04.12.14
Tonight’s Triple C session focused on technical development and cardiovascular fitness. I saw stark contrasts with the level of mental toughness and physical fitness between now and when this client began with me. This has happened since training began in September and in spite of pre-existing injuries and increasingly hard weather conditions. These particular private sessions have always been held within a facility that has no air conditioning in the summer and no heating in the winter. I make no apologies for what may sound like an old-fashioned or unnecessarily harsh attitude towards this type of training. My experience has shown me that relevant hardship helps inspire a stronger mental attitude, which then helps drive for more progress in physical fitness. This has a cyclical affect, as the physical hardiness is a great way to measure mental tenacity, which is the most important component in any combative endeavour.
The session I gave me client was a sample of a typical intensive workout I personally use. Below is an overview of how I have found many experienced fighters tend to train. Many of them do it without realizing this is their method. I have found it happens when you informally training with an experienced trainer or fighter, when all the ritual and trappings of a formal lesson are discarded in order to make use of the time available.
Warm-up
With time against you, it is imperative that you begin practising the skills you wish to perfect from the onset. My warm-up was not separate to the actual technical training. My client warmed up through the first five one minute rounds, increasing intensity as he became more confident that he was not going to cause an injury. I am not going to fix a set time limit on this. Different individuals warm up at different rates taking into account the conditions of the training environment. Have I just made a controversial, revolutionary or silly comment there? I stand by it until there is peer-reviewed, consistent, empirical data to support a universal time limit that everyone should abide by. For now, I will go by what my old Chinese martial arts teacher used to say, that once you can feel the sweat trickle on your skin you are as warm as you need to be and there is no need to beast yourself.
Technical Progress
I think the point made at the end of the last paragraph is missing from a lot of martial arts training sessions. The cognitive part of mind is most active early on in training sessions. The harder the body is pushed the harder it is to process new information. Complex movements, combination work and refining certain combative behaviours are better done early on, leaving the more simplistic and already ingrained material for the more intensive physical demands of a training session. Technical material should be broken up into small sections for better absorption. Repeating the exact same movement again and again without a break can lead to the ingraining of bad habits. We are naturally lazy. Our bodies are hardwired to conserve energy. Our minds and our brain are one and the same. We will drop our guards in solo training or against a training partner that is not applying heavy pressure. These behaviours will become part of our individualized fighting style. In short, it is better to do 20 x sets of five repetitions than it is to do five sets of 20 repetitions.
Intensive Physical Training
Once warm and new material has been drilled it is time to apply pressure to specific areas. Here we can push ourselves to our limits and measure cardiovascular improvements. I try to hit the legs whenever possible and early on at this part of the workout as everything else follows and the legs, as Peter Consterdine used to remind me, are “your second pair of lungs”.
Using the active recovery model I often apply to weight training sessions, the warm-down is all about gradually returning a fighter’s heart-rate back to its natural resting pace. This doesn’t mean dramatically taking them off a full-bore sprint-rate round to do some meditation, but rather continuing the same simplistic movements at a slower pace. Shadow boxing is great for this and the fighter can stretch through the full range of movements. I work the full range of the body and all ranges of combat during the warm-down, overlapping with a series of static stretches.
Our routine went as follows:
All rounds included footwork, evasive work, hitting from different angles and different levels
1 minute jabbing against the heavy bag
1 minute jab/cross against the heavy bag
1 minute jab/cross/hook against the heavy bag
1 minute jab/cross/hook/cross against the heavy bag
1 minute freestyle combinations against the heavy bag
Wrestling/Clinch
1 minute manoeuvring off a wall against a Swiss ball
1 minute manoeuvring off a wall against a Swiss ball, starting from a crouched position
1 minute footwork with sprawls
1 minute upper body drills – underhook pummelling and collar/elbow bulling
1 minute freestyle shadow wrestling, including break falls and throw entries
1 minute front kicks with punching combinations against the heavy bag
1 minute round kicks with punching combinations against the heavy bag
1 minute clinch with knees and elbows against the heavy bag
1 minute clinch with boxing against the heavy bag
1 minute freestyle against the heavy bag
Ground Work
1 minute pin transitioning on the Swiss ball
1 minute ground top position shadow fighting
1 minute butterfly guard – “Crazy Baby” game
1 minute bottom position shadow fighting
1 minute bag climbing
Warm-Down
5 minutes shadow boxing from all ranges into static stretching.
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