Hello, this is my first post on this site in about 4 years when I was really into bodybuilding which is something I sort of lost passion for. But in the last year I have really gotten into MMA and I have had great results training technique and with my strength training.
But I would like to get more specific with my training to MMA in the weight room. Is there any articles and books that anybody would suggest. thanks for your time.
I wrote a Review on the Diesel Crew Training Manual that you can probably search for…
Also check out Rossboxing.com not MMA exactly but a great resource.
diesel crew has a lot of articles on there site if you want to get a feel for there stuff as well as elitefts.com
this is some shit i posted elsewhere that might be of interest to you:
Danger this is a LOT of reading
… I’m kind of wary when talking about how lifting can help MMA. Sure, it can, but for the most part if I had to make a blanket statement i would say “you dont need to lift weights” Shock gasp awe
anyway first how deadlifts have NOT helped me (for acid jazz)
Tight hip flexors
lower back soreness & tightness
drained CNS
^^ So those are things to look out for and manage
Otherwise, they helped my absolute strength a whole lot, my grip, my intestinal fortitude :), and I have to say my ego. I know its not a large part of mma skillset but I can pick up pretty much anyone under 210-220 from just about every position i can think of (but only cause I used a proper progression). Triangle, guard, hell if you’re my weight i can bench you off me from mount…(bad escape don’t do it)
Really though strength training to increase certain lifts is pretty much the last thing you need to worry about in MMA. And lifting to improve attributes is so low on the list of priorities that it may not even need to be there at all.
No lift will make you strike harder, throw better, etc unless you
a) were weak as shit to begin with (i mean you can’t bench 60lbs)
b) are already VERY technically skilled.
If you can hit a double leg on anyone, your setups are perfect and timing is amazing, there is no flaw in your technique but you have a hard time picking people up to slam them. Then shit thats easy as hell to get done with a little weight training.
But I don’t care how strong you are, if someone is just technically better than you all the strength in the world won’t overcome the fact that you just suck at the technique.
Technical prowess is ALWAYS going to be king.
I don’t care if you can 1 arm snatch your bodyweight. That doesn’t mean you know how to punch . Now when you learn how to punch you will probably hit pretty fucking hard, but the guy who is already technically proficient can begin the same exercise regimen of 1 arm snatches only be able to lift 1/2 of what you can and hit as hard if not HARDER.
How many little Thaiboxing guys can kick your fucking head off but probably can’t squat 3/4 of their bodyweight.
Again. Technical prowess is king… and most people who think they can strike or that their skill set is pretty developed. Aren’t. Crocop has his skillset keyed in. you do not.
I’d say until your technical ability is keyed in, you can really get away with doing enough lifting to maintain flexibility, muscle density, make sure you don’t get any imbalances, (for example if you do a lot of striking, then facepulls and seated rows and the such might be a good idea for you to stay in balance), pre-habilitative work (rotator cuff, knees, hips), foam roller type shit.
I’d say that doing the above and maybe a crossfit type workout (shock gasp) every now and then to increase your cardio/work capacity… and you’re pretty much set for what you NEED in MMA.
Again technical prowess king… just do what you need to in order to stay healthy.
a little off topic, but some people are real set on lifting because of the “i look sexy” factor and want to get bigger… well
It’s a bad idea to stray too far out of your weight class anyway so why lift a whole lot to put on a whole bunch of weight if you can’t keep your relative strength?
Thats where I like shit like crossfit/gym jones. If you were 170, got up to 200, but now you can’t do the same amount (or MORE) pullups then when you were able to at a BW of 170, then you wasted your time imo.
I remember a big shocker for a guy I grappled with (god this was years ago) who had just bought combat conditioning and was talking about how hard hindu pushups were to do. I was probably a 140-150 at the time… though I had just got out of gymnastics but I had no idea that gymnastics was great for strength I just liked doing flips and shit… well this guy was at least 220 and could bench an apartment complex, but couldn’t do 3 hindu pushups.I repped out like 35 without breaking a sweat. After that he started focusing on getting stronger not just bigger and man he was a PROBLEM in about a year. He could not only bench more but hindu pushups were a piece of cake, he was on to doing 1 arm pushups for reps. Last I heard he’s getting his purple or brown belt in BJJ now.
…
anyway, that was a rant, one that would put a lot of “coaches” out of business. But generally speaking, unless you’re technicaly proficiency is so good that you can take a few extra hours a week away from training your technique to get stronger… Then really the weight lifting shit will not get you better at MMA.
If you have 2 hours a day 5 days a week to train, you’d be better off spending ALL of that time training your technical skill set. When your skillset is developing (after like… 6-8months) then work in some strength training just to combat imbalances and the such.
But fuck it…this is all just my opinion so take it with a grain of salt.
I forgot to mention that progression I was talking about, problem with some of it is that it puts you had a great potential risk of injury depending how much other training you’re doing it takes a very intimate knowledge of yourself to not over do this:
(1)Hypertrophy (primary) + Strength (secondary) > (2) Strength (primary) + Hypertrophy (secondary) > (3) Power + Strength > (4) Specific Power > (5) Power Endurance / Fight Specific Endurance
Basic lifts, no DE work, lots of repetition work, kind of bodybuilderish but focusing on getting specifc muscle groups some hypertrophy. You’re not trying to put on 20lbs or something but injury prevention does come with an increase in muscle mass. Diet might be somewhat bulk oriented during this time.
Cut down on the diet a bit, more protien slightly less carbs, like…500 less calories thats it. But again basic lifts, DE work is now tossed in HUGE cutdown on volume like 50-60% less. Get STRONG.
Olympic lifts with dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells if you have the technical skill for those. Use variations that don’t require a lot of finess (1 arm snatch for instance). Continue with your basic lifts (ME work) but definitely not your focus, you want to improve your rate of contraction primarily. Move big weights FAST. Bands, DE work, all that shit… EDIT Jump training too, jump squats, box jumps, weighted jumps, all that shit…but you have to know how to use those, over doing it will not only kill your CNS but potentially negative effects.
Use unstable objects: kegs, sandbags, sledge hammer, actual people, etc (think strongman implements)… move ballistically. Basiscally transfer that strength away from shit that is perfectly balanced.
basically think javorek complexes or strongman medeley’s. Not purely brute strength but you need, power, endurance, speed, and balls. Prefer to stay away from balanced objects like barbells and shit but if thats all you have go for it.
Example would be:
sandbag C&J, sledgehammer strikes, sled drag, sprawls, jump rope double unders, kettle bell snatches, sprint back to end, alternating sandbag zercher.
the more you can attune this to an actual round the better. If you have someone who can hold thai pads or do some handfighting/shoot in on you… even better. I generally strength train alone so I tend to mention shit that doesn’t include that but the more technical training the better. Especially when you’re tired. Fuck all of that “don’t train when you’re tired it’ll mess up your mechanics” shit.
You DO NOT know what you can do unless you have been there. It might be purely mental but unless you have been so tired that you can’t feel your arms just a weird vibrating sensation where your arms should be, and there’s a 2second lag between what your brain tells your legs to do and them acting, and your heart is ready to explode in your chest… then you don’t know if you can keep your hands up when you’re striking, and you don’t know if your fancy footwork is still good, and you don’t know if you can breathe through your mouthpiece.
Xen Nova,
That was a great read thanks man.
I’ve found that limiting my strength workouts to 2x a week really helps in terms of recovery. My main focus is on conditioning and actual MMA training, which at the moment has been limited to 2-3x a week of Muay Thai but should be including BJJ again soon.
Those classes take A LOT out of you, so you don’t want to go into the class already overtrained. Like Xen said, you’ll want to focus on first improving your skill set and then you can add on stuff from there, depending on whether you feel you need to improve strength, conditioning or both.
Good Posts Xen!
I also limit strength to 2x/week and workouts are breif. If mma/bjj/boxing/thai training is very high sometimes lifting goes to 1x a week. Is being weak your issue? Are you the weakest guy where you train?
If not, all aspects of what could make you better.
Xen likes diesels book and though I haven’t seen it it sounds good. I get a lot of info from Thibs, but not his hypertrophy focused stuff, more his sport stuff like his 2nd ebook. I cut most of his volume down. I also like Martin Rooney’s stuff and for conditioning I like Juan Carlos’s SAID for no gi grappling.
Waterbury’s article here is good. But the main thing is to only do as much lifting as you can tolerate with your other training or you will burn out.
I really think one thing in the weight room that helps A LOT that few do is isometric training. Thibs new book is supposed to have a good section on that and Waterbury’s article has some too.
If you liked the book from the Diesel crew I would highly suggest you check out Jason Ferruggia Combat Conditioning. I think it is better but I did love the Diesel Crews book also.
Both books are great especialy for those who do their conditioning work at home.
Xen: That’s an awesome post. Everyone at this site thinks strength is king. They think that because authors say that’s the case. (Of course, an author with a product to sell will say that!) Good to know that at least some guys get it.
Just wanted to add that Xen’s post is probably one of the bests posts I’ve ever read on this site.
Guy knows his stuff.
thanks guys,
i just wanted to add that if you’re really set on lifting weights. cause i know I am, its more of a meditation type thing for me. the key to it is balancing all your training. so don’t worry about your workout schedule or doing some fancy
edtx20repsquatsxwestsidexwaterbury
type shit focus on your RECOVERY.
everything else goes to shit it if you’re not feed well, sleeping real good, flexible and shit.
Which is what I liked about the diesel crew manual. As strength oriented as it is… i mean hell its a strength training book… they really put an emphasis on making sure that you had enough juice to perform in your other training sessions and on your recovery (a whole section dedicated to recovery).
All of the other authors mentioned are great of course. Jason Ferrugia (Sp?) is a big fav. of mine… I really like kelley baggett’s stuff opened my mind up a lot, Eric Cressey’s strength training shit is GREAT he’s def. not just the rehabilitation guy.
You can learn from ANYONE but keep the shit in perspective.
…You might be reading an EliteFTS article about improving your bench press but remember that you fight MMA. So WHY do you need to improve your bench press? How does it make you a better fighter?
Ask yourself that all the time when reading articles…
Some good points raised by Xen. MMA isn’t unlike any other sport on that regard. If you don’t have the fnudamentals of the sport down, auxiliary work in teh weight room won’t help…If you can’t dribble the ball while walking, then no amount of plyometrics will help your basketball game.
Like when I interviewed Matt Serra and we talked about his training:
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1426363
He does alot of interval work, alternating bodyweight, band, or kettlebell exercises with the versaclimber or other cardio drills. But in the comments, someone said something like “Imagine how good he’d be if he did cleans too.” I think that’s missing the point a bit.
Anyway, to address the original poster’s question, a bunch of people seemed happy with Chad Waterbury’s Hammer Down series. Search the archives for it. I also know some martial artists have adapted DeFranco’s Westside for skinny Bastards and enjoyed the results.
I have Alwyn Cosgrove’s MMA book and dvd and it’s very great stuff, very thorough. Charles Staley also has some martial arts books; there’s one here in the T-Nation store which I haven’t read yet, but he also wrote “The Science of Martial Arts Training” which I consider a must-read.
i must say i disagree with some points already made:
strength training, in my opinion, is key to becoming a successful fighter not for the false beliefs that it makes you hit harder, but I found that it can help you last longer taking a beating. I noticed an extreme difference in my MMA fighting ability after I started a 2-3X weekly strength training routine (thats just weights and some strongman), thats also not including my endurance training.
I think that technique is easily the most important, but if you train strength and endurance to reasonable amounts outside of class, youll notice a huge difference and alot of fighters dont realize it because they simply wont try it.
i think it was mentioned previously but rosstraining.com is great for finding stuff.
[quote]Djwlfpack wrote:
I’ve found that limiting my strength workouts to 2x a week really helps in terms of recovery. My main focus is on conditioning and actual MMA training, which at the moment has been limited to 2-3x a week of Muay Thai but should be including BJJ again soon.
Those classes take A LOT out of you, so you don’t want to go into the class already overtrained. Like Xen said, you’ll want to focus on first improving your skill set and then you can add on stuff from there, depending on whether you feel you need to improve strength, conditioning or both.[/quote]
IMHO this is key. A lot of edurance training that I see is just people doing hard shit for ages and then they are sore for technique training. I think that if you want to train your “edurance/anerobic W/Cap/etc.” do it using sport specific techniques. Don’t do all kinds of burpees and shit unless you are too fat for your div.
Instead do rounds of thai pads and sharktank sparring, takedown drills. every other sport trains their athletes using sport specific drills. Save the gym time for explosive lifting etc. Or at least do your “hard shit” on non training days.
-chris
Great thread. I second the recommendation for www.rosstraining.com I have both his books and they are great, especially for the price.
It wasn’t till i started doing Ross style training that myself and others actually noticed a difference in my grappling. For the first few years of BJJ i would supplement it by going to the gym and doing your basic weightlifting exercises. It never seemed to help me on the mat.
Then after doing Ross style training for a while, which included loads more conditioning, lotsa burpees, dumbell snatches, various forms of pushups, etc, people started saying i felt strong as hell. I think perhaps its because my body learned to work better as a unit. I cant bench what i used to, but i dont get muscled around as much on the mat either.
I still lift weights, but these days its more full body movements, and i integrate things like sandbags as well. To me a 4 minute sandbag circuit feels very much like a grappling match in terms of taxing the grip, shoulders, and back muscles.
anton
Ross is the man!
Not sure who mentioned it, but my chest hurts just mentioning the word versaclimber thats is a fucked up piece of equipment. Not much can make me puke. But the versa climber on an empty stomach had me dry heaving…
anyway,
let me go ahead and clarify a point.
I’m not saying that you do NOT need to lift weights. Quite the contrary its one of the few things that keeps me sane. I just said that if I had to make a large blanket statement… it would have been that its not necessary.
What I was attempting to dispell was the belief that it will make you a better fighter. It will improve some aspects but nothing that someone can’t exploit. Getting a bigger bench press, squat or deadlift, does not make you a better fighter. Focus on your GOAL.
Lifting will keep you healthy, you can have recovery sessions, improve your work capacity, endurance, etc.
But saying, i want to get bigger traps so I can keep my arms up longer. Is retarded.
There are a lot of fighters who could benefit from a nice regimen of weight lifting and conditioning with strongman implements and the such.
But most of them are high level fighters, anyone lowlevel I guarantee you’ll probably say “ya they need to work on their guard more”. You RARELY see someone within a weight class REALLY TRUELY need more strength.
My favorite example Joe Lauzon admitted he can’t bench 135, but he knocked out Jens Pulver…
Now Joe is a wizard on the ground, and his standup is obviously pretty good as well. If you have him lifting weights with reasonable consistency well shit you have another GSP in the making…
Meanwhile I’m strong as shit… but maybe I might be able to hang cause I could push him around a bit, eventually I’d get beat BAD by Lauzon.
MMA is similar to other sports in the aspect (that someone else mentioned) that like basketball you need to learn how to dribble before you learn how to dunk and way before Plyometrics are going to bring you any benefit.
Keep in mind though MMA is different than other sports because the skillset is SOOOOOOOO MUCH LARGER.
But it takes just as long (if not longer) to perfect!!!
It may take you 4-5 YEARS to get down the fundamentals of MMA before you can really begin to polish your game.
I will agree with you that yes, strength training can give you a great advantage over your opponents in your developing years and developing your strength during that time will in turn make you a more dangerous foe when your skill catches up to your strength (if it does).
The problem is that if you learn to depend on that strength. And use it to your advantage so often that you negate the fact that you need to finesse your way out of situations…
strength training is a luxury in my opinion.
Again this is just my opinion, I’m sure I’m borrowing this from somewhere so 10 tnation pts if you can tell me who it is… anywa… What a coach who wants to train any athlete needs to do is to ask himself what are the top 5 things that athlete needs to be successful in their sport.
basketball ball it might be:
a) to make free throws when tired
b) think under pressure
etc (i dont know i dont follow bball much)
MMA (imo) what wins fights are the following:
4 & 5 can be whatever you like because outside of those 3 shit else matters.
and THAT is how strength training should be treated to me. The problem comes when you give it this precedence over actually fighting.
Oh my arms get tired when I spar… then you probably need to spar more. Now if you have some time dedicated to a workout. Go ahead and throw in some strength work to improve that weakpoint.
But if your arms get tired so fast because you are doing 20sets of curls and dips then your priorities are all fucked up.
XN
Rossboxing is something you don’t have to hype up at all you just post his videos haha… what i like about the diesel crew shit is that its very similar to ross’s stuff…ie, very brutal but seemingly lowtech. D-crew just has a few more toys they use (and like 1000 new exercises for you to fuck around with)…
anyway here are a few Ross Videos:
seriously watch this shit lol:
This is some training shit that just looks cool :-p might be pretty tight for guys who love their grappling:
I think Xen has posted some very good information.
Yes it is true that a polished skill set is the most important thing. That is why I feel it is best to start young.
For me my stand-up doesn’t take much energy. I have been doing it for so long. I don’t know if it is true but maybe it is something similar to guys who grow more with less reps at an older training age. I don’t have to expend as much time and energy on my stand-up as much as I did when I was 15 or 16. It is so easy to throw strikes, in combination ,even when tired. So I can devote more time and energy to my strength training and grappling.
Further nuance: Determine why you’re doing “MMA.” (That’s in quotes because it seems BJJ, thai boxing, and basic karate qualifies as MMA.)
I do BJJ 2-3 times a week. I love it. But I am not going to compete in tournaments or fight. So I don’t worry if I’m showing up to class sore from a workout. I have all the time in the world to learn BJJ, and I’m certain it’s going to be a lifetime hobby/lifestyle like golf or tennis is for many people.
If, like me, you’re a hobbyist, train how you want to train in the weightroom. If you want to fight, you need to be MUCH more focused.
Of course, if you want to fight, you need to worry a whole hell of a lot more things than just how to lift. You literally need to restructure your entire LIFE around your goals. You need a long-term plan, etc.
So be honest with yourself why you’re training. If it’s just to learn something useful in the unlikely event you get into a street fight, or if it’s just something you think is a productive activity, your weightroom mindset should adjust to that.
im in total agreement with Xen, im basically the guy he described in his first post. I did kyokushin for 12 years and my instructor encouraged me to weight train, over a period of time i hit 235lbs from 150 lbs (made most of my gains on WS4Sb). I started BJJ and i was constantly chastised for using my strength to muscle my way out of situations, slamming from guard, muscling into submissions. (i could’nt do many hindu push ups either)
now after two years of BJJ ive learn’t to relax and apply my strength at the right times, my top game is very tight my guard game still needs work.
I use a mixture of Conjugate lifting and strongman to achieve and maintain my strength.
[quote]Xen Nova wrote:
This is some training shit that just looks cool :-p might be pretty tight for guys who love their grappling:
[/quote]
That was really fucking cool. Thanks for the link.