- Home
- Strength Training and Conditioning
- Sports and Activities
- Martial Arts and Self-Defense
- Fitness and Health
- Anatomy
- Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy
Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy
by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill
Series: Anatomy
144 Pages
From powerful blows to explosive kicks, Delavier’s Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy takes you inside the action and impact of one of the world’s most popular, grueling, and challenging sports.
Over 230 full-color photos and 120 anatomical illustrations allow you to go inside more than 120 exercises specifically selected for the neuromuscular demands of the sport. You’ll see how muscles interact with surrounding joints and skeletal structures and how variations and sequencing can isolate specific muscles to enhance the full arsenal of combat skills.
Delavier’s Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy features an anatomomorphological approach to allow you to choose the most effective exercises for your body type, physical conditioning, and fighting style. From boxing to ground fighting, you’ll enhance your strengths and minimize your weaknesses with more than 20 proven programs.
Featuring the latest exercises for injury prevention and foam roller techniques for muscle regeneration, it’s all here and all in the stunning detail that only Frédéric Delavier can provide.
Part 1
Principles of Strength Training
Developing Your Program
30 Steps to Developing Your Training Program
Purpose of Dividing Training
Techniques for Strength and Power
Eight Principles to Prepare the Muscles for Fighting
Five Types of Strength Most Often Used in Fighting
Secrets of an Effective Strike
Breathing During Strength Training
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
Conditioning and Endurance Techniques
Power and Conditioning: Two Very Different Muscle Qualities
Five Rules for Minimizing Opposition of Power and Endurance
Adjusting Circuits for Optimal Conditioning
Techniques for Increasing Flexibility
Flexibility and Stiffness: Two Opposite Muscle Qualities
When to Stretch
How to Stretch
Techniques for Recovery and Injury Prevention
Warm-Up
Cool-Down
Regenerative Massage Using a Foam Roller
Injury-Causing Strength Imbalances
Cross-Education for Recovery From Injury
Nutritional Approach to Recovery
Part 2
Strength Training Exercises Specifically for Fighting
Neck, Trapezius, and Jaw
Exercises for the Neck
Neck Flexion
Neck Extension
Lateral Neck Flexion
Strengthening the Jaw
Surround Your Neck With Massive Trapezius Muscles
Shrug
Strengthening the Abdominal Wall
Sit-Up
Standing Cable Crunch
Twisting Crunch
Leg Rotation on Pull-Up Bar
Plank
Punches and Elbow Strikes
Exercises for Explosiveness
Narrow-Grip Bench Press
Punch and Elbow Strike With Elastic Band or Pulley
Medicine Ball Throw
Forearms
Wrist Extension
Wrist Curl
Strengthening Your Stance
Partial Squat
Standing Calf Raise
Kicks and Knee Strikes
Paradoxes of the Psoas Muscle
Exercises for Increasing Strength
Standing Leg Lift
Leg Lift on Pull-Up Bar
Knee Strike on All Fours
Grabbing, Pulling, and Choking an Opponent
Pull-Up
Power Triceps Extension
Hanging From Pull-Up Bar
Hammer Curl
Chokes or Countering a Choke
Exercises for Endurance
Hanging From Straps
Isometric Adduction
Leg Press Using Full Range of Motion
Seated Squat
Lying Leg Curl
Reverse Calf Raise
Bridge
How the Muscles of Respiration Affect Endurance
Lying Rib Cage Expansion With Weight
Importance of Hip Flexibility
Hip Rotator Stretch
Lifting and Pulling an Opponent
Conventional Deadlift
Straight-Leg Deadlift
Dumbbell Clean
Row
Part 3
Training Programs
Beginning Programs for Overall Strength
Program for Gaining Familiarity With Strength Training
Program for Increasing Volume of Work
Advanced Beginner Program
Specialized Programs
Basic Specialized Program
Advanced Specialized Program
Highly Advanced Specialized Program
Customized Programs
Boxing Program
Kicking Program
Ground Fighting Program
Hand-to-Hand Fighting Program
Conditioning Circuits
Basic Circuit for Beginners
Intermediate Basic Circuit
Advanced Basic Circuit
Customized Circuits
Boxing Circuit
Kicking Circuit
Ground Fighting Circuit
Hand-to-Hand Fighting Circuit
Specialized Circuits You Can Do at Home
Specialized Circuit for Protecting the Neck
Specialized Circuit for Abdominal Support
Circuits for Injury Prevention
Preventing Shoulder Pain
Preventing Low Back Pain
Preventing Neck Pain
Preventing Hip Pain
Preventing Knee Pain and Hamstring Tears
Frédéric Delavier is a gifted artist with an exceptional knowledge of human anatomy. He studied morphology and anatomy for five years at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and studied dissection for three years at the Paris Faculté de Médecine.
The former editor in chief of the French magazine PowerMag, Delavier is currently a journalist for the French magazine Le Monde du Muscle and a contributor to several other muscle publications, including Men's Health Germany. He is the author of the best-selling Strength Training Anatomy, Women’s Strength Training Anatomy, The Strength Training Anatomy Workout, Delavier's Core Training Anatomy, and Delavier's Stretching Anatomy.
Delavier won the French powerlifting title in 1988 and makes annual presentations on the sport applications of biomechanics at conferences in Switzerland. His teaching efforts have earned him the Grand Prix de Techniques et de Pédagogie Sportive. Delavier lives in Paris, France.
Michael Gundill has written 13 books on strength training, sport nutrition, and health, including coauthoring The Strength Training Anatomy Workout and The Strength Training Anatomy Workout II. His books have been translated into multiple languages, and he has written over 500 articles for bodybuilding and fitness magazines worldwide, including Iron Man and Dirty Dieting. In 1998 he won the Article of the Year Award at the Fourth Academy of Bodybuilding Fitness & Sports Awards in California.
Gundill started weightlifting in 1983 in order to improve his rowing performance. Most of his training years were spent completing specific lifting programs in his home. As he gained muscle and refined his program, he began to learn more about physiology, anatomy, and biomechanics and started studying those subjects in medical journals. Since 1995 he has been writing about his discoveries in various bodybuilding and fitness magazines worldwide.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity.
Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
To be effective, a broad strike happens in three phases:
- A rapid but short muscle contractioninitiates the most violent movement possible.
- Muscle relaxationcauses the arm or thigh to gain speed and range of motion without hindrance from antagonistic muscles (biceps and upper back muscles that slow down a punch or hamstrings and gluteals that slow down a kick).
- Contracting the muscle againjust before impact produces the critical force that will do the most damage possible.
Practical Consequences of Strength Training
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity. So that you do not hinder the transfer of your increased strength and power, it is a good idea to combine several techniques to increase intensity. Do not restrict yourself to working only with heavy weights. Even though using increasing amounts of resistance is an effective way to increase the strength of your blows, it is not a perfect strategy. Since there is no intermediate relaxation phase, ultimately, heavy weights will interfere with the motor learning for your strikes.
This imperfection explains why scientific research shows that working exclusively with heavy weights ends up decreasing the speed of a fighter's strikes after 12 to 18 weeks (Siff, 1999, Supertraining). This is why you should not depend solely on heavy training to achieve progress.
How Can You Improve the Qualities Required for an Effective Strike?
Only by judiciously combining these various techniques to increase intensity will you improve the three phases that make a strike effective:
- Heavy weightsincrease strength and therefore the effectiveness of the strike initially and on impact.
- Stop-and-go work using elastic bandsincreases the speed with which your strength propagates through the muscle.
- Explosive training with average weights increases the speed of muscle relaxation.
Ideally, you should end the explosive contraction phase by actually hitting something so you can maintain the sequence and end by contracting the muscle again. In fact, when you practice explosive technique with weights or just by doing shadow boxing, your own antagonistic muscles stop your fist or your foot. These two techniques actually work against the contraction-relaxation cycle just described. They are also counter-productive in regard to the final phase where the muscle contracts again just before impact. In fact, contracting the antagonistic muscles to stop your punch actually teaches you not to hit as hard as possible upon impact.
To reduce the degree to which strength training causes neuromuscular disturbance in your strikes, it is a good idea to end your workouts by spending a few minutes hitting a punching bag.
Working With a Half Pyramid
A set of strength training exercises is designed around a half pyramid. You should start with modest resistance and a high number of repetitions (25, for example, that are easy to do) to warm up the muscles, joints, and cardiorespiratory system thoroughly. For the second set, you should increase the weight so you can easily do 15 repetitions. These two warm-up sets help to precondition your muscles.
Then the serious work begins: Add resistance until you reach the upper range of the target number of repetitions that you set as a function of your goals. As you keep doing sets, gradually increase the resistance to make the exercise harder. The number of repetitions will decrease as you continue. When the weight is so heavy that you can no longer reach the lower range of your target number of repetitions, it is time to move on to another exercise.
In bodybuilding, it is common to decrease the weight in the last set so that you can do 15 to 20 more repetitions to get the muscles pumped up as much as possible. But getting pumped up would be a catastrophe for a fighter, so it is wise to train using the half pyramid model (you only increase the weight) rather the pyramid model (where you increase the weight and then decrease it).
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter’s needs, not the other way around.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter's needs, not the other way around. Compared to strength training exercises, the blows used in a fight are very different:
> The rhythm of strikes is jerky, but strength training is very rhythmic.
> Rest periods between two blows are random, but in strength training, repetitions are done one after the other without much rest.
>A fighter does everything possible to rid the body of lactic acid and to avoid pumping up the muscles, but a bodybuilder strives for both burn and pump.
To overcome this triple difference, two techniques for increasing intensity are appropriate:
1
Stop and Go to Accelerate Initial Strength
This technique involves pausing for 1 to 2 seconds between each repetition. For example, when doing push-ups, you stay elongated on the floor for 1 second while you relax the muscles and then activate them, causing the contraction. The goal of this pause is to eliminate the accumulation of elastic energy that took place during the lowering phase of the push-up.
You must pause at the bottom of the exercise rather than the top so that the repetition begins with a positive phase (pushing the weight) rather than a negative phase (lowering) because this is how you strike blows against your opponent.
The stop-and-go technique benefits a fighter in these ways:
- It is very useful for improving initial strength. The muscles have to contract powerfully without the benefit of elastic energy stored up during the negative phase.
- It is important to work on the initial strength of a muscle in a near-resting state rather than a muscle that is already contracted, since this is very rare in a fight.
- The combined work of initial strength and acceleration strength will help you become quicker.
- The rhythmic tempo of repetitions in classic strength training promotes blood flow, which is not good. The staccato rhythm of the stop-and-go pauses will minimize pump and the accumulation of lactic acid.
- A random tempo mimics the conditions in a fight better than classic strength training does.
2
Doing Sets With a Between-Reps Break
The natural tendency is to want to do repetitions as quickly as possible one after the other. This bodybuilding tactic is not ideal for a fighter. When repetitions come without pause, fatigue quickly sets in because the blood flow is hindered. Metabolic wastes, such as lactic acid, build up and cause strength to decrease.
Furthermore, the muscle starts to get pumped up. If you train your muscles to get pumped up the way bodybuilders do, you will paralyze yourself more easily during fights.
So you need to do whatever you can so that your muscles do not get in the habit of getting pumped up. A pause between each repetition minimizes the pump caused by the restriction of blood flow. Blood circulates more freely, which helps transport oxygen and allows you to stay stronger for longer periods.
The philosophy of between-reps breaks consists of doing everything you can to avoid fatigue instead of seeking it out as you would in bodybuilding. To be able to work out a lot without wearing yourself
out, you would be well advised to avoid failure (temporary fatigue of the neuro-muscular system). As Charlie Francis, former trainer of sprinter Ben Johnson, notes, a 100% effort requires 10 days of recovery time. But if you push to only 95% of your ability, just 4 hours of recovery time is needed between two workouts.
This explains why scientific research shows that it is not a good idea for beginners to push sets until failure. Striving for failure is more appropriate for those working on muscle mass than for those wanting to increase strength or power.
Between-reps recovery breaks let you work with as heavy a weight as you can without exhausting your nervous system for a long time afterward. Thus, you can do your various workouts more closely together while still minimizing the risk of physically exhausting yourself.
Taking 15 seconds of rest between each repetition allows your muscles to recover up to 80% of their initial strength (Haff et al., 2003, Journal of Strength
and Conditioning Research 17(1):95-103). With the same weight and a similar rest break, spacing out the repetitions instead of doing them one right after the other immediately increases strength by 30% (Denton and Cronin, 2006, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 20(3):528-34).
By resting for 15 to 20 seconds between 2 repetitions (midset break), you can lift heavier weights and get stronger faster.
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity.
Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
To be effective, a broad strike happens in three phases:
- A rapid but short muscle contractioninitiates the most violent movement possible.
- Muscle relaxationcauses the arm or thigh to gain speed and range of motion without hindrance from antagonistic muscles (biceps and upper back muscles that slow down a punch or hamstrings and gluteals that slow down a kick).
- Contracting the muscle againjust before impact produces the critical force that will do the most damage possible.
Practical Consequences of Strength Training
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity. So that you do not hinder the transfer of your increased strength and power, it is a good idea to combine several techniques to increase intensity. Do not restrict yourself to working only with heavy weights. Even though using increasing amounts of resistance is an effective way to increase the strength of your blows, it is not a perfect strategy. Since there is no intermediate relaxation phase, ultimately, heavy weights will interfere with the motor learning for your strikes.
This imperfection explains why scientific research shows that working exclusively with heavy weights ends up decreasing the speed of a fighter's strikes after 12 to 18 weeks (Siff, 1999, Supertraining). This is why you should not depend solely on heavy training to achieve progress.
How Can You Improve the Qualities Required for an Effective Strike?
Only by judiciously combining these various techniques to increase intensity will you improve the three phases that make a strike effective:
- Heavy weightsincrease strength and therefore the effectiveness of the strike initially and on impact.
- Stop-and-go work using elastic bandsincreases the speed with which your strength propagates through the muscle.
- Explosive training with average weights increases the speed of muscle relaxation.
Ideally, you should end the explosive contraction phase by actually hitting something so you can maintain the sequence and end by contracting the muscle again. In fact, when you practice explosive technique with weights or just by doing shadow boxing, your own antagonistic muscles stop your fist or your foot. These two techniques actually work against the contraction-relaxation cycle just described. They are also counter-productive in regard to the final phase where the muscle contracts again just before impact. In fact, contracting the antagonistic muscles to stop your punch actually teaches you not to hit as hard as possible upon impact.
To reduce the degree to which strength training causes neuromuscular disturbance in your strikes, it is a good idea to end your workouts by spending a few minutes hitting a punching bag.
Working With a Half Pyramid
A set of strength training exercises is designed around a half pyramid. You should start with modest resistance and a high number of repetitions (25, for example, that are easy to do) to warm up the muscles, joints, and cardiorespiratory system thoroughly. For the second set, you should increase the weight so you can easily do 15 repetitions. These two warm-up sets help to precondition your muscles.
Then the serious work begins: Add resistance until you reach the upper range of the target number of repetitions that you set as a function of your goals. As you keep doing sets, gradually increase the resistance to make the exercise harder. The number of repetitions will decrease as you continue. When the weight is so heavy that you can no longer reach the lower range of your target number of repetitions, it is time to move on to another exercise.
In bodybuilding, it is common to decrease the weight in the last set so that you can do 15 to 20 more repetitions to get the muscles pumped up as much as possible. But getting pumped up would be a catastrophe for a fighter, so it is wise to train using the half pyramid model (you only increase the weight) rather the pyramid model (where you increase the weight and then decrease it).
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter’s needs, not the other way around.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter's needs, not the other way around. Compared to strength training exercises, the blows used in a fight are very different:
> The rhythm of strikes is jerky, but strength training is very rhythmic.
> Rest periods between two blows are random, but in strength training, repetitions are done one after the other without much rest.
>A fighter does everything possible to rid the body of lactic acid and to avoid pumping up the muscles, but a bodybuilder strives for both burn and pump.
To overcome this triple difference, two techniques for increasing intensity are appropriate:
1
Stop and Go to Accelerate Initial Strength
This technique involves pausing for 1 to 2 seconds between each repetition. For example, when doing push-ups, you stay elongated on the floor for 1 second while you relax the muscles and then activate them, causing the contraction. The goal of this pause is to eliminate the accumulation of elastic energy that took place during the lowering phase of the push-up.
You must pause at the bottom of the exercise rather than the top so that the repetition begins with a positive phase (pushing the weight) rather than a negative phase (lowering) because this is how you strike blows against your opponent.
The stop-and-go technique benefits a fighter in these ways:
- It is very useful for improving initial strength. The muscles have to contract powerfully without the benefit of elastic energy stored up during the negative phase.
- It is important to work on the initial strength of a muscle in a near-resting state rather than a muscle that is already contracted, since this is very rare in a fight.
- The combined work of initial strength and acceleration strength will help you become quicker.
- The rhythmic tempo of repetitions in classic strength training promotes blood flow, which is not good. The staccato rhythm of the stop-and-go pauses will minimize pump and the accumulation of lactic acid.
- A random tempo mimics the conditions in a fight better than classic strength training does.
2
Doing Sets With a Between-Reps Break
The natural tendency is to want to do repetitions as quickly as possible one after the other. This bodybuilding tactic is not ideal for a fighter. When repetitions come without pause, fatigue quickly sets in because the blood flow is hindered. Metabolic wastes, such as lactic acid, build up and cause strength to decrease.
Furthermore, the muscle starts to get pumped up. If you train your muscles to get pumped up the way bodybuilders do, you will paralyze yourself more easily during fights.
So you need to do whatever you can so that your muscles do not get in the habit of getting pumped up. A pause between each repetition minimizes the pump caused by the restriction of blood flow. Blood circulates more freely, which helps transport oxygen and allows you to stay stronger for longer periods.
The philosophy of between-reps breaks consists of doing everything you can to avoid fatigue instead of seeking it out as you would in bodybuilding. To be able to work out a lot without wearing yourself
out, you would be well advised to avoid failure (temporary fatigue of the neuro-muscular system). As Charlie Francis, former trainer of sprinter Ben Johnson, notes, a 100% effort requires 10 days of recovery time. But if you push to only 95% of your ability, just 4 hours of recovery time is needed between two workouts.
This explains why scientific research shows that it is not a good idea for beginners to push sets until failure. Striving for failure is more appropriate for those working on muscle mass than for those wanting to increase strength or power.
Between-reps recovery breaks let you work with as heavy a weight as you can without exhausting your nervous system for a long time afterward. Thus, you can do your various workouts more closely together while still minimizing the risk of physically exhausting yourself.
Taking 15 seconds of rest between each repetition allows your muscles to recover up to 80% of their initial strength (Haff et al., 2003, Journal of Strength
and Conditioning Research 17(1):95-103). With the same weight and a similar rest break, spacing out the repetitions instead of doing them one right after the other immediately increases strength by 30% (Denton and Cronin, 2006, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 20(3):528-34).
By resting for 15 to 20 seconds between 2 repetitions (midset break), you can lift heavier weights and get stronger faster.
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity.
Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
To be effective, a broad strike happens in three phases:
- A rapid but short muscle contractioninitiates the most violent movement possible.
- Muscle relaxationcauses the arm or thigh to gain speed and range of motion without hindrance from antagonistic muscles (biceps and upper back muscles that slow down a punch or hamstrings and gluteals that slow down a kick).
- Contracting the muscle againjust before impact produces the critical force that will do the most damage possible.
Practical Consequences of Strength Training
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity. So that you do not hinder the transfer of your increased strength and power, it is a good idea to combine several techniques to increase intensity. Do not restrict yourself to working only with heavy weights. Even though using increasing amounts of resistance is an effective way to increase the strength of your blows, it is not a perfect strategy. Since there is no intermediate relaxation phase, ultimately, heavy weights will interfere with the motor learning for your strikes.
This imperfection explains why scientific research shows that working exclusively with heavy weights ends up decreasing the speed of a fighter's strikes after 12 to 18 weeks (Siff, 1999, Supertraining). This is why you should not depend solely on heavy training to achieve progress.
How Can You Improve the Qualities Required for an Effective Strike?
Only by judiciously combining these various techniques to increase intensity will you improve the three phases that make a strike effective:
- Heavy weightsincrease strength and therefore the effectiveness of the strike initially and on impact.
- Stop-and-go work using elastic bandsincreases the speed with which your strength propagates through the muscle.
- Explosive training with average weights increases the speed of muscle relaxation.
Ideally, you should end the explosive contraction phase by actually hitting something so you can maintain the sequence and end by contracting the muscle again. In fact, when you practice explosive technique with weights or just by doing shadow boxing, your own antagonistic muscles stop your fist or your foot. These two techniques actually work against the contraction-relaxation cycle just described. They are also counter-productive in regard to the final phase where the muscle contracts again just before impact. In fact, contracting the antagonistic muscles to stop your punch actually teaches you not to hit as hard as possible upon impact.
To reduce the degree to which strength training causes neuromuscular disturbance in your strikes, it is a good idea to end your workouts by spending a few minutes hitting a punching bag.
Working With a Half Pyramid
A set of strength training exercises is designed around a half pyramid. You should start with modest resistance and a high number of repetitions (25, for example, that are easy to do) to warm up the muscles, joints, and cardiorespiratory system thoroughly. For the second set, you should increase the weight so you can easily do 15 repetitions. These two warm-up sets help to precondition your muscles.
Then the serious work begins: Add resistance until you reach the upper range of the target number of repetitions that you set as a function of your goals. As you keep doing sets, gradually increase the resistance to make the exercise harder. The number of repetitions will decrease as you continue. When the weight is so heavy that you can no longer reach the lower range of your target number of repetitions, it is time to move on to another exercise.
In bodybuilding, it is common to decrease the weight in the last set so that you can do 15 to 20 more repetitions to get the muscles pumped up as much as possible. But getting pumped up would be a catastrophe for a fighter, so it is wise to train using the half pyramid model (you only increase the weight) rather the pyramid model (where you increase the weight and then decrease it).
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter’s needs, not the other way around.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter's needs, not the other way around. Compared to strength training exercises, the blows used in a fight are very different:
> The rhythm of strikes is jerky, but strength training is very rhythmic.
> Rest periods between two blows are random, but in strength training, repetitions are done one after the other without much rest.
>A fighter does everything possible to rid the body of lactic acid and to avoid pumping up the muscles, but a bodybuilder strives for both burn and pump.
To overcome this triple difference, two techniques for increasing intensity are appropriate:
1
Stop and Go to Accelerate Initial Strength
This technique involves pausing for 1 to 2 seconds between each repetition. For example, when doing push-ups, you stay elongated on the floor for 1 second while you relax the muscles and then activate them, causing the contraction. The goal of this pause is to eliminate the accumulation of elastic energy that took place during the lowering phase of the push-up.
You must pause at the bottom of the exercise rather than the top so that the repetition begins with a positive phase (pushing the weight) rather than a negative phase (lowering) because this is how you strike blows against your opponent.
The stop-and-go technique benefits a fighter in these ways:
- It is very useful for improving initial strength. The muscles have to contract powerfully without the benefit of elastic energy stored up during the negative phase.
- It is important to work on the initial strength of a muscle in a near-resting state rather than a muscle that is already contracted, since this is very rare in a fight.
- The combined work of initial strength and acceleration strength will help you become quicker.
- The rhythmic tempo of repetitions in classic strength training promotes blood flow, which is not good. The staccato rhythm of the stop-and-go pauses will minimize pump and the accumulation of lactic acid.
- A random tempo mimics the conditions in a fight better than classic strength training does.
2
Doing Sets With a Between-Reps Break
The natural tendency is to want to do repetitions as quickly as possible one after the other. This bodybuilding tactic is not ideal for a fighter. When repetitions come without pause, fatigue quickly sets in because the blood flow is hindered. Metabolic wastes, such as lactic acid, build up and cause strength to decrease.
Furthermore, the muscle starts to get pumped up. If you train your muscles to get pumped up the way bodybuilders do, you will paralyze yourself more easily during fights.
So you need to do whatever you can so that your muscles do not get in the habit of getting pumped up. A pause between each repetition minimizes the pump caused by the restriction of blood flow. Blood circulates more freely, which helps transport oxygen and allows you to stay stronger for longer periods.
The philosophy of between-reps breaks consists of doing everything you can to avoid fatigue instead of seeking it out as you would in bodybuilding. To be able to work out a lot without wearing yourself
out, you would be well advised to avoid failure (temporary fatigue of the neuro-muscular system). As Charlie Francis, former trainer of sprinter Ben Johnson, notes, a 100% effort requires 10 days of recovery time. But if you push to only 95% of your ability, just 4 hours of recovery time is needed between two workouts.
This explains why scientific research shows that it is not a good idea for beginners to push sets until failure. Striving for failure is more appropriate for those working on muscle mass than for those wanting to increase strength or power.
Between-reps recovery breaks let you work with as heavy a weight as you can without exhausting your nervous system for a long time afterward. Thus, you can do your various workouts more closely together while still minimizing the risk of physically exhausting yourself.
Taking 15 seconds of rest between each repetition allows your muscles to recover up to 80% of their initial strength (Haff et al., 2003, Journal of Strength
and Conditioning Research 17(1):95-103). With the same weight and a similar rest break, spacing out the repetitions instead of doing them one right after the other immediately increases strength by 30% (Denton and Cronin, 2006, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 20(3):528-34).
By resting for 15 to 20 seconds between 2 repetitions (midset break), you can lift heavier weights and get stronger faster.
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity.
Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
To be effective, a broad strike happens in three phases:
- A rapid but short muscle contractioninitiates the most violent movement possible.
- Muscle relaxationcauses the arm or thigh to gain speed and range of motion without hindrance from antagonistic muscles (biceps and upper back muscles that slow down a punch or hamstrings and gluteals that slow down a kick).
- Contracting the muscle againjust before impact produces the critical force that will do the most damage possible.
Practical Consequences of Strength Training
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity. So that you do not hinder the transfer of your increased strength and power, it is a good idea to combine several techniques to increase intensity. Do not restrict yourself to working only with heavy weights. Even though using increasing amounts of resistance is an effective way to increase the strength of your blows, it is not a perfect strategy. Since there is no intermediate relaxation phase, ultimately, heavy weights will interfere with the motor learning for your strikes.
This imperfection explains why scientific research shows that working exclusively with heavy weights ends up decreasing the speed of a fighter's strikes after 12 to 18 weeks (Siff, 1999, Supertraining). This is why you should not depend solely on heavy training to achieve progress.
How Can You Improve the Qualities Required for an Effective Strike?
Only by judiciously combining these various techniques to increase intensity will you improve the three phases that make a strike effective:
- Heavy weightsincrease strength and therefore the effectiveness of the strike initially and on impact.
- Stop-and-go work using elastic bandsincreases the speed with which your strength propagates through the muscle.
- Explosive training with average weights increases the speed of muscle relaxation.
Ideally, you should end the explosive contraction phase by actually hitting something so you can maintain the sequence and end by contracting the muscle again. In fact, when you practice explosive technique with weights or just by doing shadow boxing, your own antagonistic muscles stop your fist or your foot. These two techniques actually work against the contraction-relaxation cycle just described. They are also counter-productive in regard to the final phase where the muscle contracts again just before impact. In fact, contracting the antagonistic muscles to stop your punch actually teaches you not to hit as hard as possible upon impact.
To reduce the degree to which strength training causes neuromuscular disturbance in your strikes, it is a good idea to end your workouts by spending a few minutes hitting a punching bag.
Working With a Half Pyramid
A set of strength training exercises is designed around a half pyramid. You should start with modest resistance and a high number of repetitions (25, for example, that are easy to do) to warm up the muscles, joints, and cardiorespiratory system thoroughly. For the second set, you should increase the weight so you can easily do 15 repetitions. These two warm-up sets help to precondition your muscles.
Then the serious work begins: Add resistance until you reach the upper range of the target number of repetitions that you set as a function of your goals. As you keep doing sets, gradually increase the resistance to make the exercise harder. The number of repetitions will decrease as you continue. When the weight is so heavy that you can no longer reach the lower range of your target number of repetitions, it is time to move on to another exercise.
In bodybuilding, it is common to decrease the weight in the last set so that you can do 15 to 20 more repetitions to get the muscles pumped up as much as possible. But getting pumped up would be a catastrophe for a fighter, so it is wise to train using the half pyramid model (you only increase the weight) rather the pyramid model (where you increase the weight and then decrease it).
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter’s needs, not the other way around.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter's needs, not the other way around. Compared to strength training exercises, the blows used in a fight are very different:
> The rhythm of strikes is jerky, but strength training is very rhythmic.
> Rest periods between two blows are random, but in strength training, repetitions are done one after the other without much rest.
>A fighter does everything possible to rid the body of lactic acid and to avoid pumping up the muscles, but a bodybuilder strives for both burn and pump.
To overcome this triple difference, two techniques for increasing intensity are appropriate:
1
Stop and Go to Accelerate Initial Strength
This technique involves pausing for 1 to 2 seconds between each repetition. For example, when doing push-ups, you stay elongated on the floor for 1 second while you relax the muscles and then activate them, causing the contraction. The goal of this pause is to eliminate the accumulation of elastic energy that took place during the lowering phase of the push-up.
You must pause at the bottom of the exercise rather than the top so that the repetition begins with a positive phase (pushing the weight) rather than a negative phase (lowering) because this is how you strike blows against your opponent.
The stop-and-go technique benefits a fighter in these ways:
- It is very useful for improving initial strength. The muscles have to contract powerfully without the benefit of elastic energy stored up during the negative phase.
- It is important to work on the initial strength of a muscle in a near-resting state rather than a muscle that is already contracted, since this is very rare in a fight.
- The combined work of initial strength and acceleration strength will help you become quicker.
- The rhythmic tempo of repetitions in classic strength training promotes blood flow, which is not good. The staccato rhythm of the stop-and-go pauses will minimize pump and the accumulation of lactic acid.
- A random tempo mimics the conditions in a fight better than classic strength training does.
2
Doing Sets With a Between-Reps Break
The natural tendency is to want to do repetitions as quickly as possible one after the other. This bodybuilding tactic is not ideal for a fighter. When repetitions come without pause, fatigue quickly sets in because the blood flow is hindered. Metabolic wastes, such as lactic acid, build up and cause strength to decrease.
Furthermore, the muscle starts to get pumped up. If you train your muscles to get pumped up the way bodybuilders do, you will paralyze yourself more easily during fights.
So you need to do whatever you can so that your muscles do not get in the habit of getting pumped up. A pause between each repetition minimizes the pump caused by the restriction of blood flow. Blood circulates more freely, which helps transport oxygen and allows you to stay stronger for longer periods.
The philosophy of between-reps breaks consists of doing everything you can to avoid fatigue instead of seeking it out as you would in bodybuilding. To be able to work out a lot without wearing yourself
out, you would be well advised to avoid failure (temporary fatigue of the neuro-muscular system). As Charlie Francis, former trainer of sprinter Ben Johnson, notes, a 100% effort requires 10 days of recovery time. But if you push to only 95% of your ability, just 4 hours of recovery time is needed between two workouts.
This explains why scientific research shows that it is not a good idea for beginners to push sets until failure. Striving for failure is more appropriate for those working on muscle mass than for those wanting to increase strength or power.
Between-reps recovery breaks let you work with as heavy a weight as you can without exhausting your nervous system for a long time afterward. Thus, you can do your various workouts more closely together while still minimizing the risk of physically exhausting yourself.
Taking 15 seconds of rest between each repetition allows your muscles to recover up to 80% of their initial strength (Haff et al., 2003, Journal of Strength
and Conditioning Research 17(1):95-103). With the same weight and a similar rest break, spacing out the repetitions instead of doing them one right after the other immediately increases strength by 30% (Denton and Cronin, 2006, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 20(3):528-34).
By resting for 15 to 20 seconds between 2 repetitions (midset break), you can lift heavier weights and get stronger faster.
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity.
Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
To be effective, a broad strike happens in three phases:
- A rapid but short muscle contractioninitiates the most violent movement possible.
- Muscle relaxationcauses the arm or thigh to gain speed and range of motion without hindrance from antagonistic muscles (biceps and upper back muscles that slow down a punch or hamstrings and gluteals that slow down a kick).
- Contracting the muscle againjust before impact produces the critical force that will do the most damage possible.
Practical Consequences of Strength Training
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity. So that you do not hinder the transfer of your increased strength and power, it is a good idea to combine several techniques to increase intensity. Do not restrict yourself to working only with heavy weights. Even though using increasing amounts of resistance is an effective way to increase the strength of your blows, it is not a perfect strategy. Since there is no intermediate relaxation phase, ultimately, heavy weights will interfere with the motor learning for your strikes.
This imperfection explains why scientific research shows that working exclusively with heavy weights ends up decreasing the speed of a fighter's strikes after 12 to 18 weeks (Siff, 1999, Supertraining). This is why you should not depend solely on heavy training to achieve progress.
How Can You Improve the Qualities Required for an Effective Strike?
Only by judiciously combining these various techniques to increase intensity will you improve the three phases that make a strike effective:
- Heavy weightsincrease strength and therefore the effectiveness of the strike initially and on impact.
- Stop-and-go work using elastic bandsincreases the speed with which your strength propagates through the muscle.
- Explosive training with average weights increases the speed of muscle relaxation.
Ideally, you should end the explosive contraction phase by actually hitting something so you can maintain the sequence and end by contracting the muscle again. In fact, when you practice explosive technique with weights or just by doing shadow boxing, your own antagonistic muscles stop your fist or your foot. These two techniques actually work against the contraction-relaxation cycle just described. They are also counter-productive in regard to the final phase where the muscle contracts again just before impact. In fact, contracting the antagonistic muscles to stop your punch actually teaches you not to hit as hard as possible upon impact.
To reduce the degree to which strength training causes neuromuscular disturbance in your strikes, it is a good idea to end your workouts by spending a few minutes hitting a punching bag.
Working With a Half Pyramid
A set of strength training exercises is designed around a half pyramid. You should start with modest resistance and a high number of repetitions (25, for example, that are easy to do) to warm up the muscles, joints, and cardiorespiratory system thoroughly. For the second set, you should increase the weight so you can easily do 15 repetitions. These two warm-up sets help to precondition your muscles.
Then the serious work begins: Add resistance until you reach the upper range of the target number of repetitions that you set as a function of your goals. As you keep doing sets, gradually increase the resistance to make the exercise harder. The number of repetitions will decrease as you continue. When the weight is so heavy that you can no longer reach the lower range of your target number of repetitions, it is time to move on to another exercise.
In bodybuilding, it is common to decrease the weight in the last set so that you can do 15 to 20 more repetitions to get the muscles pumped up as much as possible. But getting pumped up would be a catastrophe for a fighter, so it is wise to train using the half pyramid model (you only increase the weight) rather the pyramid model (where you increase the weight and then decrease it).
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter’s needs, not the other way around.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter's needs, not the other way around. Compared to strength training exercises, the blows used in a fight are very different:
> The rhythm of strikes is jerky, but strength training is very rhythmic.
> Rest periods between two blows are random, but in strength training, repetitions are done one after the other without much rest.
>A fighter does everything possible to rid the body of lactic acid and to avoid pumping up the muscles, but a bodybuilder strives for both burn and pump.
To overcome this triple difference, two techniques for increasing intensity are appropriate:
1
Stop and Go to Accelerate Initial Strength
This technique involves pausing for 1 to 2 seconds between each repetition. For example, when doing push-ups, you stay elongated on the floor for 1 second while you relax the muscles and then activate them, causing the contraction. The goal of this pause is to eliminate the accumulation of elastic energy that took place during the lowering phase of the push-up.
You must pause at the bottom of the exercise rather than the top so that the repetition begins with a positive phase (pushing the weight) rather than a negative phase (lowering) because this is how you strike blows against your opponent.
The stop-and-go technique benefits a fighter in these ways:
- It is very useful for improving initial strength. The muscles have to contract powerfully without the benefit of elastic energy stored up during the negative phase.
- It is important to work on the initial strength of a muscle in a near-resting state rather than a muscle that is already contracted, since this is very rare in a fight.
- The combined work of initial strength and acceleration strength will help you become quicker.
- The rhythmic tempo of repetitions in classic strength training promotes blood flow, which is not good. The staccato rhythm of the stop-and-go pauses will minimize pump and the accumulation of lactic acid.
- A random tempo mimics the conditions in a fight better than classic strength training does.
2
Doing Sets With a Between-Reps Break
The natural tendency is to want to do repetitions as quickly as possible one after the other. This bodybuilding tactic is not ideal for a fighter. When repetitions come without pause, fatigue quickly sets in because the blood flow is hindered. Metabolic wastes, such as lactic acid, build up and cause strength to decrease.
Furthermore, the muscle starts to get pumped up. If you train your muscles to get pumped up the way bodybuilders do, you will paralyze yourself more easily during fights.
So you need to do whatever you can so that your muscles do not get in the habit of getting pumped up. A pause between each repetition minimizes the pump caused by the restriction of blood flow. Blood circulates more freely, which helps transport oxygen and allows you to stay stronger for longer periods.
The philosophy of between-reps breaks consists of doing everything you can to avoid fatigue instead of seeking it out as you would in bodybuilding. To be able to work out a lot without wearing yourself
out, you would be well advised to avoid failure (temporary fatigue of the neuro-muscular system). As Charlie Francis, former trainer of sprinter Ben Johnson, notes, a 100% effort requires 10 days of recovery time. But if you push to only 95% of your ability, just 4 hours of recovery time is needed between two workouts.
This explains why scientific research shows that it is not a good idea for beginners to push sets until failure. Striving for failure is more appropriate for those working on muscle mass than for those wanting to increase strength or power.
Between-reps recovery breaks let you work with as heavy a weight as you can without exhausting your nervous system for a long time afterward. Thus, you can do your various workouts more closely together while still minimizing the risk of physically exhausting yourself.
Taking 15 seconds of rest between each repetition allows your muscles to recover up to 80% of their initial strength (Haff et al., 2003, Journal of Strength
and Conditioning Research 17(1):95-103). With the same weight and a similar rest break, spacing out the repetitions instead of doing them one right after the other immediately increases strength by 30% (Denton and Cronin, 2006, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 20(3):528-34).
By resting for 15 to 20 seconds between 2 repetitions (midset break), you can lift heavier weights and get stronger faster.
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity.
Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
To be effective, a broad strike happens in three phases:
- A rapid but short muscle contractioninitiates the most violent movement possible.
- Muscle relaxationcauses the arm or thigh to gain speed and range of motion without hindrance from antagonistic muscles (biceps and upper back muscles that slow down a punch or hamstrings and gluteals that slow down a kick).
- Contracting the muscle againjust before impact produces the critical force that will do the most damage possible.
Practical Consequences of Strength Training
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity. So that you do not hinder the transfer of your increased strength and power, it is a good idea to combine several techniques to increase intensity. Do not restrict yourself to working only with heavy weights. Even though using increasing amounts of resistance is an effective way to increase the strength of your blows, it is not a perfect strategy. Since there is no intermediate relaxation phase, ultimately, heavy weights will interfere with the motor learning for your strikes.
This imperfection explains why scientific research shows that working exclusively with heavy weights ends up decreasing the speed of a fighter's strikes after 12 to 18 weeks (Siff, 1999, Supertraining). This is why you should not depend solely on heavy training to achieve progress.
How Can You Improve the Qualities Required for an Effective Strike?
Only by judiciously combining these various techniques to increase intensity will you improve the three phases that make a strike effective:
- Heavy weightsincrease strength and therefore the effectiveness of the strike initially and on impact.
- Stop-and-go work using elastic bandsincreases the speed with which your strength propagates through the muscle.
- Explosive training with average weights increases the speed of muscle relaxation.
Ideally, you should end the explosive contraction phase by actually hitting something so you can maintain the sequence and end by contracting the muscle again. In fact, when you practice explosive technique with weights or just by doing shadow boxing, your own antagonistic muscles stop your fist or your foot. These two techniques actually work against the contraction-relaxation cycle just described. They are also counter-productive in regard to the final phase where the muscle contracts again just before impact. In fact, contracting the antagonistic muscles to stop your punch actually teaches you not to hit as hard as possible upon impact.
To reduce the degree to which strength training causes neuromuscular disturbance in your strikes, it is a good idea to end your workouts by spending a few minutes hitting a punching bag.
Working With a Half Pyramid
A set of strength training exercises is designed around a half pyramid. You should start with modest resistance and a high number of repetitions (25, for example, that are easy to do) to warm up the muscles, joints, and cardiorespiratory system thoroughly. For the second set, you should increase the weight so you can easily do 15 repetitions. These two warm-up sets help to precondition your muscles.
Then the serious work begins: Add resistance until you reach the upper range of the target number of repetitions that you set as a function of your goals. As you keep doing sets, gradually increase the resistance to make the exercise harder. The number of repetitions will decrease as you continue. When the weight is so heavy that you can no longer reach the lower range of your target number of repetitions, it is time to move on to another exercise.
In bodybuilding, it is common to decrease the weight in the last set so that you can do 15 to 20 more repetitions to get the muscles pumped up as much as possible. But getting pumped up would be a catastrophe for a fighter, so it is wise to train using the half pyramid model (you only increase the weight) rather the pyramid model (where you increase the weight and then decrease it).
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter’s needs, not the other way around.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter's needs, not the other way around. Compared to strength training exercises, the blows used in a fight are very different:
> The rhythm of strikes is jerky, but strength training is very rhythmic.
> Rest periods between two blows are random, but in strength training, repetitions are done one after the other without much rest.
>A fighter does everything possible to rid the body of lactic acid and to avoid pumping up the muscles, but a bodybuilder strives for both burn and pump.
To overcome this triple difference, two techniques for increasing intensity are appropriate:
1
Stop and Go to Accelerate Initial Strength
This technique involves pausing for 1 to 2 seconds between each repetition. For example, when doing push-ups, you stay elongated on the floor for 1 second while you relax the muscles and then activate them, causing the contraction. The goal of this pause is to eliminate the accumulation of elastic energy that took place during the lowering phase of the push-up.
You must pause at the bottom of the exercise rather than the top so that the repetition begins with a positive phase (pushing the weight) rather than a negative phase (lowering) because this is how you strike blows against your opponent.
The stop-and-go technique benefits a fighter in these ways:
- It is very useful for improving initial strength. The muscles have to contract powerfully without the benefit of elastic energy stored up during the negative phase.
- It is important to work on the initial strength of a muscle in a near-resting state rather than a muscle that is already contracted, since this is very rare in a fight.
- The combined work of initial strength and acceleration strength will help you become quicker.
- The rhythmic tempo of repetitions in classic strength training promotes blood flow, which is not good. The staccato rhythm of the stop-and-go pauses will minimize pump and the accumulation of lactic acid.
- A random tempo mimics the conditions in a fight better than classic strength training does.
2
Doing Sets With a Between-Reps Break
The natural tendency is to want to do repetitions as quickly as possible one after the other. This bodybuilding tactic is not ideal for a fighter. When repetitions come without pause, fatigue quickly sets in because the blood flow is hindered. Metabolic wastes, such as lactic acid, build up and cause strength to decrease.
Furthermore, the muscle starts to get pumped up. If you train your muscles to get pumped up the way bodybuilders do, you will paralyze yourself more easily during fights.
So you need to do whatever you can so that your muscles do not get in the habit of getting pumped up. A pause between each repetition minimizes the pump caused by the restriction of blood flow. Blood circulates more freely, which helps transport oxygen and allows you to stay stronger for longer periods.
The philosophy of between-reps breaks consists of doing everything you can to avoid fatigue instead of seeking it out as you would in bodybuilding. To be able to work out a lot without wearing yourself
out, you would be well advised to avoid failure (temporary fatigue of the neuro-muscular system). As Charlie Francis, former trainer of sprinter Ben Johnson, notes, a 100% effort requires 10 days of recovery time. But if you push to only 95% of your ability, just 4 hours of recovery time is needed between two workouts.
This explains why scientific research shows that it is not a good idea for beginners to push sets until failure. Striving for failure is more appropriate for those working on muscle mass than for those wanting to increase strength or power.
Between-reps recovery breaks let you work with as heavy a weight as you can without exhausting your nervous system for a long time afterward. Thus, you can do your various workouts more closely together while still minimizing the risk of physically exhausting yourself.
Taking 15 seconds of rest between each repetition allows your muscles to recover up to 80% of their initial strength (Haff et al., 2003, Journal of Strength
and Conditioning Research 17(1):95-103). With the same weight and a similar rest break, spacing out the repetitions instead of doing them one right after the other immediately increases strength by 30% (Denton and Cronin, 2006, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 20(3):528-34).
By resting for 15 to 20 seconds between 2 repetitions (midset break), you can lift heavier weights and get stronger faster.
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity.
Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
To be effective, a broad strike happens in three phases:
- A rapid but short muscle contractioninitiates the most violent movement possible.
- Muscle relaxationcauses the arm or thigh to gain speed and range of motion without hindrance from antagonistic muscles (biceps and upper back muscles that slow down a punch or hamstrings and gluteals that slow down a kick).
- Contracting the muscle againjust before impact produces the critical force that will do the most damage possible.
Practical Consequences of Strength Training
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity. So that you do not hinder the transfer of your increased strength and power, it is a good idea to combine several techniques to increase intensity. Do not restrict yourself to working only with heavy weights. Even though using increasing amounts of resistance is an effective way to increase the strength of your blows, it is not a perfect strategy. Since there is no intermediate relaxation phase, ultimately, heavy weights will interfere with the motor learning for your strikes.
This imperfection explains why scientific research shows that working exclusively with heavy weights ends up decreasing the speed of a fighter's strikes after 12 to 18 weeks (Siff, 1999, Supertraining). This is why you should not depend solely on heavy training to achieve progress.
How Can You Improve the Qualities Required for an Effective Strike?
Only by judiciously combining these various techniques to increase intensity will you improve the three phases that make a strike effective:
- Heavy weightsincrease strength and therefore the effectiveness of the strike initially and on impact.
- Stop-and-go work using elastic bandsincreases the speed with which your strength propagates through the muscle.
- Explosive training with average weights increases the speed of muscle relaxation.
Ideally, you should end the explosive contraction phase by actually hitting something so you can maintain the sequence and end by contracting the muscle again. In fact, when you practice explosive technique with weights or just by doing shadow boxing, your own antagonistic muscles stop your fist or your foot. These two techniques actually work against the contraction-relaxation cycle just described. They are also counter-productive in regard to the final phase where the muscle contracts again just before impact. In fact, contracting the antagonistic muscles to stop your punch actually teaches you not to hit as hard as possible upon impact.
To reduce the degree to which strength training causes neuromuscular disturbance in your strikes, it is a good idea to end your workouts by spending a few minutes hitting a punching bag.
Working With a Half Pyramid
A set of strength training exercises is designed around a half pyramid. You should start with modest resistance and a high number of repetitions (25, for example, that are easy to do) to warm up the muscles, joints, and cardiorespiratory system thoroughly. For the second set, you should increase the weight so you can easily do 15 repetitions. These two warm-up sets help to precondition your muscles.
Then the serious work begins: Add resistance until you reach the upper range of the target number of repetitions that you set as a function of your goals. As you keep doing sets, gradually increase the resistance to make the exercise harder. The number of repetitions will decrease as you continue. When the weight is so heavy that you can no longer reach the lower range of your target number of repetitions, it is time to move on to another exercise.
In bodybuilding, it is common to decrease the weight in the last set so that you can do 15 to 20 more repetitions to get the muscles pumped up as much as possible. But getting pumped up would be a catastrophe for a fighter, so it is wise to train using the half pyramid model (you only increase the weight) rather the pyramid model (where you increase the weight and then decrease it).
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter’s needs, not the other way around.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter's needs, not the other way around. Compared to strength training exercises, the blows used in a fight are very different:
> The rhythm of strikes is jerky, but strength training is very rhythmic.
> Rest periods between two blows are random, but in strength training, repetitions are done one after the other without much rest.
>A fighter does everything possible to rid the body of lactic acid and to avoid pumping up the muscles, but a bodybuilder strives for both burn and pump.
To overcome this triple difference, two techniques for increasing intensity are appropriate:
1
Stop and Go to Accelerate Initial Strength
This technique involves pausing for 1 to 2 seconds between each repetition. For example, when doing push-ups, you stay elongated on the floor for 1 second while you relax the muscles and then activate them, causing the contraction. The goal of this pause is to eliminate the accumulation of elastic energy that took place during the lowering phase of the push-up.
You must pause at the bottom of the exercise rather than the top so that the repetition begins with a positive phase (pushing the weight) rather than a negative phase (lowering) because this is how you strike blows against your opponent.
The stop-and-go technique benefits a fighter in these ways:
- It is very useful for improving initial strength. The muscles have to contract powerfully without the benefit of elastic energy stored up during the negative phase.
- It is important to work on the initial strength of a muscle in a near-resting state rather than a muscle that is already contracted, since this is very rare in a fight.
- The combined work of initial strength and acceleration strength will help you become quicker.
- The rhythmic tempo of repetitions in classic strength training promotes blood flow, which is not good. The staccato rhythm of the stop-and-go pauses will minimize pump and the accumulation of lactic acid.
- A random tempo mimics the conditions in a fight better than classic strength training does.
2
Doing Sets With a Between-Reps Break
The natural tendency is to want to do repetitions as quickly as possible one after the other. This bodybuilding tactic is not ideal for a fighter. When repetitions come without pause, fatigue quickly sets in because the blood flow is hindered. Metabolic wastes, such as lactic acid, build up and cause strength to decrease.
Furthermore, the muscle starts to get pumped up. If you train your muscles to get pumped up the way bodybuilders do, you will paralyze yourself more easily during fights.
So you need to do whatever you can so that your muscles do not get in the habit of getting pumped up. A pause between each repetition minimizes the pump caused by the restriction of blood flow. Blood circulates more freely, which helps transport oxygen and allows you to stay stronger for longer periods.
The philosophy of between-reps breaks consists of doing everything you can to avoid fatigue instead of seeking it out as you would in bodybuilding. To be able to work out a lot without wearing yourself
out, you would be well advised to avoid failure (temporary fatigue of the neuro-muscular system). As Charlie Francis, former trainer of sprinter Ben Johnson, notes, a 100% effort requires 10 days of recovery time. But if you push to only 95% of your ability, just 4 hours of recovery time is needed between two workouts.
This explains why scientific research shows that it is not a good idea for beginners to push sets until failure. Striving for failure is more appropriate for those working on muscle mass than for those wanting to increase strength or power.
Between-reps recovery breaks let you work with as heavy a weight as you can without exhausting your nervous system for a long time afterward. Thus, you can do your various workouts more closely together while still minimizing the risk of physically exhausting yourself.
Taking 15 seconds of rest between each repetition allows your muscles to recover up to 80% of their initial strength (Haff et al., 2003, Journal of Strength
and Conditioning Research 17(1):95-103). With the same weight and a similar rest break, spacing out the repetitions instead of doing them one right after the other immediately increases strength by 30% (Denton and Cronin, 2006, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 20(3):528-34).
By resting for 15 to 20 seconds between 2 repetitions (midset break), you can lift heavier weights and get stronger faster.
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity.
Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy.
Secrets of an Effective Strike
To be effective, a broad strike happens in three phases:
- A rapid but short muscle contractioninitiates the most violent movement possible.
- Muscle relaxationcauses the arm or thigh to gain speed and range of motion without hindrance from antagonistic muscles (biceps and upper back muscles that slow down a punch or hamstrings and gluteals that slow down a kick).
- Contracting the muscle againjust before impact produces the critical force that will do the most damage possible.
Practical Consequences of Strength Training
In strength training, it is difficult to reproduce this three-part sequence using only one technique to increase intensity. So that you do not hinder the transfer of your increased strength and power, it is a good idea to combine several techniques to increase intensity. Do not restrict yourself to working only with heavy weights. Even though using increasing amounts of resistance is an effective way to increase the strength of your blows, it is not a perfect strategy. Since there is no intermediate relaxation phase, ultimately, heavy weights will interfere with the motor learning for your strikes.
This imperfection explains why scientific research shows that working exclusively with heavy weights ends up decreasing the speed of a fighter's strikes after 12 to 18 weeks (Siff, 1999, Supertraining). This is why you should not depend solely on heavy training to achieve progress.
How Can You Improve the Qualities Required for an Effective Strike?
Only by judiciously combining these various techniques to increase intensity will you improve the three phases that make a strike effective:
- Heavy weightsincrease strength and therefore the effectiveness of the strike initially and on impact.
- Stop-and-go work using elastic bandsincreases the speed with which your strength propagates through the muscle.
- Explosive training with average weights increases the speed of muscle relaxation.
Ideally, you should end the explosive contraction phase by actually hitting something so you can maintain the sequence and end by contracting the muscle again. In fact, when you practice explosive technique with weights or just by doing shadow boxing, your own antagonistic muscles stop your fist or your foot. These two techniques actually work against the contraction-relaxation cycle just described. They are also counter-productive in regard to the final phase where the muscle contracts again just before impact. In fact, contracting the antagonistic muscles to stop your punch actually teaches you not to hit as hard as possible upon impact.
To reduce the degree to which strength training causes neuromuscular disturbance in your strikes, it is a good idea to end your workouts by spending a few minutes hitting a punching bag.
Working With a Half Pyramid
A set of strength training exercises is designed around a half pyramid. You should start with modest resistance and a high number of repetitions (25, for example, that are easy to do) to warm up the muscles, joints, and cardiorespiratory system thoroughly. For the second set, you should increase the weight so you can easily do 15 repetitions. These two warm-up sets help to precondition your muscles.
Then the serious work begins: Add resistance until you reach the upper range of the target number of repetitions that you set as a function of your goals. As you keep doing sets, gradually increase the resistance to make the exercise harder. The number of repetitions will decrease as you continue. When the weight is so heavy that you can no longer reach the lower range of your target number of repetitions, it is time to move on to another exercise.
In bodybuilding, it is common to decrease the weight in the last set so that you can do 15 to 20 more repetitions to get the muscles pumped up as much as possible. But getting pumped up would be a catastrophe for a fighter, so it is wise to train using the half pyramid model (you only increase the weight) rather the pyramid model (where you increase the weight and then decrease it).
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter’s needs, not the other way around.
Adapting Strength Training to the Demands of a Fight
For optimal transfer, strength training must adapt to a fighter's needs, not the other way around. Compared to strength training exercises, the blows used in a fight are very different:
> The rhythm of strikes is jerky, but strength training is very rhythmic.
> Rest periods between two blows are random, but in strength training, repetitions are done one after the other without much rest.
>A fighter does everything possible to rid the body of lactic acid and to avoid pumping up the muscles, but a bodybuilder strives for both burn and pump.
To overcome this triple difference, two techniques for increasing intensity are appropriate:
1
Stop and Go to Accelerate Initial Strength
This technique involves pausing for 1 to 2 seconds between each repetition. For example, when doing push-ups, you stay elongated on the floor for 1 second while you relax the muscles and then activate them, causing the contraction. The goal of this pause is to eliminate the accumulation of elastic energy that took place during the lowering phase of the push-up.
You must pause at the bottom of the exercise rather than the top so that the repetition begins with a positive phase (pushing the weight) rather than a negative phase (lowering) because this is how you strike blows against your opponent.
The stop-and-go technique benefits a fighter in these ways:
- It is very useful for improving initial strength. The muscles have to contract powerfully without the benefit of elastic energy stored up during the negative phase.
- It is important to work on the initial strength of a muscle in a near-resting state rather than a muscle that is already contracted, since this is very rare in a fight.
- The combined work of initial strength and acceleration strength will help you become quicker.
- The rhythmic tempo of repetitions in classic strength training promotes blood flow, which is not good. The staccato rhythm of the stop-and-go pauses will minimize pump and the accumulation of lactic acid.
- A random tempo mimics the conditions in a fight better than classic strength training does.
2
Doing Sets With a Between-Reps Break
The natural tendency is to want to do repetitions as quickly as possible one after the other. This bodybuilding tactic is not ideal for a fighter. When repetitions come without pause, fatigue quickly sets in because the blood flow is hindered. Metabolic wastes, such as lactic acid, build up and cause strength to decrease.
Furthermore, the muscle starts to get pumped up. If you train your muscles to get pumped up the way bodybuilders do, you will paralyze yourself more easily during fights.
So you need to do whatever you can so that your muscles do not get in the habit of getting pumped up. A pause between each repetition minimizes the pump caused by the restriction of blood flow. Blood circulates more freely, which helps transport oxygen and allows you to stay stronger for longer periods.
The philosophy of between-reps breaks consists of doing everything you can to avoid fatigue instead of seeking it out as you would in bodybuilding. To be able to work out a lot without wearing yourself
out, you would be well advised to avoid failure (temporary fatigue of the neuro-muscular system). As Charlie Francis, former trainer of sprinter Ben Johnson, notes, a 100% effort requires 10 days of recovery time. But if you push to only 95% of your ability, just 4 hours of recovery time is needed between two workouts.
This explains why scientific research shows that it is not a good idea for beginners to push sets until failure. Striving for failure is more appropriate for those working on muscle mass than for those wanting to increase strength or power.
Between-reps recovery breaks let you work with as heavy a weight as you can without exhausting your nervous system for a long time afterward. Thus, you can do your various workouts more closely together while still minimizing the risk of physically exhausting yourself.
Taking 15 seconds of rest between each repetition allows your muscles to recover up to 80% of their initial strength (Haff et al., 2003, Journal of Strength
and Conditioning Research 17(1):95-103). With the same weight and a similar rest break, spacing out the repetitions instead of doing them one right after the other immediately increases strength by 30% (Denton and Cronin, 2006, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 20(3):528-34).
By resting for 15 to 20 seconds between 2 repetitions (midset break), you can lift heavier weights and get stronger faster.
Read more from Delavier's Mixed Martial Arts Anatomy by Frederic Delavier and Michael Gundill.