Issue 065

August 2010

Barry Gibson is a kettlebell and fitness instructor as well as a 3rd dan black belt in judo. A strength and conditioning trainer to some of the UK’s top MMA fighters (including TUF 9 winner Ross Pearson), he is available for seminars and workshops upon request. For details or to contact him with any questions or queries, email [email protected]. Check out his DVD ‘Train Hard, Fight Easy and Win’, available from grapplefit.com. 

We’re going to look at ways of getting the workout done, no matter what! There are times when you (seemingly) can’t get time to do it, or you may be on the road – and, let’s face it, hotel gyms are crap at the best of times! They’re ill equipped for the modern MMA athlete, and there are always a vast array of rules saying that you can’t use chalk, grunt, or lift heavy weights. 

No matter! I’m giving you some progressions to use in your bodyweight training that will give you endurance, strength and power. How? Here’s how! 

We’re going to follow the Westside Barbell Method. Before you get defensive and argue that powerlifting equipment and barbells are not common sights in hotel rooms or gyms, I want to state that we’re following the protocol of max effort, dynamic effort and repeated effort for bodyweight exercises. 

You can do this three times per week on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday basis, or you can allow a little more rest between work days. As you’ll be working with your bodyweight, I wouldn’t worry about the rest periods too much.  

Let’s use the Monday-Wednesday-Friday format for argument’s sake and we’ll take Monday as a max effort (ME) day, Wednesday as a dynamic effort (DE) day, and Friday as a repeated effort (RE) day. So how will that look? 

Monday - ME - Squats/Push-ups/Chins

Wednesday - DE - Squats/Push-ups/Chins

Friday - RE - Squats/Push-ups/Chins

If Monday is an ME effort day, we need to be performing progressions of the exercises listed that are challenging. The nature of an ME effort session is to go as heavy as possible, so it should be obvious that normal push-ups won’t cut it for an ME day. 

Instead you can do: 

Offset push-ups (one hand on a raised surface, e.g. a pile of books) 

One-leg split squat (with the non-working leg propped up behind you) 

Chin-ups. 

The above is an example of a workout – not to be taken as gospel. Your reps for an ME effort day should be no more than five, so you need to gauge the intensity yourself as it is very subjective to guess the resistance / support provided by your arms and legs.  

DE days are easier to do as we all know plyometric movements – such as jump squats, box jumps or depth drops for your squat variation, clap push-ups, med ball depth drops, power-overs for your push variation and, finally, explosive recline rows, switching chin-ups, dropping scarecrows for pulling. 

RE days are simply there to provide local muscle endurance, so go for higher reps. Follow an Indian wrestler-type format: Hindu squats, Hindu push-ups, rope climbing – just do everything for more reps than you may be used to. 

This simple tweak to an established weights program will give you some variation for when your options are limited.