Rugged Scientific Answers
Wow! Your adductor article was great! I'm a martial artist, and I'm kind of overweight...but I really don't care because I'm fast, powerful, and strong. Anyways, one of my best attributes is GETTING UP FROM THE GROUND. Getting up quickly, kicking, then turning around then kicking or punching again, then going back on the ground; all this can get really tiring! My workouts consist of a lot of bodyweight squats and lateral lunges, which I believe have made me very agile and strong. But now I will include your new exercises, and hopefully become even more agile! Thanks! My pleasure; thanks for the feedback. As for your comments, a few suggestions: 1. Don't dismiss the value of leaning out, especially as a martial artist. While in some scenarios it is beneficial to carry some extra fat mass, excess weight will almost always work against you, as it's metabolically useless tissue. You'll operate much more efficiently if you can just worry supporting your lean body mass, rather than an added mass to it (think of lugging around a backpack all day!). Plus, if you're including a lot of plyometric and power movements in your program, the stress on the joints is going to be much higher if you're carrying excess weight. Remember that overuse injuries are a function of both load and repetitions, so if you're going to be getting in a lot of reps (MMA work), it will benefit you to ditch some of the bad weight. Plus, leaning out will mechanically increase your flexibility, which independently reduces your risk on injury and allows you to train more effectively. Shed some body fat and you'll be able to train with more variety, volume, intensity, and safety. 2. The new exercises will definitely be good additions to your program. Don't, however, completely give up the basics; keep on hammering the posterior chain with deadlifts, Olympic lifts, box squats, reverse hypers, good mornings, back extensions, and glute-ham raises. Traditional quad-emphasis squats are valuable as well. You'll also want to be doing a ton of grip, neck, and core work. You can even integrate core training (flexion, lateral flexion, rotation, stabilization, and extension) with some of the lunge variations to better simulate MMA, which obviously involves great force transfers from the upper to lower body in various planes. From an upper body perspective, the basics once again predominate: chins, rows, dips, benches, and overhead presses - both unilateral and bilateral exercises. As with any program, be sure to do some direct work for your rotator cuff and scapular stabilizers. 3. Remember that strength is the base of the pyramid. You can do power, agility, quickness, and speed work until you're blue in the face, but your progress will never be optimal unless your maximal strength increases. Think of strength as the glass, and the "other" entities as the fluid within the glass. You can add more fluid (capacity for those entities), but if the size of the glass never increases, you top it off pretty quickly (plateau). So, to increase agility, you'll want to get strong on the core exercises, and make that glass bigger! 4. While it is important to build work capacity, be cautious with overuse of bodyweight-only exercises for long durations and high reps…especially if their inclusion comes at the expense of the core exercises. Most MMA contests are roughly 50/50 aerobic and anaerobic metabolism; when you start doing a ton of endurance work, you compromise strength gains and get slow. Besides, if you're constantly competing/sparring, those energy systems will be trained directly. If you aren't sparring, I'd recommend tossing in more interval-based training, as you'll rarely be going for significant periods of time at a constant speed in a contest. 5. Needless to say, the best way to get good at something is to practice. It sounds like you're doing a great job with that aspect, so it's just a matter of fine tuning your physique and training program to optimize performance during practice and competition. Good luck! -EC I have a question regarding interval training. Do you have your clients/athletes run as hard as they can for the prescribed sprint/work time and then reduce the speed for the "recovery" time for the prescribed job/walk? OR, do you have your clients/athletes run at a predetermined heart rate for a certain time and then reduce the speed to achieve a certain heart rate for the prescribed time? Is this a good idea in your opinion, or should he/she go by feel so to speak... i.e. all out for 30 seconds, and an "easy" walk/jog for 90 seconds. This is a great question! While I believe that many trainees and athletes can reap great benefits of high-intensity interval training simply by attending to subjective measures (i.e., going all-out, going by the way one feels), I strongly believe that one should attend to objective measures (i.e., heart rate, velocity, VO2, etc.) to not only reap the greatest benefits but also to make sure that he/she is training at the desired intensity and to take into consideration adaptations to the training program. While individuals solely interested in the aesthetic benefits (of HIIT and high-intensity endurance training) may not understand the implications of performance, some form of objective measurement needs to be taken into account. Using heart rate as an objective measure for intensity during energy system work is a great start to objectively measuring both intensity and progress. However, let me just remind you that a steady-state heart rate is not usually achieved until after 1-4 minutes at a steady-state pace. Therefore, using heart rate as a measure of intensity during 30-second bursts would likely be inaccurate (i.e., lower than anticipated). On the contrary, intervals that are at least 90s in duration could be very well monitored by using a heart rate monitor. So, a simple, yet confusing, answer to your question is that it depends! Regardless, my own preferred methodology is to do some sort of graded exercise test to determine both max heart rate and the speed at which max heart rate is achieved (i.e., Vmax). I would not advise, however, that the test be performed such that speed is increased every minute. Rather, I prefer a methodology that uses intervals (i.e., 2 min on/2 min off). This attenuates (but doesn't prevent) cumulative fatigue that would yield a suboptimal testing result. In an ideal world, you'd take about four or five "reps" at getting to the maxHR and Vmax. Now that you've determined both the max heart rate and velocity at which max heart rate is achieved, you can base subsequent bouts of energy system work on these two variables. Just like you'd test after each training cycle for an athlete's or client's one repetition maximum, you'd also do the same for Vmax—max heart rate shouldn't vary significantly over any acute training period. It's important to note, though, that intensities higher than Vmax can be used when performing HIIT or energy system work involving sprints or work intervals that have durations of 60s and less. -TS You've alluded to food allergies affecting physique numerous times, how do I know if I'm allergic to something without blood tests, and is it a big enough deal for me to be worrying about? A few simple tell-tale signs can point to a food intolerance. Look for lethargy, elevation of resting heart rate & blood pressure, a general foggy-brained feeling, abdominal bloat, or a decline in mood. These should all take place within 10-45 minutes of ingesting the food. Over time these food intolerances can equate to bodyfat gain, difficulty putting on muscle, and an overall decrease in productivity and motivation. Start by testing common allergenic foods individually such as:
Many other food allergies exist, but these are the ones of highest incidence that are worth testing individually. Pay attention at all times to how you feel after meals, however and you may find some less common foods to be allergenic to your body. I recently had a client that started declining rapidly in body composition progress, after making good progress the first month. He was putting on fat and losing LBM, yet swore he was following my nutrition plan and workouts exactly. After having him pay attention to the above foods, we concluded that whey protein might be a problem. I had him remove whey protein completely from his diet, and within 3 weeks he had lost 4% bodyfat and gained significant LBM, as well as a huge increase in energy. He now uses a 100% micellar casein protein for his MRP shakes, and even his post workout shake and he has continued to make great progress. Additionally, I recommend taking a pro-biotic containing acidophilus and bifidus after meals to replenish healthy intestinal bacteria and help prevent food intolerances from forming. This can even alleviate some mild food intolerances without having to eliminate them from your diet. -MM |