Issue 098
February 2013
The principles of fight conditioning can never go out of fashion. FO shares them with you.
Training fads are many; principles are few. Training fads come and go; principles never do. OK, I may be paraphrasing author John C Maxwell there a little, but this concept pays when it comes to training. Principles are the bedrock of a training programme. Here is a collection of tips I have garnered over some years in the training business. Add these to your training and you’ll make the gains you need.
Barry Gibson
BSc and MMA-CSCC is the owner/founder of GrappleFit Training, and an S&C coach focussing on combat sports.
TRAIN IN A STANDING POSITION
This was emphasised to me by JC Santana, from the Institute of Human Performance. The majority of your training should take place in a standing position. The bench press is the universal measure of upper-body strength, but for real push power look to develop your standing military press.
TRAIN WITH FREE WEIGHTS
I’ve championed this for a long time now – way before it was cool. Machines limit the range of motion and control movements too much. This is fine for beginners, but athletes need to be able to stabilise and control their bodies in all three planes of movement at the same time. So hit push-ups, pull-ups, dead lifts, squats, floor presses and so on for total-body beastliness.
USE MULTI-JOINT COMPOUND MOVEMENTS
Single-joint strength exercises (e.g. leg extension machine, biceps curls) develop useless strength and can lead to imbalances. A study was undertaken at Ohio State University involving a knee extension test. The participants included three world-ranked squatters and one world record holder in the squat. The test results of the above subjects averaged 180lb of force on the Cybex leg extension machine. Then along came a power lifter who broke the machine.
So, in summary, leg extension machines are a waste of time. Instead go for lunges, walking lunges, Bulgarian split squats, Zercher squats and so on.
TRAIN WITH EXPLOSIVENESS
Explosiveness, as I see it, needs to be trained. Combat athletes need to train fast. That’s not to say with terrible form, it just means moving the weight as fast as you can. Even if you feel like you can’t, studies have shown the intention to move the resistance quickly will result in more motor recruitment, which in turn yields a more powerful training effect. Try complex pairs for true power work. So, a strength movement followed by an explosive non-weighted drill, like a back squat followed by a vertical jump. See above for a sample power complex we use at GrappleFit.
HIT SOME UNILATERALS
Everyone squats and bench presses, but not everyone does movements that mostly tax one side of the body at time, like one-arm bench presses or Bulgarian split squats. For instance, push-ups may be a staple in your workout. Try side-to-side push-ups instead, these stress one side more heavily than the other. A set of one-arm KB presses will make you realise where your weak links are, so hit these in your routine – when you go back to the big movements, you’ll be much stronger.
TRAIN FUNCTIONALLY – MOVEMENTS NOT MUSCLES
As I stated earlier, isolation exercises, outside of rehabilitation, have no place in athletic training. Combat athletes should focus on strengthening movements. Total muscle isolation is a myth anyway, so focus on using movements that are going to be beneficial to your sport and teach your body to move in an integrated fashion.
So, to develop a powerful takedown, hit sled pushes, or push a car around a safe open area a few times. Train the movement pattern too. Squatting will help, but you don’t shoot in following that plane of motion. However, pushing sleds and the like will be beneficial. If you opt for the car pushing option, go heavy for 8–10 seconds, then drive on a lighter sled to so you mimic the actual feel of an opponent. Better yet, have a partner there to practise it on.
AIM FOR STRENGTH AND THE BIG GUNS WILL FOLLOW
This is vital. Work quickly and with high intensity using compound multi-joint movements that hit multiple muscles. You will maximise your training time and it means you can focus on the skills that are so important to your game. Plus compound movements will amp up your natural testosterone production. And who doesn’t want that?
LET ‘EM SEE HOW YOU ROLL
Foam rolling and self-myofascial release techniques are a must. Most MMA fighters are catching onto this great idea, and they have a foam roller in their kitbag or in their gym. It’s the best thing I ever bought for my place and also the first thing the clients go for, just from habit. You need to purchase a foam roller and also have a couple of tennis balls and a large, hard, dense ball (like a field hockey ball or baseball) lying around too. These are perfect for ironing out kinks in the glutes, piriformis and down the IT band. It may smart a tad but it needs to be done. As a matter of urgency, this tip links in with the previous one in that it’s imperative that you maintain adequate muscle function and that the scar tissue associated with heavy training does not build up and create muscle imbalances.
REST, REST AND EVEN MORE REST
Fighters are often overtrained. I find the hardest thing to do with combat athletes is to rein them in. Getting them to stop or slow down is very hard for this particular group of clients. The issue is too much inflammation, like that caused by overtraining, has been linked to a host of diseases.
Some of the fighters I train have wrestling in the morning, BJJ in the afternoon and then strength on an evening. This volume leads to, or can lead to, a massive breakdown in the body’s immune system. Fighters must allow enough time to de-load their training routine and also, and more importantly in my opinion, they need to recover and cycle the hard sessions and punctuate them with ‘lighter intensity’ work such as drilling and pads. Notice I said lighter intensity, not easy. It allows your nervous system to recover by not stressing the same energy systems all
the time.
...
