Posts Tagged ‘bjj’

Thoughts on Conditioning for Grappling Competition Part 2

by William Wayland ~ posted March 19th, 2013

In part one I went over, common issues I see with conditioning for grappling sports and application of TUF methods. This one will focus on planning your conditioning approach and how to effectively work in an “inseason” between tournaments to maintain conditioning. This is more or less a lose collection of thoughts and approaches I’m using with the athletes I work with.

Having a Plan

A plan or periodisation as its know in a sport context, allows us to know when and how long we have to peak for an event. If you decide to enter to a tournament with 4 weeks or less planning, in the words of Saint Kurt “you fucked up a long time ago”. Failing to plan is planning to fail as they say. Last minute HIIT sessions in a desperate bid to get game fit 2-3 weeks out because you hesitated on entering isn’t fun.

In terms of your approach, I like fighters designate an “in season” of sorts where their greatest competition focus is going to be this could be a period of 2, 3 or even six months. Look to build strength in the “off season” and work on conditioning up to and during the in season, strength takes a back seat and is merely maintained. Obviously this isn’t always the way the competition schedule will play out over a year but do attempt to leave at least 3 months where you can focus on strength building. Strength needs a decent build up, competing demands of conditioning and technical training make it a tough balancing act.

In terms of prep we can borrow the “Fast and Frugal Peaking Tree” and “Mesocycle Sequence from http://www.scramblestuff.com/workable-periodisation-for-mma/ TUF can be applied at 4 weeks or so out.

This covers pre-competition, but what about between inter-competition periods which I would argue would be 5-4 weeks or less between events. Basically we move into quality maintenance with the right planning athletes can carry on peaking and improve on an “inseason” template if training is planned and moderated properly.  Maintaining physical qualities is far easier than training to peak them, especially when usually this inter-competition periods involve plenty of hard sparring.

Strength work effectively becomes something like this

Strength In Season

Weeks 5-3 out 2 days

Main movement (bench, squat, deadlift, olift variant) (55-80% of 1RM)

2-3 Prehab, Accessory movements

Main movement (bench, squat, deadlift, olift variant) (55-80% of 1RM)

2-3 Prehab, Accessory movements

Weeks 3-0 out

Main movement (bench, squat, deadlift, olift variant) (-55% of 1RM) (using bands, chains, AFSM, Oscillatory method etc)

2-3 Prehab, Accessory movements

Main movement (bench, squat, deadlift, olift variant) (-55% of 1RM)

2-3 Prehab, Accessory movements

Conditioning In Season

But what about maintaining conditioning between competition? You need to understand the concept the of training residuals, this is the time over which a physical quality lasts after being trained to a high level. Many combat athletes fail to understand this concept and will often try to training all physical qualities all at once often right up a fight.

A number of studies (Neufer et al. 1987; Hickson, 1982) indicated that if the frequency of training is reduced by two thirds, that endurance capacities can be maintained for up to around 14 weeks. So often athletes can get away with as few as one session a week conditioning.

This can take the form of Complexes, running workouts, TUF style workouts, Fartlek. Your conditioning selection depends on your game fitness, fatigue levels and how much intense rolling you may be doing during practice. E.g. if you are beat up from sparring, TUF or HIIT circuits maybe unwise, where as running workouts or Fartlek maybe a better choice. This is context specific and a perceptive S&C coach can help a lot here. Learning to break the addiction to conditioning can be tricky especially when athletes do it year round, multiple times a week.

So for a dedicated 5 day a week BJJer with 4-5 weeks between comps may plan their week like this.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Strength Conditioning Strength Skills Skills Skills Rest
Pm Skills Pm Skills

We could even reduce load further by having only 1 strength session a week. This obviously depends on variables like schedule, access to facilities, available training time.

Wrap -up

But what is important to understand is most sports are determined by more athletic qualities than can be trained at once. This is the key I feel is often missed with upper intermediate athletes, beginners get caught in the trap of mixed methods, e.g. heavy strength work, power work, hypertrophy work, conditioning all in the same session, means all these qualities will be built poorly simultaneously. Beginners progress doing pretty much anything, because like much an unmolded peice of clay anything you do initially will start to shape it, whether you switch to a scapel later on or keep using a hammer will shape you as an athlete further down the road. Often athletes will succeed in grappling sports in-spite of their S&C because of high variability in opposition/skill ceiling in BJJ.

The key concept is maintenance versus development of physical qualities. Maintenance of strength qualities will require one to two sessions per week depending on your training experience (more advanced athletes need less I often find), whereas developing qualities such as hypertrophy or maximal strength will require the athlete to perform up to three to four sessions of strength training per week. Conditioning is a highly trainable physical quality, where as strength takes years of cultivation aerobic and anaerobic fitness can be mustered in a shorter time frame.

This is an ongoing series of articles from guest blogger and Strength & Conditioning coach William Wayland of Powering Through, who offers online training planning for tournament peaking for MMA, Nogi and BJJ

References

Hickson, RC, Kanakis Jr, C, Davis, JR, Moore, AM and Rich, S 1982, ‘Reduced training duration effects on aerobic power, endurance and cardiac growth’, Journal of Applied Physiology, 53, pp. 225–29.

Neufer, PD, Costill, DL, Fielding, RA, Flynn, MG and Kirwan, FP 1987, ‘Effect of reduced training on muscular strength and endurance in competitive swimmers’, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 19, pp. 486–90.

[VIDEO] Learn how to Berimbolo, from Rafael Mendes

by Matt - Scramble ~ posted December 6th, 2012

Rafael Mendes, teaching the Berimbolo.

That is all.

Thoughts on Core Training for Grapplers and MMA Fighters

by William Wayland ~ posted October 23rd, 2012

Nothing causes more consternation in strength and conditioning than core training, MMA and Grappling athletes are obsessed with core strength lets face it. Trainers tout the term like it means something. Core training is effectively your ability to maintain posture and center of gravity, it does’nt strictly mean abdominal muscles, but the hip and trunk too. Right now in fitness we are going through a static core training trend, you’ll see many a trainer give out plank variations by the fist full, I don’t think I have seen an exercise administered so many different ways before. And boy are they boring and not to mention easily mastered by anyone with any sort of athleticism.

Pro Sean Carter working on plate passes, an effective way to make planks more challenging

The rise of the static core exercise means spinal flexion has been left out. It was Dr Stuart McGill’s research that caused this shift in core training, showing use that spinal flexion can be rough on lower backs. Problem is MMA fighters and grappler actively spends a lot of time in spinal flexion especially when going for submissions. Should we train this movement in addition to static and anti rotation work too? It depends on the athlete and their lower back health, if they are already performing spinal flexion as part of their sport then do we need to do more to further lock in tightness of the lower lumbar and hip?

Due to repeated sitting we do in the sport plus the plenty of sitting in our daily lives our hips muscle short and tight our glutes weak, hamstrings short. We need to think about doing more to open the athlete up rather than turn them into a human clam. I have mentioned in the past how a lot of grapplers and fighters suffer from upper crossed syndrome due to functional shortening adaptations in the sport. That is not to say I’m throwing crunch like movements on trash heap just take more thought when dishing them out. Just consider the risk reward value and the state you or the athlete are in.

We can look at training the core with full body movements in addition to our stricter holds, flexion and anti-rotation work. Also if your core is pathetically weak, its an idea to train it FIRST, sure you will be able to lift as much in successive exercises but if it is worth doing then it is worth doing at the start not as an afterthought.

So What core exercises do I like? Well these are a few I keep coming back too. No Swiss balls needed.

Anything Over Head

Overhead movements require the body the function as a single coordinated unit, because the weight is held over and away from the center of gravity this causes terrific instability which can only be cancel out by bracing the core and staying tight.

Wide stance anti rotation chop


Terrific exercise I nabbed off Eric Cressey  this allows us to get out of saggital plane of movement (forwards and backwards) and “work on rotary stability and getting some hip mobility at the same time.” I usually pair this with another exercise.

Ring Roll outs

A core exercise from your head to your toes! Provided you do not butcher the technique and allow the lower back to sag during the movement or the shoulder to hyper extend too much. For those you starting out you can look to begin on the knees.

Obviously this is by no means an exhaustive list of “core” exercises. The key thing with these is they are loadable or represent part of a progression of difficulty, these two keys are important when trying to improve strength, think about that while you do your next set of 200 crunches or flutter kicks.

This is an ongoing series of articles from guest blogger and Strength & Conditioning coach William Wayland of Powering Through.

Choke out Tendonitis

by William Wayland ~ posted September 13th, 2012

Scrambler you have “Tendonitis” the doctor looks at you glumly and says “you will have to stop grappling, settle down, eat ibuprofen like candy and take up bird watching” the horror sweeps you like a berimbolo, game over scrambler! Game Over… Or is it? Nothing is worse than to be sideline from training due to a sudden flare up of this dreaded condition. I’ve said before that BJJ fighters along with our Judo cousins are a particular set of athletes that due to the nature of our sport sustain considerable micro trauma to our joints. The best way to avoid it do your mobility work, avoid anything that aggravates it (simple I know but those pull-ups can wait). But for those of suffering there seems to be a solution of sorts.

With both physio bands (good but not great) and a cut up inner tube (better) I’ve been dispensing brief misery on myself and my clients with something called compression flossing. Promoted by Coach Kelly Starrett the fellow behind Mobility WOD who picked it from power-lifter Donnie Tompson and has ran with the idea of compression flossing. I first came across a video of Olympic lifting coach Glenn Pendlay doing this and have been using it since.

According to Starrett, Compression flossing does the following.

1) Restores sliding surfaces of the compressed and regional tissues being wrapped. (Like Self Inflicted ART)

2) Pushes swelling out of joints/tissues when used to treat in this way.

3) Re-perfuses tissues that have poor blood flow

4) Creates flexion gapping at joints like the elbow restoring normal joint motion.

5)Magic

It treats tendonitis like nothing I’ve seen before, to see the method in action watch the video below.

The method seems to work well on bony joints, line, knee, wrist, ankle and elbow but poorly on hip and shoulder. Rigging up your own band rather than buying an expensive alternative is picking up a the largest cheapest inner tube you can find (mine cost £4). Cut out the valve and then cut the tube down one of seams, simple!

Simply get someone (you can do it yourself but its tricky) to wrap it around the offending joint as tightly as possible. And work through and try and push through a full range of motion of the joint, it will be uncomfortable but stick with it for a minute or so, if you feel any pins and needles or numbness then take it off. There maybe some marking from the rubber but it should be minor. My Clients notice the difference almost immediately, especially the amount of joint space this creates makes a big difference.

I’m not going to lie I am in love with this method, give it a try.

This is an ongoing series of articles from guest blogger and Strength & Conditioning coach William Wayland of Powering Through.

Bondarchuk Complex

by William Wayland ~ posted August 6th, 2012

This is an ongoing series of articles from guest blogger and Strength & Conditioning coach William Wayland of Powering Through. If you have any questions about this post or S & C in general as it relates to MMA and BJJ then please leave a comment below!

Some people like their programs simple and straightforwards, this is understandable especially for beginners, who often desire a no mess no fuss approach to planning workouts. But don’t however get caught in the trap of doing “whatever” – it helps to have a structure to your training. Therefore I give you the Bondarchuk complex.

Named after the Olympian athlete and Russian throwing coach. Dr. Bondarchuk is renowned in throwing circles for being 1972 Olympic and European Champion in the hammer throw as well as a former World Record Holder. He developed the USSR National Team throws program from 1976 to 1992. It’s his coaching the modern strength and conditioning communityknow him for.

The Complex offers straightforwards planning for 2 or 3 day strength and conditioning sessions, excellent for beginners and athletes looking to maintain and build general physical preparation. Works well in 3-4 weeks training blocks before rotating exercises. If we run this complex 2 or 3 days they will be different from each other, Monday might be deadlifts and Wednesday will be Squats for example. Program slots in with the idea of “big to small” in our training, biggest most neurologically demanding exercises are put first in our program.

Workout
Warn-up – Prehab, mobilise, foam roll etc
A) Total Body Explosive Movement      (Jumps, Bounds, Olympic lifts)
B) Lower Body Movement         (Squat, Deadlift, Single leg work)
C1) Upper Body Press        (Overhead press, Press-up, Bench press)
C2) Upper Body Pull        (Row variation, Pull-up variation)
D) Weak Area

Sample Day
A) Power clean 5 x 3-5 reps
B)Reverse Lunges 4 x 8-12 reps
C1) Overhead Press 4-5 x 6-12 reps
C2) Bent over row 4-5 x 6-12 reps
D) Band pull aparts/Band no moneys 3 x 8-12reps
Finish 3 x sprints

The whole workout should not take more than an hour. It works brilliantly well for small groups of athletes. Not set in stone however, the program is flexible and allows you to modify it depending on your needs. Always push for progressive overload, add a little more weight week to week cycle to cycle and really targeting exercises you need to get better at. Give it a try!

[VIDEO] Scramble’s Adventures in Tokyo 2012

by Matt - Scramble ~ posted July 31st, 2012

Scramble Matt took a trip to Tokyo recently and this is the result.

It’s basically me getting my butt kicked at three jiu jitsu classes.

I can’t say enough great things about the fight community in Tokyo – so helpful, friendly, welcoming – not to mention tough.

I visited Rikako Yuasa at Jewels BJJ class, Nakamura Daisuke at Grabaka, and Hiroyuki Abe at AACC gym for a spot of no gi / catch. Ouch!

I had visions of much more footage of Tokyo but sadly it rained most of every day which limited the amount of filming I could do. So just enjoy gratuitous jiu jitsu rolling.

Rikako
Hiroyuki Abe
Daisuke Nakamura

I highly recommend visiting all three if you find yourself in Tokyo.

Special thanks to Kinya Hashimoto and Takehiro Iso for looking after me during the trip.

Music:
Bulgarian Voices
Dakhabrakha
Akoya Afrobeat Ensemble

Gyms:
Grabaka

AACC

Jewels MMA Studio @ Muse

 

Scramble Tokyo Diaries: Day 1, Part 2: He f$%cking with me.

by Matt - Scramble ~ posted June 29th, 2012

Being the continuing adventures of Scramble co-owner Matt, in Japan.

Tokyo Isami is closed! I came all the way here and it’s closed!

I started walking up the stairs, thinking that maybe it kept the same strange hours as other Isami shops. Random days off, late openings, etc. Basically my kind of store. I heard some people come up stairs and I rushed down only to see the door to Isami slam shut. Hmm, I thought. Hmm.

Then Mr. Iso himself popped his head round the door and invited me in. Phew!

This was, I realised, a little like a football fan meeting David Beckham. Or maybe the guy who makes David Beckham’s shorts. Hmm. Either way, I was pretty pumped. I had met Mr. Iso before, once at ADCC in Nottingham, and once at the International Open BJJ tournament in Tokyo (where I was nursing a freshly dislocated shoulder and looking glum.)

So, there we were. The owner of Isami / Reversal and the owner of Scramble. Just a couple of dudes shooting the shit in Shinjuku. What did we talk about? Wouldn’t you like to know! What didn’t we talk about would be a better question. Whales. We didn’t talk about whales. Or Michigan. Or bunions. But we did talk about a whole bunch of stuff! The health of the Japanese MMA industry? You bet! Other big fightwear brands? You bet! Collaborations? You bet! Production techniques? That too! The fact that Joffrey is a total cunt? Uh, no. Not that.

We spoke for hours and hours, it was kind of a dream come true for me. The best thing about Iso-san, apart from him owning the best fightwear brand not called Scramble in the world, is that he is a really cool guy. Easy going and laid back. But, I would not advise “fucking with him.” He does not like to be fucked with, as people have found out in the past. A true boss.

Like a boss. Iso-san.

Talking done, it was time to train. The rain was kind of ridiculous. Obviously Tokyo had sensed an Englishman was present and decided to openly piss on his head to make him feel at home. Thanks a lot Tokyo, you suck. I had an umbrella but considering the rain was travelling horizontal, the umbrella didn’t do much more than give me a sore shoulder. Which was nice.

We drove down the rode to Yoyogi in Iso-san’s BMW SUV. The phrase “like a boss” absolutely sprang to mind and I definitely muttered it under my breath more than once. Then I caught a whiff of my t-shirt and decided to stop saying it.

We rocked up at Muse Music academy right on time. Muse is where Jewels MMA holds their BJJ classes. If that sounds confusing, it’s because it is. No matter how many times it was explained to me it’s still just a jumble of random words. Still, there was some mats (and a drum kit and a PA system playing J-pop) and some people in jiu jitsu gis, and that’s all I needed to know. Rikako Yuasa was there – a recent addition to the Scramble team, and a super tough, super cute, super successful purple belt.

Wa wa wee wa!

I was also there to meet Kinya Hashimoto. Kinya is the Japanese dude that is at EVERY event. He runs the uber-successful BJJ blog for Bull Terrier that he reckons receives 5000 unique visitors a day. He speaks great English (as does Iso-san) and he knows literally everyone. He’s also a fan of Scramble.

I counted a few Scramble patches on the mat which was very humbling and pretty damn exciting. Halfway through the class another dude turned up wearing our Scramble Essentials shirt that he had bought a while back! Truly a great feeling for me to see our creations being worn and enjoyed around the world.

Apparently the custom at the club is for the visitor to teach the class.  I actually don’t mind teaching, and it didn’t phase me, but for some reason, I felt, being the visitor, I should not be too overbearing. We did a light warmup and I showed some half guard sweep that I remembered from the De La Riva seminar I went to last year, that I have been using lately. It went pretty well, luckily Kinya-san was there to megaphone everything I said in clear and precise Japanese. Cos I was just kind of mumbling. I had woken up at 5am that morning and missed a flight, as well as walking approximately a gazillion miles around Tokyo.

After that, we sparred a bit. Rikako was very good, super strong guard passing and a basically unpassable guard. Everytime I thought I had passed I realised I was just lying on top of her inverted legs. Does that sound wrong? Well it wasn’t. Being a music or performing arts school in central Tokyo, there were a number of girls in short skirts walking around and jingly jangly J-pop songs playing from loudspeakers. It was surreal but not unpleasant.

I knackered my neck almost instantly as I am wont to do, and looked around for a hard surface to prostrate myself on to see if I could crunch my thoracic spine back into place. I was wondering if anyone had a medieval torture rack of some kind but sadly there were none to hand so I just had to suck it up. Beer would help with that later. Speaking of beer, after training, we got down to the real business – of drinking beer. Expecting the usual Japanese marathon of seeing how many small glasses of beer you can drink before you lose count, I was pretty surprised to see most people taking it quite easy. I had been travelling all day though so I managed to sink a few, but everyone else took it slow. We ate some awesome food and talked late into the night about all kinds of geeky BJJ and MMA stuff. It was hugely enjoyable. It was good to meet Rikako, who is one of the strongest female competitors in the middle ranks worlwide at the moment, and to get a good relationship going with Kinya and Iso-san, both important people in the MMA and BJJ world.

I got a cap from the guy who owns Muse, Kenny, which says Las Conchas on it. I was all “Awesome! Las Conchas! High Five!”

Las Conchas is slang for “pussy” in Spanish, I think. Oops.

It was a hell of a day, and a very enjoyable evening. I got back to my hotel around 1:30 am and checked in drunk, as promised. With added bonus of being really sweaty and soaking wet. The hotel staff didn’t bat an eyelid, the bastards.

 

 

[VIDEO]CLASSIC BJJ! CHUCK NORRIS BRINGS THE GRACIE TO THE USA IN ’88!

by Clean Dean ~ posted June 26th, 2012

Thanks to our good friends at DSTRYR/SG (in my opinion, the best grappling blog on the web), we came across this amazing piece of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu history.

In the 80′s, Chuck Norris was the man(or I think he was. I don’t know. I wasn’t born yet.). Apparently, in his quest to be the biggest bad ass in the World, he traveled to Brazil and did some training with the Gracie family, learning their system of BJJ. He was so impressed with what he learned that he brought all the Gracie boys (and Carlos Machado) to Las Vegas for a seminar. And the rest is history….

[VIDEO] Peter Sobotta on MMA Attack

by Matt - Scramble ~ posted April 19th, 2012

Here is Peter Sobotta, MMA and BJJ fighter and all around badass, saying some stuff in his native Polish – and rocking a pretty sweet pair of Scramble Kamon shorts while he is at it.

Thanks, Peter!

 

Scramble Grip Trainers are now on sale!

by Matt - Scramble ~ posted April 11th, 2012

Check em out!

Scramble Grip Trainers

Reviews:
Don’t you hate it when a really big guy with an awesome moustache shakes your hand and crushes it into dust? Don’t you wish you had a grip like Tom Selleck?
Well now you can have the grip to end all grips thanks to the Scramble Grip Trainer.
We put our heads together for quite a while to come up with the simplest way to make the most effective grip trainer. And this is the result. It’s made from strong 550gsm pearl weave BJJ kimono fabric, and it attaches easily to pullup bars and kettlebells and similar items.
Practice your lapel grip, spider guard grip, pistol or joystick grip… the possibilities are endless. Whatever grip you can do on your opponent, you can do on this.
Improve grip strength for jiu jitsu, judo, no gi and even MMA with the Scramble Grip Trainer.
Please note this product comes with a disclaimer which must be read and understood before use. Purchasing this product indicates you agree to follow the guidelines and recommendations on the disclaimer.
Each order receives a pair of grip trainers, that is two (2) grip trainers