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.
Jun 21 2011
Matt Mitrione MMA Strength Training
Apr 24 2011
What’s Your Hurdle?
By Cat Rivera
I am livid. I’m standing in front of 33inches of hurdle and I am paralyzed and mentally unable to fling myself over it. I have carried 55lb sandbags, carried a 9 foot slosh pipe 50 yards, crawled like a bear 100 yards, done countless agility and pylometric activities, pulled a weighted sled and pushed a weighted prowler and these 33 inches are mocking me. “I cannot do this.” I utter. With those words my mind has decided defeat for my body.
“O.K., we are done with this,” Rob calmly says as he walks over to the stadium stairs and starts vertically leaping them three at a time. “Jump these,” he says. I do. I jump those stairs despite my pouting and inner grumblings about my own self defeat. The hurdles are not mentioned throughout the rest of the training session. He knows I am angry and that my anger alone is bad but paired with stubbornness and pride has me in a “bad head”.
As I leave to go home Combat Trainer simply says, “Don’t ever say you cannot do something because I would never tell you that you can’t do anything.” I am toast! Right then and there I fire myself as my internal coach and let him in as my new and improved internal coach. I learned this day that sometimes it is necessary to deafen the things you have been saying to yourself because they just don’t work for you anymore. Fear and the cannots have no use here anymore. I admit that having unwavering confidence and trust in another person’s view of your capabilities makes hiring a new internal trainer easier.
When I finally crawl into bed, hours after training had ended and what felt like a lifetime of doing other things though out the day, there was that damn hurdle again. My eyes closed I lay there with a head full of hurdles and saw myself jumping them, my newly hired internal coach with quiet confidence pushing me forward. I went to bed knowing that “Hurdle, your ass is mine!”.
I am urging you to go and hire an internal coach. Find someone who sees you in a way you always wanted to be seen, as a warrior, a competitor, an athlete, a doer, a light, a person who matters, whatever it is you need to stomp out fear and get you on your way to greatness. Find that person and make their words your new internal dialogue. It will help you jump hurdles and not just the 33 inch kind. I think that if you look hard enough, your life has a few good internal coaches, they may not be ourselves, but in time they should be.
My internal coach will be with me on the Metro Dash and that will only be its first of many things it will drive me over, under and through.
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Mar 19 2011
Shogun MMA Training
Maurico Shogun Rua takes on Jon Jones at UFC 128. In previous articles on the sight I showed some of the training that Jon Jones performs in preparation for a fight. In this video segment we are going to take a look at the how Shogun prepared for his fight against Chuck Liddell.
The first part of the video is what I am most concerned with as it shows some of his strength and conditioning routine to prepare for a fight.
In the first minute and forty five seconds we see Shogun performing lots of plyometrics. Plyometrics, also known as shock training to some helps an athlete develop power. Pretty much the athlete learns how to move their body fast through a series of exercises. This is key especially in combat sports like MMA. Being able to use your body and develop power with it is essential for striking, takedown and defense. In the video Shogun uses some weighted plyometrics as well as those performed with his own body.
For someone that is just starting out, learning how to perform plyometrics is important. Learning how to absorb the shock is a key to not injuring yourself. So before you just go ahead an follow what Shogun is doing, learn some of the basic plyometrics, like the vertical jump or broad jump. Learn how to absorb the shock and then move on to adding more difficult movements.
Train Hard! Train Smart!
Rob DeCillis (CSCS)
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Mar 18 2011
Urijah Faber MMA Training
UFC 128 is Saturday night and the Urijah Faber will be making his UFC debut going up against Eddie Wineland. In the video below you will get to see the beginning of a strength and conditioning session with Faber. You will get to see pieces of a dynamic warmup as well some of the plyometrics his coach had him perform.
On the site I have not really wrote much about the way I warm my fighters up. After watching this video you will have a basic idea of the right way to warmup before a training session. The days of doing a bunch of static stretches and then believing your are not only warmup but are ready to prevent injury are over. Warming up dynamically has many benefits. First it get the core body temperature up as well as raising the heart rate. It also makes you stronger in different positions and works on your balance as well.
If you are still warming up the same way to train as you did when your parents were in elementary school then you need to stop now and start warming up the correct way. Another point I would like to make is that warming up does not have to take half the training session. All to often coaches warmup their athletes for way to long. Learn some of the basics of a dynamic warmup and start to utilize it in your training. So check out this video and enjoy the fights on Saturday. Next week I will post up a dynamic warmup I use with my fighters.
Train Hard! Train Smart!
Rob DeCillis (CSCS)
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Jan 01 2011
Frankie Edgar Training Hard
The lightweight champion is back at UFC 125 on New Years Day, as Frankie Edgar looks to defend his title against the only man to beat him Gray Maynard. Yesterday we took a look at Maynard putting the Battle Ropes to the test. Like I said both of these fighters are always in great shape come fight time.
Today we will take a look at Edgar training for this fight. In this video you will see all the different types of training Edgar does in preparation for a fight. There are agility ladders to improve his footwork. As we saw in his last two fights against BJ Penn we saw that edgar had great footwork. Using the agility ladder in training has helped him improve in that aspect of his fight game. You will also see him using hurdles to develope lower body power. Having an explosive lower body helps in all aspects of the fight game from punching and kicking to takedowns. We also see him using a stabilty ball to help improve dynamic flexibilty and core strength. The sledge hammer also makes an appereance, just another tool that produces power as well as core strength. Kettlebells which many combat athletes have now incorporated into their strength and conditioning also make their way into his training. Turkish Getups with a kettlebell is a great movement to add strength to the entire body. Give them a try and let me know what you think.
Now remeber when looking at this video be aware that there is a plan or program for what he is doing. This could be one session where each of the exercises you see stand alone and is not a conditioning protocol. Many fighters out there see these things and just go out and try and perform them without knowing where it fits in their training. By looking at the date on the video this is more than likely a General Preparation Session, which is used to get the athlete ready for the work that is to come ahead in the training for the months ahead.
Happy New Year! If you are looking to take it to the next level I do offer online training at a discount for the New Year. Make the investment in your career and make 2011 your year.
Train Hard Train Smart!
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Dec 22 2010
Basics of Conditioning for Boxing
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.
Oct 12 2010
Explosive Power Using Mini-Hurdles
In sports there are two very important factors when trying to achieve victory. These two factors go for pretty much any sport on the planet. Those two factors that separate the champions from the rest are being to exhibit power and reaction time.
In combat sports such as Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling, MMA and boxing being able to move a mass with speed and being able to react are keys to victory.
So before the weather gets nasty here in New York I want to get as much training done as well as video for the site. In this video I will be using the mini-hurdles. The drill is designed to build on lower body power or explosiveness as well as reactive abilities. The pattern of how you attempt your hops over each hurdle is up to you as the coach or the athlete. Remember to hop back to the center of the hurdle after hopping over each hurdle.
The one thing I want to focus on more than the pattern of the hop is reacting with every hop. The drill is designed to move quickly and generate power. Once you begin to hop the object is to have the least amount of ground contact as possible. Once your feet hit the ground you are jumping in the next direction you have chosen. Remember you do not want to land flat footed; also use your arms to help yourself jump. This will help you generate more speed going in and out of your jump.
So why is this important to combat sports such as MMA? These are the types of drills that will turn a fighter into an athlete. As the sport evolves so must the fighters in the sport. Being a combat athlete is the way the sport is heading. Using agility drills such as these will only enhance your athletic and fighting abilities. These types of drills especially for lower body power and reaction time will help with a fighters takedowns, takedown defense, footwork and punching power.
Train Hard! Train Smart!
Sep 07 2010
Hurdles and MMA
We all know that combat athletes need to be explosive. Developing a MMA or Jiu-Jitsu fighters lower body explosiveness is essential in developing an excellent fighter. Lower body explosiveness transfers over to punching, kicking, takedowns, sprawling and using your hips to escape from compromising positions. You get the point a fighter needs to be explosive and it explosiveness starts from the ground up.
Hurdle hops are a great way to develop this type of explosiveness. Before you run off to the local track and start doing these type of hurdle hops you must first develop some strength. Many athletes and especially martial artist sometimes ignore this fact and just jump into these plyometric type exercises without gaining strength. This usually leads to not doing the plyometric effectively and causing injury. A solid strength program with plyometrics incorporated into the program can lead to vast improvement in power production.
To start an athlete can use shorter hurdles to jump and progress to taller hurdles as they become more powerful. The objective during the hurdle hop is to reduce the ground contact time after each hop. Essentially a combat athlete wants to limit the amount of time that they are actually on the ground. As soon as your feet hit the ground you are jumping right over the next hurdle. Here are a few tips when performing the hurdle hop, one always stay on your toes, two use your arms to help you jump, just like a broad jump of vertical jump and three avoid staying on the ground to long in between jumps.
Remember this is a little more of an advanced plyometric make sure you progress as an athlete to this point to avoid injury. Train Hard! Train Smart!
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