Coming from a Muay Thai background. I was always taught to move forward. This has led to some not so fun combos to the face. As I have been working on my stand-up game I have begun to add some more footwork into my game. This has helped tremendously in my sparring. If you are a frequent visitor to the site you have noticed that I have some other trainers from specific disciplines posting tutorial on my site. One of those trainers is Wilson Pitts.
Wilson specializes in boxing. He is a great trainer of the sport and really knows his stuff. Wilson has been adapting the boxing style to MMA and it is worth your time to take a look at what he has to offer. I asked Wilson if he could do a tutorial on adapting footwork from boxing to MMA. Wilson came through and produced the video below. I am finding more and more as I watch MMA that footwork is becoming key in many fighters victories.
So check out the video below by Wilson Pitts. If you want to contact Wilson he can be reached vis email at wilsonpitts@yahoo.com and on Twitter @pluguglyboxing. Enjoy the video!
Nerdy opening, I know. Doesn’t make it any less true, however. It’s a great way to summarize one’s entire philosophy. When you set your goals, you have to do everything in your power to achieve them. If you want to win, losing is just another step in that direction. Remember, you are only defeated when you give up. But enough of the philosophy. You came here for some fighting tips/advice/talk/whatever and that’s what you’ll get.
I did have a reason for starting this article with my take on the philosophy on fighting. The very first step I take before preparing for a fight is getting in the proper mindset. I train my mind first and my body second. I make it very clear to myself that for the next six, four weeks or even one week (yes, I’ve taken on fights on such short notice), I will live, breathe and sleep fighting. This is the time when I put in the most work in the gym, both in the weight room and the ring. It’s not that I like cramming in all my work in the last days before a fight. That would be stupid. In fact, I work hard all year round both for athletic and for personal reasons. It’s just that then is the time when I have the proper mindset to really push my boundaries and re-discover what I’m capable of. And even when I’m resting at home, I will usually watch fights of my favourite fighters, like Ernesto Hoost, Buakaw Por. Pramuk and others, so that I can maybe learn a thing or two. Sometimes I may not even learn anything but it helps get me pumped for the fight.
When training for fights or just martial arts, it’s important not to let your strength training lag behind in favor of conditioning. A martial artist needs to be a very complete athlete. They need to be strong, conditioned, fast and durable. So, I hit the weights three or four times a week. However often life and recovery allow. Now, I’m in no position to tell you exactly how to train. What I can tell you is that you need to train hard but safely. And injured fighter isn’t really much use to himself. I may not be the biggest guy in the gym but I do aim to improve on a week to week basis. If I find my workouts harder than normal, I take a step back and take a look at my lifestyle. Have I had adequate sleep? Am I eating enough? Am I psychologically alright? The problem is usually something as simple as getting an extra hour or two of sleep and you’ll be fine. But don’t be afraid to seek advice if you find your strength lacking.
Another area a fighter must be fully aware of is his diet. Since most martial arts work with a weight class system, it’s to your advantage to be as lean as possible, so you’ll carry the most muscle for your weight and you won’t have unnecessary fat weighing you down. To melt away the fat is as simple as reducing your caloric intake below your BMR if you’re an amateur fighter that trains 2-3 times a week. For a more active individual, they could just eat up to their BMR and let the extra exercise take care of creating an energy deficit for the day. However, keep in mind that your mind will lead you to eat to cover that deficit. So, you have to be mindful of what you eat, how much you eat and whether you’re losing fat or not. I fight in the -74kg class because that’s closer to my natural weight and since I’m around 10% body fat most of the year, you can see how that could work in my favor in the fights. In fact, I’m usually the biggest guy in terms of muscle in my class and my opponents feel it.
Of course, what makes us fighter is the fact that we train to fight. I usually train three times a week doing kick boxing for an hour and a half each time but when I’m getting ready to fight, I’ll train five times a week for a total of 8-10 hours a week and I’ll add some more conditioning in the form of jumping rope and jogging. This lasts up to a couple of days before a fight. I don’t train the day before the fight because I want to be as fresh and as rested as I can be. Besides, an extra training session won’t make much of a difference at that point. It all becomes a mind game after that. UFC Welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre said it best : “Training is 80% physical and 20% mental but fighting is 20% physical and 80% mental”.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that everything is within your grasp. If you want to get stronger, you can do it. If you want to get leaner, you can do it. If you want to get better, you can do it. Well? What are you waiting for? Go out and get it!
About the author : Bill Pairaktaridis has been training in martial arts for the past 14 years. He found a passion for Shidokan Karate as a young boy and later for Kick Boxing as a teenager. He’s currently a silver medalist in the national level in Kick Boxing. He also has a great passion for health and fitness and maintains his blog at http://herofit.tv
The Sawk or elbow, is a fascinating weapon for Muay Thai and MMA. A simple bend in your arm that becomes a crux of quick devastating power!
Although the power from it is great, it’s not meant to knock individuals out. The Sawk is often referred to as “Sword” or “Blades” because of their uncanny ability to cut! Don’t think of it as a KO weapon, but one that opens wounds over eyes and foreheads to impair your opponents sight or possibly stop it from excessive bleeding.
My Master, Ajarn Surachai Sirisute, has related the story before of how, with one upward diagonal elbow strike, a fighter had to get sixty stitches across his face!
So along with quick snappy power, various angles make this the ultimate cutting weapon! Second only maybe to actually holding a sword!
Historically it comes from warriors using the “Mai Sawk”, similar to a Tonfa in Karate, the difference being that it was traditionally strapped to the forearm.
Things to kep in mind:
Snap from the hips, don’t pivot on the front foot unless you want a leg kick!
make sure your other arm is tight against your body and chin, or you may break your arm or wake up on the canvas!
make sure your shoulder is covering your chin from your striking arm.
Make sure the hand of the striking arm is on the Inside of the body so you don’t get pulled into a clinch.
Keep your body high or your more susceptible to eating your opponents elbows.
UFC Fight for the Troops 2 is tonight. In the main event Evan Dunham, coming off a controversial loss to Sean Sherk takes on Melvin Guillard. Now I am not the best at picking fights but I do believe that Dunham will take this fight in the end.
Now back to something I do know about an that is strength and conditioning. Just looking around for video I came across two of Dunham doing some traditional weight training. The purpose of these workouts was to increase strength. Norm Turner puts Dunham through some compound exercises that will build strength in combat athletes.
What I have been finding in more and more fighters especially in the amateur ranks is that they love to do a lot of the conditioning protocols that they see their favorite fighters do. Yeah all those protocols look fun and exciting to watch and are tough to do but in order to get the body to that elite level you must build a foundation of strength. Many people forget about the strength in strength and conditioning and jump into these crazy circuits only to find that they are not getting the best results or they are at time getting injured.
So take a look at the videos below and just keep in mind that as a combat athlete you must not only have great conditioning but you need to be strong and powerful.
If you want a solid training program check out my online coaching program above and start to get strong, powerful and conditioned!
Train Hard Train Smart!
The UFC is brining a free card on Saturday night with the Fight for the Troops 2. One fighter I am looking forward to seeing is Cole Miller as he takes on Matt Wiman. Now the reason behind wanting to see Cole Miller is simple. I want to see how well his strength and conditioning holds up. To be really honest I know that his conditioning on Saturday night will be there. The reason I know is because I know that he trains at the Institute of Human Performance down in Florida with JC Santana.
When I first got involve in training combat athletes it was really because of Santana. I was reading an article in Grapplers Magazine and came across some his and his partner Rhadi Ferguson’s methods on training combat athletes.
I had the great opportunity to go and learn from both JC and Rhadi down at IHP in their Intocombat Mentorship Program. The week I was down there they taught me everything they knew about preparing a fighter for combat. It was a great learning experience and I use many of the things I learned with my fighters today. Both JC and Rhadi push the envelop on training combat athletes.
So Saturday night look for Cole Miller to showcase his hardwork. I would also like to thank JC Santana and Rhadi Ferguson for teaching me and taking me under their wing during the time I spent with them. So check out this video of Miller training at IHP.
Back in high school I competed in a couple of sports throughout the year. In the fall I played soccer, winter was wrestling season and in the spring it was track and field. The best part about both wrestling and track and field was the fact that they are pretty much individual sports. In order to win you need to depend on yourself to get yourself the victory. Sports like these can teach you a lot about yourself.
Well the one sport I want to discuss in more detail is track and field. You all thought I was going to say wrestling since yes this is a combat sports training website. But there is a lot we can take from track and field that can help us in our training as combat athletes.
As a track athlete I competed in two events, the 100m dash and the 400m. These all out sprints are some of the most grueling events I competed in high school. Yeah it’s one thing to get crossed faced on the mat and get a bloody nose while your mother looks on in horror and it’s another thing to sprint as fast as you can for 400m. The 400m has been said by many one of the hardest races and of course I picked it.
While training for these events I ended up sprinting a lot in practice. Back in those days I was not what you call a very athletic looking lad. That started to change a bit when I began to sprint nearly everyday. As a puny little high school kid I began to see some changes in power I had as well as the musculature in my legs. I was explosive and in great shape.
When I first started to train combat athletes I would use in my conditioning a lot of the circuit type training that “mimics” a fight. These circuits work very well and I continue to use them in coaching of fighters. Looking back though on how I felt after sprinting 400m and how I feel after some sparring I noticed the two feelings were very similar. Sprinting like many combat sports including MMA are anaerobic sports. So that being said I began incorporating sprinting into my fighters programs as well as in my own training and the results have been great.
With my fighters I also make sure that I coach them in proper sprinting mechanics. Now I know they are not going to be world-class sprinters but rather world-class fighters but teaching proper mechanics makes the athlete sprint not only faster but more efficiently. A more efficient sprinter will be able to last longer during conditioning and maximize there time in training.
For those of you that like to sprint or even want to give sprinting a shot to increase your conditioning I am going to give a four-week program below to help you achieve that goal. Each week there will be two sprint sessions. You will be surprised that these sessions are short and sweet but are very effective.
Week 1
Day One
6 sets 50m sprints
Day Two
4 sets 50m sprints
2 sets 100m sprints
Week 2
Day One
5 sets 100m sprints
Day Two
3 sets 100m sprints
2 sets 200m sprints
Week 3
Day One
5 sets 200 m sprints
Day Two
1 set 100m sprints
2 sets 200m sprints
2 sets 400m sprints
Week 4
Day One
1 set 200m sprints
4 sets 400m sprints
Recovery
As for recovery if you were training to be a track star then full recovery would be necessary. As forgetting ready for a fight I tell my combat athletes to sprint when they are ready. This affords them the opportunity to sprint when ready and recover but push themselves on there own pace. As they become used to the sprinting they adapt to the stimulus and take shorter and shorter recovery times.
Train Hard! Train Smart
By now we all know that MMA is mainstream, we are seeing it pop up everywhere. With this explosion MMA gyms are popping up everywhere and the influx of new students is growing daily. This is great for the sport and it will only continue to help the sport grow in the future.
This brings me to my next point. These MMA gyms are not only being joined by adult students, but children as well. I see the sport of MMA or grappling at the youth level as the next big sport here in the United States. The children are the future of the sport and it will only help grow the sport to new levels here in the United States.
The one thing we need to be careful with, however, with our youth joining these gyms is trying to specialize these children to early in the sport. Just like early specialization in other youth sports such as soccer, football and hockey, this could have a negative impact on the child athlete.
Having kids active in sports is great it sure beats sitting inside the house all day doing nothing but being lazy. I strongly believe that we should have our children involved in some type of sports from a young age. I particularly love when children are involved in gymnastics and martial arts from a young age. Both of these sports allow the child to learn their bodies naturally by using different movements.
Now like I said earlier there are some things to look for when children are specialize in sports to early. In his manual, The Development of the Russian Conjugate Sequence System, Tom Myslinski writes about how the Russian had a system of training their athletes from a young age. He wrote that the goal of the Russians was to have the children be exposed to a whole range of different activities. This would help develop their “functional capacities, motor abilities and knowledge base.” (Myslinski, p5)
Myslinski also has a great chart where he explains some of problems that happen when early specialization takes place. Two points that he makes that are of importance are, one, that there are “performance inconsistencies within competitions” and two, usually the athletes start to “burnout” by the age of eighteen. (Myslinski, p6) With the burnout issue also comes injuries from overuse of the same muscles, joints and tendons. Day in and day out, year after year of training in a very similar fashion will do this to any athlete especially at the younger level because their bodies are still growing.
So what is the take home message here? As the sport of MMA grows more and more children will want to get involved. Some parents will become crazy about their children winning it’s just the nature of the beast. But as adults of these child warriors it is our responsibility to make sure they train the right way. We have to make sure that these children learn how to use their own bodies before trying to control someone else’s. Get your children involved in the sport of mixed martial arts but let them play all different sports as well. This will only enhance their athletic ability in the future and just make them that much of a better fighter if they decide to take that path.
By Wilson Pitts
You teach a youngster to box by teaching a set of principles and a set of fundamentals that support those principles. You give them the tools and you let them develop an instinct for fighting. They need to find their own way, hit and don’t get hit that is the game, give them the tools let them find their own process. Ultimately boxing is an art and each fighter must find a way to express himself in the course of a fight. No two fighters will do it in exactly same way.
You do not teach a cookie cutter offense and defense and have them “do ” them at each other. “Do a 1-2-3” no! A teacher shows them how to develop a flow, “don’t think feel!” The young fighter has to get out of their own way in order to enter into “boxing mode” flowing seamlessly from defense to offense and back.
A fight is like a symphony it has beginning, a middle section, and an ending. It is being written and played at the same time. A fighter must develop a sense of fight progression, have contingencies planned for each stage, and be able to change pace or tactics as the story unfolds. This requires mental focus, concentration, during the entire contest.
Inexperienced fighters don’t have this sense of the big picture, they can’t create on the fly, it is all happening too fast. It takes a lot of rounds to be able to write and conduct the symphony while it is happening and then change with the flow of the fight. This is called “ring generalship” and it really can’t be taught, it must be an instinct in a fighter. I recommend that you study early Sugar Ray Robinson fights to learn about dictating pace, rhythm, and control of the center of the ring against a skilled opponent.
An important part of ring generalship is an awareness of what the other fighter is experiencing, is he tired? Does the pace suit him? Is he hurt? Is he frustrated? Or is he in his comfort zone? What is his perception of how things are progressing? All of this must be taken into account in real time while the fight is ongoing. While this is where a good corner helps, the personal experience of the fighter is the key.
Trainers at Stillman’s Gym in NYC in the 30′s and 40′s developed the concept of the “defensive fighter” stressing balance, footwork, head movement, and angles as well as punching. The “dean” of those old trainers Ray Arcel said that the key to this idea of the defensive fighter was the coordination of head and foot movement that he called “slide and roll.” He taught fighters like Barney Ross to bend from the waist, roll under a punch, and slide over to a punching position where you cannot be readily hit while you get off with both hands. Reduce the amount you get hit, while increasing your offensive output, this was the defensive fighter.
Charlie Goldman had an entire chapter in the book, Boy’s Book of Boxing and Body Building, co-written with Rocky Marciano, on the defensive fighter. He even used some of the same terms that Arcel used.
In the book Goldman said,” A skilled defensive fighter is usually the product of long and intensive training. Too many of the offensive boxers you see today are green, untried youngsters who do little more than throw a barrage of reckless punches. The skilled, careful boy knows that slipping punches is also part of the skill of self-defense.”
In Chapter 6, “How to Begin”, after the section on how to make your own heavy bag, Rocky Marciano says;
“When everything that can be said about boxing has been said, one fact will stand out above all the rest: the best boxers hit more and get hit the least. This refers not only to the number of punches, but also to the strength behind them.”
It is this simple fact that a beginner needs to grasp first before going on to learn the art of self-defense.
The other day I posted an article on training in my basement and how the ceiling was so low that it was difficult to do any overhead movements. I also said that I have been training on either the field, a local high school or in my basement for the last six months.
This past weekend however I decided to make a trek into the world of a commercial gym for the first time in a while. Now many people out there do write-ups about the commercial gym experience and focus on the negatives of training in a commercial gym. I really can care less about the negatives of training in the local gym I headed there for two reasons to see what the general public was up to in the fitness world and also to train for myself. For this article I really want to focus on the positives that I saw there.
Before I was able to lift though, I had to be brought around for the gym tour by one of there representatives. He took me around asked me several questions trying to see if I was interested in the personal training. He asked if I had a program, I said of course I was deadlifting today as long as someone was not doing bicep curls in the racks. They did have a nice pool in the facility but still not incentive enough to join the place.
So what were some of my positive observations from my visit to the gym? The first thing that impressed me was that there was a guy in the rack next to me actually squatting. He had his Chuck Taylor’s on and was putting up some decent weight. That made me happy to see that I had a little company as I began my training session.
Another nice thing I saw during my session was some people actually doing pull-ups. This was a nice sign since many people prefer to do the Lat Pulldown. Pull-ups are one of my favorite exercises for developing strength in the back. The guy doing them was not getting a lot out but that is all good he was doing his best and working to the best of his ability. I always get athletes telling me they can’t do pull-ups so I always make sure they are in the program.
One of the best things I saw was an older gentleman doing deadlifts with the trap bar. Who I believe was his son was trying to coach him up on how to deadlift, which was great to see. A little family bonding with one of the best movements in the world is great formula for success in both personal and training goals. His form was off a little but at least the guy was getting it done and it put a smile on my face.
Finally the last positive thing I saw was the fact that people were working out. I don’t care what they were doing but they were moving. Trying to improve themselves. Now they may not know what they are doing but that is not my point here. Theses people right or wrong in how they are training are at least there trying to make a difference. In their own lives.
Now I will not sit here and lie to you, I am not a fan of commercial gyms, I will not be joining the gym I was at today. There are two gyms that I will ever be a part of again. The one that has all the Olympic weightlifting platforms not to far from my house or the gym I will own. But for all the negative talk about commercial gyms out there I just wanted to point out that there are still people out there with some knowledge on how to lift and others that are least trying to accomplish the goals they have set out to overcome. So get out there and train and if you need a program check out my online coaching program s then you can show everyone in the gym how to get it done.
In order to be pretty successful in MMA many need to join a gym with some qualified instructors and some good competition in the gym. This is not to say that you can’ do it at home but there is a better chance to improve if you join one of the many MMA gyms that are popping up all over the United States and throughout the world.
In the world of strength and conditioning or lifting weights in general it is much easier to train at home. For obvious reasons lifting and training can always be done by yourself and do not need a partner to do it unless of course you are one that likes to talk more than you like to train. That being said the last time I had a commercial gym membership is now over a year ago. I have stepped into some gyms over that period of time but only because training partners were members there. In the last year I have been strictly training at one of the local high schools with my training partner or outside on a field. Once the weather began to get cold it was either join a gym or train at home, I decided to take my training to the basement of my comfortable home. This has allowed me to also spend more time with my daughter, which is most important.
Now the only problem has some limitations, the fist being that it is not that large and we use a lot of it for storage and the second being unless you are short like me you will be smashing your head up against the ceiling. But these limitations do not hold me back from training hard. With the ceiling being low there are some movements that are hard to do when weight is added to the barbell. Trying any overhead press is difficult and so is snatching. Dropping under the bar in the snatch is not the problem it’s when you have to stand up.
So for a while I was trying to figure out how to overhead squat. Overhead squatting is a great total body movement. It is one of the movements within the Olympic Snatch. After catching a snatch you are in the low position of a squat with the bar overhead. You then have to come out from that squat and stand upright for it to be a clean lift. Overhead squatting strengthens a lifter in those positions. I use the overhead squats with many of my fighters and other athletes. The overhead squat obviously makes your lower body stronger as well as your shoulder stronger and more stable.
Back to my basement. With the ceiling being low I found a way to add some weight to my overhead squat and also a new way to challenge my “core” stability a little extra. Using two 25-pound kettlebells, I slid them onto my barbell. I then too the clips, but instead of sliding the clips flush against the kettlebells I left some space between them. This allowed the kettlebell to be able to move a little more free. I then performed sets of five overhead squats. Now as I went back and watched the video I see that I need to go down a littler deeper in the squat. This my friends is the glory of video I can actually coach myself up a little but still would love my own coach.
So if you are running into problems with room to train in or some obstacle to overcome find a solution to the problem by being a little creative. There are no rules, make up your own just don’t be careless and do something that might get you injured.
Train Hard! Train Smart!
