Archive for March, 2012
But, If, Only Because
Fighters by nature are very competitive and are driven to win. This is not left to the night of the fight but they feel that they need to win every training match in Wrestling, every roll in BJJ and every round in Striking. Without the desire to win the fighter is just a training partner and will not have the drive to get in the ring and compete.
However there is a down side to this competitive spirit – when things don?t go to plan at training and you ask them about it they will include an excuse on why things didn?t go their way. One of the most common I have heard is ?I was working some different stuff, if I was using my A-Game then….?. Excuses are just the way the fighters deal with failure, because in their heads they just can?t be beaten so there has to be some reason for it. If you need more evidence on this just listen to post fight interviews and listen to what the loser says, it is very rare that they say they are beaten by a better fighter as there is usually the injury, the illness or the break up that effected the preparation. All the top fighters that I have trained with have this in common – they have no concept that someone is better, they always justify a loss with an excuse (reason) even if they got a beating it is due to some sort of miscalculation.
It is the nature of the fight game that you will come up against people better, that is why there are very few undefeated fighters. In MMA especially you will come up against better people as we have to train each sport individually the specialists will always have the upper hand. This is one of the best aspects of MMA. When your #1 fighter needs to beat everyone every time you are going to hear a lot of excuses, some of them will make you laugh and some will make you mad, but they will keep on coming.
The real problem with this mentality is fight time – if no one can beat them then how can they get up for a fight? The best fights are when you are against someone who is meant to whoop you ass, you are on high alert and you know that if you do something wrong that it could be the end of the fight. If you don?t think anyone is above you how can you get in that mind set?
Have a think with your training how people have justified their loss to you, you are either too big, too strong, too fast, too flexible, too experienced, too fit, too technical – the list goes on.
Make sure when you are on the losing end that you take it, learn from it and get better from it rather than making excuses.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Don't Rush, Balance, Excitment
This is one of those things where you have heard it a hundred times but when someone says it in a way the really makes you pay attention and think more about it, you finally understand.
This moment of clarity came when I was watching a very experienced kickboxer take a studentfor a pad session and over a twenty minute period he repeated three things.
1) Don?t Rush
2) Keep your balance
3) Don?t get excited
On the drive home I had a think about what he was saying and how I could use it to improvewhat I am doing. Then it clicked for me – they are all inter-connected.
Each element affects the other. If you lose your balance and rush to get your balance back you will, ironically, lose your balance and put you in a bad position. Or, if you land a good punch and get excited it causes you to rush and lose your balance which means that you will miss out on the knockout.
These elements are applicable to each individual discipline of MMA, and every fight sport is based on the same principles. Go fast but don?t rush is something that one of the Gracie?s said.
This works for striking as well, as if you try to rush a counter and a combo it ends in a stuff up. Generally people rush striking for fear of being hit, but the more they rush the more that
they leave themselves open to be hit. In wrestling it is all about balance and position, your opponent is constantly trying to get you out of position so they can get you off balance and take you down.
The more I think about what was said the more it makes sense, they are all very simple yet very difficult things to control. The next time you are sparring focus on your balance, make sure you don?t rush and don?t get excited and see how it effects your performance.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Sledge hammers and tyres
Training for MMA, in terms of fitness, is like training for any other sport – the best idea is to keep the movements Sports Specific. So I have to question why I see so many MMA training clips where they are hitting a tyre with a sledge hammer and flipping tyres.
Hitting a tyre with a sledge hammer – can?t say I have ever seen someone ground and pound a tractor tyre with a sledge hammer in a fight yet. Yes, Tank Abbott somewhat resembled a tyre when on his back and I am sure Fedor?s hands feel like sledge hammers on the receiving end of his ground and pound, but you will not see this movement in the cage. The only move that the sledge hammer swing would reassemble is a shoulder throw and please tell me the last time that one of those were successful in the higher levels of MMA. Even assuming that you are working the movement the physics are all wrong when you compare throwing a person over your shoulder compared to swinging a sledge hammer.
Flipping a tyre – people have told me that it is good for working your shoots. Now I am not an Olympic Gold medallist in wrestling but I do know the difference between a single and double leg, and all that I have been shown with the double leg takedown looks nothing like flipping a tyre. Take the penetration step for example, where you do the level change then drop the front knee and drive (more or less), whereas when flipping a tyre your feet are side by side, your hands drop to the level of the tyre (also known as the floor), and then you do a dead lift movement to flip the tyre which is not like a double leg at all.
The most important things when training for MMA is intensity and level changes, just like when you are fighting. This means that instead of doing 3 sets of 6 ? 8 of squats with 90 seconds rest between sets you would be better off (for legs) doing a 5 heavy squats, a weighted jump (dumbbells for example) and 10 walking lunges continue and do as many reps as possible for 3 minutes. This gives you the strength (squats) explosiveness (jump squats) and endurance you need with the time duration. In MMA you need to have the strength endurance to get the take down for the last round. A workout that I gave some wrestlers had lots of body weight and movement based exercises with a heavy heavy lift (90% of their max lift). This gave them that strength in the last minute to get the takedown if needed. For MMA you need to work your strength while you heart rate is high, this is how to replicate competition.
In short, do movements that mimic what you are doing and make sure that there are level changes in the workout, this could be as easy a burpee, but you need to exercise when on the floor as in MMA we spend a fair amount of time there and remember that there are more ways to train other than tyres and sledge hammers.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor