Hand Wrapping

This weekend 12 Gauge MMA taught a seminar on cage control and ring craft for a team of first time fighters, cornering fighters was disscussed and it got me thinking. Over the years I have seen some real poor corners, some fighters seem to believe just bringing your mate along to shout smash him in the face is all you need of a corner team!

I have been lucky from day one, I have had an awesome team behind me who have taken the time to learn how to switch me on and  get me mentally ready to get in the cage and compete. This is key. Corners should know their fighters intimately so they can bring them to the boil and send them out ready to do the job. For years I’ve struggled with nerves and trying to switch from Mr nice guy, to wanting to punch someone in the face. Over time, the team behind me worked different corner tactics to find what suited me as a fighter and found solutions to the problems I was experiencing.

I remember when I fought Dan Hardy I was sharing my warm up room with another fighter whose corners gave  my corner team a slagging on the forums after the event for how long my warm up had lasted and that I was knackered by the end of it. Yet I went out and had a full 25min fight that is still seen in many peoples eyes as one of the greatest UK fights of all time, and their guy went out and lost rather quickly! This is an example of an uneducated corner team, they didnt realise that it took a long time for me to come to a boil (sometimes over 1 hour) and that I liked to get rid of my first wind. They just thought one structure of warming up suits all!!

So the point I am trying to get across is that each fighter is individual and a good corner team should be able to recognise their fighters needs. In order for a fighter to perform to their greatest potential they need to be warmed up and primed correctly!!

12 Gauge Signing off!!

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I have been super busy of late so pulled together some of my older posts I wrote for my old blog. Hopefull will be of use to some of you guys that have not read it before, check it out:

I have had a request to post up some of the conditioning circuits I follow so thought I would oblige. First I will give you a little insight into how I have arrived at where I am today in regards to my strength and conditioning programs I now follow and a couple of tips on how to train and what should be in your training program.

Over the years I have tried out and followed many programs with mixed results, most of the time I had no clue as to why I was doing what I was doing other than it was what every one else seemed to be following!! The training for my first fight consisted of me going for 3 long runs a week and lifting weights twice a week. Now a lot of guys that I speak to in the gym still do this sort of training for fights and dont see any problems with this, I ask them this question though “Is this training specific to your needs??” . I asked  myself this very same question after my first fight and realised there was a lot for me to learn.

I have spent the last 7 years educating myself on this subject. I have read countless books and articles on the subject and still do. I have talked to experts and I have gone out and taken qualifications in order to improve my knowledge. Olympic athletes don’t leave their training to chance so why should you. In order for you to achieve the gains you want and require you have to:

1. Specific – Your training has to be specific to the sport. You need to break down and understand the demands of your sport and what training is needed in order for you to improve. For example the training I did for my first fight was in no way sport specific, long slow distance does not emulate what I needed in a fight, there was no speed, power or strength training.
2. Overload – You must train to overload in order to gain any increases. If you don’t train to overload your body will not adapt and their will be no gains. By overload I mean train to failure, the final reps of your final set you should be failing on. This then encourages  your body to adapt (Super compensation) during the recovery phase and you will see gains within your training.
3. Adapt/Change – Constantly change and adapt your training plan. It doesn’t take long for your body to adapt and get used to what you are doing therefore you need to change things up on a regular basis. This can just be little tweeks but you need your body to be constantly guessing if it gets used to your training you will plateau!
4. Rest and Recovery – You have to have rest and recovery periods built into your training plan. Without time to recover and repair your body will fail you and no adaption will occur, you will over train!! 
5. Education – This is probably the most important point. You have to educate yourself, if you don’t take charge of your own training no one else will. There are thousands of books, articles, DVDs out there you can even hire a decent Personal Trainer in order to educate yourself! A couple of great places to start your education: http://www.rosstraining.com/ and http://www.crossfit.com/

Hopefully this will give you somewhere to start and ideas on how to train. Now down to the request of some examples of my conditioning workouts :

I like to split my training circuits into the rounds I will be fighting (Sport Specific) so for example the circuit I did the other day consisted of:

3×5 mins each round is broken down into minutes and you perform a different exercise for each minute.

ROUND 1 UPPER BODY

1min – Fast 6-10 punch combo bag work allowing yourself to re-set after each combo this should be high intensity. 

1min – Pull ups

1min – Medicine ball or a weight press above head and out infront of you 10 reps of each then repeat.

1min – Hold a weight out infront of you then perform steering wheels.

1min – Same as first minute.

Rest 30-60 seconds

ROUND 2 LOWER BODY

 1min – Shoots on a bungee or have some one hold you on a harness.

1min – Deep Squats with a medicine ball.

1min – step ups

1min – 30 seconds bunny hoping over a thai pad side to side then 30 seconds forward and backward.

1min – same as first minute.

Rest 30-60 seconds.

ROUND 3 ALL OVER

1min – Carry the bag for 20 seconds then slam and ground and pound for 40 seconds.

1min – Clean and press a sand bag.

1min – Burpee.

1min – Kettlebell/Dumbell swing or medicine ball slam.

1min – Same as first minute.

The great thing about this circuit is its easy to adapt to whatever your needs are. You can replace exercises as and when you need to and you can increase the intensity by adding more rounds and decreasing your rest time.

Here is an example of a hill sprint session I follow:

Find a steep hill with lamp posts on it. Your rounds will consist of sprint to the first lamp post jog back down, sprint to the second lamp post jog back down, sprint to the third lamp post jog back down and rest. I have a Heart rate monitor on and my rest period is dictated by this. I allow my HR to drop then repeat as above for 10 rounds. I usual finish this with 5x50m flat sprints with little rest in between.

Hopefully this is usefull to you guys.

Enjoy 12 Gauge signing off!!

John Will Seminar 2010 Factory BJJ. Photo copywrite John F Sherwood.

After attending the awesome John  B Will seminar @ Factory BJJ  it just cemented the principal that as you progress with your training and coaching its the small details that matter!!

When you first begin training you are hunting the killer move, you aren’t really bothered about the details just the general big picture and the more flash and unusual the better. You don’t look for the details and to be honest you only really care about the end product, the finishing move (sub). How to correctly hold a poition just doesn’t  interest you. As John put it in his seminar you are all about the flash “youtube technique”.

As you progress though you have to take yourself back to the start and re-analyse your game there are always improvements that can be made to the basics that you started with. Even if it is as small as using your shoulder at a slightly different angle to keep side control that little bit tighter, this improvement although small can make a difference. Add several of these small details to your game and all of a sudden you are making large improvements overall.  These small subtle details become massively important to you, you have an idea what the big picture is but now need to concentrate on the small details that make up that large picture!!