[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Good job.
I am always interested in how fighters actually train. I used to box. I now train BJJ, but I’m not looking to fight again. I have tons of respect for guys like you who train through pain just about every day. Man, I remember waking up with headaches from boxing. Ouch!
Any chance you would post a “typical” week’s training schedule. I realize there is no typical week for a fighter, but I’m curious to see how often you strength train, what loads you train with, what type of cardio you do, and how often and how intense you spar, etc.[/quote]
Again, sorry for the late reply.
As you and T-money both said, training varies from week to week. As fighters injuries are the most common reasons for having sometimes erratic training schedules.
Our gym focuses on specifics of fighting where as I do my own conditioning outside of the gym. I’m the heaviest guy in the gym and still the fastest and almost the most durable. (little 62kg guy outdoes me - freak!)
I weight at the moment 105kg, but that is with some serious ramping up of strength training/plyos’/dinosaur training/and more.
I mostly fought at 97-98 kg but felt over powered by the heavier guys at 115 kg etc. Even though I’d beat them, it would drain me.
So I thought I’d up my conditioning.
As I stated I bought TRIBEX and Alpha Male initially and found that they made me very aggressive.
So I bought my second one of each not too long ago and decided to train a little harder with weights (olympic lifts and power lifts), kettlebells, sandbags, plyometrics, body weight calisthetics and sprinting.
I couple this with the sport specific training (Muay Thai and recently MMA)
I did weight train in a bodybuilding/power lifting style when I was younger and also Kick boxed at the same time, so it has been a gradual progression.
I definitely gained tremendous hip and back power from deadlifting and squatting. Legpressing was very easy for me as well.
In those days people all thought I was on steroids, not because of my size which was normal but because of my strength.
At the time I was studying Excercise and Sports Science at University and I put it down to Muscle Fibre Type and Neural ability.
Anyway, from then until now, I have learnt mountains and gone back to my old ways.
When I was younger I helped out my father with work. Basically alot of carrying, throwing, lifting and heaving of boxes, bags and large wheel barrows of stock.
I believe that created a solid foundation for later years.
Those simple things shouldn’t be taken for granted when you’re raising your own children. Things like shoveling, pick axing, digging, wheel barrowing, etc are all indirect ways you can build proper physical foundations in your children indirectly and strengthen their functional movement musculature.
Whenever I hear “functional” being used in exercise descriptive, I immediately think of nothing more than the core movements of humans, ie walking, runing, climbing, lifting, pushing, pulling etc.
Afterall, how functional are you if any of these day to day functional activities cannot be performed without pain.
For athletes of sports people, this has to be taken to another level.
I believe the days of pushing a weight in the gym in bodybuilding style fashion is over.
Just tonight a female fighter at our gym came up to me to ask me about advice on how to rid herself of the burning sensation she experiences during her punching which ends up making her drop her hands and arms.
She thought that the simple solution was weight training.
That’s not what I believe as I explained to her other more functional exercises she can use.
Anyway, my training as I said consists of all the apparatuses I mentioned but all of it means nothing if when I come to the gym I don’t apply my body with serious aggressive and mad like intensity at the pad holder.
It’s no use having a body that can fire 50 reps of a 60kg bench press or 20 explosive reps of a 20 kg kettlebell if you cannot then apply that explosive power you so called posses through the movements needed in your sport.
This is where the mind has to play a major part of your training and is a mediator between the conditioning and the sports specific training exercises.
This is the reason why I believe I am faster than any of the others in the gym, yes, even the 48 kg female fighter.
I am faster, more explosive and can handle a higher work rate and continue through lactic acidosis whilst others die.
With Super-heavy weights, they all think (and largely do to some extent) that they posses the one punch knockout power.
This causes them to concentrate most on that issue and train in that fashion.
Everyone loves the “big guy” so his ego is boosted some more by mates who make him feel indestructable.
I have fought many of these guys and weathered them off for a round or two and then picked them apart for the rest of the fight.
I attribute this to the training I do which is primarily in the lactic acid cycle.
I do also have days where I train specifically for explosive power/speed/strength with low reps as well.
With Kettlebells, I Snatch, I clean and jerk, I swing, I also throw. I do flyes lying on the grass with a kettlebell laterally as far from my torso as possible and flye it inwards as hard and fast as possible and keep going with speed until I get it to the other side, slamming it in the grass. I do a whole other assortment of made up specific exercises that I feel mimick movements in the sport as best as possible.
Weights wise, I olympic lift and powerlift mainly. I have never been bothered by aesthetics although for someone who is natural and 105 kilos, isn’t fussy about diet (other than ingesting enough protein and fruit and veges) still treating myself to bad snacks from time to time I have never lost sight of my abs and stayed relatively lean.
Plyometrics - Jumps mainly. Clap Pushups and drop push ups. Burpees jumping lunges etc.
Calisthetics, I love this movement I thought up of which might be someone elses but I haven’t ever seen.
It involves some plyo work too.
You jump over a box, go straight down into a sprawl type burpee and then launch back up to your feet and meet a chin up bar where you’d chin yourself up and then lower down. This is one rep. I like to do about 15-20 of them as fast as possible.
3-4 sets later, you really feel the blood rushing everywhere.
I’d train in Muay Thai approx 4 times a week and MMA just recently started at once a week.
The conditioning mentioned above would be twice to three times a week.
My rest is pretty crappy as I sleep between 4-5 hours a night.
I try to limit my food (not protein) as much as possible and tend to favour occassional fasting.
This came about through experimentation and research at uni into optimal hormonal states and how to achieve them.
What I found is that partially starved the body was more likely to have better hormonal output (aside from Insulin, however Insulin sensitivity is also better) rather than gorging on food.
When I read Ori Hofmeklers book, it was as if he had written much of what I believed.
That is my personal opinion on diet though and this by no means, means that everyone will fit the same shoe.
I just think there is a massive push for over consumption.
I also thoroughly believe in clean bodies being better able to assimilate nutrients. Toxicity should be something important all sports people think of.
If you’re toxic on the inside, you will never function appropriately physically.
You will always have issues with one thing or another.
Concentrating on cleanliness of your liver, stomach, kidneys, bowel and other internal organs will ensure you don’t have to eat as much to gain as much.
I think of my body as not something temporary but rather something that has to last me for as long as I live (yes despite my occassional treats) and therefore something that has to learn to do more on less fuel.
Efficiency is what I think bodybuilding style diets/training programs lack.
Anyway, I have probably rattled on a little too much.
I don’t mean offence to anyone with ideas of their own. These are merely my training methods/ideas.
I could have gotten into more detail about the training but I’ll spare you as T-Nation readers seem to be a much more educated mob than other forums I’ve read.
Hope there’s no typos…
Regards
