Specificity of conditioning......
Friend of the Roughouse, Greg Loughran came to our saturday morning conditioning session this week. The regular team members have conditioned with me for a while now so i never really have to explain why we do things the way we do things. So it was good to explain the reasoning behind the session content.
I explained the idea of the specificity vs objectivity continuum to Greg and why we choose to be very specific.
Basically, the more the session replicates the sport, the more transfer to competition performance will occur, however, the harder it is to get objective measurements of output and progression. For example, completing a conditioning session on a treadmill will have very little transfer to mma, as it does not replicate the movements, performance dynamics or energy systems of competition, but it is very easy to be objective (fixed speed, incline, work to rest periods etc.) So for any strength and conditioning coach, they have to make a decision about which they feel is more important.
For me, specificity is key and the transfer to the sport is vital, otherwise you are just doing 'work' and work with out direction and transfer is a waste of any professional fighters time. There are so many training requirements in mma, it is not acceptable to just do work.
We also talked about the intensity of conditioning training. If there is going to be an impact on competition performance, the conditioning sessions must be at or above the level of intensity likely to be experienced come fight night. Eg, a higher volume of punching, wrestling a fresher partner and isolating a few exercises that build up fatigue in key musculature that are likely to effect competition performance.
If you can set up sessions with these principles in mind, you are much more likely to influence a fighters ability to perform for longer in competition.
Be specific and work at or above competition intensities.
Greg was a warrior and went hard at the session and dug deep especially when things got tough.
Vern Gambetta put it best when he said, 'Just because its hard doesn't make it good'
Nice quote from Vern Gambetta. I think it might have been one of DeFranco's articles where he said - any idiot can make someone tired, making them better requires coaching.
ReplyDeleteQuestion - do you have any control over the intensity of your fighters specific sparring/mma sessions? How do you fit your conditioning work around it?
Thanks,
- Joe
hello mate, yes and no......
ReplyDeletei don't have as much control as i would like, however we've talked as a team about the content, durations and intensities of sparring. So in theory it is set however i'm not there to make sure the things go to plan. Conditioning is usually once a week and is never set in stone, if we decide it can't be executed at the desired intensity then we don't do it at all.
Good stuff Ollie. I'm a bit late on this one.
ReplyDeleteDo you do any aerobic work? Do you place any importance on HR, HRV, that kind of stuff? Have you seen Joel Jamieson's stuff?
Fionn.
@fionn
ReplyDeleteNo we don't do any isolated aerobic work. Thats not to say i don't think it is an important capacity for the sport. However the intensities that the technical components of mma are trained at provides more than enough exposure for that energy system. I'm happy that the aerobic qualities are trained very specifically and have been over long periods of time via pads, technical rolling, some sparring, wrestling drills etc.
I did some work with HR and HRV about 5 years ago but decided that without very accurate max hr values using hr is not reliable enough. Also it not very user friendly for a sport that has wrestling and grappling components
Not really seen any of Joels work however i hear he is very highly regarded.
Good point, aerobic training doesn't just equal long steady state work.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I have seen it's good stuff, he takes a lot of Verkoshansky and Viru's work on energy systems and breaks it down to be more reader friendly. I've heard very good things about his MMA book. This could be interesting: http://www.8weeksout.com/2011/04/19/ufc-130-training-camp-an-inside-look-2/
Do you use any methods to monitor stress (sympathetic dominance), or do just use your intuition as a coach? I have seen some coaches place a huge importance on this with expensive equipment like the OmegaWave. (sorry for all the questions)
Thanks,
Fionn.
no Omega wave for me, they presented to us about 5 years ago but i believe that their reliability came into question once the surface was scratched.
ReplyDeleteWe do a lot of testing of athlete status, including stress. test : cortisol ration, IgA saliva tests, a CNS jumps test and a subjective physical status questionnaire as well as GSP tracking of training and some games.
Good stuff thanks.
ReplyDelete