Death to the Heart Rate Chart

Death to the Heart Rate Chart

by W. Hock Hochheim 
 

It's happened again. A firefighter training organization has resurrected the old Bruce Siddle, PPCT Heart Rate and Performance Chart as if was a new, magic discovery, or recognized world-wide as a Nobel Prize winning, commandment and industry standard. You've all seen the 20-plus year old chart by now? 

CONDITION BLACK (heart rate above 175) 
 
Irrational fight or flee
Freezing
Submissive behavior
Voiding of bladder and bowels
Gross motor skills (running, charging, etc. at highest performance level)

CONDITION GRAY (heart rate 145 – 175) 
 
Cognitive processing deteriorates
Vasoconstriction (=reduced bleeding from wounds)
Loss of peripheral vision (tunnel vision)
Loss of depth perception
Loss of near vision
Auditory exclusion
Complex motor skill deteriorates

CONDITION RED – "THE ZONE" (heart rate between 115 and 145) 
 

Optimal survival and combat performance level for:
Complex motor skills
Visual Reaction Time
Cognitive Reaction Time

CONDITIONAL YELLOW (heart rate 115)
Fine motor skill deteriorates

CONDITION WHITE (normal heart rate) 
 

 The professional look of the chart and its matter-of-fact presentation suggests some very serious, study work has been done. But by whom? The actual source is somewhat elusive these days. The source is usually just regurgitated in police circles as “Bruce Siddle's work on,” or the “work of Bruce Siddle,” over and over again, as through Siddle himself was a renown heart surgeon or maybe a Distinguished Fellow, doctor at Houston's Debakey Heart Center. Does anyone ask just who this Siddle really is? Actually, Siddle has not graduated a college and has no psychology or medical degree or experience. He is essentially a self-proclaimed, martial arts grandmaster of his own style "Fist of Dharma," from a small, Illinois town. He had an idea at a very ripe time decades ago, to teach very non-violent, police courses, starting first with friends at a local academy. Many police administrations eventually loved the programs because of the "pressure-point approach." Many, many officers, including myself, did not like the program. Not at all. But back then Siddle seems to have won a "police training lottery," despite all his shortcomings.

Thanks to the ripeness of his unusual and perfect timing, Siddle's name is now entrenched in the police training world. Inside this world, and also in the “reality-based, self-defense” training world, there are these – you might call them – “usual suspects,” for lack of better term. The usual suspects, being those known police trainers that are name-dropped by others to sound ever-so-educated and informed. These are the names of people and their courses that are constantly regurgitated in a spinning tornado of speeches, books and videos. But few know that with new research and discoveries, many of their ideas have lost their spin and have ground down to a small, smelly breeze. And so too goes the Siddle Heart Rate Performance Chart, and here's why.

Generalities. We all know a general bit about the human heart. It beats. It does a lot of blood and oxygen work. It's amazing. We need it. We all know that if the human heart beats at a super rapid pace, surely we will pass out and die. And, we all know that if the heart beats at a super low pace, surely we will pass out and die. It therefore becomes intuitive for us to understand that there must be a continuum of sorts, a progression within those two points? It just makes sense. Fast rate or slow rates, if you are near death, you are not feeling well or performing well.

Then you are shown the above Siddle Heart Chart. You look it over. Okay, given your general, intuitive grasp of the human heart, this must make some kind of sense. And in a time a few decades ago, when research and skeptics and counter-ideas weren't sweeping across the internet, this chart swept quietly across enforcement training courses in manuals and seminars. The "low-information student" nodded in agreement. Then, martial artists trying to be all mod, technical, informed and insider-ish” began touting the chart in martial arts training. So, the "low-information martial artist " nodded in agreement. Even parts of the military nodded too, even though plenty of independent thinkers and experts had immediate doubts and questions. I certainly did.

Here, I will remind everyone that I have taken PPCT courses many years ago. With the chart's inception there has never been an official explanation or obvious attachment between the heart rates shown and perhaps some other elements in the equation, like fear or stress or conditioning. This lack caused a ton of misleading information and misunderstanding. Based on the simple chart of numbers, many were lead to believe that a track runner would poop in his pants when reaching 175 beats a minute? And don't think for a moment this concept wasn't discussed a lot. Sports performance aside, people that do a variety of fine motor tasks under great pressure, like snipers or jet pilots, or the tons of people that perform under stress simply had to be classified as freaks or super-special athletes, else this “work of Siddle” just couldn't fit in with reality.

In the late 1990s and early to mid-2000s, independent thinkers began really challenging the chart as the internet grew. The challenges spread and gained momentum. There were numerous testimonies about people doing refined tasks with increased heart rates in combat, as well as other unusual circumstances. Even a friend of mine, an accountant, was running on a treadmill once back then, and using the small buttons on his Blackberry. He noticed his heart rate was very high and thought to himself, “ I shouldn't be able to do this, should I?” thinking that according to the chart the he should have lost control of his bowels at that point. Actually, at one point he stopped running, straddling the moving ramp to find that any trouble typing he'd had, came from the physical bouncing on the ramp while running. His heart rate was still very high while straddling the ramp, and he could pound the numbers with some ease when standing still.

“Your heart can easily beat 300 times a minute if your brain tells it to do so, but you will hopefully never see this out on a run or bike session. When we talk about maximum heart rate, (MHR) we always mean activity specific. You may find out your MHR for running is 190 bpm but on the bike it may be only be 175. Your Maximum Heart Rate is different for every activity you perform. In addition, it's also difficult to predict a number within each sport with formulas such as the popular MHR = 220 –age or the newer MHR = 205 -.1/2 age. The fact is that even if the formulas would be based on a single activity, there are wide genetic differences between individuals that make these formulas too vague to be predictably useful,” says Dr. Scott, MD.

In 2004, Simunitions pioneer Kenneth Murray published his popular Training at the Speed of Life book. And yes, still, inside the book are all the usual suspects and the same tornado of ideas spinning about. They are all co-endorsing, co-forwarding and co-quoting each other in the usual, round-robin of incestuous back-slapping. And yes, Kenneth covers the old, “must-mention” list and the Siddle Heart Rate and Performance Chart comes up in the book.

BUT this time, enter Kathleen Vonk! Officer, athlete, certified physical performance trainer in numerous programs, BS in Exercise Physiology, etc. Vonk has done years of performance studies. She dismisses the Siddle heart chart because of the simple fact that everyone performs differently at different rates and levels. She also says in the book, and in numerous follow-up interviews, that many other factors interfere with performance. You just cannot tag a heart rate number with specific event, physical performance, or lack thereof. (Some interfering factors are hydration, altitude, fear, heat, cool, last meal, genetics, well…too many and too obvious to list right here.)

Ken Murray, both a gentleman, a scholar and a better man than I am as you'll soon see, very diplomatically uses the phrase “building on Siddle's work on heart rate” in his book when revealing Vonk's hands-on, experienced, qualified results. “Building?” Is building the best word, Ken? No diplomacy here from me – rather, it tears down and eliminates it. This was not news in many sports performance circles even by 2004. Quite a number of experts already agreed with Vonk. But it was newsy to the police training tornado. Not newsy enough though to crash and burn the chart completely as it should have. It seemed to take Dr. Bill Lewinski and his Force Science college wing to make a decent dent in the legend of the Heart Chart.

Fear. Dr. Bill Lewinski, Ph.D., executive director and multi-decade, psychologist specializing in body reaction, and violence, of Minnesota State University, Mankato. He says “the idea that a high heart rate (alone) causes a loss of fine motor skills is a myth. The culprit is fear or anger, not heart rate. ” In 1997 Killogy's popular Dave Grossman virtually teamed up with Siddle and co-opted the Siddle Heart Rate Chart. You will still find late 1990s charts here and there with the "Siddle-Grossman" name and copyright in the bottom corner. But, then in 2004 came a popular, public disclaimer from Grossman that the fear factor was also important in all this and that actual heart rate numbers "may vary." The numbers may vary? Sounds like the end of the Siddle Heart Chart to me.

History has rewritten itself in an effort to justify still using the chart? Yet, even with this looser number rewrite, veteran EMT David Collins reports, "I saw Grossmen in early 2013. He give his usual lecture & I enjoyed most of it, except the heart rate info because it is wrong. The bio-chemicals that flood the body and brain are what causes us to shut down, stop thinking and panic. Yes, there is some kind of heart rate increase, but It is not about the heart rate. This does not prove cause and effect." 2013! Colonel Dave? Let the chart go.

Does this mean we need a new heart chart? A fear chart too? What level of fear mixes with what level of heart rate, to create what level of response? Fear is different for people. I personally have felt more fear batting in the ninth inning of our softball team, playoff games, than I did when searching a room for an armed felon. How can one quantify this dichotomy?

And one other point that confuses this research, I might add – the sudden heart spike. People experience this spike frequently. Do spikes count? Or must one maintain a high rate? If so? For how long for it to count in research? Do I empty my bladder when a sudden spike reaches 175 beats per minute? Or, will I loose my stool only with a sustained 175 bpm for 10 seconds? How long is sustained? We all know the answers to these questions. It depends on the person and the situation. 

"Does this mean we need a new chart? A fear chart too? 
 

What level of fear mixes with what level of heart rate, to create what level of response? Fear is different for people."
 

  Workable solutions? If your heart beats way too much, you die. If your heart beats way too little, you die. There is indeed a performance progression inside these deaths. The progression is based on an individual's genetics, conditioning, outside environments and the task at hand. I have already perused for you a large number of very complicated, technical, new and not-so-new studies that involve heart rate and performance. In all of them, being in shape produced the best results. Off the chart if you will. The real solutions are also intuitive. Stay in shape, eat right, breathe right (yes, that age-old tactical breathing) and exercise. Scenario training – simulate the combat stress you'll experience through repetition training. I add here, use my “who, what, where, when, how and why ” list to best prepare for the simulations.

Despite all this research and common sense, the Siddle Heart Performance Rate Chart and other ignorant manifestations of it, still get rotation within the tornado, quoted and presented in books, lectures and films as biblical truth, just as with the firefighter training program I heard of just the other day, and in the Grossman lectures.

So, if you are about to write the next “pioneer,” reality-based, fight book and insist on quoting all the usual suspects? Why not stop for a moment, meditate on violence, and ask a few questions first about all of them. Be the skeptic.

Few seem to know that Bruce Siddle no longer owns PPCT and hasn't for years. Siddle has also lost millions in a lawsuit involving many things, PPCT being one. Many police agencies, even PPCT instructors themselves are ignorant of this fact, as PPCT seems to partially operate in some sort of Twilight-Zone-flux without a proper, defined, hydra head.

As the Siddle Heart Performance Chart is "history-rewritten," it's only modern rescue is a vague excuse – "Well…ahhh…it teaches people that white, gray, black etc. conditions…ahh…exist." Okay, but I think there are about 12 better ways to briefly explain that existence, than list a thermometer of precise responses with precise heart rate numbers. Drop all the disagreement and confusion and drop the chart. After all, the old Col. Jeff Cooper, Color Code is used by survivalists and shooters alike and it didn't need accompanying heart rates with it. We all fully accept, approve and understand that instantly.

The Siddle Chart should never have been made. And, you can't make a fear/heart/performance chart either. You just can't assign the acts of mandatory defecation, tunnel vision, loss of fine motor skills, etc. to one heart rate number for all of humanity, or even a general one. Not even Siddle uses the Siddle Heart Chart anymore! So, what do you say we all quit passing this deceased, heart chart around and around?

Let it rest in peace. No need to resuscitate.

For more details and references, read this articles and studies. Also, look at the very latest sports studies. 
 

http://www.hammernutrition.com/downloads/heartrate_performance.pdf

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/heart-rate-variability-analysis-how-to-improve-your-training-performance-40837

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/health/nutrition/10BEST.html?_r=0\

http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2011/03/high-heart-rate-questions.html

W. Hock Hochheim is a military, police and martial arts vet, who teaches hand, stick, knife and gun seminars in 11 allied countries around the world. He can be reached at Hock@HocksCQC.com
 

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 http://www.forcenecessary.com/force-necessary-combatives/articles/article-death-to-the-heartrate/

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The "Myth of the Duel"...Knives and Otherwise.

Are all those stabbings and slashings around the world, all Zorro-like, face-off duels? No.

 The "myth of the knife duel" is about limiting yourself and/or over-training dueling methods while striving for situational, reality knife fighting. The myth of the duel is using fencing or sparring as the main model for self defense training. This is the definition of "the myth of the duel." The stand-off where each opponent has the same size stick, a knife or are empty-handed. Sparring like this is not the full answer, can confuse and mislead.

 We live in a mixed-weapon world. Such a misleading knife course that over-duels, is unlikely to understand the full, modern, "Weapon-Matrix" options, like gun versus knife for one example. Many criminal and military knife attacks are like football or rugby with a knife with sudden and vicious collisions, not prolonged fencing matches.

 But, if you specialize in a specific era dueling or historical training dueling, and/or understand where the duel truly fits in the big picture, then you are among the enlightened, educating and pursuing your interests and the interests of your friends and students. Dan Inosanto once told us in the 1980s that the real reason for knife sparring was for footwork. And it really is fantastic for footwork.

 Of course, just as a good knife course covers knife ground fighting, it must also cover a proper proportion of so-called "knife dueling," because knife dueling may, has and does occur inside an overall knife fights in war and crime. We duel/spar a bit at every knife level I teach. We do the Killshot Knife Fighting Module to cover the subject, all the time remembering that if there is space between knife fighters, there are often other wise options than the continuance of the knife versus knife duel. Such as the photo above and to the left suggests, pick up something else and fight with it.

 So, are all those stabbings and slashings around the world, all Zorro-like, face-off duels? Or, are they sudden, passionate charges (like football players with knives) that involve a sucker punch, with a thrown ashtray at the face. A knife in the back? A chair vs. a knife? A struggle on the ground? Two bad guys cornering one guy. A very small knife vs. a machete? Or worse, unarmed vs. the knife?

 The very term "knife duel," in many training systems today does fancify and mislead what is really homicide-like or an ugly, vicious bloodletting. The training for knife fighting, as done by so many martial systems today, is a prissy, unrealistic game of tag with rubber toys, mentally detached to the virtually unspeakable horrors of knife wounds, knife maiming and edged weapon killing.

 This dueling concept is often a mitigating concept in all forms of fight-training, not just with knives. Hand. Stick and gun too. Will you always fight an opponent with your 28-inch stick versus his 28-inch stick? For another example, you may be mentally brainwashed into the "empty hand-versus-empty hand duel." If you only train in common, storefront, martial arts and unarmed combatives you will most likely forget to pick up a handy weapon in your environment. Use something as a battering ram or a shield. Sometimes to throw. Always get the edge. Get something to fight with. Always cheat, be tricky and use what's around you. This is easy to pontificate by some instructors, but their actual working outlines and doctrines miss this whole, vital point. Remember, night after night, you are building muscle memory. 

 The myth of the duel is really a two-prong problem. The second part is when you duel, you are sparring. If you are training fighters for a sports event, then follow those rules. But, a reality trainer really needs to take a hard look at sparring and what it really produces in class. I often hear instructors proclaim "We spar everything out," as if everything is ever-so, "battle-tested" as a point of pride or a tough-guy, sales pitch. But I think many are confusing sparring in a matted dojo with the slime of a back alley.

 First, let's quickly establish the characters in our sparring study. The instructor runs the show. The trainer is the attacker. The trainee is one we are all hoping to improve. There is free-style sparring and combat scenario..."sparring." Sparring done with protective gear is useful but only to a point. The gear saves the attacker/trainer from the real fight-ending injury. If the fight-ending injury is ignored by the padded trainer, then the session is counter-productive. The trainee soon forgets the real fight-enders because they are ignored by his partner. The finishing moves then de-evolve from his list. Ignorant, padded attackers ignoring fight-ending moves is the single reason why so many sparring matches become wrestling matches on the ground, often ending in choke-outs/tap-outs. Where else can they go? How else can they end it, when all other simulated fight-stopper, attacks are ignored. Just "sparring things out," sounds cool, but does not maximize the goal. I am talking about the next, higher level, whether you are freestyle sparring or combat scenario sparring, you cannot afford to ignore, solid, fight-ending moves. Ignoring them is a like a cancer to your training doctrine.

 Through the decades I've frequently taken this fact as such simple, common-sense. I foolishly forgot how many instructors fail to grasp this child-like truth. How can they not? I am mortified with this vast, blind ignorance. Be it hand, stick or knife, standing or on the ground, each sparring session needs a coach/instructor to step in and remind the fighters when every serious simulated strike is ignored and what that strike may have actually done to an unpadded person. Sometimes the coach needs to step in and just declare a winner. Reward the proper moves. Reprimand the lame and weak ones.

 "Reality training requires good acting."

 Reality training requires good acting. It sounds like a dichotomy but it is absolutely not. If you shot a trainer in the head with a sims ammo round, the helmeted trainer should act like he was...shot in the face, not completely ignore the bullet! This would be an injustice to the trainee and a glitch in the training mission. The same is true with a knife stab, a stick hit or a solid elbow to the face. Actors/attackers should react conservatively, not ham up the injury, though at times opponents do get hurt this badly.

 We have kicked around a lot of subjects here from knife dueling on down to acting. The myth of the duel and sparring is very deep and appears in many aspects of training. It is a mythology that lots of martial trainers and students worship and...mishandle.

 Adios Amigos

W. Hock Hochheim
http://www.hockscqc.com/blogs/09-11/index.htm

The Mosin Nagant 91/30 An Honest Review

By Joel Persinger

Overview:

A few weeks ago I picked up a 1942 Mosin Nagant 91/30. I had just finished teaching a basic pistol class and stopped into the pro shop at the range to talk with the range manager. I never got to talk with the manager, but I did buy a rifle.

While I was waiting for the manager to appear, I noticed the old Russian girl standing in the gun rack next to so many sleek new rifles. When my eyes drifted over the price tag I just had to see it. Once I held it and fiddled with it a bit, I thought... "What the heck!" So, I bought it for $143.00 out the door (including taxes and the California government fees).

After I bought the Mosin I made the mistake of looking on the web to find out about it. What I found was endless opinions about the Mosin Nagant as an "end of days/SHTF" rifle, a hunting rifle or a home defense rifle. The discussions go on adnauseam. After having purchased one, cleaned it up and shot it, I think I've figured out what it can and cannot do. So here comes yet another opinion... mine.

How did it shoot?

After a couple of hours spent cleaning the cosmoline out of the 69-year old rifle, it actually looked like I might have gotten my hands on something interesting. From what I could tell, the rifle appeared to have been refurbished or perhaps simply never issued to a soldier. So, I took it completely apart, checked the function of the gun and the firing pin adjustment to make sure it was safe to fire and went to the range. I had purchased some surplus 7.62x54R ammunition, so I thought I'd start with that.

It was a good day to try the rifle, since my partner and I had just finished teaching a pistol skill builder and the range was not being used. I set up a paper target and launched some rounds at it from 50 yards to see if I was on the paper. Right away I noticed two things. 1) The gun was LOUD! 2) It did not have the punishing recoil I had read about. Sure, it pushed back at me when I pressed the trigger. But the recoil was manageable and actually quite soft for a rifle firing a powerful cartridge. My business partner, Mike Ritz, felt the same way after he fired it.

Accuracy:

The sites were a little off, causing my rounds to strike about six inches to the right. I didn't have a mallet or brass punch with which to adjust them, so I had to deal with it the old-fashioned way. After applying a little Kentucky windage, I was able to put three rounds in the center of the target in a group that measured slightly less than 1 1/2 inches. Once I had the sites figured out, the rifle consistently grouped under two inches. In fact, I had two groups which measured under one inch. That's pretty good for a $140 rifle that's almost 70 years old, particularly when firing surplus military ammunition. Suffice it to say that accuracy was good.

Functioning:

Although the gun functioned almost flawlessly, the bolt was quite rough and the trigger was pretty bad. The bolt tended to stick after firing a round. This was probably due to some cosmoline I missed when I first cleaned the rifle. As a result, cycling the bolt was challenging, although the problem seemed to go away after I fired three or four rounds. The trigger was of the standard military variety. I didn't measure the trigger pull, but it was pretty heavy and the trigger had quite a bit of creep. All that having been said, for what it is, the Mosin Nagant is a great rifle. I'm very glad I bought it.

Dependability and usefulness:

The Mosin Nagant is an ugly, simple, rugged and utterly reliable rifle that was designed to be issued to illiterate peasants and conscripts who had little if any rifle training. The rifle is dirt simple and can be used and cared for by anyone given a modicum of instruction (like ten minutes). By design, the rifle is meant to take abuse and still keep shooting. Basically, the Mosin Nagant is an old bolt action battle rifle that was perfect for what it was designed to be. But how does it fit for a home defense, end of days (SHTF, WOROL) or hunting rifle?

As a home defense gun it leaves a lot to be desired. It is too long, too heavy and too powerful to be an ideal home defense gun. You're better off with a short shotgun or a good handgun. The same problems present themselves when you contemplate using the Mosin to hold off a determined group of thugs in an "end of days, SHTF" scenario. With the Mosin's slow rate of fire and limited magazine capacity, you would be much better off with an AK-47 variant, a Mini-14 or a good AR15. Again, similar issues pop up when you think of the Mosin being an ideal hunting rifle. As a hunting rifle, it's HEAVY, long and cannot be easily fitted with a scope. A much better choice would be a light and quick handling modern rifle with a good scope.

All that having been said, not everyone can afford a home defense shotgun, handgun, AR15 or a nice hunting rifle with a scope. When we consider the reality of the pocket book, the problem with the Mosin Nagant is not with the rifle, the problem is people's expectation that the Mosin Nagant should somehow manage to be ideal for any task other than the one for which it was designed. As a result, it is not "ideal" for most things. For example: It's not ideal for home defense. However, I would not want to be on the business end of one! Being hit squarely with a 7.62x54R round will put just about anybody's face in the dirt. It's not ideal for an "end of days, SHTF" gun. Still, it isn't all that bad a choice either. It's rugged, utterly reliable, cheap and supremely capable of killing anything that walks in North America. It's not fast. But when combined with a good quality fighting handgun it doesn't need to be. If the bad guys are up close, transition to your short gun. If they're far away, bust out that Mosin. Lord knows that if you hit 'em, they're not going to fight with you anymore. Besides, if the dude you shoot has a nice AR15, you can take his. After all, he won't be needing it. It's not ideal for hunting. Still, the 7.62x54R round is perfectly suitable for taking both medium and large game anywhere in North America. Actually, I plan on taking my Mosin Nagant 91/30 deer and pig hunting this year. But, keep in mind that if you buy a Mosin for hunting, you probably won't have a scope. I wouldn't let that bother you. Folks were hunting successfully without scopes long before any of us were born. Many people still do. So, there's no reason why you can't.

The bottom line is that the Mosin Nagant isn't the ideal rifle for anything. But, if you're on a budget, it's a darn good rifle for just about everything. You can buy one for around $150 or less and you can buy a "spam can" containing 440 rounds of surplus ammunition for less than $90. What a deal! So, let's recap: the Mosin Nagant is cheap, accurate, strong, reliable, powerful and always goes bang. Works for me!

Sparring

Go and check out pragmaticmartialarts.com thoughts on sparring & realistic testing of your training.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTGZvwZ9Gr4&feature=youtu.be