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James Doolan
Blog 1016 Mar 2010 12:03PMTraining has been much the same as last week, horrible. I hammered it Monday to Friday and decided to take the weekend off to rest up and keep my sanity. I'm all for keeping to a training programme and making sure you do the work that needs to be done but some times you really need to listen to your body and rest up to get the most from sessions.
In the past ive been bad for over training, mostly because of two reasons, 1. I love training there is practically nothing id rather do than train, 2. I'm a boring anti-social fucker, I don't drink or go out, I hate socialising with 'normal' people so I've really not got much else to do but train, which makes being a professional athlete (I use the term loosely) much easier.
Over training is really not understood by most fighters and coaches in my opinion, and in my experience, its a bad thing, I've seen great guys with fantastic work ethic burn themselves out and suffer when it matters most, I've been there myself so I understand what it could do to a fighter. It would be easy for me to over train for my next fight, its on a big show, its against a good European ranked fighter, its a good fight for me at this point in my career, I'm thinking about that fight 24/7 so taking the weekend off was more following my head and not my heart. But it will make me better on the night.
Outside of training I've been watching my opponents fights on youtube again, trying to see if I've missed something before, looking for gaps and stuff to exploit, the coaches I work with do this also and give me their views which helps. The video analysis thing is something I'm not too sure about, on one hand I can see it makes sense getting an idea what to expect from an opponent and where their strengths and weakness's but no two fights are really the same, and more than not the fighter your watching isnt like the one you will end up in a cage or ring with out side of one or two things they do. Another thing it can do is make you give people either too much or too little respect, both are bad. I'm pretty carefull with what stuff of me end up on youtube and such, most of the videos I'm involved in show me hitting pads or ending fights with strikes on the feet, anyone clever enough to research me for a fight is going to see I like to stand up and strike, obviously I'm from a striking back ground, what you dont see is the grappling competitions I've entered, the amout of time I train BJJ or anything suggesting I might actually be not to bad on the ground. Looking at my MMA record in 13 pro wins 6 has been due to submission, not to mention another 3 in semi pro fights. What im trying to spit out is, if your studying future opponents fights online, dont take it for granted thats what your going to get from him.
Now check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S4uHMW3Zrc
Blog 908 Mar 2010 5:19PMTough week in the gym this week as expected.
I'm almost half way through the camp for Bushido Challenge and I'm
starting to feel stuff coming together. The intensity of my sessions
has picked up now to a point where I've been adding rounds on top of
what i done last week and il be doing the same next week. I've been
a lot sharper in training as well, submitting guys i normally wouldn't
and stuffing takedowns I was missing just a week back. Training must be
going right as I'm both sharper technically and fitter.
The biggest chance in training this week has been introducing some
opponent specific drills into my sessions these are mostly technical
sessions with different coaches. I've been working drills with a very
innovative coach from the griphouse Glasgow called Lin Mindin, he has a
great eye for analysing fighters and coming up with stuff to work on
while the same time playing to my strengths, I might video some of the
stuff we have been doing and post it up after the fight. I've also been
picking the brains of wrestling coach Kieran Malone and getting
help from BJJ coach Gary Christie who like Lin is an excellent analysis
of styles and coach. Although I'm taking Artemij's style into
consideration I'm not concentrating on stopping his game, I'm looking at
ways to impose my game on him.
Weight wise I'm still about 10kg over the weight which is ideal for me, I'm eating fairly clean just now but after this week I'll be dropping down
portion sizes on some meals to begin my cut, I'm looking to get a nice
balance between dieting and cutting water on the day before the weigh
in. This should allow me to put a decent bit of size back on between
the weigh in and the fight itself, something I'm getting better at. I've
not managed to put 10kg on between the scales and the fight but I
always manage to get back up to around the 70kg mark which is fairly
big for a bantamweight.
Outside of training I was at another fight show this weekend,
Sportfight Scotland was in Lanark with a good 10 fight card with a lot
of my team mates on it. All in all it was a decent show with some good
up and coming fighters on the semi pro under card, Darren Gray, Ryan
McFarlane, Gary Ward and Kieran Malone keeping there unbeaten records
intact and performing well. In pro fights on of my main training
partners Danny Gray beat a really good fighter in Johnny Martin, Danny
is like the Dinky Ninjas secret weapon, technically id rate him with
the best guys in our team, I know Paul McVeigh also thinks very highly
of him as well. Fight of the night was between Dan Hope (DNFT) and Joe
Nugent (Team Viper) both guys brought it, the fight was up and down,
back and forth an all out war with both guys hurting and cutting each
other before the Doc stopped it in favour of Dan. Both guys left
everything in the ring though it was cool to watch. In the main event
John Cullen stopped Irish fighter Kevin Cairney early with a choke.
Johns on a great run just now with a pro record of 12-4 built on mostly
international names. Look out for him on the under card of Bushido
Challenge when he takes on the excellent, unbeaten Dave Hill.
Blog 802 Mar 2010 3:01PMTrainings picked up level this week as its now under 5 weeks until Bushido Challenge.
5 weeks out to 2 weeks out is generally the time when I get the most amount of work done in the gym, this means I can start slowing down and working on more specific stuff for the last few weeks. The purpose of this is 2 fold, First by the time I get to 2 weeks out from a fight my diet is really strict so I'm not putting a lot of calories into my body, so sessions requiring high energy are generally dropped to every two days with more skill based sessions in-between. This also allows me to concentrate on getting sharp and getting my timing down with some conditioned sparring drills. Secondly this also ensures I don't get injured in the last two weeks.
The number of guys who get injured in the last two weeks or more commonly the week of the fight is frightening. I'm aware accidents will always happen but training at an intensity or training in a way which could result in injury as a fight gets near is very unprofessional in my opinion. In almost 13 years of competing in full contact martial arts I've never had to pull out of a fight. I've been on the other end of the coin a few times, having guys pull out the week before, the day before and even on the day and it sucks.
Training is now in full swing for me, 6 days a week with 2 sessions on 3 of the days and 3 sessions on the other 3. Structure is easy I train skill stuff separate from conditioning and concentrate on covering stand up, wrestling and bjj. A lot of emphasis is on sparring now for the next three weeks also I'll be sparring around 50 rounds a week (various ranges and full mma).
Conditioning wise I've finished with the strength programme I was on and I've switched on to a force development programme. Speed lifts combined with plyometrics mostly in the gym and some wrestling drills with pad work to keep everything sport specific. Out side of sparring training for force development is my favourite way to train.
I'm starting to look for a fight now for after Bushido Challenge, ideally in late April or May, just now nothing is certain but a bunch of promoters have been in touch, hopefully they can sort me out with something.
BLOG 722 Feb 2010 11:36PMBusy week for me again this week, had Graham Turners (15-5-1 Total
Combat British LW champion) weight cut to keep an eye on, another 2 or
3 fighters coming into the final phase of there own fight camps and my
own training picking up as I'm now 6 weeks out from Bushido Challenge.
I've been using 6 week camps for fights for a few years now, settled on
this after trying everything from 4 weeks to 12 weeks, 6 weeks suits me
best. I've just completed a 6 week strength programme and increased my
general conditioning session to prepare for the 6 weeks of fight prep,
this allows me to train hard from week 1 to week 5 then have a tapering
off period of 1 week to allow me to 'peak' on the night of the fight.
First two weeks I'm working a lot of sport specific fitness as well as
fight specific techniques, I also start sparring more from week 1,
loading it up weekly for 4 weeks before going through a deloading
phase. Sparring is the main element of my fight prep, I use a bunch of
different of styles from full MMA sparring, to wrestling, rolling, thai
boxing. Always covering very range and working with people who are
going to push me.
I'm basically getting my arse kicked, boxing with better boxers, wrestling with better wrestlers and rolling with better jits players.
If there was a secret to getting good at MMA this would be it, if your
winning every round in every range in training/sparring your training
with the wrong people, and most probably not reaching any where near
your full potential. Obviously this doesn't mean if your getting a
kicking in training all the time your on the right road.
Got shows coming up the next three weeks in a row, some of my JR
fighters are in action on Sunday, the following weekend Sportfight
Scotland returns to Lanark auction market with a strong card featuring
a bunch of my team mates and fighters, I'm helping these guys finalise
there preparations in training just now, all are looking awesome. Main
event is Scotland's number 1 Featherweight John Cullen (11-4) taking on
Kevin Cairney, this fight should be a proper war, JC has one gear, 100
mph and hyper aggressive, Kevin I've seen a few times is tough as hell
and also aggressive both guys like to stand up and throw down, should
be exciting.
The week after that there is a big Thai show in Glasgow my better half
is fighting on, hopefully keeping her 14-0 winning streak running
against a south African girl whos name I cant pronounce, also on that
show is 2 of my students and one of my best pals Tommy Young defending
his Scottish thai boxing title. Should be an excellent event.
Yesterday I attended at SFC show in Stirling Scotland, as I mentioned
earlier Graham Turner was fighting in the main event a 4 man tournament
at 65.8kg. Graham went into it the favourite to win as he was the most experienced guy involved. Graham's first opponent was a tricky
Lithuanian guy who had some nice wrestling, but not a lot else. Graham
stopped him in the second round via TKO. In the final Graham faced
Swedish fighter Carlos Prada. I couldn't find much info on Carlos so the
first time I got to see him fight was his semi final match with Glasgow
based Polish fighter Majec Semibab. I know Majec as I've rolled with him
a few years back and had seen him box. I was really expecting Graham v Majec in the final but Carlos had other idea's and ran right over him,
excellent take down and nice GnP to set up submission early left me
both impressed and a bit worried as Graham had went 9 minutes putting
the Lithuanian guy away. The final was an excellent fight Carlos
dropped Graham early but didn't finish and other than a slick flying
armbar attempt and some takedowns wasn't doing much while Graham was
constantly working and hurt Carlos a few times. Judges gave it to
Graham, he went home with 15-5-1 pro record (dudes just turned 22) a
£1000 richer and with a ton of free supplement for winning fighter of
the night, I went home relieved and mega happy. I've coached Graham
since he was 14 years old, he is like my little brother in some ways.
SFC show was an excellent success for my team 5-0 in MMA (Tuner win
twice, Scotty Ward, Ally McRae and Ryan McFarlane also win) and 1-0 in
Thai (Micheal Wiseman) the show was excellent all round, very
professional and well run and a great addition to the Scottish MMA scene
Blog 616 Feb 2010 4:42PMI'm now 7 weeks out from my next fight (Bushido Challenge bantamweight
title fight) against Lithuanian submission fighter Artemi Sitenkov.This
is when stuff starts picking up for me. Ive got everything planned from
now right up until i jump on the scales and weigh in.Fail to prepare
prepare to fail and all that.
Ive just finished 4 weeks of conditioning training to prepare for the
actual fight prep itself, this sounds weird but this next fight is a 5
rounder as every pro mma title fight should be. In over 24 MMA fights I've only been past the first round three times, but ill never go into a
fight not in shape to go the distance, the biggest difference for me
with the 5 rounds compared to the normal 3 rounds is not the
conditioning, but keeping my concentration.
The level I'm fighting at now, and especially with some one as dangerous
as Artemi means if i make one mistake I'm done, in my last few fights the
guy's I've fought have made a mistake and I've made them pay for it, id
expect the same back. Artemi's last fight involved him taking a shoeing
off Steve Mccombe for a few rounds before catching him in an armbar.
To ensure i can keep my concentration and not make daft mistakes under
pressure ill be sparring with a group of pro fighters with different
skill sets, they will be fresh when I'm tired.Sparring is definitely
where fighters get better, if there doing it right.Fortunately I'm
surrounded by the best guys in Scotland for every session, whether its
MMA, BJJ,Wrestling, Boxing or Muay Thai.
Off topic slightly but a pet hate of mine is coaches letting people spar
before they have solid fundamentals, usually this ends up in brawls.
Ive taught seminars at gyms all over the place and seeing how other gyms
spar amazes me. Dont get me wrong there's a time and place for hard
sparring, usually not with in a year of training, definitely not in a
class environment and realistically with someone of similar stature and experience. Our gym has few guys who have left other teams due to wars
in sparring.
Next week ill post up my first week, fight prep.
Off to SFC this weekend to corner Graham Afterburner Turner in Scotland'S
first 4 man tourney, best of luck to Scott the body Ward and Ally McRae
from the ninjas also
Blog 508 Feb 2010 1:26PMSo what was expected to be a mad weekend of MMA actually turned out to
be super hectic. On Saturday we had a 330 mile round trip down to
Ulverston in Cumbria for Xtreme Kombat. First time we had been to this
show so i didn't know what to expect, the four fighters we took down
where all ready to fight after 6 weeks of well prepared and planned
training. Ended up being a good little show, nice set up, good crowd
and some good grass root level MMA fights.
We ended up going 3-1 at Xtreme Kombat, Rich Mclearty got caught early
in his pro debut, bit of a bummer as Rich is an animal in the gym and
has looked brilliant in his previous semi pro fights. Props to his
opponent on the night Daniel Park though. Our other guys on the card
included a first timer Martin Delaney who looked really good getting a
slick kimura win in the first round of his fight and two of the most
promising MMA fighters in Scotland Darren Gray and Kieran Malone. Both
guys are really young, have great attitudes and work ethic. Both got
submission wins in the first round.
Having shows to attend two days on the bounce is strenious enough,
whack a 3am UFC on ESPN and sleep goes out the window, after watching
Sonnen de-rail Nate the Great and Randy handle an ancient
looking Coleman i grabbed 3 hours sleep and then got ready for Cage
Kombat in Edinburgh today (sunday)
This was the first Cage Kombat i had been to in a while, its one
of Scotlands most established shows now and has featured some good
fighters in the past. The latest card had 6 pro fights on it which is
cool. Another super prospect Gary Ward was in action and following on
the trend of our guys at Xtreme Kombat Gary win by submission (armbar)
in the first round. Between guys like Gary, darren and Kieran as well
as a bunch of other young fighters at the gym our the talent coming
through is unbelievable.
Main event at cage kombat was a British welterweight title fight
between UKMMA legend and general nut job Paul Jenkins and Andy Snape.
Andy is another guy with insane potential and is under the radar of a
lot of people when he shouldn't be. Jenkins is the most experienced UK
fighter, has been fighting forever and has fought just about everyone.
Knowing both guys the fight was only ever going to end with somebody
getting knocked out. Andy brought his A game, stuffed Paul's early take
down attempts, stayed on top and landed some heavy shots, getting a TKO
in the first round. By far his best performance to date.
So we put out 6 fighters on 2 shows over 2 days. 5 wins all in the
first round and 1 loss. Over 500 miles of driving, 3 hours sleep,
countless crap jokes and lots of sugar free redbull. Brilliant.
Blog 401 Feb 2010 1:46PMNext weekend we have our first fighters if the year out on two
different shows. On Saturday we have four guys travelling down to
Cumbria for Extreme Combat and Sunday we will be at Cage Kombat in
Edinburgh. Ninjas main eventing on both shows.
Been a busy week at the gym, Paul's been away to Ireland for a rave,
i've been trying to make sure the guys fighting next weekend are
tapering there training down slowly and making sure everything has been
covered in training and there all going to be on weight. While ive been
doing this, i've got Graham Turner mid way through his fight prep for
Scotland's first ever 4 man tourney so he is at the most intense phase
of his training , I've got another group of fighters just starting
there 6 weeks prep for fights in March at Sportfight Scotland and a
Thai show at Oron Mor. It been pretty hectic to say the least.
I think one of the big differences between good fight teams and great
fight teams is the organisation. Back in the day we just turned up and
trained with out much structure or with out goal setting, now we have
training programmes, game plans for fights and goal sets for each
individual fighter, for each specific fight and for there own
development over the time. It does take a bit of effort but it means
our fighters know what there doing, when its to be done and more
importantly why there doing it, It also means all the fighters have to
do is train.
Training wise, I'm now 9 weeks out from Bushido Challenge when i fight,
last weeks training was mostly sparring and strength training. I also
spent 3 sessions working half guard for MMA. Next week sees me starting
hill sprints with Joanne (she fights south african thai boxer Ferial
Ameerodien in 6 weeks) and and some additional circuit training
sessions.
On friday i sparred with an 18 stone Heavyweight called Andy Hillhouse.
Andy is preparing for the Optimus fighting championship open weight
tournament in April. I'm about 72kg just now, i've trained in martial
arts for almost 23 years, its took me that long to realise that if a
big guy wants to batter a small guy the small guy is fucked. Thankfully
Andy wasn't hitting me hard and i'm still alive.
Also this week MMAunlimited released there first set of UK bantamweight
rankings. Couple things were pretty cool about that, 1. there is
finally enough bantamweights in the UK to have a top ten, and 2. i'm
ranked number 2, behind Paul Mcveigh. The rankings dont actually mean
too much to me if i'm honest, same as belts and titles, being talked
about in the same breath as fighters like Paul, Brad Pickett and Leigh
Remedious means a lot to me though.
Right i'm out of here, next week ill run over Xtreme Combat, best of
luck to Martin Delaney in his first fight, Keiran Malone and Darren
'Tito' Gray (look out for these young guys in next few years) and
Richie Rampage making his long awaited pro debut. Il also run over Cage
Kombat which has its best card to date, Andy the scorpion Snape
returns from Brazil to face UKMMA legend Paul Jenkins.
Awesome weekend of MMA for me.
Blog 324 Jan 2010 10:50PMIts now 10 weeks till Bushido Challenge when i fight. It really cant
come in quick enough. I started fighting/competing as a kid because i
grew up terrified of it. Now i'm comfortable with it, actually i really
enjoy it which is a bit worrying. People who have never been in a cage
or ring will understand that.
Just now i'm holding myself back as i'm dying to start fight training,
our gyms really busy with a bunch of fighters in action in the next few
weeks and i'm super jealous. However if i start now il be wrecked by
the time the fight comes. I've over trained before and it sucks,
performance was shit, i was super flat. Now i've got my routine down so
i peak on the night of the fight.
So just now i'm still working away with my focus on getting stronger
physically and developing my grappling with extra jiu-jitsu and
wrestling sessions. I'm really starting to notice a big difference in
certain positions wrestling which is mainly due to the increases in
strength from the programme i just completed. I'm looking forward to
seeing if it changes anything up when i fight next. Plan is just now
for another 2 weeks of strength training being priority before i start
looking at 2 weeks of general conditioning before i go into my 6 week
fight prep.
I've attended a few seminars with some top fighters/coaches from
individual martial arts and MMA over the years. One of the best coaches
i've had the privilege of picking stuff up from is SBG Ireland's John
Kavanagh. Something JK said during a seminar about 5 years ago has kind
of moulded my outlook to MMA, he said ''you split MMA up into 4 ranges
to train it, stand up, clinch/wrestling, ground and conditioning''. As
a fighter and coach i make sure each area is covered. It makes sense.
Its easy to spot guys who are only good in one area, even two areas,
most of these guys win one fight then lose one fight, who wants that,
its no coincidence that the guys on top of there game in the big show
and even down to just british level are well rounded, well conditioned
athletes. That's what i'm aiming for, for myself and for my fighters.
This week we had two pro mma fighters from Northern Irelands Chum Sut
gym over training with us, Peter Duncan and Ali Mclean, Peter is
fighting on the BAMMA show in a few weeks against Alexandre Izidro.
Peters one of the hardest working fighters in the sport, fit and tough
with a great engine it was cool having him and Ali over. They even
stuck around for team sparring on saturday before a marathon drive and
ferry back to belfast. You definately find some of the coolest people
in MMA.
Off to watch best of ufc 2009.
Blog 217 Jan 2010 10:38PMMy week started at the griphouse gym, team sparring with the Dinky
Ninja guys who are fighting soon. Busy Busy session with a whole lot of
talent under one roof, the combined record of the guys involved was
over 100 fights. I'm not going to go into specifics with how we team
spar as its secret ninja shit, all I'll say is it's similar to what a lot
of gyms call ''shark drills'' although we also include periodisation
for progression into the programme so its not just guys sparring for
the sake of sparring. All the fighters get feedback from the coaches
and go away with stuff to work on as well as a lot of positive
reinforcement.
The lanark MMA guys train a few hours after team sparring, this session
gives me a chance to go over stuff with each of the individual fighters
while stuff is still fresh and relevant. The team sparring contributed
to our success in competition last year for sure.
My focus in training for this week was getting the second phase of the
strength programme started, Basically it involved testing the
programme, getting the weight right for the reps and sets I prescribed.
The new programmes a bitch, I was walking about like I shat myself on Wednesday and Friday I had to spar a few hours after heavy squats. Not
great but the last programme definitely helped my wrestling, and jits.
I definitely got into lifting a bit late, for some one who has been
training full time for the best part of 13 years and has a degree in
sports and exercise science i should have known better and started ages
ago but hitting stuff is always been much more fun.
Anyway lesson learned I'm adapting well to strength training, getting
quick gains and as a coach I'm getting all my fighters on suitable
programmes as early as possible.
Its now 11 weeks till I fight at Bushido Challenge, training is still
not in full fight prep stages for me but with so many of our fighters
in action soon I'm clocking up 40-50 rounds of sparring a week just now
which is mental.
My aim for the next 5 weeks is to progress my jits game, so il be
spending time drilling, rolling and analysing positional stuff and
submissions 5 days a week. Out side of physical training I'll also read
more BJJ literature, and watch more BJJ instructional's of fighters in
action. You definitely cant substitute mat time for nothing else and
get good, but for me watching and studying BJJ increases my learning
curve and I feel a big difference when I'm rolling.
Before I go big props to the guys from the griphouse who took medals at the Scottish Open BJJ tourney this weekend.
Introduction11 Jan 2010 11:22AMQuick introduction, my name is James Doolan I'm a professional MMA fighter/coach from Lanark, I train with and represent Scotland's top fight team the Dinky Ninjas.
My next fight will take place at Bushido Challenge in Nottingham, April 3rd, I'll be fighting Lithuanian Artemij Sitenkov for the vacant Bushido Challenge Bantamweight title. The current European rankings have me at number 3 (behind WEC's Brad Pickett) and my team mate Paul 'the natural' McVeigh.
I'm looking forward to the fight, I'm on a good run of 4 wins just now and I've still got gears to go up, Artemij is a good fighter very slick grappler, 10-4 record, 10 submission wins and he seems to have a lot of ambition. I'm sure he will present me with some problems the fight should be a good test for me. Bushido Challenge is still in its infancy as a promotion but their first show had one of the best cards in Europe last year, their card for April is starting to come together and its looking awesome again, Allan Love the unbeaten Scottish Middleweight is on the card in what should be the start of a big year for him, I've fought on the same show as Lovey twice now and both of us have both performed well and got the W, he is like my big goofy lucky charm.
Just now I'm 12 weeks out, sitting a bit heavy at 72/73kg (committed carbocide over Christmas and New Year) I've been training 5 times a week just ticking over.
Training wise I'm just about to start a 6 weeks strength and conditioning programme, before I start my 6 weeks fight prep. I've pretty much got my fight training down now after a lot of trial and error in the past, I've tried everything from 12 week programmes to 5 weeks, 3 day splits, using no weight training, excessive amounts of cardio and other stuff. Last year with the help of my coaches/team mates Paul McVeigh, Gary Christie, Tommy Young and Lin Mindin I refined a 6 week programme that suits me to get ready to fight and the results I had last year show its working. (4 1st round wins against Ireland's top bantamweight Neil Seery, Steve McCombe ranked number 3 in Europe when we fought, and 2 unbeaten Fighters Jay McGuiness and Brazilian Hugo Leonardo)
Plan for the blog is to record some of my training, (I'll keep some of the secret ninja stuff to myself) along with updates on diet, weight issues and other stuff that a goes on in the run up to a fight on a weekly basis.
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