In what ways do you train your athletes for the isometric portions of a mma/Jits fight?

In our sport, guys must address isometrics. And it’s not that hard to fit into the program. We just put an iso emphasis in during the third or forth week of a phase. We will generally use iso holds on things like split squats, pull-ups and bench press. Iso holds don’t work well on all exercises. Some lend themselves better than others.

Your DVD combative conditioning was one of the first DVDs aimed at the combat athlete. What did you hope to achieve with this DVD?

At the time of making the DVD, the goal was to give combat athletes tools that they could implement in their current programming. Collectively we had decided with the production group to make it very user friendly so that folks could do the program at home rather than joining a gym. Making a DVD was not the most positive experience. I hate the camera. But I’m not ruling out doing another one. It was a learning experience.

Has any of your training philosophy changed since the video was made? What would add or remove if you had to redo it?

The DVD is fairly old now and the thought process is even older (by the time a product comes out, there are already things you would change). Some of my views have definitely changed. There are a lot of things I would do different in remaking a video but also a lot of things that I wouldn’t. The two big ones that come to mind are that there would have been a greater emphasis on basics and simply getting people stronger. Also, we had a ton of lumbar rotation stuff that I cringe at now. But I can’t apologize for education.

What are the most common injuries you have come up against training combat athletes? What would you recommend to help avoid these?

Low back, knees, neck and shoulders tend to be the main injuries I see. Obviously we can’t do much for contact injuries. If a guy is doing a can-opener on your neck and it is sore the next day, there isn’t a whole lot we can do to prevent that.

With the low back, we will look at overall core stability, hip mobility and t-spine mobility. With knees we will address hip strength/stability and mobility and ankle mobility. With shoulders and necks we will look at t-spine mobility. Guys are really locked up in the t-spine. We will see that athletes generally have poor shoulder mobility due to poor t-spine mobility. I tell them the rotator cuff is a slave of the scapulae and the scap is a slave of the t-spine. A lot of things always come back to the t-spine.

You emphasised the importance of power endurance for mixed martial arts. How do you train this component of strength?

This is an interesting one. Athletes first need to become proficient at the basics. They need to really be dialled in on their form, because as we get into training power endurance (which is actually an oxy-moron) form can deplete quickly. Once we have a solid strength and conditioning base, we will have athletes doing power endurance circuits which will be one exercise after another with almost no rest period. The circuits will be specifically put together to mimic the fight time, rest periods and rounds (ex: 5 minute circuit with 1 minute rest). Will we combine power and strength exercises along with specific drills like shooting. There must be a logical progression to get athletes to train like this. It’s something that guys should not just jump into. If form gets too ugly, you increase the risk of injury and decrease the effects of training.

Static stretching has been a topic of hot debate in the strength and conditioning community. Do you recommend that your athletes stretch and what do you hope it will achieve?

Static stretching gets a bad rap and it shouldn’t. The popular statement that static stretching reduces force output has made individuals completely over-react to static stretching. Some trainers and coaches now avoid static stretching like the plague, especially the use of it before resistance training. Many world class coaches use static stretching and use it before resistance training with great results. Mike Boyle, Alwyn Cosgrove, Joe DeFranco, Martin Rooney and many others all incorporate static stretching in their program design.

You must understand that it is NEVER the modality that is the problem…….It is the misunderstanding of how to USE the modality and the misinterpretation of research.

We use static stretching all the time and you know what? We use it BEFORE resistance training. I can hear the shrieking screams now!! Look at this logically. We know that static stretching has some inhibiting qualities to it. Basically if you static stretch a muscle, that muscle will be a little more relaxed for a short duration following the stretch. This is not really a bad thing. If someone has tight pecs, I could stretch their pecs and before doing a set of Rows in order to get more scapular retraction. I could also stretch someone’s hip flexors before they do a vertical jump in order to get the hip extensors to do their job without interference of the antagonist. So, the inhibition of the muscle was exactly what I was looking for. As you can see, it is not the modality that is the problem but rather not knowing how to use the modality.

A chainsaw is a great tool in a logger’s hands but may be extremely dangerous in a 4 year olds hands.

The most popular time to do static stretching is post workout. This is fine but it only restores tissue length back to what it was before the workout. If you are looking to improve tissue length, stretch cold…….YES COLD. In fact, most soft tissue experts will tell you that if you want a structural change in the tissue you should stretch cold. And even better is to stretch directly after soft tissue work. This is exactly what we do. Foam roll first followed by static stretching. By the time we are strength training, it has been nearly 30 minutes since we have stretched. Do you seriously think that we are going to have negative benefits on our force output 30 minutes later?

Really we could make any research support a belief. If I tested your 3RM in the bench press and then immediately tested your 5RM, you would be significantly weaker. SHAZAAM!! We just provided research that says “Strength training makes you weaker”!! I think I heard Alwyn Cosgrove say that. Kind of funny.

Dewey Nielsen

Impact Jiu-jitsu & Performance Training

503-550-3326

http://www.impactjj.com/

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