crunch, and Core (dorsal)/Back Strengthening.
As opposed to merely studying exercises skills, CST biomechanics teach how to dissect any skill through the Component Learning Technique™. Deconstructing skills into their 7 primary mechanical and coordinative aspects creates a training environment for rapid skill acquisition and refinement. The Technique seamlessly stringing together components to foster both skill refinement and improvisational flow. CST practitioners are widely regarded for their ability to internalize skills and approximate mastery quickly.
CST offers an errorless, injury prevention method being a “health-first fitness” approach through monitoring the internal experience of exercise, called the ETD Compass™. Understanding this specific formula allows subjective evaluation of safety and performance by integrating the Rate of Perceived Exertion, Technique and Discomfort. This creates consistent, sustainable progress of skill refinement while preventing pain or injury set-backs.-
CST teaches a sophisticated approach to respiratory efficiency: the Breath Mastery Scale™ allows teachers to observe the 5 levels and 4 volumes of breath. Based upon the Soviet performance and health enhancement scientists (Drs Nikolai Buteyko and Vladimir Frolov), CST offers a stress physiology perspective to breathing which allows maximal effort with minimal energy expenditure.
Unlike lever-based approaches to movement which assume that musculo-skeletal actions hinge upon independent joint mechanics, CST is based upon Dr. Stephen Levin’s science of Biotensegrity: We can only ever train movements, not muscles, due to the “myofascial matrix” - the web of connective tissue. The fascial net dictates that we must train systemically, rather than segmentally, holistically rather than in isolation.
CST’s method of Poise Analysis™ (visual assessment and movement screen) is logical, coherent, unfolding the approach step-by-step as one’s personal practice deepens. The ability to design specific programs requires an understanding of the ultimate goal, but more importantly the point of departure: screening and correcting the individual’s current over-compensation dysfunctions. The CST method of Poise Analysis organically evolves from the actual practice and teaching of the CST programs, rather than independently, allowing students to recognize what they’ve owned through their practice.
CST offers a periodization model of cycling training modalities and goals to achieve a peak moment: an optimal athletic experience, regardless of whether the client is training for sport, for vocation or for life. Based upon models by Drs Tudor Bompa and Mel Siff, the Training Hierarchy Pyramid™ creates a harmonious balance of work / recovery through the science/art of the Fibonacci Sequence, also known as the Golden Mean. Through application of the material, the cognitive becomes intuitive, and “peaking” comes faster and without struggle.
CST uniquely offers the science of mental toughness and emotional control training based upon Soviet and Olympic sports psychology (Drs Grigori Raiport and Robert Nideffer) through a diagnostics approach called the Awareness Diamond™ - corresponding to the four mental/emotional athletic archetypes. By learning how to dial-in to the appropriate aspect of awareness, performance accelerates, attitudinal “drag” diminishes, and quality of experience increases as a life-skill applicable to all circumstances.
CST provides a conscious and deliberate architecture named the Three-Dimensional Performance Pyramid™ (3DPP) to program the optimal physical experience which psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi named Flow-State - a mental and emotional event transcending merely a physical “peak” performance often referred to as the “Zone.” Renovating a modified coupling of Gichin Funakoshi’s “Red Triangle” (kata/practice, kumite/competition, kihon/training) with Dr Tudor Bompa’s physical development pyramid, the 3DPP pinnacles in the entering and maintaining flow-state.
For information on seminars and certification in the world’s FIRST and BEST health-first, flow performance fitness system, go to www.CircularStrengthTraining.com and reserve your space on the RMAX International Team!
