Working it out

Years ago, I was told something that stuck with me. When training for fight sports, “more isn’t better, better is better and any fool can train hard”. So, with our limited time, how do get the most out our workouts?

Before we start, this is assuming you are not a pro fighter. I’m assuming you have a job, a family and things that you have to juggle your training around. Since training revolves around your life and not vice versa, training usually takes place at night, and this means that your nights are already full. If you had a night free, you would most likely be training, because let’s face it, that’s what we do. This leaves the morning or daylight hours to get our conditioning work in – since we have limited time, we must find effective ways to make the most of it.

When training for a competition, the duration of the event can guide the training that is needed. For example, a wrestling match is 6 minutes, kickboxing the same and 9-15 minutes for MMA. Assuming you’re not having pro fights, your training should generally not last longer than half an hour at high intensity. You want to go in there and go as hard as possible to simulate the biological conditions you feel in a fight or as close as you can get to that level. This is not about fight drills, rather, I’m talking about your cardiovascular, muscular and nervous systems.

In saying that, as athletes, we want to be doing workouts that are time effective, useful and event specific. For example, going for a 10km doesn’t help with fighting as much as other training. When running, you are holding a steady heart rate for a long period; this is contrary to what occurs in a fight. To get a run closer to fight conditions, you would need sprints. I would base this workout on time rather than distance. So, as an illustration: sprint for 20seconds, rest for 20 seconds and repeat 10 times. For my training, I like to have a cardio session, a heavy cardio session and a heavy weight session. Cardio is like that sprint session – it’s all about the heart rate. A heavy cardio session is a weights circuit. One such workout can consist of a 150m Row, 1x 140kg Dead lift, 5 kettle bell swings. I do as many reps as possible for 3 mins with 1mins rest for 5 to 7 rounds.

The heavy session is a sport specific weights session. One area that a lot of fighter’s neglect is the glutes – my partner, who is a glute master, has shown me some very cool exercises to target this area. When you think about it, the glutes are the biggest muscles in the body, yet not many people train them specifically. Wrestlers have big glutes, and this is due to the low stance and explosive power used to perform takedowns from that position. Sprinters also have massive glutes, and this is shown to great effect by their explosive power and speed. Using these examples, it is easy to see that there is definitely a correlation between power and glute activation (not surprising). For fighters, you want to be exercising on your feet as much as possible. This is in opposition to sitting or lying down i.e. machine weights. This is because when you are fighting, it is all about kinetic linking – that is, producing force through your whole body. Think of throwing a ball, your foot twists then your hip, then shoulder and finally your arm throws the ball. If you want to see how important this is, try throwing a ball without moving your foot and see what happens. This means that instead of using machine weights and things like that, you want to be replicating movements that you do in your sport as closely as you can. Some moves, like attempting to make your armbar stronger through weights is not only going to look really weird, it also will not work as that is more about technique than muscle. The idea is more about making movements stronger. Twisting, pushing, pulling, jumping, lunging and squatting are the most basic and important movements, especially when being an athlete. If all those movements are strong, then you are strong. The other thing with kinetic linking is that it beats absolute strength, think about those guys in the gym that can out lift you with weights yet when wrestling you can physically dominate them. Kinetic linking and technique go hand in hand, the people that can get their body to work as a unit will always be better than those that work their limbs in isolation. When lifting weights, stay on your feet as often as possible (except for bench press because everyone cares about that) get your body working as a unit to produce the best result. One of the best examples of a lift that gets the body stronger as unit is Olympic lifting (clean and jerk, snatch). Other training that has great crossover to fight sports with strength is body weight stuff (gymnastics) and all bodyweight related movements create good strength that works well in martial arts.

When training for competition or training in general, keep it as specific as possible. The idea is to replicate the movements that you do in your sport with resistance in the gym. The resistance can come in various forms, including weights, weight vests, resistance bands, sleds, ladders, power bags, medicine balls, gravity and so on. Once you have the movements sorted, then it comes down to reps and duration. As our sport is all based on time, that is a great place to start. Set a variety of short duration high intensity rounds, 40sec of work, 20sec rest time, and complete 10 sets. That is only one example of a timed round, but the possibilities are endless. Time is also a great training partner as it is always consistent. One thing that is always important is to change up the routines and that can be done easier than you think. Keep the exercises the same and change the reps, weights, duration and you end up with many different workouts from the basis of one routine. As an example: 10 reps of each with dumbbells, renegade rows, burpees to shoulder press, walk outs, 10m bear crawl. Then for a second workout, add 5kg to each dumbbell and do 5 reps of each and go twice through. Option 3: as many reps as possible within 4mins and 1min rest. Option 4: reps of 20,15,10,5 and each time through, the reps move to different exercises, 4 times through, so every exercise gets every rep count. That is just an example of how you can get variation out of the same routine. When going hard, simple is best, then all you need to focus on is going hard.

When training hard, being as physical as it is, it is also trains your mental capacities. Your body is always going to hurt, and it comes down to your mind-set to push through the pain. This is very good practice for fighting as it gets tough in competition. You need get used to being uncomfortable and even go as far as embracing it. If you can hold the pain a little longer than your opponent, then there is a good chance you will come out on top. Remember though, train smarter, not harder as any fool can train hard.

Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor