How To NOT Be Slow And Useless

Over here at DanavirSarria.com, I teach people how to get jacked, shredded, and athletic by training like a world class fighter. I like to talk about muscle building and fat loss as much as I like to do talk about athletic preparation, but since most people are looking to do the former to look better, I write a bit more about that stuff.

I enjoy it, but that usually means I end up with followers who JUST want to look good. I don’t want that. It’s fine if you want to look good, so do I, but I want to let you know that there is more to fitness than just looking good.

To be a warrior, being big but slow and useless is not an option.

I want you to be big, strong, and powerful. For those that don’t know, power is speed and strength meshed up together. A big huge muscular guy will probably jump at an average height but someone who can generate a lot of power will jump a lot higher. This is what allowed Michael Jordan to fly from the free throw line and land an atomic slam dunk.

So how can YOU become more powerful?

For those who want to unleash their inner nerd, here’s the equation.

Force = Mass X Acceleration

In other words, if you want to produce power (force), then you have to have the strength (mass) and have the speed to use that strength fast (acceleration).

The First Step In Developing Power

Usually when someone reads the above sentence, I get either one of two responses. The first one being a totally confused guy asking “Whaaaa?” and the other being someone who let all that muscle get to his head and says “Bro, that’s it? I got this. Acceleration. Gotta go run some more!”

No…*sigh*

The first step in developing hardcore power is to get stronger. Strength allows for a greater capacity in power. Without strength, speed can’t do too much to increase power.

Yes, this means you need to actually lift some heavy stuff if you are not already.

The goal is be to able to squat at least 1.5 times your weight and deadlift twice your weight. For the upper body, if you aren’t an athlete I’m happy if you can do some advanced pushup variation such as the one arm pushup. If you’re an athlete, you should be able to do the one arm pushup effortlessly. Having a good bench press would be a good idea as well, which should reach 1.5 times your body weight too.

The good thing about getting stronger is that you’ll also build muscle alongside with it. That means there is no reason to fret if you’re beach body seeker.

For the most part, stay within the 5-8 rep range to build strength and muscle simultaneously. Leave the 1-5 rep range when you’re at a cycle where pure strength is your main priority.

The Second Step To Develop Power

This is the acceleration part.

As a quick refresher, power is the product of being able to use your strength fast and explode.

While strength is developed by lifting heavy stuff, power is developed by using a submaximal load and performed with acceleration.

Some well known ways are olympic lfting, jumps, sprints, med ball throws, and more. Each has a place in a program, but I really like jumps and med ball throws.

When training for power, the LAST thing you want to do is to be fatigued. In some cases, that is warranted but most of the time it be better to do them fresh. Jumps and things of that nature have a higher risk of injury than regular weight lifting. Add that with the fact that if you put it early in a workout, it actually helps increase your power output for the rest of the session. Less risk of injury and the capacity to have a better training session is enough reason to do it early.

I would work on power right after the warmup as that when you are freshest but still are ready to handle the force produced by your body.

Training for power is like training for maximum strength. Since training for maximum strength involves training with heavy weights, power is trained with much lighter weights (Around 50%-70% of your 1 rep max or a weight that you can do around 10-15 reps with) but done in an explosive manner.

This is the reason why I like jumps and med balls throws because you have to do them explosively. It’s also easy to see when you are too fatigued, which makes them pretty much self-limiting.

Like with maximum strength, power is trained from the 1-5 rep range.

On another side note: Increased power will allow you to actually lift heavier weights later on. This means more muscle and strength for you.

What To Do Now

After reading this, it might be time to restructure your current training programs. Take a moment, look at what you have and compare them to your goals. If it just so happens you need to gain muscle, strength, and power, add in a power exercise after your warmup for 2-3 sets of 3-5 reps.

For the resistance training, make sure you’re main exercises are in the 5-8 rep range. Obviously vary your rep ranges over time, but 5-8 reps is fail proof for muscle and strength. If you need to focus more on the strength side of things, pick a month where you go down to 3-5 reps.

Doing these things will transform you from pretty boy to warrior. No more of this “I just want to look good” crap. There is more to life than just too look good. By all means, train for vanity but if you want to kick ass and perform like a UFC fighter (or any athlete for that matter), it’s time to develop some gut busting power!

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Is That Really Necessary?

One of the hardest things to do when creating a training program for anyone is deciding if everything you wrote down was really that necessary.

It’s always easier to say yes than it is to say no especially when you know you can handle the extra. The cool thing about the human body is that it can take a lot of stress when it needs to. This is vital in life or death situations but when it comes to the gym, it’s not such a good thing anymore for most people.

For example, just a couple of weeks ago I started training again after 2 months of inconsistent training. I started with a modified version of Jason Ferrugia’s Muscle Gaining Secrets program (which is freaking awesome and you can get it right HERE).

I started with 4 sets of 5 goblet squats with a 100 pound dumbbell. I was repping it out like there was no tomorrow and when tomorrow came, it sucked…. Really really bad.

My hamstrings and glutes where being roasted 24/7 for 2 weeks. I could barely get into a full squat position without breaking down let alone trying to work out again. Even upper body workouts were useless as the pain was just sitting there and wouldn’t budge.

The worst part was that I didn’t even get any results from it. Even though it was only one training session, I felt like I should have gotten something from it…

After those 2 weeks, I restarted again with 1 set of 10 on week 1-3 while adding an extra set every week. Not only did I not feel any soreness, the muscle just grew like weeds on me.

The moral of this story is that you should be questioning everything you write down on that piece of paper you call a training program.

It’s always easy to add stuff in. Just look at Crossfit. Those guys don’t give a fuck what they do and the results they get. They just want get in, train till they heart bursts through their chest, pick it up, and leave.

On the other hand, it’s hard to take things out. What many don’t realize is that recovery is just as if not MORE important than the actual training session itself.

Training is where you provide stimulus to the body and recovery is where you reap the rewards. Without recovery, you will not get results.

At the very beginning of a program, things such as intensity or volume will increase overtime. Actually, at every part of a program, something will be increasing. This is the rule of progressive overload.

There will come a point though that you can only handle so much while still increasing variables in a program, especially if you play sports and or don’t have the greatest capacity to recover faster.

If all you need is 3 sets of 6 to get your targeted result, is 3 sets of 8 really that necessary? It’s not like you are going to build extra muscle because of it.

Of course, there are some times in a program where you should go beyond what you need but most of the time, you will not need to and if you don’t need it, why do it?

If your main goal is jump higher or punch harder and you need to work on your posterior chain, then deadlifts and or glute thrusts would take up most of your lower body training. Because of that, your squat volume should go down.

Simple, easy, but not everyone does it.

This doesn’t mean though that if you add a couple of reps on something, everything should go down. This is subjective as it is about science.

Some people do really good with high volume/frequency training and others don’t but when it comes down to it, certain parts of a program demand more overall focus than others.

If you are a hardgainer and trying to build muscle, maybe you shouldn’t be doing too much aerobic training and instead focus more on the resistance training.

If you are a powerlifter trying to get your deadlift up, it might not be smart to be sprinting 4 times a week.

If you are trying to burn fat, maybe it’ll be better if you do “just enough” work on your power movements than it is to spend most of your time on it and neglecting the circuit that comes right after.

If you are going to train biceps 3 times a week, then you don’t need to do 12 sets of curls every workout.

If you play a sport 4-5 days a week, it might not be the best idea to go to the weight room 4 times a week.

Remember, the goal of training is to provide a stimulus. Preferably the exact and minimum amount of stimulus you need for your goal.

Recovery is where you get the results of the stimulus you placed on your body.

Train hard, recover hard.

When in doubt, ask yourself “is that really necessary?” If it’s not, take it out and focus on what is.

Dealing With Ankle Sprains

Just 2 weeks ago, I was playing in a pickup game of basketball and suffered what felt (and heard) like a serious right ankle sprain.

I was scared that I broke it even though I still played for another half hour after the initial sprain. Once I decided it was enough, I left home, took a shower, and then started treating it.

I searched around the web trying to figure out how I should go about dealing with this ankle sprain. In the meantime, I defaulted for R.I.C.E.

You know: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.

I thought to myself that if anything should work, it would be that. I mean, it’s recommended by every doctor for every injury and it’s been here for long, it should work.

Big mistake.

After 20 minutes of icing, I couldn’t stand for my life and had the ankle mobility of a rock. Right then and there, I knew this R.I.C.E crap wasn’t going to work and I told that ice pack to go fuck itself.

Mind you, this just like a few weeks after I had sprained my other ankle during a sparring session where I also did the same. I don’t know why I thought it would work this time around but whatever.

My ankles are where I suffer most of my injuries, which sucks because I like to kick off heads for fun. Fortunately, during that time I asked some other coaches for help on ankle injuries. That plus my past experience in dealing with this situation has led me to my current “re-hab” program for myself.

As I write this article, I’m still in the re-hab process with my right ankle but it’s been my most successful re-hab program ever. In just 2 weeks I can do just about anything except rapid changes in direction and explosive movements. In just 1 week, I was able to squat my bodyweight without any pain, so it’s worked real nicely.

I think I’m still a good 3 weeks out from being completely healed, which is still incredibly quick considering it usually takes longer and this particular strain was really bad.

So here is how I’m handling this problem:

1. Rest

This is naturally the first step for most people, especially since it’s the first step of R.I.C.E. With the amount of pain I felt after icing it, the LAST thing I wanted to do was stand.

If something hurts, don’t do it.

I would alternate between rest and test. Once every 10 minutes or so, I would try to stand up and stand on one leg. If it hurt, I rest some more. If it didn’t, I would start number two.

In my experience, this usually takes me 30min to 1 hour before I feel confident enough that I can move onto the next step.

2. Increase Range of Motion

In my opinion, this is the most important step as it is what makes difference between an injury that can last weeks to one that last just days, depending on the severity.

Basically, I would just sit on a chair or bed and repeatedly performed dorsi and planter flexion exercises. In the beginning, just a small ROM would suffice. Over the course of a day I would increase that ROM to the fullest.

Again, I let pain dictate when and how to progress.

3. Compression

I unfortunately had to go to school, which includes a lot of walking. Although I felt a lot better by then and I could walk with just an ounce of pain, I put on a brace.

It helped as I walked a lot. I probably would have been sore going 5 days straight of walking in school without the brace on.

Either way, it helped me still move around without the need of crutches.

4. Low Intensity Activity

My ankle started feeling better the more I walked with the brace. Essentially, I realized that walking was just a “loaded” version of the dorsi and plantar flexion exercises I did just a few days earlier.

On top of that, I also made it a point to write the alphabet with my feet. Although it was hard at first, it eventually got easier and with less pain.

I did this for 2 weeks (no brace the second week – which is where I am at right now).

5. Strength Training

In conjunction with the low intensity stuff, I knew that if ever wanted to get better faster, then I needed to put some more weight on my ankle.

About one week after the initial injury, I couldn’t run without pain. It sucked, yet I still tried to box squat with my bodyweight (about 170 lb). I felt no pain at all.

It was just an experiment, but it worked so I knew it was time to start some lower body exercises again.

I once again got back into my workout routine with some full ROM prisoner squats, calf raises, resistance band work and lunges (I’m careful with those as sometimes it hurts).

That is where I am at right now and it’s working great.

Conclusion

I learned a lot of this through Mike Guadango, Anthony Mychal, and Dick Hartzell. I realized that the old R.I.C.E technique we all trust actually sucks, at least for ankle sprains.

Right now I can run in a straight line, I can jump too (mostly) and other stuff like walk and squat without pain.

If you’re like me, try this method out instead of R.I.C.E. I’m sure you’ll get much better results this way.

On Becoming A Pushup Beast

I remember back in the 7th grade when performing just one pushup was an absurd challenge. At an all time high 178 pounds standing at a fluffy 5′ 5′ at the time, I went down, got into position, repped out half a rep and proceeded to fall flat on my chest due to exhaustion.

I was so embarrassed with myself that I worked on pushups everyday till failure and in 2 weeks, I got to 10 straight reps. I felt a lot better about myself but I still wasn’t satisfied.

Ever since then, I have prided myself on pushups and for the past few months, handstand pushups as well.

It’s the mark of every fit man to get down and hit a set of 50 like if it was nothing. Nowadays, I can go 50 reps deep and once in a while with enough intensity and rest prior to the set, go up to 80.

Pretty good considering I actually don’t focus on going such high reps during my actual workouts.

There was at one point in my training that I would focus on high rep pushups. Although it was difficult and took many month, I was able to get to 50 straight reps – this was a few years ago.

Now I try focusing on different pushup variations and protocols and stuff like that to keep myself at 50 without trying nearly as hard.

Thank you sub-maximal training (y) – that means thumbs up by the way.

Just a few months ago, I kept my regular pushup volume to below 30 reps a week to focus on handstands and other gymnastic maneuvers.

One day during that program, I decided to rep it out in front of other people for a prize and I got to 30 pushups in my fastest time ever and I knew I had it in me to do 100 that day. I didn’t because I had no incentive to, but I knew I could do it.

Now without any practice or even any training for weeks, I can do at the very least 3 one arm pushups on each hand or multiple handstand pushups (against the wall) or get down and rep out a set 50.

It’s pretty cool knowing that I can do such things without any real effort and now here I am to teach you how you can become a pushup beast too, using much smarter and better methods than I did (y).

So here we go:

1. Assessment

With this step, all I want to know are my postural and movement deficiencies (to look for weaknesses) and for my performance in the pushup.

There is a lot that can be done here but the most important thing that I found was to look for kyphosis.

For those that don’t know, kyphosis is the “hunchback” look that is now prevalent in modern society due to the exaggerated amount of computer use and overall sitting (I should know, I’m competent in both haha).

The postural changes that come from kyphosis vary, but as long as you don’t actually have scoliosis, it’s safe to say that you can “fix it” to keep you healthy.

When you see that hunchback look, many things are going on in your body because all it’s trying to do is adapt to the stimulus to keep you safe.

Kyphosis primarily means that you need to:

-Mobilize your thoracic spine (upper back)

-Release tension from your pecs (Through SMR & Stretching)

-Increase core strength and stability

Sometimes there are other factors but those are the main ones to focus on. The bigger the kyphosis, the more you have to focus on working on that pre-hab stuff.

Now for the performance, it’s as easy as getting a timer and then repping out as many perfect pushups as you can and then recording everything.

In this step, choose the pushup you would like to improve the most and give you the most bang for your buck as well. For example, if you want to do one arm pushups and you can’t do one perfect rep, I would rather have you do elevated one legged offset pushups, lever pushups, or some other difficult pushup where you can actually progress on.

This will be your indicator “lift”. You want to do everything possible to strengthen that lift and in this case it is important because you want to avoid failure (there are exceptions though).

The reasoning behind this is that if you take the lever pushup for example and in the first assessment you can only do 5 reps each arm, then your goal should be able to increase this number within the next month or so. By getting stronger with the lever pushup, you will automatically become much better prepared at completing multiple one arm pushups without ever having to try so hard and that is the beauty of sub-maximal training.

If in week one you can only do 5 reps each arm and no one arm pushups, and in week 6 you can do 15 reps each arm then I can guarantee that you will be able to do 3 or more one arm pushups when you try it out again.

2. Fixing Kyphosis For Beast Like Results

So as I said before, fixing a severe kyphosis posture seems to be the best thing to focus your pre-hab work on. Fortunately, there are only a few things to do to “fix it” and keep in mind in when creating a program.

The very first thing I would do is massage the upper back and pecs (especially the pec minor), otherwise known as self myofascial release (SMR).

Here are two videos to show you what I mean:

And at beginning and end of your workouts, add in a pec stretch

Some other things to point out:

It will take about 4 weeks to get really noticeable results but as long your working on it, you shouldn’t really have too much of a problem with it.

Also, always make sure to set up your workouts in favor of pulling over your pushing. Since you’ll be doing a lot of pushups, make sure you keep the volume of pulling to pushing at least 1:1 or 2:1.

3. Power Training

At Westside Barbell, Louie Simmons has developed some of the strongest guys in the world and one of his “secrets” has been his use of power training.

One way (and I think the best way) to improve pushup performance is to just get stronger. Power training, although not maximal in terms of overall intensity, will improve strength levels through velocity.

With that said, that is why it’s important to add in some power training near the beginning of your workouts to take advantage of the neuro-muscular stuff that happens.

For our purposes, I would stick to either (or combination of) different variations of plyo pushups or medicine ball drills.

Things like Clap Pushups, Chest Clap Pushups, Quad Clap Pushups work well. Medicine ball throws to a wall for speed or for distance work well too.

It’s important to keep in mind though that overall number of reps should be kept low and rest periods should be kept high as power training will fatigue the central nervous system faster than regular work that just targets the muscular system.

3-5 sets of 3-5 reps for 60-120 seconds in between sets repeated twice a week is a good template to follow.

4. Core Training

Any variation of the pushup is basically a moving plank, so everything that involves planking such as core stability and strength has to do with the pushup as well.

Just doing some extra planks at the end of a workout can get you to squeeze out another load of reps on your pushups.

Depending on your goals, there are different things you can do such as focusing on endurance work if you’re trying to get to 50 pushups or core strength when going for one arm pushups but generally like anything, I would start with endurance and then as the weeks pass by, focus more on strength while keeping that stability.

I always make sure to be able to keep a regular plank for 3 sets of 60 seconds and side planks for 3 sets each of 45 seconds.

From there, I like to use many hanging core exercises such as hanging leg raises and focus on “strength protocols” (5-8 reps with 60-90sec of rest).

Obviously set up your core training intelligently by progressing through exercises slowly.

I like to keep 1-2 direct core exercises a workout but no more.

5. Sub-Maximal Strength Training

One thing about improving pushup performance is that it is much as a skill as it is about strength, so “practicing” pushups often is important.

Other than that, I generally focus on improving strength sub-maximally.

To get to 50 pushups in a row, I would work on getting my one arm pushup up and to get my one arm pushup numbers up, I would work on lever pushups and modified one arm pushups.

There is no point to max out every time you go out as it will only lead to overtraining and probably worsen any kyphotic posture.

I find that it’s important too to work pushups at multiple rep ranges too. Most of my pushup work will consist of going for 5-10 reps and sometimes I’ll add sets of 20.

Now add in the performance assessment that goes on every 3-4 weeks and there is more than enough volume to worry about.

For me, pushups three times a week and done once a workout works best. I like to keep pushups to 3 sets max and as said before, from 5-10 reps before progressing to the next pushup.

That plus your power and core training will lead to major increases in your pushup numbers.

6. Performance Assessments

The point of this is to increase your performance on a certain pushup so it’s logical to assess yourself every so often to make sure what you’re doing is actually working.

I know how I respond to different stimuli so I actually don’t use regular assessments often as I know that an increase in my indicator pushup automatically improves the actual pushup I want to do so what I like to do is just practice maybe 2-3 reps of the pushup I actually want to improve at a random day and see how it goes.

For example, if I want to improve my one arm pushup and my “indicator lift” is the lever pushup, most of my workouts will include lever pushups. When I feel like I should assess myself (which I usually do after 3 weeks), I’ll do my warmup, core, and power training first and then try my hand at a set of perfect one arm pushups.

If things go well, I’m doing things right. If not, something is wrong so I change things up.

I also like to assess myself on off days to get some form of exercise in without killing myself or taking much time at all.

On off days, I’ll just drop down and do 1 set of low volume pushups. For me, my performance on these vary a lot but if everything goes right, I can tell if I’m improving or not.

At around 4-5 weeks or so, I’ll get curious and just drop down and bang out as many reps as I can with the pushup I want to improve, in this case one arm pushups and classic pushups.

The key here is to just to see where you are with your progress without killing yourself.

Pushups, even ones that require a ton of strength or endurance on your part, can be done every single day as long as it’s done extensively. In other words, as long as it’s easy enough for you to recover quickly for the next session, then you’re good to go.

Conclusion

Becoming a pushup beast can take some time and effort but it will pay off at the end. Eventually, you’ll get to the point where you’re strong enough to cycle through many different pushups without worrying about progressing or burning out to quickly.

There are a ton of ways to go about this but I prefer to do the least work necessary to improve so I go with what I said above.

I think you’ll appreciate that so have fun kicking ass and taking names (y).

The Strength Coach’s Guide To Energy System Training For Combat Athletes – Part 1: The Basics

Energy system development (aka conditioning) is an extremely crucial part to dominating as a combat athlete. Ever since the first fighters fought, people quickly realized that it took an incredible amount of energy to fight.

In other words, that shit is tiring!

A fighter can have the best technical skills, be stupid strong, and be as powerful as an Olympian, but the reality is that without high levels of conditioning, he’s pretty much useless. What is the point for him to have such amazing skills and physical qualities if they will only last for the first few seconds of the fight?

What do you think will happen if you’re fighters don’t develop relentless conditioning?

Someone will be knocked out or tap out. That’s for sure, but it won’t be the other guy.

So it’s in a trainer’s best interest to learn about and develop his fighters conditioning. Anyways, isn’t being able to go the distance and never back down part of being a warrior?

I believe it is and this series of articles will show you how to make sure you’re guy is the last warrior standing.

The Importance Of Conditioning For Combat Sports

The most important thing for a combat athlete is his technical skills. There is no going around it. Without highly developed skills, a fighter is no longer a martial artist and warrior. He is just another sorry street fighter.

Not only will great technical skills allow him to strike or grapple your opponent with great effectiveness and less chances of injury to himself but it will also make him more efficient in his movements.

It takes much less energy for a UFC veteran to perform a roundhouse kick than it does for a white belt at the karate school across the street to do the same thing.

With that said, a combat athlete can only go as far as his body will allow. He can have a crisp roundhouse kick but his body will determine how high, hard, and fast he can perform it.

The same goes for his energy systems. A fighter can have perfect technique but if his conditioning sucks then his last punch is going to be much slower, weaker, and less effective than his first punch.

If you, as a strength coach, can help bridge that gap so that every strike your fighter throws at any point of a fight with maximum effectiveness, then he will become a much more lethal fighter.

Combat Conditioning Myths – Busted

Before we get into you’re crash course in the energy systems, let’s bust some myths that are highly prevalent in the martial arts community.

Myth #1: Train Until You Drop

I don’t know if fighters are just literally crazy, hard headed or maybe both, but just because you have someone do endless rounds of circuits that leave him spitting blood on the floor doesn’t mean it’s getting the athlete ready for his fight. That means no more crossfit.

On the bright side: Combat athletes will do anything and everything to make sure they win their fight.

Even with that, the problem still remains. The reason why these “MMA Circuits” are used so much is because many coaches swear they are as sport-specific as you can get without actually fighting.

Umm…no.

Most of these MMA circuits are badly designed and badly placed in the context of the training program. Not only do these same circuits do NOT improve conditioning for the fight, but they hurt the athlete as well as it will leave him fatigued during times they must be fresh to keep training. This increases the risk of injury and affects the “lifespan” of an athlete’s career.

Now, if they are designed intelligently and placed into an intelligently designed training program, then circuits can be great if not amazing and very beneficial to combat athletes.

Unfortunately, this is not the case most of the time.

Fortunately, there is a simple way to fix this. Either learn how to program them correctly or don’t use them at all.

Myth #2: Every Training Session Should Be A Conditioning Fest

Every fighter swears that every training session must include conditioning. It doesn’t. Far from it. The top priority is to improve strength, power, and other athletic qualities in the gym.

The biggest difference maker in sports is strength. That is why men are so much more dominant in sports than women are. Once you remove that variable, you’ll be left with a weak fighter. Although it is not the only variable it is should be a priority as developing maximal strength will affect just about every other athletic quality positively, including the endurance to handle a fight.

Obviously, everything should be periodized to gain maximal results from a training program. Depending on the fighter and his needs, he might need more or less energy system work than others, but the fact remains that everything should be planned out intelligently.

Not every training session has to be a conditioning fest.

Myth #3: Aerobic Work Is Useless

Combat sports are not purely anaerobic; combat sports actually require a large amount of work from the aerobic system.

Shocker, I know.

Here’s the reason why: The more you have to repeat the action accompanied by less rest, the more aerobic it becomes.

That might be a little confusing so let me explain.

Aerobic means “with oxygen”. Anaerobic means “without oxygen”. By definition, if something takes more effort the more anaerobic it becomes.

Now here’s the other side of the coin: Every energy system, including the aerobic system, will “turn on” at the same time during any activity no matter how anaerobic it looks.

This is amplified by how long the event takes. For example, a fighter will use his aerobic system more if he has to go 5 rounds of 5 minutes than he would if he went 3 rounds of 5 minutes. This is because he must expend his energy more frequently over a period of time, unlike a powerlifter who completes his lift and has tons of time to rest.

This means that although fighters are usually forced to do circuit after circuit to improve their “conditioning”, they are missing out on developing the energy system that is responsible for 50% or more of their energy production during a fight.

In other words, aerobic conditioning is just as important as anaerobic work in combat sports.

Total mind fuck, I know.

Energy System Training 101

There are two main categories of energy systems. On one side is the aerobic system and on the other side is the anaerobic system. In short, the aerobic system is for longer termed uses that can last from a few minutes to hours at a time and the anaerobic system is for shorter term uses, from a couple of seconds to two minutes.

Under those two main systems are the power and capacity systems for both the aerobic and anaerobic systems.

The power of the system is the rate at which energy is being produced. In other words, the faster that your energy system can generate the energy needed by your muscles, the faster those muscles can contract and relax, which will ultimately mean the more power that they can generate.

The capacity of the system is the duration at which the energy is able to be produced. Basically, it is how long one is able to generate energy for.

Therefore, the energy continuum from the shortest to longest in duration is as follows:

-Anaerobic Alactic Power

-Anaerobic Alactic Capacity

-Anaerobic Lactic Power

-Anaerobic Lactic Capacity

-Aerobic Power

-Aerobic Capacity

Quick side note: The difference between alactic and lactic is that in an alactic zone, you won’t produce a high amount of lactic acid and in a lactic zone, you will. Another way to think about this is that running hard for a minute is going to “burn” more than running hard for 5 seconds.

These energy systems, while often taught to be separate, all turn on at the exact same time – right at the start of activity. And they will work as hard as possible to meet the metabolic demands present. This means that sports that were thought to only be anaerobic actually have a huge aerobic component to them and that cannot be ignored.

Unlike in true anaerobic sports such as Olympic Lifting and Powerlifting, a combat athlete cannot afford to have any weak links in his conditioning or they will be exposed both quickly and painfully.

For example, if a fighter doesn’t have the aerobic power to handle a 5 minute round, then he’s going to be in major trouble the last minute of that round. If an Olympic Lifter doesn’t have a highly developed aerobic power system, it doesn’t matter as he only needs to do one high intensity lift and then have a huge period of rest.

The Principles Of Combat Conditioning

Skill Work:

The most important thing to a combat athlete is his technical skills. Without it, he is not a martial artist but a regular neighborhood street fighter. With better technical skills (and even tactical skills), the more efficient he will be at using his energy. On top of that, the better his technique is and the more refined it is, the greater potential he has for more power.

Basically, make sure his technical skills are being worked on before you worry about developing his athletic qualities.

Strength Training:

The stronger you are the better the athlete you will potentially be, too a point. Although there will be a point when an athlete is “strong enough”, it is still important to raise his strength levels high enough to better be able to defeat his opponent.

There are two categories of strength that will be talked about here.

There is maximal strength and relative strength. Maximal strength is your level of absolute strength. Relative strength is how strong you are in comparison to your bodyweight. If athlete A can squat 200 pounds and athlete B can squat 300 pounds, then athlete B has higher levels of maximal strength. Now, if athlete A weighs 180 pounds and squats 300 for 10 reps and athlete B also weighs 180 pounds and squats 300 but for 8 reps, then by definition athlete A has a higher level of relative strength.

Both are important for combat sports because every fighter must work to become stronger than his opponent in terms of absolute strength all while staying in his same weight class with that newly developed strength.

Increasing maximal strength directly influences most if not every athletic quality including endurance. The stronger you are, the less energy it will take for you perform the same action as someone else with the same skill level. Increasing relative strength will allow you to be a better “pound for pound” fighter as now you’re stronger yet you’re bodweight doesn’t change much.

Aerobic Conditioning:

Direct aerobic conditioning is a must for all combat athletes.

Higher levels of aerobic conditioning will allow you to last longer in a fight as you will be able to recover faster. You can think of it the opposite way as well: the faster you can recover, the more you will be able to do during the fight because you’re not as fatigued as someone who doesn’t have a highly developed aerobic system.

It just so happens that many elite athletes, including combat athletes, have extremely developed aerobic systems. This allows them to perform their best throughout an entire fight or game. As any fighter will tell you, it’s not the guy who throws the first and hardest punch but the last one who stays standing that wins.

Although there are two subcategories of aerobic conditioning namely aerobic capacity and aerobic power, both should be directly developed within a fighters training program at one point or another, if needed.

Anaerobic Conditioning:

If aerobic conditioning is what will keep you standing up during the last round and still perform better than your opponent, then you can think of anaerobic conditioning as when two MMA fighters are throwing a flurry of punches for 5 seconds or so and then one takes down the other and both are scrambling on the floor for the dominant position. There is constant high intensity movement for 1-20 seconds.

Obviously with that description, it is easy to imagine how important anaerobic conditioning is to a fighter. It is what can make or break a fight as that is where the real action happens.

Although there are many subcategories for the anaerobic system, the dominant anaerobic system for combat sports is the anaerobic alactic system. This is because many combinations won’t usually last more than 10 seconds at a time and if it’s a sport like MMA where combinations are then transitioned to the floor and more time is taken, it still won’t take any more than 20 seconds before movement stops. Fighting is a sport where both athletes come in for a rapid flurry of strikes and then come back out to catch their breaths. Even on the ground, movements are done rapidly and with great effort but for only seconds at a time before a fighter must quickly stop, recuperate, and then continue pressing on.

Conclusion

Energy system training for combat athletes can be confusing but the fact is to become a better combat athlete, you only need to be stronger, more conditioned, and more skillful than your next opponent.

Now if you’re fighters have high levels of both anaerobic conditioning (to be able to do more during the actual striking/grappling) and aerobic conditioning (the ability to recover faster and perform their best at every repetition), then they will be tough to beat.

So what do you guys think? Add your comments on the comment section below. I want to hear what you have to say!

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