Issue 060

March 2010

There’s been a change of heart at Fighters Only HQ for this month. Given the time of year, I thought I’d give you some options for scaling routines down. Many of you will have taken the opportunity of the winter to stock up on stuff to aid your training, such as exercise books and DVDs featuring workouts of famous fighters, some of whom may even be your heroes.  

If the DVDs are good products they will give you several options as to how you can taper the intensity, which you may need to do especially after seasonal indulgences. Also, as you enter a new year it is time to assess your position and revaluate your goals. The key question is where to start. 

Since opening up my full-time training center, I’ve been asked many times by prospective clients if they need to get fit before they come to see me. As crazy as that sounds, you would be amazed by the number of people that think they need to get fit. So when this issue was being planned it made sense to discuss the ramifications of tapering routines to suit individual needs and abilities.  

Let’s look at a specific workout and how to scale it down or up:

Chin-ups  

Med ball slams

Resistance-band punching

V-ups

The above workout is a power complex based on a pulling movement. The first two exercises are the pulling complex pair (i.e. a strength movement paired with an explosive movement). Another example would be a bench press followed by a clap push-up, or a squat followed by a box jump. You would go through the above circuit three to five times, resting only after the V-ups.  

So let’s look at a few progressions and regressions of this workout.

If I’m running a boot camp for ladies, then I might change the chin-ups to recline body rows. I may use a lighter medicine ball for the slams, a smaller resistance-band or light hand-weights for the punches, and then a simple crunch or plank hold instead of the V-ups.  

So it would look like this:

Recline body rows

Light med ball slams / resistance band snap downs

Hand-weight punches

Crunches

So that’s a simple regression for an athlete who may not have the strength to perform the original format.  

How would an advanced trainee go about it? 

Weighted chin-ups

Heavy med ball slams

Heavy resistance-band punching

V-ups

We have exactly the same type of movements – but we’ve taken them a stage further.  

The advanced trainee will see great gains from this routine but it will be fantastic for the total newbie too. The obvious progression or regression technique would be reps and sets, however in the above protocol we’re pairing a strength move with an explosive drill, then following it with other functional fight-specific or core movements. This method adds an extra element of conditioning to the idea of complex pair power training. Doing it this way makes it much more effective for the combat athlete – you’ll see more of these in future, so stay tuned.