Issue 097
January 2013
FO shows you three tried and tested fitness workouts to inject into your training regimen
Paul McVeigh Sports scientist, TUF 14 cast member and full-time coach – each issue he presents his best training tips
Last issue we discussed the rules of conditioning, to allow you to get the best from your workouts. This month I’ll outline some of the conditioning workouts and protocols I’ve found to be safe, effective and fun.
Hurricanes
At the time of writing, Martin Rooney’s hurricane training is my favorite way to condition combat sports athletes. The name comes from Roger Gracie completing this type of workout and feeling like he had been hit by a hurricane. I tend to agree with Roger on this.
This protocol involves pairing a high-intensity, heart-rate-elevating movement with rest, body-weight exercise or resistance exercise depending on the category of the hurricane. The high-intensity, heart-rate-elevating movement can be in the form of incline treadmill running, sprinting, resistance biking, aerodynes or really anything that drives your heart rate up and makes you hate life.
I am fan of using band-resisted sprinting as the heart rate elevator. Mainly as it allows many athletes to work at once, get competitive and we blew up our last two treadmills trying this protocol. Below left is an example of one of our recent hurricane workouts.
In less than 20 minutes you have created a massive metabolic disturbance that will blow-torch fat and help build muscle. The pairing of sprinting with predominantly upper-body movements creates a total-body challenge that replicates the demands of combat sports more closely than sprinting alone.
Man makers
The burpee has long been reviled as the worst thing to ever make its way into a circuit class. This total-body movement requires a whole host of physical qualities, but I feel the ability to endure constant level changing is of particular benefit to those who compete in MMA and grappling.
We have experimented with numerous ways of making the burpee harder. We have done them on crash mats, added flying knees, weighted vests and tuck jumps. But
the ‘man maker’ has been the one that’s stuck around
the longest.
The man maker can be viewed as a complex based around the burpee. Starting with two dumbbells the athlete drops down to a push-up position. They do one push-up, then a row with a dumbbell, followed by another push-up and a dumbbell row on the opposite side. The athlete then returns to the standing position, cleans the dumbbells to the shoulders and performs a push-press to complete one rep.
This exercise has all the benefits of a regular complex but with the added heart-rate-assaulting bonus of the level change. With one protracted movement we are covering a lot of bases. First of all we have a knee-dominant squat, a horizontal push followed by a unilateral horizontal row, a hip-dominant clean and topped off with a vertical push. That’s almost a total-body workout in one exercise.
There are many ways to benefit from the man maker but two popular ones are the timed set and the pyramid. The timed set involves picking a duration and doing as many reps as possible, e.g. three sets in five minutes, one set every 15 mins etc. The pyramid involves doing one rep then adding a rep each set until 10 reps are completed in one set. Pyramids can be ascending, as described above, or descending, starting at 10 and removing a rep each set. Both ways are brutal.
The Dahmer
Apologies, this was the creation of pro MMA fighter James Doolan, who has a habit of naming circuits after serial killers. I like this one as it requires no equipment and messes with your mind as you struggle with the dilemma, ‘Do I push harder and get more rest time, or do I pace it and get less rest?’ It’s a great hotel room workout. The time limit on each set is two minutes. Within that time you have to do:
All done with impeccable technique and whatever time is left in the round is yours to recover. Begin with five sets and work up to 10. Watching the rest time decrease as you progress is heart breaking, yet character building.
HURRICANES
SET 1
BAND-RESISTED SPRINT
30 SECONDS
PUSH-UPS
10 REPS
MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS
10 REPS EACH SIDE
Repeat three times then rest 30 seconds before moving to the next set.
SET 2
BAND-RESISTED SPRINT
30 SECONDS
PULL-UPS
10 REPS
BICEPS CURL AND OVERHEAD PRESS
10 REPS
Repeat three times then rest 30 seconds before moving to the next set.
SET 3
BAND-RESISTED SPRINT
30 SECONDS
KETTLEBELL SWINGS
10 REPS
PLYOMETRIC PUSH-UPS
10 REPS
THE DAHMER - 2MINS
JUMPING JACKS - 40
SQUATS - 25
PUSH-UPS - 15
BURPEES - 8
