Another gorgeous day this past Thursday and the boys from Staten Island, New York made it out for another training session. If you remember Mike Savarese is an aspiring MMA star and is currently training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Ricardo Almeida at RABJJ.
Last time I met with Mike we hit the weight room and then headed to the field for some speed and agility work.
After our first session I knew that Mike would be a future star in MMA. He is dedicated and trains hard with no complaints. And we all know in this day and age athletes like to complain. For this session we headed out to the field to train. Our focus was speed, agility and conditioning.
The first thing we started with was some speed drills. These drills are designed to place the athlete in accerleration position and to generate force off the ground. How does this transfer to MMA you may be asking, well after you are done with this post check out my post titled Usain Bolt v.s. GSP Part 1 and 2 http://bit.ly/cVCQTO http://bit.ly/au0RP After we hit the speed work we moved onto some agility drills, the first time I trained Mike in these drills he was not as fluid as I wanted him to be. He was very tense up top almost robotic. In this session he looked looser, his arm action when moving was vastly improved. Like I have been saying, I train my fighters to become better athletically and that will transfer into into being a better all round fighter. We also hit some work with mini-hurdles and there is more to come on that in a later post this week.
Finally we came down to the conditioning portion of the session. To start we worked some kettlebell swings into 100 yard sprints for three sets. And as his brother Patrick said while Mike was running, :Who knew he was that fast?” After the three sets we moved onto a circuit using, Battle Ropes, sledgehammers, and Medicine Balls. This time I increased the time on the circuit by thirty second, the last training session we had we did a three minute circuit. Increasing it slowly will increase Mike’s work capacity and increase his level of conditioning. So check out the video below, let us know what you think! Oh yeah sorry about the shaky movement of the camera I was trying to get down the field. Train Hard! Train Smart!

In sports a second can be the difference between a winning and losing. As the competition gets better reaction time is critical. For example stuffing a take down in the final seconds of a fight can get your hand lifted at the end or send you back home a loser. I have been doing my research and reading a lot on reaction time. Strength and conditioning coaches all know it is an important component to training. All athletes should be working on improving their reaction time.

So what is reaction time? Reaction time is the interval time between the presentation of a stimulus and the initiation of the muscular response to that stimulus. Some examples in combat sports such as MMA or boxing are avoiding a punch with say a slip or bob and being able to sprawl in time when you see a takedown coming.

Some athletes and people are born with great reaction time. But that does not mean that you cannot increase the ability of your reaction time with practice. In a fight there are many different stimulus’s a fighter must react to. Within those stimuli there can be many different reactions. The more choices a fighter has in ways to react the slower the reaction time will be. So when starting off training reaction time you want to keep it simple with your fighters. You may want to start off with giving them only one choice to make. So say they are working on their boxing, Give them only the choice to parry a punch, as they get better add the slip.

These are some of the more sport specific ways to train reaction time. As a strength and conditioning coach you don’t have to be as sport specific in your training to start off. Using different exercises that we have done before you can add the element of reaction time within them.

In this training clip I incorporate medicine ball tosses with reaction time. So as you will see this thirty second set incorporates, power, acceleration, reaction time and conditioning. Focusing on the reaction time, after tossing the ball you must turn around track the medicine ball and react to where it is going and get to it before two bounces. As for reaction time it’s on an easier level because you kind of know where the ball may land. To make this harder have someone throw the ball for you then turn around and chase after it. So check out this video and more to come on training reaction time. Train Hard! Train Smart!

P.S. This was done the morning of my second anniversary. Happy Anniversary Baby!

Nothing beats youth and determination when it comes to wanting to be an athlete especially an MMA fighter. That youth and determination can be found with Mike Savarese. This future MMA fighter has just started on his journey but you can see in his eyes that he wants nothing more than to be a fighter. Mike trains jiu-jitsu under Ricardo Almeida at RABJJ.
After speaking with his brother Patrick about strength and conditioning and MMA, I had the pleasure to meet Mike and his brother for strength and conditioning session. Mike and I hit the gym, this training session was used to test where he was at with strength and where his conditioning level was currently. As with any of my fighters or athletes I tested his one-rep max deadlift. The deadlift is one of the best movements that can be placed in any fighter’s strength and conditioning program. The deadlift builds strength along the entire posterior chain. As you know with any sport a strong posterior chain is very important in a combat athletes performance. Working on some tips to clean up Mike’s deadlift technique, he was able to pull 345 for his one-rep max. Not to bad since he had not deadlifted in quite a while due to injury.
Next we moved on to test his one-rep max on the bench press. Although I don’t use the barbell bench press in my programs that often I use this test and transfer it over for pressing with dumbbells. Mike put up 265 lbs for his one-rep max. After the one-rep max tests were done, I introduced him to Olympic lifting and taught him some of the movements in the power clean. If you have read some of the other posts on the site you know how important it is to have some of the Olympic lifts in the strength and conditioning programs of athletes. These lifts test the power an athlete can produce. Using only the bar I taught him how to clean from the top down. Pretty much this is how it went. I had him front squat to learn where his body will be at the end of the clean, then had him do jump and shrugs to teach how when doing this movement he should shrug his shoulders. This was followed up by cleaning from the thigh, then above the knee and finally below the knee.
After our training session we headed for the park to for some speed and agility work. Usually I will begin a training session with speed and agility work but I knew I was testing one-rep maxes and want Mike as fresh as possible. During this session I used drills found in some of my previous posts. Here are some of the drills we did…

Finally we ended our training session with some conditioning. He did two, three-minute rounds of the following circuit:
Super Legs
24 Squats
24 Lunges
24 Split-Jumps
12 Jump Squats
This was followed by a minute of Battle Ropes, using four different rope exercises for 15 seconds each. To finish off the three minutes he smashed away at a tire with a sledgehammer for thirty seconds alternating the grip on the sledgehammer with every strike.
Here are some things that I picked up during the session. Mike is very open minded to learning new ways to train in and out of the weight room. He is willing to do what it takes to achieve his goal. Mike is and exceptional athlete and is the future of mixed martial arts. So I would like to welcome Mike to the Combat Trainer team. He has a bright future in the sport of MMA and will be a world champion one day.

Continue to use speed and agility drills to help train my fighters, below I am going to show you a way to take a simple cone drill that helps create faster foot speed and body movement for all different kinds of field sports such as soccer and football. I then do a variation of that same drill for combat sports such as MMA, boxing and jiu-jitsu. Having quick feet and being able to change direction in sport is important in creating the best athletes possible. The same goes for mixed martial artist or anyone that trains in any martial arts. Being able to control your body and move quickly at the same time is essential. A fighter must have quick feet or footwork to be able to move in and out of range of danger or move in for the attack. This kind of agility work should be placed in a combat athletes strength and conditioning program.
The cones are placed 5-6 feet apart laterally and about 2-3 feet from front to back. Watch the video you will see what I mean. In the first drill you will shuffle laterally and as soon as you hit the cone you take a quick step forward. You continue to the last cone then you sprint out. Remember to keep your arms moving as if you are moving. The second drill is just a variation. This variation will help you move quick in and out of sprawls and knees. As you reach the first cone you will sprawl get up as fast as possible step forward and deliver to knees then continue to the next cone where you will do the same movement with the sprawling. Note that on the last cone you want to sprawl this way when you get up you can go into a full sprint straight from the acceleration position which will help in your explosiveness for takedowns.

So yesterday I was supposed to go to the gym in the morning and getting a lifting session in but as my life has been lately things changed and I had to go to the Long Island Pride Jiu-Jitsu tournament earlier than expected. So heading there I was thinking of how to get a training session in later on in the day and I decided that I would hit the local high school for some sprint conditioning. Of course to my delight after getting home it finally began to rain after days and days of the weather forecast calling for showers. So I sat on my couch for a while and then said you know what “Screw it, I am going to sprint in the rain.” So I headed to the local track to get a good conditioning session using sprints.
During my conditioning session I noticed one very important thing, while I was sprinting I realized that I was able to train for a longer period of time. Now using sprinting, as a conditioning tool is very taxing on the body. Why was I able to train longer? My sprint mechanics or sprinting technique has been vastly improved. Using proper sprinting technique made me a more efficient runner, which in turn helped with my conditioning.
Let me relate this to MMA and other combat sports, which require good if not great technique. Let’s say for instance you are looking to take your opponent down. Most times the first shot is not a successful one, unless of course if you are GSP, after multiple shots your body begins to tire and you start to develop a lazier and lazier shot until you are totally gassed out. If your technique on takedowns is lacking then you will get tired much faster. The same goes when you use sprinting as a conditioning protocol, if you have poor technique your body will be taxed quicker and you will more than likely either slow down dramatically during conditioning or you will be to tired to continue.
In the book “Training for Speed, Agility and Quickness” by Lee Brown and Vance Ferrigno they speak about three elements that help with speed mechanics. First they speak about posture. If you have read my blog in the past you have seen speed drills that will help make you faster and also develop an explosive takedown. It was a two-part article titled, “Usain Bolt v.s. GSP” check them out http://bit.ly/anJ7dY and http://bit.ly/derl2w During a sprint you should have two different postures, at the beginning you should be in the acceleration phase, where your body is at a 45-degree angle. You can see some of the drills to help you out in the articles mentioned above.  The other is coming upright during the sprint to about an 80-degree angle, this is known as max velocity. The second element is leg action. The extension of the knee, hip and ankles are key in this element and should be one coordinated motion. Stride frequency and stride length are also components of leg action. Finally arm action is important. I have heard some say that when you run you are only using your legs. Oh really? Well those people are dead wrong. Arm action is important in sprinting and I have found that help when you are getting tired. Here are some quick pointers on how to use your arms properly while sprinting. First keep your hands open, do not make fists. Then as you run pull your arm back at your shoulder do not just move your arm at the elbow. The arm should be kept at a 90-degree angle at the elbow. Second when you are running you want your hands to go cheek to cheek. That means your hands should swipe down by your butt cheek and come up to your face cheek.
These are some of the things that will help your sprinting out and when I train my fighters I teach them proper sprint technique. Now I don’t go over this with them to make them world-class sprinters but to help make them faster and more efficient athletes. As you see the world of MMA is turning out athletes that are taking the sport to the next level. Future articles will show some more drills to clean up your sprint technique. Train Hard! Train Smart!

Ok so in my last post I showed you two pictures, one of Usain Bolt the World’s Fastest Man and one of George St. Pierre, who has the world’s fastest takedown in MMA. I spoke about how speed training can transfer over well into developing a faster takedown because of the positions a fighter is in is similar to the positions sprinters are in at the start of the race.
The phase of speed training that I am going to focus on is the acceleration phase. Acceleration means going from standing still or close to standing still to your maximum speed in the shortest amount of time. When a sprinter is in the acceleration position he or she wants to be at a forty-five degree angle when they come out of the blocks. The same can be said for a fighter as he or she goes in for a takedown. They end up in a forty-five to sixty degree angle as they shoot in. You want to make sure to focus on driving the knee forward when doing all acceleration drills. Both types of athletes end up in full extension at the ankle, knee and hips.
Below are three basic acceleration drills. The first is the Wall Drill. The Wall Drill can be done by using a wall, the side of your house a chained linked fence. Stand with your hands against the wall and your body at a forty-five degree angle. When you begin the movement you start with one-leg up. You then drive the other leg up,driving your knee through high. Remember to keep your toes pointed up.
The next drill is the Falling Start. Stand with your hands at your side. Fall forward until you are about to lose your balance. As you lose your balance start to drive your knee forward and sprint. This drill will also place you in that forty-five degree angle that is necessary to improve your speed.
Finally the last drill is the Get-Up Start. This is one of my favorite and it’s very basic. It really puts you in the position you need to be in. Start off by laying down on the ground. Pop up to your feet as fast as you can driving your knee forward and staying in that acceleration position for as long as possible.
These basic drills will help strengthen the positions you will need to be in as you take an opponent down in wrestling, jiu-jitsu or MMA. Remember fighters are athletes and in athletics or sports speed wins. The same goes for a fighter, a faster fighter equals a better fighter and in the case of GSP an unstoppable fighter.