Fight Camp Conditioning Blog

37 Books That I Think You Should Read About Health, Strength, and Performance

These are not organized in any particular order.

Below is simply a list of books that have helped me over the years. Some are quick nd easy to read, while others are more technical and in depth.

Feel free to check them out and let me know what you learn.

Enjoy!

37 Books That I Think You Should Read About Health, Strength, and Performance

Did we miss anything?

If so, please leave a comment…We would love your recommendations!

Bridging The Gap: Conditioning for Combat Sports

by Geoffrey Chiu

The training industry has come a long way since the time when tire flips and sledgehammer tire slams were the gold-standard for building endurance in MMA. As the sport becomes more popular and the quality of education for trainers improve, the way we approach conditioning should also improve. In the modern industry, it’s now about air-dyne assault bikes, mobility flows, perfectly crafted work-to-rest ratios and the use of heart rate tracking technology.

While there is nothing flawed with the current methods, I want to take a step back, revisit the components that make up conditioning performance in the world of combat sports and consider the application of these methods. My goal is to equip coaches, especially new coaches entering in the world of combat sports, with the knowledge needed to tackle the complexities that these combat sports possess.

Many expressions are used to understand “conditioning performance” in combat sports, ranging
from casual, to formal and scientific:

“How many rounds can you go?”
“He gasses whenever he has grappling exchanges”
“The goal of fight camp is to currently develop the energy systems used in MMA”
“We need to improve his anaerobic capacity”

All of which are acceptable when used within appropriate contexts, but ideally we would use a specific, common language, so everyone is on the same page.

When stripped to its core, conditioning performance in combat sports is the product of repeatability of effort and in-competition pacing.

Repeatability of effort (ROE) refers to an athlete’s physiological capacity to sustain a set of skills that are specific to the velocity and external load of the movements. To me, this definition is more pragmatic and guides practice better than simply using energy systems to define conditioning.

Two opposing set of skills, even though executed for the same work and rest duration, will have contrasting physiological demands. For example, the capacity to sustain high-velocity strikes with no external load (think of the classic striker) differs from the ability to sustain lower-velocity movements with high external load (think of the classic grappler), despite the fact that both classes of athletes possess elite level conditioning within their domains.

ROE is influenced by the capacities of the components that make up our energy systems such as cardiac output, lactate shuttling ability, lactate tolerance as well as the neuromuscular activation and oxidative properties of our muscle fiber types.

In-competition pacing refers to a fighter’s psychological management of energy expenditure during a match or fight. This management of energy is influenced by the strategy/game plan, the fighter’s conscious and unconscious reactions to the incoming stimulus as well as the energy demands of the cognitive load the athlete is facing.

Cognitive load is the amount of mental information the athlete is processing. This load increases if the incoming information is complex, novel and/or unpredictable. In combat sports, this means facing an opponent that:

Possesses physical traits or skill sets the fighter has not been exposed to before.
Possess a set of skill that the fighter does not have a clear answer to.
Utilizes “unusual” or “unique” movement to stay unpredictable.
Employs a strategy the fighter is not prepared for.

The high skill-ceiling of grappling and striking sports requires combat sport athletes to be information-processing beasts. Athletes must keep track of the combinations and movements the opponent has attempted thus far in the match, react to any strikes or submission attempts at any given moment, as well as plan 2-3 steps ahead in order to put themselves in a favorable position to execute their techniques – all while facing the painful, physical consequences of making a mistake anywhere along the way.

When experienced fighters and coaches say that fighting is as mental as it is physical, this is what they mean. The energy demands from the psychological efforts of dealing with cognitive load in combat sports should not be understated.

Conditioning Paradigms and Heuristics

Here are some conditioning paradigms and heuristics we can extrapolate from the interaction of the variables discussed above.

Firstly, know the principles that these sports were created on:

Martial arts seen in combat sports were created to equip the weaker, more fragile solider with the tools to succeed in battle and war
Combat sports is more so a competition of skill than raw physical ability

A fighter’s conditioning performance cannot be evaluated by repeatability of effort and physiological measures alone.

Poor performance can result from poor pacing – an athlete can gas out due to poor management of energy expenditure, despite possessing elite-level conditioning on paper. You cannot optimize performance by solely improving the engine and gas tank without making improvements to the driver.

Conditioning training should consider reducing the cognitive load the athlete will experience in-competition

S&C coaches must refine conditioning prescriptions to align with the combat athlete’s individual skillset and the development of their sport-specific skills through their camp and career

Putting It into Practice

What does this mean practically and how do we use these paradigms to inform the way we better develop conditioning in our combat sport athletes?

Conditioning Specificity & Integration

Along with the prescription of work-to-rest periods that emphasize certain energy systems, each conditioning modality lands on a continuum of specificity. In other words, how similar are the
movements, and cognitive demands of the skill/training being practice compare to the skill being displayed and performed in competition?

In the strength & conditioning industry discourse, 30 seconds on, 120s off (1:4 work to rest ratio) is considered to be training and emphasizing the characteristic of “anaerobic capacity”. Yet, this conditioning protocol will yield different training adaptations when performed on the air dyne bike, versus performed against a live opponent through wrestling drills.

This concept is nothing new, coaches know this as dynamic correspondence, or the transfer of training to performances, but several nuances arise when considering the conditioning development in combat sports.

Sports practice should be the top priority of any athlete, but even more so in combat sports due to the plethora of techniques and skills to learn and develop. Conditioning must be integrated into a martial artist’s training schedule to better facilitate skill development and acquisition.

One of the most practical ways we can achieve this is implementing work-to-rest-ratios directly to skills training and drills. Ideally, martial arts coaches would teach their classes or set up the training camps in accordance to best practices that can develop both skills and the desired aerobic, anaerobic or alactic adaptations concurrently. I imagine this can be an obstacle for the majority of coaches out there that have no say in how sport practice is run, or have no contact with the sport coaches directly. That is another problem in itself that we won’t be touching on in this article.

The alternative is to be more meticulous about the conditioning training we as S&C coaches prescribe to our athletes. Lately, I’ve seen great value applying self-directed solo heavy bag, and shadowboxing intervals for my striking athletes as part of their conditioning off the mats more frequently, over more traditional modalities like road work and air dyne bike intervals. This is especially true for novice and intermediate martial artists with still so much room for technical growth. Any time they train closer to the sport’s constraints, it is an opportunity for them to improve.

This is a real-world example of a conditioning session taken from one of my fighter’s training program.

SAMPLE CONDITIONING SESSION

45 Min Duration (not including warm up, mobility and stretching)

Heavy Bag Intervals [5 x 3 Minute Rounds with 2 Minute Rests] – 25 min total duration

Each round consists of 15 seconds maximum effort combinations, with 45 seconds of
easy effort strikes
Cues used: “Pick 2-3 of your favorite combinations and stick with those during hard
efforts, move your arms with light shots and work on moving your feet and head during
easy efforts, visualization is key”

Shadow Muay Thai Cooldown [1 x 20 Minute Round, nose-breathing only]

Visualize your shorter opponent, visualize the need to maintain distance
Utilize jab and teep frequently
Keep heart rate in zone 2-3 for the whole duration of the round
Do not let technique deteriorate as the round progresses

The goal with the heavy bag intervals is to develop power-endurance specific to striking – his ability to sustain bursts of high power output with periods of active rest dispersed throughout.

The shadow muay thai round is used to develop his aerobic system within certain constraints that are related to the development of his striking-skills and upcoming fight strategy. The elements of “nose-breathing only” and a long 20-minute round forces the athlete to improve on their internal pacing system (keeping heart rate and output below lactate threshold) while simultaneously maintaining mental acuity in context to the skill-related tasks (visualize shorter opponent, practice the jab and the teep).

This way, not only are we able to emphasize energy system development by utilizing the appropriate work-to-rest ratios, but we’re able to target repeatability of effort that is directly specific to their sport. Road work, skip rope and versa climbers still have a place in strength and conditioning. I’m humbly re-evaluating the benefit-to-cost ratio of such modalities considering the priority that skills training should hold more heavily in modern day combat sports.

Rethinking Lactate/Anaerobic Based Training

The glycolytic system has the smallest window of trainability, and creates an inproportionate amount of fatigue relative to the adaptations it creates.

This is not to say anaerobic performance shouldn’t be trained, anaerobic capacity is an important performance measure in many combat sports. However, by performing a high amount of lactate-based training in the weight room, it cuts into an athlete’s development of power, power-endurance and their ability to recover for their sports practice, sparring, drilling and rolling sessions.

The large majority of high-lactate producing and fatiguing anaerobic training should be performed in sports practice. Build lactate tolerance and anaerobic capacity within the constraints of the sport. Leave the most fatiguing type of training in the practice room, where athlete’s see the highest level of training specificity.

My high/low philosophy of athletic development has strengthened with over the years with experience. I believe it’s our job as coaches to raise the ceiling of an athlete, meaning develop maximum strength, power, power-endurance, and plyometric ability. Alongside raising the floor/base – keep the joints healthy, maintain high movement quality and increasing their lactate threshold and lactate shuttling ability by improving their aerobic energy system.

This philosophy compliments the paradigm that sports practice is king and should be highly prioritized and that strength & conditioning training should add to the capacities of an athlete, not interrupt or take away from them.

Bridge the Gap

Let’s be clear. Despite what modern strength and conditioning coaches preach on social media to justify their conditioning protocols, no combat sports athlete ever acquired championship rounds conditioning performing intervals on the air dyne. Physicality alone is not the driving factor behind success in combat sports. The best combat sports athletes have put thousands of hours in skills practice to develop an elite ability to pace themselves in competition, process information and make decisions under pressure.

Bridging the gap between conditioning preparation and performance will require efforts from both sides:

Sport coaches need to learn the fundamentals of energy system development in order to better support skill acquisition and development in their martial artists. The days of running athletes into the ground in order to build endurance and mental toughness should be over.
Strength and conditioning coaches should avoid prescribing poorly-selected conditioning protocols that add no value to the development of the combat sports athlete just because of what is traditionally done in other sports, or the fact that many of coaches before them have done so. Most importantly, we should also learn more about the sport at hand by participating in or watching skills practice more frequently.

Ultimately, the future of combat sports performance lies in the communication and collaboration
between sport coaches and conditioning coaches, and both groups’ willingness to educate themselves in each other’s field of knowledge.

Geoffrey Chiu, owner of GC Performance Training, is a life-long martial artist and dedicated strength & conditioning coach based out of Vancouver, Canada and London, UK. Alongside developing high-performance athletes in strength sports, basketball and racquet sports at the national and international level, he has worked with amateur and professional combat sports athletes in kickboxing and muay thai. Geoffrey is constantly learning from world-class coaches in both the combat sports and s&c industries so that he can bridge the gap between skill and athletic development.

Isometrics At Home – Maintain Athleticism With No Equipment

by: Jacob James – Crusader Strength

Aside from the intelligent, the use of isometrics in a well-rounded strength and athletic development program can often been seen as overlooked and forgotten. Isometrics have a tremendous ability to assist in ones strength, athleticism, (and for the bros) size.

Isometrics are (once you go down the rabbit hole) a broad topic of interest and has been for many top coaches in the realm of performance enhancement. Just look at the work of the likes of Alex Natera, Dr Keith Barr, Jake Tuura and you’ll begin to understand how deep this subject can go. For the purposes of this article – I shall be condensing things down into a digestible, ready-to-use piece of text that’ll see you through these uncertain times, and beyond.

The use of what we know as isometrics today have been found and utilized by man for over 5000 years, whether it was a Nepalese sherpa, an ancient martial artist, or Buddhist monk – isometrics have been utilized across a broad spectrum. You’ll likely be more familiar with Bruce Lee’s workouts that famously brought isometrics into the eye of the people today.

Definition Origin – (Skip this section unless you’re a nerd like me)

The word “Isometric” originated from the Greek word isos, which means “the same”, and metron which means “size”. Thus isometric contractions translate to tensing the muscle without the muscle itself changing length.

Easter egg: When the joint of the athlete is not moving (an isometric contraction), the muscle itself is actually shortening….VERY slowly, while the tendon is actually lengthening, again…slowly – amassing a net movement of nil – nifty illusion, that’s all.

Various Types of Isometrics:

Sensory Isometrics
Oscillatory Isometrics
Yielding Isometrics
Overcoming Isometrics
Extreme Isometrics

For the purposes of this text, we will be looking at the latter three and subcategorizing them for your better understanding:

Yielding Isometrics:

When an athlete holds/ pauses in a position for a period of time with a sub maximal load – this is commonly referred to as a yielding isometric. A simple example would a pause in a squat. They are commonly used amongst strength coaches to either add time under tension (TUT) as a means of overloading a stimulus or to break through a specific joint angle ‘sticking point’ for those involved in strength sports. Yielding isometrics have the ability to transfer to eccentric strength likely through the activation of mTor pathways (mTor is in essence the ‘light switch’ to muscle building and protein synthesis – it gets turned on).

As yielding isometrics are typically done with such sub-maximal loads and are therefore less neurologically demanding, they can be sustained for periods of time and they are best utilized for strength in a certain lift or position. Yielding isometrics held at a specific joint angle that is within 15 degrees (a side) of the action carried out in their sport is a gateway for better athletic development with higher specificity.

As a means of increasing TUT – yielding isometrics are a great addition. This article is currently being written at the beginning of a nation-wide lockdown (Covid-19, March 2020 in the UK). With everyone confined to their garage gyms, minimal equipment set ups and very little access to weights, now is a great time to implement the use of yielding isometrics for those still needed to facilitate an adaptation (whether thats size, strength or power). If you only have a light kettlebell, held in a goblet fashion for a rear foot elevated split squat with a tempo that incorporates pauses, is a fast-track way to getting as near to a weight room stimulus as possible.

Here are a few examples:

Overcoming Isometrics:

Moreover into the realms of athletic development, overcoming isometrics have tremendous implication into recruiting more muscle fibres, increasing the firing rate of those muscle fibers and (as aforementioned) being utilised at specific joint angles to carry over into your sporting endeavors.

When you as an athlete are either maximally pushing or pulling against an immovable object, this is typically and commonly known as an overcoming isometric (overcoming a resistant force).

I would generally recommend sets to be around 6-8s with maximal intent and effort.

Let me be clear here; overcoming isometrics won’t do jack unless you go in with maximal intent. Build the pressure in that certain position for 2-3 seconds and then maximally contract against whatever immovable object it may be; a bar in a rack, a door frame or whatever you have! As this is a max effort style lift, the intent of effort is key to facilitating adequate stimulus; around 3-4 working sets per position for around 3-4 lifts/movements should do the trick.

Overcoming isometrics can be used in high frequency. This is great news for the daily trainers and for those who train multiple times a day. Due to the next movement at the joint angle being nothing, the damage in a muscle-paradigm is minimal to negligible. You will be able to develop the neural factors in strength production at a higher rate, and the added benefit of no muscle damage is great for in season athletes and isolation athletes alike!

Like with yielding isometrics, overcoming isometrics can be performed at specific joint angles to your sport. So long as these are within 15 degrees a side (of the joint angle), you’ll still be able to attain the desired effects in terms of positional strength, a notable favorite of mine is a zercher split squat overcoming iso to closely mimic an MMA fighter, fending off a takedown or holding their opponent against the cage. Whether you have access to equipment or not, there are the ability for overcoming isometrics all around, a great way to facilitate and maintain strength, power and athleticism.

Here are a few examples:

Extreme Isometrics:

Also known as long-duration isometrics, these methods are typically un loaded (for most of us mere mortals) yielding isometrics held for long periods of time and can assist with; increasing localized muscular endurance, improved tendon and joint health, enhanced neuromuscular efficiency and as a training recovery tool – but a potent stimulus as a stand alone method nonetheless.

One of the primary elements of extreme isometrics is that of nervous system training. When performing an extreme isometric (correctly, with intent), there is a reduction of what’s known as ‘compensation patterns’. These are patterns engrained within us from a survival standpoint, patterning un natural function. With the correct intent held through proper positioning, these movements are performed by “pulling yourself” into whatever extreme joint angle you are holding. For a split squat example ; you drag your back foot towards you and pull against the floor, creating the intended contraction. The rear leg is pushing out and up, creating another contraction and boom, hold that sucker for as long as you’ve got.

If you have ever acclimated to extreme isometrics, you’ll know the feeling of utter pain and soreness, IMMEDIATELY followed by a period of localized euphoria, creating somewhat of an analgesic response in connective tissue. Dr Keith Barr has some amazing knowledge around this, as does Dr Tommy John, I recommend you check out their work, if you’re interested in the mechanisms.

As a strength coach working with athletes on a busy and strict schedule, what I love to incorporate alongside extreme isometrics, is the ability to learn parasympathetic breathing. Both of these methods stand alone have good effect but when on time constraints, as they are not counter-conducive to one another, its great to practice both symbiotically – the old adage of two birds, one stone.

When you are holding an extreme isometric, your bodies natural reaction is to protect (sympathetic autonomic nervous system response), better known as fight or flight. To further benefit the intent of the activity, practice breathing techniques that are a para-sympatric autonomic nervous system response, will leave the athlete euphoric, with little/no damage. I could write a whole article around breathing techniques in relation to training, performance and recovery so for the sake of brevity here, I shall just jot my recommendations. Hold the position given with good positioning and intent (the best bang for buck are split squat and press up holds). Whilst in these positions you should focus on nasal only breathing (which you should be doing 90% of the time regardless) to a specific tempo of slowing and controlling that breath. Start off with a 4-6 inhale, a 5-6 hold with an 8+ second exhale and whilst here, focus on extending those numbers without forcing them, this should be a calming technique of breathing, allowing for that parasympathetic response. If you struggle with nasal only breathing, whack some tape across your mouth.

Here are some visual examples, including some interesting variations:

Summary – Takeaway

Isometrics are one of three muscle actions to train, creating force without any changes in muscle length or joint angles. An essential component in the true endeavor of athletic development. At the time of writing this article (March 2020), the world is in a state of pandemic. Lockdowns imposed, people forced to retreat to their homes without leaving; this gives us a great scope to at least explore the corners of isometric training. Whether you’re just adding tempo to your goblet squat as a means of overload (yielding), pushing against a doorframe because that’s all you have (overcoming) or getting out in the sun and holding positions for long periods of time (extreme) – hopefully this body of text and accompanying examples allows for some diligent thinking.

About The Author

Jacob James, Director of Crusader Strength is quickly becoming recognizable amongst strength coaches for his roles in athletic development and success to many high level performers, including such; Bellator, Cage Warriors World Champions, One FC, Elite level cyclists and a varying degree of athletes from over 20 different sports. With a cut-out-the-crap attitude towards performance, results come quickly under the #EarnYourShield mantra. You can find more about him on his Instagram.

Common Mistakes When Cutting Weight

by Ben Zhuang

Click Here to View Our Step by Step Guide to Making Weight

Common Mistakes Made When Cutting Weight

Note: this isn’t a complete list, but these are just some of the things that I noticed throughout the years with fighters who are cutting weight or other combat sports athletes are cutting weights for competition.

Lack of Education and Preparation

This is by far the most common mistake is just fighters and athletes, not having the education to understand how to time things, how you know when to do what.

When it comes to preparation, a lot of fighters, come to me like a week, two weeks before the fight or the weigh in and say, well, I need to lose 25 pounds.

That’s just a lack of both education and preparation.

They lack the knowledge to understand that it’s not going to be a healthy way cut. We don’t really have optimal time to prepare, along those lines a lot of fighters don’t understand it’s beneficial to get as lean as possible before the actual weight cut. They’ll wait until the very end until they start following a regimented diet.

A lot of fighters don’t know that becoming heat a climatized is going to be beneficial.

There’s a lot of things that heat acclimation can help with.

They go to the sauna, but it’s only at the very end, I have my fighters use the sauna or the hot tub become, he acclimated to two to three weeks, sometimes even three to four weeks before the weight cut, just so they get their body used to sweating.

Difference between men and women.

I’ve had many coaches do weight cuts and not understand the difference.

There’s a big difference between men and women when it comes to kind of weight, especially with the menstrual cycle won’t get too deep into that, but it has to be timed properly. Another thing is that women generally sweat less than men. And this may have something to do with just differences and also with muscle content, so men generally carry more muscle than women. Of course, there are women who are very heavily muscle as well. There are also women who may sweat more than some men, but generally men will sweat more than women. So you have to take that into account when you’re cutting weight for a female combat sports athlete versus male.

The Difference Between Acute & Chronic Weight Loss

Acute weight loss is short term and then chronic is long-term. Weight loss is generally what people want to do when they’re trying to lose body fat. They’re trying to look better. They’re trying to get slimmer, they’re losing. In chronic weight loss, we’re generally talking about body fat and muscle. This is very different from acute weight loss, which is what we focus on when it comes to cutting weight for combat sports.

Acute weight loss is more about a body water content, gut contents the water load.

During the week of the weight cut, I have a lot of my fighters eat things that generally would be considered not clean foods like milk chocolate, like, candy things like that. Those are things that are high calorie but have low weight for chronic weight loss. I would not have my athletes do that. If they wanted to lose body fat then you want to eat more quote unquote clean foods like, chicken and broccoli more foods that are higher in micronutrients. So what the acute weight loss, we’re not really concerned about health.

Cutting weight it’s not a healthy thing, but just overthinking the health portion of a weight cut generally is a mistake.

We want to lose weight in the safest way possible.

Doing the Wrong Thing at the Wrong Time

Examples, fasting too early into the camp. As the fighters, 20 pounds overweight maybe because of lack of preparation education so that they start fasting two weeks before the weigh in date, that’s not necessary you’re going to be just messing up a lot of things that’s going to affect your performance. We’re not going to be able to train optimally. There’s so many things that these timing mistakes can do that will wreck your performance and you may make the weight, but you’re not going to show up to the fight or to the competition with optimal performance. Another one, fat adaptation. Being on a low carb diet, way too soon. It only takes a couple of days for your body to switch to become fat adapted. So when you become fat adapted, you’re not going to perform at again optimal levels. You’re not going to be able to shift into the higher gears.

I’ve seen many fighters go on like keto diet, four weeks out there on a keto diet.

Yes, it helps you lose weight.

But are you able to train at the intensity you’d like?

Do you have the energy level that you need to perform to improve?

And more importantly, are you going into the fight fat adapted?

Because if you are, again, not going to be able to shift into the higher gears and perform at a high level.

Combat sports primarily rely on the anaerobic energy system for explosion power scrambles fight ending combinations. There’s many things that you need your anaerobic energy system for and without carbohydrates, you just can’t go into those higher gears.

Learn More About Cutting Weight for Combat Sports

Why Do Fighters Cut So Much Weight?

by Ben Zhuang

Click Here to View Our Step by Step Guide to Making Weight

Why Do Fighters Cut So Much Weight?

This is not something that is just MMA…

Wrestlers cut a lot of weight.

Boxers cut weight too.

But generally MMA fighters cut so much weight for these three reasons.

Tradition

My coach did it, his coach did it.
The fighters that came before me did it.
So I’m going to do it.
No rhyme or reason to it.
But since everybody’s doing it, it’s just become the norm.
And that’s appeal to tradition.
That’s what a lot of fighters have in their mind where they’re cutting weight

Competitive advantage

When you cut weight you have a competitive advantage, meaning you have a larger body mass than your opponents. This is the most important distinction here. When it comes to a competitive advantage usually you want to be at a higher body weight when you are grappling, clinching, when there’s some kind of way for me to impose my body weight onto somebody, that is where I will get the biggest advantage.

You’ll notice just from looking at research and looking at just generally how things are, boxers and strikers will cut less weight than grapplers, wrestlers and MMA fighters. And then may has, obviously everything has got striking grappling, jiu jitsu stand up, clinch, fence. And so there is a lot of things in MMA and where I will be putting my weight on my opponents. So in NMA, one of the reasons that they cut so much weight is because of that advantage. The ability to impose their weight on their opponents. And this is why also you’ll see in wrestling that the bigger, the bigger man usually is going to win assuming the skills are the same. In boxing it’s a little different because there are things such as speed and cardio, it means a lot more in just a pure striking art. So in striking you’ll see a little bit less of this weight cutting, but for MMA, genuinely they do it for the competitive advantage. That’s the second thing that that we’re going to talk about.

The third is this is also very common and this is also a good reason to cut weight is a fighter is in between weight classes or they’re specifically undersized for the higher one. So if I have a fighter who’s like, he’s like 5.9, But they’re could fight like a 205 so light heavyweight. I would say that if they could go to the lower weight class, they should because at 205, you don’t see too many fighters that are 5.9 even that 185, you don’t see that many fighters that are 5.9. So this is the case where when you’re under sized for a higher weight class, you genuinely want to go to the lower way class where you will be more situated to kind of have a better outcome you don’t see fighters that are super short that are in the heavier weight classes. I mean, that’s just how things are. So why did you fighters cut so much weight appeal to tradition, competitive advantage and then they’re undersized for the higher weight class.

Learn More About Cutting Weight for Combat Sports

How Much Weight Do MMA Fighters Cut?

by Ben Zhuang

Click Here to View Our Step by Step Guide to Making Weight

How much weight do MMA fighters cut?

This depends on a lot of things.

First we’re need to know what weight class that the fighters in male, female how lean this individual was coming into the weight cut.

It can be up to 20 pounds in a day is not uncommon.

I don’t recommend cutting that amount of weight in one day, but we’re just talking about how much weight fighters cut. And I’ve definitely seen fighters cut 20 pounds in a day.

If we just look at an example, the last Joe Rogan podcast w/ Firas Zahabi, he talked about Kevin Lee being 174 pounds 24 hours before the wane. That’s 18 pounds that he had to cut in 24 hours. And that’s on the high side for sure, but that’s not uncommon.

We can also use some of the California state athletic commission data and most fighters from that data, you can see regain about eight to 18% of their contracted weight.

So it’s not uncommon to see fighters in that list regaining 15% over their contracted weight. And that just means that you’re definitely regained more than you’ve cut. Because of the additional food and fluids that you’re taking in.

But that gives you a good sense of how much they’re cutting.

I guess the more important question would be how much should you cut?

This is where I come in and I can help fighters with that decision.

Rule of thumb is no more than 8% of your body weight in five days with about one to 3% of that coming from dehydration in active or passive form. What I mean by one to 3% is you want to do this as close as possible to the actual way in itself. When I do it with my fighters, we do it the morning before the weigh in, to lose that last one to 3%. But some fighters want to get done the night before. So we do it the night before it’s based on their preference. And that’s it.

How much weight do MMA fighters cut?

It really depends on a lot of factors.

How much should you cut?

I would go no more than 8% with 10% being the absolute extreme end of it.

Click Here to Learn More About Cutting Weight

Box Jump Fallacies: Performance Jumps vs Performing Jumps

by Chase Cichos

Over stacking the height of a box jump is like adding tons of plates on a leg press machine, to the untrained eye it may seem like an overwhelming stack is impressive, but as a high performance coach there are certain details I am looking for in a box jump. The box jump is a plyometric movement that helps build explosive power, rate of force development, and it’s a great way to prime the nervous system for the work ahead. I’ll tell you the exact details of what I look for when my athletes perform a box jump. One thing I need to clarify for this article is the height of the box means absolutely nothing to me.

When I say the height of the box means nothing to me I mean that typically when over stacking a box jump the athlete finishes in a deep squat with the knees by his ears, this shows awesome hip mobility, but does nothing for what I am looking to accomplish with my athletes. I would rather my athlete land with their knees slightly bent while standing up straight. I am looking for a full hip extension which is why I cue my athletes to act as if they are jumping over the box, not to it. I tell them to imagine they are putting their head through the ceiling, to land on it with light feet so their muscles absorb the load. Remember, the reason I’m using the box jump is for performance, I never use them for conditioning or anything of that nature.

It is a vital part of my programming to implement the psychological factors behind an athletes need to strength and condition. So I can’t help but question the psychological factors I see behind coaches who program their athletes to over stack their box jumps.

I guess the only thing I can liken this to is: a false narrative of box height means you’re more explosive, or you get more likes and views on Instagram when you do very high box jumps.

You’ll get even more when you bust your ass from falling.

The psychology behind my programming is simple. When working with athletes, KEEP THEM HEALTHY! You want to know their best ability? It’s AVAILABILITY! If you’re working with combat sports athletes, it is important to remember that the training they do involving kicking, punching, and grappling is high risk and an S&C coach should not elevate that risk in order to get likes and views.

With regards to a fight camp, I realize that I am not the most important factor in a fighter’s preparation, rather I am a piece to a complex puzzle. My role is important and the most important part of my role is doing my part in keeping them healthy. The work I do should complement their skills training, not take from it.

One of the reasons I use the box jump is to take a lot of the load off the joints while landing from jumps. I also train absorbing load with depth drops and other deceleration drills, but I’m well aware of the load this yields and I manage it accordingly. I always ask myself this question when programming, “Can I get the same adaptation, or benefit, I’m trying to get in a safer way?” If the answer is yes, I reconsider what I’m doing.

As you can see I am passionate about developing programming that helps out combat athletes and take it personally when programming for these athletes is more harmful than helpful because of what I perceive to be egotistical reasons.

So to recap….

When using box jumps, focus more on the movement.

Are they extending the hips?
Are they jumping as high as they can?
Are they landing as safe as possible?
Is this adding a risk to injury by being too high of a box?

If you can check these things off, then move forward knowing that you thought about what you are doing and you’re not just doing things for the hell of it.

Chase Cichos started his training career interning with PJ Nestler and Scot Prohaska in Southern California. He has worked with a variety of athletes from different sports, including UFC, NFL, NHL, collegiate and high school. He currently works at the Checkmat Headquarters in Long Beach, CA and IFC gym in Huntington Beach, CA.

Follow Chase on Instagram –> @chaseyourdreams247

Workout with Junior dos Santos to Develop Knockout Power

by Phil Daru
American Top Team Strength & Conditioning Coach

Today we’re working with UFC fighter, Junior dos Santos. He’s about five weeks out from UFC down in Australia and our focus today is maximum strength. We’re trying to induce the most amount of force production (aka knockout power) that we can. So we’ll be working with the four press for our main list. Then we’re going to be working on accessories and some supplemental work to work on the posterior chain or bleak sling console auto stability, making it happen so that he can knock this dude out.

Phil Daru the Explosive Strength Workout for Knockout Power

Tips for Creating More Knockout Power

Why triceps are important when pressing…

So as we’re pressing, it needs to be a straight line. If you’re arching back, you’re putting into the Delt too much. We got to work on that. I want you to work more on the triceps. I rather you have stronger triceps because that’s going to be at the end of the punch. You’re not rolling forward too much. So I want you to have this. You’re not punching from your pecks either. The peck, you can only do this to can track your pack truly, you’re not doing none of that shit inside of the fight. You’re throwing the jab through here. So I want the triceps to have this more power there.

Why Does Coach Daru use the floor press with his fighters?

So right now, upper body maximal strength, he’s working through a floor press. This primarily is a better lift for the fighters that I choose. I use about four different compound lifts. This is one of them. Twist the body in the right position. It’s a lot safer for the athlete and also he’s creating the ability to strain underweight. And that’s what’s really going to help with that maximum strength. So we’re going to give him a little bit of a break. Let them recover his ATP and we’ll start again. He’s doing a max single right here for absolute strength.

So a lot of the times with maximum effort, we’ll see breakdown in muscle. So from there I’ll get to go ahead and correlate the accessory work after receive the breakdown from a maximal effort. The good thing is we got what we wanted from an adaptation standpoint and I got to identify a weak point that we can hit on in the accessory work.

Accessory work to fix weak links…

So now we’re getting into accessory work. Trying to work on a posterior chain. We’re going on the hamstrings, working on the upper back. Things that I see that we need to work on from a structural standpoint. Want to mitigate any type of injury or at least reduce the risk of injuries. And then also to maximize our potential to be strong in all muscles.

Working on multiple physical qualities.

Now basically what we’re doing, is we’re super setting goals so we can maximize our time efficiency, but also so he’s not sitting around idle. Obviously Junior is a ball of energy. So I got to make sure that I maintain that energy. The reason why we’re doing this anti rotation, I want you to be able to be strong and have stability. I want you to be able to maneuver whatever way you want that if you’ll knock him out.

Phil Daru is a strength coach in South Florida and trains some of the top mma fighters in the world. Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Dustin Poirier, King Mo Lawal, Tecia Torres, Jake ‘Brutal’ Bostwick, Ryan Quinn and many others trust Coach Daru with their strength and conditioning plans. In this episode we discuss developing workouts for fighters. Whether you are out of camp or preparing for a fight, Phil shares his thoughts and methods that he uses to prepare his fighters for battle.

Check Out Phil’s Training Plans for Fighters

Fight Strong 365 – If you’re tired of being thrown around in practices and competitions, or looking and the mirror and wishing you could be just a bit stronger, then you aren’t alone. Strength training coach Phil Daru is here to help! This program addresses foundational, off season strength.
Fight Ready – If you’d like to train like a top MMA fighter, and do it in just 4 hours per week, without mindless running, muscle destroying circuits (in a bad way), or unproductive powerlifting, I’m about to show you how to do it.
Ground Control – If you want to learn what weaknesses plague most grapplers, the ones that make them feel like they are getting manhandled, and not ‘not getting any better’ AND how to turn those weaknesses into strengths, so that YOU can be the one dominating on the mats… this is the definitive program for you…
Heavy Hitter – If you’re ready to get Full-Access to A World-Class Boxing Program and Take Your Power and Endurance To Levels You’ve Never Experienced Before… Invest In Phil’s Boxing Specific Strength And Conditioning Program And Become The BEST Version of YOU!

Stretching for Martial Arts: Use It or Lose It?

by Dr Andy Galpin

Today we’re going to talk about stretching.

Should you stretch before your training, after your training or perhaps maybe not at all… we’re going to get into that today.

Well, the answer really depends on three things:

What type of stretching are you really talking about?
How long are you stretching for and how long you stretching prior to when you’re going to exercise or do your competition?
How bad your mobility or your movement or your flexibility really is?

I’m going to answer these questions very directly and very clearly. But more importantly, this gives us an opportunity to talk about the physiology and neurology of stretching movement in general. That’s really what the bulk of the video is dedicated to helping you have these answers of course, but really understanding why they’re true. If you’ve seen any of my videos or ever seen any of my material, really, you know that I’m really much more interested in people understanding the why behind the answer. The theory is if you understand the methods or in this case the physiology, then you’re never going to have a problem answering the question when the scenario changes a little bit. So don’t just memorize answers, understand how things work, and you’ll never have to memorize again.

The two types of stretching I’m going to talk about are what we’ll call dynamic and static.

Static is what you’ve traditionally seen before.

It’s the hold the hamstring stretch for 30 seconds. Its hold this for two minutes, whatever. It’s holding a position in a static, not moving typically at an end range of motion or close to it.

Dynamic is a little bit complicated.

If you look at the research on this topic, you’re going to get confused because a lot of the authors aren’t really clear when they’re talking about static stretching versus dynamic stretching and how that’s different than dynamic warm-up. So this is going to actually lead to a lot of confusion in the field. If you’re running to read stuff or you’ve heard somebody else talk about that and make sure they’re clarifying what I’m talking about. Dynamic, warm-up or dynamic stretching or if they even differentiate the two. So in my mind, dynamic warm up are things like in walking active movement. So an active body weight squat, while you’re maybe increasing the range of motion or how low you can get in your squat, but you’re kind of doing it through the movement itself, you’re really just getting warmed up.

You’ll see there are the pros and cons of the static versus dynamic here in a second.

But you know what they are?

You know the difference in standing and holding a hamstring stretch for two minutes versus doing an active hamstring movement where you’re kicking your leg up and down.

So I’m not going to really differentiate between dynamic and dynamic stretching at this point though.

Others may.

So hopefully you get the basic idea of dynamic movement stuff versus a static hold. What we can talk about is the pros and cons of both. I can, if you’ve seen anything I ever do, I don’t talk about things being good or bad.

I like to understand, what’s the benefit and what’s the consequence?

And then you can deploy the appropriate thing at the appropriate time.

So the benefit of dynamic stretching is it can improve what I’ll call nervous or the nerves, muscle and the connective tissue. What I mean by that is you can see improvements in performance. If you look at the literature on this, you’ll see things like dynamic, warm up, improve your maximal strength, your sprinting speed, perhaps your vertical jump, things like that. If you’ve ever exercised before, you know exactly what I’m talking about. No one would ever set a max on their back squat, walking in cold off of the street with no warm up. You would of course progressively build up, do a little bit more, wait until you get closer, have a bit of a what’s called a potentiating effect and some other ancillary benefits of simply increasing core temperature, blood flow, et cetera.

So there’s really no dispute there that a dynamic warm-up of some type will enhance performance.

The downside of dynamic is it not going to be very good typically at an actually improving permanent changes in range of motion or flexibility. I don’t want to confuse anyone here, but I am actually a proponent of getting a lot of your changes in your, your flexibility through movements. So for example, I do believe that if you do heavy dosed or fairly heavy dose, say squatting and you try to push the end range of motion and by end range of motion, I mean in range of your quality of movement.

If all you did for a warm-up where Jumping Jacks and Burpees don’t expect to see improvements in your hamstring flexibility, you’re not spending enough time in those positions, right?

So, if we encounter someone who’s simply got all the requisite mobility and flexibility they need, they can probably jump right to dynamic warm-ups would be fine. But if somebody has a small, or especially a large deficit and range of motion, we’ve got to maybe think about adding some static stretching.

The benefit of the static is you’re going to probably see more, much more likelihood of increasing the permanence or what I’ll call a chronic random motion. We can also see that acutely.

Say if you’re a power lifter and you start warming up and your hips are just not there. If you go down to the bottom of a squat, hold it for a minute, you come back up, you’ll see increased range of motion. Right now that’s what I call a acute, so it has an immediate effect. It’ll also help you build up range of motion and mobility, your flexibility over, and we’ll get into the physiology of this in a second.

The downside is they’re going to probably reduce performance. They dissipate what’s called kinetic energy and I’ll get into that in a little bit. They also can inhibit or turn off muscle spindles. Both of these things are going to result in a decrease in performance and we see this in the literature as well.

In fact, it’s very well documented.

If you do say a a one minute hamstring hold, you’re probably going to reduce your ability to to vertical jump.

Speed goes down, squatting strength can go down.

Same thing if you stretched your pecs or your triceps and then did a bench press.

So we don’t want to be holding long stretches right before a maximal effort performance. But that doesn’t mean we don’t do static stretching. And that doesn’t even necessarily mean we don’t do static stretching before our workouts. We’ve got some things to get to here before we get a full answer on whether we should stretch before or after or never.

Let’s look at the physiology.

Remember, human movement is comprised of three areas.

We tend to think of human movement as a function of muscle, but that’s not an entire picture.

So look at my three different boxes…

The green one, the blue one, and the red one. You’re going to see that the box on the left hand side corresponds with an image on the right hand side. So the first part of human movement is the nervous system. That’s the green box. So the nerve has to come in telling muscle to contract. The muscle has to contract. It’s got to transfer its force from there to the connective tissue that surrounds the muscle. That connected tissue comes together and makes a tendon. That tendon attaches to the bone. The muscle then pulls the tendon or the connective tissue. The connected tissue pulls a tendon, tendon moves the bone you move.

So we have to think about all three of these layers or levels of human movement.

The nervous system, the muscle itself and three the connective tissue, the tendon, the ligaments and things like that.

That’s a quick version of the physiology.

Now, that being said, there’s two parts of the nervous system we’ve got to think about, and those fall under the umbrella of what’s called proprioception. If you’re in exercise science or have had these classes before, that term should ring a bell. I know you’ve had an exercise physiology, but proprioception is the idea of the nervous system understanding where you are at in the space. It’s got two primary branches that we need to think about and we’re talking about stretching. Branch number one is what I’ll call muscles spindles. These are buried inside the middle of the muscle belly, and for the most part, they don’t contain a lot of actin and myosin, which means they don’t contribute to contraction their sensory organs.

Just like you have a sense of smell, sight hearing, you have a sense of where you’re at in space based on these muscle spindles. Sensory organs take input in from the outside world and tell your neurology, your brainstem, your brain and spinal cord.

What’s happening?

That’s exactly what muscle spindles do.

They sense stretch.

Imagine your hamstring is being stretched. That muscle spindles stretch. It sends information out via gamma motor neurons. Those gamma motor neurons go to your spinal cord. This is an involuntary reaction. We don’t have to go all the way to the brain and think about this just to, the spinal cord comes back out through what are called alpha motor neurons. So any of you that have had excess physiology, you remember the phrase that we throw out all the time. And if you, any of you are taking any kind of personal trainer or strength coach certification, I almost guarantee you they’re going to ask about what a quote unquote motor unit is. And I know you know the answer because it’s something you’ve memorized. It’s an alpha motor neuron and all the muscle fibers that it integrates. Well that alpha motor neuron is exactly what we’re talking about. So the muscle spindles senses. It’s being stretched, sends information via gamma motor neurons. The gamma motor neurons go to the central nervous system. In this case, the spine and the spine sends a signal back out through the, through the alpha motor neurons and tell the muscle fibers that are surrounding the muscles spindle to contract. This is what we call this a stretch shortening cycle.

So the hamstring is being stretched.

The muscle spindles in the hamstring sense that stretch, they send a signal to the spine, spine sends a signal back to the other muscle fibers in your hamstring and tell it to contract. So the stretch is met with the resulting shortening of the muscle and that’s a cycle.

Intrafusal versus extra fusil.

Intrafusal is a fancy way of saying muscles, spindle extra fusil are all the fibers that not muscles middle basically. But again, key point, muscle spindles are in the belly, don’t have a lot of the muscles. So deep inside the middle, they’re not there for contraction or sensory organs. So if you see the image over there, you’ve all probably had this happen to you, but you’ve gone to a physician for a physical and they’ve done this knee tap test, right? So you imagine sitting, and I’ll go back to the image here, sitting on a chair and your knees hanging down. A doctor comes in, hits your knee and your leg flex out.

So why does that actually happen?

Well, first of all, why is the doctor doing that and why do you have to get that done before you can play a sport? Well, it’s because they’re actually trying to look up the nervous system in general and in some parts of your spine. So they know that this stretch learning cycle thing happens.

So what they do is actually press quickly on your patella tendon. The patella tendon, you can see from the image wraps around the knee cap and inserts on the front of the shin. But all of your quadriceps muscles come together to make that and turn into that one large tendon. So if I press just below the knee cap on the patella tendon, it stretches the quadriceps over top of the knee, so the muscle spindles within the quadriceps should sense that stretch and respond very quickly with contraction. So when I smack the bottom of your knee there or your knee cap. We quickly stretch the quadriceps. The quadriceps then result in a quick contraction in your knee and your foot flings up in the air. If that doesn’t work for some reason, you could have some sort of neurological issue or spinal cord issue going on. Some people just don’t respond that thing very well, so don’t freak out, but that’s what they’re doing.

But what you also notice with this test is if you tapped, very lightly you wouldn’t see a response. Also, if you tapped hard but slowly you wouldn’t see the response either. And so the amount of stretch shortening cycle contraction we get is in part based on how hard it’s stretched and how quickly it stretched, where to come back to. This concept and a little bit here, but don’t forget that stress during the cycle is dependent upon again the level of stretch as well as how quickly it is stretched.

Now the Golgi tendon organs are a little bit different…

. They live in the attendance of the muscle spindles live in the muscle that GTOs Golgi tendon organs living in intended and unlike spindles where they send stretch and respond by contracting GTOs sense tension and respond by telling the muscle to stop contracting. The common thing that we teach in class here is from the image you can imagine it is a sensory organ, just like a spindle. So the tendon, which is the part that connects the muscle to the bone is going to sense a lot of force, a lot of contraction, like you’re doing a really heavy muscle contraction, you’re trying to pick something up and there’s a lot of force going on in the tendon and the GTO decides this is too much. I’m going to send a signal back of the spinal cord and block those same alpha motor neurons. So again, unlike a spindle which causes contraction and GTO causes relaxation. So instead of stimulating the alpha motor neurons, it inhibits the alpha motor neurons and you see, you can see the little stop octagon. I’ve got there on the other end. And so we’ve got this a little bit of a complimentary system.

If you were to stand on one foot and imagine you’re falling to one side to the outside over here, the medial parts, the inside of my calf would start being stretched as I fall this direction, so as the medial part of my calf is being stretched, the muscle spindles would activate contract and pulled me back the midline. That’s the point of a muscle spindle. A GTO is a little bit different. If I were to be stretching my calf too far here and the GTO thought that we’re in a situation where if we continue to have forced production in this muscle, something will tear. It’ll stop the contraction. So two different functions, both a bit protective one to put you back to midline, the other to stop you from tearing muscle.

I’ll be honest with you here.

I don’t think that’s exactly what GTOs do.

In fact, most of the research indicates that’s not actually what they do, but we’ll have to come back to this later. Or maybe best case scenario, you’ll go into a deep dive and look up GTOs, what they actually function with the research says, and maybe there’s somebody out there who’s a GTO expert and you can let me know, send me an email or write a comment here and correct me here because I don’t actually think that’s how they work, but for the part of our story, and you know what? I’m a man who doesn’t believe that the truth should ever get in the way of a good story. So we’re going to move right on.

So if we go back to this original concept then, how does this apply to dynamic and static stretching?

Well, I said earlier, the consequence of dynamic stretching is this not going to really induce a lot of permanent changes in range of motion? But why? Well, on the flip side, why does static allow both acute so immediate and long-term changes and range of motion? Has this actually happened? Now that we know a little bit about the physiology of movement. Let’s take a look. Here’s back to our schematic. Well, here’s what we know. If I do some static stretching, I can see very acute changes in range of motion, very immediate, and that’s probably mostly because of the nervous system.

So think about, touch your toes right now.

Well give it two more seconds.

Three more seconds.

You see an immediate improvement in your quote unquote range of motion of your hamstrings within seconds.

Do you think your hamstring muscle really got longer or hamstrings got longer?

Then why are you able to actually touch your toes?

You may have seen people do things like you stand here and just rub your hamstring or a low lacrosse ball on the bottom of your foot and you immediately see an improvement range of motion.

That’s not because of the muscle. It’s not because a level two it’s because of level one. You’ve got a little bit of neurology that’s holding on. And this is why we can also do fun things like rub the back of our head or have perhaps a needle stuck in our arm or even do breathing drills. And somehow we immediately see improvements in range of motion. Well, there is a neurological component. And you can be held in neurological positions because of stress, anxiety or other issues.

So if I do static stretching, when I go to stretch my hamstrings, for example, remember those muscle spindles immediately turn on. If you stretch the hamstring, it wants to contract and fight that. But after a few seconds it realizes all, Oh, this is intentional. Okay, well relax. And so what happens is a couple of seconds in the muscle spindles that are fighting, you relax and you start to gain range of motion. But I remember that’s coming from you, not actually gaining and range of motion. It’s just you letting go of the restriction you had. It’s kind of a double negative, right? So you remove the inhibitor and you’re actually able to get to that current range of motion that you, that you enjoy.

The other thing that can happen is this…

Now there’s a method of stretching that is very effective called PNF proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching. So let’s take the example of the hamstrings muscle group. And let’s imagine we’re doing a hamstring stretch. Whichever one you like. It can be the seen in Hurdler stretch or whatever one you’re doing. Now, if you were to sit there and you, if you were while you stretched your hamstring, you flex your quad really hard. In fact, if you ever pay attention, you noticed that’s what we’re always cuing, If you’re stretching your hip flexor, what should you be squeezing your glute, right? If I’m stretching my triceps, we should be flexing the opposite side. So we’re always flexing the exact opposite muscle.

Why is that?

Because the muscle spindles and the hamstring are turned off when the opposite muscles contract, it’s called reciprocal inhibition. Body understands I’m trying to contract with my quad in order to do that I have to let go of my hamstring to let my quad actually move. If not, I’d be stuck in an isometric hold. And so if we’re trying to gain range of motion, we can trick our neurological system to turning off the muscle spindles by flexing the opposite muscle really hard. And that’s not exactly PNF stretching, but it’s a really good concept for stretching.

PNF is this second bullet point, which is now what we would do is we would flex that quadriceps. So we would get a nice big range of motion or hamstrings and then we would start contracting our hamstring. Of course, let go with the quadriceps. But you would flex the hamstring 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or whatever you want to do. Five seconds, ten second holds, something like that where you flex the hamstring, then you relax the hamstring and you notice, Oh wow, I can stretch my hamstring farther now, what happened? This contract relax contracts idea is called PNF stretching and it takes advantage of the GTOs.

So remember the GTOs and the hamstrings are going to sense tension and they cause the hamstring to relax. Remember, they block the alpha motor neurons. So if I put a little bit of tension in them on on purpose, activate the GTOs, the GTOs will then block the muscle activation and causes the muscle to relax. Because of that, I gain an acute range of motion. So I can use this again acutely or chronically. Number one, if I’m just needing to get some hamstring flexibility or some triceps flexibility or whatever I need, I can do a little bit of stretching prior to my workout and gained some acute range of motion. I can also use this as a chronic stretching tool and it’s fairly effective. In fact, it’s probably my favorite method of stretching for that purpose. And that’s working because of what’s called autogenic inhibition. But it’s the same idea you’re turning on the GTOs, getting the muscle to relax. Very good thing for honestly just general relaxation too. So if you’re trying to do some relaxation drills the night before a big competition, or you’re stressed because of finals week or something like that, they spend 10 minutes doing a whole button is six minutes, three minutes doing a whole body, a PNF stretch kind of thing. Autogenic ambition, turn things on and let it relax, gain range of motion, et cetera. So it’s really helpful for that. Okay, so that’s the acute side. On the chronic side, here’s what we probably know. If you see any improvements in range of motion or flexibility over the course of say, Hey, a month later, two months later, three months later, it’s probably not nervous system based. Again, if you fix that, if you have that issue that’s kind of just kind of get you to the level that you normally have, you’re going to stop blocking. But how do you add more range of motion? Well, it’s not going to come from muscle either. Now technically there’s a mechanism in which you can add Serco mirrors and serial line and lengthen the actual muscle, but that is a different thing where entirely my money and we need more research in this area, no doubt about it, but my money is that any real changes in range of motion you have are actually coming from the connective tissue and what we know is that takes time and load, so you have to kind of hold it, be in those positions for a very long time because remember there is no blood flow in a connective tissue. It’s not something that’s really that plastic and adaptable compared to the muscle itself. And so we have to invest a bit of time in the connected tissue to really see changes there, but that is much easier to do than actually lengthening the muscle itself. My estimation anyways, again, and we do need more research in this area. It’s not at all clear, but that’s probably what we’re looking at. And so if we look at the package combined, static stretching is going to give us that nervous system because of autogenic and reciprocal inhibition and it’s going to give us, or it’s allow us to see in PR improvements and changes in the connected tissue itself, which will actually lead to changes in position. And so if we really have an athlete or a client, individual or yourself that really actually needs to see some changes in mobility, flexibility, we don’t want to eliminate static stretching entirely. We need to understand when to use it though. And so we’ll come back to our, our thing here and we’ll do the inverse, which is talk about dynamic. So we said the pros of dynamic are that they can improve performance, the consequences are of static or they can, they hurt performance. So let me give you an example. Do me a favor here. If you’re able to only stand up and I want you to perform a counter movement jump, I’ll give you just a second. If you don’t know what that is, stand up nice and tall. Get as fast as you can and jump as fast as you can. Now don’t land on anything and tear an ACL or rolled ankle or anything, but go ahead and do one for me. If you’re on the ground doing an explosive jump, push up. Do some real explosive movement. Go ahead, do it. I’m not, I’m not kidding. We’re not moving on. Now we’re going to stay right here and tell all of you do it. Every single one of you do it. Okay, you jumped counter moving. Now do it one more time, but do it faster. In other words, remember the muscle spindle thing. If I do a counter movement, jump and then try to explode versus dip and drive. The faster you dip and drive the more muscle spindle activation, we can get higher. You’ll jump right there. We’re using muscle spindles to our advantage by putting the hamstrings and glutes on a quick stretch. We can go to or convince or cheat or glutes, the hamstrings and the contracting really quickly. Okay, got that counter movement. Jump in. Now, what I want you to do is this. Stand up all the way. Shake it out. I’m going to have you squat all the way down now. I would do it right now, but you would lose me on camera. In fact, squat all the way down and hold. And now Ryan’s going to let this clock. Ryan, can you, if you can put a clock on the screen here and let it run for a minute. Go. And we’re going to hold this position for a whole minute and you should notice a couple of different things. Hey, number one as a second skull by state, get your ass back down there. I didn’t say stand up. Hold that squat hold all the way down there. As the time goes on, you’ll start to see improvement. Range of motion. Remember what we talked about earlier. Hey you static stretch. You will see acute range of motion improvements, neurological systems turning off. In other words, turning muscle spindles off GTOs probably not doing a lot here, but muscle spindles are going on and you’re seeing a very small and in fact may be very large. Improve range of motion. Keep holding. Ryan, you let this thing run until that whole minute comes up and at the end of this minute we’re going to jump up as high as you can. Now, a couple things before we jump, do not bounce, so don’t read it. Don’t stand up a little bit. Go back down and jump. Want you to go from exactly where you’re at right now and when this one minute clock ends explode, jump up. Boom.

How many of you got very high in the air?

Probably none of you are.

In fact, some of you probably didn’t even clear the ground.

Now which one of these times, this one or the counter room would jump?

Did you jump higher?

Certainly the one before, right?

Well, why is that?

Why did that short pout of static stretching, although it improved range of motion,

Why did it hurt performance?

Well, two things. Number one, it’s actually dissipating kinetic energy. And so the way we create human movement, it’s a three part system, nerve and muscle and connective tissue. Well, the nerve is a signal. The actual contraction or force production comes from the muscle and a connected tissue so your muscle can contract anytime you tell it to. And it has its own way to produce ATP and energy to create force. But the only thing we can do for connected tissue, since it doesn’t have actin and myosin, it doesn’t have metabolism really, is we can put some energy in the system called kinetic energy and then extracts and energy out. So by putting in muscle on stretch, we start stretching connective tissue when we start putting energy into that system. But if you hold that for long enough, that energy eventually dissipates. So then when I go to contract, I’m left with only the muscle that contribute to force production. I mean, imagine a rubber band. If I held the rubber band that pulled it back a little bit and let it go and snap with some force, if I pulled it back a lot, it was snapping a lot more forest. So more stretch, more force. And if I pulled it back quickly and snapped it, I would get a big snap out of it. All right, well again, see the strength video and all this, but think of the connected tissue like a rubber band. If though I pulled that rubber band way out and it held like that for 10 years, when I let it go, what happened to the rubber band, it probably wouldn’t move at all, right? So we lost elasticity. I now have that as an extreme example, but the same things happening on a smaller level where you can lose the kinetic energy that we store up in the connective tissue. So again, to reiterate the acute stretch. If I already dip and drive, the more stretched, the more forced production. But if I do it for too long, I lose my kinetic energy. And the faster the stretch, the more forced production. So then take a look at something like this you’ve all seen somebody do this. Oh, what happened right there? Let’s think about the physiology. So parents going down there, he’s squatting and right there, why did he do that? All right, why do people balance at the bottom? We’ll see it on a bench press right? Come back up, maybe rebound, bounce back up. We see it very consistently in a squad. What happens as you’re sitting at the bottom of that squat there, we start to lose that kinetic energy. So that means our contribution for forced production are going entirely on the muscle. We’re losing all of the connected tissue. What happens if I do that? Quick little rebound? I can actually put some energy back into that connective tissue and I can reactivate muscle spindles because remember when we statically stretch like that and the muscle spindles turn off. But if I kind of shake them up for a quick second, even a half second like that, we get a little bit of connective muscle spindle activation again. All right, so should I bounce like that? Well, what have we learned? Everything has a pro and a con, right? So we got to think through it. Why do that rebound? We can add Connecticut energy. Like I said, and we can reactivate the strength sorting cycle. And so now what we can think about then is pausing if you’re familiar with strength training in all or the sports weight lifting or power lifting. Some coaches will use what are called pause squats or pause lifts. So imagine an athlete like that. They’d go down the bottom and they hold for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 seconds. They may rebound like that, but most of the time, but it’s going to come straight back up. It’s very different than somebody who goes down to the bottom of the control and then explodes off the bottom or bounces even intentionally on the bottom. Which one’s better? Well, it depends on our goal, right? Let’s think about physiology again. So if I’m going all the way to the bottom like that and I stop, I dissipate kinetic energy, which means I rely entirely on muscle. If I go quickly though, I’m actually doing the opposite. If I do a quick rebound, I’m relying heavily on neurology and heavy on connected tissue, especially if I do that quick rebound at the end range of motion. So if I do a quick rebound like this, like a vertical jump, I’m not really going to stretch the connected tissue because I didn’t really put the system on a range of motion. I’m just going to use nervous system. But if I do a full range of motion, I use the nervous system muscle spindles and I get the connected tissue because they’re really stretched out.

So depends on our goal.

Are we trying to train the muscle?

We trying to train the other parts of human movement? We’ve got to think about this first. That’s our answer. I don’t know the goal. I can’t tell you what to do. So here’s some examples. Myself personally I am very reactive as what I call it. So if I were to do a static vertical jump or a counter move a vertical jump, or if I did what’s called a static. So I go down and hold a quarter squat position for three or four seconds and then jump, which one should I jump higher with the squat and pause, the static jump or the counter room at jump? Well certainly should be the counter room at jump, right? In fact, almost all of us should be at the question is how much should they differ? If, say I had a 30 inch vertical with my paws and jump and then with my counter movement I had a 40 inch vertical. Well, here’s what that would tell me. I’m very good at getting power enforced production. When I get to use my connective tissue in the muscle spindles and so an athlete like me, I would have benefited from a lot more pause work because that was already very good at using connected tissue in the nervous system. My muscles were not as strong though as my nervous system and my connected tissue work, so if I take the nervous system and connect cut tissue out of it, in other words, go down and hold and stop. I force myself to improve my weakness, which in my case was the muscles side. If you look at an athlete who says, okay, did my static and I did my counter movement and I did 30 inches with my static in 31 with my counter, then I would say the opposite. You need to actually develop your connected tissue. You need to develop the muscles spindle side of things, so you need, don’t pause as much. I need you to maybe add a little more, bounce in there and get a little bit more snappy, a little bit snappier if you will. And so both are appropriate. And so we have to think about this when we’re thinking about our stretching paradigm, what are we trying to do? I know if I static stretch a ton, I’ll lose some energy in the connected tissue that’s going to put more reliance on muscle that’s going to decrease my performance. But maybe if my training goal is to take some burden off the connected tissue, put more on muscle. Who cares? It’s a part of my developmental program. It’s, I’m a freshman in high school. I don’t care about maximizing my jump now or it’s off season. I’m not in the season. Where are we really trying to work for? You don’t have those questions answered. I can’t answer the question of static versus dynamic, right? Or are we doing the opposite? Are we close to competition? Are we in the sport of power lifting or are we using squatting to be a better football player or a soccer player or tennis player? Or am I training for I purchasing? What am I training for, someone who’s training for say fat loss or health, they don’t probably care if they lose 10% of power production and training if it makes them feel better, if they get in a better range of motion and that allows them to get new better position so they’re not as injured as much. So all of this stuff has to go into context. Now that you understand the physiology, hopefully we can have better answers.

Should I stretch before or after or neither?

Now I want to see how you do here. So think through all the physiology. Can you envision situations at least one where it would be a good idea to do static stretching before working out?

Give me one time when it be smart to do static before working out.

I’ll give you one example.

Maybe somebody has really poor range of motion and it’s hard for them to do anything heavier fast without doing some stretching beforehand because they can’t get into a good position. So every time they go to squat, for example, since they have such poor range of motion in their hip sockets, as soon as they get to any depth, they start losing their low back position. Well, I don’t care if they lose 5% power, I’d rather than stay in a good position so they don’t get hurt. So in that particular case, I’d be happy to sacrifice a little bit of fatigue or a little bit of max force production or sprinting speed in order to gain range of motion and quality of movement. Now I’ll probably have to have a different strategy to chronically improve their range of motion. I can’t just do five minutes of stretching before a workout and think that’s going to actually change anything chronically, but I might be willing to sacrifice that.

Now could you give me the opposite?

Give me a scenario in which it would be maybe not the best idea to static stretch before a workout.

Maybe an athlete in peak competition. Probably don’t want to do 30 minutes to hamstring stretching before I try to win a gold medal in a hundred meter dash. Probably not smart idea at all. But I wouldn’t want to forget to warm up either. So in that particular case, what would I do? Maybe something more like a dynamic warm-up.

Now give me a third scenario. So give me a scenario in which say you have an athlete and its part of their brain and they just refuse to not stretch before the workout. They’re going to stretch one amount of what you say or you have a coach that makes you stretch. How can you fix this problem knowing that it’s going to compromise power a little bit, speed, force production.

Can you increase the time between stretching and performance?

Now the research is a bit unclear here and it kind of depends, but basically the longer you can give between the two, the better you can restore some of that kinetic energy and that elasticity to the connective tissue by waiting longer. So if you can do your stretching in the morning before your night competition, you’re, you’re probably going to be okay. And in fact, you’ll see a lot of athletes like to do this. They’ll do a good stretch mobility, loosen up thing in the morning and then compete at night. That’s probably fine if that’s not an option. And you have to do it like right before your workout. Well you can probably, again, really thin research here, but I think you can probably get away with doing some reactivation. And so you do your 15 or 20 minutes of static stretching. You kind of shut some things off unintentionally. Well, instead of just going into your squats, maybe do some hamstring activation stuff? So like fast things and get the hamstrings to turn back on again. I think you can mitigate some the problems or attenuate them at least by doing a reactivation. So we need a lot of work there and it’s really tough. A lot of coaches abused this activation concept, but it’s getting the right idea at least.

So to summarize…

Number one dynamic is pretty much always a good idea to do before a training.

Number two static is okay before training. If a couple of things, number one, range of motion is incredibly poor and that is going to compromise safety and we really don’t want that. Number two, if you’ve got more than probably 45 minutes or so between your stretching and your performance, again, the longer the better, but at least 45 minutes. And number three, if you have time to do some quote unquote reactivation work that will probably be behoove you before going in performance.

Best case scenario though, do your dynamic movements stuff before your workout.

Do your workouts and then if you need to gain the chronic range of motion, you can use that time, either post training or the day off to improve range of motion.

You can do a lot of static stretching after your workouts to work on your flexibility range of motion and mobility or on your off day.

Traveling for Your Next Competition? Coach Bott Walks Us Through The Science Behind Jet Lag and Travel Fatigue.

by Carmen Bott

Athletes are traveling more than ever.

Whether its for training or competition…traveling can have a huge effect on our athletic performance.

In today’s video, Coach Bott walks us through a 30 minute tutorial on combating fatigue and jet lag when traveling.

Jet Lag and Travel Fatigue

Click Here to Download The Complete Athlete Handbook from The Wrestler’s Edge Training Program

Carmen Bott has been in the sport performance and fitness training industry for over 20 years and is considered a resource in exercise prescription and strength coaching for the combative and collision sport athlete population(s). Carmen holds a bachelor’s in Human Kinetics and a Master’s degree in Exercise Physiology. As a member of the International Network of Wrestling Researchers, Coach Bott’s methods are grounded in science, but it is her 20+ years of experience that allow her to transfer the science into practice.

Performance Testing for Fighters

by Craig Ansbach

If you’re not testing…you’re guessing.

Testing should be a cornerstone of any sound training program. Testing can be done to evaluate a new fighter or re-assess a fighter returning at the start of camp. What and when you test is determined by the coach but there should always be a purpose behind the test. Testing for the sake of testing is often times a waste of time if it is not used to better build a program to make a fighter better. There should be clear goals for each test you do and result in valuable information that can be related back to some aspect of performance for the fighter.

At the Performance Ranch, we focus on an athlete centered approach and try to give our athletes the edge in all aspect of performance ranging for strength training, recovery, nutrition, mindfulness. We take a similar approach to our testing protocols for the strength and conditioning of our fighters. While the 1RM a fighter can press or squat is important, we take a more holistic approach incorporating other aspects such as body composition as well as movement, elastic, and cardiovascular qualities of our fighters as well.

The following are some of the testing protocols we use for our fighters that come through the door at the Performance Ranch:

Body Composition Scan:

We use the In-Body Scan to establish body composition when assessing an athlete especially during fight camp. The In-Body uses bioelectrical impedance to scan the body and reports on lean muscle mass, body fat, water levels, basal metabolic rates and asymmetries in the body. Having accurate body composition date helps the fighters have a basic understanding of where they currently are physically in regards to body fat percentage and lean muscle mass. By having this data, you can give your athlete a starting point for their weight cut and help monitor weigh decent through camp. This information can also be passed off to a nutritionist and other support staff to help established a fuel plan for a fight and weight cut.

Functional Movement Screen (FMS):

The FMS is the standard in assessing movement quality of any athlete. The FMS give the coaches the ability to assess how well an athlete moves through different patterns and start to determine if there are weak links within the body. These weak links identified could be a structural or neuromuscular issue. The FMS does not diagnose any conditions but it does identify patterns and gives the coach a starting point when working with a new athlete. Understanding basic human movement as well as the demands of the particular combat sport will help a coach better identify weak links and understand why some compensations in movement exists.

Dynamic Warm Up:

Often times a fighter will show up to train with a group and an FMS can not be completed during that time so the dynamic warm up serves as a great tool to assess movement quality. A dynamic warm up should include basic movements like squatting and hinging and overall body control while should taking place in different planes of motions. After watching an athlete warm up, a coach will have a good idea about the movement quality they possess. The warm up should serves as a daily assessment tool for established athletes movement quality before a workout. If an established athlete or group of athletes are having a difficult time with the warm up, due to fatigue or injuries, a change in workout may have to be made that day.

Vertical Jump Test:

Testing different vertical jumps allows you to determine strength and power qualities of an athlete. At the Performance Ranch, we use the Jump Mat technology to measure height but you can also use a Vertec or wall to measure jump height. The two test we focus on are the non-counter movement (NCM) and counter movement (CM) jumps. We use these two jumps because they can illustrate the strength qualities of a fighter. The non-counter movement jump takes out the elastic qualities by pausing for 3 seconds before jumping. The counter movement jump displays elastic/power qualities by using the stretch shortening cycle to produce a more forceful jump. Observing both numbers will show you how efficient an athlete is at utilizing the stretch shortening cycle. Often times, an athlete with a higher CM jump is much more efficient in utilizing the stretch shortening cycle and is a more dynamic athlete. On the other hand, an athlete with similar NCM and CM jumps show that the athlete may not be efficient in utilizing the stretch shorting cycle and is more strength based. The goal is to move both the jump height up with training and increase the gab in-between the NCM and CM jump in the case that the two jumps have a similar height.

Non-Counter Movement (NCM) Jump:

The non-counter movement jump is preformed when an athlete stays in loaded in a jump for 3 seconds to allow for the elastic energy to dissipate. After 3 seconds the athlete jumps as high as they can and land on the mat. They are given 2 attempts and the highest jump is recorded.

Counter Movement (CM) Jump:

The counter-movement jump is performed the same way but without the 3 second pause. This time, the athlete loads up the jump and immediately jumps as high as possible and lands on the mat. They are given 2 attempts and the highest jump is recorded.

Anaerobic Power Test:

The anaerobic power test is done and the Watt Bike and is an all out sprint effort on the bike for 6 seconds. During the 6 second burst, max watt output and anaerobic power are measured. This test gives us a look at the anaerobic energy system of a fighter. This data is especially important because a large number of fights are typically won during quick anaerobic bursts. Getting a baseline for fighters will help improve anaerobic output overtime and set a benchmark for watt output when performing anaerobic conditioning in training sessions.

3 Minute Aerobic Test:

The 3-minute test assess aerobic fitness by using the Watt Bike. The test is performing an all out but sustained pace for the whole 3 minutes. The test can establish both estimated max heart rate and VO2 max. By having this data, a coach can establish HR training zones for different glycolytic conditioning as well as monitor recovery through heart rate monitoring. Besides creating HR zones for conditioning, this test is great for teaching fighters to maintain a pace at a high intensity for a longer duration. Being able to maintain a sustained high effort transfers to the ability to maintain a pace in a fight.

In conclusion, testing give both coaches and athletes an objective starting point for where they are physically and can help establish future training goals. These are some of the test we look to incorporate into our training with our combat athletes. Generally, these tests are done with an athlete when they first start training with us or when a new camp starts. Many gyms and coaches have their own testing protocol based on the available resources. In most cases, it is not the equipment that make great testing system but rather the coach taking the information from a test and applying the information to get the best results for their athletes.

Craig Ansbach is a strength and conditioning coach at the Performance Ranch in Albuquerque, NM. Craig earned his bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology and his masters in Physical Education/Sports Administration. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (C.S.C.S) from the NSCA and is also a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Craig has coached combat athletes from all disciplines including BJJ black belt world champions and UFC athletes.

Top 5 Things Wrestlers Should Do to Stay Healthy

Interview by Coach Carmen Bott
Answers by Tim Nanassy, Physiotherapist

Coach Bott: Tell me about your background as a Therapist.

Tim: I graduated 2003 from the University of Manitoba, Faculty of Medicine with a Bachelor of Medical Rehabilitation (Physical Therapy). I have the ongoing privilege to work as a Physiotherapist, internationally with the Canadian National Wrestling Team since 2010. I am also a clinical Instructor for the University of Manitoba Physiotherapy program and a clinical examiner for the Canadian National Physiotherapy Competence Exam. Social media IG: @sportandspinephysio

Coach Bott: Tim, “who” do you help?

Tim: I help patients from all demographics and ages. These have included Olympians across many sports with a special interest in Wrestling, MMA, and Boxing. I also work with many professional athletes including CFL football players, bodybuilders, baseball players, rugby players as well as several CIS and NCAA Division I & II athletes.

Coach Bott: In your opinion, What is Self Care?

Tim: My definition of this is easy: Self Care is anything and everything an athlete does to cope with the rigors and stresses of being an athlete, among other life responsibilities, in order to manage, perform and balance their lives for optimal health and success.

Coach Bott: Why is self care important?

Tim: Self-care is vital if you want to be the best athlete, human being, brother, sister, friend, boyfriend or girlfriend you can possibly be. You’re no good to anybody if you don’t take care of yourself first. Some people call it selfish, but in fact it’s the opposite. Making yourself better by caring for yourself, enhances your life (and athletic life!!) and everyone’s lives around you.

Coach Bott: What are the Top 5 “things” Wrestlers should do to keep themselves healthy from your standpoint?

Tim:

Control what you can absolutely control: These are my 4 Golden Rules for my wrestlers.

Hydrate Hydrate Hydrate: Minimum of ½ your body weight (lbs) in ounces per day. Aim for full bodyweight in ounces on training/and competition days. If you weigh 150 lbs, that’s 75 oz a day (roughly 9.5 glasses) and 150 oz a day respectively.

Nutrition (JERF): Just Eat Real Food…. whole foods including fruits, vegetables, lean protein sources, nuts/seeds/healthy fats and yes, whole grains. Avoid processed refined garbage sugar laden food!

Sleep. Eight hours a night. This is not debatable!!! Recovery, healing from injury and training, muscle growth and brain inflammation clearing all occurs during sleep.

Reduce Stress!!! Whether it be through meditation, movies, hanging with friends etc. Absolutely anything that gives you as an athlete an outlet, your own time to chill, relax and forget about life stresses and your sport stresses.

2. Don’t forget your Foundation. Toe, foot, ankle mobility, stability and strength. You don’t want to build $1 billion athletic body on top of a $10 foundation. Most of the time spent in wrestling practice, is spent in very narrow shoes, and then in training, I usually see cushioned, stability-controlled shoes. Free your feet when not in wrestling shoes. Train and relax in bare feet, or human shoes (flat, flexible sole, and wide toe box) to allow your feet to be feet, and to keep your hips and glutes firing on all cylinders. Any avoidance of foot and ankle training will undoubtedly lead to upstream problems (ankle, knee, hip and back issues)

3. Work those Hips!! Naturally hip mobility and strong glutes are vital for wrestlers. If you are a student/ athlete, you know the dangers of prolonged sitting. This shuts off your body’s energy to your glutes and downstream problems happen quickly (knee ankle and foot and heel problems). Move, move, and move some more. Ideally mobilize the hips 10 minutes for every 1 hr you are sitting.

4. Utilize your off days: On days off from the gym and from practice, mobilize mobilize and mobilize. Thoracic spine, shoulders, Low back, hips, ankles feet. Hit the foam roller, lacrosse ball, hot tub, sauna, go for a walk, light run, swim, bike etc. The more mobile and supple you are, the more stable and stronger you become. This will help you shoot better, roll better, throw better, defend better, and ultimately score more.

5. Take a Break! If you’re feeling burnt out, tired, not motivated etc., there’s no harm to get away from it all, go to a spa for a day, take a week of vacation, go for a long walk, listen to music, or simply do something out of your element to change your mindset. Play a different sport, mix up your routine or challenge your brain with some fun games. Surround yourself with positive people who push you in the right direction.

Contact Tim here on Instagram: @sportandspinephysio

Click Here to Download The Athlete Handbook, from The Wrestler’s Edge

Concussions in Combat Sports

Interview by Coach Carmen Bott
Answers by Conor Collins, RMT

All athletes will benefit from an entire care team. I call this a ‘pit crew.’ Each member of the team serves a role in athlete development and care. On my team, I have sport psychology, therapy and nutrition. We all have the same intake files on each athlete we see and add to the file as we see fit. This can only help and athlete. Everyone must work together and must share information. Today, I have the privilege of talking with Conor Collins about concussions in combat sports.

Coach Bott: Tell me about your background as a Therapist. Specifically, how do you help athletes recover from concussions?

Conor: My name is Conor. I am a Massage Therapist, Sports Injury Therapist and Acupuncture practitioner with a clinical practice outside of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. My practice is focused on sports injuries with a special interest in concussion, post-concussion syndrome and persistent post-concussive symptoms.

I help athletes recover from concussion through a thorough assessment process following a head injury. While determining whether an athlete has a concussion is crucial, it is equally as important to determine when an athlete does not have a concussion.

Following an acute injury, an athlete history is taken which includes concussion history as well as any other factors that may lead to a potential drawn-out prognosis. This includes (but is not isolated to) the number of prior concussions suffered, a history of anxiety, depression or other mood disorders and history of learning difficulties. We also review a history of headaches and sleep disturbances.

Following a health history, a thorough neurological exam is performed and then a more focal concussion examine is performed which includes tools to assess dizziness, vertigo, the nervous system, the vestibular (balance system) and the oculomotor system, or how the eyes and brain communicate in terms of visual-spatial recognition.

During the assessment athlete symptoms typically trend more towards one concussion subtype. From there a rehabilitation program is built, modified and progressed for each individual athlete. Programs are not cookie cutter and vary weekly, if not daily. Programs always include heart rate guided cardiovascular exercise due to the mounting evidence on its benefit in post-concussion populations.

Symptoms are monitored throughout the program until athletes are symptom-free. At that time athletes are returned to the overseeing physician to be returned to sport. Time frames for return to sport vary from athlete to athlete.

Coach Bott: “Are there better screening practices than others?”

Conor: Yes, the most popularly marketed screening tools are baseline neurocognitive testing tools such as the ImPACT test. While these tools offer valuable information there is much debate as to whether or not baseline neurocognitive testing is useful in sport. Furthermore, it’s utility in the average multidisciplinary clinic may not offer value as many practitioners, including myself, are unable to interpret and direct test results with the same clinical expertise as a neuropsychiatrist. If neurocognitive testing is being used as a screening tool, I am of the opinion this process should be overseen by a neuropsychiatrist or psychologist.

There are other pre-season screening practices that are used which include reaction time testing, the King-Devick test and mBESS test to name a few. These tests give an overall picture of how the nervous system is functioning pre-injury. Again, there is a lot of controversy as to the validity of these tests, in terms of whether or not they can accurately detect a concussion in athletes either pre-season or post-injury.

Personally, I use near point convergence as one of my primary screens. Convergence is the ability of the brain to move the eyes towards the nose as an object approaches it. Failure to do so results in the athlete seeing double (diplopia). A normal near point convergence measurement is between 4-6cm. Measurements outside of this range may catch an underlying issue with the eyes, or persistent symptoms from a prior concussion that the athlete may not be reporting. Athletes with a convergence insufficiency following head injury generally have a longer prognosis for recovery. Near point convergence allows therapists to compare post-injury measures against baseline and provides objective data on whether or not the athlete is improving. While we know a convergence insufficiency will spontaneously resolve in the majority of concussions, catching those that do not allow us to accurately implement (or refer out for) ocular rehab.

One thing is clear is that there is not one screening concussion tool that will give you the entire picture of an athlete. The more information you have about the athlete prior to the injury in terms of both health history and objective testing the better picture you will have to compare to moving forward.

Coach Bott: “Are there risk factors or red flags athletes need to be more aware of?”

Conor: Yes, firstly you do not need to lose consciousness to sustain a concussion.

Secondly, you do not need to hit your head to sustain a concussion. Concussions are caused by the brain moving inside the skull. This can occur from a blow to the head, or a whiplash-type injury to the neck or trunk, which causes the brain to move rapidly within the skull.

There is some evidence that females suffer concussions more than males. There is also evidence to support that a history of concussions may lead to a drawn-out recovery in subsequent head injuries. There seems to be something about 3 concussions that lead to an increased risk of long term complications however this is not entirely clear in the literature. As cited earlier a history of mood disorder and/or learning disability can often lead to drawn out recovery.

Symptoms of acute concussion include (but are not isolated to) headache, nausea, double vision, dizziness, and confusion. If you have lost consciousness a concussion has been sustained and the athlete is to be removed from play. The idea of having your “bell rung” is part of sports culture, more often than not the athlete will have sustained a concussion and continues to play. This point is particularly important when discussing second impact syndrome. Second impact syndrome is death due to a subsequent hit to the head following an acute concussion.

Cases of second impact syndrome are almost solely reported in persons below the age of 18. For this reason, it is important to adopt a “when in doubt, sit them out” policy in youth sports and continue to educate young athletes on the importance of self-reporting symptoms.

Hits to the head may also cause more significant injuries outside of concussions including bleeding in the brain, fracture, and spinal cord injury. If these injuries are suspected the athlete should be left in place, while the paramedics are called. While some athletes may vomit following a head injury excessive repeated vomiting is a red flag. Any further declines in the athlete’s ability to orient themselves to time or place as well as motor function should also be taken very seriously.

Coach Bott: “Are concussion more prevalent or are they being detected /diagnosed much better?”

Conor: Good question. I think they are being detected more accurately and with emerging awareness and education being discussed more, the public is more aware of the impact concussions play inside and outside of sport.
There are still areas of concern in my opinion. First, is athlete underreporting. We do know there is still a relatively large percentage of athletes that underreport concussion in fear of losing their place on a team. This may also be perpetuated by coaching and sports culture. Coaches should create an open-door policy and encourage the health and well-being of their athletes first. Creating an environment of “playing through pain” and telling athletes to “toughen up” will decrease the number of athletes that report concussions and put athletes at risk.

Secondly, there are conditions that are being misclassified as a concussion. This is particularly true for athletes that may have suffered a concussion in the past. As concussion symptoms are often ambiguous, many of their symptoms fall under the classifications of other injuries and/or diseases.

This again only brings about the importance of having as much subjective and objective data on the patient at the time the injury is suffered. If there is any doubt about whether the athlete is concussed, the athlete should be removed from play and re-evaluated either the next day and/or by another practitioner to get a second opinion.

One thing is very clear, an athlete is NEVER to be returned to play on the same day when a concussion is suspected.

Conor is in his 12th year of manual therapy and movement education. As both a massage therapist and sports injury therapist, Conor provides a unique approach to clinical practice combining disciplines of manual therapy integrated with movement-based rehabilitation strategies.
With over a decade of taping experience, Conor applies new concepts of movement based taping with traditional athletic taping protocols. Outside of clinical practice, Conor instructs upcoming manual therapists at the college level.

During his career, he has also had the pleasure of managing athletes and consulting for national level and club teams in both the NHL and NCAA. Conor shares a special clinical interest in concussion management and has spent many years treating endurance triathletes and runners.

Stay in Touch with Conor:

Web – www.conorpcollins.com
IG – @conorpaulcollins
FB – www.facebook.com/cpcollins

Developing Young Athletes for Combat Sports

by Jared Saavedra

We are starting to see the evolution of the combat athlete. In the past, skill sets were limited and toughness was the common denominator. These days, athletes are more skilled, well rounded and have access to top coaches around the globe. However, along with new skill acquisition is the need for total athletic development of combat athletes….and that starts when we are young.

Ideally young children should be active and play.

For example, kids between the ages of 7-9 should be able to demonstrate movements such as:

tumbling
skipping
rolling
hopping
dodging
spinning
marching
stopping
bounding
etc.

Most of these can be learned through various games and play.

Many kids these days are rolling, wrestling, boxing and some are even training for MMA at a very young age. We are now seeing the negative effects of “sport specialization” where a youth athlete only participates in a single sport at a young age and only focuses on the movements required in that sport as opposed to developing a wide variety qualities. Young athletes should have a wide variety of stimuli and should be active to develop well rounded athletic foundation. Numerous studies have directly linked the effects of sport specialization to burn out and a huge increase of overuse injuries. The rate of injuries are skyrocketing; kids are experiencing burn out as well as lacking other athletic and movement skills needed to be successful.

Regardless of sport, being a better athlete has tremendous advantages in competition, so it is more important than ever that we organize and prioritize our training at the earlier stages of an athlete’s development. Young athletes should have a wide variety of stimulus and should be active to develop well rounded athletic foundation. Specializing at a young age and competing all year round can be detrimental.

If you are a youth combat athlete, focus on becoming the best athlete you can be. Learn how to properly move, jump, run, land etc. before getting too specific. As your body is becoming more physically mature, various training methods and techniques can then begin to take precedence in your programming once movement literacy is achieved.

Power, strength, stability and speed are all qualities that you can train and develop to assist in sharpening your tools in your toolbox. If you are stronger, more powerful and move better than your opponent you will:

Have the ability to exert more force into your punches, kicks, chokes, throws, etc.
Develop other aspects of athletic ability (linear and lateral movement) that directly transfer to other sports.
Keep you healthier and allow you more quality training on the mats, ring, cage to get better at your sport. (If you are always injured, can you get that much better?)

In my career working with youth athletes of all sports, as well as high level fighters in various disciplines, I strongly encourage youth combat athletes to participate in a total athletic development program as early as 10 years old. Young athletes need to learn how to control their bodies and require a variety of stimuli to become well rounded. While I encourage some guided activity, it is also important to allow kids to play and participate in a variety of activities.

Coach Jared has over 10 years of training and coaching experience. He holds a Master’s Degree in (Physical Education Sports Administration) from the University of New Mexico. He holds four training certificates from nationally and internationally recognized associations. He has experience working with:

Variety of Youth Athletes
D1 Collegiate Athletes
Professional Athletes
Navy Seals
Delta Force Special Operators

Eccentric Isometrics – How and Why to Implement This Method for Ridiculous Strength Gains

Written by: Jacob James

Eccentric Isometrics have the ability improve your power, strength, stability, movement efficiency and much more.

Eccentric Isometrics (EI’s) have a hugely beneficial and relevant carryover of key performance attributes to combat athletes. EI’s in one way or another have been a staple in training programmes for decades, from Olympic weightlifting to bodybuilding. Strength coaches have been utilizing these methods under different named umbrellas with great success.

Most prevalent and at the forefront of EI’s has been Dr Joel Seedman of Advanced Human Performance. Joel has immensely and thoroughly bought to light about the advantages of utilising EI’s within a systematic and methodic approach to strength and performance training. In fact, he has the most resources on the subject, including a 10-year-in-the-making book (and his doctoral dissertation) which outlines the subject in great detail – so be sure to check him out here.

Eccentric Isometrics – Synopsis

EI’s are not a new training method. As aforementioned they have been effectively used for decades across disciplines with great yielding results. To break things down to a digestible definition, essentially we are looking at performing a movement whereby the eccentric portion of the lift is lowered in a controlled manner, holding the bottom of that position before completing the actual lifting phase of the movement. Below, I break down multiple benefits to performing EI’s in general, with specific carry over to combat athletes, as well as practical applications you can implement right away.

Enhanced Power, Stability, Strength & Movement Efficiency

Without shadow of a doubt, EI’s are a surefire way to turbocharge your training, clean up your movement patterns and pack some serious power into your shots. One of the mechanisms behind the success of EI’s come down to their ability to increase post activation potentiation – the all important process of priming your CNS for strength training thus allowing the athlete to yield a greater training effect from their dedicated S&C Session. Another importance of EI’s is that of better sensory feedback and an increase in proprioreception – essentially tidying up body mechanics, body positioning, improving motor control and neural firing patterns, all of which allow for a greater training effect. Furthermore from this, left-right imbalances are addressed when utilising EI’s in a unilateral (one-sided) format. Lastly, muscle stiffness and EI’s go hand in hand. In lay-mans muscle stiffness is a sought after attribute for its ability to produce insane amounts of power. Due to the controlled nature of the lowering phase, the pausing and holds at the bottom position (so long as proper body mechanics are attained) the athlete can express increased movement velocity.

Modify & Master Technique & Form

When it comes to ‘corrective exercises’ (a term dubbed by strength coaches and personal trainers to try and remedy poor body mechanics by using special exercises) – there is nothing more corrective than correct movement, period. EI’s allow the athlete to really hone in on and dial their technique to near mastery by reinforcing correct movement patterns, again largely due to the control nature and natural pauses associated with EI’s.

Facilitates Immense Force Absorption Capabilities

Teaching your body to move efficiently and utilising the most biomechanically accurate positions whilst running EI protocols will in-turn fine tune your body to dealing with eccentric forces as well as increasing your ability to absorb high impact force as efficiently as possible. Any strength and conditioning programme for building athleticism and any multi dimensional and multi directional sports that we are involved with in the combat realm, should systemically and periodically place emphasis on the athletes ability to increase their efficiency at absorbing force. EI’s are a great tool to implement to profit from these benefits.

Optimal Range of Motion

There is a lot more to the implementation of EI’s than simply holding the deepest position you can find, but instead allowing the athlete to produce their most natural range of motion whilst staying as sound and tight as possible. This will lead to a biomechanically sound range of motion which will adhere much better with the athlete and thus produce a longer term greater training effect without a long list of side-effect like symptoms of overtraining.

Practical Application

Okay, so how to we go about implementing EI’s into a training programme? EI’s are a useful protocol for a vast majority of movements. In order to obtain your most bang-for-buck however, movements involving a significant stretch and muscle lengthening are deemed to be most effective. Here are a few examples. Any squat variation (such as a Zercher squat), hinge variation (such as an RDL), pull variation (such as a single arm lat pull down) and press variation (such as a DB overhead press) are all staples. Feel free to allow creativity to flow – experiment and see what’s effective. Bilateral and unilaterally based movements are equally as a effective as one another however, unilateral movements (single limb i.e. single leg RDL) tend to cater better for those with poor biomechanics when it comes to bilateral movements and make for amazing correct movement patterns.

Movement wise therefore, you can’t really go wrong. Sure there’s always going to be a good / better / best scenario given your athletes variables and training outcome desires but its pretty foolproof. How about rep ranges and tempos? Given that there are significant changes in repetition pace than what might already be considered ‘normal’ it’s generally recommended and in best practice to perform movements in the 1-6 rep range. The time under tension will yield quality over quantity all day long, here. The eccentrics should be lowered for between 3-6 seconds with the isometric being held for between 2-7 seconds. Any less than this and you’ll negate any benefits from pausing the lengthened position and any longer than this will add to fatigue accumulation, again negating the intended positive outcomes we are looking for. When it comes to intensity, this is completely tailored to the individual – essentially start conservative and adjust as needed until your moving the weight at the given tempo for the given reps and being an 8 RPE (simply meaning you should finish the set with in theory another 2 left in the tank) which should be increased when overloaded over time as part of a systematic training programme. Heres an example of how EI’s should be interpreted:

Barbell Zercher Good Morning @ 53X1
5 3 X 1 – This is how you should write your desired tempos and this is how to interpret them:

5 – The duration of the eccentric portion of the lift
3 – The duration of the isometric hold
X – The concentric, ‘lifting part’ means as fast as good form allows
1 – The duration of rest at the “top” or “rest” portion of the lift

Can they be used in camp? Absolutely – EI’s are equally as effective in season/camp as they are outside of camp/ off season. Due to the quality of the reps, the sound movement mechanics built, the negation of inflammation etc. EI’s are a solid choice all round.

Summary Of Key Points

EI’s improve your power, strength, stability and movement efficiency
Performing controlled eccentrics and pausing at your biomechanical end-range yields for fantastic benefits across performance and longevity indicators
Correct up your movement patterns and mobility issues with EI’s
Teach yourself proper force absorption and efficiency
Use across a whole host of bilateral and unilateral exercises… year round

Lower for between 3-6 seconds, hold for between 2-7 seconds and fill the rest of the tempo in as efficiently as form allows

Final Words & Video Examples

Whether your a wrestler, MMA fighter, a blue belt or just someone that likes to workout, the addition of EI’s into your training protocol will allow you to yield so much from your training sessions, making them highly effective and turning you into a battle-ready beast. Once you start to notice the changes, I can assure you that EI’s will remain a staple in your training for decades to come. Cheers to that!

Here are some video examples of EI’s used in action.

Landmine Squat

Push Up

Landmine Hinge

RFESS

Ring Pull Ups

About the author…

Jacob James is a strength and conditioning coach and the founder of Crusader Strength. Jake has worked with athletes from over 20 different sports as well as some of the top promotions and athletes in mixed martial arts, from UFC, Bellator & One Championship. He has spent his career learning from some of the worlds best coaches and continues to grow his knowledge and networks with industry leaders all for the sake of a best industry to be in.

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