Jul 31 2010

Stair Climbing for MMA

Category: Boxing, Conditioning, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Strength Training, Uncategorized — Rob @ 10:16 PM

Since I have been on a conditioning rant as of late here on my site, I might as well continue with the theme. Many fighters in MMA, Jiu-Jitsu and boxing use the running of stairs or steps as a tool for conditioning. Hill sprints can also be added to this category of conditioning. If anyone has tried any of these conditioning tactic you know first hand how difficult they can be.

Running or sprinting up steps tests an athlete’s anaerobic conditioning, lower body strength and endurance. Usually in the gym the Stair Master is the piece of equipment that is not being used, just like the rower or the Versa-Climber. The reason many people avoid it is because it is hard to do. It makes you work hard!

As many of you know, I was on vacation this past week. Hanging out with the gang of Sesame Street was great and I had lots of fun. Lucky for me I was able to get a training session in at the fitness center in the hotel. After leaving Sesame Place we headed to Philadelphia for a little historical learning. If you are into fighting and combat sports you know that Philadelphia is where the famous movie Rocky takes place. We all know the famous part of when Rocky sprints up the stairs of the art museum during his final preparation for his fight against Apollo Creed. So of course I had to go and run the stairs that Rocky ran up. So carrying my daughter I took off up the stairs and we both made it. What a great time and a memory that will last forever. Here we are running up the steps of the museum!

So how can you make stair-climbing work for you? The first thing you want to do is make sure that the stairs you are using are sturdy and safe. There is no reason to injure your self. Second you when running up the stairs go as hard as you can without making yourself fall over. Ok done with the safety issues. Just like any type of conditioning you have seen on my site, I like to organize it into sets or rounds just to give it more of a MMA feeling.
A typical set or round can look like this:
Sprint up five to ten flights of steps followed by a rest interval. For rest walk back down the flight of steps you just sprinted up. This should be sufficient amount of rest. If you need a little more then take it when you reach the bottom. Repeat this for 5-8 sets
As you increase your conditioning level, there are some things you can do to make it more difficult:
You can reduce the rest interval,
You can increase the number of sets,
You can increase the number of flights you sprint up
You can add a weighted vest, which will challenge your anaerobic and lower body strength. Carrying my daughter was like using the weighted vest.
Remember Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Jul 26 2010

Vladimir Matyushenko UFC on Versus

Category: Conditioning, Interviews, MMA, Strength Training, Uncategorized — Rob @ 10:56 PM

We are a little less than a week away from the UFC on Versus. The card is pretty good and since the last PPV I have been waiting patiently for some MMA. The main event on this card is Jon Jones going up again Vladamir Matyushenko. I am looking forward to this match up. I want to see Jones and his awesome athletic ability in the octagon. He never disappoints in a fight.
So since I love MMA and I love strength and conditioning, I am trying my best, even though they are hard to come by, to find video of the fighters training for these upcoming fights. I want to show the different styles that strength and conditioning coaches have when training combat athletes for fights.
In my search for some kick ass strength and conditioning video of these fighters I came across an interview with Vladimir Matyushenko. The interview is not really what I am concerned with, it’s the video that goes along with the interview. They show some of the exercises that “The Janitor” has in his strength and conditioning program.
Matyushenko trains at a Velocity Sports Performance, which is one of my former places of employment. The first two minutes he discusses his training and the video shows him doing some one-arm medicine ball tosses as well some muscle snatches and my personal favorite overhead squats. So enjoy the video it’s the best I could do for strength and conditioning video of Matyushenko. The UFC on Versus will air on Saturday, August 1.

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Jul 21 2010

How Would You React?

Category: Boxing, Conditioning, Power Training, Speed, Uncategorized, reaction time — Rob @ 8:55 PM

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!



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Jul 18 2010

Interview With Triumph Athletics

Category: Boxing, Interviews, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Power Training, Strength Training, Uncategorized — Rob @ 7:15 PM

Like I have promised you all week, I had done an interview JR Joyner of Triumph Athletics. JR is one of the great strength and conditioning coaches in South Carolina. He really has in depth knowledge of training athletes. JR trains some of the top wrestlers in the country. If you have seen any of his training videos on You Tube then you know what I am talking about!
If you are a combat athlete in MMA, Ji-Jitsu, Wrestling, or boxing listen to this interview, you will gain some valuable information. If you are a strength and conditioning coach it’s a must to take some time and listen, the information can help you become a better coach. And if you are as passionate about coaching as JR and I are then I don’t have to tell you to listen. Under the audio of the interview you will see some of JR training video’s to watch as you listen. Just remember to lower the volume on the video’s so you can hear the interview. Remember Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Jul 14 2010

What is the Super 32 Challenge

Category: Boxing, Conditioning, Interviews, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Strength Training, Uncategorized, Wrestling — Rob @ 10:08 PM

In a few days all visitors will be in for a treat as I will be interviewing JR Joyner, owner of Triumph Athletics.  We will all be a little bit smarter because of the knowledge JR brings to the table.  His website is http://www.triumphathletics.com JR is very passionate about strength and conditioning.  This is what he loves to do and he is very good at what he does.

JR trains some high level athletes including  some of the top high school wrestlers in the country.  He has prepared these wrestlers for the Super 32 Challenge.  Super 32 is a national wrestling tournament held every year in Greensboro, North Carolina. The best wrestlers in the nation compete in this tournament.

Here is a great video of JR’s team training for this elite wrestling tournament.  The interview will be posted in a couple of days.  If you are a combat athlete that competes in wrestling, jiu-jitsu, boxing, or MMA or just a strength coach it will be of benefit to you to listen to this interview.  You will learn a ton!

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Jul 10 2010

The Future Star of MMA!

Category: Agility, Conditioning, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Power Training, Speed, Strength Training, Uncategorized — Rob @ 7:48 PM

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.

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Jul 08 2010

Tires and Sledgehammers and Ropes, Oh my!

Category: Conditioning, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Power Training, Strength Training, Uncategorized, muay Thai — Rob @ 7:56 PM

Having access to different implements for training purposes is really fun. Lucky for me I am able to train with some of these fun tools. Being a coach and also training in martial arts I find that these implements of strength and power are great for training fighters. We have seen and influx of trainers using these toys with their fighters to enhance their strength, power and conditioning.
The day that this conditioning circuit was filmed I actually did not have strength and conditioning session planned in my day. I was sitting around waiting for my evening Muay Thai session when a text message came in from my training partner. It read, “Want to flip tires?” Now how could I resist? Of course I wanted to go flip some tires. Then I thought to myself, “Wait a minute, I have a rope and sledgehammer in the car from training a fighter, I will use those as well to create a conditioning circuit.” So the 15-minute trip to the field I was devising a plan, lucky when I had arrived another person was training with us and he brought a medicine ball. This just added to the plan and the fun.
So when I arrived I warmed –up with some tire flips then laid out my plan. The plan was four stations. A tire station, a rope station, a med ball station and a sledgehammer station. Each person would pick a station to start at and work for forty-five seconds at each station. Now sometimes when you train you will always have to make adjustments. During conditioning this is no different. When I was doing the tire flips, I was just jumping on the tire with really no thought. Midway through I thought to myself that I could broad jump onto the tire and this way add a little plyometric work into the training session as well. In the video you will see a little annotation of when this thought pops into my head. After the tire flip I move on to the Battle Ropes. For this round I just did one exercise with the ropes in the following sets I switched up different exercises using the ropes, so you always have that option. After the ropes I hit the med-balls for some slams and followed it up with explosive pushups onto the medicine ball. Finally to finish off the circuit it was forty-five seconds of pounding the sledgehammer. You know it’s a good conditioning protocol when your training partner turns to you and tells you she hates you. My response, “Thank you!” Best of all I still made my Muay Thai class. Remember Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Jun 26 2010

Muay Thai Conditioning!

Category: Conditioning, Injury Prevention, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Strength Training, Striking/Stand-up, Uncategorized, muay Thai — Rob @ 8:01 AM

One thing I love to do is research.  Either, reading, listening or watching videos I love to do me some strength and conditioning research especially when it comes to the topic of MMA or any other combat sport.  If you don’t know already combat athletes are some of the best-conditioned athletes on the planet.  The amount of training that they do on and off the mat is incredible.  As strength and conditioning coaches we must work closely with these athletes and make sure they are training the right way to prevent injury or as with many that fight, over-training.

Designing a solid strength and conditioning program is imperative to having your fighter come out on top.  So in my travels of research I was looking at videos of some conditioning protocols that could be used with some of my fighters.  I came across a video from Alter Center Combat Conditioning.  The conditioning protocol features former Lumpini champion Neungsiam “the Rock” Samphusri, yeah say that again.  This protocol is designed for MMA and Muay Thai fighters.  Some of the exercises you have seen before others you may have not seen.  If you are looking to change up your conditioning protocol this will definitely give you a little boost to your training sessions.

So check out the video below and don’t forget sign up for your FREE Bodyweight Training Manual for MMA in the top right hand side.  In this manual you will get some great strength, power and conditioning with just the use of your bodyweight.  So make sure you get your copy.  Sorry bout the pop up ads on the video not my doing.

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Jun 23 2010

Jessica’s Journey and Conditioning!

Category: Agility, Conditioning, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Power Training, Quickness, Speed, Strength Training, muay Thai — Rob @ 4:45 PM

Over the past few weeks I have been hitting the local high school with Jessica for some good ole speed, agility and quickness work.  The wonderful synthetic field also is fun to play on but let me get back to the article.  At the end of each session I have been working on a little conditioning with Jess.  Now I don’t have to go crazy with her. Because of her intense training schedule her conditioning is the last thing I need to worry about, but I do like to add it in and go above and beyond what she will encounter in a MMA or jiu-jitsu fight.  Having a higher intensity in a conditioning session than in what a fighter would see in a fight will only improve the fighters chances of winning.

The conditioning circuit in the video below consists of the the Dumbbell Matrix and Battling Ropes and lasts for 3:37.  The Dumbell Matrix is an idea I got from  my many years of research.  At the beginning of my strength and conditioning journey  of training combat athletes I came across J.C. Santana’s work.  One circuit I came across was the Dumbbell Matrix.  The Matrix helps improve shoulder strength as well as give you the ability to keep your arms up for an entire fight.  Within the Matrix there is a lunge series in which you will hit multiple directions, foward, lateral and backward.  All Positions in which your body can end up in in a fight.  After the Matrix she moves on to the Battling Ropes.  The ropes are a great tool when conditioning fighters or any athlete for that matter.  Best of all the fighters love to use them and they can only curse at me when they are done with them.  In this conditioning protocol I have Jess do only some of the basic movements with the ropes, but after the Matrix she is pushing through it hard.  Jess is going after Cris Cyborg’s belt and I have no reason to believe she won’t get it.  So if you have some dumbbells and rope give this circuit a run for it’s money.  Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Jun 15 2010

Quick Feet for MMA!

Category: Agility, Boxing, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Uncategorized — Rob @ 8:47 PM

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.

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