MMA Power Development

[TeddyRoosevelt]

Article on power development specific to MMA. Found this interesting and wanted to hear peoples opinions on it:

Train for power horizontally, vertically and specifically. MMA is not a sport where your feet are in a parallel squat stance or you use both your arms in a bench press style pressing movement. You need to develop power in a sport specific way. Most programmes focus on vertical power such as jump squats and cleans but MMA requires power to be produced in the horizontal plane, as well as everything in between. Use sled spints, horizontal power presses, barbell explosive rotations, and other such movements to make your power programme even more applicable to the sport. You also need to make sure you are training for power in positions that you specifically need for your game. Look at your previous fights, your future opponent, and get feedback from your coaches. Try to include specific movements closer to fight time to help improve these qualities.

Full article here:

http://www.brendanchaplin.co.uk/powerformma/

And a prior article on strength training for MMA:

http://www.brendanchaplin.co.uk/strength-for-mma/

[bowlie]

I only just started reading, but so far im not impressed. All I have read is this

If you think of the energy required to perform a double leg takedown in sparring or competition. Let’s say for example that to perform it requires 15% of your maximum effort. If you can then increase your maximum effort (or maximal strength) from 100% to say 120%, that 15% required is then actually reduced to around 10%, meaning that you can then perform the movement whilst using far less energy and you’ve not even considered conditioning!

Which from what I have read is simply not true.

EDIT: finished both. The strength article was ok, he just listed some universally recognized effective exercises and put some arbitrary figures next to them.

The power development article was just a list of things that help without giving any practical applications for it. I think everyone here already knows that using things like plyometrics, dynamic lifts and ballistic exercises are good for power, for me at least the hard part is working them into an integrated strength and conditioning program to develop or maintain various qualities simultaneously.

[Tosa]

I thought you knew better than to go for this sort of sport specific stuff GandiJoe.

Also, the math bothers me. Like in the text bowlie quoted, it should be 12.5% instead of 10%. Or where talks about bodyweight multiples for lifts, and specifies that they're multiples for your weight in kilograms.

[miaou]

Some sport-specific work, like wrestling/BJJ partner drills and whatnot, may have it's place when it comes to sports that require high strength/power production in specific motor patterns and/or muscle ranges of motion (and where those sport-specific movements can be trained without significantly changing the motor patterns involved).

However, to my understanding, the entire idea behind basing the majority of an athlete's sport preparation on sport-specific work mainly carries merit for athletes in performance sports with very specific (and limited) "closed" motor patterns (sprinting, throwing, etc.), and not dynamic sports (like soccer, basketball, etc.). MMA is a dynamic sport with such a variety of technical aspects that involve such a variety of motor patterns, that, imo, doesn't make that much sense to focus so much on sport specific stuff in the additional S&C work you do to supplement your sport.

Basically, I'm thinking about this: a sprinter and a thrower work on their S&P to directly improve their performance by increasing their strength&power production in their specific motor patterns. An MMA fighter will simply work on their S&C to support their overall game and help make it more effective and efficient, but not to directly improve it in any sort of strictly quantifiable way. Basically, assuming they have their static/dynamic posture and overall movement mechanics in place, I'd simply have an MMA guy do the most time-efficient S&C work possible to improve his overall strength/power production and energy system capacity, then let him work on the different technical & tactical aspects of his game as much as possible, and include sport specific drills as a support to very specific parts of his wrestling/grappling game where he/his coach deem he might need extra power.

[Pearse Shields]

Word. I'd rather an athlete focus on bringing their power development up through increasing their power clean, and then learn to apply that power to a specific position, rather than have them learn to develop and apply power in a specific position simultaneously (one example I recall was an athlete doing power cleans from the knees to develop strength to explode up from that specific position). As Miaou said, unless your sport is centered around fixed, trainable motor patterns, I believe that strength and power should be trained more in a general sense and then applied in a specific manner.

Also, having read his "Strength for MMA" article, I am once again led to conclude that my upper body pressing strength sucks.

[bowlie]

I only do standup so it may not apply as much as with takedowns and grappling but surely general power should be done with general methods and the gab between power and sport specific power should be bridged with sport specific movements, like punches?

[wisdom blows]

if you're against the cage, down on one knee, trying to finish the takedown, why WOULDN'T having a really strong squat help you? someone that can squat 400lbs wont have many issues driving through a 170lb man.

[TeddyRoosevelt]

Originally Posted by Tosa

I thought you knew better than to go for this sort of sport specific stuff GandiJoe.

Also, the math bothers me. Like in the text bowlie quoted, it should be 12.5% instead of 10%. Or where talks about bodyweight multiples for lifts, and specifies that they're multiples for your weight in kilograms.

I never said I was supportive of the articles. Merely sharing something I was reading in hopes of some moderately enlightened debate.

Originally Posted by miaou

Some sport-specific work, like wrestling/BJJ partner drills and whatnot, may have it's place when it comes to sports that require high strength/power production in specific motor patterns and/or muscle ranges of motion (and where those sport-specific movements can be trained without significantly changing the motor patterns involved).

However, to my understanding, the entire idea behind basing the majority of an athlete's sport preparation on sport-specific work mainly carries merit for athletes in performance sports with very specific (and limited) "closed" motor patterns (sprinting, throwing, etc.), and not dynamic sports (like soccer, basketball, etc.). MMA is a dynamic sport with such a variety of technical aspects that involve such a variety of motor patterns, that, imo, doesn't make that much sense to focus so much on sport specific stuff in the additional S&C work you do to supplement your sport.

Basically, I'm thinking about this: a sprinter and a thrower work on their S&P to directly improve their performance by increasing their strength&power production in their specific motor patterns. An MMA fighter will simply work on their S&C to support their overall game and help make it more effective and efficient, but not to directly improve it in any sort of strictly quantifiable way. Basically, assuming they have their static/dynamic posture and overall movement mechanics in place, I'd simply have an MMA guy do the most time-efficient S&C work possible to improve his overall strength/power production and energy system capacity, then let him work on the different technical & tactical aspects of his game as much as possible, and include sport specific drills as a support to very specific parts of his wrestling/grappling game where he/his coach deem he might need extra power.

Word.

[DrBdan]

Originally Posted by Tosa

I thought you knew better than to go for this sort of sport specific stuff GandiJoe.

Also, the math bothers me. Like in the text bowlie quoted, it should be 12.5% instead of 10%. Or where talks about bodyweight multiples for lifts, and specifies that they're multiples for your weight in kilograms.

I like to record my weight in kilograms but my lifts in pounds, gives me a much better bw-ratio. My deadlift is almost up to 5xBW!

[Tosa]

Originally Posted by DrBdan

I like to record my weight in kilograms but my lifts in pounds, gives me a much better bw-ratio. My deadlift is almost up to 5xBW!

You'd be left with a weird measure of acceleration.