Focus in your training

Ok so today's blog is on something slightly different, I thought I would link to a you tube video by Strength and Conditioning coach JC Santana (he trains Jeff Monson, Thiago Silva and Thiago Alves among others). I think Jeff makes a number of great points on training that a LOT of guys could pay attention to. Its also nice to see a well respected coach singing from the same hymm sheet as we do at Leeds Cage. So first up here are the videos. And below i've summarised what are (for me) the key points.

1. You shouldn't be entering a fight beat up!!

You should be fit and healthy entering a fight, if you're going to enter the cage and give your best you shouldn't be beat up. Thinking you've not trained hard enough because you're not hurting on the night of your fight it dumb.

2. Quality Not Quantity

Anyone can go in the gym and do 4 or 5 hours training. But how much of this is really peoductive training? If you're an experienced fighter your sessions should be short duration (no longer than 1 hour 15 mins) of good quality, high intensity work.

3. Recovery

Naps during the day and AT LEAST 8 hours sleep a day! Insomnia is one of the top signs of overtraining, if you're experiencing this then you're likely overtraining.

4.Too Much Hard Sparring

Sparring can't be hard all the time, there needs to be a tactical or technical goal for each sparring session. Constant hard sparring leads to injury.

5. Get your coaches TALKING!

Training needs to be coordinated between all the different coaches, its not a pissing contest coaches!! If you need to go hard in a certain session then make sure you're going light somewhere else in the programme.

6. Get a Periodised training programme

Having a structured programme that takes care of your general and specific strength and conditioning needs is key, going consistently hard in a programme such as crossfit is not appropriate for athletes such as MMA fighters.

7. Use a variety of training methodologies

Every fighters different, what works for you won't work for the next guy so you need plenty of tools in the box. For older fighters olympic lifting probably isn't going to be a good fit, but for younger guys it may be perfect. Kettlebells, olympic weights, cables and many other systems mean that there's more than one way to skin a cat.

So these are my main take home points from these videos. I hope you enjoyed them.

Ben

Top 5 Strength Exercises for MMA

Ok so for those of you who don't know I am the Head S&C coach at Leeds Cage and have been for nearly 2 years now. With this in mind I really wanted to write a few articles that are specifically aimed towards S&C for MMA. I'm going to start by keeping things nice and simple but hopefully I'll get chance to delve into some more of the nitty gritty as time goes on.

So the first article today is all about the top 5 Strength exercises for MMA, these are all exercises that we use extensively in our programmes here at Leeds Cage and in my opinion are essential in developing a good MMA S&C programme.

1. Deadlift

This is hands down my number one exercise for MMA, it really includes everything we want, activation of the glutes and hamstrings, a challenge of lower back strength and posture, as well as being a great test of core and grip strength (grip strength is key in all combat sports). All in all a brilliant exercise no matter what your sport.

2. Chin Ups

Another exercise thats great for hitting a number of areas, pulling strength is key in MMA when it comes to clinching with your opponent or if you take part in BJJ or Gi work. Starting from a full hang chin ups are a challenging exercise, especially when you start adding weight to them.

3. Hang Cleans

Again a full body exercise that is great for developing power, very important in a sport where wrestling and picking up opponents explosively is important. I've chosen a hang clean over a power clean as I feel its slightly easier to learn technique wise.

4. Bulgarian Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat (BRFESS)

Ok this ones a bit of a mouthful but it is a great single leg strength exercise for MMA. The reason for performing a single leg exercise is that they engage muscles of the lateral complex of the leg (glute medius, adductors and quadratus lumborum) that are not used in two legged exercises (e.g. back squat). This is key for MMA as whether it's in boxing, or wrestling the majority of movements occur on one leg (unless you're a master of the suplex).

5. Heavy Farmers Walks

My final exercise is Heavy Farmers Walks, I really like these as when done well they absolutely hammer an athletes core as well as their grip strength, they can also provide a certain conditioning element when done for prolonged periods of time. This is one exercise where form is key however, you must stay upright, keep your core tight and shoulders pulled back, poor form on this exercise will do more harm than good.

This is a video from DeFrancos Gym in America of a guy really hitting some heavy farmers walks

Ok so there you have it, my top 5 strength exercises for MMA, whilst this post isn't exactly re-inventing the wheel I hope you've found it interesting. If you would like some more reading please check out my blog at www.hullstrength.blogspot.com

Do you do all of these exercises? Is there any exercises you would have included in your top 5 that aren't here? Please leave a comment.

Your's in Strength

 Ben



Are crunches really a bad thing?

Hi everyone

I'm writing an article today on a topic that is pretty emotive among S&C coaches and physio's. It has been very widely reported that core exercises that induce spinal flexion (e.g. sit up's, crunches, russian twists etc.) are "bad" for the spine leading to problems such as disc bulges/ herniations in the lumbar spine as well as the shortening of rectus abdominus causing postural, glute and breathing dysfunction.

I have to say that until very recently I would have totally agreed with everything I've said above and would indeed never have programmed crunch type exercise's. It wasn't till I started working with Kevin Till (check out his blog at www.ktconditioning.co.uk by the way) that I questioned this. I was quite shocked to see Kevin using crunching exercises in his programmes, but instead of totally railing against this I decided that i'd be better off to go away and perhaps read more of the science out there before making a judgement.

So thats exactly what I went and did I went away and really tried to read around the area in more detail. But the surprising thing was that having read the research there is actually very little hard scientific evidence to suggest that crunching exercises lead to back pain, or any of the problems mentioned for that matter. The research that does support this is at best highly flawed with the majority of studies being performed on cadavers, the problem with this being that cadavers perform in isolation and in these studies were often exposed to totally unrealistic forces (thousands of repitions in a matter of hours). With this in mind it seems that maybe crunches aren't so bad after all? Further to this when you look at anecdotal evidence from around the world of sport people have been performing crunches for decades (if not centuries) with little or no adverse health affects. Indeed Cristiano Ronaldo performs a reported 3,000 sit ups a day!! With little or no injury problems.

In Summary

Whilst I am playing devils advocate a bit, I think that it is ok to perform some crunching exercises in programmes. Whilst they shouldn't take up the majority of your core training I would say that if roughly 1/5 of your core training is based around Spinal Flexion this is going to be acceptable (1/5 being anterior core training, 1/5 posterior core training, 1/5 rotary core training and 1/5 lateral core training). I certainly think that people need to go out and read the research on the area more as it seems to have been misinterpreted to some extent.

Ben

P.S. If you want to read someone much cleverer than myself explain the whole issue then check out this blog by Bret Contreras on T-Nation, it's long but goes into some serious detail.
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/to_crunch_or_not_to_crunch

The Biggest Loser: The positives

Ok, so I thought i'd right a really quick blog today about The Biggest Loser, i'm sure most of us at have some point watched the UK version of the show, and indeed many S&C coaches are very quick to criticise the programme (if you go on any sites like EliteFTS or T-Nation you'll find articles no problem). Today however i've decided to write an article talking about some of the positives of the programme. Initially this blog was going to be titled 5 positives from The Biggest Loser, but to be honest i straight up failed to find 5 so you're going to have to settle for 4.

1. Weight Loss:  Ok it may seem pretty obvious but whatever you may feel about the methods used people who go on the biggest loser undeniably lose weight, with winners of the last 4 UK series losing anywhere between 54kg and 63kg. Whatever you think, this is definitley a big positive for the contestants on the show who are undoubtedly better of both physically and mentally compared to then they started the show.

2. "High Intensity" Interval Training

High intensity interval training is now a popular method of fat loss training (no more hour long sessions plooding on the tradmill) and the trainers on the biggest loser certainly make an attempt to embrace high intensity interval training. Whilst it could be argued the intensity is not high enough for true HIIT it is nice to see the trainers embracing the theory.

3. "Functional" Exercise

Again the trainers really embrace the concept of functional training using a variety of strongman techniques, as well as sandbags, kettlebells and a variety of other equipment. Whilst some of the technique is far from stunning the coaches do attempt to correct some of this and the technique for the large part is acceptable. I particularly like the use of loaded carries in their training.

4. Charlotte Ord: 



Booya!!  Charlotte Ord, you can't help but like her!

Anyway hope you enjoyed the blog. Stay strong people.

Ben

F**k Calories

Just a really quick link to an e-book i'm currently reading called F**k Calories by Krista Scott Dixon. Its totally free and definitely worth checking out.

Heres the Link: http://www.stumptuous.com/fuck-calories

Peace

Developing a Balanced Upper Body Training Programme

Ok so I posted a few days ago on developing a balanced lower body training programme (check it out here:http://www.hullstrength.blogspot.com/2011/12/developing-balanced-lower-body-strength.html). So as you might be able to guess i'm about to write a post on developing a balanced upper body training programme. For me it seems more simple to develop a balanced upper body training programme but hands up whose seen this guy in the gym before:

Yup its gorilla posture guy, but why does this occur and how can we avoid it? Well to start off with the more technical term for gorilla/hunchback posture is Kyphosis and it is defined as  "an exaggerated forward curving of the thoracic portion of the vertebral column" Basically it occurs when the anterior (frontal) musculature of the upper body becomes stronger whilst the posterior musculature (the back) of the  upper body does not become stronger. This causes the anterior musculature to become short and tight forcing the shoulders to roll forward creating so called "gorilla posture". Problems from this can include impingement of the shoulder capsule, problems with the scapula and back pain, all things i'm sure most people would like to avoid.

Ok then, so we know some of the problems that commonly occur if an upper body training programme is not well structured, but how do you structure it properly?
Similarly to lower body training I like to break down upper body into four areas: Bilateral Pushing, Bilateral Pulling, Unilateral Pushing and Unilateral Pulling.

Bilateral Pushing: Bilateral Pushing exercises work all the prime movers of the anterior musculature, primarily the pecs and  anterior deltoids. Common exercises would include Barbell Bench Press, Millitary Press, Push Ups or Decline/Incline Bench Press.

Bilateral Pulling: Bilateral Pulling exercise work all the prime movers of the posterior musculature including the lats, rhomboids and traps. Common exercises include, barbell row, chin up variations and cable rows using a supsension training system (e.g. a trx trainer)

Unilateral Pushing: As well as using the same muscles as bilateral pushing exercises, unilateral pushing exercises also activate the muscles of the rotator cuff to act as stabilisers. Common unilateral pushing exercises include dumb bell presses and single arm push ups.

Unilateral Pulling: Unilateral Pulling exercises again use the same major muscle groups as bilateral pulling but again uses some of the smaller stabilising muscles of the shoulder and back. Examples of unilateral pulling exercises include dumb bell rows and single arm cable row variations.

Programming

With regards to programming the key area to focus upon is making sure that there is a correct ratio between pushing and pulling exercises. In order to prevent the gorilla posture described above a ratio of at least 1:1 is required although many people programme as high as 2:1 (pulling:pushing). Whilst some people such as Bret Contreras use a 2:1 ratio (http://bretcontreras.com/2011/03/topic-of-the-week-4-pushing-and-pulling-ratios/ ) a 1:1 ratio is the bare minimum, this would mean if you did 3 sets of 6 on bench press you would also do 3 sets of 6 chins during the same session.

Anyway I hope that gives you a few ideas for programming your upper body training and i'll see you soon for another blog post

Developing a Balanced Lower Body Strength Training Programme

Whilst this blog is hardly reinventing the wheel I felt it was something worthwhile putting down on paper for everyone to see. One key thing when developing a programme is to make sure that all the key movements and areas of the body are covered. Failure to do so can lead to problems later down the line with regards to muscle imbalances both bilaterally and anteriorly and posteriorly.

So here we go then and first up we are going to start with lower body which I like to break down into three areas:

Bilateral Hip Dominant Exercises

Hip Dominant exercises are those that tend to pivot around the hip joint they are crucial in training the posterior musculature of both the legs and lower back with the glutes, hamstrings and lower back being heavily involved in hip dominant exercises. Good examples of hip dominant exercises are and deadlift variation e.g. sumo deadlifts, stiff leg deadlifts, trap bar deadlifts etc. Other exercises for the more advanced athlete could be barbell hip thrusts or band resisted hip thrusts.

 Bilateral Knee Dominant Exercises

Knee Dominant exercises tend to pivot around the Knee joint and as opposed to hip dominant exercises and place more stress on the anterior musculature of the legs (quads). In all knee dominant exercises though the posterior musculature of the legs and back is still heavily involved.  Good examples of knee dominant exercises are: front squats, back squats and goblet squats.

Single Leg Exercises (Knee and Hip dominant)

Finally there are single leg exercises, these can be either hip dominant or knee dominant but they train the lower limb complex unilaterally and engage stabilising muscles (glute med. Adductors and Quadratus lumborum) which are not engaged in bilateral exercises. Examples of  knee dominant single leg exercises are any lunging variation, split squats and single leg box squats. Hip Dominant Single Leg Exercises would include Single Leg Deadlifts and slideboard exercises. Other unilateral exercises include sled pushes and heavy farmers walks.

For a more in depth view of single leg training check out this classic T-Nation article by Mike Boyle:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/the_case_for_single_limb_training

Structuring your programme

With regards to giving your programme balance I would recommend a  roughly equal split between each area leaving 25% Bilateral Hip Dominant, 25% Bilateral Knee Dominant, 25% Unilateral Hip Dominant and 25% bilateral hip knee dominant. Whilst this is not an exact science (there is currently fierce debate between leading strength coaches) if you can fit in a roughly equal balance of these in your weekly training I feel that you’re unlikely to go too far wrong.

Anyway I hope you've enjoyed reading through this post, I intend to put another post up over christmas with regards to creating a balanced upper body training programme.