Getting fit for your sport

This is a question I get asked a lot…and it is probably something that I dealt with before in this blog or one of the other incarnations of this blog but I’ll deal with it again because I was asked about it today and because I can’t be bothered searching to see if I have talked about it before.

I was asked specifically…’What is the best type of training I can do to make me a better rugby player?’…now feel feel to substitute Mixed Martial Artist, Tennis player, swimmer or powerlifter for rugby player and my answer will be the same.

The best thing you can do training wise is to play your sport…if you are a rugby player…the best thing you can do to be better at rugby is to play more games, if it is MMA it is to fight and spar more, if it is tennis then play more matches and if you are a swimmer you need to compete in more meets and if you are a powerlifter you need to take part in more competitions.

So for me it is a hierarchy of importance with regard to playing/competing/training.

1. Play and compete more.

2. Next you need to focus on the activities that enable you to play and compete more. Now this is where it gets tricky. For some athletes this might mean you need to prehab/rehab and regeneration work. For others it might be more endurance work and yet others more speed work. You might be too light to compete properly and so need to focus on bulking up. Yet others might be big enough but not strong enough. So after playing and competing the next thing you need to think about is realistically…’What do I need to do to allow me to play/compete more often’? The problem is that many athletes don’t answer this question realistically. The player in question that asked me this question today after we talked for a while got around to the fact that he hasn’t finished a game all season. The reason for this is simple…he’s too unfit and the dude is quite simply too fat to be fit. Yet he is in the gym 4 nights a week doing strength work along with his team training sessions. The answer to his question is simple…the best thing he could do to improve would be to NOT do 4 strength sessions a week. His time could be used much more productively.

3. After you have taken care of 1. playing and competing more and 2. working out what activities will enable you to play and compete more only then do you need to work out number 3…and that is to work out what activities will enable you to perform better when competing in your sport of choice. Now personally I know rugby players and footballers who play barely half the games in their season.I know Mixed Martial Artists who rarely fight. I know powerlifters who rarely if ever compete…yet these same athletes never miss a training session in the gym. They have failed to prioritise their training properly.

So…in short…if you want to get better at your sport…then compete or play your sport. If you want to be able to compete and play…then work out what you need to do to keep your body fit and healthy enough to be able to compete or play and then and only then….do you need to worry about the training you need to do to perform better. So I am not interested in hearing about your opinions on hill sprints, or your views on reverse band bench pressing, or how awesome you think crossfit is for rugby if it is 6 weeks since your last game and you haven’t been picked because you are too fat or too unfit to actually make it through a game.

Conditioning – On the rower

This post is basically just for you Darragh….because I know you need all the help you can get.

I am going to talk about ‘conditioning’ in its broader context at some stage but here I want to talk about the ways that I look to use the Concept II rower in particular…I am going to do so very briefly and will look to edit and expand this post if and when I get any questions about it…so this post will just be quick and to the point hopefully.

Firstly, like all aspects of strength and conditioning it is important to understand the continuum that you are looking at…in this case with the rower this continuum has sprint work at one end…something like max effort work over 100-200 metres….an effort of…just for the sake of discussion…of say 15-30 seconds at one end and a more endurance based effort at the other….typically and again for the sake of discussion 2000+ metres or more….now…before people start picking this to pieces…there is a difference between doing a ‘training’ 2000 metre effort and a ‘competition’ or ‘race pace’  2000 metre effort…a race pace 2k that I might do in 6min and 45 seconds puts very different demands on my body than a training 2k that I might do in 8+ minutes…what we are essentially talking about here with this continuum we are looking at is a max effort sustainable for 15-30 seconds at one end and an effort sustainable for an extended period of time at the other….with everything else in between. This everything else includes a multitude of various interval sessions and efforts placing a variety of differing demands on the body.

So with that in mind….if you are looking at improving your rowing you first have to decide what elements of your rowing you are looking to develop….are you looking to improve your sprint capacity or your endurance capacity….are you looking to improve your power or are you looking to improve you aerobic work capacity?

The important thing to understand is that you can’t ignore one while focusing on the other….this is the mistake that people make in all forms of training. People fail to understand that all elements and aspects of training have their own continuum on which they fall.

This is why you read countless articles about powerlifters who suddenly reach another level after doing something outside the element of the strength continuum on which they are focussed….all the focus on is pure strength work…working at the lower end of say the 1-5 rep range for example who then start introducing some prowler work….or start going for a walk….start doing some strongman training….it doesn’t matter what it is….they get an improvement because they start making gains in some other element of the continuum and as a result of this their general performance improves. Do you follow?

It is the same with work on the rower….if you want to improve your sprint capacity then the principle of specificity holds true and the bulk of your training should be focused on this area but it shouldn’t exclude everything else. You want to get better at pure power work….you should do plenty of that…BUT if you really want to get good…you should also do some sprint intervals….do some long intervals…..and do some endurance work….because they all feed into each other. Naturally the inverse is also true….if you want to improve your aerobic capacity…your endurance than that should make up the bulk of the work you do…but you also need to include some long intervals….some sprint intervals and some pure power work.

As with all elements of training…it is about getting the balance right.

Now to Darragh’s question specifically and again in brief…if I was rowing for fat loss….what I would do is this:

Do 1km…get off the rower…have a bit of a stretch and loosen up. I’d get back on the rower and do 10x150m with 30 seconds recovery between efforts…I’d bury myself on these…then I would advise you fall off the rower…if you are still alive a few minutes later I would get back on and row and easy 2-5km depending on how much time you had and how fat you are.

My Own Training

I am going to keep some details of the training I am doing myself here in my new locale.

It breaks down like this:

Sunday: Sunday is Gods day…so resting on Sundays

Monday: Going to do some Hill Intervals in the middle of what will be some easy steady state cardio. I’ll do some mobility work either side of this session. Then in the PM I’ll hit the gym for some strength work. I’ll detail the sessions as I go.

Tuesday: Going to go for a walk in the morning then I’ll also accrue a little upper body volume and trunk/core work with 10 supersets of 5 pull ups and 15 push ups and 60 seconds of bridging. In the PM I am going to hit the gym for some conditioning blocks before heading to do a MMA class.

Wednesday: Going to do some Hill Intervals in the middle of what will be some easy steady state cardio. I’ll do some mobility work either side of this session. Then in the PM I’ll hit the gym for some strength work. I’ll detail the sessions as I go.

Thursdays: Going to go for a walk in the morning then I’ll also accrue a little upper body volume and trunk/core work with 10 supersets of 5 pull ups and 15 push ups and 60 seconds of bridging. In the PM I am going to hit the gym for some conditioning blocks before heading to do a MMA class.

Friday: Going to hit the gym for a repetition session.

Saturday: Going to do a MMA session in the afternoon.

That will be my training week for the foreseeable future.

My last fight

I’ve been asked by a few people for footage of fights…this is one from March this year in Portlaoise .

http://www.vimeo.com/22197534

It was great fight…took the fight at late noticed and enjoyed it. I learned a lot from it as you always do when you fight.

So it took a while

This blog actually got sidelined but I’ve decided to revive it….not that anything actually dies on the interweb.

I am going to work my way back through this blog and tidy it up. What I mean by that is to spend a bit of time going back and writing what needs to be rewritten or updated and maybe remaking some of the videos. This blog was pretty much always written on the fly and the videos were the same…people asked questions and I made videos.

For those of you that don’t know…or are in the least bit interested I am back in Australia now…to be specific I am central western New South Wales…and it is bloody beautiful….more about that in later posts.

I am back training hard…in a new gym…I am back personal training…with new clients…and I am back training MMA…and loving it.

So in short I am going to get back to blogging if for no other reason than I used to love it and getting back ranting and raving I am sure will help control my blood pressure.

So you can looking forward to me rewriting history as well and documenting the present and predicting the future.

Too many gyms and not enough time

Sorry for the massive break between blog posts. With the rugby pre season kicking off last week and 4 GAA teams ramping up for championship in the coming weeks along with my usual work in the gym and getting things done for the opening of the new gym on August 1st I’ve barely had time to scratch myself let alone update the blog.

I promise I will make a constructive post this evening after work that will have you all as underwhelmed as always.

It’s never ending

I have a few things to update today so I thought I would put them all in a single post.

Firstly and most importantly…I tested today…as you all know…it’s all about me.

Strength Testing
Back in the olden days I posted this.

On the 15th of May I tested and these were my results:
Bench – 140kg
Pull Ups – 9 reps
Push Ups – 39 reps
Inverted Rows – 21 reps
Trap Bar Deadlift – 180kg

I wasn’t to disappointed with this…as I was really just getting back into training. I went on to detail my training program and my diet…my diet has been pretty stable asides from a couple of major blow out. I also predicted/stated that my goals for the 1st of July were the following:

Bench – 150kg
Pull Ups -12 reps
Push Ups – 50 reps
Inverted Rows – 30 reps
Trap Bar Deadlift – 200kg

Well as usual…I’m full of shit…I didn’t test yesterday because work got in the way…but I did test today and my results were as follows:

Bench – 160kg
Pull Ups -15 reps
Push Ups – 50 reps
Inverted Rows – 30 reps
Trap Bar Deadlift – 220kg

Pleased with this…did it reasonably easily on the bench and the trap bar…the pull ups were a surprise and the push ups and inverted rows I just punched out my targets. Onwards and upwards from here…pleased with how things are progressing.

I forgot…I also did 18 reps at 100kg on the bench and did 3 pull ups in the X-vest weighing in at 150.5kg’s (me+36.6kg).

In other news
Garrett was really annoyed about me sticking up those snatch videos the other day…I think everyone knew what was going to happen after I found that out.

That 9th Attempt was a PB so it’s not all bad.

Some Actual Coaching
This is from Manuel Buitrago who works at Supreme Sports Performance.

He technically has a ‘D’ path on the bar in these vids (whereas his last vids had an ‘A’ path and) so hes jumping back as a result. I dont particularly care for it but in both vids, he ends up in the same position above the knee, meaning hes still cutting things early and not reaching full extension.

Whatever bar path he chooses will depend on what feels more comfortable for him, but whats messing him up is cutting his pull. He also needs to step out more on his front leg more when jerking.

If I had to choose, Id take the top series because he loads the hamstrings, stays flat footed longer, and doesnt launch the bar out as much. He still needs to arch his back more, stop using his arms, and be more patient.

If hes going to deadlift first to trace the bar path, thats cool but he needs to know that the bar should start to brush an inch or two below wherever it lies at his thighs at standing.

Prilepin’s Table

I was just looking around at Supreme Sports Performance site and found this and thought people might think it was interesting.

One mans struggle against the force of gravity

I thought I would throw these up…as usual I don’t pick all the ‘best’ videos of the day…I don’t just post up all the ‘highlights’. I try to post ‘real’ videos…so there are misses…there’s less than perfect form…because that’s reality and because I think blogs and websites that are just full of highlights are disingenuous. So today I thought I would put up this series of Garrett’s. I do this for a number of reasons:
1. Because Garrett hurt himself…and I always find that funny.
2. Because he hurt himself and sacked up and got the lift on his next attempt.
3. Because after getting the lift he allowed Jonny and I to goad him into taking another attempt…which he got.

Some Actual Coaching
This is from Manuel Buitrago who works at Supreme Sports Performance.

The reason this kid is missing most of these lifts is because hes whipping the bar out due to his weight being too much on the toes on most attempts (as you can see via the bar path in the pics below).

Ironically on his 2nd attempt, he had a better weight distribution but he still cuts his pull above the knee (and never reaches a full extension). You can compare the difference between he and I, but even if he stayed over the bar longer, he would still have lost most of those lifts because his weight was too far fwd.

You can see the difference between his 3rd and 4th pic (where he failed) vs his 5th and 6th pic (where he made it). Again, hes still cutting the pull but his weight is further back despite the same start position.

So make sure you sit back a little more, and wait over the bar longer (btw I know I suck at photoshop):

Informed Performance Submission Tournament – Saturday, August 15th

Entry by pre-registration only. No entries will be accepted on the day. Forms will be made available and sent to clubs in the next couple of days. If by chance you don’t get a form, I’ll upload one online.

The tournament format is as follows:

Entry fee – €20

10am- Sign in.
11am- Rules meeting and brackets made.
12pm- Competition starts.

The competition will run on a straight elimination format with two progressing to a final. There will be a gold, silver and two bronzes for each category.

Matches will be decided by submission, or failing that, points. The referee will award points based on the following:
More info on what constitutes a penalty/sweep etc. is available on http://www.ibjjf.org/rules.htm

I should point out that the rules and categories used on that site are really extensive. Obviously this is a wee little tournament on the emerald isle so we won’t be using all of those.

Categories:
Novice (-12months), Intermediate (-3 years), Advanced (3 years +).

Weight categories as per IBJJF:
57.50KG.
64.00KG
70.00KG
76.00KG
82.30KG
88.30KG
94.30KG
100.50KG
Over 100.50KG

We have a large matted area which should be suitable for two rings, but I’ll trial it tonight and see if it is. If not I’ll arrange to get some more mats and we’ll put a ring downstairs.

More info plus entry forms coming soon. I just wanted to update as a lot of people have been enquiring.