MMA Stuff » Strength Training

Bodyweight Training for Combat Twitter Chat

Jimmy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:54:04 +0000

This Wednesday, March 10th at 9:00pm EST there will be a twitterchat with being faciliated by The Mastermind behind Straight To The Bar, Scott. For individuals with Twitter, just add the hash tag #sbgym to your tag to participate. We will be discussing things such as:

• Bodyweight exercises for warming up prior to combat, and prior to training

• Bodyweight technique work for combat training

• Bodyweight exercises for strength-training, with combat in mind

• Ideas for progressing with bodyweight exercises (increase reps, decrease time etc)

• Various equipment which helps add variety to bodyweight training (TRX, VFFs etc)

More Info

Hope to see you there!

Metabolic Barbell Complex

Jimmy — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:08:30 +0000

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Wouldn’t it be great to be able to go in the gym and do a half hour workout but feel like you were in the gym for hours? As fighters we have no business being in the gym for hours because we’re on the mat or in the ring for hours learning technique. I’ve said this already in a previous post. Here is a great workout by Alwyn Cosgrove that will improve your metabolic power and muscle endurance. I recommend these if you aren’t swinging Kettlebells.

A complex involves a series of exercises that are done without rest and in this case, without putting the bar down. You run through the whole complex, rest for a certain amount of time and do it again, and again, and again. The amazing part is, it closely mimics a fight because it comes to around 3 minutes of work and I usually just have a 1 minute rest period. It involves a full body workout with some Olympic lifts.

Complex 1

Deadlift – 6 reps

Romanian Deadlift – 6 reps

Bent Over Row – 6 reps

Power Clean – 6 reps

Front Squat – 6 reps

Push Press – 6 reps

Back Squat – 6 reps

Good Morning – 6 reps

Complex 2

Snatch Grip Deadlift – 6 reps

Snatch Pull – 6 reps

Upright Row – 6 reps

Power Snatch – 6 reps

Reverse Lunge – 6 reps each leg

Push Jerk – 6 reps

Jump Squat – 6 reps

My kettlebell coach told me to stop doing the complexes because I get all the work I need from the kettlebells. In my weekly workout, I only did complex 1, once a week. Don’t be a tough guy and try to load 45s on there unless you can confidently 42 reps with it. This will burn fat like crazy.

Try this out. You’ll hate it but love it. What’s your opinion? Should I be doing these in conjunction with Kettlebells? My rationale was to add muscle confusion to the mix but I’m no expert. Let me hear what you have to say.

Credit: Alwyn Cosgrove

MMA Conditioning When Training for a Fight

Jimmy — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:14:30 +0000

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This is a guest post from Derek Manuel

Conditioning for a mma fight is, unlike many other sports, not black and white. When most people think of the word conditioning, they think of how far and long an athlete can run or perform a certain exercise without sucking wind. This only refers to one aspect of conditioning. The word “conditioning” is often interchanged with the word cardio, which is short for cardiovascular conditioning or endurance, but the two are NOT the same thing.

Let’s break down what exactly conditioning is in relation to a mixed martial artist and how we can put it all together so that a fighter can prepare his conditioning to the best of his/her ability.

Cardiovascular Endurance

Cardiovascular endurance can be broken into two parts: aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic, which literally means “in the presence of oxygen,” refers to slower but longer paced exercises, such as jogging where oxygen is the main energy pathway. Anaerobic, or “in the absence of oxygen,” refers to high intensity training where energy is not derived from oxygen, but rather through alternative energy pathways that call upon an element called “phosphates” that are stored in our skeletal muscles. However, there is a very limited supply and phosphate gets used up very quickly (within a matter of seconds), though all the phosphate will be replenished usually in 5 minutes or less.

In a mma fight, both aerobic and anaerobic endurance are equally important. The better your aerobic endurance, the faster your heart will be able to supply your muscles with oxygen, which means the faster you can recover your wind, or “catch your breath.” The better your anaerobic endurance, the longer you will be able to perform high intensity exercise without slowing down.

However, there is a slight twist here. Although aerobic endurance serves as a good foundation for your overall conditioning, developing your anaerobic endurance is generally more beneficial for mma fighters. This is because studies have shown that aerobic endurance carries over less to anaerobic endurance, meaning that if you do a lot of low-intensity long distance running, you won’t see much improvement in, say interval training where you do high intensity sprints for 10 – 30 seconds, rest for a minute, and repeat for a certain amount of times.

However, on the flip side, anaerobic endurance carries over to aerobic endurance very well, so if you do a lot of interval training, this will improve your ability to jog for longer periods of time or for longer distances; in other words, increase your aerobic endurance. Conditioning your anaerobic endurance also carries over to mma more because it better develops your speed, power, muscle mass, and even fat loss then exercises that are mainly aerobic in nature.

As I stated earlier though, cardio is only one aspect of conditioning. If you were to get to the point where you can jog 5 miles or more non-stop without breathing hard and you can do dozens of wind sprints in a short amount of time with minimal rest, and that’s ALL the “conditioning” you did, I guarantee you will still run the risk of “gassing out” out in a high intensity mma fight. Why? Because although your cardiovascular endurance may be in great shape, you are still lacking a very important form of conditioning: muscular endurance.

Muscular Endurance

If exercises like jogging or cycling are mainly a form or cardiovascular endurance, then muscular endurance is the capacity of a muscle or a group of muscles to perform repeated contractions against a given load for a relatively long period of time.

However, muscular endurance can even still be broken down into three different types:

1) Muscle endurance – The capacity to contract a muscle or group of muscles regardless of the weight during a relatively long period of time (example: doing 100 pushups or doing as many pushups as you can within a five minute time period)

2) Strength Endurance – The capacity to exert maximum or near maximum strength for a relatively long period of time (think bench pressing your 1-3 rep max for as many reps as you can in a five minute period)

3) Power Endurance – The capacity to exert maximum or near maximum strength quickly (power = strength x speed) for a relatively long period of time (example: doing cleans with your 1-3 rep max for as many reps as you can in a five minute period)

All three of these types of muscular endurance are equally important, on top of your cardiovascular endurance, for a mixed martial arts fight. If you are scheduled for five, 5 minute rounds and you go the distance, your cardiovascular endurance will definitely come into play (more anaerobic in the beginning and more aerobic towards the end).

If the fight is in large a boxing match, where you are throwing dozens and dozens of punches, this will heavily tax your muscle endurance, such as your shoulders.

If the majority of the fight is fought in the clinch, or where you are shooting for takedowns or defending them back and forth, a lot of this requires quick and explosive strength, or power, to take your opponent down. If you plan on being able to continuously use the same or very similar level of maximum strength and power even into the 3rd, 4th, and 5th rounds, then you’re going to need strength and power endurance.

Putting it All Together

As you can see, doing a bunch of bicep curls and bench presses in your garage and jogging around your block every other day is simply not going to get you in the right condition when training for a fight. You have to keep in mind all of these elements, and train appropriately for them.

So how do you do that? I’d thought you’d never ask.

I will give you an example for a mma fighter who is training for a fight coming up in 12 weeks. Keep in mind that this is just a general example, as each fighter is different and requires a conditioning program that is more geared for their specific needs.

Depending on the fighter, who he/she is fighting, what his/her strength and weakness are, how far out the fight is, and how good of shape the fighter is already in all play a factor on how the strength and conditioning program should be designed. But for sake of example, I’ll show you a brief overview of how you might incorporate a full mma conditioning workout into your training.

Let’s say the fight is scheduled for 3, five minute rounds. Using Stephen Coveys “Begin with the end in mind” principle out of his phenomenal book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, let’s first be clear on where the fighter should be in terms of conditioning at the end of the 12 weeks.

Generally, the conditioning goal for a mma fighter to reach right before a fight is to have maximized his cardio conditioning, starting from a strong aerobic base and ending on a strong anaerobic base that is geared specifically for the length of time in each round, and to have developed his power endurance to the highest level possible.

So first you train strength (though building your strength should be a never ending task, preferably during times when you don’t have a fight scheduled for a long time), then your muscle and strength endurance, then transmute this new strength into power, and finally into power endurance when the fight is getting closer.

We can do this by training your conditioning in this specific order in a 12 week pre-fight program:

Phase 1 (Week 1-3) – For the first three weeks, a fighter may want to focus on developing strength with the most basic compound movements (i.e: squats, bench presses, weighted pull-ups, deadlifts, etc.) as well as begin to develop a foundational base for aerobic endurance.

Phase 2 (Week 4 & 5) – In the next two weeks, a fighter may want to continue to work on basic strength, but also work on muscle endurance by adding 1 or 2 extra sets of maximum reps at the end of each exercise (such as doing pushups after finishing the last set of heavy bench presses), as well as begin to shorten the distance while picking up the pace in his/her endurance training (from 45 minute jogs to 25-30 minute faster paced runs)

Phase 3 ( Week 6 – 9) – At this phase, the fighter is going to want to focus on strength and power exercises, and begin to make the focus of his/her cardio anaerobic (interval training, running as fast as you can at a 5 minute round pace, uphill sprints, etc.)

Phase 4 (10 – 12) – The final few weeks, the fighter should combine his strength and endurance training into one, such as using “power complexes” or circuit training. This is where the fighter trains strength, power, muscle endurance, and cardio all into an exercise for a set amount of time (usually the time of each round in a fight)

This is just a general example of how a fighter might want to plan his 12 weeks for an upcoming fight so that his conditioning is developed for optimal performance come fight night.

All the elements of conditioning are included, so instead of just being able to “run for a long time without sucking wind” the fighter will actually have a fully functional and conditioned body to continue to push the pace NO MATTER WHERE THE FIGHT GOES.

Keep in mind that this just a conditioning side of a mma fighters workout, and where it fits into a fighter’s regular schedule of skill training, flexibility training, recovery time, and all the other important aspects depends on the each fighter’s situation.

Hopefully now you realize that conditioning is not just cardio, but includes all the facets of endurance that is required in mma. Cycle your conditioning workouts similar to the phases that I have provided above based on when your fight is, and you’ll be right on track to developing the type of conditioning that will have you pushing the pace for all 5 rounds without slowing down or feeling worn out. As I have always said, strength and conditioning fits right in with boxing, Muy Thai, jujitsu, wrestling, and judo as far as a mandatory “art” you must practice if you are to be a true mixed martial artist.

About the Author

Derek Manuel is a personal trainer specializing on strength and conditioning for mma fighters. Check out his complete reviews of the top mma workouts on the web today at http://www.BestMMATrainingWorkouts.com

Follow Derek’s MMA Strength and Conditioning Blog Here

Follow Derek on Twitter

MMA Training Mistake #4 – Weight Lifting

Jimmy — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:39:03 +0000

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If you look at some of my older posts there are references to doing isolated muscle group workouts. If you haven’t been following the blog for that long, I used to lift the only way I knew how to lift. Tri/Chest, Shoulders/Back, Legs/Biceps, some sort of 3 or 4 day split. I was taught this way of lifting from my roommate where we trained for hypertrophy. When I started training MMA I continued to hit the gym to supplement my training but I never changed my outlook on weight lifting.

The Problem

Doing certain specific groups gave me nothing for MMA that night. For example, if I did shoulders, you can imagine I had a tough time keeping my hands up.
I did a lot of dumb isolated exercises that had no functional carry over to MMA. For example, leg curls, isolated bicep curls, and so on and so forth.
For some reason I spent too long in the gym doing a bunch of exercises for one muscle.

Strength Training

Recently I’ve totally thrown out and written off my old ways of lifting weights. It wasn’t about lifting weights, strength training comes in many other forms. I’ve incorporated a lot of body weight exercises, kettlebell training, and plyometrics. I still do lift weights, I try to do at least one barbell complex a week.

Some other things I’ve been doing differently is the trying to do full body exercises and more circuit training to really tax my muscle endurance. I’ve also been cutting my time at the gym, spending no more than 30-40 minutes at the gym. This helps me from being too burnt out for nightly training.

I’ll be venturing into sandbag training and sled pulling also, so I’ll be blogging about that in the near future.

Past MMA Training Mistakes Round-up:
MMA Training Mistake #1 – Balance
MMA Training Mistake #2 – Feedback
MMA Training Mistake #3 – Mouthpiece

Tabata – Not An Easy 4 Minutes

Jimmy — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:16:37 +0000

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Background
Not to get into a history lesson but the Tabata Sequence was created by Dr. Izumi Tabata and with the help of researchers from the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan. The researched showed that there was an 28% increase in anaerobic capacity and 14% increase in the ability of consuming oxygen or also known as V02Max.

Tabata Workout
The workout is 4 minutes long, 20 seconds on/10 seconds rest. This is done 8 times. So for the scholars out there, 30 seconds x 8 = 4 minutes. When I first read about this, I thought it was going to be a walk in the park, too easy. Like many times in my life, I was wrong. I love it because of the advantages previously mentioned and it’s quick. If you’re in the gym find 4 things you want to do with the Tabata Sequence that hits the full body, you’ll be suffering, I promise that.

Examples of some workouts in my training log:

Tabata Couplets

Pullups/Dips

Pushup/Squats

Tabata Bag Work
20 Seconds – Speed Punching
10 Seconds – Rest
20 Seconds – Speed Punching
10 Seconds – Rest
20 Seconds – Knees
10 Seconds – Rest
20 Seconds – Knees
10 Seconds – Rest
20 Seconds – Speed Punching
10 Seconds – Rest
20 Seconds – Speed Punching
10 Seconds – Rest
20 Seconds – Knees
10 Seconds – Rest
20 Seconds – Knees
10 Seconds – Rest

So I challenge you to use this with body weight exercises, barbell, dumbbells, heavy bag, whatever. The great thing about this is that it’s scalable to almost anything. The easiest way to track time is with a Gymboss Timer. What are some of your favorite things to use the Tabata sequence with?

Great Body Weight Partner Workouts

Jimmy — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:09:19 +0000

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If your MMA gym lacks weights and/or exercises equipment, this video provides one of the many great body weight exercises there are. The best thing is they require a partner. So forget the time he accidentally kicked a little too low or the time he smashed your teeth through your bottom lip. It’s time for a little team work.

4 Body weight exercises covered in the video:

Body weight push up
Rows
Situps
Body Crawl

I’m thinking a great drill would be, each person does each exercises 3 times for a minute. So it would be one minute on, one minute off. For example, the person doing the laying on the ground doing the pressing will do press for a minute then switch to being on top. Same thing for rows and sit ups.

For the body crawl, do some 5 minute rounds like they say in the video. I haven’t tried any of these workouts out, but I’m going to try to give them a shot this week.

Kettlebell Training: Great for MMA

Jimmy — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:21:44 +0000

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There has been a lot of hype about Kettlebells within the past few years. I’ve read about them on fitness blogs and seen a lot of pro MMA fighters use them. Few months ago, I was tired of reading about it and I just wanted to get into it. I decided to sign up for a body weight and kettlebell workshop with The Training Room, in New Jersey run by Mike Stehle and James Milkowski, both RKC certified. It was an 8 hour workshop where I learned all the kettlebell movements, a bunch of their exercises they use using minimal equipment. I also had the pleasure of doing some of their conditioning programs using a mixture of bodyweight and kettlebell movements. After the workshop I instantly was in love with kettlebell training and soon after found out there were different styles of kettlebell training.

Russian Kettlebell Club (Hard Style)
Sandy Sommer explained what RKC is about to me in this way:

RKC is “hard style.” What we mean is that we do our quick lifts as fast as
possible with good form. The clean, the snatch and the Russian swing would
be examples. On the “Grinds” like Turkish get up, front squats and presses
we use maximal tension and a very slow speed. We teach building strength
through the practice and application of maximal muscular contraction.

We do all ballistics as fast as possible for two reasons; to develop as much
power and force as possible as well as to get the training effect with as
little volume as possible.

American Kettlebell Club (Girevoy Sport)
This is also known as the “fluid style” which is geared for the sport part of Kettlebells. In my training we focus on the Jerk, Snatch and Long Cycle Jerk under timed sets. The swings are not ballistic like in the RKC style.

Bob Garon explains

A lot of folks look at Girevoy Sport style Kettlebell training and think that because the “fluid style” (AKC, IKFF & true Eastern European styles) appears smooth and slower that it cannot be explosive. What is actually happening is that every rep is as explosive as it needs to be. You see our sets usually begin where other styles of training end. Every rep throughout out 10 minute plus sets need to be as explosive from the first to the very last. One time of being lazy and not performing it right could count as a missed rep. The bells cannot be set down during the set or that results in a loss. Because of this we need to learn how to survive under the stress of the set. The focus is strength endurance.

My training with kettlebells has indeed helped me rest under duress.

Great for MMA!

Kettlebells are an amazing full body workout that helps every part for fitness. It helps breathing while under stress. For example taking a second rest in the lock out position would translate well into resting in someone’s mount. Bob Garon explains why kettlebells are so great for MMA.

In MMA that means an injury or loss. MMA fighters need to learn how to survive from the first minute to the last as well as be as explosive as they can every minute in the middle. If they just went all out in the first minute or two they’d never make it to the end. This is how we live life as well. We don’t walk around rigid and tight. We stay as loose as we can and only use the necessary muscles to get the job done. That’s called efficiency. In MMA if the fighter doesn’t move and think efficiently then they will most likely not come out on top. GS style Kettlebell training directly applies to MMA practitioners for this very reason.

Sandy Sommer adds:

You forge an iron grip using just a kettlebell. Crazy strong grip:)

Flexibility is a by product of RKC.

Stamina goes without saying.

Resilience and the ability to withstand brutal punishment come from the
kinetic linking we teach. Your body works in concert and never in isolation.

Teaching Olympic style explosive strength without the learning curve.

RKC strength engages the core in every breath you take. I do NO other core
work other than my kettlebell practice and I’ve got an iron core.

I want to thank my contributors:

Bob Garon who runs Synergy Kettlebell Kamp, cerified IKFF and AKC instructor. Follow @bobgaron on Twitter.

Sandy Sommer who runs Charm City Kettlebells, certified RKC. Follow @sandysommer on Twitter.

Rest & Recovery Week

Jimmy — Sun, 24 May 2009 18:34:10 +0000

In the last 5-6 weeks I’ve been training hard to gear up for my fight in July. If you check my training log you can see that my average week is 6 days on and 1 day off. There have been days I’ve been totally mentally and physically ruined during the week. I was convinced by a lot of articles and twitter friends to take a rest week. I absolutely hated the idea of not being able to train for a week but after doing research, a rest week is pivotal to training.

The Challenge
The warrior inside any athlete, fitness fanatic, and mixed martial artist does not want to rest. If our bodies allowed us, we’d workout intensely 7 days a week, or at least I would. Personally, I invest about 3-4 hours a day dedicated to training. So now I’m supposed to stop training and do what? You don’t want a person like me with a lot of free time, I’d cause a ruckus. The other challenge is many people believe that you’ll lose your gains or “throw away everything they’ve been working so hard for” but it’s not true.

The Need for Recovery Week
I read about the rest week from a lot of body building articles which make a lot of good points. Even though us mixed martial artists are not body builders but our bodies are under similar stress if not more. Just think about how bad our bodies are being beaten, between strength and conditioning workouts, getting pounded during long sparring sessions, and learning all kinds of new technique. After a 6 days of working out, I know my body is barely holding on and my central nervous system is all out of whack.

The point is when you’re resting is when your body is building muscle and getting stronger. You destroy your muscle in the gym or on the mat and it repairs itself when you’re sleeping or tweeting. There is a lot of different opinions it seems between when to do rest periods, some say every 8-10 weeks, some say every 3 weeks, but I’d say let your body decide. So don’t be surprised when you hit the gym your strength goes up, I’m hoping so.

Stay Occupied
“Important to mentally rest and occupy one’s self with other activities outside of the normal routine as well” – Grayson (@6thRound)

My buddy Gray is right, you just have to find something to do or else you’ll go crazy. Find something else that you enjoy besides being at the gym and kicking people in the head. Hell, you can plan your next 3 months of workouts with this excess free time.

Personally I’ve been working on this blog, getting all the bugs worked out after the migration, facelift and upgrade. Also I’ve been doing a lot of reading about various things I enjoy, including fitness. So the point is do something.

Great Things To Do During The Week

Focus on Nutrition and dieting
Learn something new
Hang out with your friends for once?
Tweet – I probably annoy my twitter friends because my tweets per day went up 35+
Go to the zoo
Stretch
Give your gym bag a nice cleaning
Work more? (I have a part time job)
Become a blogger!
Be a freelance Ninja

3 Great Fitness Blogs

Jimmy — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:05:25 +0000

You know what’s great about this World Wide Web? You can find anything you want. No longer do you have to wait until your monthly subscription of Men’s Health to come in or the need to call the most jacked friend you have for fitness tips. My absolute favorite resource are blogs. These blogs are a gold mine for information. I’ve picked 3 of my favorite fitness blogs that do not directly have to do with MMA training however success in the cage relies on what you do outside the MMA dojo.

The Mens Health Blog

A relatively new blog, about 4 months old judging by it’s archives has very detailed information. @EthanFox does a great job of going into detail and making it easy to understand. For example, Ethan’s blog post on creatine is thorough. The blog also has some great lifestyle tips.

Fitness Guru

This blog has tons of articles that I love. Interesting articles such as Man vs Wild’s Bear Grylls to many tips on how to get bigger. My favorite blog posts gives you great insight on how to eat healthier.

Muscle Hack

Here’s a blog that is constantly being updated with great content. I love the site’s recipes, such as the chilli one. I actually read the post, ran out to the store and made it. It came out delicious. The site has tips on technique, supplements and anything else that helps you get big. You can follow Mark at @MuscleHack.

If you have any blogs that you visit, please share them!

Journalizing Your Workout

Jimmy — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:09:41 +0000

One thing I’ve started doing again is keeping a lifting journal. I picked up a small notebook from my local CVS and bring it with me every time I lift. My favorite thing about keeping a journal is, I know where I’m at with my weights and I can actually see myself improving. Seeing improvement can be a big motivator to hit the gym harder.

The Format
On the top of the page, I put the date and what I’m working out. Then I write down the workout, then weight and reps. For example:

DB Bicep Curls
30 x 10
30 x 10
30 x 10

What benefits you see from journalizing your workouts?