Issue 035

March 2008

One of the most useful tools anyone can have at their disposal is a training diary. The main benefit of writing down what you did enables you to easily look back and see if you are making progress or not, and possibly even see patterns you would not otherwise see that led to success and/or failure.

For instance, you may look back and see that when you went from training three times a week to training four times a week, your performance increased, or that performing an extra session of bench press actually made your strength go down on that lift.

Unless you make a living counting cards at the local casino, the chances of remembering everything you have done in training for the last year are very slim indeed. There is a well known saying that says, “If you are not assessing, you are just guessing”. In this case the saying is very true, and having a training diary may help prevent you from wasting a lot of time using ineffective training methods. Also, looking back at a training diary after an injury can often show a possible reason for the injury occurring (especially in the case of overuse injuries) and therefore will allow you to make the changes necessary to prevent it happening again.

I would recommend noting down the following for weight training sessions: exercise, weight used and repetitions done (for each set). You could also track rest time, percentages of one rep max, perceived exertion and many other factors, although these are of lesser importance. For conditioning sessions track: work time, rest time, intensity or speed, heart rates etc, and for technical work note any particular moves done, any issues you had, and work/rest time and intensity of any sparring.

Each month our resident strength and conditioning expert Alex will answer your training-related queries. If you’re struggling with your strength training or unable to kick-start your cardio, email us at [email protected] (making sure to put ‘Ask Alex’ in the subject header) and he will help.  

Hi Alex,

I've been reading your column in FO for quite a while now and find it very interesting and useful. As I am now reaching 45 I tend to obviously burn out quite quick. My training is: Mon + Fri - Heavy weights, 4 x 6-8 reps, average of 3-4 exercises, Tue +Thurs Grappling class, and Wednesday we do a cardio / weight night, i.e. Randy Couture workout then a light roll for 15 mins. Sat and Sun are rest days. I don’t take any supplements for energy, but would like to know if they help and what would I take for recovery? Sorry its a long letter but I would appreciate any ideas. Keep up the great column.

Dexy

As far as supplements go, I tend to keep things basic and avoid all the fad supplements that promise huge results, as they often are exactly what they sound like – too good to be true. With that in mind, I would recommend a protein / carb drink after training, a good peptide-bonded glutamine on waking and after training, and one to two grams of vitamin C daily. Combined with a good diet, this should be sufficient to reduce soreness as much as possible. It may also help to use some recovery methods such as ice baths, hot / cold (alternating) showers and massages, although these methods should be used sparingly and at times when soreness levels are unusually high. 

I used to be quite fast but as I've gotten older (I'm now 28) I find that I've started to slow down. I want to improve the speed of my double leg takedown and have been looking into plyometrics. The exercises seem easy enough but I want to know, how many times a week should I do them? Should I train them before or after my MMA workout? Can I still do weight training while I'm training plyometrics? 

Rob, Sheffield

Plyometrics are a very useful tool, but often misunderstood and misused – many people do not even use the word in the correct context! I have written an article covering the basics in the past which was around a thousand words and it still didn’t fully cover the subject, so I can’t cover everything in this answer, although I suggest you read that article on my site for more information.

To answer your questions, if you have to choose I would do them before any other workout, whether it is MMA or weight training, and yes, you can still do weight training although there will have to avoid doing too much. If using high intensity plyometric drills, you may have to drop weight training all together, also limit these phases to four weeks at an absolute maximum.

Alex Gold is a personal trainer and sports therapist from London who works with athletes and fighters. To ask Alex a question email [email protected] and include ‘Ask Alex’ in the subject header. You can find out more about Alex and his services by visiting his website, www.hardcoresportstraining.co.uk.