POWER UP PRE-TRAINING

The glutes are the powerhouse of the body. And having strong & mobile hips is so important to maintaining fight stance & balance while moving, defence and generating offence.

Here’s a quick routine to add into your preparation for your Fight training:

1. Linear Walks
2. Lateral Walks
3. Glute bridge
Perform as a circuit for 2 sets for 10-12reps.

This isn’t a conditioning session or a way to build muscle, it’s a tool to help stimulate muscles & improve body awareness to help with better movement.

And as an addition, we can incorporate the band into our shadowboxing - killing two birds with one stone 👊💥

FIGHT DEVELOPMENT MENTALITY

How do you understand “having a full set”?

STOP EXPLAINING YOURSELF

How many mistakes have you made in training or competition?

Is every technique you perform going to be picture perfect?

Do you want to give your opponent extra motivation, to take your head off?

Are you there to Win, or are you there to help your opponent win?

How many times has this happened to you?
You’re in the gym putting in work with your coach.
You’re on the last round of your training session “fitness conditioning”
Your shoulders are burning from the combinations of speed & power punches.
Your legs are about to collapse because of the numerous rounds of pads, drills & sparring you JUST did.
You’re gasping for air & you say to yourself “this is fucked! I cant do this anymore!”
Everything feels heavy and there’s ‘no way’ you can throw another punch or take another angle.

..then you hear those last three glorious words
Coach: “LAST 10 SECONDS!!!”
All of a sudden you become super-saiyan & find this ‘new found’ energy out of no where, dominating the round.

What happened? How did you survive? I thought you had "nothing left”.
I’ll tell you what happened, you chose to mentality switch on. And because you gave yourself permission to control the clock & dominate the last 10 seconds, you matched your effort with the situation.

Can you imagine if your coach or the bell didn’t give you some sort of signal…can you imagine how down & out you would’ve been? Can you imagine giving up, staying in pain & counting down the seconds to this never ending round?

And thats exactly my point!
Too many people when they’re sparring, they make a mistake because their technique wasn’t perfect, they were off balance for a split second or they got hit one too many times.
So what do they do? They show some sort of frustration, because they weren’t perfect for the entire round.

Why is that so important from a training & competition point of view?
When you show frustration to your opponent, YOU’RE the one saying “LAST 10 SECONDS”
You’re giving your opponent that last bit of motivation to pick themselves up & win the fight.
Are you there to win? Or are you there to help your opponent win?

Yes we strive for perfection. Yes we want to dominate the entire fight.
Though most often than not, you’re going to get hit. Most often than not, youre going to get fatigued.
Do we throw a tantrum when we’re dont do something ‘perfect’ & help moitvate our opponent?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!
We stay mentally switched on, we control the next 10 seconds.
Which then leads to controlling the round.
Which then leads to controlling the fight.
Which then ultimately leads getting the W.

FIGHT CONDITIONING

Developing your fuel tank VS using it, are TWO completely different things. Let’s look at how you can DEVELOP it.

It’s every combat sport athlete’s goal to develop ‘World-Class Fitness’ so they can perform at their best, come fight day. So, let’s look at the 3 energy systems that help us get there!

1. Aerobic System: think of this as our fuel tank size. The better developed this is, the greater our recovery in a fight. The bigger the tank, the more fuel available.

2. Glycolytic: The greater this system is, the longer we can perform repeated bouts of high intensity activities within the round. Although, this comes with metabolites that are associated with ‘fatigue’ - eg. your legs/shoulders having that burning sensation - think of this as a funnel. The more developed this system, the smaller the tube the funnel has. Which means we can delay/buffer how “fatigued” we get & feel 😏

3. Alactic: The POWERHOUSE! Strong, Powerful, Explosive, though can be short lived. Basically this means pedal to the metal, sense of urgency, get this win in the first 10seconds of the round & let’s go home early.

All of these systems sit in the same car, though the longer the fight goes & at different intensities, each system takes turns driving the steering wheel to get our hand raised for that W. 👊💥

3 TRAINING PARTNERS YOU NEED

There’s two main scenarios:

Scenario A)
You’ve been putting in the work in the gym ever since you joined a year ago, you’ve earned your stripes enough to start training with some of the more experienced athletes. So you thought to yourself “Im going to pair up with the most experienced athlete in the gym for drills or sparring”…and you’ve been getting your ass handed to you a lot more than you’re used to, which isn’t boosting confidence or morale in your training, that you’re starting to losing the spark for it.

Scenario B)
You find yourself pairing up with the people in the gym that are still learning their fight stance, or with people who don’t have the same experience level as you. You begin to find training very boring & you’ve been losing your sense of urgency that its lead to not showing much progress in your Fight IQ or your fitness.

This two situations are very common! Though people haven’t yet realise that the best way to get the most out of your development is to figure out how you can take back control of your training with different levels of experienced athletes, that can be found in the gym.

Here are the 3 main training partners you should progress with & why: 🤯
1. Not as experienced as you: to work on new concepts you’ve learnt/want to learn at low risk
2. Relatively same level as you: seeing your progress & how much your current Fight IQ & conditioning has improved
3. More experienced than you: staying accountable with your development & highlight where you can improve

There are always opportunities to learn & develop.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHT TEAM

BEING A SUPERSTAR IN YOUR ROLE

Ever heard that good ol’ saying “Too many chef’s spoil the broth”?

Being a Striking Coach, while also being a part numerous fight gyms in the past..I’ve noticed how scrambled some fight preparations & teams can be.

It’s great to see Fighters wanting to be the best they can be in their sport, it’s even better to see them willing to bring in other coaches that can help with their strength training, nutrition, recovery etc.

And with the more dimensions to their program, the more chance it can cause chaos. The key to solving this rubix cube is having open line communication between the entire team.

S&C coaches should be open to hear what Fight Coaches are wanting their students to improve on, Nutritionists should know the schedule from a Fighter’s AND coach’s perspective to help with energy, recovery & allocation of resources. Fight coaches to put their focus on the skill development process & let other qualified professionals be a superstar in their role. And of course Fighters trusting the process and also having some input on their development program too.

Nothing worse than a whole bunch of random people doing random things because of their opinion of how things should be. Communication is key 🔑