Affliction T-Shirts Annoy the SH** Outta Me!

(Zach this is dedicated to you, my friend Chris Grayson is the authority on this as he trains guys at Gracie Barra in Chi-town, but here is my two sense to help spread the word.)

Ever notice that most guys who wear Affliction shirts are NOT fighters. They're usually some fat boner that hangs out at the bar 4 nights a week and does a dumbbell press/ cable fly routine three times per week. Most of these guys talk a big ball game and end up getting their ass kicked or not even fighting at all (this is what I've observed at the bar I work at anyways). Well, they would get their ass kicked because they're not strength training properly for MMA and are not training the right energy system for MMA.

Here's my general thoughts on developing a well thought out plan to get into fighting shape:

1.) control body fat with your food choices primarily (you should use your training to improve relative strength and improve the body's ability to remove waste products, also known as conditioning... you can't out train a bad diet to lose body fat)

2.) train to improve relative strength. this means various sets of 1-5 reps using big compound movements (squats, deads, cleans, presses). For this use weights 80% of your one rep max or above for "max effort" work and use roughly 30-55% of your one rep max weights for "dynamic effort" work. For more details on these strength training methods read my old post at the bottom "methods of madness" If you can move up a weight class, do a higher volume of repetition effort work. If you are trying to make a lower weight class, focus on the max effort/dynamic effort work and lactic acid conditioning.

3.)Include the correct type of conditioning work. The volume and duration of the conditioning can be determined after examining the actual mma skill practices themselves. I'm not too familiar with the actual skill practices but I know they're is a great deal of conditioning going on here. So once we know how much more we can condition without over training we'll set that up. Aerobics are totally unncecessary for MMA. The long runs you hear wrestlers, boxers and mma guys doing are completely worthless and a waste of time. MMA is anaerobic (without oxygen) primarily. It relies and short intense bursts of energy over and over again. This means we need to be strong and able to recover quickly to display this strength again and again on your opponent. So you want to focus your efforts on intense intervals of oh lets say 30 seconds all the way up to 75 seconds (this is not precise, just a general guideline). Some activities you could use to do this are: sprints, prowler pushes, sled drags, tire flips, hill sprints, body weight circuits, jump ropes, heavy bag flips, "death" circuits, etc... The key to this is to keep the rest periods rather short between sets (i.e. 30-60 seconds) to allow lactic acid to build up rapidly. Start with a longer rest period and every couple of workouts decrease the rest period 10-15 seconds.

That's it for now, if you're going to be a tough guy in an Affliction t-shirt please train correctly...


http://strengthcoachdan.blogspot.com/2008/11/methods-of-madness-basics-of-building.html