My pal Rob sent me a copy of "The Morrison System: The Art & Science of Training for war" to geek out over.
The main take away? Every exercise has a purpose, and the purpose is to be strong and balanced, not pretty. This is not a book for soccer moms looking to get flatter tummies during nap time.
"We are building professional operators not cover models," Morrison says in the self-published book. "Strength, stamina, agility and coordination are relative to the task. Most people have to get over the obscure desire to train like a bodybuilder. While we do squat, bench and deadlift now and then, we never do anything to specifically build size, shape and symmetry of the muscles. That happens as a side effect but you have to put in the work."
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Morrison's gospel is that you have to train the way you fight, therefore he has cut out any exercises that don't directly contribute to your skills as an operator.
"The activity in the schedule must either mimic real life for a combat soldier or build specific characteristics: Strength, stamina, coordination, agility or technical skill," he writes. "The activity/exercise must have DIRECT carry-‐over to combat skills."
So how does it work?
"At its heart, The Morrison System is nothing but a form of Russian periodization," he writes. "There are many periodization models. This one happens to be tuned for Special Operations, mountaineers and adventure athletes. The real benefits are in the finer details. I designed the system to deliver the full spectrum of training benefits to the operator. While the book is written for the SOF operator it is just as easily used by the general population."
Is it easy for non-military readers to follow?
I'm no operator -- not even a gym rat -- I'm just someone who runs too far. But if you have a basic knowledge of fitness you should be able to follow this book. Morrison can get a bit redundant in his explanations, but this repetition will help the newbie fitness nerd as much as it will annoy someone who is already familiar with periodization. I did gloss over the lengthy section on ruck marching since I'll hopefully never run an ultra in boots with a 40+ pound pack.
The workbook is simple to follow, and guides you through setting up your macro, meso, micro cycles. The PDFs aren't editable, so if you really want to fill it out you're going to have to print it out.
This is very much a "Fitness according to Nate" book, and while his advice is sound, sometimes you have to take it with a grain of salt. He does tend to go off on ranty tangents, and makes several generalizing statements that I wish he'd back up with sources.
His three biggest offenders are CrossFit, situps and soy -- thought he doesn't explain the war on soy. [Those are three things I can live without, too!-- ed.]
It's still a good resource if you want to dive head first into hard core fitness nerdom.
Buy it on The Morrison System website for $50.
