Insight Part 1

There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.

Johan Wolfgang von Goethe

My opponent & I after our fight.

As promised in my previous post I've spent sometime thinking about the things that I learnt on the journey to my fight (no, not the 55 miles down the M1 to Milton Keynes!). Initially I thought that I'd be able to rattle off four or five points, offering a little narrative along the way but it has transpired to be a lot more difficult than this. It's not that I haven't got stuff to say, far from it, it's that every time I come up with an idea or a learning point it grows in to a whole post as of itself. Or near enough. So, I've decided to pick out my personal learning and reflection points and to write about them in a series of posts, some longer, some shorter. We'll see how it goes...

#1 In the court of Combat, Conditioning is King

“Conditioning is my best weapon.” – Frank Shamrock

I remember reading an interview with Pat Miletich in which he told the story of losing his first kickboxing match due to being tired and pledging to himself that he would never again lose due to his conditioning. In the article Pat went on recount how he sought to 'find ways to make himself more and more miserable' – ways of pushing his conditioning through the roof – running until he vomited then carrying on because he no longer had to worry about having anything left to throw up, chasing down cross country teams, consistently training as a welterweight with a heavyweight training partner. Seemed to work for Pat and for his stable of fighters for a good while.

If there's a hierarchy of attributes possessed by an amateur fighter I'm pretty sure that conditioning sits atop it. It could be argued that technique is number one, a view I'd have some sympathy for, but there's a bit of me that feels you could have the quickest hands, most devastating leg kicks or slickest submission combos but if you're too knackered to lift a limb, you probably won't have much success in applying them.

In his awesome book 'A fighter's Heart', Sam Sheridan states that conditioning wins Thai boxing matches, plain and simple. I don't know that this is necessarily true but an ability to outlast your opponent can't hurt your chances of winning a fight. Having the energy to be able to get in to range and apply a technique on an opponent who hasn't the energy to defend it could be the difference between a W and an L, or at least a D.

Taken further, gassing and being caught by an opponent who's got better conditioning is worse: nobody wants a mark in their loss column with the note 'Submission – too knackered to continue'.

One of my training rules – a set of principles that I have written down to refer back to when I'm feeling lost – is that time spent on conditioning is rarely wasted. The point of this is that on those days when I don't know what solo training to do, when indecision may lead to time wasted or worse, not doing anything at all, I can refer to my rules and be guided to do something useful, probably conditioning. The question then, is what is the best way to improve conditioning for MMA or grappling?

Although there is a place for Long Slow Distance (LSD) work in fight training, this is primarily for weight management and building endurance in untrained individuals. For those with some training and/or a base level of fitness interval training seems to be the way to go:

It seems that, for athletes who are already trained, improvements in endurance performance can be achieved only through high-intensity interval training.

Laursen, B & Jenkins, D (2002) Journal of Sports Medicine.

Logically, this makes sense when we think about the way in which combat sports are typically structured – burst of high energy activity followed by periods of active/inactive rest. There are quite a few ways of mimicking a fight or grappling match, some requiring more resources than others which can be a key factor when considering what conditioning to do. The other key considerations are:

• Time – How much have you got?
• Boredom – Can you do the same thing repeatedly? Do you need a menu of ideas to draw from?
• Congruency – How much will your choice of conditioning correlate with your sport/goals?

Below are some of my 'favourite' forms of conditioning, please leave comments, particularly on some of your favourites.

Sparring

Surely there's no better way to condition for competition than to mimic it as closely as possible, i.e. sparring. The downsides are the need for partners and a suitable space. The bang for your buck factor is huge given the right set up. Six three minute rounds with a minute's rest in between has got to be a fantastic use of 25 minutes in order to up conditioning in a wholly congruent way. My favourite way is to limit the actions/behaviour of one or other of the sparrers, e.g. to imitate a grappler, kicking or wrestler, etc. or to work on key development points, e.g. takedown defense, sweeps from the bottom, etc.

Circuits

Doing fight related circuits is a good way to keep the boredom at bay. I like to use a ten exercise, 1 minute each, 10 seconds between exercises method, for example:

Heavy bag boxing

Sprawl

Sandbag shoulder

Sit-throughs

Floorbag G'n'P

Floorbag lift/suplex

Plank

Band resisted shot

Floorbag bodylock (isometric hold)

Heavy bag boxing.

I posted up a load of variations a while back....

You can use a fair bit of kit or you can use mainly bodyweight exercises, or you can mix it up a little bit (as a certain Mr Rutten would say, more on whom below). The only downside is that if you do these solo you have to be able to push yourself or you'll coast. And nobody wants that.

At Leicester Shootfighters the circuits involve 1 minute at each exercise, 2 exercises at each of 6 stations. 30 seconds between exercises at the same station, 1 minute to move between stations. While there's more recovery time in this set up the paired exercises work you hard and the group/coached environment really pushes you.

Bas Rutten Workouts

If you don't know who Bas Rutten is you should. Google him.

His workout CDs are a collection of workouts based around boxing, Thai boxing, MMA and bodyweight training. Each workout involves Bas shouting out punch/kick/sprawl/bodyweight combinations for rounds of 2 to 25 minutes, 1 to 10 rounds. Check it out here.

I love these. When I'm undecided about what to do I do these. When I'm lacking motivation and feel I might coast I do these. When I need conditioning but want to hit things I do these.

Awesome. The only downside is that they can become predictable if you do them a lot.

Sprinting

Up hills.

Up lots of stairs.

With active rest between.

With a sled.

With farmers' walk implements.

Always outside. Sometimes puke inducing. Definitely awesome/hateful in equal measure.

Other stuff...

Barbell complexes a la Dan John, Martin Rooney, Alwyn Cosgrove.

My favourite:

6 reps each, barbell never leaves hands, aim for under two minutes.

Romanian deadlift

Shrugs

Squat

Whip/ricochet cleans

Snatch

Floor press

Bent over row

Press

Curl

Strongman medley; worked the right way these can seriously tax the heart and lungs. I like yoke carry, farmers' walk, stone carry, log press.

So that's the first post on what I learned on the journey to take part in Combudo. More to come. Keep checking in and please feel free to leave comments.

Godspeed!