elitefts™ Sunday edition
Observations on MMA Training
I’ve mentioned here before, ad nauseum pretty much, that I’m a big advocate of the various ways The Thinker and Joel Jamieson train athletes. And as a result of that, and through knowing (and training with) some decent MMA guys myself, I’ve formed some ideas with regard to the physical preparation involved with the sport.
First off, I’m a huge fan of the UFC. I know some fighters personally, I watch all the PPV’s, and I follow the sport online to find out who’s fighting who and what’s coming up next. Part of this entails watching the UFC’s “Countdown” shows – which I find fascinating because they cover all the athletes’ back stories, in addition to showing how they train.
The elitefts™ guy in me has my head in my hands when I watch some of the training, though. I could be wrong, but after talking extensively about this to Joel and James (who now train multiple decent MMA fighters), I have the impression that most MMA guys, even at the highest levels, train with “strength and conditioning” coaches out of geographical convenience, i.e., since their striking coach and BJJ coaches are in one location, that comes first, and they’ll do their physical preparation with whoever is either tied in with those guys or in the same town. This is fine if the guy you’re “stuck” with knows what he’s doing. It’s not-so-fine if he doesn’t.
Speed Camp
What I’m seeing on TV (and again, I could be wrong but I suspect I’m not) is the typical “speed camp” mentality that’s become so common in football. You get a gym in a warehouse, you buy every tool under the sun, and you throw together some mish-mosh of shit with neither rhyme nor reason to it – then justify your random programming by telling everyone that MMA is an unpredictable sport and fighters have to be ready for anything. So what we see are workouts where, all in one shot, and with no organization or rationale for it all, guys doing power cleans, pushing Prowlers®, doing battling ropes, chucking sandbags around, and finishing it all up the a shuffle through the agility ladder.
It would seem to me that this “randomness” aspect of the training of MMA guys is particularly misguided. To me, it’s like any other sport. It’s more complicated when it comes to certain techniques and the psychological end of things (i.e. adrenaline dumps, etc), but there are certain repetitive positions fighters will be in throughout the course of a fight, and the energy system requirements are fairly apparent even without the aid of a time-motion study. The idea, then, would be to get guys stronger and more explosive out of these certain positions (that applies to everything, from throwing a punch, to sweeps, to throws, etc.), and to give them the ability to do so repetitively throughout the course of a fight.
Target Exercises
Where you DO improve these biomotor abilities is through a methodical study of the sport, followed by targeted and specific exercises and drills designed to enhance sport-specific skill. Where you DON’T improve them is by saying shit like, “So and so won his fight because he did hang cleans until he puked, so he was capable of throwing around a fighter that weighed as much as he can hang clean.” It’s like stating that football players need to do farmer’s walks because it “builds toughness.” Okay, great. So do Oklahoma drills. So what? What’s more specific to the sport?
I don’t know. I’ve just seen this time and time again when watching footage of how these guys train, and I feel sorry for a lot of them. And if I hear the words “muscle confusion” one more f-ing time, I think my head might explode.
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The Angry Coach is the strength coach, and also a positional coach, for a successful high school football program. Since 2001, an impressive number of his players have gone on to play college football, including several at the Division I and I-AA levels and two who have played professionally in the NFL. The Angry Coach has also worked with athletes at the college and professional levels in a variety of disciplines, including football, track and field, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, rowing and mixed martial arts (MMA). For professional reasons, the Angry Coach will not be using his real identity.
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So how would you train them? Squat, Deadlift and bench followed by sprints?
Basic lifts, sprints, and then actually training striking/wrestling/grappling.
Rashad Evans used a parachute for sprinting and that’s pretty cool though.
My sentiments excactly. Nothing beats a good structured training program, random training creates random results.
Good article, thanks.
Dave
I would use a 5/3/1 method with more of a focus on Olympic lifts and front squats on three days a week. Then the other three days, I would use a CrossFit style conditioning program to create a fight like atmosphere and metabolic reaction……I would Ned to put the fighter through a evaluation first to bring it together.
Great article. I train many grapplers and would make the mistake of trying to improve conditioning with circuits. Now I just focus on fixing structural imbalances and getting my athletes as strong as possible within their weight class.
With regards to specific excersizes to use for MMA fighters: good mornings, GHR, neck harness attached to bands, worked standing upright in at least 4 directions as well as rotational, squat/bench/dead lockouts…two times a week,preferably the day after sparring…last weight workout 12 days before fight.
It’s always interesting to see what people are doing at my MMA gym. There seems to be a particular obsession with doing steady-state cardio on a treadmill. Never really understood that one. I always try to suggest to some of the people i know that doing rounds may be a better way to do conditioning with the added aspect of also getting more skill work, but there seems to be an insistence on jogging. The most interesting thing I’ve seen is one of our fighters grabbing a dummy and repeatedly smashing it into the ground. Needless to say, this isn’t one of our brightest fighters.
I agree 100%, BUT how do I convince my coach that his program SUCKS!?!?!?
I think most mma/wrestling/boxing/etc coaches think that they are strength coaches too. I recently became certified through the NSCA-CPT (Ive been training for the last 5+ years and coaching for the last three.) and offered to run a basic strength program through my coaches gym , but he totally shot me down and claimed he “knows” how to get people stronger. He has an excellent space for a badass weight room. I even offered to supply the gym with my own equipment from a lifting club, which i run out of my garage. He is not certified, nor does he have any experience/understanding of programing or training economy, but is convinced that he knows more than me about strength training, because he can kick my ass. He is naturally big, muscular, but is a totally ignorant to strength training. I out total him by a few hundred pounds despite him being almost thirty pounds larger than me.
This guy cant even squat body weight ass to grass.
@Howard Battle
You do realize the most important aspect of any fighter or wrester is technical training. This will take up the most amount of time and will also place a fair amount of both physical and neuroligical stress on the fighter. How do you plan on training a fighter 6 days per week? A more logical approach would be as you said to analyze the fighter and determine if any “conditioning” work is needed outside of his technical training. Then consolidate high intensity weight training and conditioning to like days to allow for the neuromuscular system to recover. I think that your plan would be fine for a normal person but honestly dude do you think that you could effieciently recover from 6 days of crossfit and weights along with techincal training. Probably not. And the question is always how to fit weights and “conditioning” into technical training not how to fit technical training into weights and “conditioning”
Completely agree. Unfortunately many people in MMA take a “if you can survive training camp, you can survive anything that happens in the ring” approach. This is part of the reason we are seeing so many training injuries popping up (Look at how many UFC main events were lost last year due to training injuries). The biggest problem seems to be martial arts coaches watching a couple videos on you tube and just throwing it into a training program.
The primary goal of a strength coach should be to increase relative strength and improve general athleticism. Most conditioning should come from sparring and drilling in the actual sport, at least when you are getting close to fight time.
Sean is the only one in this thread who understands how to train a fighter. It is clear to me that many have never trained anyone, let alone a fighter. I’ll simply add that in addition to what Sean said, your main goal as a strength coach working with fighters is to keep them healthy. Some of the ideas put forth here are downright stupid and dangerous, and can potentially end a fighter’s career.
I don’t fight professionally, I’m more of a traditional martial artist who trains more for self defense than to be able to dance around for 5 minute rounds. In a street fight, its different, the fight should never last longer than a minute or so anyway. It’s much easier to finish a fight when you’re targeting the groin, eyes and throat first.
As for training, I like to follow a 3 day 5/3/1 program, with a big focus on bodyweight assistance exercises. We do lots of pushups, low horse stances, kicking, etc…so being good at that is important. I see it like this-strength is strength. If I can deadlift 2.5x my bodyweight, squat double bodyweight, and do at least 1.5 x body weight bench, and press my body weight overhead, then I’m pretty strong for a martial artist. Then for assistance, I like to balance the pressing with dumbell rows and pullups, I do lots of body weight dips, variations on push ups, and lots of core work. Having a strong core is VITAL. I also see a lot of value in single limb exercises, like 1 arm push ups and pistols. Throwing lots of punches requires endurance, and being able to hold your stances strong requires legs with good endurance. Then, I like to finish the workout with either sprints, prowler pushes, sled drags, something like that.
Do that 3 days per week, and I’m good to go. Because most of my assistance is body weight, it’s easier to recover which means I can devote more time to the art of self defense.
When you’re in the gym, just get stronger. Use your discipline to develop conditioning.
The best way to train them is by focusing on the hips, shoulders, and back. Those are the body groups least effected by weight cutting and they’re most important for wrestling and BJJ.
Great article Mr. Angry Coach! And awesome picture of that dude in the middle of the page lol. Guys, the main thing is, there is no “best way” to train a fighter. This is one sport that doesn’t need much standardization. Every fighter is different and has different strengths and weaknesses than the guy next to him in the training room. They should be strong, explosive, quick, athletic, conditioned, tough, etc. All of these things are or should be developed in training. Technical training, or conditioning therein, should take up by far the majority of the training. Want to do a cross fit workout? Try doing takedown drills for the same amount of time instead! Great workout, and you’re building a great takedown.
That being said, I do strength train as well. Twice a week for about 30 minutes, if that. With that, I can build strength and have plenty of energy and recovery time for my combat training. Even with my S&C coach, we spend the majority of our time doing sport specific conditioning drills. Combining the elements of a fight, take downs, boxing, kickboxing, clinching, whatever combined with strength, speed, agility and explosive type movements. Building not only strength and conditioning but also better technique, hitting 2 birds with one stone. That way I am specifically training to apply my acquired athletic assets with my fighting techniques.
Everybody has “their way”, but we should all always be open to anything and finding a “better” way. Too many people do waste their time. Way too much time is spent on nonsense. A serious fighter needs to be weary of that and place their greatest energy expendatures where they will have the best effect.
Muscle confusion, I like that lol. Thanks for the article!
I really think the pre fight TV shows only show the stuff that the general public thinks is “sexy”. With that said most MMA gyms put zero effort into a propper strength program and put way too much effort into long steady state cario sessions. Usually you see a couple of dumbbells, a bench, and a TRX in the corner somewhere. I’d almost always rather see some sort of metabolic circuit for conditioning over running miles upon miles as I think the carryover is a bit better. Technique training should be first and foremost but dont overlook the strength aspect. All other things even the stonger guy wins.
i have trained wrestlers and did some boxing my self. when working with wrestler i like using zach even esh’s philosophy. It been very beneficial.
Two quotes from Jim Wendler come to mind:
“That’s right, I don’t care how big you are, if you aren’t strong you’re a sham. Having big muscles and no strength is the training equivalent of wearing a strap-on. All show and no go. End of story.
Being sport specific in the weight room is a fucking gimmick. Even the people that stroke that flaccid idea know it. Please don’t fall for that ridiculous notion.”
He also wrote an article on this very subject which is viewable on his website.
Angry Coach,
Being in the military, I preach the following acronym to people: T.F.T.E.
That translates as “TRAIN FOR THE EVENT”. Since you, the Thinker and some of the other intelligent folks here are looking at these items and already having thoughts of inadequacy regarding training for people, it would behoove them to look at the specific event (in this case MMA) and then start looking at what type of training will either directly have an effect on performance or provides a positive transfer. Anything else is, honestly, a waste of time.
My daughter is training for her 800m event (2 laps around the track). Her coach has her go run for 30 minutes for “cardio” training. I throw down my RED BullShit Flag (I have 3 of them, 2 Red ones and 1 yellow one) on this because 30 minutes of “cardio” training will really only prep you for 30 minutes of cardio. Intervals or, oh say, actually running the event maybe would help her improve.
Now, I’m not claiming to be a genius at this, since I may be dumb but I sure AIN’T stupid, and by no means am I a professional coach. However, this has proven itself time and again and really is even better done when you have a coach that either intuitively or experientially understands this concept and can focus training for an athlete with laserlike intensity on what they need to be doing in order to “Train For The Event”.
V/R,
Tom the AF Bomb
I can’t add much to this debate, as I don’t desire to fight in mma. I am 45 years old and have been powerlifting for 10 years now. I obviously have aches and pains. I started training at an mma gym for cardio as my blood pressure has spiked over the years. The gym offers nothing in the form of weights, just shit loads of pushups. However, I highly recommend this type of training as it has freed me of joint pain in the shoulders and hips. It is also a great way to get in much hated ab/core work. And hey, why not learn to fight a little?! I still get in my 5-3-1, just gotta find the right balance w/ possibly less assistance work to avoid overtraining.
Hi Coach,
I follow your posts and always agree with everything you say – I am a girl….a girl with over 17 yrs experience working with athletes. I also play women’s touch football, so I’m not just a gym rat. I teach at UBC and a local college here in Vancouver and I have shared your info with my students. Why? Because, I am trying to teach them to question the crap they see. When my students ask me for referrals to see a S&C Coach….I find it tough to refer out as I don’t trust what the majority do (follow along like idiots to the latest youtube video-workout) WTF is a workout anyways? I train and so do my clients. Progressively. Systematically. With the single most important biomotor ability in mind: STRENGTH (And there are over 7 forms of strength). So, why am I writing? To commend you on your honesty and to say to you that I support your cause to also let you know that I am GENUINELY frustrated on a daily basis by the same BS. Sigh…well at least the athletes who are not total meatheads get it and train with me. The rest see the goof own the street and he talks smack about me behind my back because he doesn’t have the testicles to come over and see what the hell I can do. Cheers mate.
Great point, but I wish this was a longer article. Here is a great site where Alvir talks about strength training for fighting sports. He mentions Elite FTS in his seminars, too. I thought you might be interested. The pieces you write about mma are always the best. Thanks a ton!
http://shootafairone.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/fit-but-not-to-fight-–-commentary-on-the-state-of-training/