Issue 060
March 2010
The first point of the Gym Jones training philosophy is ‘The Mind Is Primary’. All actions originate in the mind, and all physical actions affect an individual’s psychology. The mind isn’t separate from the body – in life, in a fight, or in training for either.
I used to climb mountains. The Gym Jones training philosophy evolved from the way we climbed new routes up steep and difficult walls. How can we best solve this problem of what is the safest, fastest and, given our resources and the conditions, most efficient route to the top? How much risk are we willing to accept? We approach individual sport or work-related challenges in the same way. Despite common themes, each mountain presents different challenges. In the gym each individual challenges us in a particular way; each performance objective has its own characteristics. Even if increased power, endurance, speed, skill and tenacity are a common thread, and we use similar methods to develop those characteristics, ignoring the individual nature of training and performance is the weak link in many programs. To avoid this weak link we focus on a small number of athletes at Gym Jones, but our philosophy may be applied anywhere.
We address each individual with a degree of flexibility. Everything that has been done before may be useful but it may be a distraction. Knowledge and expertise are tricky things, being keys to locks but also bars on cages. What we know and believe may help us achieve objectives, but it can just as easily enslave us to automatic, thoughtless response. Questions open the mind. Answers either free or close it. Experts often apply a rigid ‘solution’ to particular and similar
problems while being closed-minded to other possibilities. The closed mind stagnates, and repeats its meager experience over and over.Expert knowledge can be the finest weapon or the worst sort of prison. Details often blind us to the principles. When we focus on individual steps we lose sight of the path, of fundamental values and also lose the way. To remain true to the way, we separated ourselves. We created our own standards. We built a hierarchy of effort. We don’t care how heavy or how fast. Instead we value the struggle – across all aspects of performance, from gut-wrenching workouts to mindful, sport-specific practice to dietary discipline and intelligent recovery practices.
If one values an objective or experience highly enough to commit all resources to it then the outcome is top performance. Heavier and faster aren’t causes but effects.
The rest of it (the posturing, the look, the decoration) needs a mirror to mean something. Competence remains after the audience goes home. There are no shortcuts to it.
Strength and conditioning is important to a fighter. In some cases it might be decisive, but, more often than not, technical ability decides a fight’s outcome. Rob ‘Maximus’ MacDonald, UFC veteran, reigning Ring of Fire light heavyweight champion and a coach at Gym Jones, states that, “Placing too much emphasis on physical conditioning helped derail my fight career.” For his most recent fight (against Chuck Grigsby in February 2008) Rob was in the best physical condition of his life, but he was KOd in the first round. Did fitness matter? Did he achieve superb physical fitness at the cost of sport-specific technical practice? Would more emphasis on fight training have produced a better result? Most fighters train too much in the gym because progress is quantifiable and satisfying, while technical fight-practice doesn’t provide the same frequent, positive feedback. But Rob asks, “Who cares how fast you can complete workout ‘X’ if you get knocked out? The judges don’t compare training logs. Your bench press one-rep max doesn’t matter if you can’t apply your strength in a technical and controlled manner. Technique is the dominant contributor to success and it sits on top of a foundation of physical fitness.” Build that foundation and, once it’s solid, give enough attention to maintain it but not more. Our top guys only train in the gym two to three times per week.
In that same period they do seven to ten fight-related training sessions. However, until you have put in two years of consistent, injury-free training, you probably aren’t fit enough to follow this plan. You need more volume. How much is enough? When my wife brought the first fighters to the gym they weren’t in shape, but instead got by on superb technical skills. We trained four days per week for 18 months to build a solid foundation. Once fitness was no longer a factor in the cage or on the mat, we shifted focus back to the more important issue of technique. Maximus urges fighters to, “Spend limited training time wisely. Develop what’s weak instead of doing what you are already good at. If your boxing sucks, box. If your jiu-jitsu game is lacking, hit the mats. If you are weak, pick up some weight. There’s a far greater return on investment from developing what’s weak than from making small improvements to what is already strong.” Finally, he insists that fighters pay attention. “Track your progress. Write a detailed training log. Update it daily. You can’t know what worked and what didn’t if you don’t keep a record of what you did, how it felt, how you felt and why. If you don’t have the discipline to do something as easy as keeping a log you don’t have what it takes to succeed in the cage.” In the end, strength and conditioning only goes so far. Fitness is our bread and butter but the role of Gym Jones is supporting. Sport-specific practice comes first because it’s easier to make a technical fighter strong than to make a strong fighter thoughtful.
To view fighter-specific workouts visit the Gym Jones website. Check the Disciples page to learn which athletes are fighters and cross-reference their training in the daily schedule. A database of several thousand workouts, going back over five years, is posted at www.gymjones.com.
For enquiries about upcoming Gym Jones seminars and certifications in your area, contact Rob MacDonald via email at [email protected].
