Aug 19 2010

Sleds and MMA

Category: Conditioning, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Power Training, Speed, Strength Training, Uncategorized — Rob @ 10:02 PM

I know winter is only a couple of months away but I am still going to have a discussion about sleds.  Not the sleds you ride down a snow covered hill on in the middle of winter but the sled that will turn you into a well conditioned, powerful fighter.

Sleds can be used for different reason’s, sleds can increase strength, power and can be used for conditioning purposes.   Another great reason to use the sled is to help with the development of speed in sprinters.  The sled forces the athlete to maintain the posture needed in the acceleration phase of a sprint.  This phase in a sprint is almost similar to when an athlete in MMA, Jiu-Jitsu or wrestling takes a shot for a takedown.

The sled pull in the video below is to teach my fighter how to drive off the ground and use the force off the ground to develop speed.  I was not working on sprint mechanics I was trying to make the fighter stronger in a position that she will find herself in.

As you will see I loaded the sled up with a good amount of weight to force Jessica to really drive off the ground.  This not only developed strength in the range of motion needed it also worked on her conditioning.  This is the first step in using the sled to develop a faster shot for a takedown.  Step two will be to lower the load and have my fighters sprint with the sled and the last step is going to be having my fighters take actual shots with the sled with a light load.  This is one of my field studies to see if I can develop much faster shots with my athletes.
Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Aug 11 2010

Power and Agility for MMA

Category: Agility, Conditioning, MMA, Power Training, Quickness, Speed, Uncategorized — Rob @ 7:26 PM

Speed, agility and quickness are key essentials in any fighters program. These types of drills to improve speed and agility can turn the average fighter into a better athlete. So adding these drills into any program is a must.
Here is the thing and coaches out there should be careful especially with fighters. Fighters in my experience feel that every drill has to be conditioning. This is not the case especially when training speed, agility and quickness. You must make it clear to the athlete that these drills are designed to improve these different aspects of training. They are not meant as conditioning drills. Of course if you want to make them into conditioning protocols by all means reduce the rest time in between drills and go for it, no one is stopping you. Usually when I tell a fighter to perform the next set when they are ready they go to fast, so to combat this I now wait about two minutes before I tell them to perform the set.
Another thing that a coach or if you are training yourself that you want to be aware of is to perform these drills if possible before you strength and power work. So before you hit the weights perform your speed and agility drills. You want to make sure that you are a fresh as possible when performing the drills, this way you are fresh. You will move a lot faster than say if you lifted first and then performed the drills. These are just a few pointers to help fighters understand and learn how to train effectively.
In the drill below you will see one of my fighters Mike Savarese perform a drill using a hurdle. Mike jumps over the hurdle forward and backwards as quickly as possible, which helps with his quickness and agility and power. As an added bonus, Mike performs a sprawl after landing on the backend of the hops. This makes Mike have to react quickly as he lands off the hop and go right into a sprawl. Just a small way for the fighters out there to add a little combat sport component to this drill. In this video you will see normal hurdle hop followed by the MMA style hurdle hop.
Train Hard! Train Smart!

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Jul 28 2010

UFC Fighters Conditioning Routine

Category: Agility, Conditioning, MMA, Power Training, Speed, UFC, Uncategorized — Rob @ 11:07 AM

Saturday night Dana White is giving us all a free UFC event on Versus. The card is pretty stacked, and if you are a big fan of the UFC you have been itching for the last month for some octagon action. The main event of the card is Jon Jones taking on Vladimir Matyushenko in the light heavyweight division. This can be a big stepping-stone for Jon Jones young career as many see him as the future champion of the division. With all that raw talent and youth on his side I tend to believe this as well. Jones is a pure athlete and the future of the sport.
Also on the card Mark Munoz will be taking on veteran Yushin Okami. Last April Munoz had a great come from behind victory over Kendall Grove defeating him with some vicious ground and pound. Munoz like Jones is a rising star in the UFC. Munoz is still going through some of the growing pains as all fighters do but he is well on his way up the ladder and becoming a serious contender in the near future.
As a treat for the site I was able to find some of Munoz’s strength and conditioning training. In this video he is doing a ten-minute non-stop conditioning circuit. In the circuit Mark is wearing a weighted vest. In this circuit you will see all different types of training going on. Each exercise is done for thirty-seconds. The circuit includes: speed and agility training, you will see him testing his core with medicine ball tosses, he performs plyometrics in the circuit to develop explosive power sledgehammers swings and some fight specific movements that you will see throughout the protocol such as ground and pound. So sit back and enjoy the next ten minutes and wish you were doing the circuit.

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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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Jun 30 2010

Three Cone Drill the MMA Way!

Category: Agility, Conditioning, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Quickness, Speed, Uncategorized, muay Thai — Rob @ 3:19 PM

In the past few months I have been working on developing my fighters speed, agility and quickness. If you are a regular to the site then you have seen some of the drills that I have been performing with my fighters and hope that you have at least tried some of them if not have incorporated some of them into your strength and conditioning program.
Incorporating these agility drills into your program will make you a better athlete. Like I have said before and I will say it again in combat sports such as MMA the top dogs are now the better athletes. So what does this mean for you? Means you must become faster, more agile and quicker. Some of the drills I have already covered were the Quick Feet drill, and the 20-yard shuttle. I have added a little twist to each of the drills to make them a little more specific towards martial arts like wrestling, Jiu-Jitsu and MMA.
The next drill I want to cover is the Three Cone Drill. In many cases they use this drill to test different athletes quickness and agility. Many strength and conditioning coaches use it as a base test and then train other agility drills to improve the athletes time on the Three Cone Drill. The Three Cone Drill is one of the events at the NFL Combine so it is important to many athletes. Here is what an actual Three Cone Drill looks like, and then I will give you the MMA variation.

In the variation, besides the fact that I much slower than the guy in the video above, I add a few different movements. At first you will see me deliver two knees, right into a back pedal and into a sprawl. A note as you backpedal, as soon as you see the starting cone you need to quickly sprawl. Seeing the cone and sprawling quickly greatly improves reaction time. The better your reaction time the better fighter you will be.
I recommend doing the actual Three Cone drill for two sets then bang out three to four sets of the variation. Get enough rest in between sets. This is training your agility not your conditioning. If you are tired you will not improve and it defeats the purpose of the drill. Remember this is a variation to the Three Cone Drill, just adding a little MMA to it. Train Hard! Train Smart!

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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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Jun 08 2010

Agility Drills MMA Style!

Category: Agility, Boxing, Conditioning, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Power Training, Quickness, Speed, Strength Training, Uncategorized, Wrestling — Rob @ 8:12 PM

Before I start, agility is defined as the ability to change the direction of your body efficiently and effectively.   In order to perform agility drills effectively you need to be strong, powerful, have good balance and be able to control your body at all times.  Agility drills are very effective for training all sorts of athletes.  They increase the athlete’s performance and also help with the reduction in injury.  Today many athletes are prone to knee injuries and other lower body injuries, agility drills can teach an athlete how to control their bodies which in turn will help reduce the likelihood of these injuries.

Combat sports and athletes are no different from regular athletes and should have agility drills programmed into their strength and conditioning routines.  Fighters that compete in jiu-jitsu, MMA, boxing, and kickboxing are always changing direction.  Agility drills will help a fighter with their footwork as well as other aspects like takedown defense and takedowns.  Agility drills will make an athlete quick on their feet, as it will help any combat athlete as well.

The drill below is the 20 Yard Shuttle, it is used during NFL Combine and scouts use it to help them assess the players. The 20 Yard Shuttle is used as a test of lateral speed and coordination.  Like I stated above being able to change direction in a fight is essential.  So below is an example of the regular 20 Yard Shuttle and then a variation of it for combat sports.   In the variation I add sprawls to enhance reaction ability and help with the athletes ability to get up and continue to change direction in a fight.  In future article I will write about how to program agility drills into your strength and conditioning training.  Remember one thing when you do these agility drills or even speed drills, get a full recovery in, it’s not a conditioning session it’s an agility session.

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Jun 06 2010

To Program or not to Program…

Category: Agility, Boxing, Conditioning, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Mental Training, Power Training, Quickness, Speed, Strength Training, Striking/Stand-up, Uncategorized, Wrestling — Rob @ 7:51 PM

If you have been following my blog or know about my training philosophy, you will then know that I am al about having a solid program in place when you training. Some of the benefits of a program range from the motivational, knowing what you will be doing and hitting the gym hard, to just seeing the best results possible. I use my programs for my fighters to help increase their strength, power and conditioning in a progressive fashion. There is always a method behind the madness and it always works.
Even though I do not compete in MMA, muay Thai or Jiu-Jitsu fights I have always had a program that I have followed so I could get the best out of my performances in my martial arts training. Recently, however it has been tough to juggle the strength training, martial arts training on top of the strength and conditioning coaching and family life. At first this was driving me crazy not to be able to get to the gym and get some good strength and conditioning sessions in. Program, there was no program for a while as I tried to adjust the schedule so I could get everything in.
How did I solve this problem? Well first I put things into perspective. I had to think to myself what was the most important thing and of course family time came first without a doubt. I wanted to stay strong and powerful so the weight room was the next priority followed by the martial arts training. The only reason the martial arts training came last was because I am not competing or am not planning on competing I just love to train martial arts.
So what’s the program you might be saying? This is what I have done. I make sure to get two strength and conditioning sessions in. One session is in the gym, consisting of Olympic lifts, squats, deadlifts, plyometrics, other accessory lifts and conditioning sessions. The other strength and conditioning session comes in the form of a speed, agility and quickness session. This session takes place with my fighter Jessica. While coaching her I train along side her. This has two benefits, one it lets me get in that extra strength and conditioning session and two it pushes both her and I to compete with each other in the drills. I have written about the benefits of “team” training in earlier posts.
Now for the martial arts training, I try to get in one session of MMA training in every week as well as a jiu-jitsu class and a muay Thai class. If I am lucky I get in another no-gi and muay Thai session on the weekends. On one of the nights I pull a double session, a gi jiu-jitsu class followed by a muay Thai session. Now there are some weeks where I get all the training in and some weeks where I don’t it all depends on the schedule at home. Another factor that plays into attending sessions is being in touch with how my body feels. If I am fatigued and my body is not doing well I will take a recovery day. You need to figure out what fatigue is. Being a little sore does not count. This will help you learn about your body and how to react to your body.
I have seen some great results with this program. I feel refreshed in my training. My body feels better than it has in a long time. I have had more energy. That being said I highly recommend if you are a competitor in MMA, jiu-jitu, boxing, kickboxing, wrestling or any other combat sport I highly recommend you follow a strength and conditioning program for the best results in and out of the cage, ring or mat. This way of training is good for those that train in martial arts for fun and also like to hit the gym and be strong and powerful. So yes programming is very important and I will get back on a program for the weight room once more time is available but until then, Train Hard! Train Smart!

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May 17 2010

Usain Bolt v.s. George St. Pierre Part Two:

Category: Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Speed, Uncategorized, Wrestling — Rob @ 7:39 PM

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.

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