Yo Warriors

I feel theres always couple of ways that gets spouted when it comes to keeping ones youth.

But I feel theres only one real answer,

And bear with me, this is a theory of mine.

“Develop and maintain explosive reflexes to random stimuli”

Sounds fancy but its a really simple concept.

Imagine playing a game of football.

You’re chasing the ball, at random speeds, often going from 0 to 100 within a moment, along with random changes in directions.

THIS is the answer.

Maintaining the reflexes is going to keep your youth.

I’ve seen these posts that say maintaining your muscles is what you need to do.

Things like grip strength, squat strength, deadlift, etc, are all ok indicators of your strength.

Being flexible is sometimes touted as being important too.

Flexible joints allow good ranges of movement.

And then theres cardio.

This is great for heart health.

BUT

The measurement I’ve noticed as the first thing to go is peoplesreactive speed. 

Speed in the lower body, speed in the upper body, speed in the hands.

And normal speed can be trained – just focus on doing things quicker.

But reactive speed needs a random stimulus to react to.

If you know what the stimulus is before its happened, then it’s not reactive.

A truly random stimulus is found in competitive sports – namely ball sports like football.

I wouldn’t recommend rugby as its more forward/backward in nature and less likely to have sudden turns.

Playing football in a fast environment will keep you younger for life.

One of my favourite games is Tig (or Tag, or touch, depending on where you’re from).

Fast paced, 

Requires speed,

Has a random stimulus within

AND

Doesn’t require anyone to start playing football – Bonus, haha

Want a version of Tig (as I refer to it) that we can play?

Heres some rules on top of the basics:

• You’ll need a minimum of 3 people
• Use the weapons and shields at your disposal
• The tig must be made with a clean weapon hit to the body (or head if wearing helmets) and say “tig”, otherwise it won’t count. 
• A small environment to keep everyone from being to sparse – I’ve played it in spaces that are too large for too few people and its dull.
  Also, if there are obstacles in the environment, even better.
• NO TIG BACKS. This is important to make sure people must chase new people.
• DO NOT BE A NOB! There are various skill levels at play, so if theres someone struggling, be gracious and allow them a chance to get you, or don’ just chase down those who struggle, give them a chance to defend themselves
  (OR team up with the tigger and help them trap someone else, theres no reason why not . . .)

It really is the perfect game for practice!

Lots of stimuli, bits of scrapping and running.

Be explosive!

If you want to do this, replace your Battle Drill session – its practically the same thing!

As for the “Keeping Your Youth”, play games. 

Thats what kids do, so its worth a go yourself. 

But yeah, the faster you can keep your reflexes, the younger I think you’ll stay.

You will eventually slow with age but that no excuse to avoid the chance to slow this down.

Anyways, catch you soon!

Oh, and if you’ve read it this far, you’re now “it”, haha

Matt