Insight Part 2

Q: How many psychotherapists does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: One. But first the lightbulb must be motivated to change.

It's an old joke but one that rang true for me as a substance misuse worker (Drug Counsellor). I lost count of the number of times I heard colleagues talk about clients “....you see he's just not motivated to change, there's nothing I can do to help him.” Perhaps I even rolled the same hackneyed line out myself when frustrated with the lack of progress a client was making. I don't believe it any more if I ever did.

What's this got to do with reflections on my recent(ish) experience of competing?

Motivation.

Once I'd competed I had a real sense of there being no need for, and therefore no point to training, watching my diet, working on conditioning. After all, I'd done what I set out to do, I'd even won my fight and lost a significant (20lbs+) amount of weight in the process. I was a bit lost.

It was amazing to realise that I'm a person who needs an end goal to aim for, or if not needs then benefits from having a target. That's the first point I want to make. It would be easy and clichéd to talk about this as having been a journey and having discovered new things along the way, but it would also be true. I found out:

1. That I can benefit from setting goals if...
2. ...they're real and
3. ...meaningful and
4. ...I actually CARE about achieving them.

So much has been written about goal setting that I'm not going to rehash it all here and contribute to the 95% of psychobabble that passes for goal setting advice. My experience was that having a goal I cared about and could conceivably achieve gave me the motivation to hurt, ache, eat a lot of fish and greens and drag my sorry backside on to the mat or in to the gym five nights a week for three months. But that wasn't the only thing that kept me going.

People did. Firstly, I told people what I was trying to do – at work, at home, at the gym. When you tell a lot of people whose opinion you respect about your goal you'd better deliver. When Nathan (Head Coach) at the gym found out what I was aiming for he talked to me about it and when asked said, yes, it was possible. That was important. Someone else believed I could do it. Other more experienced fighters at the gym also helped with training, especially sparring, and never intimated that it wasn't worth training me, especially guys like Jake Constantinou who had his own fight in Japan to prepare for but still spent time with the beginner amateurs. Finally, John and Rob who were competing in their first MMA competition were great training partners and motivators. I hope I served them the same.

The final group of people who provided motivation were the faceless forum members on T-Nation and Ross Training. Not only did I get some really positive and encouraging comments on my training log but whenever I felt like sitting a session out or taking it a bit easy or not hitting a number of reps I'd think of what I'd be putting in my log. What would it look like if I didn't post any training or if what I did post was weak. Shallow, maybe, but helpful all the same.

Outside of people, I've always found motivation in the writing of others. I've written about them before but whenever I need a literary shot in the arm I go to:

• Dan John Strength, conditioning, athleticism, rambling, eccentricity.
• Jim Wendler Strength, conditioning, misanthropy, Drone/Grind/Dark metal.
• Marshall D. Carper Cauliflower Chronicles easily bears repeated reading and inspires.
• Sam Sheridan Fighter's Heart and Fighter's mind are required reading

It's not just about the information contained in these authors' books, it's that the stories they tell inspire. Quality information does not necessarily an inspiring read make. The story and the writing have to be good.

Finally, I'm a sucker for documentaries. When they're good (cast + story + direction + quality) I can draw a lot of motivation from them, specifically:

• Strong (Joe DeFranco)
  
  
  
  
• Choke (Rickson Gracie)
  
  
  
  
• Rites of Passage (Bobby Razak)
• UFC all access series.
  
  
  
  
• Destiny (Kostya Tszyu)
• Legacy (Renzo Gracie)

I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting but you get the idea.

To summarize, for me to ensure my motivation it is important to: 

1. Have a goal - achievable, realistic, worthwhile, specific.
2. Be surrounded by the right people.
3. Know what inspires and use it - preventatively and reactively.

I know that I'm working on all three again, when I've got a goal I'll let you know.

I could write more on this and maybe I will in future, but for now Good Luck and Godspeed!

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!

Listen up.

I recently realised that when it comes to strength, conditioning and scrapping there are a few guys who I genuinely respect for one reason or another and whose writing I generally trust and seek out.  The benefits of good teaching are not lost on me, my Dad always told me 'learn from my mistakes so you don't have to make your own'.  It's telling that in japanese, 'sensei', often used to mean teacher can be literally translated as 'one who has already travelled the road and can show the way'.  Or something like that.  So, with that said, it's important to find teachers that we can trust to show us the way, especially if we're going to invest valuable resources - not least of which being time - in obtaining their knowledge.

So, without further ado, and at great personal risk of being labelled a nut-hugger, ass-kisser, fanboy, etc. here's Part One in my list of 'Senseis'.

Dan John

The older I get the more Dan John's writing resonates for me.  Sure, the guy tends to ramble a bit and it's not always entirely clear what he's getting at, but when it comes to sensible, balanced advice on training for sports, coaching, older athletes and olympic lifting as well as a different take on life (see Work, Rest, Play, Pray) Coach Dan John is my go to man.  This is a guy who has been down the road and most importantly, is still making that journey as he approaches middle age.  Sure, he's not a fighter, but he knows an awful lot about lifting, getting strong, coaching throwers, improving athletic performance and fitting training in to real life.  When I need motivation, ideas to freshen up training or just some outlines and plans for fitting some training in, I look to Dan.

Jim Wendler

Why Wendler?
1.  He has cool tattoos.
2.  He has a cool beard.
3.  He squatted 1000lbs in his powerlifting days.
4.  He likes the most unlistenable music on the planet (Iron Monkey, Indian,Lord Mantis).
5.  He wrote 5/3/1: The Simplest and Most Effective Training System to Increase Raw Strength.  I had been lifting for nearly 20 years when I read this.  I wish I'd read it 20 years ago.  I now recommend it to anyone wanting to be strong.  All my lifting is based on this.
6.  He wrote this:


Don't fall for that crap that people are peddling on the message boards, in magazines or on TV.
Get your shit in order, and get your training in order.
Start kicking ass, and take out the crap that doesn't matter.
Start doing and believing in the stuff that works, and do it today and forever.
You want science and studies? Fuck you, I've got scars and blood and vomit.
This is a call to arms for some of you. It is for me too.
Stop all the things that make you a pussy and steal your energy.
Get your life back. - Jim Wendler

Nathan Leverton

I thought for a while about putting Nathan in - not because I doubt him, just because I don't want to be a suck-butt.  I have trained on and off with Nathan at Leicester Shootfighters for almost 10 years now.  If I'd been consistent I'd be.... well, better than I am now.  Nathan is friendly, a very good teacher and communicator, intelligent and an extremely good grappler (probably an understatement). But don't just take my word for it...


“I was introduced to and guided through my MMA career by Nathan Leverton. I came to him a few years ago with very little knowledge about MMA and now I fight in the UFC. He is a genuine person who is putting his heart and time into helping me achieve my potential. For all those who wish to learn grappling or any from of MMA, wether it be a beginner or a professional fighter, then Nathan is the man to see. I have not come across better.”

- Andre Winner
UFC Fighter
The Ultimate Fighter Season 9 Finalist

“Nathan Leverton has a deep understanding of submission wrestling and mixed martial arts. this along with his patience and natural teaching ability makes him a great coach. Leicester Shootfighting is a great place for people at any level, from beginner to professional fighter” .

- Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy
UFC Fighter
Cage Warriors World Champion
GCM Cage Force Tournament Finalist

“Nathan is a highly technical and skilled submission wrestler. Added to this he is an excellent instructor with patience and natural teaching ability. He can train anyone at any level from novice to seasoned professional. Anytime I come back to England I make sure to get as much time as possible with Nathan to learn the most up to date and effective moves.”

- James “Lightning” Wilks
UFC Fighter
The Ultimate Fighter Season 9 Winner

“Awesome grappler, great coach, and genuine person, with an open mind to learning, not what it says in the book, but what works.”

- Paul “Semtex” Daley
Former UFC Fighter
Cage Rage Champion
FX3 Champion
EliteXC and MFC veteran.

“Nathan is a great coach and very friendly guy! he knows his stuff and is constantly on the look out to further his knowledge which he is all to keen to share. i learnt a lot from him, and look forward to workin with him again in the future.”

- “Slick” Nick Osipczak
UFC Fighter
The Ultimater Fighter Season 9 UK Team Member

“Nathan’s a good friend and a fantastic coach – his team’s record this year should speak for itself! I always enjoy training with the Leicester shoot guys and girls, and inevitably come away with some crucial pointers to tighten up and improve my game.”

- Rosi Sexton
Top 5 World Ranked Female fighter
Cage Warriors Female World Champion

“Nathan Leverton is not only a brilliant grappler with a great style, he is an amazing teacher that can adapt to his pupils attributes to teach a style that may be very different from his own but much more suitable.”

- Dean Amasinger
The Ultimater Fighter Season 9 UK Team Member

Part Two coming soon...

Coach Dan John

Seeking inspiration, I've been reading some of Dan John's articles from his site and T-Nation. Dan is a very well respected participant and coach in Olympic and highland games style throws and also the Olympic lifts. As such he has a wealth of knowledge and experience to impart and does so in a detailed and entertaining manner.

One of the ideas that Dan explores is that of 'Work, Rest, Play, Pray'. This is Dan's expansion of the idea of balance in life, developed from a combination of his own experience and something that a nun talked about in his youth(!). The article is well worth reading, but essentially it presents the four words as points on an alternative compass. Those involved with sports or physical training of any sort will be familiar with definitions of the first two – Work and Rest – but how many of us really give any thought to the latter pair?

Reading logs and blog posts you'd be forgiven for thinking that those writing them were sometimes forced to train, where has all the fun gone? This is the play part. Maybe we all need to re-connect occasionally with the reasons for which we started training, that we love the sports that we play, that we enjoy the feeling we get from lifting and sprinting, we've made some good friends through our love of sports. We need to enjoy what we do. There's no doubt in my mind that, particularly for the amateur, losing the 'enjoyment factor' is halfway down the road to burnout and at least two steps towards giving it (whatever 'it' is) up altogether.

Ok Coach Dan, I get Work, Rest and, now, Play, but what do you mean by Pray? Referring again to the article, Dan talks about taking time to just be alone for a few minutes although he also counters this by discussing his own penchant for too much training alone – it's all about balance see. For me the Pray part can be any number of things – walking the dog, Zen meditation working on my bonsai trees – and whilst I need alone time, I often need to tilt the balance the other way and spend more time with my family and friends. This for me is also Play.

I'd urge you to head on over to T-Nation or to his website to look up some of Dan John's articles, and to think about your own balance compass, like me, you might learn something.

Look after yourself.....