Training in the Heat and Technical Work through the Ranges (diary entry)

15.07.13

General Lesson

The heat wave hitting the UK presents new challenges for CCMA students. Personally the hot weather brings out the lethargy in me, so I have empathy for all those who find it hard to train in these conditions, but it doesn’t stopping me from doing what needs to be done. A fighter should be able train in all weather conditions, acknowledge his weaknesses and adapt accordingly. All students are encouraged to be mindful of rehydration and taking the right amount of nutrition into their bodies. Higher temperatures lead to more sweating, which not only incurs loss of fluids but also loss of sodium, which should be replenished. Be wary of fashionable and expensive sports drinks when looking for a good source of rehydration, especially those containing caffeine and large amounts of sugar. Nevertheless, both fluid and salt replenishment are a must for the dedicated athlete (please see this study on working in hot temperatures).

However, my concern is often the mental or psychological effects on the person training rather than the physical. I loathe the cold, but I argue that training needs to be uncomfortable in order to make progress and winter conditions provide this type of incentive.  Hot weather makes us feel lazy and sleepy, so we face another type of challenge when training in the more intense summer months. Here the motivation is more to do with maintaining and increasing intensity during training whereas in the winter I find the hardest part is getting started.

We dispensed with our normal cardio-conditioning based sport-specific exercises for a warm-up and I had students working their way around a standing fighter instead, increasing intensity as they went. At first, the fighter stands as a statue in a regular fighting stance, guard-up. This encourages the active student to target better and to appreciate angles. The figure of a real person allows for more realistic targeting too, as pad-work too often leads to more square-on targeting and, of course, the surface area of focus mitts rarely resemble a real-life target. What I like about these exercises is it allows the student to research techniques and appreciate a better understanding of them by responding to the given targets.

However, as with the best training methods, the “how” aspect has to be addressed in order for any benefits to be made. Because there is no pressure and the onus is on the student to make active choices, a degree of basic training is required. The student needs to remember to keep his guard up and to use good upper and lower body movement. The next progression of the exercise is to include a timing element. The stationary fighter starts jabbing continuously from the one spot. Here the student now moves around the figure, placing his shots whilst slipping the jab. Next jab/cross is introduced and later a front kick and later still a round kick. We took to this point before changing to the clinch range, but other combinations from the stationary fighter can also introduced and the student can also be restricted to set single techniques and combinations. All of this helps isolate certain areas of the game in order to better refine them.

We then went to the clinch range and looked at the rolling knee-bar counter move to the rear waist-lock. This was then repeated from the turtle position on the floor. We then drilled the arm-bar, the triangle choke and oma plata from guard. The lesson finished with a couple of rounds of MMA sparring.

Double Private Lesson

We focused on clinch and ground, revising and layering tactics and techniques. The warm-up began with some Greco-Roman grip fighting. Then we isolated the plumb position and looked breaks. Here worked on better time management. If a fighter is to break a hold it makes sense for him to capitalize on that movement. Two-on-one arm drags and taking the back were suggested and drilled. Then we covered breaking and striking with hands as well as positioning for knee strikes. This section was completed the standing arm-triangle and locking off the head and arm for knee strikes.

Moving onto the mid-line, we transitioned from the head control into a judo style major outer reaping throw. This moved us nicely onto a front waistlock throw, which then moved us onto the rear waist throws into a back suplex. We then went onto an arm-drag series. This was first done as counter flow drill. Then we covered the arm-drag/double leg takedown combination. The final arm-drag was done from butterfly guard. This was followed by sprawling against the double leg into back mount and rear naked choke.

Moving onto guard we drilled the arm-bar, the triangle choke and the oma plata from guard. The lesson was finished with one five minute round of MMA sparring. Both clients need to relax a bit more and work more striking from clinch as well flow a little more on the ground. However, there conditioning is really coming on and both fought hard for the full round.