New Article: Explosive Conditioning for MMA

I'd like to share the first part of an article I'm putting together to help clarify one of the most important yet misunderstood topics in MMA strength and conditioning. I refuse to write short worthless fluff articles with colorful pictures and next to no real training information, so keep in mind my articles will be long and full of detail, real scientific principles, and specific methods you won't find in other articles or programs.

Explosive MMA Conditioning
Joel Jamieson
EndZone Athletics

In almost every sport the ability to be explosive and powerful often goes hand in hand with success, and this is especially true in Mixed Martial Arts. Being a faster and more explosive fighter gives you the ability to overpower, outwork, and outgun your opponent from start to finish. The truth is that almost every athlete can dramatically improve their power with the right program, but very few programs get it right.

In this article I will teach you the keys to doing it right. I will show you how to dramatically improve your explosive power, and most importantly, how to develop it specifically for MMA. I will also do much more than just give you a few exercises to throw together as many coaches often do, I will lay out the foundation, the specific methods, and the science behind explosive power development for MMA and why my program is different.

If you have no interest in the real science and philosophy of explosive power training feel free to skip to the end, but for those who want to know the how and the why of strength and conditioning, read on

 

The Programming Progression

Alright now that the scientific part is out of the way it

 

I'd be interested to see how you gear your maximum strength portion of the yearly cycle.

Really good stuff here though, can't wait to put it into effect when i'm healthy.

 

I've updated the article to include the principles and methods for developing explosive power that I'm sure people have been interested to see, but it won't let me put the whole thing in one post because it says it's too many characters. If anyone knows how to get around this let me know as it would be much easier to read in one long post I think.

I'll finish up the article and post the last section this weekend. The methods and programming I've laid out in the article are extremely effective for improving explosive conditioning and I hope everyone will find this article helpful in their training.

How to develop max strength for MMA would be a much larger article than this one.

 

Great read!

 

No way around the post limits even for me, i cleaned up the thread to improve the read.

 

This is great freaking stuff EZA and I am deeply thankfull for you posting it!

I just have one question and it might sound confused because I certainly dont know enough about periodisation. But I have heard critiscism against periodisation in blocks like this that you loose to much of previously gained qualities when you enter new blocks, and that you for that reason would be better of with some form of concurent/conjugated periodisation for combat athletics where you let the qualities rise slower but where you dont let them drop in the same way.
Now I would be extremely interested in hearing your thoughts on this subject?

 

The issue of concurrent vs. concentrated loading isn't so much an issue of the sport you're applying a periodization model to, but rather the level of the athlete. In lower level athletes you can train several motor abilities at once and still see improvements because they don't need a lot of stimuls for each one to improve.

In higher level athletes, howewver, you have to use a more concentrated loading model because it requires a much higher stimulus to force adaptation and when you are training several motor abilities at once it's impossible place a large load any one particular motor ability. Concentrated loading and conjugated sequencing is the correct way to periodize motor ability development in higher level athletes but is not applicable to lower level athletes.

The example of a model for developing alactic power that I used in the article is really only training one or two motor abilities over the course of the whole program so your question doesn't apply to the example I provided. Since you are essentially targeting a different property of same motor ability in each block, you will not lose anything developed in previous blocks and will instead continue to improve over the course of each block.

 

Thanks for the answer, I guess I have to look through your post again to more fully understand it. Definitively the kind of post you have to digest a bit, great stuff!

 

Great article EZA and thanks for posting it.

Do you have any other articles floating around? I'd love to read something similar to this but in regards to the lactic system. What I'm looking to do is enhance my work rate/load over the course of 2-3 min rounds (amateur kickboxing/Muay Thai).

 

No unfortunately I don't have any articles written on the lactic system but the same basic principles apply to that system as well. There can definitely be a greater contribution of the lactic system to shorter rounds like you mentioned, but keep in mind there will always be a trade off between anaerobic lactic energy production and endurance. Athletes with overly developed lactic systems will gas as the fight goes on. Generally speaking, the more power you can display aerobically the less you'll have to tap into the lactic system and the better your endurance will be. I would only recommend maximally developing the lactic system for sports that are purely lactic like 400m sprinters and such.

 

Well, the reason I mention it is because I seem to have decent power and ability to recover that power quickly (alactic). My long term cardio also seems to be pretty decent (if it matters my RHR is usually ~54bpm, though I

 

What kind of high and powerful work rate are you talking about? And how soon is too soon? Could be either low power of lactic system or you could be hitting your lactic heart rates too soon because of low aerobic power or you have too much glycolytic muscle tissue. You'd need to look at your training heart rates to get a better idea.

 

fantastic article Joel!

 

I'll give that a try but I'll need to pick up a HR monitor. It also may just be that my expectations are too high, to be honest. I'm looking to be a non-stop ass beating machine but I might be shooting for the moon. Basically, I'm trying to throw KO shots nearly non-stop for the rounds duration (in training) but I guess that's probably not even possible.

Thanks for the feedback, EZA. I'll look into a HR monitor. If I'm doing a 2 minute round on the Heavy Bag, exactly at what intervals should I be looking at my HR? Time of max peak and then how quickly it lowers during the resting period? Right now I'm training for 5, 2 min rounds with 1 min rest. It seems as though I can always work up a KO shot if I want (which is why I thought my alactic system might be good) but my work rate suffers after a minute or so (again, my expectations may be too high) and I start gasping for air. I

 

Yes I would definitely suggest getting a heart rate monitor and starting there. There is a difference between being able to push the pace for the whole fight, which is certainly possible (especially with short rounds) and being able to throw 100% effort KO punches and kicks for 2 minutes straight (which isn't physically possible and not a very smart way of fighting anyway)

If you're standing in front of the bag and hitting as hard as you can for a minute straight then you'll definitely gas yourself out quickly no matter what your conditioning may be. What is your lifting program like? In a high intensity but well paced 2 minute round I wouldn't expect to see your heart rate go above 160-170 and it should get back down into the low 130s or below after a minute of rest if you're well conditioned.

 

LoL, I don't fight that way I'm just obsessed with having a high work rate so I push it during training... It sounds like I'm probably over doing it a bit.

Right now it's fairly simple because I've been focusing on conditioning. When I'm not training for a fight I lift with a variety of different protocols but generally I was lifting 4 times a week with emphasis on max strength and explosiveness. I would do doubles and singles, some assistance work and sometimes things like DE lifts. For the last month or so I've cut my lifting down to just 2 days a week and I've been mainly doing prehab and maintenance work to keep my strength up and stay free of injuries. The rest of the time I've been focusing on fight training and conditioning (I have a fight in July, not sure I mentioned that).

Very cool. I'll look into this ASAP.

 

Great article, finding it hard to think of a way to implement it into my training though. I dont really train in cycles I take my training week by week, depending on if theres fight coming up or not.

Could you give some advice on how to fit this type of training into a weekly schedule and also I was wondering where does aerobic training come into this?

I have the problem of being able to recruit my power abit too well which leads to me gassing, what type of training is best suited for fixing up this weakness.

Sorry if this question has been asked before.

 

Very good read EZA thanks for posting that.

 

Great article!