Grip and hand strength can often be an overlooked skill in MMA training. From the observer, there may be many other components or athletic reasons that a fighter may win or lose a fight but more often then not, grip strength will never be mentioned. It is a disservice to an MMA fighter’s career to overlook grip strength.
Grip strength is the applied by the hand to pull on or suspend from objects it is also used by strength athletes, referring to the muscular power and force that they can generate with their hands.
In MMA fighting your hands are the first point of contact to your opponent. Having a good grip will help while in the clinch as well as submissions. Grappling is the perfect example of where grip strength comes into play to either act as a turning point of the fight for or against your favor.
There are simple activities to add to your preexisting training that will grant you countless improvements in hand and wrist and finger.
-Farmers walks using two or three fingers with plates
-Climbing wall activities
Do not allow this small body part to lose a big fight. The hands are not to be taken for granted during training and should be strengthened like any other body part to avoid injury and weakness.
Grip strength is a very important aspect when training for MMA or any other type of combat sports. I have heard many combat athletes talk about how their grips are weak. One area of concern is in the sport of jiu-jitsu when using the gi. If you are a practitioner of gi jiu-jitsu then you know very well the importance of having a good grip. Your grip strength and endurance can save you from your opponent passing your guard or worse submitting you.
So how can we can increase our grip for combat sports? You have seen my oversized pull-up handle video, which have helped with my grip strength. Another great way is by doing Farmers Walks. Basically a Farmers Walk is carrying heavy weight by your and walking with it. They do make Farmer Walk handles, which you can load lot’s of weight on. You can also use a trap bar, which can be found in any commercial gym as well as dumbbells or kettlebells. One thing I have found that has really increased my grip strength is the use of regular 45 pound plates found in pretty much all gyms. If they don’t have forty-five pound plates at your gym just stop reading this article thanks.
Here is what I like to do with the forty-five pound plates. Grab them in each hand using your fingertips. Start with four fingers as you get stronger start reducing the amount of fingers that you use. I then take the plates for a ride. I like to go for about 100yards, once I reach the 100 yard mark I drop the plates and take a brief rest no more that one-minute. Usually around the fifty-yard mark you start to feel the burn as you get closer to the hundred yard mark you will notice how you pick up the pace of your walk just to get it over with. Do a couple of sets of these. If your grip is weaker than you thought grab 25’s or 35’s depending on your level of fitness. Soon enough people will be talking about your firm handshake and you will take your fight game to a new level.
The most basic necessity is that a fighter relax. He needs to relax during training and he needs to relax during the fight. True mental focus can not be achieved if he is too tense. Pacing, shot selection, power generation, and strategic decisions are all affected by being tense.
One aspect of this is the same as stage fright for performers; it takes repeated exposure to being on stage and performing in front of an audience to get over it. Some kids can never get over this and so they do not progress beyond the novice stage. However, boxing is full of stories of experienced fighters tensing up and blowing big fights. What we are really talking about is ways to manage adrenalin released due to stress.
In the mental game there are these different ego games and they can affect a fighter’s performance. They have to do with the fighter’s internal dialogue, or what’s going on inside his head during the fight. There is positive ego, “I am the greatest” but this usually only carries them so far and if the build up is too big it makes losing more painful than it needs to be. There is negative ego “I can’t do anything right” and this often leads to tentative, low energy performances. There is a third state, a neutral state, where the fighter “gets out of his own way” mentally and stops placing his ego between himself and what he is doing. This is “the zone” where all of the fighter’s training can come out, his reflexes are at their best, and he is able to stay relaxed and give his best performance.
The key to relaxing during training is to have a “happy camp” where the mammalian politics are held to a minimum and the day to day environment is relaxed. If the atmosphere is tense it uses up a lot of energy unnecessarily. Fighters tend to be high strung and they don’t need anyone at camp making this worse, especially handlers, sparring partners or management. In this rap star age many of today’s fighters are very prickly about feeling like they are being disrespected and so this has to be taken into account.
There has to be a level of trust among professionals so that open dialogue can exist between the trainer and the fighter. The trainer needs to be able to make corrections in a way that does not offend the fighter, and the fighter needs to be able to communicate to his trainer what is going on in his body, especially if he is hurt. If there is no trust in this crucial relationship it can lead to disaster.
When I watched trainers like Georgie Benton work with fighters in Joe Frazier’s Gym back in the day the instructions were always positive. “Do this,” they never discussed strategy or tactics during sparring and there was never any criticism. It was a public gym and the press and gamblers were watching the big names. Working in the gym was like a show and they never scolded fighters out loud there. A fighter can’t learn like that, it is all happening too fast.
I found out that they had a small gym, a room really, with mirrors and bags and this is where they worked on specific moves at slower speeds, if need be, in preparation. This work was done in the mornings after roadwork and breakfast, they didn’t start going to the big gym until the afternoon. Everything that needed to be said between fighter and trainer had been said earlier in private, everyone was on the same page, it was just work in the gym. This is how professionals like Benton handled themselves and their fighters with class and at the same time gave the fighter time to learn new skills without the pressure or any lose of self esteem.
The old time trainers were psychologists as well as conditioning experts and boxing coaches. They spent a lot of time with their fighters beyond the hours in the gym. Many of the fighters became dependant upon certain trainers to keep them calm as well as get them in shape. Anxiety decreases wind and so staying calm is an important part of peaking. They talked to them about boxing and played cards with them at night in the age before TV and video games. Even in the 1980’s Larry Holmes hired Ray Arcell, then in his eighties, to come to camp just talk to him about boxing!
Throughout history there have been many attempts to find a method for getting a fighter into the “neutral zone” mentally. Attempts were made in ancient China by melding meditation practices taken from Buddhism and Taoism with martial arts. Today we know that calm repetitive action increases Serotonin levels in the brain while reducing Cortisol levels which reduces stress. Cortisol inhibits memory retrieval of already stored information and is an important aspect of the brain chemistry of stage fright. If you are pushed beyond the level of your conditioning, “taken where you havn’t been before” your anxiety will increase as your energy level goes down. However, there are many examples of fighters who have done the work, are in the best shape they can get in, and still have poor performances because of stress. This is because their stress level has risen until it effects their brain chemistry negatively and they are unable to control their breathing.
Sugar Ray Robinson preferred ping pong for this mental training. It was a way to daily practice getting into that flow, to stop talking to himself and just react, in a context that was fun and had nothing to do with boxing. I recommend it to fighters today but they usually prefer video games. Great champions like Robinson tended to make this level of concentration, “mental energy” as Arcell called it, look easy but it requires daily training for many years to be able to do it under the duress of a fight.
Many fighters have been able to focus and stay calm in fight after fight against ordinary competition, only to “blow it” when they stepped up to a higher level of competition or got a title shot. This effect is especially noticeable when they step up to fight a great champion for the first time. These are the fights that haunt them in their old age, the ones where they know they didn’t give their best performance.
One of the best examples of this sad aspect of the mental game is Ernie Lopez, older brother of featherweight champion Danny “Little Red “Lopez. He was a very good welterweight who fought from 1963 to 1974 and had the misfortune to come along in the era of Jose Napoles, one of the greatest welters ever. At the time of their first meeting in 1970 Lopez was 36 6 1. Ernie was very smooth counter puncher without much power. The hype, the pressure of meeting a great champion, really got to him and he came in “tight”. You can really see this on the film of the fight. The tension is visible in Lopez from the beginning and so his punches fall short and seem to have nothing on them. He was knocked down in the first, the ninth, and KO’d in the fifteenth round. Lopez came back with ten wins in his next twelve fights and got another shot at Napoles’ title in 1973 but it was worse this time and he was KO’d in the seventh round.
For years at the Englewood Coliseum they talked about the night the real “Indian Red” Lopez didn’t show up. He ended his career with a record of 48 13 1 with 465 professional rounds boxed and a KO percentage of 38.71. Lopez passed away in 2009 at the age of 64.
As MMA grows the evolution of boxing in the sport has also evolved. With the rise of wrestlers in the sport and the chances of getting taken down as a stand-up fighter is very likely. A lot of kickboxer and muay Thai fighters games has been negated because of the strong likelihood of getting taken down. Because of this we have seen boxing become one of the most effective ways to end fights. With the size of the gloves it is easier than in a boxing match to knock someone out.
Wilson Pitts, Combat Trainer boxing expert, developed a great video on how to effectively use the jab in MMA. Before he shows us this great technique for the use of the jab, he gives a brief history lesson on how George Benton trained his boxers to use the jab. Having a love for history, I loved watching this short piece and I picked up a lot of pointers on using the jab in my training.
The technique Wilson shows will help you slow down an opponent that likes to shoot and help you keep your distance to prevent it. So check out this great tutorial by Wilson Pitts, one of the best boxing trainers.
Using your body to train is one of the main ways in which martial artist still condition their bodies. Gymnasts are always using their own bodies to train and are some of the strongest athletes in the world. One of the main reason why you should place your children in gymnastics classes early, is that it will not only get them stronger but teach them how to use their own bodies so they can prevent injury.
When I train fighters or any athlete for that matter I use bodyweight exercises within the athletes program. Either through agility drills or during conditioning the movements I use will help the athlete learn their own body without anything loaded on it.
One of the most fun but grueling exercises that is done with just your body alone is the bear crawl. Basically the exercise is what it says it is. Crawl like a bear and you will be doing the exercise. The bear crawl works your entire body. It is a really great exercise for dynamic strength in both your lower and upper body. You will gain lots of stabilization strength in your shoulder and if done for the right amount of time or distance is a great conditioning exercise.
Since the weather has been so bad here in the Northeast United States my outdoor training has pretty much ceased with the exception of shoveling snow. Which is a great GPP training session. While out there hours at a time I get to thinking about what else I can do in the snow. Many of you have seen my sprint in the snow, where I fell flat on my face for the enjoyment of the world and my family. But during the last snow storm as I was digging out car, driveways and racing around the block so the plow could get down my street, I though to myself that bear crawling in the snow would be a great way to train in the snow.
So after I was done with the heavy snow lifting, I hit the backyard and decided to bear crawl in the snow. At the same time I threw out the challenge to my friend and she decided to also do a little crawling in the snow. She even had strapped a band to her waist and did resisted bear crawls in the snow. I guess her training with me has really worn off on her. So next time you are snowed in, get of your butt and start sprinting and bear crawling in the snow.
By Wilson Pitts
Boxing uses interval training. You do an exercise and raise the heart rate and then you stop or slow down and let it return to normal, then repeat. The trainer adjusts the number of intervals, the duration of each, and the intensity, and also the amount of recovery. It is a dieing art and science that has been applied to the training of race horses, greyhound dogs, and fighting dogs, as well as boxers and wrestlers.
Boxing training also uses rope skipping and shadow boxing in what today would be called plyo-metrics training. These exercises, often done on a sprung wooden floor, developed a light, bouncy step, and improved lateral movement and agility. They provide another type of interval at the same time they improve your fighter’s quickness and balance. The conditioning and the agility program work together. These basic training methods are used with the beginner along with core development through abdominal training and later bag punching.
Over training is a very real problem for fighters and the effects are just as bad as not training enough. The old trainers were able to adjust rest and recovery intervals to bring a fighter in at peak condition on a specific date. Many of today’s fighters “leave it in the gym” by over training. Overtraining is brought on by doing the same workout too many times, this is called “staleness.” The fighter does a high intensity interval and doesn’t even breath hard, he has done it too much. Make him do something he is not used to and he will gasp for breath like he didn’t train at all. When a fighter is stale he acts listless in sparring, bored in camp or the gym, and often does not sleep well. This is very similar to the effects of under training.
The old guys could detect overtraining by a change in the fighter’s body odor or by a lack of sweat when they were doing a workout. Today we look for elevated at rest heart rate, as well as irritability and the other signs, as an early warning sign of overtraining.
Not resting enough when undergoing heavy training is another cause of overtraining. Boxers need a lot of sleep, in bed by 9 at night and at least an hour nap during the day. Over eating can also bring on many of these symptoms because of too much stress put on the body from training and eating too much. The body does not get to rest between workouts because it is digesting. Often fighters try to compensate for feeling stale or bored by eating more. This is a mistake even in heavyweights who don’t have a weight limit and think they can eat anything they want. No snacking between meals, no meal replacements, and no eating after dinner. Charlie Goldman used to search Rocky Marciano’s room for food The Rock would stash and eat in the middle of the night.
It was that dreaded time in the school year that many of us went through as kids. The physical fitness test in Phys Ed class. Now I loved gym class playing all the different types of fun games competing with all the jocks who, after high school really did not end up doing much after their “great” high school athletic career. Actually senior year I was given the award for the highest average for four years in physical education. That and four years of college netted me a communications degree, should have really thought out my career back then.
Back to the physical fitness test, the most dreaded part of the test for me was how many pull-ups the student could get out. Now I really sucked at pull-ups most of the time not getting to many of them out. Back then it really did not dawn on me what a pull-up would do for me in the future but now I know why it was on the test. That is because the damn exercise makes you strong and who does not want to be strong. I think those physical fitness tests scared a whole generation away from doing pull-ups because when you walk into a gym most of the time you see people using the Lat pulldown machine because it is easy. But like the old saying goes anything in life worth having should be difficult to get, and that goes for a strong back.
When it comes down to it the pull-up is one of the best exercises that a MMA or grappling athlete can do. In MMA, jiu-jitsu and wrestling having a strong back which assists you in a lot of the pulling motions associated with the sports can help lead you to victory. In the clinch having a strong back can lead to more powerful punches as well as being dominate in the clinch. On the ground being able to control your opponents posture in the guard uses a lot of pulling movement to keep the opponent close.
This brings me to my next video. Pull-ups also help with grip strength. Now those that do Judo or jiu-jitsu you can use your gi thrown over the pull-up bar to do pull-ups. That will make the move more sport specific. Now what I have done was I went out to Home Depot and picked up some straps, that along with some PVC pipe that was lying around the house I made homemade pull-up grips handles. This is a fairly simple thing to make, for any of you who know me you know I can’t build stuff and I even did this. With the wider grip handles you will see how much not only your grip improves but as well as your strength in your posterior chain.
Like with all weeks leading up to the big UFC cards I am on the prowl for some good training video’s from the fighters that are on the card. I have been on the lookout for some good George St. Pierre training video but instead came across a great interview done for UFC.com.
Since I am out to help many of those trying to break into the sport or those looking to get to the next level I pulled a few key points from this interview that will help with your fighting career. When you want to be great at something you look to the best and figure out what they are doing and how they prepare, Take the knowledge you gain from these top notch people and then tailor it to you.
In this interview with GSP for his upcoming fight against Josh Koscheck he talks about using the knowledge he gained and putting it all together. There are a couple of important messages to take from this interview. One was getting out of your comfort zone. Many fighters continue to train with the same team and with the same training ideas fight in and fight out. This may work for a while but eventually it will fail a fighter. The more often you take yourself out of comfort zone the more likely you will succeed in a fight. In a fight there is no comfort zone so the more you are used to being out of it in general the better fighter and person you will become.
Another important point I picked out is all the different people he trains with. This gives him an advantage because he is now a wealth of knowledge and he knows how to put it all together. GSP invests in himself and his pursuit for greatness. This investment in himself has made him the dominant fighter he is today. So if you are an amateur trying to make it or you are trying to get to the next level in your career, then make the investment and watch how successful you will become.
Winter is almost here and I can smell the first snowstorm is lurking around the corner. That means is that it will be time to dust off our sleds and head to the hills for a little sleigh riding. Looking back when I was a kid my dad used to take us to this fancy golf course in the rich neighborhood and we used to go sledding for hours. We had a blast doing so. When we were really young my dad would drag the sled back up the hill with us after going down sometimes with one of us in tow. Once we got a little older we had to start dragging the sled up the hill ourselves usually with my sister whining behind us that she had to walk up the hill.
So there we were complaining first about going up the hill and second having to drag the sled up. Remember sleds were a little heavier back then and I was a wimp back then so dragging it was a pain. Little did I know that forcing me to drag this sled up the hill was making me stronger. I knew nothing then about strength back then but if I had a Delorean I would definitely hop in it with my Hoverboard and head back to 1985 to drag that bad boy up that hill for hours.
But there is no time machine that I know of, however lucky for me I own my own sled. Now it’s a little different from the sleds we go down hills on but it is still fun nonetheless. This sled I am talking about can and will improve strength, power and speed if used the right way.
In the sports of MMA or in combat sports in general it is important to have strong legs as well as strong pulling muscles. Yes people that would be your back. Being strong and powerful in those areas is not enough either, those same muscles need to be well conditioned as well so you can continuously use them within a fight. The following sled training will help in all aspects.
The sled on the video is loaded up to 165 pounds. You will see two videos, the first being of Carlos as he pulls the sled explosively for ten yards then drags the sled for ten yards all the way to the fifty-yard line. The pull is done explosively as you will see the kettlebell falling off. Next time a little more control will be better but what the hell it’s Carlos and he goes 110% everytime. The second video is of your good friend, me doing the same exercise back the other way for fifty yards. I will let you know the quad burn on the walking backwards drag is great.
Now many are saying but I don’t own a sled, like I have said before, you have some options. Grab a used tire, drill a hole and pull and drag that. Or going back to my original story when it snows volunteer to drag the neighborhood kids back up the hill on their sleds while they are still sitting on them. Let me know how you feel during and after that training session.
Well the holidays are officially upon us. Thanksgiving is only a day away and we sure have our fair share of football to watch but not enough MMA. Like many in the United States you can drown your sorrows in a nice piece of whatever pie you choose.
Every Thanksgiving for a couple of second’s, I think back to high school and being on the wrestling team. Now I was not a big fan of cutting weight back then, not that I am now, but in order to eat a lot on Thanksgiving I would do a morning run. Yeah, you heard or read me right I ran and for long distance like two miles before I would sit down to feast. I would head to the basement jump on the treadmill and go for a little jog. Now looking back at that I think to myself, “What the hell was I thinking?” Oh yeah that’s right I had no internet and access to some of the best strength and conditioning coaches so I did not know much but to listen to my wrestling coach.
So that long distance run did not do too much on the calorie burning side but it sure made me hate running long distance. Should of just stuck to some sprinting would have been a lot better.
So on this Thanksgiving I am giving thanks for the knowledge I have gained through the years. And to celebrate this knowledge I have gained I will share the end result of it with you. I am giving you a great way to burn calories for a many hours as well as build your strength, power and conditioning.
You all have seen the Litvinov workout now to take it to another level and follow Dan John’s awesome advice I present to you Litvisleds. I am also thankful for running into the writings of Dan John for he has given me many ideas to share with you. Here is the basic premise. Grab a kettlebell do a bunch of swings and then sprint with the sled attached to you. Sprint yardage will vary depending on your fitness level, 30-50 yards seems to work well. Sounds simple enough. Now if you own a sled do not load it so it takes forever for you to bust out into a sprint. Remember you are trying to develop explosiveness and not being able to sprint with the sled will not help in that aspect of the training. If you do not own a sled get out there and go find a spare tire. Drill a hole in that bad boy attach a harness and bang you have something to drag. If you do not own a kettlebell try a dumbbell.
And if you want to keep it simple try any of the other Litvinov workouts I have spoken about or just get out to the track and do some sprinting. Here is one that may work, it’s an old school sprint workout but still works wonders and it is one I picked up in my wrestling years. Sprint the 100m straightaway, jog the 100m turns, do this for about a mile or mile and a half and call it a morning then go get you turkey on.
As you will notice I am not the only one in the video this time, I am honoring former Marine and training partner Carlos Del Valle as he takes a run at the Litvisled workout!!
Another thing to look for is my Online Training Program will be going on SALE starting Friday, November 26, 2010. This sale will run until Christmas Day and will be a steal for you fighters looking to take it to the next level. And if you are not a fighter and just looking to increase your performance take a look!!
Happy Thanksgiving enjoy the day with whomever you are spending with!
