Pre Fatigue
‘Fatigue makes cowards of us all’ (Vince Lombardi)
You have heard all the words before “Man up” “It’s only weakness leaving the body”
This is the mentality of people who do not understand the high intensity level requirements of MMA, Karate or other martial arts fight, where everything is as close to sub maximal as you can get for high intermittent bursts before you back off quickly rest and go again.
Many fighters, coaches and fans are still champions of the long endurance type training and continue to train this way, there is no wrong or right way but do we run in our sport NO so why train for an endurance event.
Firstly to train for MMA you need to look at the specific energy demands required by the sport and the intensity at which you a fighter is required to train and fight. The body reacts differently to demands placed on it and energy systems used biologically are varied.
As stated endurance work does not reflect the sport in any way, owing to the metabolic demands of the sport, high intensity burst of training are more appropriate, with short specific bouts of rest this best mimics the metabolic and oxygenic requirements.
How does this help you, by training this way and matching the metabolic expenditure in the fight you will be less fatigued as your body is better prepared to deal with the demands of the competition.
One way of preparing the body is to conduct metabolic conditioning circuits, which need to be done in three parts – General- Special-Specific.
General- for example Hammer curls with a dumbbell this is targeting the muscles used when throwing hammer punches
Special- Band hammer curls sixty reps in thirty seconds.
Specific- one arm band hammer punches on a dummy from the mount position.
How can we make this harder for the fighter, well we can pre fatigue the fighter by using high intensity burst of exercises over a set time or reps ensuring they are done as fats as possible, these will be completed in sets from 45 seconds-90 seconds in duration.
We then progress to the more specific sets which will mimic the last round effects the body will be going through, this also helps the fighter concentrate on the technique, power, positioning when he is tired so he gets full effect from the training.
Keeping with the hammer curls (upper body) how do we pre fatigue it. A quick exmple of an upper body blast would be
1. 20 wide arm press ups
2. 1o box press ups each side
3. 10 diamond shape pres ups
4. 10 clap press ups
Please note these should be done as fast as possible and the elbows should never lock out, the exercises should be done in order for about 4-6 sets with a minute rest in between, we then progress onto the desired strength and conditioning exercises.
Don’t be scared to experiment with exercises and sets in order to progress your fighters or progress as a fighter.
Remember the smarter you train the better you perform, training is the easy part the hard part is ensuring you rest properly as this is where the adaptation begins.
