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.

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.

Fairfax Jiu-Jitsu - Aerobic Plyometrics