Posts Tagged ‘Grappling’

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.

Thoughts on Conditioning for Grappling Competition

by William Wayland ~ posted March 4th, 2013

Common mistakes, Misconceptions and Using Technique Under Fatigue

Conditioning is often the poor relation in “STRENGTH and conditioning” it is hard, it mocks you, where as training for strength allows for a resplendent display of your badassery and curious looks from the folks on the eliptical. Where as conditioning belittles you, turns you into a sweaty exasperated mess, its general unpleasantness makes you groan about it to anyone with in earshot. Conditioning is often a victim of the too much, too hard, too soon approach to training, people often “deep-end” themselves and do high intensity work before they have built the capacity to handle this kind of work, general fitness is key. Get fit to train as they say.

General fitness for grappling is what I define as the ability to complete training sessions of a reasonable (RPE 6-8) intensity without fatigue becoming so bad it impedes your ability to complete a practice, cutting rolls or rapid technical training short etc.

Hopefully you have a resting hear rate of below 60bpm, if this isn’t the case then you probably need to work on your general fitness. This can take the form of moderate intensity rolls of a longer duration (you still get to practice sport that way), running, cycling rowing, barbell complexes or HICT. If your general conditioning is of a reasonable level then you look at getting specific in terms of round times and intensity when preparing for a tournament.

Now down to nitty gritty, often our technical coaches while meaning well have little understanding of energy systems or neurological demand of exercise and thus often issues arise in conditioning sessions

Common flaws I see;

  • Too much standing work.
  • Too much focus on concentric muscular action.
  • Not enough active rest.
  • Misuse of plyometrics.
  • Training longer than needed.

Work to rest ratio’s for BJJ are important to replicate, in a 2012 study Del Vecchio et al in a Brazilian study found that effort:pause ratios from other combat sports ranged from 10:1 (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu), 2:1 (judo and wrestling), and 1:3/1:4 (taekwondo) and 1:2 and 1:4. A 10:1 ratio is dramatic and I can understand why based on my own observation, as soon as two grapplers make contact there is rarely any let up in activity and the two are actively working with very few breaks in play. While judo for instance there is often a slow down with grip fighting, sudden frenetic activity and pauses in contact to reset fighters and so on.

BJJ has a lot of isometric action, by isometric I mean positions that are held where muscular contraction is maximal but movement is minimal. Such as holding a top side control position with really tight head and arm control, fighting to keep an opponents posture broken or gripping up for passes and sweeps but holding the position. These isometric actions should be replicated because it is exhausting, whereas most conditioning is repeat concentric (explosive action). Often athletes when very fatigued doing this kind of activity will merely go through the motions all that explosive intent is gone, where as an iso-hold at the top of a pull up is hard to fake.

Pull up holds with scramble grip trainer make for a challenging isometric hold

Misuse of plyometrics is a massive problem in fitness right now, there is a certain fitness movement that thinks that box jumps for time are an intelligent training approach (enough to make a dead Russian sports scientists spin in their graves). plyometrics are a neurological bulldozer, short contraction times and short ground contact times are great for improving power output. However fatigue caused by excessive plyometrics destroys explosiveness and kills coordination, basically an accident waiting to happen.

Because of nature training culture in martial arts we often think more is better when it comes to conditioning. Coaches will make athletes do 8 or 10 minute rounds when you may only be a purple belt and require 7 minute rounds. Humans are excellent unconscious pacers and we will spread our selves energetically if we know we have the luxury of time. If your match last 7 minutes then train for 7 minute rounds, but make those 7 minutes as high a quality as possible.

Adding in more conditioning from the floor is also important, hip thrusts, floor presses and the addition of high intensity drilling intersped with formal conditioning work can make a world of difference, being tired on your feet is different to being tired on your back with someone on top of you. The very action of getting up off the floor repeatedly is tiring in itself.

Technique Under Fatigue

This where the introduction of TUF or Technique Under Fatigue training is important. I credit Brendan Chaplins writings for exposing me to this flexible method. My next point only at the sharp end 4 or so weeks before competition should formal conditioning in any start to resemble grappling, this is when we introduce TUF.

Examples of TUF would be;

30 second KB swings

30 seconds Pummeling (pummelling here works as active rest)

Or

30 seconds of Sprawl to Deadlift

30 seconds of mount escapes (mount escapes again working as active rest)

Or

30 Seconds of Hip thrusts or burpees

30 Seconds of Shrimping under top pressure

Or

30 Second pull up hold

30 Second back escapes (the person who just did the hold tries to stop his opponent from escaping)

Complete for a total of whatever your round time is. 3-5 Minutes Rest and Go again.


 
Sprawl to deadlift combined with pummelling makes for a favourite combination of mine

Bodyweight combinations work well in group settings but we can do more intensive work with small group or one to one settings. While I do like as a precomp method it can be used as general method if need be. Exercise and technical selection requires athlete coach cooperation.

Practising fundamental skills while fatigued allows us to sharpen those skills while under duress, smart coaches can come up with combinations that would be best for their students trying to eliminate weaknesses. The method is also more enjoyable than straight conditioning which is often high volume and does’nt allow for active recovery which generally will occur in game scenario. Advanced and intermediate level grapplers will get more out of this method than novices who may not have motor skills or the general fitness to derive a benefit from this type of training.

All out conditioning for prolonged periods does’nt work otherwise usian bolt would win the 400 and 800 meters it simply violates basic biology. I see this often in conditioning videos as fatigue sets in the quality of effort takes a nosedive, because no one is capable of sustaining high power outputs for prolonged periods of time.

Chaplin describes “the key points for TUF conditioning as this:

  1. Integrate conditioning with technical/skill work
  2. Be specific with the conditioning to suit the skills being trained. This requires collaboration with the coaches.
  3. The conditioning needs to be progressive just like general conditioning. The goal is to build technique in a fatigued state, not obliterate the athletes.”

Thats all for part 1, in part 2 I’m going to discuss periodising and planning your conditioning approach and how to effectively work in an “inseason” between tournaments to maintain conditioning.

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

[VIDEO] TAKANORI GOMI IN COMBAT WRESTLING!

by Clean Dean ~ posted April 21st, 2012

Remember when Takanori Gomi was a half-way decent grappler? Yeah…it’s been a while, but I’m here to remind you.

Check out some classic footage of Gomi competing the Japanese Combat Wrestling circuit in the early 2000′s.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

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