Training For fighters...

[Blowfish]

I'm not an expert in this area, but I would like to share with you people knowledge I've gathered from different sources and hope that you'll correct or enlighten me with knowledge of your own.
I am not a keyboard dude, whatever the term is called, the following tips in the article are currently being experimented and implemented into my personal routine, I do lift weights, I do practise with the heavy bag, I do run intervals as my roadwork.

Basic background about me is I'm 20 years old, I'm not sure about my body fat yet I guess somewhere between 18 to 20%? I don't have a gut, but I do have wobbly areas, chest stomach and behind the tricep as well as legs, but I'm working on that. I'm just 160cm (short dude yeah). I train in Muay Thai, have done it for a year, though I never took it serious until towards the end of last year... in terms of training and conditioning.
I originally started Muay Thai incorporated with conventional bodybuilding techniques to get into shape, to be honest there was thoughts of stopping training completely after I reached my goal, but another side of me wanted to be keep going, I needed to find a reason to keep training.
I was disappointed to know that my jabs were not looking like jabs in one of my lessons by another teacher, so I bought a heavy bag and began practising, that was when I started to take Muay Thai seriously...
And so time went on, few months later, I was talked into sparring for the first time, I loved every minute of it, but watching a video of me, I realised my overall technique was sloppy, so that's when I really got serious about conditioning.

My sources comes from books and websites, which I bought and read through in December, these include: Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Encylopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, John Little's The Art of Expressing The Human Body (Bruce Lee workout book) and my main source of boxing conditioning came from rossboxing.com.

Before We get Started, this is NOT a bodybuilding program, you will find that we only lift 2 sets (3 at max) which is not enough for muscle growth (according to Arnold: takes about 4 sets of 10 reps for someone lifting about... if I remember correctly, 60 to 75% of their max single rep). Having said that, this guide will have ANYONE get into shape, and increase their athletic ability.

The basic conditioning plan for a fighter or any athlete at that include strength, speed, agility, endurance and skills. Boxers are some of the world's most conditioned athletes, their conditioning routine covers strength endurance and strength, as well as coordination and balance.

The following article is a complication of all the knowledge I have learnt and will continue to adapt and evolve.

I

 

[Blowfish]

STRENGTH TRAINING FOR FIGHTERS...

Fighters neglect training with heavy weights because they are scared for increase in size, I believe this is because you will be going up against people who are just naturally bigger. Also, fighters don't like to get into weightlifting because of the common myth that muscles will slow an individual down.

The key here is the way you train with weights, muscles do make an individual faster, I'm pretty sure you all know the benefits of bodybuilding and weight training for strength so I won't go into details.

A lot of people do ask about weight training for mix martial artists, according to Ross Enamit, we should spend too much time on weight training, that we should lift with explosive emphasis and use weights that weigh about 60 to 75% of your max single rep.

Bruce Lee, according to the book The Art of Expressing The Human Body had a 20 minute program that inlcuded 2 sets of 8 repetitions of heavy compound exericses including Bench Press, and Clean and Jerk.

Compound movements are what we shoud be looking at when training with weights. The following is my program that I make use of all the time. REMEMBER: The goal of a martial artist is not to be bodybuilders, we want to improve our function whilst maintaining within our size.

2 X 8 sets of Bench Press
2 X 8 Sets of Power Clean
2 X 8 sets of Military Press
2 X 8 sets of Upright Rows (Optional, but this is my favourite exericse, equal with Bench Press)
2 X 8 sets of bent over barbell rows
2 X 8 sets of Deadlifts
2 X 12 sets of Squats
2 X 12 sets of Lunges

This program takes about... 30 to 40 minute to compelete, its a bit long, but you can always divide the exercises (not to mention include new ones) into three days, as three days is how much I lift. It is recommended by Ross that we should lift at least 2 to 3 days.

REMEMBER:
Keep it short
Compound movements
Explosive emphasis - lift them fast
Rest time should be no more then a minute (2 at max, but you are wasting time here)
Lower Body should be about 12 to 15 reps
Upper body should be about 8 to 10 reps

 

[Blowfish]

ENDURANCE TRAINING FOR FIGHTERS

You can be strong, but if you can't last even two minutes of pad work, then, there is something wrong with your conditioning. Endurance is necessary for fighting, typical fights last no more than two minutes (on the streets according to my own eye experiences) and in competition, 3 minute rounds for professional boxing and 2 minute rounds for amature.

Boxers do the traditional 3 mile roadwork, but as of late, there has been an increase in the use of Interval Training. Interval training mimics the anaerobic nature of combatitive sports, its 80% anaerobic and 20% aerobic (credits to Ross again). The aerobic area only takes place when we are moving around the ring, when the punches and kicks are thrown, we are making use of the anaerobic section.

Interval training will also increase metabolism, hence you will burn more calories, aiding fat loss. Correct me if I'm wrong, but anaerobic training will spare muslce loss.

Interval training for beginners should look like this - remember we are looking at ratios of work to rest, the following is the roadwork that I have began to take part in, its a beginners workout.

1km warm up jog
3 X 200 meter sprints (1 Minute rest in between)
4 X 100 meter sprints (1 Minute rest in between)
600m jog warm down

A more advanced program will see you either increasing distance of sets. We shouldn't be doing any more than 15 sets total. Also, DON'T do intervals on consecutive days, or on days where you are going to spar. Other non interval days you can focus on aerobic training.

 

[Blowfish]

SKILL TRAINING FOR FIGHERS

This is a huge area to focus on, its recommended you do some form of skill work everyday, for boxers, shadowboxing, I don't know about wrestlers though because I personally have not trained in that area.

Training for boxing composes of the following...
Shadowboxing
Heavy Bag training
Down end bag
speed bag
pad work
sparring

I don't train with speed bag or down end bag because I personally don't have them at home, and at my gym they don't use it anymore. We will go through pad work as well as Heavy bag here.

My personal routine looks like this at home...
3 X 2 Minute rounds shadowboxing
3 X 2 Minute rounds heavy bag (punching drills)
3 X 2 Minute rounds heavy bag (kicking drills)
5 X 2 Minute rounds Heavy Bag (overall skills conditioning)
2 X 2 Minute Punch out drills (each following 10 kicks each side)

You must train in a certain way when practising with the bag. Bag don't hit back, so you have to try to condition yourself for a fighting situation when training with the bag. Try pivoting and avoid the bag as it swings to you, be on the move at all times, work on footwork.

Pad Work - I train with Thai and focus pads when at training on Tuesdays and Thursdays since I don't have a partner at home. Basically, we work on combinations, punching and elbows mainly with the focus pads, and punching and kicking with the Thai pads. If you do have a training partner at home, I would recommend using Thai pads as its just like killing two birds with one stone as you can do kicks as well as punches and elbows.

When training with pads, have the defender launch a strike during your drills so you can learn about countering and ducking attacks.

Example:
I do a 1-2 combination at first, the attacker launches a left jab, I duck that left swing or lab or whatever he throws with the left, and get up and go in with a left hook, right uppercut, and finish it off with a 1-2-1-2 combination.

 

[Blowfish]

OTHER STUFF

My personal Skipping Drills

I do this in HIIT Fashion style...
2 minute rounds followed by 10 reps of the one of the following...
jumping knee tucks
squats
Burpees
Lunges (make them fast, we call them swtiches at training)
2 Minute rounds again

Do them until you have done at least 1 circuit of all the things you want to do after jump rope.

While skipping, make sure you make use of other techniques like double unders (I'm working on that), running in place, skipping with left, skipping with right.


A Warm Up/Cardio technique...
They do this in my gym and many boxers do it as well. Basically we are running around a small room, big enough to run in, as wel jog, the trainer calls out certain things we do...
- Running with Knees up
- Running with Heel Flicks
- Side To Side inside
- Side to Side outside
- We practise knee strikes as well move around the gym, so every step is a knee strike
- Sometimes we do duck walk (walk in a squatting position)
- Running backwards
- Running backwards punching
- Running while punching
- running while punching up
- running while uppercuts

I do these also as part of my morning cardio on non interval days.


Core Training
You must some form of core training (abdominal training), I perform them on non gym days, but we still do crunches on gym days. Power comes from the core, and with a tough midsection, you can sustain more damage.

This is all that I can think off, since I'm writing this after a morning Interval run, I hope you can either make corrections or contributions to this as it will benefit both myself and you.

good luck training.

 

[Chillisauce]

Only advice i can offer is to find yourself a good coach and do exactly what he says.. no ****ting around. Each person has different weak areas that cannot be identified on a message board and probably cant be improved without outside help. For example: i had a problem where my right leg would kind of twitch a second before i launched a combo, i'd still have that problem if i didnt train with others.

Edit: of and core strength isnt just coming from your abs, i'd recomend training the side muscles of your back (not sure what they're called) and dont forget your legs.

 

[GinandTonic]

your traning program looks pretty solid.

just adding in some of my own insight (not criticism, btw):

i like to mix up the sprints. everything from 50m sprints (for the explosiveness), to 400m sprints (which is the only exercise i've ever done that led to puking).
actually, one of the best interval programs i've ever seen geared for fighters is at http://www.trainforstrength.com/Endurance1.shtml...this is especially effective at decreasing the recovery time in between the sprints.

for the strength training, i've also really been getting into the Olympic lifts - like cleans, hang squats, etc. these are very effective for developing explosiveness (note: if you do wanna start up on these, don't start with heavy weights. these are actually pretty complex movements).