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UFC 104 Training -Train Like MMA Fighters
Fighters and grapplers need to be incredibly fit
all around. They need it all; great aerobic and anaerobic endurance,
great strength endurance, power endurance and extreme mental
toughness. There is a lot of confusion on how a fighter or grappler
should train. Managing their time between training in the ring / mat
and in the gym (or out of the gym) becomes important.
With all the time these athletes spend in actual
skill and live training sessions their energy levels and the amount of
recuperation is much less than the average athlete. A lot of their
sparring is strength training per se. They are constantly pushing,
pulling, lifting, rotating and more. Due to all of their time spent
training we want to make sure we do not overdo it by pushing them more
and more to the point where overuse injuries, mental and physical burn
out become a side effect of the training.
Above, Fedor Emalianenko, the
greatest heavyweight fighter of all time, stands amongst various size
and shape kettlebells.
We use a variety of methods for training our
grapplers but there is one way that has worked very effectively and
you can use it or tweak it to see how it works. The art of coaching is
key here so learning how to taper or apply training methods for each
individual comes into play.
The problem with fighters is they have the
mentality of “out working” their opponents. The philosophy of training
smart equates to harder training for most fighters. This is where you
need to understand their body while communicating with your fighters
constantly. Asking about current injuries, emotional and physical
state will be a huge step towards learning what works best for your
fighters and grapplers.
We always start our work outs with a thorough
warm up. We take some from the Parisi warm up, and also added some
other calisthenics and band work using the Jump Stretch bands. We may
also incorporate some light reverse hypers and kettlebell swings
before we start the grunt of the work out. Sometimes this warm up is
slightly extended to get the athlete mentally warmed up.
After working or going to school for half a day,
then training at their dojo or club and then coming to strength train
can be a long day. A good warm up with some pumping tunes might be all
your athlete needs. As mentioned before, incorporate the “art of
coaching” and determine if your athlete can go through a tough
training session or if they need a lighter more recuperative day.
We will often start with a max effort exercise
using short rest periods and reps in the range of 3 – 5 on our heavy
sets. The warm up sets as we build up have a rep range of 5 – 10. Some
examples of our max effort exercises might be:
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Flat / Incline barbell or dumbbell bench press
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Deadlifts (all variations: trap bar, straight
bar, bent knee, sumo, RDL, and sometimes we add chains to the DL
movement)
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Heavy Rowing motion: 1 arm rows, bent over
barbell rows, t bar rows on the grappler
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1 arm or 2 arm clean and press or military press:
Kettlebells, dumbbells or sand bags
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Squats of all variations: box squat, sand bag
squat (sandbag held in front or on shoulders), kettlebell squats
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After the athlete performs a good 4 – 6 hard sets
(on average, sometimes less & sometimes more) in the 3 – 5 rep range
we move on to our time under tension training using various tools. The
time under tension (TUT) builds great strength endurance as well as
mental toughness.
The tools for time under tension can be almost
anything, but here is a list of tools me way use for TUT:
UFC 104 Training -Train Like MMA Fighters
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