I believe I have said this once before but sprinting is one of the best if not the best conditioning tools a MMA fighter can use to increase not only their anaerobic conditioning but at the same time get leaner, stronger and more powerful.  Most people forget about this easy to use and most natural tool we have.  Fighters and their coaches love to put their athletes through different types of “MMA specific” circuits and use that as their only mode of conditioning.  I have caught myself doing this as well but as I grow wiser and grayer in the beard I have come to love and appreciate the art of sprinting.

Sprinting is a full body training session.  If you have not sprinted in a while then you will definitely have some muscle soreness in the following days.  Besides getting in a great conditioning session and increasing your stamina, there are a few more benefits from getting out and sprinting.  Sprinting will also help to cut off excess pounds and around this time of the year, who doesn’t need that.  With the loss of fat comes the increase of lean muscle mass, which will not only make you a better athlete and fighter but also make you look good, a definite bonus for you single fighters out there.  Sprinting will also help increase power while activating those Fast-Twitch muscle fibers necessary in fighting.  The benefit that I find to be very useful especially in the fighting world is the fact that a sprint session is very short.  With all the training that fighters need to go through to get on the mat or in the cage, shorter sessions in the strength and conditioning world will save you and your body from excess wear and tear.

If you have not put sprinting into your training this may be a great time to do it.   Check out the sprint program that I posted a few months ago, this will be a great place to start.  From there you can get into some more intricate and hit me up for a program to improve your strength and conditioning training.

Finally I will leave you with an awesome sprint session that I completed on New Years Eve.  After each sprint, make sure you get sufficient recovery time.  What I do is I gauge by my heart rate, once my heart rate drops between 30-40 beats I then complete the next set.  This is a basic ladder scheme, start off with a 100m sprint followed by a 200m , then a 300m and finally a 400m sprint.  I know I said finally but you are not done yet.  Once recovered from the 400m sprint, which for some can take minutes as you gather yourself, you then embark down the ladder starting with 400m, then 300m, 200m and finally 100m.  After a good solid warm-up, the sprinting should not take any longer than a half hour to complete.  Rest intervals will determine how long the session takes.

So get out to the track and get your sprint training on, because your conditioning will thank you in the end.

I want to first start off by giving thanks to all my followers and people that have supported me in the past years. The next few months will be huge for Combat Trainer. Every year around this time people’s diets start to drift and extra pounds are packed on.  Don’t let the holiday season kill a years worth of hard work in the gym.  Now we all know Thanksgiving is a day in which majority of us will be eating non-stop all day.  Most experts will tell you to go for a nice brisk walk after your turkey day dinner.  That may be fine to get the blood flowing again but there is no way you are losing all the calories that you have just put into yourself.

Now i understand that there is not a lot of time to train on a holiday, but I am here to give you a nice short training session that will not only help build muscle but will also allow you to burn calories and allow yourself that extra piece of Sweet Potato Pie.  The first training session that you can do that will crush those calories and at the same time turn you into a beast is a variation of the Litvinov Workout.  You may have read about some of these workouts in previous posts and boy do they get the job done.  Now the video you will see below is the Litvinov using a hundred pound kettlebell.  Yes, I know you may not own a kettlebell that size but you may own a smaller one or even a pair of dumbbells.  Since the kettlebell is a heavier one you will only see me swing the bell for a handful of reps.  If you have a lighter bell you can swing for up to thirty reps.

Now you are not just swinging the bell and stopping, after you are done swinging you must drop the bell and take off in a full speed sprint.  How many sets you may ask, well if done right between four and five sets will be good enough and then you can call it a day.  This short training session will help develop power as well as burn off calories during and after the training session and allow you to give a little extra thanks at the dinner table.

Happy Thanksgiving!

There are not many times in the life of an adult that can send your anticipation wheeling like a child awaiting Christmas or a visit to your favorite theme park.  When you are lucky enough to recapture these feelings of excitement as a “grown up” you would be a fool not to jump at the chance, or in this case, jump squat at the chance.  Visiting Martin Rooney and taking part in the Training for Warriors Level 1 Instructor Course was just this type of experience for this fitness professional.

Upon entering the Parisi Speed School location in Paramus New Jersey you are immediately in training awe.  The facility itself is impressive beyond most people’s training dreams and a feeling of wanting more is palpable.  Within minutes will be some of the most impressive motivational as well as physical teaching and mentoring possibly in existence.

Martin has an amazing presence that makes you want to share both his belief in physical and mental fitness as well as pushes you to question the things that you have been sold by the fitness industry.  It becomes obvious the difference between a job and a calling to this man, if it was just a job he would push you to think what he thinks, when it is a calling as he has he drives you to find your own meaning and place amongst greatness in the field.

When you enter a Training for Warriors Certification you will also find yourself amongst like minded people from places as far as Spain and Canada who have very purposefully landed in front of this man to gather all he has to know as well as challenge themselves physically.  Personal Trainers, Army Rangers, Law Enforcement, and champions meeting in one location with intentions to absorb as much as possible.

The information both shared and experienced hands on is priceless.  There is more given and received in two days at the TFW Certification Seminar than in most month long courses, including physical challenges that your body will not soon forget.  No secrets kept, no fitness miracles just hard work and result oriented training, common sense and a willingness to question “why”?

Martin’s methods of evaluating client’s physical weaknesses are practical and vital to good training.  The TFW concepts on addressing these weaknesses in “prehab” as well as  warmup components are helpful and can instantly be added to your personal as well as your client training sessions.  Martin explains the place new and popular workout gadgets have in a program and when the good old basics of fitness should be relied upon.  Sprints, barbell complexes, and multiple challenges are explained to keep clients physically challenged and mentally engaged.

Be willing to release the Warrior Within, enter Rooney’s world with an open mind, a hunger to change both yours and the lives of others and not just physically.

Periodization for MMA Training:

It is of no surprise that to get stronger and accomplish physical feats in MMA Training that one must work hard.  A more difficult concept to accept is that although there is a time and a place for spontaneous physical activity in MMA training and “seizing  the workout moment”, in order to see consistent growth one must plan a route to get there, this is referred to as Periodization.

What is periodization for MMA training?

Periodization is the structuring or cycling of your MMA training in a particular order to achieve certain goals.  Your goal may be to accomplish something in a certain time period, lasting all rounds,  going a certain distance, reaching a personal max.  Each of these things are reachable goals if you have a plan to reach them.Periodization is beneficial to athletes and people involved in MMA training for a variety of reasons.  Periodization will assist in avoiding getting stuck in plateaus, you can plan to change your training regimen to avoid slumps and boredom. Having a plan for your MMA training will also guard against overtraining.  When you plan your training there must also be a plan for a deload or resting period of a day or week, depending on how you are training.  Avoiding overtraining is essential because during deload is when you will reap the gains from your  MMA training program.  It also allows for life to occur while training, giving balance between training and other obligations.

There are many types of periodization depending on your MMA training focus.   In most cases the trainee will chose linear and non linear also known as undulating. Many programs begin with linear. Linear simply means that you should start out light in load. Use a light load and a low number of repetitions (reps) and sets. Over a period of weeks increase the weight, number of reps, and sets of your exercise routine. Not making these changes in weight and reps are the biggest mistakes I’ve seen people make in their MMA training. They join, and start out light which is good. But they never progress. If you are trying to firm or build muscles with one set ten pounds and you don’t see any results, doing one set with ten pounds for years won’t do anything for you. You will have to progress to a more intense exercise routine and heavier load. Unfortunately, even linear periodization will stop working for you eventually. When this happens it’s time to introduce undulating periodization to your MMA training routine.

Undulation by definition means to go back and forth. Your body will inevitably adjust to the stress of MMA training, that you are putting it through, in order to make more gains then you must shock your body.  In non linear you do this by a planned variation of weight, reps and time.  You can go between these two phases for a lifetime of  MMA training.

Not planning your workouts is like planning to stay stagnant in your training.  Plan well, plan ahead and plan to succeed.

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”

—-Muhammad Ali

“I don’t have time to train, I have kids!”  If you have kids then you do not have the luxury of not training.  Your life is now an example of the habits and doings of someone who is constantly being watched and emulated.  Your desire to train for health, long life, quality of life, energy, bone health, flexibility, vitality, stress relief and sheer enjoyment has just gotten the best reason in the world to intensify, not diminish.

I have two children.  From the start of parenthood my wife and I were on the same page, these little Combat Trainers would become part of an already fitness and training as well as loving and supporting family structure.  Although it took some planning and adjustment, our training schedules have been steady and a source of family fun.  It is not uncommon to see me and my training partners as well as my wife and kids all at the field, busy with different physical activities, taking time to enjoy training and this extra time together.

One of the best bonuses that has come from including my children into our lifestyle has been my two year old’s natural curiosity about physical activities and fearlessness of trying new physical things.

“I do it!” can be heard many times in our home, yard, park, and even in the driveway during prowler pushes.  She surprised us all this last week during a training session with her aunt and myself by dragging her plastic lawn chair to the driveway and using it as a prowler.  She pushed it up and down the driveway multiple times behind the real prowler and as you see even took a dive at the end.  As in all training and life, there will be times we face plant and meet our match with the pavement but we, as she does ,will get right back up to push another day.

This Sunday the UFC will be live on Versus. In the main event Rick Story will be taking on Nate Marquardt. In this segment of mma strength training, Story and his coach are working on agility using the agility ladder and a band. The agility ladder is a great tool to use, well for agility. Actually there are a couple more uses for the agility ladder. One being in preventing injury, especially in the feet and ankles. I recommend if you use the agility ladder to train with it barefoot as it will help strengthen your feet and ankle.
There a re a few more ways in which the ladder can improve your athletic performance. Using the agility ladder as a warm-up is a great way for an athlete to get their heart rate up, loosen up their muscles and get your central nervous system firing for the training that is to come. Another way to use the ladder is as a conditioning tool. For example preparing one of my fighters for her last fight, I had her doing ladder drills for nine minutes straight which was the amount of time her fight was. Now she choked the girl out in the first round but the ladder really did improve her conditioning.
In the video below Story uses the ladder not only for agility but with his coach pulling on his waist while performing the drill it also forces Story to use his core to stabilize himself as he goes down the ladder. The progression here would be to get the drill, which is a jumping jack down the ladder down first then add the band into the mix.

UFC Live on Versus is this Sunday and with a pretty good card to boot. Since I have not written for the site recently, this week I will feature some of the fighters MMA strength and conditioning training. The first person I will feature is Matt Mitrione. Mitrione takes on Christian Morecraft in a heavyweight battle. This TUF alum has really made a name for himself and is proving he belongs in the UFC. With each fight he has you see great improvement in his game.
In the video below produced by none other that Mitrione you will see how explosive this combat athlete really is. His strength coach combines plyometric hurdle hops with the twenty yard shuttle. Using track hurdles you see lower body explosiveness out Mitrione as he jumps over six hurdles. These hurdle hops help Mitrione generate force off the ground. Being able to generate alot of force of the ground will help combat athletes become more powerful strikers and help them have explosive takedowns. As soon as he finishes the hops he sprints to a set of three cones for the 20 yard shuttle. the 20 yard shuttle helps all kinds of athletes with their agility.
Separately these two exercise are great, when combined it adds a little conditioning element to it. My recommendation is to not go out and try this short combo of movements but to train them separately. work on your power using the hurdles but remember in order to do the hurdles you need to develop some kind of strength. As for the agility make sure when performing agility drills to get ample rest in between sets. They are agility drills intended to work on your agility not your conditioning.