Posted on 28 November 2011.
The toughest thing to train for is the shock of the unexpected it can leave you helpless even against an inferior opponent. The following clip showing the British comedian Freddie Starr and the greatest boxer of all time Muhammed Ali. Not only very funny but illustrates my point completely.
Muhammed Ali And Freddie Starr
I hope you enjoyed the clip
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Posted on 04 May 2011.
When you are talking about self defence people automatically think of what weapons or training they can use to protect themselves and their loved ones. They also imagine that violence of some sort is the way to go that self defence is all about your ability to fight off any threat. Now this may sound funny coming from someone who spends his working life training and teaching martial arts but the avoidance of violence is your biggest weapon in self defence.
To explain this idea a little more, just because you have had some training and you are hot stuff in the gym or dojo does not automatically prepare you for the reality of a confrontation in a bar or on the streets. In fact very little can really prepare you for what can be the most terrifying and debilitating moments in your life. Even very experienced and extremely capable martial artists have frozen when confronted with a real threat outside of the dojo where there are no rules and anything can happen. What if the person you are arguing or falling out with has a knife you could be six foot fifteen stone of trained muscle that would not mean a thing if you are stabbed.
Yet some people will say does your martial art not teach you how to deal with a knife attack well we do knife attack training and it is very rare you can disarm or get away unscathed no matter what you may have seen on television or at the movies. We have all seen Seagal or Van Damme dispatch and disarm attackers with knives and guns this is the movies, not a cold wet Friday night outside the dog and duck with an angry thug coming at you with a drink fuelled fury determined to ruin your night.
Hopefully you can see why I say the avoidance of confrontation or violence can be the best tool in your self defence armoury. Easier said than done I know, nobody likes backing down or having friends or family thinking you a coward well let me tell you they do not. There is nothing heroic or clever getting into a fight over a spilled drink or a thoughtless remark or any one of a hundred similar stupid reasons that sometimes lead to tragic consequences for you and your family.
You may think with what I have said so far that martial arts training have little value nothing could be further from the truth. Martial arts do not just teach you to fight, if you are taught well they also give you the humility and confidence which gives you the ability to walk away without letting your ego get you into the kind of trouble that can have life changing consequences. This is not to say you should not fight back when attacked but let this be the last resort talk or walk your way out if at all possible.
Some of the toughest men and women I know many of whom work as security in bars and clubs consider that they have failed to a certain extent if they have to resort to violence to remove potential troublemakers from the premises. They would much rather talk you out of the club than throw you out they try and defuse the situation by being firm confident and friendly in fact the last thing they want is for the situation to escalate to violence. Not because they could not handle it because believe me these are very accomplished and genuinely tough individuals but to them violence is and should be the last resort.
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Posted on 08 November 2010.
In 2010 we have witnessed in the United Kingdom no matter what the government statistics may tell us a rise in violent crime that is unacceptable in a so called free society. In London alone according to figures published in the Times newspaper and I have no reason to disbelive them eighty three young people lost there lives to knife attacks. Country wide two hundred and fifty three people died as a result of knife crime. How many other attacks were not fatal this figure will run into thousands,street robbery is on the increase and criminals are getting more violent. Hardly anyone I know has not had personal experience or have known someone who has not been affected by this tragic and often stupid story.
Well if we are to accept that society has got more dangerous what can we do as individuals to lessen our chance of being a victim. The article title gives us a clue golden rules of self defense,we defend ourselves. This does not mean we act like the criminal or we all become martial arts experts,what it means is we take sensible precautions. Listed beow are a few idea’s that may help address the problem.
If an arguement starts calm it down or walk away before it escalates do not let so called pride or anger draw you in to something more serious. The most serious offences even murder has started from a stupid or thoughtless remark try and keep them to your self.
How often does drink play a part,drink sensibly enjoy yourself but do not get so drunk that you lose control. If you know certain pubs or clubs have a bad reputation stay away just go somewhere else.
Stay vigilant if trouble does start it is easy to get involved just leave go elsewhwere. Listen to your instincts if a place or atmosphere feels bad leave. You will be surprised how often your instincts are correct do not ignore them.
If you are in your car and someone cuts you up or makes a mistake resist the temptation to lean on your horn or shout obcenities at the offending driver why make matters worse. If it was you who made the mistake indicate your sorry with a wave not an angry v sign because someone has let you know you have made a mistake. Easier said than done I know but it calms situations down.
Simple precautions like these can cut your odds of becoming a victim,this does not mean you should always be passive be assertive be confident take a self defense class just do not become a victim. There will be hundreds of simple precautions you can take I just hope that this article has been of some small help.
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Posted on 01 November 2010.
This article was written by the celebrated author,dietitian,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.
Click Here <<<<<……
This style of workout is WAY different than anything you’ve ever tried before and may result in a dramatically leaner, stronger body so that your friends no longer recognize you in a matter of weeks!
Alright, I exaggerated about your friends recognizing you, but this workout is still great for busy people that always use the excuse that they don’t have time to go to the gym, or even for the normal gym rat to try out for a few weeks to break out of a plateau.
Please keep an open-mind and don’t worry so much about what other people think, because this is quite different and you may get some funny looks, but you’ll get the last laugh with your new rock hard body! To be honest, most people are too self conscious to try something like this. If that’s the case for you, then that’s your loss.
Here’s how it works:
Instead of doing your traditional workouts of going to the gym 3-4 times a week and doing your normal weight training and cardio routines for an hour at a shot, with this program, you will be working out for just a couple minutes at a time, several times throughout each day, 5 days/week.
The program will consist of only bodyweight exercises done for about 2-3 minutes, 6-8 times per day, throughout each day. Now obviously if you work a normal office job, you are going to have to not be shy about doing a few exercises in your office and having your cube-mates watch you. Actually, I’ve found that some people that have tried this have actually gotten their co-workers to join them! If you have a private office, then you don’t have to worry about anybody watching you. If you work from home, or are a stay at home mom, there’s no reason you can’t fit these in throughout the day while at home. If you end up having a busy day with meetings and so forth, and can only fit a couple of these 2-minute workouts in, then so be it, but try to get as many done each day as you can.
If you’re on a normal 9-5 office schedule, I recommend doing your 2-minute workouts every hour, on the hour, with the exception of lunch. For example, you could try 9 am, 10 am, 11 am, 1 pm, 2 pm, 3 pm, and 4 pm.
Some of the exercises that are the best to focus on are:
-bodyweight squats (and variations)
-pushups (and variations)
-forward, reverse, or walking lunges
-up & down a staircase if one is available
-floor planks (holding plank position from forearms and feet)
-floor abs exercises such as lying leg thrusts, ab bicycles, etc.
-one-legged bodyweight Romanian deadlifts
This list is not fully comprehensive, but I wanted to keep it relatively simple. If you know other good bodyweight exercises, you can add those to your routine also. If you want to keep it real simple and don’t want to get down on the floor for anything, you can stick to squats, lunges, and pushups and still get great results.
The good thing about these workouts is that you do enough in 2-3 minutes to get your blood pumping, heart rate up a bit, a large portion of your body’s muscles worked, and your body temperature raised. However, it’s usually not enough to break a sweat in only 2 or 3 minutes, so you don’t have to worry about sweating or getting smelly in the office or where ever you may be. At most, you might just get a little moist on the skin.
Here’s an example routine (adjust the reps up or down based on your capabilities):
Mon/Wed/Fri
9 am – 10 pushups/15 bodyweight squats, repeat 1X for 2 sets
10 am – plank holds (hold the planks as long as you can taking short rest breaks for a total of 3 minutes)
11 am – 5 pushups/10 bodyweight squats, repeat for 4 sets
1 pm – plank holds (hold as long as possible in 3 minutes)
2 pm – 8 pushups/12 bodyweight squats, repeat for 3 sets
3 pm – plank holds (hold as long as possible in 3 minutes)
4 pm – max pushups/max bodyweight squats in one set (no repeat)
Tues/Thurs
9 am – 6 fwd lunges each leg/6 rev lunges, repeat 1X for 2 sets
10 am – one legged bw Romanian deadlifts (RDL) 6 each leg/floor abs for 20 sec, repeat 1X for 2 sets
11 am – 3 fwd lunges each leg/3 rev lunges, repeat for 4 sets
1 pm – one legged bw RDL 3 each leg/floor abs for 20 sec, repeat for 4 sets
2 pm – 5 fwd lunges each leg/5 rev lunges, repeat for 3 sets
3 pm – one legged bw RDL 10 each leg/floor abs for 30 sec (no repeat)
4 pm – max fwd lunges each leg/max rev lunges in one set (no repeat)
In order to progress on these workouts, you could either add 1 or 2 reps to each set per week, or you could progress to more difficult versions of each exercise each week (for example, close grip pushups, one leg raised pushups, squats with arms raised straight over head, etc.).
The above routines are just a couple examples of how you can use this very unique style of training. Use your creativity and come up with your own. Think about what you’ve accomplished with these “mini” workouts completed throughout each day… You’ve increased your heart rate and pumped up your muscles 6-8 different times throughout each day, burning a lot of extra calories and stimulating your metabolism. Even though each “mini” workout was a very short duration, you’ve accumulated lots of repetitions for almost every muscle throughout your entire body, and you didn’t even have to break a sweat during any of the “mini” workouts. And there’s hardly any excuse for not being able to take a 2-minute break once per hour and do a couple of exercises. Another benefit of this style of training is that now you don’t have to devote any time before or after work to going to the gym because you already got your workout done little by little throughout the day. You’ve now got some extra free time on your hands!
Try this type of routine out for 3-4 weeks and then go back to your normal gym routines. I think you’ll find that it was a great way to break out of a plateau and stimulate new results in your body. You can try mixing in a cycle of these “mini” workouts every couple of months to keep things fresh.
Keep in mind that this is only one method of training and doesn’t mean that you should only stick to this method for eternity. You will hit a plateau on any given training method, so I’d recommend just rotating it into your arsenal of various training methods. And by all means, don’t worry about what other people think so much…have the courage to try something a little different. In the end, you’ll be the one laughing back at all of the “blubber-bellies” that are giving you funny looks while they eat their donuts!
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Posted on 04 October 2010.
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.
Instead of the typical ab exercise routines that we see so often with crunches, situps, leg lifts, etc… I like to give my readers better options for metabolism-boosting high intensity workouts that work their entire body while also working their abs.
I’m going to show you an example today of one of my favorite ab workouts that doesn’t include any direct ab exercises at all. It’s in a tri-set format (similar to a super-set but alternating between 3 exercises).
Here goes:
1a. Renegade Dumbbell Rows
1b. Front Squats with Barbell
1c. Mountain Climbers on Floor
A good rep scheme to use with this could be 3-4 sets of 8 reps for each exercise, or more sets for less reps, such as 5 sets of 5 reps of each exercise. Mountain climbers can be done for a time interval (such as 30 seconds) instead of “reps”.
Renegade dumbbell rows are done starting in a pushup position with the hands on 2 dumbbells. You then row one dumbbell up while stabilizing your body with the other arm. Bring the dumbbell back to the ground and alternate the rowing arm while stabilizing with the opposite arm. This stabilizing effect during the rows creates incredible work for your entire midsection core area. Trust me… you’ll feel it in the abs!
Front squats are done similar to back squats, however with the barbell in front of your body on the front of your shoulders instead of resting on the upper back as in back squats. You stabilize the barbell on your shoulders by crossing your arms and pushing your fists into the bar against your shoulders while keeping your elbows out in front of the body. This takes a little practice at first, so you will want to seek a professional trainer at your gym to help you with the form. Front squats require extreme stabilization strength from the abs due to the barbell weight being shifted to the front of the body instead of the back. Even though this is mostly a leg exercise, you’ll feel this one in the abs big time!
Mountain climbers are done by starting in a pushup position and then shuffling your feet in and out so that your knees are moving in under your chest and then back out to starting position. It sort of resembles climbing a mountain but flat on the floor. If you want an advanced version, you can also shuffle your hands 8-10 inches forward and backward in addition to the leg movements. This really makes it a full body exercise and MUCH more difficult than standard mountain climbers.
After finishing each exercise, rest about 30 seconds before starting the next exercise. Rest about 1-2 minutes after completing each “tri-set” before repeating.
This will give you one of the best ab workouts you’ve ever had without even doing any direct ab exercises. You’ll see what I mean after you try it!
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Posted on 04 August 2010.
1) Reverse ez-bar curls
2) Rubber band finger extensions
For #2, you can use a thick elastic band (the kind that usually comes around broccoli) or buy a tool called the PowerWeb. Just stick your fingers in the band and try to straighten and spread your fingers apart.
Now to train the gripping muscles themselves, you want to hit the 3 components: strength, endurance, and power.
Strength of the grip muscles is generally not an issue if you’re performing exercises like heavy Deadlifts or Chinups. If you regularly deadlift, you can probably lift at least 300 pounds – if not, get lifting!
Endurance is another component that you need, so to build endurance, you can do something I call Grip Finishers – simply do your normal exercise, let’s say a set of 10 chinups, then hold on to the bar with a strong grip for as long as you can. This is best done on your last set, because you’ll ruin your subsequent sets by fatiguing your grip. Deadlifts, Barbell curls, and Dumbbell lunges are also good candidates.
Now gripping power is often not trained and can really help you out in MMA or BJJ competitions. Power is force x velocity, so you need to be able to apply your full grip strength quickly to develop a powerful grip.
My favourite method of training grip power with my mixed-martial artists is to do an exercise I call Plyo chinups. Do a chinup, then when your chin is over the bar, let go of the bar and then grab on again as you straighten your arms, then pull yourself up as quickly as you can. The farther you let yourself drop, the better. But start off with a smaller drop and work your way up – these are really demanding.
You can also use this method with 1-arm dumbbell rows.
Other ideas to develop your grip are to do exercises holding onto towels instead of holding the bar. This is great for chinups, dumbbell lunges, etc. If you train or compete in BJJ with the Gi then you’ll definitely benefit from this exercise.
You can also use a fat bar handle instead of a regular dumbbell or barbell. Just wrap an old t-shirt around the handle to increase its diameter and it will give you a totally new challenge.
Whatever methods you do, make sure you only do 2 weeks of grip training, then take 2 weeks off. Because you’re always working your gripping muscles, constant specialized grip training can lead to overtraining or worse – injury, so be sure to back off after 2 weeks.
Give those concepts a shot and you’ll have a crushing grip in no time.
For more Information Just follow the link.
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Posted on 30 July 2010.
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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