MMA: Painful Training for the Big Fight
Ok, the truth is, the more that I do this sport, the less sexy I become. My ears are screwed, well only my left one, which makes me look even more stupid. My eyebrow hair grows funny because I had five cuts there, well only three from MMA and two from stupid childhood crap. I have a scar across the top of my head towards the side, kind of like where a part would be. It's really lumpy and shitty looking, again not from MMA per say, but from a street fight that involved two opponents and a splintered off 4x4 parking post that parked itself upside my thick skull. So, it counts still. My smile is crooked, I think its from the three-day palsy that I suffered from a couple years ago when a guy's spyder guard slipped from my bicep up to my face, paralyzing half of my face for three days. That was freaky! My neck injury left half of my upper body not quite matching up with the right, not to mention the scar left from that. I broke my nose a couple of times, leaving it just crooked enough to be able to tell. And my face just looks...different than it used to. When I look at pictures, like my wedding pics, or when my kids were tiny, I can't help to think, "Damn, I was a good looking guy!" Granted, I see some ugly ass fighters, and I think that I took a bit less damage than most. And others are probably just kind of "ooglay" by nature, and fight out of anger towards that. Anyway, I look back and ask if it's worth it? Well...hell yes! I can't take it back anyway, and you know what? We weren't put here to look in the freaking mirror all day long! I know, easy for me to say, I'm married to a very pretty girl. So, I get it. If I was single, I'd pay much greater attention to my looks. Anyway, my point is, as I've gotten off track quite a bit, that every single aspect of our training (whether you're a fighter or competing athlete) should have some purpose. I won't say functional, as some people classify that into a strange category based on what they think that word means in regard to training and there's too much debate over that, but it has to have some benefit to help us perform better. If we develop sexy man bodies along the way, great. If we get a bit uglier year by year through our craft...maybe we should work a bit more on defenses. Ha!
So anyway, back to Tuesday's training...
I love Tuesday and Thursdays, those are the days that I work with Dave Reid. And I love Monday and Wednesdays, those are the days I work with Big Don. Wow, my training is finally coming together!
Today was Dave's day. Dave is a really smart trainer, he has a purpose for everything. He is like Yoda, but pretty jacked. He's also kind of nuts when it comes to training. I mean, he trains really smart, but has pride in his craft, so he's not messing around. I can always expect to feel great about what we do when I leave there. I'm not going to be wasting my time doing stupid stuff. So here's what we did today (I'll do my best to remember it all).
Strength
Chin Ups
- 3 x 10-12
One-arm Dumbbell Snatch – each arm
- set 1 – 45 x 8
- set 2 – 55 x 8
- set 3 – 65 x 6
Floor Press – done very explosively, almost throw the bar in the air but don't
- set 1 – 135 x 8
- set 2 – 185 x 8
- set 3 – 225 x 8
Barbell Bent-over Rows
- set 1 – 135 x 10
- set 2 – 185 x 10
- set 3 – 225 x 8
- set 4 – 225 x 8
Side Raises Using Bands
- 3 sets of 15
This is as best as I can remember. The weights aren't super huge, but technique and explosiveness is used for most of this. For instance, the floor press. I'm sure Dave and I could add a lot more weight to simply "move" it, or complete the rep. However, because I paused at the floor long enough to go from 0-100 in the positive portion of that motion, as fast as possible, 225 pounds was a comfortable weight to get the job done and still use a heavy enough weight. It was a great workout, and for today, I was just getting started.
We headed to the training room and on to the mat for some ladder drills. We did a couple sets each for about five or so different drills. It was good to get my legs and hips warmed-up for what we were about to do. I felt like sort of an idiot on those, so I have something there to work on. It will help me have quicker movement I think, and if nothing else, it's a great warmup. I liked it.
Now to the "hitting stuff" portion of the workout. I gloved up and started with our typical warmup to get my body mechanics working and my punches flying, especially after lifting weights. I'm already noticing that it's easier for me to box after weights. I'm handling the lactic acid much better, which is a good thing. So to warmup, 20 jabs (left), 20 cross (right) 20 left hook, 20 right uppercut, 20 left uppercut, 20 jab/cross combos, and 20 1-2-3 (jab, cross, hook) combos. We do it really quick, to kind of get tuned and blow out my lungs a little bit. I'm always looking to get better hip in my punch and keep my tension, turning punches over well, stuff like that.
Hand Combos
Then we worked some hands combos, I'll try to remember these and I'll try to go round by round.
- catch jab, counter jab
- perry jab my right, come over the top with my right
- perry with my left, counter with my cross
- throw jab, cross, he returns cross, I slip outside as I angle in for a left hook to the body
- from that same combo above, after the left hook to the body, I come to the head as well, then pivot with my right leg on to angle to his blind spot, and come back right cross.
- jab, cross to the solarplexus region in a downward motion, driving it right in there, coming back left hook to the body. This one felt good.
- old simple favorite: jab, cross, duck and slip the hook (to my right), counter cross hook, bang bang, duck, bang bang, you know...kind of like that. Haha!
We did some other stuff, but I can't remember it all. We finished up with the same thing we started with to burn out, which was 20's of everything as quickly as possible. Then, we got to some kick drills and work in that area for general athleticism and quickness, as well as kick technique.
Kick Combos
- right leg kick, left body kick
- lead push kick, come with right kick hard to the leg or body
- lead push kick, step out for right leg kick, finish on the angle with left body kick to the liver region.
Drills
- leg kick, coming forward in a line, then going backwards on an angle
- 8 reps each direction, each leg, for each leg, body, and head
Then we finished up kicking each other and punching each other repeatedly for 20 second intervals to build a tolerance to pain. Sounds crazy, eh? It's good stuff from Dave's Kyokshin Karate roots. Those dudes are bad ass.