Archive for April, 2011
First Time – Part 5
The aftermath.
So you have won your fight – what now? You make your way back to the preperation area of the fights, do your best not to stop and talk with people in the crowd for too long as you need to get back and start cooling down and so on. Once you have got back stage it’s time to take the gloves off and have a quick re-cap of the fight. The re-cap is rather pointless as you are on such a high you will not pay attention to anything. Now is the time to thank your training partners, pad holders sparring partners and your trainer for all their hard work. If your win was impressive the promoter may come over and offer you another fight do not make a decision on a fight for at least a week. The reason for the delay is that after a win you feel invincible and will agree to to fight Fedor, GSP and Rampage all on the same night one after the other. Taking your time all so lets the win sink in, that week after the fight is all about relaxing and taking it easy you should not step foot in the gym for at least a week. After that week it is time to go back to the gym and talk to your trainer about what was good and what was not so good about your fight. Since everyone helped you with training it is now time to help everyone else and put time back in to the club.
Wins are easy, all the chemicals released in the body are designed to make you feel good so each time you go in to ‘battle’ you win to keep that good feeling – Nothing feels as good as wining a fight (well almost nothing).
The loss, what can I say losing sucks so don’t do it. However in reality eveyone has a loss. Once you have left the ring/cage and make your way back to the changing area, which is easier and no one wants to talk to you. This is when the loss starts to set in and all the emotion of what has happened has an effect, most people feel like they have let everyone down. The fighter feels this way as everyone has put in training time with them and feel that they didn’t follow the fight plan. As a fighter you have not let anyone down as most people will never get in there and give it a go, so do not worry about that (but at the time it is how you feel). Everyone deals with this part in there own way, I have seen some people laugh and forget about it right away then I have seen someone throw anything within reach and no one wanted to get within reach of him and it took his wife to try and get him to sit down, which took a while. After a loss the body releases chemicals which make you remember how bad you felt so you do not put your self in that situation again – fight or flight, your body has just told you to choose flight. Once you are over the initial shock and you have got your head together make sure you thank your training partners and trainer and most importantly go and congratulate your opponent and tell them how well they did (swallow your pride on this). The worst thing is to see a fighter who has lost make excuses, I was sick blah blah, no excuses take the loss and the pain and remember it. Remember the feeling so when you get back in the gym your incentive is to never have that feeling again.
In all it is just a fight, if the worst thing that happens in your life is that you loose a fight then you are doing really well. Keep it in perspective. If you get in there and give it 100% and get beaten by someone better – what is wrong with that? I know that everyone says this but you do learn more from a loss as you have an exact lesson on what you have done wrong – fix it then go kick their arse in the re-match.
When winning, keep in mind all the people that helped you and put time back in to them. Don’t let it go to your head and keep training harder because as you keep winning the oponents get better and the more your name is known the more someone wants to take your head off – stay focused.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
First Time – Part 4
Fight Day!!
All the hard training is behind you now it is time for the fun part. Everyone has a different routine for fight day so I will go through what I think works for fight day. We will start the prep the day before the fight, do what you can to make sure you weigh in the day before the fight so you can eat what you want on fight day. Weighing in the day before is also a good chance to see your opponent, your trainer should watch your opponent weigh in as well. The night before the fight is interesting as you know you need a good sleep but you have a million thoughts running through your head, do what you need to relax and make sure you have a good sleep.
You wake up and it’s fight day, going on the assumption that your fight is at night here is the plan for the day. Have a good breakfast eat a lot, from breakfast until 2 -3 hours before your fight. That means good food that has good energy in it, eg chicken pasta, steak, vegetables good healty food that the body can process quickly. Along with the food you need to drink like you wouldn’t believe all day just sip on a water bottle all day, up to 1 hour before fight time. You can get a rough estimate of the fight time from the fight card, doesn’t need to be perfect. That is you can assume 3 – 4 fights a hour at the event then work back from there. The reason for all the food is to give your body lots of energy as the chances are you have had to cut weight which means your boddy is crying out for energy. Leading up to the fight the nerves burn a lot of energy as well, I have seen so many fighters run out of energy before they even get in the ring they are fit and strong but they just have not fueled their body sufficiently for the event. While all the eating is going on make sure you do what you need to do to realx, wheather it be movies, DVD talking s**t with the boys whatever it is just make it happen.
You have had your food and water, now it is time to go to the venue. Get your hands strapped nice and early, then three fights beofre yours it’s time to get changed and warm up. The key with the warm up is to practice the fight plan but the big thing is – to get passed the adrenalin dump. This happens during the warm up and your body is preparing for batle, as you throw a few punches on the pads you will feel puffed and have no energy, this happens after just after a few light punches as well. If you are not prepared for the ‘dump’ it can mess with your head but it is all part of the process of getting your body ready. Another part that people have troble with is the nerves, this is a mindset. Once you know that nerves are there to help you it is not a problem, the nerves help the adrenalin flow through the body and with out adrenalin you would feel all the pain in the fight – as as you can see the nerves are a big help. Learn to use it, the symptons for ‘nervous’ and ‘excited’ are the same so why not call it excited about fighting rather than nervous, just a mental shift can help big time.
Your hands a strapped, you are warmed up and the gloves are on. It’s fight time and your name is called. As you make your way to the ring / cage your mind is blank you are just taking in the atmosphere. Before you know it your are at the stare down with your opponent and it’s go time. This is where something weird happens, after all the training, all the sparring you find that you are not sure what to do. This means that you are not sure if you meant to start of slow and build up or just go for the kill right away, the good news is this only happens in your first fight and only lasts as long as it takes for opponenet to attack you and then all the training takes over and it’s game on.
The win or loss is decided over many things, the next blog will be on dealing with the win or loss.
With fight prep make sure you ask some people that have been there and done that what works for them, everyone has a different system and take a couple of fights to get your system in place – until you have your plan of attack copy someone elses.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Fedor
There are alot of people that have jumped on to the “Fedor is done” wagon. Where were these people 12 months ago, 6 months ago hell even 3 months ago?
I am a big Fedor fan I rate him as the best MMA fighter over the last 10 years, see future posts for my pound for pound best. But if you look at his last few fight he has been on the decline.
Mark Hunt – had Fedor on his back and almost got him with a arm lock, not bad for a guy that is not known for his ground game.
Matt Lindland – Fedor was on the back foot then held the ropes to avoid a takedown and got on top.
Hong Man-Choi – freak show enough said.
Tim Sylvia – 36 second destruction, which was impressive as hell.
Andrei Arlovski – Face it Fedor was getting a beating then landed a over hand right when Arlovski got a little excited.
Brett Rogers – Rogers was holding his own in the first round then Fedor landed that right and hand and it was good night.
Werdum – Fedor did the unthinkable by tapping.
Big Foot – Ass whooped
They are Fedors fights going to back to 2006, Fedor has an amasing ability to find a way to win. In my opinion he relied on this a ability a little too much after the Pride days. He is a great fighter and has got wins over some of the best on the planet, it just seems now that age has caught up with him along with the fact that MMA is evolving and these young guys are on another level.
Fedor was great, is great and will always be great. In terms of his legacy I hope Fedor knows when to retire and it would be a shame to see a legend take a beating from a nobody- until then lets see him get a few wins before that happens.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
First Time – Part 3
The week before the fight.
You have been training your butt off for weeks then before you know it your fight is next weekend, this is when it all starts to become very real.
In dealing with the last week of training before a fight there are some key things that you need to do as well as avoiding some big mistakes. So what to do? Assuming that your fight is on the Saturday night here is a blueprint for the training week. For the start of the week, Mon – Wed, you should turn up to training as per usual once you are there however things are modified a little. At training instead of having a big long session on the pads, rolling or wrestling you should keep the intensity up but keep the duration to just slightly over the duration of the fight. That is, if your fight is 3 x 3min rounds then you should do no more than 4 x 3min rounds. You should not be sparring (striking, wrestling) as you don’t need to kick anyone’s elbow or land badly on your shoulder in that last week. With the training there is no need to wrap yourself up in cotton wool but be smart with what you do. Once you have done the hard physical training it’s for the most important part -brain training.
Brain Training is getting your head in the right space for the fight, here is when you work the specifics of your fight plan with your trainer / training partners. You get your training partner to move around exactly as you have trained for and you practice the moves in a semi-live situation, which you should’ve done 1000 time already, to get it set in your head. Once you have done this it’s then time to walk through the perfect fight. This is when you tell you training partner exactly how you see the fight going in your head where everything you do works you see, the punches landing, slaming them, stuffing their take downs, submitting them and so on then you go through it with your training partner – practice perfection.
No you have some time to yourself, this is when you do what you need to do, stretch, hit the bag what ever it takes to get in the zone and focus on the positive. In general training there should be no negativety, this goes tenfold for fight prep. Every thing you say is positive as your thoughts can not go away from anything it can only go towards something. That is when some one says “don’t look down”what do you do? So if you say weak, loose pain, hurt that is where your brain will go. Therefore you are too strong, too fast too powerful for your opponent NOT he can’t hurt you, his takedowns are average and he has no ground skills (him and his being your opponent) as those negative comments affect you not your opponent. You continue this routine up to Wednesday night, where you have a blow out. The blow out is hard high intensity session no longer than the durration of the fight, then more brain training.
So that is Mon – Wed, what happens after that? Thursday is a very difficult day as this is the first day in weeks when you DO NOT train (rest days not included) this is very hard mentally as you have a fight right around the corner and sitting on your butt feels wrong. The rest is very important as your body needs to recover from all the training and having almost three full days is perfect. Some fighters can not handle this down time so they do shadow work for a few minutes on the ‘rest days’ just to do something. In this down time do what ever you need to do to relax, go to movies, playstation, reading what ever you like to do just get you head away from the fight for a few hours a day.
One final rule for the last week – For the boys there is some research out there that suggests that abstaining from sex, and self relief, helps in your performance in power bassed sports- so keep it in your pants boys. The one up side is that for the girls the opposite is meant to true, apparently sex helps as it increases their testosterone so game on for them.
Overall in the last week, keep the training intensity high but pull back on the duratuion, stay positive and practice the fight plan and go over the perfect fight in your head, see your self winning over and over – then go make it happen.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
First Time – Part 2
So your trainer has given you the green light to fight – What Now?
In preparing for fight there are some very simple things that you can do 1: Turn up to training ready to train 2: Do your own fitness training.
It may seem obvious to turn up to training but as a trainer you would be surprised at the excuses you get from people who miss training sessions. More than likely your opponent has trained on the night you had off. When you are at training you need to have a chat to your trainer and ask about the main points you need to work on as it is MMA that may be multiple coaches. Each session make sure you have a goal on what you want to improve / work on. Talk to the guys that have been there and done it, ask the fighters what they do to prepare for fights. Be aware that you will have bad night in this process as there is more pressure on your training you will start to notice everytime you get hit, everytime you get taken down and everytime you get tapped a lot more than ever. You must use these thoughts to help you, use it as things you need to work on do not think of them as things that are wrong in your game. “It is better to find the problem in training than in the fight”.
With your fitness training, you need to look after it yourself. There is no point going to training and working on your fitness rather than technique and fight plans and so on. There is obviously no problem with using fight training as fitness such as hard pad work, live drills, sparring or the dreaded shark tank. With fitness training do your best to replicate what will happen to your body during the fight so don’t go for a 10km run as that has nothing to do with fighting. Keep your training to 30mins hard fitness, heart rate stays high and the movements varried (you can use heavy weights for fitness). You also need to think about your fight training as you do not want to turn up to training sore and no be able to train to your best because of the session you did durring the day – a trainer does not want to hear “can we do something else my arms are sore from the gym”. For fighting you do not want to run more than once a week, your run should be considered an “active recovery”session, the reason running is not the best idea as the heart rate stays stable, yes it is high, but it stays stable. For fight training you need to spike the heart rate and get differnt muscles invloved. Take MMA you are either moving on your feet or trying to pick a person up or laying on the ground. In all those movements there are plenty of muscles involved not to mention the change in levels, all this needs to be included in your training programme.
Most of all be smart with your training, any fool can train hard but you need to do things right and make the most out of each session. If you are unsure of the fitness stuff then get in touch with a person that knows and get training.
Turn up and train hard – If you are not keen why should your trainer and training partners put effort in?
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
First Time
When are you ready to fight?
First thing to remember is that this has to be your decision not your trainers, not your friends and not based on how tough you think you will be after the fight.
At Lockdown the rule is, if you want to fight then test yourself against someone that has been there and done that. Which means before sparring tell one of the fighters that you want to test yourself against them, so the fighter knows to give you thier A Game. If you can handle the fighter, doesn’t mean you have to beat them all you have to do is be able to hang with them, then you can look at when the next fights are and start your preperation.
Where most people fall down is with the pressure, when you are sparring against a good fighter they give you no time to relax and think. When people experience this for the first time I have only ever seen two responses, one is the person goes in to their shell and gets very defensive, the other response is to fight back and get a little intense. From what I have seen the people that go in their shell do not become fighters as their mindset is not set on the right channel. Fighters must believe that they can beat anyone, whoever they step in to the cage or ring with they have to have 100% belief that they are going to whoop ass. A fighter must also believe that no matter how the fight is going that they can still win, they all they need is half a chance to get the ko or the sub.
The physical side of fighting is the easy part, the mental side is the hard part and its not just your head that you have to worry about. Fighting must become the #1 priority if you life during the weeks leading up to the fight, which takes it’s toll on the people around you. These weeks is what makes or breaks the fight. There are a number of fighters that get pressure from partners to not fight as it is a waste of time and so on. This is very difficult to deal with so you need to make sure that people are behind you as negative additudes do not help at all, get positive people around you and stay away from
In short, make sure the decision is yours tell you trainer that you are planning on fighting then see how you go against the fighters in your club. Keep an eye out over the next few weeks on how to train for fight and dealing with the aftermath of the night.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor