Well, basically I am looking for the optimal balance between strength training and skill/ conditioning work.
YES of course I realize that as I get closer to a fight, I am gonna focus in on my conditioning and skills much more.
Anyways at this point, after reading Martin Rooney’s article it has given me confidence that I am on the right track. That is, that strength training is important.
Currently I am lifting early AM twice a week (heavy lifts: Deads, Squats, Bench, Shoulders). I get in a little extra before Muay Thai here and there.
Right Now I feel like I have found the right balance. I am eating as much as my body asks for. Which is a ridiculous amount. But now I am not dropping weight crazy fast with the conditioning. Staying steady around 185.
Anyways thanks to all the guys offering up their advice.
Today I trained from 530 pm to 1030 pm… So much for keeping conditioning to a moderate level. But i’m learning that if I dump in enough calories/protein/macros/micros that my body is maintaining the weight. Yes my lift are SLIGHTLY down but I’ve yet to get fully rested and try maxes.
Truthfully. If I am slightly weaker I am ok with it, I mean define weaker. Is 200 body squats weaker? Is a couple hundred push ups weaker. I’m pretty sure that within a matter of weeks your body is capable of transforming mucle cells and equipping them with extra mitochondria if Endurance is required, and vice versa.
just my thoughts out loud
[quote]BaTmAnJaCkEd wrote:
Today I trained from 530 pm to 1030 pm… So much for keeping conditioning to a moderate level. But i’m learning that if I dump in enough calories/protein/macros/micros that my body is maintaining the weight. Yes my lift are SLIGHTLY down but I’ve yet to get fully rested and try maxes.
Truthfully. If I am slightly weaker I am ok with it, I mean define weaker. Is 200 body squats weaker? Is a couple hundred push ups weaker. I’m pretty sure that within a matter of weeks your body is capable of transforming mucle cells and equipping them with extra mitochondria if Endurance is required, and vice versa.
just my thoughts out loud[/quote]
If you are looking for the physiology of mitochondria development/cellular/structural adaptation vs functional adaptation/fitness we can jump in until we all hit “Critical Nerd”. If not, the body is very adaptable.
As far as weaker vs stronger. You seem to have your head on straight. If we are using the numbers on the weights to measure strength than fatigue is going to mask the ability to display strength (fatigue masks fitness as the old saying goes). This occurs both in terms of days/weeks with training vs displaying ability and also second to second in your fight. If you are trading some limit strength for the ability to “display” your strength longer you might find that you go from being “weaker” than your opponent to “stronger” in short order.
A real concern is injury prevention/minimization, especially if you have drastically increased or changed your work load. You are training to damage someone who will be getting in the ring to do the same to you. This shit is hard on the body, but don’t do the other guy’s job for him and come in injured or injury prone.
My stock advice is to not ignore any pain or soreness around joints, as opposed to muscle bellies, and to really work thoracic mobility, scapular stability, scapular retraction, and scapular depression. Try to increase/maintain hip flexor length. All of the punching, kicking, kneeing, and clinching tends to diminish these qualities and a great many athletes compensate their way to chronic injuries. This advice is cookie cutter and may or may not help your individual case. Caveat emptor and all that.
Keep in mind too the mental aspect of enduring grueling training sessions. IMO mental toughness and will to win are at least as important in the fight game as mitochondrial blah blah blah… You are developing that will and toughness by going out and doing those sessions day in day out.
You are learning to fight when you’re tired, when you’re sore, when all you really want to do is stop. By giving your all every time out you are proving to yourself that you belong in the ring as much as you are building conditioning and skill. Not very scientific and cliche, I know but still true IMO.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
You’re going to FIGHT. You’re gonna step in the ring, unarmed, with another guy that wants to beat the living fuck out of you, and if he puts you to sleep, it’s probably going to be one of the crowning moments of his life.
What sucks more: losing muscle, or getting knocked unconscious?
Pick your poison buddy.[/quote]
Omg… nothing like brutal truth lol.
To the op, coming from a guy who started training in martial arts then got into the whole body image scene when I was young and wanted the muscle to go with the ability and then moving into the fight arena, trust me you’re thoughts about muscle will vanish the minute a guy lands one on you with mean intent. Don’t even begin to compare your sparring to it. In a fight the guy will absolutely have the meanest intent and complete disregard for you.
At that point when you momentarily see different color lights, the crowds noise becomes a dull blur of sounds, you can’t feel your whole body except for the throbbing in your head and you struggle to push yourself off the canvas as a normal reflex action but can’t get your arms or legs to do what you want, you will literally have no regard for your biceps peak, your lat spread or your chest separation. All you will want is to be able to get up and hit him back for making you feel this way. It may be too late or it may be still ok for you to get up, either way think your muscle composition will matter?
You’ll get over this phase. Train for the fight, train your conditioning, train your abilities but do not train for image if you plan to fight.
thats cool man i was powerlifting for 3 years and im just starting out in muay thai/boxing/bjj and to tell you the truth i dont even care if i lose strength cause im so sick of bein fat and strong now my focus is 100% in fighting ive already lost about 40 lbs in the past 5 or 6 months
Fuck fat and strong. it’s useless shit. Like carrying a backpack constantly for no reason. The small amount of strength lost is more than made up with the increases in speed as you don’t have to heave around all the extra mass.
good luck with training and fighting. Spar and train like you want to fight.
After a couple of weeks I’ve dropped just under ten pounds. My conditioning is coming along. I’m happy to report that all of my lifts have stayed strong. I haven’t hit my 405 deadlift yet thought. I just haven’t felt recovered enough on my dead days. So i’ve been happy to rep a slightly lower weight.
The thing that becomes ridiculously clear, very quickly, is that strength is useless if you tire out after a minute and fifteen seconds. In so far it seems that provided I eat a stupid amount of food, it is possible to maintain most muscle mass if not all. Of course it is probably to soon to tell after a year.
all in all most of my worries are gone. I much prefer the abilities of my new body to the old.
[quote]BaTmAnJaCkEd wrote:
After a couple of weeks I’ve dropped just under ten pounds. My conditioning is coming along. I’m happy to report that all of my lifts have stayed strong. I haven’t hit my 405 deadlift yet thought. I just haven’t felt recovered enough on my dead days. So i’ve been happy to rep a slightly lower weight.
The thing that becomes ridiculously clear, very quickly, is that strength is useless if you tire out after a minute and fifteen seconds. In so far it seems that provided I eat a stupid amount of food, it is possible to maintain most muscle mass if not all. ******Of course it is probably to soon to tell after a year.
all in all most of my worries are gone. I much prefer the abilities of my new body to the old.
[/quote]
*****Of course it is probably to soon to tell what might happen after a year.
[quote]batman730 wrote:
Honestly man, IMO if your coaches train winners then buy into their program. If they they don’t then train somewhere else.
[/quote]
I don’t think that’s fair.
Lots of places that “train winners” are places that guys move to, not that they build from the ground of. The types of exercises the OP describes in his class sounds like stuff targeted at a demographic that is otherwise inactive/unfit and is using MT as their form of exercise.
Is this the beginner’s class? Or are all classes run this way?
Like at the place I do Jujitsu the beginner’s class has a lot of this stuff: basic conditioning work. Whereas the advanced classed, you’re expected to get their early, be warmed up when class begins, and do most of your conditioning type work on your own time, leaving the class to focus on technique.
Greg Jackson’s Gym is a great example of what I’m talking about, because I’m familiar with them and know lots of people who train/have trained there (professional and amateur), and they all pretty much agree that while the gym “produces winners”, the guys who really do well there are guys who spent time elsewhere first, and came to the gym with the reputation and cash-generating potential to earn the special interest of the coaches, but that it’s a terrible “McDojo” for anyone getting into the sport.
I’m always wary of places that regularly (as a matter of form) blow through large portions of class-time with high-school gym-type “conditioning” activities.
[quote]batman730 wrote:
Honestly man, IMO if your coaches train winners then buy into their program. If they they don’t then train somewhere else.
[/quote]
I don’t think that’s fair.
Lots of places that “train winners” are places that guys move to, not that they build from the ground of. The types of exercises the OP describes in his class sounds like stuff targeted at a demographic that is otherwise inactive/unfit and is using MT as their form of exercise.
Is this the beginner’s class? Or are all classes run this way?
Like at the place I do Jujitsu the beginner’s class has a lot of this stuff: basic conditioning work. Whereas the advanced classed, you’re expected to get their early, be warmed up when class begins, and do most of your conditioning type work on your own time, leaving the class to focus on technique.
Greg Jackson’s Gym is a great example of what I’m talking about, because I’m familiar with them and know lots of people who train/have trained there (professional and amateur), and they all pretty much agree that while the gym “produces winners”, the guys who really do well there are guys who spent time elsewhere first, and came to the gym with the reputation and cash-generating potential to earn the special interest of the coaches, but that it’s a terrible “McDojo” for anyone getting into the sport.
I’m always wary of places that regularly (as a matter of form) blow through large portions of class-time with high-school gym-type “conditioning” activities.
[/quote]
Good points. I completely agree that this is the truth in many gyms. I only meant that the OP, if he trusts his coach, should put in some time (more than a month) before he tries to customize his class-time with info he found online (even if it’s good info). If he doesn’t trust his coach he should train somewhere else. It sounds like he’s giving that a try and seems happy with how it’s going.
to be honest with u this new kick boxing gym im training at i dont even need a gym with weights we do powerconditioning with kettle bells those big ass rope things that u swing up n down pull ups push ups squats shit load of ab work jumping rope sparring heavy bag and speed bag work high jumps bear crawls pretty sure im getting everything i need to get into spartan shape. i dont think having huge muscles really matters in kick boxing anyways, from what ive gatherered so far conditioning is way more important than strength
Yeah, I have been putting the weights on the back burner until I am keeping up with all the pro fighters in terms of conditioning.
When that happens I can return to a more equal workload distribution between weights and conditioning.
It’s low volume, and takes very little time (1/3 hour to 1 hour in the gym 4x a week), yet you should still see increases in strength consistently.
I switched around the new year and am on my third cycle. I’m still not backup to where I was at my peak strength, but I’m close and weigh 40 pounds less.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
I’ve been using 5/3/1 and going twice a week on the weights, 3-4 times boxing work. It’s been doing well.[/quote]
Do you have any experience with the 4x a week vs 2x a week 5,3,1, or have you always done the 2x a week?[/quote]
I was doing WSSB, which is 4x a week, using Weds. as a skill day and Saturday (sometimes) as a skill day. Sometimes Tuesday as well, because the DE leg day isn’t much volume and I’d still have a lot left in the tank.
When i moved to 5/3/1 I began doing it three days a week at first and just lifting, and as I’ve gone on over the past two months I’ve ramped it up so I’m doing boxing work on Tuesday and Sunday most times.
Now, however, I’m hitting the boxing gym three, sometimes four days a week along with lots of shadowboxing, etc. in between, and it was running me down too much.
Even with three days of boxing, three days of lifting hard is too much, and I’m shot for training. So I’ve been toning it down to about 2x a week, either Monday and Thursday or Monday/Friday schedule.
Still trying to work out the particulars of this… I love lifting but it takes too much out of me.