Here is how a real fighter trains!
He does a lot of different training routines. It depends where is he in his prepation. Like most world class athlete he’s always in very decent shape. The trick is PEAKING at the right time for world class performance.
Anyway, in the Team Quest training manual, there is a BRUTAL circuit workout. 30 rep sets, no rest between sets, and you go from 2 opposite lower body exercices to 2 upper body to 2 lower body to 2 upper etc.
The goal is to build muscular endurance and get the heart pumping blood from one part of the body to the next, build lactic acid threshold and pain tolerance.
The real result: vomit. It’s REAL tough. But it’s just ONE of many workouts he does.
He’s always looking for the extra edge. Nothing beats lifting heavy weights for strenght gains IMO, but the fact is you canNOT train with sore muscles! That probably is why he and so many other fighters dont train weights in a more “convential” way like 5x5 or 8x3.
Does any one have any good links to interviews with Randy?
He is one of my favorite athletes.
[quote]Dirty Tiger wrote:
Does any one have any good links to interviews with Randy?
He is one of my favorite athletes.[/quote]
I don’t have an interview link, but there’s a great story on Couture’s win over Sylvia over at www.latimes.com (click on boxing). It’s written by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Very good story and gives some good background into how the fight came about.
[quote]withEzz wrote:
Hes rockin the nike frees. nice. [/quote]
I noticed that too 
Felt fuckin proud. I have that rocky training montage saved somewhere…
I dont like sets that high but apparently this is a fairly common practice among most MMA athletes.
Like I posted in another thread, generally speaking a lot of heavy ass strength training isn’t time efficient, it’s neurally fatiguing, has potential for injury, and isn’t going to improve your technical ability. While I bet you that Couture does do some heavy lifting I doubt that we would see him training exclusively like a powerlifter or an olympic lifter.
BECAUSE HE IS NOT ONE.
He is a fighter. He doesn’t have the time to lift four days a week when he could be drilling or picking up a LIVE opponent to slam them.
I love lifting and all, but mma is to technique intensive that nothing is going to be more beneficial to Randy than fighting with a live opponent around tim’s size… which apparently worked.
I know this is a lifting website, more so though about lifestyle almost. But unfortunately, i think because the majority of us who read articles here are indoctrinated with this whole lifting cure’s all athletic woes thing.
Lifting is great… I love it. I feel like Mike Tyson, “If it wasn’t for this medication [lifting] I would kill y’all”.
But I sincerely doubt that when training 12-16 weeks for a FIGHT that it’s necessary for Randy to box squat or do drop snatches for singles. While that might WOULD benefit him at some point while he’s training. Its really not that important.
He’s a FIGHTER, lets keep the main thing the main thing…
That said, we can guess-timate all we want about what Randy “Captain America” Couture could do to be more efficient but damn if what he’s doing isn’t already working.
Somethings we need to factor in to our discussion are…
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The fight game (generally) is NOT dependant on limit strength. It’s not what you can squat 1x, it’s what you can squat every 5 seconds for 3 rounds of 5 minutes.
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The large technical skill base needed to be competitive in MMA makes most usual methods of strength training inefficient as far as time. Not said that you can’t get stronger, or that you shouldn’t, but you won’t be making leaps and bounds like you would on a full “westside for dubious bastards conjugate frizzlefrazzle.”
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Again the large technical skill base can usually render size/strength neutralized. Probably a bad example, but look at Marcelo Garcia v. Ricco Rodriguez. Or a better example Wanderlei Silva in the pride grand prix vs Mark Hunt (lost by decision, but should have been finished for a while if size was really a factor).
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That is definitely only a snapshot of his overall training. And even if it is something that he does consistently… Randy is A) an olympic (or near olympic now) caliber wrestler B) a LIFE-long combat athlete C) probably as strong as he needs to be for this sport D) know’s a lot better what is good for him than we know
[quote]Xen Nova wrote:
Randy is A) an olympic (or near olympic now) caliber wrestler B) a LIFE-long combat athlete C) probably as strong as he needs to be for this sport D) know’s a lot better what is good for him than we know
[/quote]
He was also a strength and conditioning coach at Oregon St University. I’d say he has got his strength and conditioning training well covered.
I think this sort of post is what this site needs. Too many people are getting pigeon holed in their own beliefs about their training. No training program is the ‘be all and end all’ of programs. Many different MMA fighters have got results on very different programs. Same for all sports and bodybuilding too.
Thanks to the OP for the vid too.
PS those are Javorek Complexes (not an original Randy idea wink)
and they kinda make harsh generalizations about lifting weights period at the beginning of the video.
[quote]Djwlfpack wrote:
Dirty Tiger wrote:
Does any one have any good links to interviews with Randy?
He is one of my favorite athletes.
I don’t have an interview link, but there’s a great story on Couture’s win over Sylvia over at www.latimes.com (click on boxing). It’s written by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Very good story and gives some good background into how the fight came about.
[/quote]
Thank you.
The type of workout he is doing in that video is complex training (Cosgrove writes about it, as does Ferrugia and other coaches). It is like lactic acid tolerance training, and it is designed for CONDITIONING, not for strength training.
This is an old video, and there is nothing new about the training method. I used to do it after my lifting days, and it was the most similar thing I could do conditioning wise to wrestling/fighting.
Here’s an article by Cosgrove about this type of training… http://www.elitefts.com/documents/mma2.htm
I pray to god no high school coach finds that video.
[quote]He was also a strength and conditioning coach at Oregon St University. I’d say he has got his strength and conditioning training well covered. [/qoute]
Having read this, it only means he knows what to do since we are seeing teh results… I just haev a feelign that Randy isn’t showing his tricks of the trade rather what we are seeing aer more “appetizers” a most
[quote]wressler125 wrote:
The type of workout he is doing in that video is complex training (Cosgrove writes about it, as does Ferrugia and other coaches). It is like lactic acid tolerance training, and it is designed for CONDITIONING, not for strength training.
This is an old video, and there is nothing new about the training method. I used to do it after my lifting days, and it was the most similar thing I could do conditioning wise to wrestling/fighting.
Here’s an article by Cosgrove about this type of training… http://www.elitefts.com/documents/mma2.htm
[/quote]
Right on. I can attest to the fact that complexes will kick your ass. I did 4 sets yesterday using 65 pounds and was about ready to hurl.
The key is the do the exercises explosively and then keep your rest time short between sets (45-60 seconds).
Wow. I was very busy lately hence couldn’t come back to this thread but I have learned an awful lot.
You wouldn’t believe how much this is throwing me out of my current set of beliefs. My sporting career has made a great leap because I started lifting weights but it looks like I’m too close to a powerlifting or olympic lifting routine instead of doing more sport spedicif training.
Here’s one article from LATIMES that I found great:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/boxing/la-spw-mmacol9mar09,1,7988710.story?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true
Thanks a lot to everyone who has posted in this thread.
You’ll hear from me again, eventually…
[quote]Djwlfpack wrote:
wressler125 wrote:
The type of workout he is doing in that video is complex training (Cosgrove writes about it, as does Ferrugia and other coaches). It is like lactic acid tolerance training, and it is designed for CONDITIONING, not for strength training.
This is an old video, and there is nothing new about the training method. I used to do it after my lifting days, and it was the most similar thing I could do conditioning wise to wrestling/fighting.
Here’s an article by Cosgrove about this type of training… http://www.elitefts.com/documents/mma2.htm
Right on. I can attest to the fact that complexes will kick your ass. I did 4 sets yesterday using 65 pounds and was about ready to hurl.
The key is the do the exercises explosively and then keep your rest time short between sets (45-60 seconds).[/quote]
I, too, have used the barbell complexes as Cosgrove recommends them. One set = 8 exercises x 6 reps each. That’s 48 continuous reps per set. I only use 75 lbs. Four sets with 2 minutes rest between. When you finish, you want to puke but you are too busy trying to breath to do so.
Dan John says that these complexes melt fat off your body like grease dripping from bacon. As has been said here, you do not do these for strength but for conditioning.
Lactate threshold training, anaerobic endurance training, call it what you will, it works.
[quote]wressler125 wrote:
Here’s an article by Cosgrove about this type of training… http://www.elitefts.com/documents/mma2.htm
[/quote]
Thanks for the article.
I ‘enjoyed’ four rounds of the first complex this morning with 95 pounds and 90 secs rest between sets. No puking, but I was definitely feeling it.
I think I’ll keep it.
Normally, I’d use a heavier load and break it up into an explosive movement and then a minute or two of jumprope before a shorter rest. That or some bodyweight circuits. This was a nice change of pace.
Its too easy to get stuck in the same pattern as far as conditioning goes.
[quote]Plisskin wrote:
wressler125 wrote:
Here’s an article by Cosgrove about this type of training… http://www.elitefts.com/documents/mma2.htm
Thanks for the article.
I ‘enjoyed’ four rounds of the first complex this morning with 95 pounds and 90 secs rest between sets. No puking, but I was definitely feeling it.
I think I’ll keep it.
Normally, I’d use a heavier load and break it up into an explosive movement and then a minute or two of jumprope before a shorter rest. That or some bodyweight circuits. This was a nice change of pace.
Its too easy to get stuck in the same pattern as far as conditioning goes.[/quote]
I like doing what you described with the jump rope and bodyweight circuits and possibly some explosive movements (like jump shrugs) as well for conditioning.
[quote]Djwlfpack wrote:
Plisskin wrote:
wressler125 wrote:
Here’s an article by Cosgrove about this type of training… http://www.elitefts.com/documents/mma2.htm
Thanks for the article.
I ‘enjoyed’ four rounds of the first complex this morning with 95 pounds and 90 secs rest between sets. No puking, but I was definitely feeling it.
I think I’ll keep it.
Normally, I’d use a heavier load and break it up into an explosive movement and then a minute or two of jumprope before a shorter rest. That or some bodyweight circuits. This was a nice change of pace.
Its too easy to get stuck in the same pattern as far as conditioning goes.
I like doing what you described with the jump rope and bodyweight circuits and possibly some explosive movements (like jump shrugs) as well for conditioning.[/quote]
I’ve done that, as well as crossfit workouts to bring up my conditioning when I was wrestling and fighting.
I notice a lot of people on this thread questioning what he is doing, but also a lot that have actually tried it and will attest to their effectiveness. Give it a shot, and you might not be so quick to consider randy’s training sub-par.