donny, thanks mate.
So a) I got to this later than anticipated because I took the weekend as personal time and b) I had a whole thing planned out and written, and somehow it disappeared into the aether. As a result this post is probably going to be a lot more disjointed and less comprehensive since I really can’t remember everything. Hopefully add more to this later because there’s a lot of things I have been thinking about, but I won’t remember them all now. WARNING–NOVEL AHEAD! My apologies in advance to CT, I feel bad having written all this stuff in his forum but now that it is (re) written I’d rather not delete everything lol.
So, first. Good choice on the star complexes, they’re a great training scheme for somebody who wants power and strength and wants to maintain their ability to explode. I actually have used those, or variations, for periods of time with several of the MMA guys I have trained.
Second, specifically as regards to fighting weight vs. training weight. I tend to side with CT on this, but it depends on the athlete and HOW they cut weight for fights, as well as how lean they stay out of fight camp. For guys who aren’t that lean to begin with and are 20+ lbs over their fight weight, I don’t care AS much. In this case I ended up just adding as much muscle as we could and then just cutting. Plan with those guys has been to gradually get them leaner at that big off-season weight until the cut starts to become harder, and then start tamping down their off-season weight–I do this mostly for psychology reasons: the “inner fat boy” is often indulged a lot and rather than just tell them they have to eat clean outside a fight camp–which they will hate/ignore-- I want to use that rebound eating for gaining muscle and gradually get them to adhere to good food decisions over time :).
It also tends to be easier for those guys because they aren’t lean enough to lose a ton of muscle or strength in the cut. A guy who starts out lean is going to have a much harder time, obviously. It varies a bit, some guys seem to be able to cut weight with no obvious problems and some don’t. You don’t, so I would personally say keep the off-season weight down. Your ability to be able to IV rehydrate with a 24 hour weigh-in is an advantage though, so with that in mind it might be acceptable if you run a bit heavier off-season. Key is really how much water you can drop vs. how much dieting down you have to do…if you can flash drop 15 lbs of just water, then rehydrate that and feel good, that’s fine by me because you can keep the food up til last minute, just drop water, and then rehydrate and be good to go. On the other hand if you–as you say–seem to be having trouble getting down and losing a lot of strength that’s an indicator you need to stay lower on the scale. Again, generally harder for leaner guys.
Ultimately I like to keep about 10 lbs away from fight weight and see how easy/hard that drop goes, then adjust off season weight (slightly mind you) based on what happens with how you feel. For me it is of paramount importance to be able to keep the calories as high as possible during a fight camp to allow the maximum conditioning and training effect you can get from increased recovery. That is the first priority and everything else tends to revolve around: “how much can I keep feeding this guy without endangering the weigh-in”. This means I prefer to start cuts sooner than later to make them more gradual and less starvation like–since many guys I know basically have miserable food strategies and do the wrestler/starvation cut. I hate this and if I have control I make my biggest priority avoiding the necessity to do this.
Training wise the general things that I have noticed are:
- Workout nutrition is the absolute most important. a) pre/during/post workout nutrition is infinitely better for training intensity than only a post workout shake. It makes a gigantic difference in how you feel. b) If you’re cutting carbs, keep the peri-workout nutrition as high as possible for as long as possible. Cut carbs from everywhere else in your day besides pre/during/post carbs. Then cut post workout carbs first from that list. Cut calories from everywhere else in your day first as well before dropping calories around your workout.
It should go without saying that I am absolutely positively a believer in plazma and MAG-10/swf. The stuff is gold plated, as is INDIGO. However if that’s not available in the country due to customs or shipping costs or whatever, then you have to do what you can. It varies some based on individuals and bodyweight, but 35-45g protein and 65-85 g carbs for weight training is a good place to start in the off season IMHO. For fight training, conditioning work, sparring, I like to focus more on carbs but keep protein in there as well. It depends on how you condition obviously (do you use weight/strength movements for a lot of your conditioning, or are you doing more sprints/running/swimming/sparring/skill work for conditioning)
You need to watch the scale with this, because you can gain weight adding this in if it is not something you typically do. As long as you’re staying in range on the scale, use as much workout nutrition as you can. If you start creeping up too far, cut other calories before you cut your workout nutrition, as above.
non-protein supplements I find useful for fighters are beta-alanine, betaine, creatine for workouts. If you start using them, I guarantee you will wonder how you ever got along without them. It absolutely blows my mind that so many people don’t use them. Creatine can be dropped if water retention/weight is an issue, but generally if nutrition is in line and scale weight is in range that’s not a big deal until the end of the weight cut. zinc/melatonin before bed for sleep quality, omega-3s for inflammation and keeping tendonitis/aches and pains at bay.
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Needs for “sport specific” training with combat athletes that I have been around are dependent primarily on the level of strength they have on primary lifts. Most of the guys I have been around are surprisingly weak and as a result “sport specific” training is overhyped for them. If you can’t squat your bodyweight to depth why the hell would I have you do crazy functional movements? NOTE: that this should not be construed as me saying “only squat/bench/deadlift”. I don’t believe that and in my humble opinion fighters need a much higher variety of movements than many athletes might anyways (although since I have never trained a pure boxing only guy I am speaking in terms of MMA here). This just means that priority goes to getting certain metrics in basic lifts first.
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This goes along with the above but I put it as its own point because it’s important IMO. Strength for a weak guy will have an immeasurably superior carryover to sports power than most other things. This is one area Rippetoe is right on the money (in general), as much crap as he gets from people. If fighter A needs 70% of his strength reserve to maintain a clinch he is going to tire much faster than fighter B who is strong enough he only needs 30% of his available strength to maintain a clinch position. This obviously means the stronger guy can dictate where the fight goes or how the ring is used while in the clinch. There is also a cut-off for strength, above which other things should take priority over getting more strength. This I believe happens sooner for fighters than many other athletes and sooner for boxers than for other fighters because you do not have to throw, grapple or takedown.
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Weight training needs to be done as explosively as possible as long as form is kept–every rep needs to be a replica. Probably you already knew all that anyways :).
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I am a huge believer in frequent training of whole body lifts every single weight session. Thibaudeau has written a lot about that. I like to start every single workout with 2-3 lifts that cover the whole body and are weak points. Do them with explosive intent, no heavy grinding. Should be absolutely certain before attempting it that you can get all the reps. Generally that is a push press variation, squat variation, and power snatch or high pull from the high hang although it depends on shoulder mobility and health. I prefer power snatch infinitely but it obviously depends on coaching and time restraints as to whether you can use that or would be better off with something else. These lifts stay pretty much the same and happen at the beginning of every workout, and done for medium or low reps, then we do whatever else we had planned. Basically look at Thibaudeau’s High Frequency Strength writings :).
A lot of people say it is a waste of time to do a lot of these things, but my experience is that if you’re weak you are best served by getting stronger all over and saving specific drills for later. I have also found that if workout nutrition is in place you can do a LOT more work more frequently than you thought you could recover from. I even do them before conditioning workouts most times. If you’re not weak, it’s still a cheap way to drill the basics and get stronger without spending too much time on it before focusing on specific weaknesses or “sports specific” strength training. Snatch grip deadlift also gets an honorable mention for this section.
- Don’t try to mimic punching mechanics with weights. I think this goes without saying, especially for you being an already experienced pro fighter, but figured I’d throw it in there. Medicine ball stuff, single arm work, rotation power, hip drive, all things that need to be worked hard. But the focus is on whipping the hips or driving the hips and legs rather than “punching”. Outside of the 2-3 whole body lifts at the beginning, I prefer dumbbells because of the additional stabilization required.
I’m on the fence about the bench press. Good for upper body strength and arm/shoulder strength, but can cause a lot of problems in athletes who are already throwing 1000s of punches a week due to repetitive internal rotation of the shoulder. Force vectors are also not the same as a punch, so while it can be useful to get stronger arms/shoulders I prefer the overhead press because when properly performed/coached the shoulders are mobilized in a much better way, and you’re not killing internal rotation at the shoulder. I do use the bench from time to time but not the mainstay unless the weight is lighter and work is done on strength-speed or speed-strength.
Hope this is helpful and Supremely sorry for cluttering up CT’s forum with a huge post!