The Combat Sports STrength And Conditioning Manual

— Minimalist Training for Maximum Results —

Will Morrill
 The Combat Sports Strength and Conditioning Manual
© 2018 Will Morrill. All rights reserved.

For more information visit combatsportsmanual.com

Password for extra content: FIGHTSTRENGTH

Book Cover Design: Marissa Torre

Cover Photo: Ronin Advertising
Pictured on Cover: Will Morrill and “Iron City” Mike Wilkins
Editors: Ben Major and Marissa Torre
Neck Strength Photos: Quinn Jordan

ISBN: 9781792616365

The information in this book is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute
for individual health and fitness advice. You should be in good physical condition before beginning
this or any other exercise system. The author is not a licensed practitioner, physician or medical
professional and offers no medical treatments, diagnoses, suggestions or counseling. The information
presented herein has not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and is not
intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Full medical clearance from a licensed
physician should be obtained before beginning or modifying any diet, exercise or combat sports
program, and physicians should be informed of all nutritional changes. The author claims no
responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, injury, loss or damage caused or alleged to be
caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application or interpretation of the information
presented herein.
 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank:

•  Warren Stout and Mike Wilkins for elevating my understanding of MMA

and giving me all of the opportunities that you have.
 
•     Bob Meese for showing me the intricacies of boxing in MMA.
 
•    All the MMA, Muay Thai fighters, and team members at Stout Training
Pittsburgh for the hard work and dedication you have put into the fight
game.
 
•   My college coaches David Vacco, Os Omo-Osagie, and the late Jack
Rorabaugh for teaching me how to box.
 
•   My Tang Soo Do instructor DeWayne Adams for showing me where
traditional martial arts overlap with fighting and how they differ, as well as
for introducing me to lifting weights.
 
•       John Swisher from Ronin Advertising for sending me all the great
photos.
 
•   My parents, family and friends for putting up with all this fighting
nonsense for so many years.
 
•   Marissa for designing the cover, website, and supporting me through the
whole writing process.
 
 Table of Contents
— Chapter 1 — Introduction

— Chapter 2 — Programming a Week and Cycle

— Chapter 3 — Exercise Selection

— Chapter 4 — Loading Schemes

— Chapter 5 — Strength Benchmarks

— Chapter 6 — Peaking

— Chapter 7 — Conditioning

— Chapter 8 — Cutting Weight

— Chapter 9 — Nutrition

— Chapter 10 — Neck Strength

— Chapter 11 — Tracking Sheets

— Chapter 12 — Application to Non-MMA Combat Sports

— Chapter 13 — Mental Training

— Chapter 14 — Movement Tables

— Chapter 15 — References
 — Chapter 1 —
 
Introduction
The mission of this manual is to provide quality information about
strength training to the coaches and athletes who dedicate their lives to
combat sports. Combat sports have often sat on the back burner of society in
the United States, while arguably more violent sports such as football and
hockey have flourished. Many factors separate combat sports from the major
big money sports, and one small way to help close the gap and elevate the
standing of combat sports is to bring the high level strength and conditioning
training from other sports over and apply it intelligently. At the college and
sometimes even the high-school level, team sports have designated strength
and conditioning coaches, designing programs to increase athletic
performance, help prevent injuries and boost mental strength and
confidence. In contrast, even today, coaches in combat sports often
perpetuate old myths like, “Lifting will make you muscle bound and slow”.

“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but

principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully
select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring
principles, is sure to have trouble.”   ― Harrington Emerson

The exact system outlined in this manual is not particularly important,

but the principles it is built upon are extremely so. While many years of
experimentation and lots of thought has gone into the development of this
system, I have boiled it down to four basic principles that will be unpacked
in further detail.
 
1. Minimalist Training
2. Hierarchy of Physical Attributes
3. Adaptability
4. Sustainability

The concept of minimalist training has been called many things: the
minimax principle, minimum effective dose, the 80/20 principle, etc., but
they all refer to the same idea that we should accomplish as much as possible
in the least amount of time as possible while using the least amount of
energy as possible. This is particularly important in combat sports training,
especially MMA, which most of this manual will concern itself with. Skill is
generally more important than strength in fighting. Anyone who has been
around the fight game long enough knows that a fighter with significantly
better technique can beat a superior athlete on a consistent basis, and most
likely has a personal story of failure and humiliation involving rolling,
clinching or wrestling with a smaller partner. I have experienced this on
many occasions, from getting dominated by the 138-pound wrestler in my
high-school wrestling room, to eating a mean body shot my first time boxing
sparring, and then getting balled up on jiu-jitsu mats, and years later when I
should have known better, I was still shocked by how easily small Thai boys
in Bangkok tossed me in clinch training. Since strength is not the most
important part of winning fights, it is of utmost importance to prioritize
technical sport-specific training for combat athletes. If an MMA fighter has
two pad sessions, three jiu-jitsu practices, a Muay Thai night, a wrestling
session and sparring every week, they will inevitably have neither the time
nor the energy to devote themselves to a bunch of long, drawn-out strength
and conditioning sessions. A fighter should lift weights to be a better fighter,
not a better lifter, and spend as much time as possible practicing their actual
sport. This is a particularly important concept for non-skill coaches who
exclusively run strength and conditioning practices.
Another reason that minimalist training is important for fighters is that
excessive strength and conditioning is redundant considering all the other
training they do. A combat athlete must be powerful, strong and mobile, as
well as having good muscular and cardiovascular endurance. Striking sports
can be a great way to develop power, grappling arts are a tried and true way
to build muscular endurance, and both can contribute to specific types of
mobility improvements. Pretty much all combat sports build serious
cardiovascular endurance. Therefore, it is not always necessary to put an
excessive amount of effort into developing these attributes. In
Verkhoshansky and Siff’s seminal book, Supertraining, they write: “Basic
biomechanical analysis of the forces and tensions involved show clearly that
the high levels of resistance and muscle tension involved in sports such as
gymnastics, swimming, rowing and wrestling easily justify any objections to
regarding resistance training as a separate training system” (1).This is a long
way of saying that the sport-specific skill training that wrestlers, or any other
combat sport practitioners, do is a part of their strength and conditioning in
and of itself. Because of these redundancies, this system appears to
somewhat neglect high volume ab work that can be developed through
punching or playing guard in jiu-jitsu, neck strengthening that is best
developed through Thai clinching, grip strength from wrestling or rolling
and basic levels of cardiovascular and muscular conditioning that all kinds
of combat athletes should have from their sports.
So if combat sports are so great at developing athletic properties, what
do we even need a weight room for? This answer will vary from sport to
sport, for example, a pure boxer who is not clinching and wrestling will need
to do some extra neck strengthening exercises, while a pure grappler may
require more posture correcting mobility movements. These specific needs
will be discussed in a later section, but what all combat sports require are
high levels of full body power from explosive exercises, strength from heavy
compound lifts and mobility, and stability and flexibility from smaller
exercises, which will from here on be referred to as ancillary exercises.
These ancillary exercises will help to correct issues that arise from fight
training such as the decline in specific ranges of motion and the bad posture
that sustained wrestling stances produce. Additionally, they act as a form of
“prehab” to prevent these issues in the first place. A premium will be placed
on scapular control, spinal extension and traction and hip mobility, although
eccentric hamstring exercises, flexibility and extra neck or ab exercises will
sometimes fall into the ancillary category. Extra conditioning drills will only
be required when peaking for a fight.
The hierarchy of physical attributes is as follows:

Movement Patterns   >   Strength   >   Power   >  Specialization

 
This is common sense for a good strength and conditioning coach, but it
is important to bring one attribute up to a proficient level before focusing on
the next. Building strength with faulty movement patterns will only lead to
more problems down the line. Power is very tightly correlated to strength, so
working on power development without a strength base is a waste of time.
With that said, once an athlete is strong enough to effectively carry out the
techniques in their sport, they will hit a point of diminishing returns
regarding more strength work. If I take a fighter with a max deadlift of their
own bodyweight and a max bench press of less than their bodyweight, which
is surprisingly common among fighters, taking their deadlift up to double
bodyweight and their bench press up above bodyweight will significantly
improve their performance on the mats or in the ring or cage. Now taking
that same fighter up to a triple bodyweight deadlift and an above double
bodyweight bench press may improve their performance, but the training
effort, recovery time and stress on the joints will almost certainly not be
worth it. Specific guidelines will be discussed later, but it is important to
know that although strength is the number one goal for athletes with proper
movement patterns, there is a limit - and strong enough is strong enough.
Once an effective amount of power has been developed, an athlete can
specialize their training further, working to develop even more mobility,
endurance or any other attribute they need.
The adaptability of this program allows a wide range of athletes to use
the same system and training schedule, while meeting their individual needs
and following the hierarchy outlined above. This system is not a set program
so much as it is an outline with spaces for movements to be added in for
each fighter. This means a team of athletes can all train together at the same
pace and schedule while working on individual goals. For example,
everyone will be doing a squatting movement at the same time, but one
athlete may be doing goblet squats to build the movement pattern, while
another is back squatting to maximize strength and another could be doing a
unilateral version to restore balance between limbs after an injury. Between
sets of the squats each fighter will do ancillary exercises that can also be
adapted to each fighter’s needs and limitations. Additionally, even if two
athletes are performing the exact same exercises, different adaptations can be
had by choosing an appropriate set and rep scheme for their goals and
experience level. Details on exercise selection and set and rep schemes will
be discussed in later chapters, but generally speaking this system will utilize
low reps to build maximum strength and power while limiting hypertrophy
to keep athletes in their weight class.
Sustainability of a strength and conditioning program is essential for
fighters, since most fight sports do not have seasons and staying in shape
year-round is necessary. The grueling nature of combat sports training means
that total lifting volume and recovery must be well managed to lift year-
round, but the benefits of doing so are immense. For one, an athlete will not
have to “get in shape” in the months leading up to a fight. They simply get
into peak condition while still having time and energy for skill work.
Second, big opportunities in the career of a fighter can present themselves in
the form of short-notice fights. Being prepared for those opportunities could
be the difference between moving into a larger organization with more
eminence and pay or staying at a regional or local level. What makes this
system sustainable long term are the low training volumes and limited
eccentric work, which also help reduce hypertrophy and delayed onset
muscle soreness (DOMS), and the scheduled deload or rest weeks, which
gives the athlete time to recover.
Before anything else can be accomplished, a coach must have an athlete
buy into their methods to successfully train them. Teaching the athletes who
you train these overriding principles is essential, so they understand the
whys, not just the how’s, of this system, which is not always easy since some
of these principles conflict with traditional training methods. Plenty of elite
fighters have won competitions despite what appears to be scientifically
incorrect training from an outside perspective. As long as a fighter truly
believes that they are doing the right thing and putting in hard work, they
can overcome flawed training methods and perform well. So, teaching the
principles and creating confidence in the system is the first step to improving
performance with these methods.
 — Chapter 2 —
 
Programing a Week and Cycle
Day One
A1 Power Hinge     –     3x3-5
A2 Ancillary     –     3x8-12
B1 Strength Hinge     –     3x3-5
B2 Ancillary     –     3x8-12
C1 Vertical Press    –     3x3-5
C2 Vertical Pull    –     3x8-12

Day Two
A1 Power Squat    –     3x3-5
A2 Ancillary    –     3x8-12
B1 Strength Squat    –     3x3-5
B2 Ancillary    –     3x8-12
C1 Horizontal Press    –     3x3-5
C2 Horizontal Pull      –     3x8-12

Each week will contain two non-consecutive lifting days comprising a

power movement, a lower body strength movement, ancillary exercises, and
an upper body press and pull movement. These workouts are performed for
three weeks, and then a deload week is taken, followed by three more weeks,
another deload, and then all of the exercises are switched to prevent
stagnation. This eight-week chunk is one cycle. Each cycle contains a
“gymnastic press” movement, ring dips for example, for greater training
variety and shoulder stability work. Also, an eccentric hamstring exercise,
such as a Nordic hamstring curl, is included to help prevent injuries to the
knee and hamstring. In a 2016 review of 19 studies, a decrease in the risk
factors of ACL and hamstring injuries was seen when an eccentric hamstring
injury prevention protocol was followed (2). These hamstring exercises can
be programmed as an ancillary exercise after the power and leg strength
exercises or as a power movement, such as a kettlebell swing, that includes
eccentric hamstring work in its nature.
 Most power exercises, all lower body exercises and most upper body
pressing are done within the three to five repetition range. The exceptions
are certain kettlebell power exercises that can safely be pushed into higher
reps and gymnastic presses where the focus is on sustained tension and
stability. This low rep range ensures maximum power output and safety for
the plyos and O-lifts, and an emphasis on max strength, without excess
hypertrophy, for the leg and pressing lifts. If possible, drop weights and take
all safe measures to limit eccentric work, which can lead to excess
hypertrophy and DOMS. Some kettlebell power exercises, most ancillary
movements and upper body pulls are performed in the eight to twelve
repetition range. Only kettlebell movements that the athlete feels
comfortable with should be pushed up into this higher range and it is
absolutely fine to keep the reps lower. Ancillary movements are usually
mobility or stability based, such as hip circles or Pallof presses, and require a
bit more time under tension along with higher reps, although some
ancillaries, such as static stretches or kettlebell armbars, can be timed or
performed for lower reps. Upper body pulls use a higher rep range for a
couple of reasons. First, I like the powerlifting idea that the back should be
built up as a base for pressing to be performed off of. Second, most upper
body pulling in combat sports is to control your opponent’s posture or
squeeze a submission, both requiring more muscular endurance than pure
strength. It could be argued that pulling your hand back after throwing a
punch is not a slow or controlling pull, but it is also a very sport-specific
movement pattern, which has no business being trained in the weight room.
Exact loading schemes will be discussed in-depth in Chapter 4.
 — Chapter 3 —
 
Exercise Selection
Each exercise should be selected to fit the structure of the system, but
also your athlete’s skill level, past lifting cycles and other personal
limitations or needs. For example, if you have an athlete who has never
lifted before, they probably should not be doing heavy snatches on their first
day. First teach them to hip hinge, create full body tension, deadlift, triple
extension, etc. If you are at the end of a cycle and have a fighter who is
experiencing great strength gains in the back squat, it may be a good idea to
switch to a box squat or something similar, so they stay excited about
training. If you have a wrestler with the wear-and-tear of thousands of
matches who is transitioning to MMA, and their body is so beat up to the
point that they cannot squat without their knees knocking and heels lifting
off the ground, then it is not a great idea to start heavy back squats. Instead,
have them do light goblet squats for movement quality, not high load. What
makes this program so adaptable is that regardless of an athlete’s skill level
or needs, a good coach will be able to program appropriately while still
maintaining the basic structure. This means you can easily keep a group of
fighters on the same lifting cycle, lining up schedules and deload weeks,
while meeting each athlete’s needs. An experienced coach should know each
athlete’s needs, but when in doubt refer to the hierarchy of physical
attributes.

Movement Patterns   >   Strength   >  Power   >   Specialization

Now we will break down each day, movement by movement to

construct a coherent sample plan for a fighter new to lifting, as well as a
more advanced athlete. For a list of exercises that can be substituted into the
program, see the movement tables supplied at the end.

I do not believe a warmup needs to be particularly long or complicated.

The only specific drill I insist that my fighters do before a training session is
to roll out their ankles, especially before plyos. Personally, the majority of
the time I just warm up with a few light sets of my first exercise, with a few
unstructured stretches or mobility movements that feel right. However, here
are a few sample warmups that can be used for a bit more structure.
 PVC Pipe Warmup - Excellent for cycles with lots of barbell
movements. Do each exercise for about 30 seconds and repeat if necessary.

A1 PVC Dislocates

A2 PVC Hinges with pipe touching the back of the head, T spine
and tailbone through full hinge

A3 PVC Overhead Squat

A4 PVC Bradford Press

 

Kettlebell Warmup - Short and sweet. Can be completed with one

kettlebell. Repeat until warm.

A1 Prying Goblet Squat    –     x10

A2 Halos    –     x5 each direction
A3 Swings    –     x10
 
Joint Mobility Warmup - I have fighters perform this before fights and
particularly hard practices that will involve unusual positions, like hard
grappling or shoot boxing, and it works well to prepare the body for lifting
especially in tighter athletes who lack mobility. Do each exercise for about
30 seconds.
 

A1 Ankle Rolls – Put weight on the ball of one foot and grip the
floor with the toes. Make a circle with the heel to take the ankle through
a full range of motion. Reverse direction, and then repeat on the other
side.
 
A2 Knee Circles – Stand with the feet and knees together. Circle
the knees, starting small and working to larger circles. Repeat going in
the other direction.
 
A3 Hip Circles – Starting either standing or on the hands and
knees, take a knee forward, and then out and around in as large of a
 circle as possible without rotating the hips. Repeat going in the other
direction, then on the other side.
 
A4 Trunk Rotations – Stand tall, rotate through the spine in each
direction, looking over the shoulder on the side you rotated to.
 
A5 Shoulder Circles – Stand tall with the arms straight and rotate
at the shoulder making small circles and slowly working to large
circles. Repeat going in the other direction.
 
A6 Elbow Circles – Rotate at the elbows making large circles with
your forearms. Repeat going in the other direction.
 
A7 Neck Circles – Make the biggest circle possible with the top of
your head keeping the torso and shoulders still. Repeat going in the
other direction.
 
On day one, after the light general warmup, we start with a power hinge
movement, while the nervous system is still fresh. This includes any
explosive movement that is primarily focused on the hip extensors, including
plyometric exercises, kettlebell movements and Olympic lifts. The spectrum
of complexity for these exercises is absolutely massive, and it is fine to use
exercises anywhere on this spectrum as long as they are appropriately
matched to the athlete’s skill level and recovery abilities. Beginners can start
with something as simple as a broad jump, while an experienced athlete can
use any variation of cleans or snatches. Generally, I like to use a simple
power exercise, like the broad jump, as a potentiation exercise for heavier
strength movements, like deadlifts. The more complex and easier to load
power hinge exercises, like Olympic lifts, I tend to use as the “main lift”,
followed by a strength movement requiring a relatively smaller load, such as
good mornings or unilateral RDLs. It is also important to note that the
eccentric hamstring exercise requirement can be met with properly
performed kettlebell swings, where the athlete is actively throwing their bell
down from the top of their swing, or controlled RDLs. For more advanced
athletes who already move well, a plyometric power movement can be
performed as a superset with the strength hinge movement first, which I will
use in this example. This technique is called complex training, notably used
by elite sprinting coach Barry Ross. However, I’d suggest not running
consecutive cycles of complex training because it takes away spots for
ancillary movements. The start of a sample workout would look like this:

Day One (Beginner)

A1 Kettlebell Swing*    –     3x5-10

*Fulfills the eccentric hamstring exercise requirement

 
Day One (Advanced)
A1 Strength Hinge    –     3x3-5
A2 Broad Jumps    –     3x3-5

Next, we will add a strength hinge movement, which should again be

primarily focused on the hip extensors, and maximum loading potential. If
the power hinge creates a lot of neural fatigue or an athlete is coming off an
injury, a coach may use good mornings, GHDs, unilateral hinge movements
or other lower intensity exercises, but for the most part this is where we want
to go heavy and have the ability to progressively overload the movement
over the course of the eight-week cycle. Deadlifts and their variations, like
RDLs and trap bar deadlifts, should be the go-to picks. Be mindful of your
athlete’s ability to maintain a neutral spine in the bottom position. Rack pulls
and pulling from the high handles on a trap bar are absolutely fine if your
fighter lacks the mobility to stay safe throughout the full range of motion,
although increasing that mobility should then become a primary goal with
the ancillary exercises. Additionally, the concentric portion of the lift should
be emphasized. While still not fully understood, some studies suggest that
DOMS seem to be at least partially due to eccentric exercises (3). For this
reason, I always have my fighters use a “controlled drop” from the top of
their deadlifts, and literally drop the bar after their last rep. While this may
seem contradictory with the mandatory inclusion of eccentric hamstring
exercises for injury prevention, the idea is to minimize eccentric work when
possible, especially on large movements like deadlifts that can cause
soreness throughout the whole body and affect skill workouts later in the
week. Adding the strength movement into our sample day one workout looks
like this:
 Day One (Beginner)
A1 Kettlebell Swing*    –     3x5-10
A2 Ancillary    –     3x8-12
B1 Trap Bar Deadlift    –     3x3-5
B2 Ancillary    –     3x8-12
*Fulfills the eccentric hamstring exercise requirement
 
Day One (Advanced)
A1 Deadlift    –     3x3-5
A2 Broad Jump    –     3x3-5
A3 Ancillary    –     3x8-12

So far we have glossed over the ancillary exercises, so it is time to add

some detail and put specific movements into our sample program. Ancillary
exercises are used to increase or maintain mobility and stability in weak
areas, improve combat sport-related decreases in posture and ensure that
overzealous fighters will take a sufficient rest between heavy strength and
power sets. After each set of a main lift, a different ancillary is used so that a
wider variety can be fit within the structure of the workout. Despite the
broad range of movements that can be used as an ancillary exercise, it is
important not to treat them as random time wasters. Each movement should
be used for a specific purpose based on a fighter’s needs. Based on the needs
of combat sport athletes, strengthening and increasing mobility throughout
the shoulder girdle, spine and hips should take priority. However, additional
abdominal or neck strengthening, or flexibility drills or eccentric hamstring
exercises, which do not fit into the power hinge category, can be added as
well.

If needed, even more specific goals can be met by addressing one issue
with each ancillary exercise. For example, I had a fighter who was working
on a lot of elbows from top guard and mount because of his excellent
wrestling ability. However, his shoulder mobility was so bad that he could
not go through a large enough range of motion to break grips and throw an
elbow with power. For almost six months most of his ancillary exercises
involved increasing his range of motion in the glenohumeral joint and
strengthening the rotator cuff and scapular control muscles with dislocates,
wall slides, kettlebell armbars, windmills, facepulls, scapular pushups, hang
stretches and other exercises of the sort. He and his other coaches were
extremely impressed with his progress after this relatively small period of
time and he has since landed some monstrous elbows in fights. This
significant increase in range of motion is all because of a few well-
programed and executed exercises performed twice a week between heavy
sets, instead of just sitting around.

It is also important that the ancillary exercises selected will not have a
negative effect on the main lift. For example, if you wanted to use Nordic
hamstring curls as an eccentric hamstring exercise in a cycle with cleans and
deadlifts, it should be programmed in after the last heavy set of deadlifts, so
as not to interfere. Adding specific ancillary exercises into our sample day
one workout looks like this:
Day One (Beginner)
A1 Kettlebell Swing*    –     3x5-10
A2 Facepull    –     1x12
Yoga Bridge    –     1x10sec
Hip Flexor Stretch    –     1x30sec
B1 Trap Bar Deadlift    –     3x3-5
B2 KB Armbar    –     1x3/side
Scapular Push-Up1x10
Pallof Press    –     1x12/side
*Fulfills the eccentric hamstring exercise requirement
 
Day One (Advanced)
A1 Deadlift    –     3x3-5
A2 Broad Jump    –     3x3-5
A3 Windmill    –     1x6/side
     T-Spine Rotations    –     1x30sec
     Nordic Ham Curl*    –     1x8

For a large list of effective ancillary movements I commonly use with

my fighters, see the tables at the end of this manual. However, ancillary
movement slots are the easiest place to add in new exercises and drills, so
feel free to implement whatever mobility, stability, balance, prehab, etc.
movements you like, so long as they fit within the structure of the system.

At this point in the workout we have completed the more taxing lower
body movements as well as the ancillary exercises, so it is time to program
in the upper body vertical push and pull exercises. There are a few things to
keep in mind as we select pressing exercises. One of the pressing exercises
in the week must be a gymnastic press and, while breaking down the
pressing into vertical and horizontal movements is a good guideline, it will
not always work out exactly like that. For example, in one cycle you could
combine ring dips with an incline barbell press, and they would be effective
while not being exactly horizontal and vertical. What is most important is
that one pressing exercise in the week occurs in a significantly different
plane than the other day. As a rule of thumb, you should try to have the
pressing exercises occur in planes that are at least 90° apart. For example, a
dumbbell bench press could be combined with handstand pushups in one
cycle, while a military press and handstand pushups are too similar in nature
and would result in a cycle that neglects pressing at a lower angle.

Another important aspect of programming pressing movements is the

type of resistance used. Single arm pushups, barbell bench presses and
dumbbell bench presses all move across a similar plane, but will accomplish
different goals. What you choose will be affected by the athlete’s goal, what
tools you have available and also personal preference. In general, barbell
presses will increase maximum strength faster, while dumbbell, kettlebell
and single arm presses will help even out strength imbalances. I try to
alternate between different types of tools to reap a wider variety of benefits,
but it is totally fine to run a few cycles in a row using similar tools if they
help an athlete attack a specific goal. If you have an overall weak fighter,
running multiple cycles of barbell pressing will help them gain more
strength with the higher total loads, while a grizzled vet with one screwy
shoulder can absolutely run as many cycles as needed using dumbbells,
kettlebells and single arm presses to help gain a better range of motion and
help prevent further asymmetries.

Gymnastic presses are used because of their excellent ability to increase

stability within the shoulder girdle, full body tension and control, and to
increase exercise variety. Be sure to use appropriate exercises and
regressions based on the athlete’s skill level. Some of these regressions will
be included in the gymnastic pressing exercise table at the end of this
section.
 Vertical pulls should almost always be pull-ups, chin-ups and all their
variations. I encourage my fighters to try out different grips, hand positions,
tempos and body positions each set to help avoid any overuse injuries and
give the individual more control over their program. I have athletes, who
cannot quite perform sets of 8 to 12 good reps, alternate weekly between
using a band for assistance and eccentric-only reps. Every once in a while, I
have the fighters use additional weight and let them drop the reps a (fairly
arbitrary) “little bit”. Although stricter loading schemes can be applied to the
pull/chin-ups, I believe this is a great place not to overthink and
micromanage, and just get the work in. Adding in our vertical push and pull
and finishing up day one looks like this:
 
Day One  (Beginner)
A1 Kettlebell Swing*    –     3x5-10
A2 Facepull    –     1x12
Yoga Bridge    –     1x10sec
Hip Flexor Stretch    –     1x30sec
B1 Trap Bar Deadlift    –     3x3-5
B2 KB Armbar    –     1x3/side
Scapular Push-Up    –     1x10
Pallof Press    –     1x12/side
C1 One Arm KB Press    –     3x3-5/side
C2 Pull/Chin-Up    –     3x8-12
*Fulfills the eccentric hamstring exercise requirement

Day One (Advanced)

A1 Deadlift    –     3x3-5
A2 Broad Jump    –     3x3-5
A3 Windmill    –     1x6 side
T-Spine Rotations    –     1x30sec
Nordic Ham Curl*    –     1x8
B1 Handstand PU**    –     3x8-12
B2 Pull/Chin-Up    –     3x8-12
*Fulfills the eccentric hamstring exercise requirement
**Fulfills the gymnastic press requirement
 
 On day two, after the light general warmup, we start with a power squat
movement, while the nervous system is still fresh. This includes any
explosive exercise focusing on the quadriceps. While plyometric exercises,
such as squat jumps and box jumps, are great, try to also cycle in some
jumps from a static position with no loading or eccentric phase. I believe
training power movements without relying on the increased muscle
potentiation, stretch reflex and elasticity of filaments in the muscle and
tendon from a true plyometric exercise, can help a fighter perform explosive
techniques, such as a kick or blast double, without telegraphing as much.
With that said, punches and takedowns are often used off of slips, rock backs
and while circling, taking advantage of the loading phases present in a
fighter’s natural movement. Therefore, there is no need to switch entirely to
non-plyometric power exercises.

While learning proper exercise technique is beyond the scope of this

manual, be exceptionally careful with advanced movements like multiple
box jumps and depth jumps. I consider them to be some of the most
dangerous exercises that I have my fighters do. This is what the start of day
two looks like:

Day Two (Beginner)

A1 Squat Jump    –     3x3-5

Day Two (Advanced)

A1 Depth Jump    –     3x3-5

Our ancillary exercises on day two will follow the same guidelines as
before. Notice the ancillaries are primarily to mobilize the hips and ankles,
as well as engage in some full body tension in the beginner example,
specifically preparing the body for the following squat movement. With the
ancillaries added, our program looks like this:
Day Two (Beginner)
A1 Squat Jump    –     3x3-5
A2 Hip Circles    –     1x3/ leg
    Hip Flexor Stretch    –     1x30sec
    Ab Wheel    –     1x10
 
Day Two (Advanced)
 A1 Depth Jump    –     3x3-5
A2 Roll IT Band    –     1x30sec
    Piriformis Stretch    –     1x30sec
    Calf Stretch    –     1x30sec

Next up is our strength squat movement, which should primarily focus

on knee extension, while allowing for maximum loading potential. Generally
speaking, bilateral barbell squat variations will allow for greater overall
loading and strength gains, while unilateral options are great for evening
strength imbalances, diagnosing improper movement patterns and reducing
overall loading, which is great for veteran fighters who are a bit beat up from
years of hard training. To get all the benefits from both types of movements I
alternate between programming bilateral and unilateral squat variations
every few cycles. Adding the strength squat movement and the ancillaries to
be superset with it looks like this:
 
Day Two (Beginner)
A1 Squat Jump    –     3x3-5
A2 Hip Circles    –     1x3/ leg
    Hip Flexor Stretch    –     1x30sec
    Ab Wheel    –     1x10
B1 Goblet Squat    –     3x3-5
B2 Pull Apart    –     1x12
     T-Spine Rotations    –     1x3/side
     Hang Stretch    –     1x30sec
 
Day Two (Advanced)
A1 Depth Jump    –     3x3-5
A2 Roll IT Band    –     1x30sec
      Piriformis Stretch    –     1x30sec
      Calf Stretch    –     1x30sec
B1 Weighted Pistol    –     3x3-5
B2 IYT    –     1x12
     Dislocates    –     1x10
     Barbell Rollouts    –     1x10
 
 The only thing left for our day two lift is to add a horizontal upper body
press and pull. Any variation of bench presses or pushups are great options
for the press. I tend to limit barbell bench pressing in favor of dumbbell
bench presses to ensure more symmetrical strength gains, improve shoulder
stability and help avoid nagging shoulder soreness, which I find many
fighters already have on a regular basis. As with the pull/chin-ups, I
encourage my fighters to vary their grips with their rows, not only between
pronated, neutral and supinated, but also the bar thickness. Finishing out our
sample day two workout looks like this:

Day Two (Beginner)

A1 Squat Jump    –     3x3-5
 
A2 Hip Circles    –     1x3/leg
      Hip Flexor Stretch    –     1x30 secs
      Ab Wheel    –     1x10
 
B1 Goblet Squat    –     3x3-5
 
B2 Pull Apart    –     1x1
      T-Spine Rotations    –     1x3/side
      Hang Stretch    –     1x30 secs
 
C1 Single Arm PU**    –     3x3-5
 
C2 TRX Row    –     3x8-12
 
** Fulfills gymnastic press requirement

 
Day Two (Advanced)
A1 Depth Jump    –     3x3-5
A2 Roll IT Band    –     1x30 secs
      Piriformis Stretch    –     1x30 secs
      Calf Stretch    –     1x30 secs
B1 Weighted Pistol    –     3x3-5
B2 IYT    –     1x12
     Dislocates    –     1x10
     Barbell Rollouts    –     1x10
C1 DBl Bench Press    –     3x3-5
 C2 Barbell Row    –     3x8-12

This fully programmed week of training will be repeated for three

weeks, with a deload on the fourth week. For the deload there are several
options: lower the weights to about 50% and do the same workout, replace
the lift with yoga/restorative ancillary exercises/light movements, teach the
new lifts from the next cycle or better yet have the fighters stay out of the
weight room altogether and roll, hit mitts or just rest. Regardless of the type
of deload used, the athlete should feel better after the deload workout than
when they walked into the gym. Personally, I like to give my fighters a week
off from being in the weight room, but a sample light movement deload
workout will be given below. After the deload, do three more weeks with the
same exercises and then another deload, which makes up one full cycle.
After the end of the cycle, assess what worked and what did not, select new
exercises and repeat the process. This can be continued year-round until a
fight is scheduled and the peaking process, which will be discussed in a later
chapter, begins.

Sample Deload Workout

A1 Dislocates with PVC    –     2x10
A2 Hinge with PVC on tailbone, T-spine and back of the head    –    
2x10
A3 Overhead Squat with PVC    –     2x10
B1 Kettlebell Halo    –     2x5/each way
B2 Kettlebell Windmill    –     2x5/each side
B3 Band Facepulls    –     2x15
C1 RKC Plank    –     2x15 secs
C2 Band Pallof Press    –     2x10/side
C3 T-Spine Rotation with Side Crunch    –     2x2 secs/side
D1 Hip Circles    –     x5 both directions/sides
E1 Roll Hamstrings, IT Bands and Quads    –     x45 secs each
F1 Stretch Hamstrings, Quads, Hip Flexors, and Piriformis    –     x30-
60 secs each
G1 Hang Stretch    –     x60 secs
 — Chapter 4 —
 
Loading Schemes
The loading scheme used must be selected for each athlete’s training
experience and goals. The following examples should usually only be used
for the strength hinge, strength squat, upper body pressing and some of the
weighted power exercises. The exact reps do not matter nearly as much with
the gymnastic presses, upper body pulling and ancillary exercises as long as
a proper technique is utilized. I do not care if an athlete does 10 or 12
facepulls, one arm pushups or rows, as long as the technique is acceptable
and, over the course of the cycle, the quality, intensity and volume (in that
order) are improved upon. While there are a ton of ways to program for the
heavy exercises performed in the three to five rep range, the following four
periodization methods are the ones I have personally used with my athletes
to great success.

Linear
This type of periodization consists of increasing load or reps each and
every training session and works especially well for new lifters. It is not a
great option for more advanced lifters who are already near their maximum
strength levels and can lead to frustration and overtraining. With newer
lifters, I like to have them do three sets of five reps on an exercise,
increasing the load each set. As long as all of the reps are completed with
good technique, at the following training session their first work set will be
carried out with the load used on their second set from the previous session.
This process is repeated for the duration of the cycle, though the increases in
load may not be as large the further into the cycle you go. If a rep is missed
or the lifting technique is unacceptable, the following week use the same
loads or slightly less, and try to complete all of the reps. An example cycle
for a beginner lifter using the front squat is shown below. Notice the slowing
of progression deeper into the cycle. This is why this simple type of linear
periodization cannot be used for long periods of time, or for more advanced
lifters. Also note that the deload weeks still involve front squatting and that
the load is more than the 50% decrease I suggested before. For new lifters
this is acceptable, so they can continue to develop the skill of front squatting
and the load is still low enough not to cause excessive fatigue on the nervous
system.
 
Week 1: Front Squat
Set 1: 95lbs x 5
Set 2: 115lbs x 5
Set 3: 135lbs x 5
 
Week 2: Front Squat
Set 1: 115lbs x 5
Set 2: 135lbs x 5
Set 3: 155lbs x 5
 
Week 3: Front Squat
Set 1: 135lbs x 5
Set 2: 155lbs x 5
Set 3: 165lbs x 5
 
Week 4: Front Squat Deload
Set 1: 95lbs x 5
Set 2: 95lbs x 5
Set 3: 95lbs x 5
 
Week 5: Front Squat
Set 1: 155lbs x 5
Set 2: 165lbs x 5
Set 3: 175lbs x 5
 
Week 6: Front Squat
Set 1: 165lbs x 5
Set 2: 175lbs x 5
Set 3: 185lbs x 4
 
Week 7: Front Squat
Set 1: 165lbs x 5
Set 2: 175lbs x 5
Set 3: 185lbs x 5
 
Week 8: Front Squat Deload
 Set 1: 115lbs x 5
Set 2: 115lbs x 5
Set 3: 115lbs x 5
 
Another option I use fairly often with new lifters, which can
occasionally be used by more advanced ones as well, is the 3-4-5 method.
The first week, work up to a comfortable triple. It is vital not to go too heavy
at the start. The athlete should only work up to a weight that they feel they
could hit even if they were tired or feeling “off” that day. The next training
session they will do three sets of three reps at that weight. As long as all of
the reps were performed well, during the next session the athlete will do
three sets of four reps with the same weight. As long as all of the reps were
performed well, during the next session the athlete will do three sets of five
reps with the same weight. Then, assuming all of the reps were performed
well, during the next session the athlete will do three sets of three reps with a
higher weight, generally 10 to 20lbs for lower body lifts and 5 to 10lbs for
upper body lifts, and the process continues. If a rep is missed, during the
following training session use the same weights, or slightly less, and try to
hit the same amount of reps. Here is an example cycle using front squats:
 
Week 1: Front Squat
Set 1: 135lbs x 3
Set 2: 155lbs x 3
Set 3: 185lbs x 3
 
Week 2: Front Squat
Set 1: 185lbs x 3
Set 2: 185lbs x 3
Set 3: 185lbs x 3
 
Week 3: Front Squat
Set 1: 185lbs x 4
Set 2: 185lbs x 4
Set 3: 185lbs x 4
 
Week 4: Off Week Deload
Fighter does some skill work, light mobility, or just rests
 
Week 5: Front Squat
Set 1: 185lbs x 5
Set 2: 185lbs x 5
Set 3: 185lbs x 5
 
Week 6: Front Squat
Set 1: 205lbs x 3
Set 2: 205lbs x 3
Set 3: 205lbs x 3
 
Week 7: Front Squat
Set 1: 205lbs x 4
Set 2: 205lbs x 4
Set 3: 205lbs x 4
 
Week 8: Off Week Deload
Fighter does some skill work, light mobility, or just rests
 

Autoregulated
An autoregulated loading scheme is similar to a percentage-based one,
which is outlined next, except the percentages used are based on recent past
performances instead of a true one rep max. This allows both newer lifters
and more advanced ones to progress at an appropriate rate. This is the style
of periodization I use most often with my athletes. Programming like this
also self-corrects the load to the athlete’s current state. If their performance
falls because they have been doing significantly more training outside of the
weight room or getting less sleep, the loads used will decrease. If they are
eating and recovering better, the loads will increase. I first started
experimenting with the 3RM and 6RM autoregulated programs outlined in
Supertraining called APRE (autoregulating progressive resistance exercise).
What I found was that the higher volume and hitting failure multiple times in
one training session were too much for MMA fighters to recover from with
the high amount of successive skill work they were doing. Almost all of
them experienced decreases in lifting and mat performance over the course
of an eight-week cycle. I have since adapted the program to a lower volume
version, which is outlined below. This version only takes the last set to
failure, which I define to my athletes as the point at which they feel they
cannot complete a proper rep with the correct technique and speed, not true
momentary muscular failure. For specific purposes, different percentages of
the three rep max can be used instead of those I recommend. For example, a
newer lifter is able to handle slightly higher percentages because their three
rep max is pretty far away from its full potential. Also this system can be
based off of a higher number of reps if it better suits the exercise or training
goals, as is the case with exercises like good mornings, where I do not want
my athletes doing heavy triples, or if an athlete is focusing on hypertrophy to
go up a weight class. However, for most of the strength and power exercises,
the following loading scheme works very well. The three rep max can be
tested in the first week or estimated, and by the end of the cycle it will have
self-corrected. The loads for the first two sets are based on a percentage of
the three rep max (3RM) and the last set is as many reps as FEEL GOOD.
Remember we are not going to true momentary muscular failure. Depending
on the amount of reps completed, the three rep max will be adjusted for the
next training session based on the adjustment table below.
 
Set 1: 80% of 3RM x 3
Set 2: 90% of 3RM x 3
Set 3: 100% of 3RM x reps that feel good
 
Adjustment Table
Reps Completed in Set Three Adjustment to 3RM for Next Session
1-2 10-20lbs less
3 No change
4+ 10-20lbs more

An example cycle of what this loading scheme would look like for
power cleans is outlined on the next page, where the first day the athlete
works up to a three rep max and the percentages are based on that. Notice
that the decreases in load are due to the quality and feel of the reps, not true
missed reps, which I try my best to avoid with Olympic lifts and their
variations. Also, in this example, power cleans are still done on the deload
weeks because it is such a high skill lift and requires constant practice.
 
Week 1: Power Clean
 Set 1: 155lbs x 3
Set 2: 175lbs x 3
Set 3: 185lbs x 3
New 3RM=185lbs
 
Week 2: Power Clean
Set 1: 145lbs x 3
Set 2: 165lbs x 3
Set 3: 185lbs x 4
New 3RM=195lbs
 
Week 3: Power Clean
Set 1: 155lbs x 3
Set 2: 175lbs x 3
Set 3: 195lbs x 4
New 3RM=205lbs
 
Week 4: Power Clean Deload
Set 1: 95lbs x 3
Set 2: 95lbs x 3
Set 3: 95lbs x 3
 
Week 5: Power Clean
Set 1: 165lbs x 3
Set 2: 185lbs x 3
Set 3: 205lbs x 2*
New 3RM=195lbs
 

Week 6: Power Clean

Set 1: 155lbs x 3
Set 2: 175lbs x 3
Set 3: 195lbs x 5
New 3RM=205lbs
 

Week 7: Power Clean

Set 1: 165lbs x 3
Set 2: 185lbs x 3
 Set 3: 205lbs x 3
New 3RM=215lbs
 
Week 8: Power Clean Deload
Set 1: 105lbs x 3
Set 2: 105lbs x 3
Set 3: 105lbs x 3
*Set stopped because bar speed felt too slow
 
Percentage Based
A percentage-based loading scheme is one in which the loads are
prescribed as a percentage of a maximum lift, usually a one rep max. This
type of programming is best for more advanced lifters who are already
technically proficient in the exercises being used and who have developed a
good amount of strength. This allows them to reference past performance
and come up with a usable estimate for a one rep max instead of actually
testing it. Percentage-based loading is not recommended for beginners since
their one rep max will change so quickly that the loads prescribed will not
get the desired training effect. For example, let’s say you have an athlete
who has learned how to goblet squat with good mechanics, so you progress
them to barbell front squats. That day you test their one rep max and they
can properly squat 185lbs. For the next week’s workout, you want them to
do sets of 80% for three reps, which is roughly 145lbs, and then at the
following week’s workout they do sets of 85% for three reps, which is
roughly 155lbs. You are now three weeks into front squatting and what kind
of progress do you see? How much do you think their one rep max has
increased? Now imagine instead of one rep max testing this new lifter, which
I would advise against anyways, you had them work up to a hard set of five
and they get to 155lbs. For the next two weeks, instead of using percentages
of that number, you progress linearly as outlined above. It is perfectly
reasonable to assume that by the end of three weeks they could be hitting
175lbs for sets of five and getting significantly stronger than if they were
playing around with lighter weights. With that said, when done correctly,
percentage-based loading is great for advanced lifters who can become over-
trained by hammering away with linear programming.
 In my opinion, the gold standard for a percentage-based loading scheme
is Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1. I have used it personally and with my athletes for
over seven years now and it has never failed to add strength while
incorporating deloads at just the right time to avoiding overtraining. The first
week, instead of three sets of five, I have my athletes work up to a heavy
three to five rep max, then we use that to calculate an estimated one rep max
to figure out loads for the rest of the cycle. I have no affiliation with Jim
Wendler but would highly recommend that you buy his book and use his
loading scheme in this system for your fighters who are more advanced
lifters.
There is no example percentage-based loading scheme because the only
time I use true percentage-based programs other than 5/3/1 are for special
circumstances, such as an athlete returning from injury or peaking out. The
former is outside the scope of this manual and the latter will be discussed in
the peaking section. To avoid the issues with percentage-based loading
outlined above, try using autoregulated loading, which is similar but more
adaptable, or run a cycle of 5/3/1 with more advanced lifters.

Hypertrophy
Hypertrophy training should only be done when an athlete is moving up
a weight class and it is of utmost importance to understand that the training
is less important than the diet and recovery. If an athlete eats and sleeps
enough, they could go up a weight class using the same low volume training
methods discussed before. However, hypertrophy can be accelerated by
changing up the loading schemes a bit. I would also advise using one of the
previously outlined loading schemes, after the hypertrophy cycle is
completed, but before competition, to build more strength at the larger size.
There are a ton of creative loading schemes that grow muscle, and while I
will only present a few options to tweak our normal rep ranges, just know
you can really do whatever you want to increase the volume and intensity as
long as it stays within common sense and the scaffolding of the program. Do
not start doing extended sets of Olympic lifts, trade out a compound upper
body press for tricep kickbacks or adding eight more sets to each exercise.
The following loading scheme tweaks will add volume and intensity but still
allow you to use decently heavy loads, build strength, put on some muscle
while still only using three sets and the same exercises, which is great when
lifting together in a group where not everyone is doing a hypertrophy cycle.
 Power exercise reps:
Keep the reps low, in the three-to-five range. Upping the reps will change
the nature of the exercise and can increase the risk of injury. Focus on
keeping the technique solid and adding weight or increasing speed.
 
Lower body hinge and upper body press reps:
For these lifts I will give two options. Pick the appropriate one for each
exercise and stick with it for the cycle.
 
 

1. Cluster sets - Pick a weight that the athlete can complete five good
reps with. Do three reps, rest for about ten seconds, do three more
reps, rest again for about ten seconds, and then finally do three
more reps. The nine reps, or three clusters, is one set. Repeat for
three total sets, and do not expect to get all nine total reps for each
set at first. Once the fighter can complete all three sets of clusters,
up the weight an appropriate amount and repeat.
2. Drop sets - Perform the sets as usual, but up the reps into the eight-
to-ten range, reducing the load as little as possible. On the last set,
after the last rep has been performed, immediately drop the weight
down 20 to 40% and continue the exercise to momentary muscular
failure. Be sure to use good spotters.

 
Squat reps:
The following tweak is partially tradition, partially bro science and, of
course, largely backed by real science that shows a correlation between
volume and hypertrophy (4). The first set of squats will be a heavy set of ten
reps. The second and third will be moderately heavy sets of 20 to 30 reps. Be
sure to keep the weight high enough that these sets are miserable, or you will
not get the desired growth. High rep squats should definitely be the hardest
part of the hypertrophy cycle. Each week either add weight or reps to at least
one of the sets. This extended time under tension will result in serious
muscle growth, and the misery will boost mental fortitude.

Gymnastic press, upper body pulls and ancillary reps:

 For the most part the rep ranges will stay the same, in the eight-to-12
range. The only changes, which are totally optional, are to add a few select
heavier exercises as ancillaries or add a drop set on an upper body pull.
Before changing an ancillary exercise to a bodybuilding style movement, be
sure your athlete moves well enough to skip an opportunity to do a mobility
drill. If the fighter does not already have good scapular, thoracic spine and
hip mobility, stick to exercises that will improve those. Assuming the
athlete’s mobility is at an acceptable level, pick an exercise that will not
interfere too much with the next exercises and can be loaded fairly heavy,
and then program a set of it as an ancillary exercise. Examples of acceptable
exercises are pullovers, barbell curls, skullcrushers or close grip bench
presses. If you would like to add a drop set to pullups or rows, follow the
protocol outlined above.

Here is an example week of a hypertrophy cycle:

Day One
A1 Snatch High Pull    –     3x3-5
 
A2 Dislocates    –     1x10
KB Armbar    –     1x3/side
BB Curl    –     1x12
 
B1 RDL    –     3x3+3+3
 
B2 Facepull    –     1x12
Prone Behind-Neck Press    –     1x12
Ab Wheel    –     1x12
 
C1 Overhead Press    –     3x8-10+dropset
 
C2 Chin/Pullup    –     3x8-12
 
Day Two
A1 Box Jump                     3x3-5
 
A2 Lateral Band Walk                 1x10
      Hip Circles                     1x3/side
      Hip Flexor Stretch                  1x30 sec
 
B1 Back Squat                    3x10,25,25
 
B2 TRX Ys                      1x12
     Nordic Ham Curl         1x10
     DB Pullover           1x12
 
C1 Ring Dips                3x8-12
 
C2 Barbell Row                            3x8-12
 
 — Chapter 5 —
 
Strength Benchmarks
Everyone wants to know how strong they should be after x amount of
time strength training in order to be a better fighter. This is a very difficult
question, and honestly one without any perfect answers, which is admittedly
kind of a cop out for someone who preaches that “strong enough is strong
enough” for combat sports athletes. First of all, a fighter must be able to
move well before worrying about adding strength as is outlined in the
hierarchy of physical attributes. A beat-up veteran of the fight game who
cannot squat with their heels on the ground and knees out will get more out
of using a cycle to focus on ancillaries and goblet squats to build proper
mobility and squat mechanics than struggling to add a few pounds to their
squat at the expense of their MCLs. Second, technique is so important in
combat sports that it is difficult to say how much exact strength
improvements will carry over to a fighter’s ability to shoot, sprawl, punch,
kick, squeeze submissions, etc. Third, the anthropometry of fighters varies
so much that it is impossible to give accurate guidelines for every exercise.
A long-limbed fighter may be able to rip heavy deadlifts no problem, but get
crushed under the bar when squatting, while a fighter with a stockier
“hammer” body type may struggle with deadlifts due to short arms, but squat
like a champ. This is all a long way of saying that the strength benchmarks
provided are imperfect, but good goals for MOST combat sport athletes.
Some athletes, coaches and pretty much any powerlifter will laugh at how
easy these benchmarks are to hit, while some fighters will struggle to ever
reach them. With that long-winded preface out of the way, the following
benchmarks are where I have seen most fighters begin to gain a tangible
carryover of strength to their sport. All loads are for a single one rep max
unless otherwise specified.
 
Deadlift                   Double bodyweight
Back Squat         Bodyweight for at least 10 reps
Pistol           Light dumbbells (5 to 10lbs) for at least 3 reps/leg
Bench Press         Bodyweight
Overhead Press     80% of bodyweight
 Ring Dip         10 controlled reps
Pullup         10 controlled reps
 

 
Another measure of how strong a fighter must be is in relation to
themselves. According to Heather Linden DPT from the UFC Performance
Institute, for unilateral exercises the difference in an athlete’s strength
between sides should be less than 10%, or they are at an increased risk of
injury. Good coaches should be able to use unilateral exercises as a
diagnostic tool in this way. The strength ratios between anterior and
posterior strength are also important. While I do not have an exact ratio to
avoid injury, I have never personally seen anyone who has too much
posterior strength. If an athlete squats significantly more weight than they
can deadlift, pay close attention to their movement patterns. They most
likely do not properly engage the posterior chain and often “squat their
deadlift”. Take a cycle to improve their movement patterns and increase their
posterior chain strength.
 — Chapter 6 —
 
Peaking
The most important aspect of the peaking process in regards to strength
training is to keep in mind that a fighter will have even less energy than
normal to devote to resistance training. There will be extra conditioning and
skill work to do and probably weight to lose, depending on how far above
fight weight your athlete walks around at. At this point your fighter should
have developed an adequate level of strength, so the goal over the four-week
peaking process is to gradually and methodically convert that strength into
as much power as possible, without excessively draining workouts. While a
base level of conditioning should be present year-round, additional extra
conditioning workouts will be added. Ideally, they should be run by a skill
coach, but a few options for conditioning workouts that can be done in the
weight room will be presented.

The four-week peaking cycle will consist of a strength-speed week and a

speed-strength week, using the same lifts as the previous cycle, an explosive
strength week, using plyometrics/ shock training and throws, and a full week
of rest. Ideally the peaking cycle begins the week after a deload. However, if
the cycles do not line up perfectly the athlete can either take a deload week
before beginning the peaking cycle, regardless of what week they are on in
the previous cycle, or go right into it if they are feeling good physically. This
is where a strength coach needs to be in touch with how hard their athletes
are training and make a judgement call. I tend to err on the side of taking a
deload or rest week before peaking, but judgement should be made on a
case-by-case basis. The first two weeks can be skipped altogether if a fighter
is in a situation that requires them to take a short-notice fight. I once had a
fighter take a fight nine days out to move up to a bigger promotion. Luckily
he had been lifting consistently, and with just one plyometric training session
and a rest week he was ready to go and won that fight as an underdog against
the top ranked fighter in that organization at the time.

The strength-speed and speed-strength weeks will use the same

exercises as the previous cycle to avoid wasting the time needed to teach the
athlete new exercise techniques and so that a fairly accurate 1RM can be
estimated based on their heaviest sets from previous weeks. Even if a full
cycle has already been completed, continue using the same exercises for the
peaking process.

The strength-speed week workouts will look identical to the workouts

from previous cycles, except the lower body strength exercises and upper
body non-gymnastic press will be performed at 60 to 70% of the estimated
1RM for three sets of triples. Do not attempt an actual 1RM test, just use a
calculator to get a rough idea. Be sure to instruct the fighter to accelerate the
bar, dumbbell, or kettlebell as fast as possible. Bar speed is the goal.

The speed-strength week workouts will again repeat the same format,
except the load on the lower body strength exercises and upper body non-
gymnastic press will be dropped again to 40 to 50% of the estimated 1RM.
Again, three sets of triples will be performed and instructing the fighter to
maximize bar speed is of utmost importance.

The explosive strength week will comprise two training sessions with
this format:

Day 1
A1 Vertical Bilateral Jump                3x5
 
B1 Horizontal Unilateral Jump3x5
 
C1 Rotational Med Ball Throw3x5
 
D1 Explosive Upper Body Push      3x5
 
D2 Explosive Upper Body Pull3x5
 
Day 2
A1 Horizontal Bilateral Jump3x5
 
B1 Vertical Unilateral Jump 3x5
 
C1 Rotational Med Ball Throw       3x5
 
D1 Explosive Upper Body Push     3x5
 
D2 Explosive Upper Body Pull       3x5
 

 
An example of an explosive strength week for a well-conditioned
experienced athlete would look like this:

Day 1
A1 Box Jump                                    3x5
 
B1 Single Leg Broad Jump             3x5
 
C1 Rotational Med Ball Throw        3x5
 
D1 Explosive Pushups              3x5
 
D2 Explosive Pull-Ups 3x5
 
Day 2
A1 Depth Drop to Broad Jump        3x5
 
B1 Single Leg Lateral Hurdle Jump    3x5
 
C1 Rotational Med Ball Throw        3x5
 
D1 Supine Med Ball Throw           3x5
 
D2 Ring Muscle-Ups                 3x5
 

While this should go without saying, be exceptionally careful with

exercise selection this close to a competition. A fighter with no past lifting
experience should not use depth jumps as an intro to plyometrics. Depth
jumps in particular can be rough on the nervous system and should only be
prescribed at the correct height to advanced athletes who will not try to one
up their teammates. According to Donald Chu and Gregory Myer’s book
Plyometrics Dynamic Strength and Explosive Power, depth jumps should be
done from a box “that lets the athlete maximize the height jumped and also
achieve the shortest amortization phase” (5). So if you see that your fighters
are not bouncing off the floor quickly and jumping high, do not be afraid to
tell them to use a shorter box.

After the explosive week, fight week begins and the fighter should stay
out of the weight room, instead getting in a few light drilling, pad, and
recovery sessions.
 — Chapter 7 —
 
Conditioning
A fighter’s conditioning should always be at a point in which they can
comfortably spar for at least as many rounds as their fight, hit hard mitt
rounds for at least a few more rounds than that and grapple for a long period
of time. Obviously these are very subjective parameters, but as a coach you
should have a rough idea of where your fighter needs to be to begin peaking
for a fight. If you are exclusively a strength and conditioning coach, this is
an essential time to be in contact with your fighter’s skill coaches. They will
have a much better idea of what kind of fight shape the athlete is in.

From this very important base level of conditioning, peaking to

maximal levels is fairly straightforward and most of it should be done with a
skill coach instead of a strength and conditioning coach only. Fight
conditioning is just as much, if not more, about efficient movement and a
calm mind than physiological adaptations, given that a fighter is at least in
pretty good shape. Adding mental and emotional stress during conditioning
drills, such as new people watching sparring, a designated trash talker during
circuits, or visualizing walking out into a packed arena before training
sessions, can greatly help a fighter overcome the sympathetic nervous
system response during actual competition. While the rest of this chapter
will focus on training for physiological adaptations, mental training will be
covered more in depth in a later section.

Sparring should ramp up in intensity and by the last sparring session,

usually a week out from fight week, the fighter should be able to be shark
tanked for two rounds past what their fight length is. For example, if a
fighter has an upcoming professional MMA fight that is the standard three,
five-minute rounds, they should be able to spar five, five-minute rounds with
a fresh partner each round. I suggest only sparring hard once a week when
preparing for a fight, with drills and technical sparring one or two other
times in the week. When an experienced fighter does not have a fight
coming up, I believe sparring once a month or less is ideal, assuming they
also have good drilling partners and pad holders. This allows for the
development of proper timing and distance control without excessive brain
trauma. These parameters are not set in stone, this is merely my opinion in a
debate that has merit on all sides, and is quite frankly outside the scope of
this strength and conditioning manual. However, regardless of whether you
are a strength and conditioning coach, skill coach or training partner, please
pay attention to, and point out, the signs of concussion in fighters, especially
during the peaking process before a fight.

In addition to the normal lifting, skill work and sparring, fight-specific

circuits should be introduced once or twice a week, roughly four weeks out
from a fight, give or take one or two weeks depending on what kind of shape
your fighter is already in. These circuits should start at the same number of
rounds as the fight and work up to two rounds more than the fight. Using the
example of a standard three, five-minute round MMA fight from earlier, at
four weeks out, the athlete should be doing three, five-minute rounds. At
three weeks out, they should do four, five-minute rounds. At two weeks out,
they should do five, five-minute rounds. Fight week they should rest and just
hit some pads or drill lightly. Like sparring frequency and intensity, this is
where coaching is an art, not a science. Some fighters need more work to
stay sharp mentally, while others may overtrain more easily. Learn from
what has and has not worked for your athlete in the past leading up to a fight
and pay attention to their ability to recover between training sessions. If their
performance is dropping significantly, more rest may be necessary.

The fight-specific circuits should comprise various movements or drills

that closely mimic what a fighter could encounter in their fight, while also
maximizing power output. For example, hitting mitts, power punches on a
soft medicine ball, power kicks on a bag, ground and pound on a bag,
pummeling, standing up from turtle position with a partner on your back,
drilling takedowns or sprawls and any other appropriate drill. These
components should be alternated every 30 to 120 seconds. The selection of
movements and drills to do, as well as the duration of each one, should be
picked based on the specific fight coming up by the fighter’s head coach. If
you have an athlete whose biggest strength is striking and they are fighting a
superior wrestler, it would make sense to include movements like standing
up from the mat, sprawling and power punching as opposed to offensive
wrestling and exotic kicks.
 Two basic, but very effective examples of these fight-specific circuits
that I personally used while boxing for Penn State, were alternating between
power punching, constant speed punching and normal boxing on a bag for
30 seconds each for a full round, repeated for three to five rounds. The one I
used most was alternating between burpees and shadow boxing every 30
seconds for a full round, repeated for three to five rounds. Now that I train
primarily MMA fighters I still use this same concept for fight-specific
circuits, although they have been greatly refined and coined as “fight sims”
by MMA boxing coach extraordinaire Bob “The Stingray” Meese, who I
have been lucky enough to work with while training some higher level
fighters. An example of a fight sim for an MMA fighter would be a minute
of hard pad work, followed by 30 seconds of takedown setups, then 30 seconds
of ground and pound on a bag, then 30 seconds of power punching on a
medicine ball held by a coach, repeated again for a five-minute round. After
a minute of rest that round is repeated for a total of three to five rounds.

If, for whatever reason, a true fight sim cannot be carried out, the same
principles can be utilized in a weight room using conditioning exercises such
as sled pushes and pulls, rowing, ski ergometers, burpees, battle ropes, tire
flips, weighted carries, etc. Be sure the exercises are difficult, but not likely
to make the fighter overly sore or put them at a high risk of injury. Peaking
is not the right time to introduce high rep heavy squats, Olympic lifts or box
jumps. A great example of a conditioning workout that can be done in the
weight room, that I have personally seen work very well for fighters, is
Bobby Maximus’s Triathlon: 500m on the ski erg, then 50cal on the
AirDyne, followed by a 500m row. One of my fighters decided he would
never get tired again and, on his own accord, started doing the triathlon
weekly during fight camp and before that I had never seen him in such great
shape going into a fight.

Other combinations of exercises such as tire flips, med ball throws,

burpees, sled pushing and pulling, etc. can be combined as well, just be sure
the exercise selection is appropriate, and the intensity and duration are
programmed to match up as closely as possible with the bioenergetic
systems used in the fight. For example, an MMA fighter should do five
minutes of work followed by a minute of rest three times, while a Muay Thai
fighter should do three minutes of work followed by a minute of rest five
times. On paper they look similar, 15 total minutes of work, but the rest
periods will allow the Muay Thai fighter to up the intensity a bit, while the
MMA fighter will be forced to tap further into their aerobic bioenergetic
system.
 — Chapter 8 —
 
Cutting Weight
Weight cutting may be the most vile and misunderstood part of the fight
game. While I have felt absolutely heartbroken seeing my fighters get
finished in big fights or being injured in training, nothing has hurt me more
as a coach than seeing a fighter laying on the floor in agony, barely able to
sweat anymore, telling that me that their organs hurt, all the while knowing
they have to drop a few more pounds. What is worse is that even at high
levels I have seen fighters and coaches go about the process of cutting
weight completely wrong. I believe irresponsible weight cutting leads to
serious long-term metabolic consequences that are not yet fully understood.
For this reason, I would not suggest cutting weight at all for youth
practitioners of combat sports, including high school wrestling.
 

A quick aside on weight cutting for women: The female endocrine

system is more complex than that of their male counterparts and it requires
higher body fat levels to stay healthy. Higher body fat percentages
correspond to a lower percentage of water in the body, 45 to 50% for women
as opposed to 50 to 60% in men. For this reason, I do not suggest chasing
extremely low body fat percentages or cutting large amounts of weight. I
have seen some women who can perform well and look fairly lean from as
high as 24% and others as low as 15% body fat, so as long as performance is
maximized do not worry too much about exact numbers. I will give some
rough numbers for body fat percentages and weights in this section, but
these numbers will NOT always apply to female fighters, who should focus
on staying healthy and cutting the least amount of water weight possible.
 

Some fighters can get away with cutting no weight at all. Frankie Edgar
was the UFC lightweight champion and only cut a few pounds. I recommend
this to younger and lower level fighters and even higher level ones who can
get away with it. Unfortunately, most serious fighters will have to cut some
weight to stay competitive at their weight class. By cutting weight correctly,
fighters should be able to cut enough to be the correct size for their weight
class, while staying healthy enough to perform well and mitigate potential
long-term damage.  While exact cutting protocols will change based on the
type of competition, when the weigh-ins are and the athlete themselves,
there are a few principles that will apply across the board. These principles
are to start the cut lean and light, control hormones and water retention, stay
comfortable, be on weight for the least amount of time possible and
rehydrate well.

Start the cut lean and light: Before cutting weight, a fighter should be
lean, between seven and nine percent body fat, and fairly close to fight
weight. If a fighter’s body fat percentage is above 10% they must first lose
weight before they can cut weight. Losing weight is a slower sustainable
drop in body fat, which is not the same as a quick water cut, where the
weight can easily be put back on. Because muscle tissue has a higher
concentration of water than fat does, a leaner fighter will have more total
water that they can cut, than their softer counterpart at the same weight.
While each individual will be able to cut different amounts of weight and
still perform well in a fight, as a rule of thumb, when a fighter is weighing in
the same day as the fight, they should cut no more than five percent of their
walking weight. Fighters weighing in the day before the fight should cut no
more than 10% of their walking weight. Just to clarify, I do not recommend
cutting this much weight, I only provide these numbers to give coaches and
athletes an idea of how much weight is too much to cut safely. The following
chart shows the absolute maximum weights that a fighter should begin
cutting weight from for each of the current MMA weight classes.
 
Weight Max Start Weight for Day of Max Start Weight for Day Before
Class Weigh-ins Weigh-ins
125 131.5 138.8
135 142.1 150
145 152.6 161.1
155 163.1 172.2
 170 178.9 188.8
185 194.7 205.5
205 215.7 227.7
265 278.9 294.4

Control hormones and water retention: The human body maintains

homeostasis via hormonal feedback loops, which we will take advantage of
to cut weight. The main players in this balance of fluid retention are:
vasopressin or antidiuretic hormone (ADH), which conserves water in the
body, and the renin-angiotensin aldosterone system, which conserves sodium
in the bloodstream, among other things. For simplicity we will focus on
ADH, because it is easy to understand and manipulate, and if you are
interested in physiology this is a good place to dive in. ADH is secreted
when you are dehydrated and sodium concentrations in the bloodstream
increase. ADH signals the kidneys to reabsorb water back into the
bloodstream to retain plasma volume. Obviously we want to keep ADH
levels as low as possible for as long as possible during the weight cut so the
body does not try to conserve water and urine output remains high. To do
this the fighter will drink a lot of water in the days leading up to the cut.
Normally I have my fighters drink about a gallon of water a day, slightly
more or less depending on their size. Then, on the Monday before the weigh-
in they incrementally increase that to about two gallons a day up until the cut
begins. Many coaches have their fighters taper off the water, drinking less
and less the closer they get to the weight cut, but I believe that this is a
counterproductive method. The more water my fighters have leading into a
weight cut, the lower their ADH levels are, which means more water will be
lost faster. Even during the weight cut, the first few times the fighter urinates
it should be almost clear. Diet wise, sodium and carbs should be cut out
about a day before the cut, as they lead to ADH secretion, thus water
retention. The last meal before a cut starts should be a small amount of lean
protein, for example, a 6oz chicken breast, and a big handful of veggies,
with no sodium. I like my fighters to have lots of fibrous veggies leading up
to the cut so they can still empty their bowels. One last note on controlling
water retention: If your athlete takes creatine, which retains water in the
body, have them stop four weeks out from competition to ensure creatine
levels return to normal.
 Stay comfortable(ish): While there is no way to totally avoid
discomfort during a weight cut, the goal should be to stay as comfortable as
possible. This means finding out what method of cutting works best for your
fighter and not pushing them too hard. Most experienced fighters know if
they want to use a sauna, steam room, or hot tub, and how much time they
can tolerate in the heat. They will know if they want to actively work out or
just sit passively. They will know when they will crave food or water and
how to mitigate the cravings. For newer fighters who are less experienced it
is worth doing a practice cut to figure all these things out. I recommend
passively sweating in a hot tub, not staying in for more than 15 to 20 mins at
a time, resting out of the tub for at least as long as you were in and to
mitigate food and water cravings with gum or small bites of fruit.

Be on weight for the least amount of time possible: I have seen plenty
of fighters start restricting water and wearing sauna suits during workouts
many days before weigh-ins. As the body gets more and more dehydrated, it
does a better job of holding on to the water it has (remember how ADH
works), making a cut exponentially harder and more miserable the longer it
is. My goal is to make the cut as quick and easy as possible to keep my
athlete healthy and happy. I never have a fighter restrict fluids for more than
20 hours, and I prefer it to be less, especially for same day weigh-ins. The
biggest reason fighters start cutting weight too early, 20+ hours out, is that
they get scared of the number on the scale, especially if they are controlling
their hormones properly by water loading up until it is time to cut, making
them temporarily heavier. Educate your athletes as to why they should stay
hydrated for as long as possible and give them the opportunity to trust in this
method. When to start the cut is a personal choice, and the more times a
fighter cuts weight, the better idea you will have as to what time they should
begin the cut. For athletes who do not have a ton of experience cutting
weight, I would suggest beginning 20 hours out for day before weigh-ins and
16 hours out for day of weigh-ins. Eventually the goal should be to shorten
the cutting time as much as possible, but testing the waters with a bit of extra
time is good until you know for sure how fast a particular athlete cuts weight
or, in the case of unforeseen hiccups, such as a hot tub or sauna that is not as
hot as you would like, inaccurate scales or a fighter who decides to eat a bag
full of grapes after they are already on weight.
 Following is a sample schedule to cut weight for day before fight weigh
ins, assuming the fight occurs on Saturday night as most MMA fights do.
This example assumes there is too much weight to be lost entirely on the day
of the weigh-ins, but if that is not the case by all means wait until the day of
to cut and stay on weight for a smaller period of time.
 Example Cut
Day Before Fight Weigh-ins at 5:00pm on Friday

Thursday 9:00pm (20 hours out) — Stop drinking water, but until
9:00pm keep water intake high to keep ADH low. 15 to 20 mins in a hot tub
or sauna, followed by about 20 mins of recovery, wrapped in towels to stay
warm and sweat. Urine should still be fairly clear after. The fighter should
sleep in a warm room. By the end of the night the fighter should have
dropped 30 to 50% of the total weight they need to cut. Gum can be chewed
to avoid dry mouth and eating.

Friday 11:00am (6 hours out) — Eat one or two bites of fruit and/or a
sip of coffee if needed. 15 to 20 mins in a hot tub or sauna, followed by
about 20 mins of recovery, wrapped in towels to stay warm and sweat.
Repeat if necessary. A coach should be within arm’s reach of the athlete the
whole time to monitor them. The athlete should be extra cautious when
standing up as this is a large strain on the cardiovascular system when
plasma volume has already been decreased and they could pass out. At this
point the fighter should have dropped 70 to 80% of the total weight they
need to cut.

Friday 3:00pm (2 hours out) — After a few hours of rest go back to 15

to 20 mins in a hot tub or sauna, followed by about 20 mins of recovery,
wrapped in towels to stay warm and sweat. Repeat if necessary. Once on
weight, head to the weigh-ins. As long as the fighter is not right on the brink
of their weight limit, sucking on one or two ice cubes or having a small bite
of fruit is acceptable to ease the misery.

Rehydrate well: The second the fighter is off the scale the rehydration
process must begin. I have heard convincing arguments for many different
substances to be used as the initial rehydration tool, but I think the most
important thing is to try not to chug a lot of fluid at once, and constantly take
in small amounts of fluid and food until the pre-cut weight has been put back
on, the fighter feels good and is urinating clear. With that said, I would
recommend water with a bit of sea salt, BCAAs and sugar or coconut water,
and would avoid overly sugary sports drinks right away for a fighter
stepping off the scale. By the time the faceoffs, handshakes and pictures
have all been taken care of, the fighter should already have at least 10-20
ounces of fluid down, be feeling better and start snacking on fruit and
continue drinking fluids. Remember the goal is not to eat massive quantities
at once, but to consistently eat small amounts. For the next hour or two let
the fighter rest, keep drinking fluids and have small snacks, preferably with
sodium and potassium in them. At this point, if it is not against the rules and
the fighter wants it, go ahead and use an IV to rehydrate, but at the higher
levels this is often not allowed. When the fighter feels ready, they should
have an actual meal without eating anything they have not eaten in the past
few weeks. Be sure to have a good amount of healthy carbs such as potatoes
or rice to replenish glycogen stores and help the fighter retain water. After
the meal the fighter should already be at least as heavy as their pre-cut
weight, and snacking and drinking fluids should continue as they feel
comfortable and their urine should be clear. However, do not just chase scale
weight by force-feeding. The fighter should feel comfortable.
 — Chapter 9 —
 
Nutrition
Diet is extremely individual and quickly gets complex if you dig into
the minutia. What works for one athlete may not work for another, and if
you sift through studies, conflicting opinions run rampant. This section is not
intended to be the definitive answer to what any one fighter’s diet should be,
but rather a “one-size-fits-most” set of guidelines for a simple, balanced and
sustainable way to eat. The following principles are a great starting point for
most athletes, but they are merely the tip of the iceberg. For more in-depth
information on nutrition I would recommend reading one of the many books
written entirely on nutrition. Better yet, work with a qualified sports
nutritionist.
 
1. Avoid extremes - Nutrition advice and ideas swing like a
pendulum over time. Currently low carb, high fat diets like paleo
and keto are fairly popular, but do not forget that just a few
decades ago fat, especially saturated fat, which is necessary for
testosterone production, was considered the enemy of good health.
Some fad diets certainly have their merits, but I would recommend
that fighters try to keep their diets balanced to get all the macro
and micronutrients they need to fuel intense training. Any diet
severely restricting a particular food group or macronutrient is
probably not ideal for athletes.
2. Drink lots of water - This should go without saying, but a
surprising amount of people, athletes included, do not get nearly
enough water. Ask someone how much water they drink and they
should be able to give you a rough amount. If they say “enough”,
“plenty”, “I don’t know” or the worst of all “eight glasses”, then
they do not drink enough water. As a rough rule of thumb, I tell
non-fighters I train to drink at least 100oz of water a day, and
fighters to drink at least a gallon (128oz) a day. Another easy
metric to ensure proper hydration is to have athletes weigh in
before and after practices. Any weight lost during the practice
must be regained with water. An even easier way to ensure
 rehydration is to tell your athletes to drink water after training until
their urine is clear. During training encourage your athletes to stay
hydrated. It is one of the easiest ways to enhance high performance
levels during hard practices and minimizes the amount they will
need to drink to fully rehydrate afterwards. Sweat also contains
electrolytes so adding salt to water is a good idea. No need to go
crazy, just a little pinch that you should not be able to taste much if
at all.
3. Keep protein levels consistently high - Protein is necessary to
maintain muscle, which is obviously a top priority for a combat
sport athlete. There is a lot of conflicting information about how
much protein people need, but I recommend somewhere between
.7 and one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, consumed
fairly evenly throughout the day. Where that protein comes from is
also important. Some sources of protein are incomplete, meaning
they do not contain all the essential amino acids, and some are less
bioavailable than others, meaning not all the protein in a particular
food gets absorbed into your body. Generally speaking, with a few
exceptions, animal sources of protein are complete, while plant
sources are not. The research around protein can get really
complex and is a great subject to dive into if you are interested in
science and nutrition, but as long as you are getting most of your
daily protein requirements from lean meats, fish, eggs and quality
protein powder you will be just fine.
4. Eat vegetables - Eat lots of them and many different types -
enough said.
5. Fuel appropriately - The human body uses both fatty acids and
glucose (fat and carbs) for energy at any given time. However,
during low intensity activities that can be sustained for long
periods of time like walking, fat is prioritized as a fuel source, and
during high intensity activities that cannot be sustained for a long
time like wrestling, glucose is prioritized as a fuel source. In
addition, the type of fuel ingested will also affect substrate use. So
fatty acid oxidation, or the use of fat as fuel, is increased when fats
are primarily ingested and is quickly reduced when carbohydrates
are ingested. What this means is that on top of the base of water,
protein and vegetables, fats and carbs must be added in to match
 the type of training planned for that day as well as the body
composition goals of the athlete. For example, a fighter who is two
weeks out from a fight, already lean with single-digit body fat and
is sparring in the evening, should have an afternoon meal with
protein, some fat and a good amount of carbs, like a salmon fillet
over rice with mixed vegetables on the side, to fuel their high
intensity sparring. While a fighter who is a little soft at 14% body
fat and plans on some very light jiu-jitsu drilling in the morning,
may fuel their workout with protein and fat only, like an omelet
with vegetables in it, to encourage fat loss. (6) (7)
6. Eat fermented foods - Foods like sauerkraut, kimchi and
kombucha provide probiotics which improve gut health. Improved
gut health can help with digestion and bioavailability of nutrients
in other foods and improve immune function(8). Try to get
fermented foods into your diet daily or at least a few times a week.
7. Use supplements correctly - Supplements are not needed to be a
good fighter. Training correctly, eating the right things and
sleeping enough are far more important than taking supplements.
With that said, supplements can aid in performance and recovery,
but like anything must be used correctly. The supplement industry
is extremely unregulated, and lots of supplements end up having
unlabeled performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in them. Even
trace amounts of PEDs, like prohormones, SARMs and various
kinds of steroids can cause a fighter to fail a drugs test, potentially
derailing their career. So the most important thing for a fighter or
coach to know about supplements is that they are pure, containing
what is listed and nothing else, through third-party testing. Even
then, record what supplements are used and save the containers in
case of a positive drug test. Assuming a supplement is what the
label says, the next thing to consider is what supplements are
worth taking. Some expensive supplements offer insignificant
increases in performance or recovery that a fighter could multiply
many times over simply by eating and sleeping better for a small
fraction of the cost. Because of this, I only recommend these basic
supplements to my fighters.
1. High quality protein powder - Protein is an essential
macronutrient for the production of enzymes, hormones
 and many tissues in the body including muscle. For
supplementation purposes a good choice is whey protein
that is consumed post-workout or in place of a meal in a
pinch. Casein protein is good before bed, as it is slower
to digest and will sustain higher amino acid levels during
the night. Read the label on the protein container and
find the serving size in grams, then subtract the amount
of protein per serving in grams. The number left over is
how many grams of “other stuff” is in the supplement.
Find one with the least amount of “other stuff”. Each
serving should be about 30 to 40 grams of actual protein,
which will help you reach the daily goal of .7 to 1 gram
of protein per pound of bodyweight.
2. Branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) - These are
three of the essential amino acids that make up a
complete protein: leucine, isoleucine and valine. Lacking
all the essential amino acids, BCAAs are not ideal as a
stand-alone supplement for muscle recovery and growth.
However, they are excellent to take before, during and
after a workout to reduce fatigue, or during fasting
periods to help preserve muscle. Leucine, one of the
three BCAAs, plays a large role in the initiation of
protein synthesis. This is why you should get a BCAA
supplement that has the ratio 2:1:1 on it, meaning it
contains two grams of leucine for every one gram of
isoleucine and valine. Higher ratios are not necessarily
better though. There is a ton of great research on
BCAAs, and anecdotally I have found them to be very
helpful with my fighters, especially while losing weight.
Dosage should be between 2 to 10 grams at a time. Fair
warning, the unflavored pure BCAAs I recommend to
my fighters taste terrible, which usually ends up being
the limiting factor in dosage.(9)
3. Creatine - Creatine provides a phosphate group to
convert ADP to ATP, increasing the amount of time an
athlete can rely on the phosphagen system, the
bioenergetic system that fuels high intensity activities
 for bursts of around 10 seconds or less. This allows
athletes to get one or two more reps in a heavy set while
lifting, improving strength over time. Creatine also
increases water retention, so it is important to cease use
four weeks out from competition if a fighter is going to
be cutting any weight. Creatine comes in different forms
with different advantages and disadvantages. Personally
I have used pure unflavored micronized creatine
monohydrate for years. It is cheap and works, but feel
free to try out other types. Dosage should be between 2
and 5 grams a day.(10)
4. Magnesium - Magnesium is a mineral that is essential
for many of the body’s functions and for maximum
athletic performance. Athletes often require more
magnesium than the average Joe, making
supplementation even more important. Magnesium can
help with sleep, so I recommend taking it at night. There
is a lot of debate online as to what form of magnesium is
best, so I prefer that my fighters get a supplement with
multiple forms of magnesium such as gluconate, oxide,
citrate and chloride, but at the end of the day any form of
magnesium is better than none. Dosage should be
between 300 and 500 milligrams a day.
5. Vitamin D3 - Vitamin D is essential for calcium and
phosphorus regulation, bone density, muscle function
and of course maximum performance. A shockingly high
percentage of the US population is deficient, between
40% and 77% depending on what sources you trust. The
easiest way to get vitamin D is to take your shirt off and
go outside, but this is not always an option so
supplementation may be necessary, particularly for
athletes with darker skin, those living in the northern
part of the US and Canada or during the winter months.
Vitamin D is fat soluble, meaning it can accumulate in
fat and toxicity is possible, so like most things, more is
not always better. Ideally an athlete should have their
vitamin D levels checked with a blood test and dose
 supplementation appropriately, but 1,000 to 2,000 IUs a
day of D3 during the winter is generally accepted as a
safe amount. (11)
6. Omega 3s - These are a type of polyunsaturated fat that
have a ton of studies demonstrating their benefits
including the lowering of inflammation, decreased
anxiety, lower triglyceride levels and improved brain
health after trauma, which is extremely important for
fighters post-concussion. If a fighter has been knocked
out or dropped badly, have them consume lots of DHA, a
type of omega 3, for the next few weeks or even months.
Ideally an athlete would get most of their omega 3s from
food sources, such as fish, chia seeds and walnuts, but
when that is not sufficient find a high-quality
supplement. Lower quality and old supplements can turn
rancid. Dosage around 3 grams, or 3,000 milligrams, a
day seem to be safe and effective. Be sure to read
supplement labels carefully though. Most omega 3
supplements are somewhere in the neighborhood of
1,000mg per serving, but only around 300mg of EPA
and DHA, the actual omega 3s. In this case to get to
3,000mg of omega 3s, an athlete would need 10 servings
throughout the day. If possible find a quality omega 3
supplement with higher potency to reduce the number of
servings needed.(12)(13)(14)(15)
7. Turmeric - Turmeric is a spice containing a chemical
called curcumin, which has host of benefits including
anti-aging, retention of cognitive functions and potential
reductions in cancerous and precancerous cells. Be sure
the turmeric supplement you use has black pepper
extract or piperine, which greatly increases the
bioavailability of the curcumin in the turmeric. Doses
between 1,000mg and 2,000mg per day seem to be safe
and effective. (16)(17)(18)

 
 This is not a comprehensive list of supplements that can help a fighter,
but rather a set of basic, effective and safe supplements that I recommend to
my athletes and use myself. Personally, I love to read studies on substances
that may improve cognitive function, athletic performance and overall health
and longevity, and then experiment and try them out on myself. However, as
a coach you cannot give your athletes anything unless you are 100% sure it
is safe, effective and does not contain any banned substances.
 — Chapter 10 —
 
Neck Strength
Neck strength is absolutely essential in combat sports. Aside from the
enhanced ability to transfer force and use your head as a tool while clinching
and wrestling, a stronger neck helps a fighter avoid concussions. In fact, one
study I found states that: “For every one pound increase in neck strength,
odds of concussion decreased by 5%.” (19) That is a significant number that
makes chasing neck strength a worthwhile goal for any combat sports
athlete.

When I was boxing in college, the current push for understanding,

treating and preventing concussions in combat sports was picking up and I
was obsessed with strengthening my neck to avoid brain damage. I used all
the classic boxing movements, hanging my head off the side of the ring
while flexing, extending and rotating my neck in different patterns, working
up to very high reps and even using a head weight while doing so. In
addition, I used the four-way neck machine at the local gym whenever I
would lift and hit bridges on the grappling mats or on an exercise ball. At
this time I was also looking into physical therapy as a profession and always
bugged the PTs I was around to show me neck exercises, that I would then
force upon my boxing training partners. Despite all of this effort I only
gained a small carryover to my perceived ability to take a punch and in the
size of my neck.

The first time my neck really started to feel stronger in the ring was a
complete accident. Some days I would wake up at six in the morning to run,
go to class for a few hours, study and do homework in the afternoon, box
from six to eight in the evening, sneak in a lift, then grab a sandwich on my
way to teach the boxing club from nine till eleven. Obviously a drawn-out
lifting program was out of the question, so my solution was to just do power
hang cleans, which would later be a huge influence in my minimalist
programming. My neck started to feel significantly stronger when I was
sparring and even grew a bit. Now this is strictly anecdotal evidence
showing that when a 21-year-old kid did a heavy compound lift his whole
body, including the neck, grew. Not exactly groundbreaking news in the
world of strength and conditioning. However, I believe the explosive nature
of the clean creates a more specific training stimulus that carries over to
absorbing a punch. The upper trap and surrounding musculature are forced
to contract hard and quickly against a relatively high force. This is where the
true value in cleans, snatches, high pulls and their variations lie in the
context of combat sports. To apply this, simply program these movements
into the power hinge section of your lifting cycle for athletes who are lacking
in neck strength, being sure to cue the shrug motion at the top of the initial
pull. However, neck training can go deeper than throwing some Olympic
lifts into your fighter’s program.

In November, 2015, I was given the opportunity to train at 13 Coins in

Bangkok. At this point I had been training Muay Thai seriously for about a
year, and had done a bit of clinch work, but nothing resembling the clinch
training the Thais were doing and I had never seen neck strength like that
before. Young fighters, maybe 12 years old, could pick each other up from
within a full plum clinch position. Some of them, including Sangmanee, a
multiple-time champion and fighter of the year, could even lift me off the
floor with their necks when I tried to break their posture, despite my 40-plus
pound weight advantage. The secret to their insane neck strength certainly
did not lie in advanced weightlifting techniques; I never saw any type of
formal structured strength training at all. Nor did it lie in freakishly thick
necks due to genetics; most of the Thai fighters are thin and ectomorphic.
However, they all clinch for at least half an hour during their daily training
sessions, and once I took the time to break down the physiological training
effect that must have had, it made total sense.

When clinching, the neck undergoes flexion, extension, lateral flexion

and rotation under a wide variety of loading parameters. More so than any
other training modality or sport in my opinion. Sometimes the neck muscles
are forced to contract explosively, when a training partner tries to break your
posture or attempt a throw. Sometimes the neck muscles are contracted
isometrically, to maintain posture or resist a face press defense. The load
ranges from the weight of your training partner’s arm in a light collar tie, all
the way up to above their body weight when aggressively breaking posture.
When performed for an extended period of time the neck muscles lift and
resist a high total tonnage and are exposed to serious time under tension in a
wide variety of directions.
 After that first eye-opening training trip to Thailand, I clinched at every
opportunity I had. Aside from improving my clinching abilities, my neck
strength grew more than ever before, and I felt a carryover of that strength to
my grappling and boxing training. So how can the benefits of clinching be
incorporated into the overall strength and conditioning system? Simple,
clinch as much as possible under the guidance of an experienced Muay Thai
coach. When I run striking practices for our fight team, I generally leave 15
to 30 minutes at the end for live clinch training so my fighters cannot only
dominate in the clinch, but also develop the extreme neck strength required
for combat sports. Now if you do not have a knowledgeable Muay Thai
coach or participate in a sport like western boxing, where there is no
clinching, but neck strength is still required, a few Muay Thai drills can be
incorporated into the programming. Two simple movements that will
develop neck strength are the hip in posture retainment, and the face press
defense, which are demonstrated below. These can be thrown in as ancillary
movements, part of the warmup, or in skill practices, depending on what the
athlete needs. While strength improvements can still be made with sub-par
technique, these drills are best under the supervision of a good Muay Thai
coach. Start conservatively with very little partner resistance and slowly
progress to a higher intensity.
 
1. Hip in posture retainment:
 
 a. One athlete will start bent at the hips with their chest facing the floor
and with a weak, flexed, protracted neck position.
 

 
 b. Before initiating any larger body movements, they will pack their
neck by retracting and extending. Cue them to make a double chin and
a big neck muscle.
 

 
c. Maintaining the packed neck position, with resistance on the back of
the head from a partner, walk the hips under the shoulders, until
upright.
 

 
 d. Start with very light partner resistance and gradually work up until
you can lift your partner off the ground.
 

 
2. Face press defense:
a. Start in a plum clinch position, with both hands high on the back of
the head, elbows together against the chest, chin off to one side, upper
body upright and a square stance. The partner being clinched must
resist to maintain a tight, upright packed neck position.
b. The fighter being clinched will reach outside and over to grab their
partner’s chin with both hands, using it as a handle to rotate the neck.
c. Once the neck is fully rotated, extend the arms until the clinch is
broken.
d. The partner who started in the clinch will weave the arms underneath
and inside, one at a time, to establish their own plum position.
 e. Start again with the roles reversed. Both partners should keep their
neck strong and resist an appropriate amount, slowly resisting more and
more as their strength improves.

 
 — Chapter 11 —
 
Tracking Sheets
“The faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory”
-Chinese proverb
An often overlooked, but vital part of a strength and conditioning
system, is tracking training sessions. Quite frankly it barely matters exactly
how workouts are tracked as long as they are. I like to make old school paper
packets with a full cycle worth of training sessions on it that also includes
the set and rep scheme on the last page. It is an easy format for the athletes
to follow and write in the intensity and reps for each main exercise. It also
makes things easier to change as a coach when one fighter needs to do
something slightly different, due to an injury or a fight coming up. Simply
substitute an exercise out or program different set and rep schemes
depending on what the individual athlete needs. If you have a tracking app
for your team or simply have athletes write their lifts in a notebook, that is
fine as long as it works for you.

The example tracking sheet for a week shown below is how my team
records our training sessions. I put two days’ worth of workouts, or one
week, on each side of the paper, making a full cycle a four-page, double-
sided packet. This leaves enough space for fighters to put notes in the
margins, which I highly encourage. The weight and body fat sections are
extremely helpful once an athlete has built up a few months or years’ worth
of training. It allows you to see relative strength instead of just overall PRs
and compare an upcoming weight cut with past performances. To complete
and track the workout, an athlete simply starts in the top left corner, working
and tracking left to right, row by row as if reading a page of text. Each cell
with an “x” in it is meant for the athlete to record their intensity and reps.
For example, if a fighter does a set of squats with 225lbs for four reps, the
fighter would write “225 x 4”. In the case of an unweighted box jump or
other non-weighted exercise, the intensity would be the height of the box. A
fighter who does a set of three box jumps on a high box would put “high box
x 3” in that cell. Ancillary exercises simply have a check-off box next to
them. This is to emphasize that most of those exercises are not meant to be
overloaded to the same degree as the main lifts. You do not want an
overzealous fighter grinding out heavy reps of dumbbell external shoulder
rotations desperately trying to beat what they did last week.
Week 1
Date: Weight: BF%:
Power Snatch x ☐ Dislocates
Set 2 x ☐ No Moneys
Set 3 x ☐ TRX Fallouts
Romanian Deadlift x ☐ Scapular Pushup
Set 2 x ☐ Clamshells
Set 3 x ☐ Hang Stretch
DB Bench + Inverted Rows x x
Set 2 x x
Set 3 x x
 
Date: Weight: BF%:
Box Jump x ☐ Hip Flexor Stretch
Set 2 x ☐ Hanging Side Crunch
Set 3 x ☐ Batwing 5x10 second
Front Squat x ☐ Wall Angels
Set 2 x ☐ Hip Circles
Set 3 x ☐ Split Stretch
Handstand Pushup + Chins x x
Set 2 x x
Set 3 x x

While there are cells to record weight and body fat, you will notice
there is no other tracking such as bar velocity, heart rate, etc. There are two
main reasons for this. First of all the price of the technology is often not
worth the value of the data collected. As a strength and conditioning coach I
would love to have bar velocity trackers on every bar my athletes use and
that data would hold some value. It would help me know when my athletes
need to use more or less weight, if they are starting to overtrain, create
friendly competition and be really cool, if nothing else. However, I can
easily see when one of my athletes is going too slow on an Olympic lift and
tell them to decrease the weight. Just by talking and paying attention to them
I know when they have been training too much or not recovering enough as
well. If my athletes were going to be competing in weightlifting, then that
data would hold more value, but my fighters lift to be better fighters, not
better lifters. The price of equipping all the bars in our weight room with
velocity trackers would be high, while the value of the data gained would be
small for my fighters.

The second reason most tracking technology is not worth it for our
purposes, even if the technology is cheap, is the data collected often does not
affect the decisions on how a fighter will train. For example, heart rate
monitors are relatively inexpensive and easy to use, but a lot of the data that
comes from them is of no use to a coach. If you are tracking heart rates
during a fight sim four weeks out to see how fast after the workout a
fighter’s heart rate returns to normal, then compare that to the same
measurement three weeks out, you would expect to see the recovery time
decrease as the athlete gets into better shape and the movements become
more efficient. Regardless of whether or not that time increased or
decreased, that close to a fight I would still have the fighter finish out the
remaining scheduled fight sims to continue building efficiency of movement
in a fatigued state and increase mental toughness. I would also stress
recovery to that athlete, regardless of the recorded recovery metrics because
of how close they are to competition. Therefore, while the heart rate
measurements may be cheap and easy to collect, they may not help a coach
make more informed decisions about training and serve no purpose in this
instance. Such measurements would only waste time, particularly when there
are multiple athletes training or peaking out on the same schedule.

In the future as technology becomes cheaper, the ROI for certain

measuring devices may increase to the point that using them makes sense.
Also, if cost is not a limiting factor or you already have a measuring device,
such as a HRV monitor, that you use to make informed decisions about your
athlete’s training, you should certainly use every resource at your disposal. I
am not against using any particular type of tracking and you should not be
either, just be sure that the measurements you take help you make better
decisions for your athlete and know that fancy tracking devices are not a
necessary part of an athlete’s training protocol.
 — Chapter 12 —
 
Application to Non-MMA       Combat Sports
In the beginning of this manual I introduced the concept that some
requirements of a fighter’s strength and conditioning program are met
through the sport of MMA itself. However, for combat sports that are not as
inclusive as MMA, some minor changes will be made to the programing. For
simplicity, non-MMA combat sports will be divided into striking-only
sports, such as boxing and kickboxing, and grappling-only sports, such as
jiu-jitsu and wrestling. However, a good strength and conditioning coach
should be able to identify specific needs within their athletes’ sport and
personal anthropometry and adjust as necessary.
The training stimulus provided by practicing striking-only sports is
great for explosivity but lacks in neck strength, isometric ab strength and
grip strength, relative to full MMA training. The most important of those is
neck strength. The three easiest ways to ensure a strong neck in this system
is to first prioritize an Olympic lift, or variation of one, as the power hinge
and give cues to emphasize the shrug at the top of the initial pull to
strengthen the traps. Second, program a neck exercise or two as ancillaries,
such as banded neck holds and bridges. Last, warm up or cool down with 5
to 10 mins of the two exercises outlined in the neck strength chapter. They
can be done before or after skill practices as well for greater frequency.
Isometric ab strength and grip strength will definitely improve to some
degree from basic lifts like overhead presses and deadlifts. However, for
those who just feel they need the extra work or for a striker who is actually
weak in those areas, simply program grip and isometric ab exercises, like a
hanging L sit, as an ancillary or as an addition to the warmup or cooldown.
For the hanging L sit specifically, when the athlete can no longer hold the L
sit position, drop the legs down and just hang to burn out the grip as well as
to get all the benefits from a hang stretch.
In contrast, the training stimulus provided by training grappling-only
sports is excellent for strength and full-body tension development, but will
generally lack in the attributes at the high speed end of the force-velocity
curve and will often enforce bad posture. Grapplers should prioritize faster
explosive exercises and ancillaries when possible to build speed. For
example, use a banded overspeed jump over a weighted box jump or a
rotational med ball throw over a Pallof press. Bar speed should be the top
priority when performing Olympic lifts or explosive kettlebell exercises.

From a postural standpoint, a wrestling stance is a nightmare of spinal

flexion with a protracted neck and shoulders. To combat this, program a lot
of ancillary spinal mobility drills, like cat cows, shoulder retraction
exercises, like band pull aparts, and variations of cervical retractions. Again,
these can be used before or after skill practices as well for greater frequency.

These are just a few basic principles that broadly apply to striking and
grappling sports, but the same thought process can go into any sport with
more specificity. For example, a gi-only jiu-jitsu player may have serious
stiffness and a lack of mobility in the hands and fingers, which could be
combated with banded finger extensions and hand mobilities, programmed
as ancillaries, warmups, or during a cooldown. What is really important is
that as a coach or athlete you can pick out the performance or postural
shortcomings within your specific sport, identify drills and exercises to
balance out those shortcomings and program them correctly.
 — Chapter 13 —
 
Mental Training
I have always been intrigued by the mind and its power over the body’s
performance. In high school I read about seemingly mystical Shaolin monk
training, watched Derren Brown exploit the weaknesses and patterns of
human psychology and read everything I could about NLP and other sorts of
applied psychology. Later in college, my interest continued in an excellent
sport psychology class taught by Dr. Semyon Slobounov, whose principles I
started to apply to my own boxing training. This was also the same time that
GSP was the welterweight king and explained in interviews about how
visualization helped him overcome fear and perform during fights, which I
too tried to mimic. After graduating I slowly pieced together techniques and
methods for mental training, which I distilled down into two basic phases
and carried out with great success in April, 2015, during the season 22 TUF
tryouts in Las Vegas with my top fighter, “Iron City” Mike Wilkins.

Before breaking down the phases of mental training, a full disclosure: I

am not a psychologist, and have simply applied some basic mental
techniques to the fight game in a way that has worked for me and my
athletes. What I will describe here is effective, but only the tip of the iceberg
and for more in-depth or specific mental performance issues an athlete
should see an actual sports psychologist.

The first phase of mental training is to use meditation so a fighter can

clear their mind and gain some conscious control over their thoughts,
making them more receptive to the visualization in phase two. This
meditation should ideally be done year-round, but starting a few weeks out
from competition will still produce good results. For the TUF tryouts, Mike
was fully on board with regular meditation a few weeks before we flew to
Vegas. As with a strength training program, athlete buy-in and trust in the
system is absolutely essential for mental training. During these weeks Mike
and I would go to a quiet, comfortable place, sit or lie comfortably, set a
timer for three to ten minutes and simply focus on breathing. With each
inhalation the focus is on expanding the stomach and ribs horizontally and
filling the lungs bottom up. Each exhalation is controlled and completely
empties the lungs. As thoughts enter the mind do not fight against them,
acknowledge them and visualize the thought drifting out of your head and
return the focus to breathing. It may take some time or even a few
meditation sessions, but eventually the fighter’s mind will reach a state
where the thoughts no longer pop up, there is extreme calm and the minutes
fly by in what seems like seconds. The goal is to reduce the amount of time
it takes to reach this state as the athlete gets closer to the second phase and
competition. When Mike and I first started practicing meditation we would
often not get to this state and anticipate the timer for the last few minutes. By
the time we were packing for our flight, Mike had gained so much control
over his mind that he could reach this state within two minutes and would be
surprised when the timer went off “so quickly”.

The second phase is very specific visualization of the competition day.

This should be done once or twice a day and start between the beginning of
fight week to a few days before competition. First the athlete begins
meditation as practiced before for a few minutes to clear the mind. Then, a
coach describes the day of the event in as much detail as possible,
mentioning specific techniques that were practiced and the inevitable
feelings of anxiousness before a fight. The more senses that are engaged and
specific details mentioned the better. Mike and I started somewhat vague
visualizations a few days before leaving Pittsburgh, and gathered more
information to improve the quality and detail of the visualizations as soon as
we got to our hotel in Vegas. We walked from our room to the conference
room that tryouts were held in and I took notes the whole way. I knew the
exact route we would take, how many staircases and escalators we would
use, where the pungent oyster bar we would pass was, the type of heavy
glass door we would step through into the conference room and the faint
patterns we would see on the wallpaper once we were inside. Twice on that
first day we cleared the furniture in our room to the walls and went through
our visualization before practicing the striking routine we had developed on
mitts. After a few minutes of meditation, when I could tell Mike had cleared
his mind, I would describe our walk to the conference room in great detail. I
mentioned the lights and sounds from the slot machines in the casino, the
smell of the oyster bar we passed, the emotions of excitement as we entered
the conference room and saw all the competition. Using my understanding of
Mike’s elite jiu-jitsu game, I described how the grappling round would go.
He would apply hard top pressure, pass guard and slap on his vicious
guillotine. I described how the adrenaline would wear off, and we would
move on to the striking round, where he would blend his boxing and
wrestling, only communicating with the codes we had developed for each
technique and combination weeks before we arrived. This way when he
actually experienced the tryouts it would not feel like the first time. He
would be a veteran of the process because he already “lived” the experience
in his head many times over.

Unsurprisingly, the next day at tryouts Mike walked in with a

champion’s confidence and the day unfolded almost as we expected. The
grappling round went eerily like we envisioned. Starting on the knees against
a strong purple belt, Mike double legged (thighed?) his opponent, passed his
guard, tapped him with a guillotine and was well on his way to repeating the
process when the round ended. The striking round was sharp, and Mike
clearly stood out as one of the more technical fighters. Unfortunately, in the
final round, despite his elite skill and making it into the last group of 40
fighters down from the initial 411, the producers decided not to use him for
the show. For better or worse, Mike is a genuinely good person, which does
not always make for the most entertaining television.

Despite our initial disappointment, this trip ended up being one of the
most valuable experiences for us as a fighter and coach. The mastery we had
gained over visualization and the mental game was well worth the temporary
pain.

Our technique is very simple in theory:

 
1. Meditate to gain control of the mind and allow it to be responsive
to visualization.
2. Visualize in extreme detail all the physical steps, emotions and
other senses the fighter will experience on competition day.

In practice it can be a bit more nuanced and a coach needs to know their
fighter to be able to cater to their thought processes and mental state. A
newer fighter may require hearing more detail about the process of being in
a locker room and feeling the boredom and anxiety of waiting to fight, while
an experienced pro may need to hear more about the techniques that make
up their game plan for a specific opponent.

One last sport psychology 101 principle I would like to touch on, which
is important for knowing how to deal with individual fighters in the hours
and moments just before a fight, is the Yerkes-Dodson law, or the inverted U
theory of arousal shown in the image below. Simply put, an athlete will
perform best at a certain level of arousal, and performance will decrease
with any more or less arousal. A fighter who is too calm may not be able to
“turn it on” at the beginning of a fight, while a fighter who is too fired up
may abandon technique and blow out their gas tank. Knowing your fighter’s
natural temperament and how they fight best is essential for how you will
communicate with them before a fight and whether or not you need to get
them amped up or to calm down. Some people are naturally calm and some
excited. Some people fight best methodically and some recklessly. Know
your fighter and do everything in your power to put them into the best
mental state possible.
 — Chapter 14 —
 
Movement Tables
The following tables are an incomplete list of exercises that will work
within this system. There are plenty of movements and drills not listed that
will be just as effective, especially in the ancillary category. There are whole
books written on mobility, stability, flexibility, potentiation and breathing
exercises, so please learn about them and use them with your fighters. These
tables should be used as a reference when programing, not a way to learn an
exercise. If you are unsure about how to perform any of these exercises, look
for a video online or better yet get yourself a qualified coach.
 

Power Hinge
Single or Double
Counts as an eccentric hamstring exercise
KB Swing
Single or Double
Be sure to hinge like a swing, not a squat
KB Snatch
Uni or Bilateral
Great to use if superset with a strength hinge
Broad Jump
Any variations are good, I prefer power cleans from a hang
Clean
position for fighters
Snatch Any variations are good
High Pull Focus on bar speed, good regression for snatch and clean

Power Squat
Great for beginners, maintain “knees out” position throughout
Squat Jump
movement
Takes force off the landing making it more joint friendly than a
Box Jump
squat jump
Depth Drop Best for more advanced lifters
Dumbbell
Focus on speed instead of just weight
Snatch
 Lunge Jump Fixes power imbalances between legs

Strength Hinge
Deadlift Drop from the top if you have bumper plates
Rack Pull Allows for heavier loading
Trap Bar Deadlift Good for athletes lacking full mobility
Snatch Grip
Increases range of motion and improves grip strength
Deadlift
Romanian
Counts as an eccentric hamstring exercise
Deadlift (RDL)
Counts as an eccentric hamstring exercise, do not get carried
Good Morning
away with heavy loading
Barbell Hip
Google “Bret Contreras”
Thrust
 Strength Squat
Back Squat Allows for heavy loading
Front Squat Quad dominant, builds ab and upper back strength
Box Squat A favorite of Westside, worth doing for that alone
Almost impossible to do wrong, great for beginners or as
Goblet Squat
mobility exercise
Zercher Squat Quad dominant, builds ab and upper back strength
Belt Squat Great for athletes with spinal issues
Double KB
Builds serious ab strength with relatively light load
Racked Squat
Regression - hold on to rings
Pistol
Progression - hold on to dumbbells
Bulgarian Split
Fixes strength imbalances, load with a barbell or dumbbells
Squat
Fixes strength imbalances, use any variation such as walking,
Lunge
reverse and lateral
 Upper Body Press
Barbell Overhead Press Allows for heavy loading
Dumbbell Overhead Press Fixes strength imbalances, builds stability
Single or Double KB
Forces proper movement, more joint-friendly
Overhead Press
Barbell Incline Bench Press Great way to change up pressing angle
Dumbbell Incline Bench Press Fixes strength imbalances, builds stability
Landmine Press Great way to change up pressing angle
Barbell Floor Press Allows for extremely heavy loading
Allows for heavy loading with good range of
Barbell Bench Press
motion
Single or Double Dumbbell
Fixes strength imbalances, builds stability
Bench Press
Great way to change up pressing angle, Allows for
Dip
heavy loading
 Upper Body Pull
Use all variations and grips. Regression - use bands for assistance
Pull or Chin-Up
or eccentric reps
Inverted Row Easily scalable
Barbell Row Allows for heavy loading, builds posterior chain
Pendlay Row Forces stricter form
Chest Supported
Forces even stricter form
Row
Dumbbell Row Fixes strength imbalances

Gymnastic Press
Regression - feet on box with hips flexed to 90°, or with feet
Handstand
against wall
Pushup
Progression - hands on blocks to increase range of motion
Single Arm Regression - against wall, against bench, archer pushups
Pushup Progression - elevate feet
Regression - pushup, iso hold in top position
Ring Pushup
Progression - elevate feet, add resistance, ring fly
Ring Dip Regression - dip on bar, iso hold in top position, use band for
 assistance
Planche Pushup Regression - pushup with hands at hips, elevate feet, crow stand
Ancillary: Remember to emphasize movements from the first three tables

Scapular and Glenohumeral Control

Dislocates Use bands or a PVC
Hang Stretch Excellent for the shoulders and the spine
Facepull Use bands, cables or a TRX, pull from all angles
Band Pull Apart Keep the shoulders low and ribs down
Grab a band with a supinated grip, elbows stay at the sides,
No Moneys
pull the band apart and retract the scapula
I, Y, T, W Use a TRX, a band or light dumbbells while prone on a bench
Dumbbell External Can be done seated with the elbow up on the knee, or in a side
Rotations lying position
Lie prone on a bench with dumbbells in the hands, pull the
Bat Wings
weights to the armpits and retract the scapula
Scapular Pushup Builds strength in the serratus anterior
Scapular Pull-Up Be sure to keep elbows straight
Wall Angels Keep the hips, upper back, elbows and wrist against the wall
Prone PVC Behind
Narrow the grip to increase difficulty
the Neck Press
PVC Bradford Hold the head still, focus on scapular movement not arm
Press movement
PVC Overhead
Also great for increasing hip mobility
Squat
Kettlebell Armbar Keep the arm locked and shoulder packed
Kettlebell
Excellent for hip and thoracic mobility as well
Windmill
Kettlebell
Good patterning movement for overhead presses
Bottoms-Up Press
Roll Shoulder Joint Best with a LAX ball
 Spinal Mobility and Traction
Hang Excellent way to decompress the spine, pairs well with exercises that
Stretch load the spine such as heavy squats
Manual
Lie supine on a bench, a partner grips the mastoid process on each side
Cervical
and pulls the head away from the body, release tension slowly
Traction
Partner
On both knees face a bench, put both elbows on the bench, partner
Extension
presses down between scapula
Stretch
Thoracic Sit tall with hands on the side of the head, rotate to end range, crunch
Rotation to the side and back up, rotate further and repeat three times per side
Cobra
Google “McKenzie Method” to truly appreciate this stretch
Stretch
Yoga
Also great for shoulder mobility
Bridge
 Hip Mobility
From a standing or quadruped position take the knee in a wide circle
Hip
through a full range of motion, keeping the pelvis as still as possible, rotate
Circles
both directions
Hip Flexor
Pairs well with squat movements, emphasize posterior pelvic tilt
Stretch
Piriformis
Can be done supine or as a pigeon stretch
Stretch
Split
Excellent for improving the quality and height of round kicks
Stretch
Lateral Strengthens the glute medius and minimus and TFL, helps fix valgus
Band Walk knee issues
Strengthens the glute medius and minimus and TFL, helps fix valgus
Clamshells
knee issues
Lateral
Keep the weight light when used as an ancillary exercise
Lunge
Banded
Use any variety
Hip Opener
LAX Ball/
Dig in the hip flexors, piriformis, IT Band, etc.
Foam Roller

Eccentric Hamstring
Nordic
Hold weight against the chest if necessary
Hamstring Curl
Be sure the hips are free of the pad and you are not just doing spinal
GHD
extensions
Roller Lay supine, with knees flexed place bottoms of feet on a foam roller,
Walk Out bridge onto shoulders, slowly walk the roller out then back in
Single
Focus on feeling the muscle instead of heavy loading
Leg RDL
 Abs/Core
Use an ab wheel, TRX, rings or a barbell, increase the weight on
Rollouts
the bar to increase intensity
Wrap band around the ankles, flex knees to engage hamstrings
Janda Sit-Up
against the band, crunch then sit up
L Sit Use rings to increase intensity
Toes to Bar Emphasize posterior pelvic tilt over hip flexion
Hardstyle
Crunch “through” the floor
Plank
Pallof Press Use bands or a cable
Wood Chops Use bands or a cable
Landmine
Shove the end of a bar into a corner if you do not have a landmine
Rotations
Windshield Hang from a bar, bring feet up to the bar, rotate the pelvis till the
Wipers legs are horizontal, then rotate to the other side
Rotational
Keep the weight fairly low and focus on speed
Med Ball Throw
Hanging Side Hang from a bar, crunch laterally, complete all reps on one side
Crunch then the other
 Specialty/Misc.
Use any variation, but most fighters just need the basic proper
breathing mechanics, filling the lungs bottom up, expanding the
Breathing Drills
bottom of the ribs 360°, in and out through the nose with slight spinal
flexion.
Finger Extension Use a finger band or bucket full of sand or rice
Pushup or Iso
Hold on Knuckles, Slowly progress by shifting more bodyweight over the arms until
Back of Wrist and you can hold a pushup position
Fingertips
Hold a hammer upside down, supinate the hand fully, hold for a
Supination
second at the top, or use a band stretched across a power rack
Sit with feet flat on the floor and a towel under the toes, curl the
Toe Curls
toes to grab the towel and pull it under the foot
Stand on one foot, progress by closing eyes or standing on a
Single Leg
yoga block, good for fighters regaining balance and proprioception
Balance
after getting knocked out
Banded Neck Iso Wrap a band around the forehead, pack the neck, walk and hold,
Holds should be done at all angles
 — Chapter 15 —
 
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