Cardio and gymnastics

I was simply pointing out the fallacy of your statement. Strength training taken to the extreme is no more healthy than aerobic training taken to extreme.

Come on, coach, I ment sound and varied strength training, as I have indicated before.

And for the record, LSD + strength training was never my proposed model. A key point which you have continued to overlook/avoid during this discussion.

Its a step in the right direction, in my opinion.

No serious runner trains as an LSD jogger. A point which I have attempted to make numerous times during this discussion. Hill runs, tempo runs, intervals and LSD are all part of a serious runner's training program.

Actually, most runners will spend most of their time doing LSD and only a fraction doing sprints, fartlek, etc... Lets not forget, this is their bread and butter. (Of course nowdays they have learnt the use of anaerobic means for aerobic VO2 max improvement)

In this instance as a National Team Coach of many years, I will trust my own professional judgment. Although thank you for your opinion.

I respect your opinion greatly, and learn from you each time. This is why I am enjoying this discussion. Its not everyday I can pull you out into one...

Actually had you carefully reviewed the article, you would have noticed that the researchers were quite surprised that weight bearing exercises alone did not nearly increase bone density as much as previously thought. It was actually found that repeated impact training, in this instance jump roping, induced the development of superior bone density.

Of course, I agree, but you are making my point for me, coach, since if a jog provides one's skeleton with enough stimulus to increase bone density, you are surely a sedentary and untrained person.

I suggest to explore more useful methods like Deadlifting and Squatting. Does anyone here argues the supperiority of those for increasing bone density? Why should we use LSD running for this?

You are still avoiding the issue, that most of their time was spent moving in a non-anaerobic state.

No, sir, I am not avoiding the issue, because the issue is 'steady state' long distance running, which is not the case here. No energy system is active alone. Its always a combination of them, one cannot oversimplify the model.

As for your proposed aversion for moderation in training, I assume that this is not truly the case. Otherwise rather than typing, you would currently be outside running intervals 24/7.

I will not speak about my own training habits. The ones who know me personally, know the truth. Nough' said.

Ido.

Ido

The fact that the chinese team runs 3-5 miles is a singular fact in a sea of variables. I would be more careful than you in concluding that they are succeding in gymanstics because of that habit and not IN SPITE of it.

Should we also start eating white rice?

This shows me nothing. I rather make my conclusions about aerobic training from what research shows me.

At this point, discussion moving in wrong direction. You don’t want to be with closed mind especially when you talk with people who have elite results in some sport area. In that situation I prefer to listen and analyse. Nobody is telling that you must follow someones program, but sport training is not one dimensional thing. I am a karate coach with some results in world class competition, and I know very well how is important proper conditioning for fighters. Interval training, (HIIT, GPP) is most crucial for proper conditioning for fighters, but it doesn’t mean than I want to completely throw away distance running. I sad that because some coaches think that running (5 to 7 miles) is not important for fighters. Lets look at the most feared and dominant fighter today (Fedor Emilianenko – Pride, MMA etc). This man every single day start training with 7 to 10 miles run in Siberia (this is not a flat road, but distance it is), and he is not the only one (many champions still do and runs on a daily basis ). Yet he is very strong, and possess more gas in lungs then I ever seen. Who have rights to say to that man that he is wrong, and he must cut distance running? Combat sports require a wide variety of physical conditioning. In some manner (Coach Sommer knows better about that) obviously in small measurement, Chinese National Team also apply that variety, and the results are here, so we need to think twice before bringing some conclusions and close the book.

You guys mentioned sprinters before and that they dont do any cardio which is not entirely true. Generally an advanced sprinter will lift 2-3 times per week and work on sprinting 3-4 times per week (usually same day as lifting) on off days sprinters do something called tempo work. Tempo work is sprinting work at lower intensity (80-90% of their full speed) and with short rests, basicly interval training. Sprinters will usually use the events they do (100, 60, 400 meters) as their distance.

So saying sprinters don't do any cardio work is a misnomer, these guys arent just doing 100 meter dashes and lifting. I would assume that skill work for gymnasts like pommel horse takes a similar place in a gymnasts routine but that is just a guess.

Alex,

My understanding is that sprinters tempo work consists of 75% of their best time and lower. The 80-90% range is exactly what you want to avoid. They are too slow to be specific to the training objective and interfere with the high intensity sessions. If we are going on the assumption that someone does high intensity days on say M,W,F to allow enough time for the CNS to recover then having medium intensity runs (80-95%) in between these days will take longer than 24 hours to recover from. They get in the way. The tempo runs are more for active recovery and improving speed by heating the motor neurons which lowers their electrical resistance.

Sprinters don't simply use their event distance. They often follow a short to long or long to short program and use distances above their event in order to develop speed endurance.

Regards,

Rob.

I think it would be erroneous to assume that the human ability to do work, in the more physical sense than the vocational, was determined entirely by the hunting activity of earlier peoples. There were also many other activities necessary for survival, and many groups relied upon gathering for much of the food supply. This might require long, sustained, but less intense work. Also, there would be the ability to travel long distances, sometimes carrying a load, if the group were nomadic. In a way, I think it can be assumed that humans had to have the physical ability to do many different kind of things, and even as certain peoples moved into an agricultural existence, the need to labor physically could vary considerably, with some working very hard, and others hardly at all. Farmers might need to do many different tasks, and warriors or soldiers might have a different abilities or capacities to do work.

It is probably more safe to say that we have not evolved to sit on our rears all the day, than to say that our energy systems are adapted specifically well to a particular work activity.

I think, in general, when it comes to chosing an activity, it is sometimes best not to focus entirely on what is the best or most efficient, but on what a person enjoys doing intrisically, and will actually stick to doing, so long as they are not completely neglecting some areas of physical fitness, or ranging so far to the extreme in one area that they do more harm than good.

At this point, discussion moving in wrong direction. You don’t want to be with closed mind especially when you talk with people who have elite results in some sport area. In that situation I prefer to listen and analyse. Nobody is telling that you must follow someones program, but sport training is not one dimensional thing. I am a karate coach with some results in world class competition, and I know very well how is important proper conditioning for fighters.

Dear Lekman, if disagreeing is moving the discussion in a wrong way, maybe we should close this forum down.

As for people who have elite results in some sport area, I suggest you check with who you are talking to before you comment.

Thank you for another 'road work' recommendation for fighters, which belongs to the junk pile of history next to communism, as Tsatsouline say. I suggest you learn more from athletes which train in a more scientific and modern way - JSP and Hardey. Examples can be given to any direction and people will be successful BECAUSE or IN SPITE of their training habits.

Ido.

This is a very interesting read this thread, it all comes down to opinions i suppose at the end of the day, talking about aerobic exercise the vast majority of boxers do a lot of miles of road work, whether that helps or hinders them, who knows really? everyone has their own opinion, but a lot of aerobic work definitely reduces muscle mass and strength, that's for sure, by the same token i've heard of quite a few great boxers who do not run or do road work.

At the end of the day everyone has their opinion but few can prove they're correct, i think it comes down to the individual, if you feel good doing a certain exercise and feel it helps you then do it, on the other hand if you feel it doesn't then why waste time on it?

I tend to try and learn from everyone, i have found a lot of Ido's training videos to be exceptional as devices for learning a lot of great ideas to boost dynamic flexibility and strength and he is someone i would listen to very closely and take on board what he is saying, same with Coach Sommer who obviously has incredible knowledge.

I think the moral of the story is to try to learn from others and listen to what they say, BUT, only if they have the credentials and as i said before if you feel it works for you then use it.

Spartan: Road work has built excellently conditioned fighters. That doesn't make it the ideal method for conditioning.

I've built up to being able to handle most professional fighters with road work and intervals, and I can tell you without a doubt that I was much better conditioned when I was running/jumping rope/rowing for 5 minutes or less at a time than when I was doing 20-45 minute runs.

Ido's not just saying that long roadwork is not ideal for coditioning because he has some sort of mad cap ideology that he learned from Captain Crunch. Outside of being backed up by an enormous body of research WITH NO STUDIES SUGGESTING LONG ROADWORK IS SUPERIOR, there is a massive, massive body of anecdotal evidence. GSP, as Ido mentioned, is literally a perfect example. He wasn't anything special for a long time. His willingness to find the best coaches for each aspect of his sport and his willingness to do what they told him, regardless of whether it fit in with his current opinions, has made him the nearly unstoppable force that he is today. His conditioning is so good because he works smart. If he relied on long runs he'd be less of a threat because he wouldn't have the ability to handle high levels of waste products consistently over 25 minutes. There is a reason why he is a step above everyone else, and it's not because he's a genetic freak. He has taken the time to find the best coaches, people who did not look to the past blindly but instead took the past, compared it with budding research, tested it with athletes, and stuck with what worked best. By listening to these people he has taken the time to build himself into what he is now.

EVERY athlete will benefit from more intelligent conditioning. To suggest that what has worked in the past will continue to work in the future fails to hold true when there is a generation of up and coming athletes that are training smarter than people who rely on long runs. They are more physically capable due to superior training methods.

There are some things the old-timers did, like Joe Lewis' wood chopping and brick putting that are still absolutely fantastic for developing certain aspects of a fighter, like punching power. Long road work does not fit into that category. To train longer than your longest round, or for many more rounds than you have to fight, is a waste of energy. It's better to train specifically more frequently, and that is what today and tomorrow's best athletes are doing.

It doesn't matter if you think your way is better if you have never educated yourself on other methods and tested them to see if they are valid for yourself, in addition to however many thousands of athletes and dozens of studies have demonstrated, without reproach, the superiority of other methods. That path only leads to unfulfilled potential, which should never be acceptable to any serious athlete.

EDIT: Athletic performance never comes down to opinions. It comes down to talent + practice. If your practice is inferior and talent is equal to the competition, opinion will not save you. That's the nice thing about physical activities: The proof is always in the performance. Opinions are not relevant when it comes to a clearly defined performance level. When a group of athletes is consistently performing better than another group, and the only difference is training modality, opinion does not determine who is better.

Ido Portal said:

Thank you for another 'road work' recommendation for fighters, which belongs to the junk pile of history next to communism, as Tsatsouline say. I suggest you learn more from athletes which train in a more scientific and modern way - JSP and Hardey. Examples can be given to any direction and people will be successful BECAUSE or IN SPITE of their training habits.

Ido.

Ido,

Have you heard of Joel Jaimeson over at www.8weeksout.com ? He was the head of S&C for Pride. He advocates LSD for fighters. He is a HUGE proponent of science.

Here are a few articles that may somewhat familiarize you with him, if you haven't heard of him:

http://elitefts.com/documents/joel_jamieson.htm

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/cardi ... system.htm

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/cardi ... iples2.htm

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/cardi ... aining.htm

http://elitefts.com/documents/explosive_power_mma.htm

Slizzardman - well how to respond to that ! people who tout their method or system as being the way and who don't recognise that there is more than one road that leads to success are seriously flawed, no-one knows everything and that is doubly true as regards physical conditioning.

Round about 99% of boxers all do a lot of road work, why is that? it's not just because they feel like it or they like it, it's because since time immemorial it has proven to be needed for a fighter preparing for a contest, anyone who disputes this should talk to just about every conditioning coach who works with fighters and ask them why they do it, literally all of them from Muhammad Ali to Joe Frazier to Mike Tyson to Evander Holyfield, that's just the heavyweights, all did or are doing serious road work.

Regarding Ido's opinion about long road miles not being ideal for conditioning, it depends on what the athlete is training for, if he's a marathon runner he'll be on the road a lot, but that's Ido's opinion, doesn't mean it's correct, every individual responds differently to training and methods of training, some boxers might eat up the miles and perform brilliantly others may not, it's called individualization, if i was to be put on the same training program as you undoubtedly there would be marked differences in how we would tolerate the program.

As i said in my previous post, taking individualization into consideration we must all experiment to a degree and find what works best for us, no one size fits all method will work for everyone.

As regards road work for fighters, most of them alternate sprinting, jogging, sprinting, jogging so aerobic and anaerobic are all being worked in the same session very few of them would just LSD it.

If anybody here cares about learning how MMA fighters/boxers train or ought to train, Joel Jamieson's book is a good book to read. I've read all of Ross Enamait's stuff and a bunch of other stuff here and there, but Joel's the first guy I've read who isn't biased towards strength training.

Spartan300 said:

Slizzardman - well how to respond to that ! people who tout their method or system as being the way and who don't recognise that there is more than one road that leads to success are seriously flawed, no-one knows everything and that is doubly true as regards physical conditioning.

Round about 99% of boxers all do a lot of road work, why is that? it's not just because they feel like it or they like it, it's because since time immemorial it has proven to be needed for a fighter preparing for a contest, anyone who disputes this should talk to just about every conditioning coach who works with fighters and ask them why they do it, literally all of them from Muhammad Ali to Joe Frazier to Mike Tyson to Evander Holyfield, that's just the heavyweights, all did or are doing serious road work.

Regarding Ido's opinion about long road miles not being ideal for conditioning, it depends on what the athlete is training for, if he's a marathon runner he'll be on the road a lot, but that's Ido's opinion, doesn't mean it's correct, every individual responds differently to training and methods of training, some boxers might eat up the miles and perform brilliantly others may not, it's called individualization, if i was to be put on the same training program as you undoubtedly there would be marked differences in how we would tolerate the program.

As i said in my previous post, taking individualization into consideration we must all experiment to a degree and find what works best for us, no one size fits all method will work for everyone.

As regards road work for fighters, most of them alternate sprinting, jogging, sprinting, jogging so aerobic and anaerobic are all being worked in the same session very few of them would just LSD it.

Of course. Road work historically has meant long, steady runs, which are not ideal for conditioning. Used properly, they work great for recovery. I always used them to some degree. Ido is talking about non-marathon athletics. Marathon running is on the fringe of athletics. Over 90% of athletic events exist within the spectrum of strength-endurance. It is rare that you will find a sport with more than 45-60s of sustained effort with no relative rest. The only ones I can think of are the running events that are over 400m, swims over 100m, sculling, road bike events, and cross country skiing. Obviously some of these comprise triathlons, but that doesn't make it a separate event. Even with those events, nearly all of them are better trained for with non-LSD methods.

Like I said before, it doesn't make LSD worthless, and for Ido to make a blanket statement like that surprises me. It is important to remember that it tends to make a better tool for recovery than for conditioning.

Believe it or not, most boxers who do LSD work do so because their coaches tell them to. Why do the coaches say this? They have trained successful fighters that way in the past, so they stick to it without experimenting with new approaches to conditioning. I personally did very little, and I could outlast everyone except my trainer, who I could go toe to toe with. We did lots and lots of intervals. Intervals of pad work, intervals of jump rope, interval runs, and a 45 minute slow jog on Sunday mornings. There was no one who could keep up with my pace for long in the ring because I was better conditioned, even though I smoked about half a pack to a pack of cigarettes a week. I do not speak from scientific literature, though it is there to back me up. I am speaking from my personal experience training with the reigning world champion, first as his protege and then as his training partner/protege. I only stopped when I needed to have a bone spur cut out of my knee. If that hadn't happened, I would have had athletic success far before I was mature enough to handle it, and I would have probably had quite a number of problems. There was a reason for my superior conditioning, and it was because I was training the energy systems directly proportionally to my sport's reliance on them. I would have done even better if I had done a bit less of the 30 minute jump roping that I did. 5 times a week was too much in retrospect. Just because I was superior doesn't mean I couldn't have been EVEN MORE SO if I had known more about conditioning.

I have trained people with this method, sans smokes of course, and they have all developed superior levels of conditioning compared to people who did not train with the same approach to energy system development. From soccer to wrestling, the results were consistent.

You are confusing "has always been done" with "has always been needed." As an example from a different trade, people have been cutting glass by scoring and then tapping with a hammer or using a blowtorch. Nearly all the professionals do this and always have. However, using hot and cold water on a single score line works better. Far better. You get a nearly perfect cut that requires about 30 seconds of hand sanding to make perfect, instead of the much longer process required with other methods of cutting. Why don't they do this?

One, they haven't been exposed to the technique. Two, they've always done it a certain way. The contractor I work for always nails the corners of door trim together before he attaches the trim to the wall. That doesn't make it the smartest thing to do, or the quickest way to do it, but it works most of the time and he has always done it. I can't convince him that it works better to tack the pieces up first and then join the corners, despite the fact that I have to redo almost none of my trims, while he has to redo around 15% of his, or that I can do mine as fast as he does his, and mine require less touching up. It's just how people work.

The boxing coaches are stuck with the same mindset. Consider that Greg Jackson is the most successful MMA coach in the sport. His training methods are superior to what others use, and that's why he is so successful. It takes a massively talented fighter to give his fighters trouble even when they are the less talented one, because he does a good job of training them specifically for superior conditioning in their sport. Fighting is a funny thing, because superior conditioning isn't the only thing you need, but it is a powerful advantage to have.

The only differences in program tolerance will be individual recovery. The basic methods will work for everyone, because all humans have the same energy systems and physical structure. There are differences in height, length, and fiber make-up, but those differences merely determine which sports one is best suited for. As far as training goes, conditioning progress will always be maximized by a combination of training the energy systems one relies on according to the prevalence of their use in the given sport, and keeping training cycles and intra-cycle exertion within the recovery abilities of the given athlete. Those are the only training system variables that need to be modulated. Because we are creatures with identical energy systems, the basic principles will be identical. The individual differences will only be in regards to how intensity, volume, and frequency are modulated within a given basic principle. If this was not so, it would be impossible to consistently create successful athletes.

Interesting post slizzardman, i agree with most of what you're saying, but i tend to think that if the vast majority of boxing coaches are prescribing road work to their fighters then they must feel it benefits them in some way, i don't know much about a boxer's general conditioning program, so just take it that their trainer has experience as to what's best for conditioning a fighter.

You could very well be right that there are better ways for a fighter to be trained and i am not in any way advocating the "that's the way it's always been done" attitude which i believe is negative and will not help an athlete improve.

I think if a new way of training or a new approach works better then you must use that and not be paralysed by tradition.

I always thought the idea for road work was to build up the endurance levels so that a fighter could go the distance if he had to, if there's a better way for fighters to train then i would hope their trainers have enough dedication to the sport to seek those methods out and implement them, if not they're letting both themselves and their fighters down.

I thought that an aerobic base was beneficial, because it creates more mitochondria which can use lactate for fuel, therefore, increasing anaerobic endurance.

It is, especially if you're depending on the lactic acid cycle for energy. With fighters especially, this is a mixed bag. It is almost unheard of to not have short rests, and believe it or not even 1 second of rest is enough for your body to be flushing waste products out and getting fresh fuel ready to go. So when you've got a flurry of 8 punches and kicks and then a takedown, followed by a 20 second scramble and then a stand up, even in the middle of all that you're looking at moments of rest, and once the fighters stand up you'll notice that there usually isn't even a punch thrown for at least 5-10 seconds. There is constant recovery going on in different areas of the body, which reduces the need for the lactic acid to be consumed, since that happens locally not systemically.

At the same time, especially with grappling, there is less rest. They do need a better aerobic base, but they never go more than 10 minutes straight. These days, there's no fight organization that goes beyond 5 minute rounds, because they allow the fighters to be more exciting and energetic. So, yes there is a need for aerobic capacity, but only within certain frameworks. Even a 12 round championship boxing match only goes 36 minutes, and that's with 12 breaks not including whatever slow points there are within the fight. Boxers, out of all combat athletes, need the least aerobic development. They only work 3 minutes at a time, with many small breaks between scheduled breaks. 12 rounds isn't that long for a properly conditioned athlete. The best way to train for that kind of work capacity is with pads, not long runs. For specificity you work 3-4 minute rounds with 60-90s rest, and you build up to 3 minute rounds with 30-45s rests. Once you can go 15 solid rounds on the pads with not more than 45s of rest, you're going to be fine aerobically speaking. 400m sprints and short interval runs help a lot, but they should never go over the maximum length of the fight. If it's a 7 round fight, that fighter shouldn't be training more than 21 minutes even with the intervals. If they do they will be doing more work than necessary, and that's not good. It means they'll need more time to recover, and it will eat into the athlete's ability to keep maximum power output from dropping.

Even then, the runs are less important than specific conditioning unless the athlete runs for the majority of their event. For fighters, they're much less important than conditioning via kick drills, grappling bull-in-the-ring for the duration of each round, and high-paced pad work. That should be around 30% of total training time. Doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that means around 12 hours a week of pure conditioning. The rest of the time should be spent on skill work and reaction drills. Without those, conditioning is worthless.

Spartan: You'd be surprised at how many trainers are behind the times. There's a reason why fighters always target certain trainers when they want to be the best: There are only a few who know what it really takes. I believe this applies to most other athletic endeavors as well.

A little of the topic, but it fits the original subject I suppose.

From a personal experience, I have definitely felt the "disability" from strength training combined with cardio (running). But then again at that time I was a poster child for training too hard and too much. Not a place I want to get back to.

I am, however, interested in implementing some cardio (running), that will not interfere with the gymnastics. However, I have never been a fan of jogging - also there seems to be some debate on the usefulness of this. It feels very un-purposeful form me to run at such a slow pace.

What would the effect of a few rounds of high-intensity running be? (2-3x a week, 5-15min (20 at the most) ) Perhaps some 100-400m sprint intervals?

Have to bow to your superior knowledge slizzardman as you seem to have had experience with this, since all boxers seem to do roadwork as part of their regime i thought it must be helping them in some way. :?

Nice posts slizzard. That's something I've always thought for a long time, but good to have someone who's actually been there say what works better often.

You're welcome brain.

Spartan: I happen to have extensive experience with combat sports, and strength/power sports training in general lol! It's just been where my personal strengths are at, so that's what I have developed. I have also been lucky enough to have worked with some of the best in the world in the combat sports.

The jogging IS important, but mostly for recovery. A slow jog doesn't use hardly any energy or do hardly any damage to the body, especially on the balls of the feet. You should never run with your heels, ever. It's not how we are designed. What it DOES do is get a lot of blood moving, and that can really help you heal. You just have to make sure not to overdo it. Jogs are also really good for deloading phases, especially after you have done 4-6 weeks of high intensity work. You still don't do much, but if you're taking 5 days off of hard cardio training then a few 15-20 minute slow jogs( I mean slow, like 10-12 minute mile slow) are going to help you recover faster. Even then it is somewhat individualistic in nature as to how much will be good. 10 minutes may be plenty.

The biggest problem with too much jogging is that the body WILL start down-gearing more towards endurance work than power, which is not what a strength/power athlete wants. You can still succeed, but you will not be at your maximum potential. I just don't understand why anyone would accept that.

I just skimmed what was written, so forgive me if I misinterpret what was said.

Road work is not just for active recovery. A general principle for S&C is going from general to specific. Another principle is low intensity to high intensity. In the off-season, pre-season, or early in the season, you do more general work. As you get closer to competition, you start doing more specific work. There is no need to do 100% specific work year around for many sports, especially mixed sports like MMA.

For example, you may work on your aerobic capacity and power along with general strength early on. Then, you may work on explosive strength with maybe a secondary emphasis on general strength. Your MMA work should keep your aerobic capacity and power at maintenance levels. Closer to the fight you may start doing some glycolytic work (i.e., short intervals). Then, in your 8-week or so camp before the fight, you are doing all specific work. Your S&C incorporates MMA drills, boxing, wrestling, and sparring/rolling. Early on, you can do general stuff for your S&C. As you approach your competition, you gradually incorporate more specific work until your camp when almost all your S&C is specific work.

Also, MMA fighters require mostly alactic power and aerobic capacity and power. MMA is not all about being strong or being able to do a lot of intervals.

What would the effect of a few rounds of high-intensity running be? (2-3x a week, 5-15min (20 at the most) ) Perhaps some 100-400m sprint intervals?

It crushes your recovery. Heck, hard sprints can just leave my CNS fried.

Donald, what you are saying is true. That is how seasonal sports go. I didn't bother with a complete fight cycle, peaking, or any of that in my post, but outside of short de-training periods I have found that you should be working specific aspects of fitness that contribute directly to your sport performance. There is never any "general" work in the sense that it is undirected. If by "general" you mean working on basics like flexibility, maintaining a certain basic level of endurance, building joint integrity, and building strength and power in terms of specific exercises like pull ups, c&j, etc, then I agree for the most part, but even then exercises should be selected for maximum carryover to the given sport. Obviously it's hard to make generalizations since each sport's performance characteristics are so different, but you know what I mean. Each sport has aspects of fitness that suffer during the season more so than others, and that is what is worked on the most in the off-season. Pre-season begins the shift of emphasis from weak points to strong points along with specific skill drills, and with the start of the season comes skill development and maintenance of everything else. That generally only applies with seasonal sports. Fights are different because your camp is so short compared to your "off season" time between fights.

You can't run a seasonal cycle with fighters the same way as you do with football players and expect the same success. You have treat them as if they could be thrown back in the ring with someone random at any moment, because there are always unforeseen opportunities (like a fight opening up) that arise and if the fighter is not kept sharp enough to take advantage of them then they either miss the opportunity or they take it and lose the fight, which makes it a liability instead of an opportunity. I was always kept sharp so that I could take fights at a moment's notice and win. Once there was a guy in Florida who was 11-1 pro record Muay Thai. I was 0-0. I took the fight on 1 week notice and before I flew out to fight him he pulled out, saying he wasn't ready. Apparently they sent someone to see who I was and they saw me training and knew the guy wasn't going to beat me. Unfortunately for me, his management was smart enough to not let him fight me because that would be embarrassing. My trainer Manu was the world champ at the time and he was the same way. He got me into the habit because he was constantly given fights in Thailand a day beforehand, so he learned to always be in fighting condition. That's one reason that he had 7 championship belts. He was ALWAYS ready.

I personally believe that is possible for all fighters. You have shorter cycles that always include reaction and speed drills so that you never lose and constantly build your most important fighting instincts, and you fluctuate between general strength, power, and endurance priorities every few weeks. You don't get as much out of each cycle on any one goal, but you don't lose much between cycles of the same type, and by utilizing multiple training sessions it is more than just "possible" to maintain your endurance, speed, and reflexes while improving strength and power, and improving speed and reflexes while maintaining endurance and strength/power, and to improve endurance/reflexes while making very slow gains on power and maintaining strength and speed. I've done it. I know that it works, it's just not what you see in the main stream. You have to be careful when doing it, and there are some specific exercises you have to use for parts of it, but it allows for more constant development and continuous combat readiness.

I can't say that this is true for other activities due to my relative lack of experience, but you should always be doing specific work for fighting. Reaction drills, speed drills, etc. The only rests you should take from that are to de-train a speed barrier. Outside of that, drills for speed and reactions should never stop. Neither should impact conditioning. These things are cumulative and require constant maintenance. They don't need to be 100% of an athlete's time, but they should always be enough to maintain these things at the very least. I will say from experience that you are dead wrong about not being year-round with combat training. While it is true that many are successful without year round training, when you look to the absolute best in the business they are year round. There is always sport specific stuff going on. It never stops. It may be bumped down in priority to allow for more emphasis on muscle growth or endurance development, but it will never disappear. When you look at the truly superlative athletes in seasonal sports, they also trained specifically throughout the year. Barry Sanders. Bo Jackson( granted, his sports were similar enough to allow a lot of carryover in many areas, but still year around), GSP. There are not many to name, because not many put forth the dedication that this level of performance requires. I am not suggesting they did nothing but wrestling drills, running patterns, or batting cage practice. I am just saying that they are always doing some of that because they were looking to directly improve sports performance in some way, even when it is not their primary objective.

I understand what you're saying, and training cycles are indeed important, but they should always include at least enough specific work to maintain abilities.

Upon reading your post again, I think we are essentially saying many of the same things. I do partially disagree on the MMA perspective you have, because the single most important thing is your reaction to what happens in the ring, and that can only be maintained with consistent and regular practice. Sprawls, slips escapes, etc. There will always be an attempt to shift focuses between fights to concentrate on weak points and strong points, but there is never a time when the conditioning drills that are sport specific disappear. They just drop to maintenance levels. If they disappear, you're dealing with a second-rate coach.

MMA fighters definitely require more aerobic capacity than fighters who don't have to grapple. MMA is essentially one big interval, just like any other fight. It is definitely heavily about being able to handle varying intervals of high and low anaerobic and aerobic outputs. I'll definitely say that MMA is not all about being strong, although it really helps on the ground.

MMA/boxing/whatever skill training should be year around. The problem with many amateurs and even pros is taking fights too often, which makes fighters constantly in a state of training for fights and not working on their skills.

By general, I mean doing road work, pushups, working muscles and not movements. When you're closer to a fight, you need to make sure that the muscular system and energy system development transfers efficiently toward your fighting movements. This is where you start getting more specific to your sport. This is the difference between someone like Fedor, who looks effortless while fighting, and someone like Kevin Randlemann who fights like a wild beast.

I'm sure we're not that far apart in what we're saying.

Donald Lee said:

MMA/boxing/whatever skill training should be year around. The problem with many amateurs and even pros is taking fights too often, which makes fighters constantly in a state of training for fights and not working on their skills.

By general, I mean doing road work, pushups, working muscles and not movements. When you're closer to a fight, you need to make sure that the muscular system and energy system development transfers efficiently toward your fighting movements. This is where you start getting more specific to your sport. This is the difference between someone like Fedor, who looks effortless while fighting, and someone like Kevin Randlemann who fights like a wild beast.

I'm sure we're not that far apart in what we're saying.

HAHAHA I remember Kevin. We did not train together directly, but we were both training at Obake's Fight School. He's pretty funny. Mark Coleman was there too for a while. Somewhere I have a picture of all of us on the wrestling floor. Me, Mark, Maurice Smith, Kevin, Manu, Brandon Lee Hinkle, and a few other guys. I didn't wrestle at the time, but I was used as a sparring partner a lot for the stand-up because I was way better than them(except perhaps Maurice, though I do think I was a little better personally. He was just way bigger at the time than I was.).

Kevin never cared to spend the time it would have taken to learn to be a really smooth stand-up fighter. It's too bad, because he is unbelievably athletic. Mark... was just hopeless. Never have I seen a man more awkward on his feet. He was like a god when he was wrestling though! I saw some moves that I honestly thought only happened on WWF!

I think you're right when you say that a lot of amateurs and new pros are not training properly and taking too many fights. My philosophy has always been to build a killer fighting machine first, and THEN start taking fights. Once you get into the fight every 4-6 weeks routine your skills are going to grow more slowly than when you were dedicated to perfection, with no specific opponent prep. Still, I personally think that the whole approach most of these guys take is crap, because even with a fight every 2 months there's no reason to not be making significant progress. More than that can definitely get in the way.

I guess my biggest beef is that I see very little time dedicated to specific reflex training. I've worked around a lot of people, and I've never seen more than two rounds of specific work on building reflexes piece by piece. I seriously spent AT LEAST 30-40% of my total training time just slipping punches, switching stances to evade leg kicks, sucking in my stomach to avoid a body kick, bobbing and weaving hooks and overhands, and practicing ring movement. I'm not talking about countering off of that even, that was a separate portion of training. A lot of this is done slowly at first, and only done quickly sometimes. I got to the point where no one could hit me more than 10% of the time, and that's if they were a good pro. Even Manu didn't hit me that much. Of course, I hit him even less. It was unbelievable how polished he was, but it's because he trained me the way he trained himself. I really think that this approach is much more successful on the whole. It's what made Rick Roufus win the K-1 championship in 2000(i think) when he was a total loser before Manu.