Fairfax Jiu Jitsu - Why Pro MMA fighter Bryan Lane trains here

Fairfax Jiu Jitsu - Grappling for MMA

Wrestling for MMA

Fairfax Jiu Jitsu - Boxing defense

MMA students work on boxing skills

Fairfax MMA - Light Sparring Video

Here's a great example of Light Sparring in action. Bryan Lane and Joe Won are no strangers when it comes to hard sparring and intense training, but both put their egos aside to work on their flow.

*Thanks to Dan "Pikachu" Lavu for filming and editing this video.*

Results of an 8 week General Strength program

by Bill Easlick

Hello, I just wanted to share the latest example of how we use Joel Jamieson's strength and conditioning (S&C) programming and his BioForce testing system to measure an MMA athlete's overall performance.

When we last left out hero "Joe", he had just finished up an 8 week block of General Conditioning and was now looking towards making some gains in his overall strength.

Here is how Joe finished up the previous General Conditioning block.

Bro.. why you trying to squat in my curl rack?

Armed with this detail of performance knowledge about Joe, I designed a strength program for him.  Many strength and conditioning coaches are not working with their fighter's skill trainers (and vice versa) and therefore the two don't understand the total scope or impact of their training on the athlete.

I've seen numerous cases of a fighter who is looking to become stronger getting advice from people who tell him "You gotta lift big Bro!" and proceed to give him a 3-4 day/week workout plan that looks like a powerlifting routine full of very high intensity compound lifts 90%+ 1RM.

This is fine, if you want to be a powerlifter and that is your ultimate training goal.  But if you're a fighter training 4, 5, or more sessions of skill training per week, this volume of intense strength training can often over-tax your central nervous system (CNS), cause insufficient recovery (for both), result in poor performance (for both) and probably reduce your cardio in the process.  If you're lifting like this, you're probably eating like it was your last day on earth and gaining weight too.

Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, fighters will often get advice to train Crossfit, which sounds like a good idea (after all they're "Forging Elite Fitness" right?) but the results are often much less than elite.  Low maximal strength, poor aerobic capacity, excessive shoulder training for fighter's, and very narrow window of metabolic work (lactic), and a focus on explosive power vertically (Oly Lifts) instead of forward or rotational which is much more applicable to combat sports.

So you can see, if a fighter swings to either side of S&C training too far, he will make poor adaptations for MMA. It's crucial to keep that in mind - the entire and sole purpose of S&C work is to make you a better fighter. To allow you to apply your skills faster, with more power, for a longer duration than others.

So here's what he needed to do over the block:

• Build strength. Joe was familiar with weight training, but did not have a good understanding of strength training - form, ques, breathing properly, and mindset gained from more serious strength training. Case in point. -Squats. His version of a squat was much different than mine and I got him to set a low back bar, a wider stance, getting his butt down below parallel and timing his breath with the lift.  This took some time, but I think Joe can agree, it was invaluable to his future in strength training. The next time he sees a kid do a deadlift with a rounded back, he'll be the guy who offers good advice that makes a difference in someones performance.
• Benefit from the "Novice Effect" without over taxing the athlete. This was the real challenge and where working with Joe in both skill and S&C is important because I needed to see how he was responding so that he could take advantage of the ability to make big strength gains but wouldn't become overtrained. It's a fine line between wanting wanting to see your stats grow, but still performing well in training.
• Skill training. Joe has been working very hard on the mats and his focus has been improving his skills on his feet both in striking and in his clinch and wrestling as well. He could not afford for his S&C to hamper his skill training, particularly his sparring sessions where he needed to be fresh.
• Cardio maintenance.  As a fighter gearing up for his debut fight, Joe could not afford to slack off here either. We know that we weren't building both up together, but we could not led cardio slide.
• Weight.  Joe will be fighting at 155 so it was important that he ate enough to recover from the training, but didn't consume enough to cause him to gain weight. This isn't as easy as it sounds. There is a reason powerlifters are "big guys" Those extra calories help them recover from the intense lifting and allow them to gain muscle mass which has a relationship with strength. 

These were the results of his 8 week General Strength Block.

Joe raised his Strength profile one entire point. He was able to increase in four out of the five categories of his physical profile, and maintain his level of aerobic fitness. Most importantly, his strength gains were very noticeable in his MMA training. All of his sparring partners commented on how much harder it was to move him in the clinch, and Joe was able to clinch and take down much heavier sparring partners who would formerly escape from his holds with size and strength. On his feet, his increase in anaerobic power and output was also felt.

Joe's final strength statistics for his 8 week strength block.
Increases in calculated 1 rep max:

• Squat - increased 62 lbs.
• Bench - increased 21 lbs.
• Deadlift - increased 114 lbs.
• Press - increased 30 lbs.

Stronger. Without losing his cardio. And improving his MMA skills. Great job!

Did you happen to notice that he LOST weight?

After wrapping up this training block, Joe will move onto a shorter 6 week block of Power/Endurance before beginning his very first fight camp.

Thanks for reading.

An Introduction to MMA Sparring - Closing Thoughts

 by Bill Easlick
This post on the "Introduction to MMA Sparring" topic is really just my final thoughts and an attempt to wrap up for any loose ends and questions that people have asked me about my posts.

"Bill I wanted to know how you connect the appropriate sparring gear to the levels of sparring contact  and the sparring methods you use in your classes."

Great point, and this is something that I planned on addressing, so here goes.

	Standup	Clinch	Ground
Cup	L/M/H	L/M/H	L/M/H
Mouthguard	L/M/H	L/M/H	L/M/H
Headgear	H*	-	-
Boxing Gloves	M/H	H	-
MMA Training Gloves	L	L/M	L/M/H
Shinguards	L/M/H	-	-

L - Light Sparring
M - Medium (Controlled) Sparring
H - Hard Sparring
* - Special scenarios or conditions


"Hey Bill, in my gym we wear headgear when we spar. Why don't you?"

- I think I covered my thoughts on headgear pretty well in my equipment article. If someone wants to wear it, I'm completely cool with that, but ironically, I'll almost expect that people will be striking extra hard at this person's head. Like a moth to a flame; it's just our nature.

"Isn't it silly to give a % of contact used in sparring ?" 

- I think it is when you're talking about things like 40% vs. 60% etc, but in my articles, I tried to be as clear and descriptive as possible and each was tied to more "instinctual" feelings rather than a meaningless percentage.

You weren't expecting a Will Smith reference!

"I can't get my sparring partners to slow down when doing "light sparring" Every round ends up sparring hard."

I know. Sucks right? As I mentioned in the article, I believe this is the hardest area to teach new students and others may pshaw it, but I think their problem lies in ego (whether they realize it or not). It requires, no, demands a removal of ego. Both partners have to let go of winning and losing and play the skill game: striking with good intent, but at a slower pace to keep the contact down. People don't like to lose, and their ego says "aww hell nah!" and they raise the speed and contact level until they're on top again, completely missing the point - creativity, developing reactions and building "fight intelligence" (more on that process in an article I'm already working on.)

The best advice I can give you is to try to find like-minded partners who understand your goal.  (Send them the link to my articles if you think it will convey the message to them!) And remember, almost everyone will get worked up at some point, even the experienced guys. The difference is they realize it, reset, and go back to the methods. I'm very fortunate that I had a core group of my first students come up under this approach, and as they advance they mentor the new students and now it's just part of our training "culture" at Fairfax Jiu-Jitsu.

Thanks for reading,

-Bill

Results of an 8 week General Conditioning program on Amateur MMA fighter

by Bill Easlick

Hello, I just wanted to share a quick example of how we use Joel Jamieson's strength and conditioning (S&C) programming and his BioForce testing system to measure an athlete's overall performance.

Joe has been training MMA for about a year now at Fairfax Jiu-Jitsu, focusing on developing a solid base of fundamental skills in a broad range of techniques. Joe is a fairly active guy who has kept in shape most of his life with military duty, running, going to the gym to lift occasionally, and now training MMA 3-4x a week.

A few months ago Joe expressed interest in "stepping up" both in the focus and intensity of his MMA training, but also in his S&C to meet these new physical demands and we did an initial BioForce test to get his baseline fitness levels.

Here is how BioForce ranks the fitness numbers:
1-3 Beginner/Low
4-6 Average/Amateur
7-8 Professional
9-10 World Class

Joe's profile - 3/27/11

From this baseline test you can see that Joe's starting stats were pretty good for a novice student. Typically many beginning people have one or two areas of physical  abilities that they excel at (either thru training and/or genetic disposition) and they have low scores in other areas.

Joe was very well-rounded and this can be attributed to his MMA training and occasional running and lifting, though not on a formal program.

I am in a fairly unique position to help Joe with not only with his skill training, but also to help him develop the S&C training that will support these developing MMA skills. Quite often the MMA coach and the athlete's S&C coach are not always on the same page, The MMA coach does not have the time or the background to help the athlete and the S&C coach doesn't fully understand the complex energy system requirements of MMA. Too many people forget that the goal of S&C isn't it's own achievement, it is to support the MMA training to allow the athelete to sustain power through the entire duration of his fight.

I created an 8 week program for Joe based upon a few related goals: As his MMA coach, I knew Joe had good aerobic capacity, but that he needed work on his aerobic power (the amount of power he is able to generate at the maximum rate of his aerobic energy production threshold) and his muscular endurance. These fitness areas were also very important for the specific MMA skill training he was focusing on in his skill training. (Just another reason how the integration of skill and s&c is crucial).

Here are the results from his 8 week program:

Joe's profile - 5/29/11

The results:

• Joe was able to increase Aerobic Fitness, Muscular Endurance and Explosive Power, while maintaining all other areas of his S&C.
• Joe was also able to lose 11 pounds of bodyweight, yet maintain his strength (and gain explosive power), which actually increased his strength profile because he is now stronger/lb. of bodyweight. considering he was focusing on his aerobic fitness, this was very good!

Next up for Joe will be a program designed to increase his strength and yet maintain his new conditioning. This will be a great test of a proper strength & conditioning program and I'll keep you posted of his results.

An Introduction to MMA Sparring - Part 2.

by Bill Easlick

( I'm Sorry for the delay. I know many of you were looking forward to a PROMPT follow-up to my last blog article and I sincerely apologize for the delay. Life has been kicking my butt lately! My day job; My family; Preparing some of our fighters for MMA fights; Travel; Seminars ; etc., all take precedence over my blog writing. In the future I plan on writing smaller and much more frequent updates. Mea culpa...)

Transitions

M.C. Escher understood the artistry of the transition.
Seamless transitions put the "art" into Martial Artist.

One of the most appealing and realistic aspects of MMA is the openness of the rules. Fighters can use hundreds of techniques from striking, clinching, wrestling and groundwork in order to win fights, most often by maximizing the fighters area of expertise. However, the current reality is that as the sport of MMA evolves, so do its fighters and their skills. The days of the BJJ or wrestling-based fighter doing a lunging takedown on a kickboxer who has no clue how to defend are long over. 



One of the most important things in being a successful MMA fighter today is being able to transition between ranges and tactics, but yet I’m always very shocked when I look at other gyms and see how many fighters are still training without transitions in their sparring. Many gyms still train boxing or muay thai for striking, train wrestling or judo (maybe) and train no gi BJJ/submission grappling; each as individual and sport-specific classes. That is not MMA folks! In my opinion there is a better way.

The problem with that approach to training lies in the lack of transitions that occur in each of those sports. Each has a fairly limited rule set and techniques compared to MMA, and their training is always done within those rules.

For example:

• A fighter goes to boxing class and he works on striking another like-minded striker to the head and body with his hands. There are no kicks, no knees, no elbows, no clinch, and certainly no fear of getting wrestled to the ground.

• A fighter goes to BJJ class where he spars with another submission-oriented opponent in an attempt to choke or joint lock each other. There may or may not be takedowns, and there is no striking.

Is that the best way to spar for MMA? Absolutely not. A modern MMA fighter must be able to transition, flowing smoothly and technically from different aspects of the fight. The fighter needs to train a transition as an actual sport-specific skill. He needs to integrate these separate arts into his MMA training, not specialize and compartmentalize them in isolation, otherwise he will never "bridge the gap" between techniques with success.

*(Please note that I fully understand that there is a time when a MMA fighter needs to train in sport-specific areas of his game, but for the novice-amateur fighter, this training should be supplemental to his fundamental MMA training if he's part of a well-rounded complete program. This will be the topic of another blog, much sooner this time, I promise!) 

• To be able to strike effectively in MMA, a fighter must be able to stay on his feet and control the free standing position, which can be very difficult because this often means his success in striking (and the damage it causes) will often cause his opponent to attempt to clinch or take him down to nullify the strikes. A MMA striker must be able to clinch and counter wrestle.
• To set up a shot, a fighter must be able to time his opponent’s strikes or create his own pressure by throwing strikes to set up the shot. He must also be able to transition from the takedown into ground work as well without putting himself in poor position to get submitted or swept.
• To end the fight in a submission, the fighter must get the fight to the ground and will need to make several transitions through the standup and takedown phases in order to get the fight to the ground putting him in a favorable leverage position.

"So how do I spar for MMA?"

So you can see that as a MMA fighter, it's critical to learn and train transitions. Including transitions in your sparring training to make each fighter work their skills in the format that closest resembles how they will actually fight. To do so we divide all of our MMA sparring at Fairfax Jiu-Jitsu into 3 major categories.

Standup Sparring -

Techniques: kicking, punching, knees, clinching, dirty boxing, takedowns, throws, standing cage tactics

Transitions: boxing and kickboxing striking and standup grappling including muay thai clinchwork, greco and judo and wrestling

Format: Fighters spar using almost all of their skills available on their feet including strikes clinched knees, pummeling, dirty boxing, takedowns (shots) and throws. The "action" does not stop until the round ends or someone is taken down and there is a clear position achieved. - Standing, side control, guard, back etc., in which the fighters will stop and reset standing again.

"Be like water" - Bruce Lee

This is the launch pad for all of our striking and for much of our clinching and wrestling skills in MMA. This is where our students begin to fully understand the relationship that striking and grappling have. You're a good striker? Try it against someone actively seeking to take you down (ie. BJJers and wrestlers - 2/3rd of the people you may encounter).  You're a good wrestler? Try it against someone who is going to punch or knee you as soon as you move towards them.

What changes? - the transitions of course! Setting up your takedown, timing a strike, the amount of pressure you give your opponent, making the level change, throwing a knee in the clinch, etc. Dozens, if not scores of tactics unique to MMA must be addressed to succeed on your feet in MMA.

Dirty Boxing/Clinch -

Techniques: knees, punches, clinch, takedowns, throws, standing cage tactics

Transitions: striking and standup grappling including muay thai clinchwork, greco and judo and wrestling

Format: Fighters begin in a neutral clinch position (ex. Over/Under or a Collar Tie/Bicep) near the cage wall or padded wall and work to these to strike and position into control and or a takedown

Hey..Wait a minute!.. Isn't this just a sub-set of the standup sparring? Yes it is (see if your students/fighters figure this out), but over the years I've found that it is so important that it's worthy of it's own sparring time during training for two important reasons.

The frequency that two fighters will find themselves in the standing clinch should make it an area that every fighter should be comfortable and knowledgeable. The standing clinch is often the gateway in a fight. - the fighter who can control the clinch often decides where the fight occurs - continuing to fight on their feet, or down on the ground - transition! This is exactly why we focus on this sparring, working on the balance of strikes and control to score.

The second reason is the proximity of the cage and it's importance in sparring. The cage is a game changer! This full length physical barrier has major impact on positional control, takedown defense and movement. All MMA fighters need to train on the wall; both offense and defense and all the transitions in between. (this goes for all 3 formats)

Speaking of transitions.. When you begin to spar in this format you will notice another type of transition that's very sport-specific to MMA -The transitions of the clinch itself, flowing from pummeling and positional control to striking. In any given minute you could go from a Greco bodylock, to an underhook and straight arm pike to the face into a Muay Thai knee into another pummel  battle into a Judo inside leg trip, etc., etc., in an infinite loop and combination of techniques. This is unique to MMA and why we say that there is not a "muay thai clinch" or a "wrestling clinch" in our program, it's just "the clinch".

Groundwork -

Techniques: Positional control, striking, submissions
Transitions: Positional grappling with striking

Format: Fighters can begin in various positions to begin to work groundwork positions attempting various goals including, submissions, strikes, reversals, and escapes

This sparring format is the foundation of the groundwork in our MMA program. The goal is to get fighters to use effective groundwork in an environment that includes striking. When fighters spar on the ground in an isolated grappling-only format, this can lead to many bad habits that can hurt them during an MMA fight. 

One of the most common, and obvious shortcomings is not being adept at defending punches being thrown by a person who may be more than willing to remain inside their guard or a side control position as long as they are causing damage and winning in the eyes of the judges.

This has a major impact on the guard position in MMA. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu blackbelt Mark Jones had this to say about the guard in MMA. "The rules of each sport (BJJ and MMA) have made the complexities of the guard serve different purposes. The guard work of MMA has to be more functional.  Keeping tight when in danger, getting back on to your feet or capitalizing immediately when opponent makes a mistake in the top position."

On the other top side of this position, a fighter must also learn how to maintain posture and pressure to strike, safely avoiding submissions and sweeps and use striking to setup his transition to a better position such as passing the guard. He must learn to balance striking with positional control or the referee will stand the fighters back up.

Mark brings up a very MMA-critical skillset that is trained in this area - standing up and disengaging from groundwork. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the goal of isolated sparring is often narrowly defined. In fact, disengaging from your opponent in BJJ is frowned upon, however, in MMA, learning how to get back to your feet while avoiding damage could change the fight, particularly for a striker.

One of the biggest transitions we work in groundwork is the starting position. While we feel that a fighter should know how to fight from every position on the ground, it's important that he works on perhaps one of the most critical position in MMA - taking someone down and maintaining control after the takedown to enter groundwork in the dominant position. To do this we'll often begin groundwork sparring from our feet with a "no strikes until someone hits the ground" guide. This puts the pressure on each fighter to get the takedown and start the sparring in the dominant position (and keep it).

These are the 3 types of sparring that we do do develop our fundamental MMA skills on our team. Each of these formats integrating a major transition in their sparring which is key for success as a MMA fighter.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the blog article and I promise that I will switch to smaller and more frequent posts in the future.  As always,  I'd like to hear any comments or questions you have about my writing.  I am not the final word on this subject, This is just my opinion based on my experience as a student, fighter and coach.  Thanks.