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| Common mistakes that combat athletes are doing in their strength and conditioning training |
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Page 1 of 7 Mistake No1: Training like a bodybuilder. The biggest mistake that a combat athlete can do is to go to a commercial gym and train like a bodybuilder. I have nothing against commercial gyms. Most of them do great job if your goal is fitness and bodybuilding. Nevertheless commercial gyms have some serious drawbacks and are not the best place for a fighter to train. They have too many rules that may hinder your training. You are not allowed to sweat all over the place or run from the barbell to the dumbbells without letting others touch your bar. Doing heavy barbell work, or exercise like snatches and heavy cleans draws funny looks to say the least. I have been in gyms that they don't allow doing these exercises anyway, because they are very crowded and it is really dangerous snatching a bar while a curious young lad is passing by. Nevertheless, the above-mentioned exercises are some of the best that you can do if you are a fighter. Another important factor that should be mentioned is that the environment in most commercial gyms is not optimum for serious athletic training. Flexing your muscles looking at the mirror and trying to impress the pretty blond sitting on the adductor machine is not a behavior suited for a serious athlete. Yet this is what you find in most commercial gyms. The place that you train should be your test laboratory. In there you should stay focused train with maximum intensity under measurable conditions. Measure your progress, set your goals and try to achieve them. Then set new higher goals and go for them too. The more you sweat in there the less you are going to bleed in the ring. You have to make sure that if you loose it is not going to be due to bad physical conditioning. Loosing from a more talented, more clever or in general a better fighter is fine, but loosing because your physical preparation sucked, is not an option. There is no excuse. It is better to train at your own gym at home or at your school. Free weights, and your own bodyweight is all you need. If you have kettle bells and sandbags it would be even better. The above equipment is all you need and believe it or not this is what most top class athletes are using. Train together with your team mates and try to motivate one another. Train seriously and aggressively. If you decide to go to a gym try to find one with the above specifications. Don't look for a pretty environment look for a place where you can really stay focused and work like a pro. The bodybuilding training approach has done a lot of damage on the world of combat sports. There are countless of examples of fighters that were big and impressive yet got easily exhausted and lost to other real athletic and explosive fighters. The reason is that the bodybuilding way of training dictates that you should do slow reps focusing on muscle hypertrophy. Looks is what matters and not quality. So if you train for looks this is what you will get. It's only natural to rip what you sowed. If you train slowly you will become slow. Your muscles may be big but if they don't correspond to real strength and explosiveness then it is effectively an extra weight that you will have to carry. They will act against you and will contribute to your easy exhaustion. Train to be a better fighter. Use the gym to improve your attributes and focus on results. |
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