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It was just a short while ago I told you about the fright I had when I weighed myself for the first time in many years and found even with all the exercise I get from my martial arts training I weighed sixty pounds more than when I was twenty.

Now being fifty those extra sixty pounds were becoming a problem and the quest to lose those excess pounds has started.

My problem with dieting is I suspect much the same as most of you I enjoy food and drink a couple of pints after a hard training session seems like a just reward. I suppose the kebab or fried chicken takeaway after the pub also compounded the problem. So I decided things had to change no more takeaways but if you think I am going to give up my couple of pints of beer forget it that would be taking things to far I need a diet I can live with a life without beer no!

I also told you about the Anabolic Cookbook written by Dave Ruel which is full of easy to prepare and most importantly to me at least delicious healthy meals and snacks. The more I got into this way of eating the more I liked it and realised that if you are a sportsman this book gives you everything you need to help build or trim your body. If you are not a sportsman so what the same rules apply you can use the recipes to lose or add on weight in a healthy sustainable way without feeling you are missing out on anything.

In this article I thought I would bring you up to date with how things are progressing so far I have managed to lose twelve of those sixty pounds leaving only forty eight to go, twelve pounds does not sound too much but I have lost them without any sacrifice or boring diet plans. My fitness level and general health are much better training is going great though the bruises still take longer to heal but maybe that’s my age getting old is a bitch!

One example a gi or training uniform I had last used three or four years ago which has been hanging in my wardrobe unused because it had shrunk in the wash it’s funny how many of my clothes seem to have shrunk in the wash ill have to change detergents. Now fits and gets used maybe I’ll get into those skinny jeans I used to wear second thoughts maybe not some things I think can and should be left in the past.

One of the great things is how my attitudes to food and nutrition has changed at one time I just ate whatever was convenient and to me tasty with little or no thought to how good or bad it was for me plus just the thought of preparing food from scratch put me off.

Now my confidence in the kitchen is growing I will never be a chef but good tasty meals are getting prepared and also knowing that what I have prepared is also good for me well that’s the icing on the cake so to speak. Yes you can eat cake you can also eat muffins pancakes biscuits cookies so all of you with a sweet tooth out there you do not have to give up your sweet treats. Imagine a nice stack of pancakes for your breakfast and you can still lose weight sounds impossible but true this book shows you how.

In fact I have never eaten so well and my portion size has not gone down which seems to go against all other diet advice which always seems to be cut down cut back eat this sprig of low fat broccoli your fat you need to suffer and have willpower to lose that weight. Why when the alternative is finding out more about nutrition and what you’re body needs and what you enjoy and finding a happy medium again something you can live with. I know which route I will follow its working for me and I suspect would work for many of you I will continue to update you with my journey and include some of the great recipes I have had the pleasure of trying.

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Kettlebells have been around for generations. They’re a time tested tool — great for building strength, muscular endurance,coordination and even new muscle mass. But kettlebell programsaren’t always all that exciting. Until now…

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This article was written by the celebrated author,dietician,trainer Mike Geary who has helped literally thousands of martial artists and non martial artists alike to achieve healthy balanced lifestyles. With the added bonus of sound and tested methods to help you achieve the kind of body you always wanted.

To find out more on this amazing coach just follow the link.

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The Front Squat:

As you may have already discovered, the squat is at the top of the heap (along with deadlifts) as one of the most effective overall exercises for stimulating body composition changes (muscle gain and fat loss). This is because exercises like squats and deadlifts use more muscle groups under a heavy load than almost any other weight bearing exercises known to man. Hence, these exercises stimulate the greatest hormonal responses (growth hormone, testosterone, etc.) of all exercises. In fact, university research studies have even proven that inclusion of squats into a training program increases upper body development, in addition to lower body development, even though upper body specific joint movements are not performed during the squat. Whether your goal is gaining muscle mass, losing body fat, building a strong and functional body, or improving athletic performance, the basic squat and deadlift (and their variations) are the ultimate solution. If you don’t believe me that squats and deadlifts are THE basis for a lean and powerful body, then go ahead and join all of the other overweight people pumping away mindlessly for hours on boring cardio equipment. You won’t find long boring cardio in any of my programs!

Squats can be done with any free weighted objects such as barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, sandbags, or even just body weight. Squats should only be done with free weights – NEVER with a Smith machine or any other squat machines! Machines do not allow your body to follow natural, biomechanically-correct movement paths. You also perform less work because the machine stabilizes the weight for you. Therefore, you get weaker results!

The type of squat that people are most familiar with is the barbell back squat where the bar is resting on the trapezius muscles of the upper back. Many professional strength coaches believe that front squats (where the bar rests on the shoulders in front of the head) and overhead squats (where the bar is locked out in a snatch grip overhead throughout the squat) are more functional to athletic performance than back squats with less risk of lower back injury. I feel that a combination of all three (not necessarily during the same phase of your workouts) will yield the best results for overall muscular development, body fat loss, and athletic performance. Front squats are moderately more difficult than back squats, while overhead squats are considerably more difficult than either back squats or front squats. I’ll cover overhead squats in a future article. If you are only accustomed to performing back squats, it will take you a few sessions to become comfortable with front squats, so start out light. After a couple sessions of practice, you will start to feel the groove and be able to increase the poundage.

To perform front squats:

The front squat recruits the abdominals to a much higher degree for stability due to the more upright position compared with back squats. It is mostly a lower body exercise, but is great for functionally incorporating core strength and stability into the squatting movement. It can also be slightly difficult to learn how to properly rest the bar on your shoulders. There are two ways to rest the bar on the front of the shoulders. In the first method, you step under the bar and cross your forearms into an “X” position while resting the bar on the dimple that is created by the shoulder muscle near the bone, keeping your elbows up high so that your upper arms are parallel to the ground. You then hold the bar in place by pressing the thumb side of your fists against the bar for support.

Alternatively, you can hold the bar by placing your palms face up and the bar resting on your fingers against your shoulders. For both methods, your elbows must stay up high to prevent the weight from falling. Your upper arms should stay parallel to the ground throughout the squat. Find out which bar support method is more comfortable for you. Then, initiate the squat from your hips by sitting back and down, keeping the weight on your heels as opposed to the balls of your feet. Squat down to a position where your thighs are approximately parallel to the ground, then press back up to the starting position. Keeping your weight more towards your heels is the key factor in squatting to protect your knees from injury and develop strong injury-resistant knee joints. Keep in mind – squats done correctly actually strengthen the knees; squats done incorrectly can damage the knees.

Practice first with an un-weighted bar or a relatively light weight to learn the movement. Most people are surprised how hard this exercise works your abs once you learn the correct form. This is due to the more upright posture compared with back squats.

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This article was written by one of the worlds top experts in strength and conditioning for MMA fighters Eric Wong. To learn more about Eric and his methods just follow this link and it will take you to our store there you can get your Free Crazy 8 MMA workout Plus Russell Stutelys Free DVD on Pressure Point Fighting.

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When you picture most strength training exercises, you may notice that everything seems to be in straight lines. Contrast that with any mixed-martial arts technique and you may realize that there is one missing ingredient to most strength programs – rotational power. Well how exactly do you develop the ability to rotate your body explosively for knockout punches, kicks, and throws?

The key is to use tools that allow you to train the transverse plane of motion. There are planes of motion: sagittal, frontal, and transverse.

The sagittal plane is the plane that is most dominant with respect to strength training programs. Exercises like the bench press, bicep curls, squats, deadlifts, and chin-ups are all sagittal plane dominant. If you move your arms back and forth like a marching soldier, this is the sagittal plane. Unfortunately, most MMA techniques require more than just movement in the sagittal plane, which means that most strength training programs are seriously deficient, if your goal is to develop sport-specific strength and power.

The frontal plane is sometimes found in strength training routines. Exercises like side crunches and dumbbell side raises are a couple of examples. However, this plane is also highly under-trained in most athletes, and most would benefit from adding some exercises into their routine that targeted the frontal plane. Adding some suitcase deadlifts and single-leg squats would improve hip and core stability tremendously.

Now the transverse plane is where the real payoff is. But a note of caution – make sure you’ve developed a strong and stable core before aggressively training in the transverse plane. Like most things in life, high returns are generally high risk.

If you’re not stable in the core, it’s likely that you’ll blow a disc or strain a muscle in your lumbar spine when trying some of the exercises that I’ll describe below. So if you’re not stable or not sure, start off with exercises like prone bridges, side bridges, stiff-leg deadlifts, woodchops, and other exercises that promote stability in a neutral spine, then work on training powerfully in the transverse plane.

First of all, you’re going to need the proper tools. The best tools that I’ve used when training pro MMA fighters include rope balls and medicine balls. These tools allow you to develop explosive power in all planes of motion, and they allow you to release them so that you don’t slow down your movement.

Think of a bench press – if you want to train explosively, you probably aren’t going to throw the bar, so you have to slow the movement down at the top so you don’t let it go. Medicine balls don’t make you do that, so you can put all of your effort into the exercise and maximally develop your explosiveness.

Let’s focus on medicine ball exercises. Here are my top 3 medicine ball exercises for helping my athletes develop knockout power:

1) Side toss – start in an athletic stance holding the ball at your stomach. Quickly rotate to one side then explosively throw the ball sideways, keeping your body and spine tall and as neutral as possible.

2) Chop toss – start in an athletic stance holding the ball at your stomach. Lift the ball up so that it’s close to your ear and then violently throw it down on a diagonal into the ground, keeping your body and spine tall and as neutral as possible.

3) Seated side toss – start sitting tall with your legs straight out in front of you holding the ball at your stomach. Perform the same motion as the side toss.

Perform 2-3 sets of 8 repetitions of each exercise, with 1-2 minutes of rest in between. When you’re developing your power, you don’t want to train to exhaustion, instead, you want to be fresh and make each rep as fast and explosive as possible.

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In mixed-martial arts, rotational power of the core is crucial to the execution of explosive techniques, whether they be throws, punches, kicks, knees, or escapes. Failing to improve the strength and power of your core in rotational patterns will limit your ability to knockout, slam, or surprise your opponents. The medicine ball is an extremely effective tool for developing your rotational power. First, throwing a medicine ball allows you to put your full effort into the exercise, without slowing it down. Just think of doing a lying medicine ball chest pass and a speed bench press – because you can’t let go of the bar during the bench press, your body has to slow the bar down at the top, limiting your power production. But with the ball, you release it and you use full power through the entire range of motion. So exercises like the side toss and chop toss using a medicine ball will go a long way to developing the knockout power you’ve always wished you had. Side Toss 1. Take a wider than shoulder-width stance with slightly bent knees, holding the ball in front of your navel. 2. Do a quick wind-up and throw the ball straight to the side, keeping your spine as tall and straight as you can. 3. Avoid throwing the ball with your arms, instead, power the movement with your core. Chop Toss 1. Same setup as side toss. 2. Do a quick wind-up up and to one side, bringing the ball over one shoulder and shifting your weight to the same side. 3. Slam the ball into the ground on a diagonal while shifting your weight to the other side. 4. Keep tall and continue to look forward instead of at the ball. Now integrating these two exercises into a circuit will help you develop your power endurance. We’ll add 3 body-weight exercises to the mix to simultaneously develop your power and conditioning, using exercises that will specifically benefit a MMA fighter. 1. 10 Lunge jumps – start in a lunge position, jump as high as possible and switch your feet landing and jumping as quickly as you can. 2. 5 Side tosses each side 3. 10 Squat jumps – start in an athletic stance, jump as high as you can and repeat as fast as you can. 4. 5 Chop tosses each side. 5. 10 Clap push-ups – do the push-ups as explosively as possible and focus on clapping your hands as loud as you can. Rest one minute and repeat for a total of 4 – 8 circuits. For the jumps and pushups, think of the ground as hot coals and your goal is to not burn your feet while always being as explosive as possible. This type of circuit is what a mixed-martial artist needs to excel in the cage or ring. Of course, proper exercise technique will prevent injuries, so if your form gets sloppy, do less reps or take more rest between circuits. For more information   Click Here!

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This article was writen by the world famous strength and conditioning coach Eric Wong

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When you ask the majority of fighters what they do for a warm-up before training, most will say they do some type of stretching, usually for tight areas like the hamstrings and groin. But research shows that a dynamic warm-up is far superior for performance and injury prevention when compared to static stretching. So what exercises should a mixed-martial artist warm-up for optimum performance and injury prevention?

Well, there are a few general criteria that, when included, will result in maximum performance while decreasing the risk of injury.

1) Movements should be included for the muscles that are going to be used during the training session. If you’re doing the warm-up before a strength training session where you’ll be starting off with bench press, you’ll need to warm-up the pecs, triceps, deltoids, serratus anterior, and lats.

2) Movements should work the muscles through a complete range of motion. The dynamic warm-up will increase your mobility if you do all exercises to the end ranges of motion. For example, if you’re doing basic bodyweight squats, you’ll want to squat right down, touching your butt to your heels if you can. Doing so will help to keep your muscles, tendons, and ligaments from tightening up and shortening.

3) Muscle activation exercises should be included for muscles that are commonly inhibited. One muscle group that is often inhibited is the glutes. Because a lot of people have spent so much time sitting on them, they get sleepy and lazy and need to be woken up. If you have inhibited glutes, you may notice during lunges that your knee will cave in (valgus knee). This is a sign of glute weakness/inhibition. To activate the glutes before doing an exercise like lunges, you can do hip extensions. Simply lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor, squeeze your butt cheeks together and raise your hips. Hold for 4 seconds, repeat 8 times.

4) The routine should increase the heart-rate, body temperature, and breathing rate gradually to a comfortable level. In order to do this, you’ll have to move quickly from one exercise to the next, which means you want to know exactly what to do before you get started. Like anything, if you fail to plan, then plan to fail. So come up with a routine before you get to the gym.

So in putting this together, you could do something very simple such as:

20 jumping jacks
10 hip extensions
10 squats
10 pushups
10 lunges

Repeat 2 to 3 times and you’ve got yourself a decent warm-up.

Learn the complete program used to help fighters such as Jeff Joslin reach peak levels of fighting fitness just follow the link.

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Strength and conditioning for MMA is an evolving science, getting more detailed as the popularity of the UFC and mixed-martial arts grows. Like all sports, MMA athletes must dedicate themselves to workouts that will take them to the highest level of physical fitness possible.

To make sure you’re achieving your full potential as a fighter, make sure you utilize these 3 MMA workout tips in your strength and conditioning program.

Tip #1 – Follow a Program

If you’re not following a program, you could simply be spinning your wheels. The worst thing you can do is go to the gym and say to yourself, “OK, now that I’m here, what am I going to do?”

If you’re serious about being an MMA fighter, then you must have a strength and conditioning program that’s laid out for at least the 8 weeks leading up to your fight. If you don’t have a fight lined up, then you must think about what you need to improve and focus on those aspects of your game.

Tip #2 – Maximize your Efficiency in the Weight Room

As a mixed-martial artist, you’ve got to train jiu-jitsu, boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, wrestling, and put them all together into MMA at the very LEAST. This doesn’t leave you a ton of time to work on strength.

So you’ve got to get the most bang for your buck in the little time that you do have.

In your strength program, you can do so by training full body workouts focused on movement patterns. Think squat, lunge, deadlift, push, pull, and twist instead of chest, biceps, quads, hams, back, etc.

Hitting the full body with different movement patterns two days a week will allow you to make progress in your routine without over training. Here’s an example of a 2 day split:

Day 1: Reverse lunge – Bench press – Woodchop – Arnold press – Reverse Curl
Day 2: Squat – Chinup – Romanian deadlift – 1-arm row – Skull crusher

You could do these workouts on Monday and Thursday to develop your strength and power.

The repetition range you use will depend on your goals, if it’s muscular endurance, then choose 10-12 reps, if you’re going for pure strength, you can get down to 3-5 reps. A good balance is between 7-8 reps per set. The lower the reps and heavier the weight, the more rest you generally want to take.

TIp #3 – Use a Medicine Ball for Conditioning Circuits

By far the best tool for developing MMA specific power is the medicine ball, since you can throw the ball as hard and fast as you can in rotational movements that heavily involve the core. Integrating the medicine ball will allow you to develop knockout power with your strikes, as well as explosive take down ability.

Exercises like the side toss and chop toss will have you (and your opponents and sparring partners) feeling a difference after only a few weeks.

Unfortunately, many people do these exercises completely wrong, in terms of reps, weight, and form.

To see how you can integrate exercises into your MMA strength and conditioning program, click the following link: http://www.ultimatemmastrength.com/

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