If you’ve ever had a professional MMA bout, then I congratulate you. It takes a lot of courage,
training, and determination to deal with the hard training required to adequately prepare for a
match.
But the same ‘tough-it-out’ mentality that makes a fighter able to deal with the long hours of
sparring, conditioning, and technique work, can hurt a fighter if they don’t know when it’s helpful
and when it’s detrimental.
When creating a program for an athlete in preparation for a fight, I look at a fighter’s strength and
conditioning program, as well as MMA classes. Because they’re both strenuous on the body, you
can’t just look at them as separate entities.
Both must be scheduled and taken into account to create a training schedule that brings the
athlete to where they need to be by fight day and avoids injury.
Most fighters don’t know how to properly plan their training.
The body gets stronger, muscle motor programs improve (thus techniques
improve) and tissues regenerate during periods of rest and recovery, not
training.
So if your body never has rest and recovery, then your body will never
adapt and get stronger, faster and more powerful.
Recovery is not only about rest and recovery, such as lighter training days, complete days off, and
good quality sleep…
It also has a lot to do with proper nutrition. Eating well is a huge part of the equation when
creating a successful fighter, but we’re going to focus on training in this report.
Let’s look at an example so you can see how this all works.
The body gets stronger, muscle
motor programs improve (thus
techniques improve) and tissues
regenerate during periods of rest
and recovery, NOT training.
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Say you have a fight schedule in 8 weeks. Here’s what I’d see as a typical training schedule:
Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
Weights
Cardio Weights Cardio Weights MMA
MMA BJJ No-Gi Kickboxing Boxing
Each of these sessions would normally be performed at maximum intensity. Sometimes I’ll talk to
fighters and they’ll say things like, “I didn’t feel too good today, but I pushed as hard as I could
anyway.” This goes on week after week and gets more intense as the fight gets closer.
When I hear this, I know they’re probably setting themselves up for symptoms of overtraining,
such as fatigue, lack of explosiveness, illness or worst of all - injury.
Here’s what I would change to maximize performance:
Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
REST ↓ Weights ↑ Cardio ↑ Weights MMA
↑ MMA BJJ [T] No-Gi Kickboxing [T] Boxing
On Monday, I would have the athlete do fewer sets than normal, but intensity (eg. weight lifted) is
maintained, to maintain/increase strength and explosiveness without fatiguing the muscles too
much.
That would leave more energy for MMA training, where some sparring will occur. If the fighter is
tired from lifting weights, it’s going to impact their MMA technique, and they might develop some
bad habits and get sloppy.
On Tuesday, I’d have the fighter go hard in their Cardio workout (I hate that term and use
different terminology that I don’t have time to explain here), but focus on technical skills in BJJ
(that’s what the T means).
That way, they can go really hard and not worry about having gas later, because they know
they’re going to just work on drilling moves and techniques and not rolling too hard.
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Thursday I would have them go hard in their weight workout, and focus on technical skills in
Kickboxing.
Friday and Saturday they’re free to go hard because they’ll have a full day off on Sunday.
Can you see how this would minimize injury, as well as improve both skill and conditioning at the
same time?
Here’s an example from Patrick, who tells you his results following the Ultimate MMA program,
which decreased the amount of training he was doing:
“yo Eric
Thanks for the follow up email. I finished the corrective stage and have just started the base
conditioning. I used to frequently get pain in my neck and shoulders and would feel stiff most
mornings. Since I started the programme I feel a lot more spritely, my body actually feels good to
move in.
Before the programme I used to run up to 30 kms a week, lift weights and do MMA and some
swimming. It was very costly in time which i can no longer afford as my partner has had a baby.
Outcomes: The programme is very time efficent, its a bit early to say, but I haven't gained any
weight since I swapped my time intensive programae for this one, despite the fact that I training
about 4 hours less a week!
I'm realy looking forward to getting back to my MMA club and see if the guys notice any change
when we roll.
Thanks
Patrick”
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The reason why most guys train too often is because they’re trying to improve in every aspect of
strength and conditioning at the same time.
Unfortunately, this is a sure-fire path to defeat!
The body has a limited amount of adaptation energy. When
you try to force it to get stronger, increase your cardio,
become more explosive, lose fat while building muscle, etc,
you’ll quickly plateau and you won’t get any results.
The key is intelligent focus and following a plan that will
keep you on track and in the direction you want to go.
Now this is just an example, and changes with every fighter,
depending on their strength and conditioning needs,
technical needs, etc. But the basic concept is all here.
Remember – the goal is steady progress, day-in, day-out,
not driving yourself into the ground!