UFC Gym Training: The Ultimate Workout

When a boxing or Muay Thai class begins at one of the UFC Gyms, a crowd always gathers to watch. It might be the percussive sounds of the gloves hitting the heavy bags and focus mitts or the blend of hard work and athleticism that draws attention. Or i…

UFC heavyweight Travis BrowneWhen a boxing or Muay Thai class begins at one of the UFC Gyms, a crowd always gathers to watch. It might be the percussive sounds of the gloves hitting the heavy bags and focus mitts or the blend of hard work and athleticism that draws attention. Or it could be the chiseled abs and shoulders.

“The boxing classes not only look fun, to spectators but when they see the shape of the people doing those classes they think, It must be coming from those workouts,” says Andy Hennebelle, NASM-CPT, CSCS, USAW, a strength coach and personal trainer at the UFC Gym in Corona, Calif.

Most gym-goers separate exercise into two categories in their minds: cardio to burn fat and weights to build muscle. But a boxing workout is a hybrid of the two. The fast pace will send your heartrate through the roof while the constant rotation and striking of the heavy bag will develop the musculature of the core and upper body.  

“Muscle-wise a boxing workout will get your back, arms, and shoulders in shape. If you are doing it right it will work your whole body. And cardio-wise there is nothing like it. You can take a guy who runs marathons and ask him to come hit the bag for five minutes and he will have a completely different experience,” says Travis Browne, who faces Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva at UFC on FOX 5 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minn. Browne knows a thing or two about the pugilistic arts. He has won 13 fights in his undefeated career, eight of them with his fists.  

The boxing class at a UFC Gym and the stand-up sessions that Browne does at the world-class Jackson-Winkeljohn Martial Arts and Fitness Academy in Albuquerque, New Mexico are surprisingly similar. Both places begin with a dynamic warm-up followed by jumping rope and shadowboxing.

“Shadowboxing is all about how hard you push it. If you just stand around and throw lazy punches and don’t move your feet it is will be pointless,” says Browne. “But if you go in there and really push the pace, keep your hands up, throw a lot of combinations, and use quick hands and fast feet you will really break a sweat.”

Strong fundamentals are the soul of boxing, and even a seasoned pro like Browne begins with the classic money-maker combinations. A basic jab-cross (known as a “one-two”) might be easy to learn but it takes thousands of repetitions to master. A UFC Gym class follows the same philosophy.  

“There is a preset beginning phase of each class in which we teach and review the key components,” says Hennebelle. “In case there is a brand new member alongside more advanced individuals, we want to make sure we always introduce them to the key strikes: The jab, cross, and hook.”

The main work sets of the session are divided into rounds. This makes the workout extraordinarily versatile as the number of rounds, the length of the round, and the length of the rest periods can be manipulated for athletes of all conditioning levels. Boxers have been measuring their workouts by rounds long before the phrase “interval training” was invented. A beginner might hit the bag for two minutes and rest for 60 seconds, eventually progressing to longer and longer rounds. Similarly, Browne began his eight week fight camp by doing three five-minute rounds on the heavy bag with 45 seconds rest between. For his headlining fight against Silva, he has worked up to five 5-minte rounds.

“I think the average person strongly underestimates the conditioning that goes into hitting a bag for five minutes straight,” says the undefeated heavyweight who originally hails from Hawaii. “It looks easy when a pro is doing it, but in reality it takes a lot of conditioning and a lot of knowledge.”

The focus mitts are a dynamic tool that helps develop technique by allowing the athlete to work angles and distance as well as learning how to throw punches moving backward and forward. It is the heavy bag, though, that provides the muscle-building resistance to a boxing workout.  

“When the muscle strikes the bag there is a compressive force. The force that is generated from the strike is like a tuning fork,” describes Hennebelle. “The body stops that vibration and that is what stimulates the muscle and the central nervous system.”

Hitting the heavy bag and focus mitts has helped Browne get his 6’7” inch frame in fighting form, and his motor ready to go five hard rounds. The good news is that the boxing class at the UFC Gym can get you in amazing shape as well, but you won’t have to fight Antonio Silva after eight weeks.

“We are going to train you like a fighter and make you feel what a fighter goes through,” says Hennebelle. “But we aren’t going to send you out the door with a bloody nose and black eye.

UFC GYM Training: On a Roll

You see them everywhere: At the gym, in sporting goods stores, and on TV shows like the “The Ultimate Fighter” on FX. They are cylinders of extruded high-density Styrofoam, commonly called foam rollers, and you can’t escape them. Nor should you. …

You see them everywhere: At the gym, in sporting goods stores, and on TV shows like the “The Ultimate Fighter” on FX. They are cylinders of extruded high-density Styrofoam, commonly called foam rollers, and you can’t escape them. Nor should you.

Foam rollers may look about as tough as a pink yoga mat, but nearly every high-level athlete now uses one. The foam roller is the tool of choice for administering Self-Myofascial Release, commonly called SMR, a type of massage therapy that works painful adhesions out of muscle fibers.

Imagine a rope with a knot in the middle. Stretching the rope will only make that knot tighter and more ingrained into the fiber of the rope. SMR applies pressure to those knots, slowly loosening them up and providing a greater range of motion and ultimately less chance of injury.

Welterweight contender Aaron Simpson has been using a foam roller for years, ever since he was introduced to one by the sports medicine department at Arizona State University where he was an assistant wrestling coach. At 38 years old, and having recently moved down into a new weight class, Simpson is meticulous about keeping his body in optimal shape.

“We have a bunch of foam rollers at our gym and before practice the whole team will get on them,” says Simpson, who meets Mike Pierce in a welterweight showdown at UFC on FX 5 at the Target Center in Minneapolis on October 5. “I have one at home that I will get on at night when I am watching TV.”

The technique is surprisingly simple. Just place a foam roller on the floor and then lie down on it, allowing the weight of your various body parts to apply the pressure. Start with the calves just above the heels and slowly roll toward your knees. When you find what’s called a “trigger point” (you’ll know it when you do,) stop and let your weight bear down on that spot for 30 to 60 seconds. Just like a deep tissue massage this can be unpleasant, bordering on painful, but the long-term benefits are more than worth it.

“Every UFC Gym has several different SMR devices whether it is a foam roller or a grid roller, which is made out of PVC pipe and is a bit stiffer,” says Scott Ramsdell, NASM-CPT, CES, PES, MMACS, head DUT Instructor at the UFC Gyms. “The trainers at the UFC Gym are very familiar with foam roller techniques and use them with their clients on a daily basis.”

Simpson likes to use a foam roller before and after doing any lower-body weightlifting. A recent study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research* showed that using a foam roller prior to a workout increased the range of motion in a joint without reducing the performance of the surrounding muscles.

Pregnant women and those suffering from osteoporosis or fibromyalgia should consult with their doctors before using a foam roller or any other SMR device.  Ramsdell points out that SMR can benefit everyone, not just guys who fight in the Octagon for a living.

“Foam rolling might be even more important for desk-jockeys who sit down for 60 hours a week,” he says. “They have such unique muscle imbalances due to being at a computer all day.”

* References:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22580977

UFC GYM Training: The New Rules of Warming Up

When lightweight contender Jim Miller finishes his warm-up, before he begins his strength and conditioning session, he is covered in sweat and breathing like an old-fashioned locomotive. Most people would assume he had just finished his workout rather …

UFC lightweight Jim MillerWhen lightweight contender Jim Miller finishes his warm-up, before he begins his strength and conditioning session, he is covered in sweat and breathing like an old-fashioned locomotive. Most people would assume he had just finished his workout rather than just beginning it.

“I might have Jim do 37 different exercises for the warm-up,” says Martin Rooney, the strength coach for Jim Miller and his brother Dan Miller. “People will say, ‘Warm-up? That was a workout!””

What Miller is doing, and what has become the industry standard for UFC fighters and pro athletes of all stripes, is known as a dynamic warm-up. It is the theoretical opposite of holding a touch-your-toes pose for 30 seconds. Fighters have jettisoned that practice long ago and weekend warriors and gym-goers should follow suit.

“A dynamic warm-up is one of the best things you can do to set yourself up for a good workout,” says Rooney, who has trained Frankie Edgar, Renzo Gracie, Ricardo Almeida, and a slew of high-level grapplers and judo players. “First and foremost, it prevents injuries. During a dynamic warm-up you increase heart rate, increase bloodflow to the muscles, increase nervous system stimulation, and increase coordination and motivation. These are all things that will set the tone for the workout that is coming.”

A dynamic warm-up consists of a series of bodyweight moves that are performed in a circuit fashion and push joints to the threshold of their mobility, but no further. Some of them are good old-fashioned calisthenics set at a higher tempo. The pace is fast, but no extra weight is used. An athlete might go from lunges to arm circles to side shuffles in the span of a minute or two. What you won’t do is hold a muscle in a stretched position, known as static stretching, the way you might have in grade school P.E. class.

For fighters, static stretching has gone the way of the kata. That’s because when a muscle is stretched it loses some of its spring, which is how an athlete generates power. If you constantly stretch a rubber band, it will get longer, but it will also lose some of its snap. A muscle is the same way. A dynamic warm-up prepares the muscle but doesn’t sacrifice any of it explosiveness. A study published in the Journal of Sport Sciences* showed that the rate of force a muscle can produce is reduced by eight percent after traditional static stretching.

“If you have a steak that comes right out of the freezer and you bend it, you’ll rip it,” says Rooney, the author of Warrior Cardio. “But if you get that steak nice and warm, it will be pliable and it can move. A muscle that is warmer and with more bloodflow can conduct nerve impulses faster and is able to generate more force and speed.”

While multiple scientific studies have shown how a dynamic warm-up improves performance, its greatest value lies in its ability to decrease the risk of injury. Research published in the Strength and Conditioning Journal** showed that athletes who dynamically stretched had fewer injuries than those who statically stretched.

“The jury is out on whether dynamic stretching or static stretching is more effective for improving flexibility, but the jury is not out about the fact that static stretching shuts down your nervous system, creates microscopic tears in muscles, and curbs performance. It is the last thing you want to do before a workout,” says Rooney.

Whether you are doing a strength-building 5×5 session in the squat rack, some CrossFit-style metabolic circuits, or rolling on the mats in a grappling class, a dynamic warm-up can help ensure that you have an effective and constructive training session. Best of all, you don’t need to perform 37 different exercises the way Jim Miller does.

“A regular person can do 10 to 12 exercises and get a lot of benefit out of that. It can be done really quickly, in about eight to 10 minutes,” says Rooney. “Just make sure you crack a good sweat. If you don’t you are probably not warmed up.”

Sample Dynamic Warm-Up:
Variations on the dynamic warm-up are limitless. Here is a sample warm-up with familiar exercises that can easily be performed in any type of open space.
 
Cardio                     5 min
Lunges                    20 per leg
Running Butt Kicks      20 per leg
Leg Raise                 20 per leg
High Kick                20 per leg
Hacky Sack                20 each side
Jumping Jacks             30 total
Side Bends                20 each side
Arm circles                20 each direction
Side shuffles                20-30 yards
Bear Crawl                20-30 yards
High Knees                20-30 yards
Band Pull-Apart            20 total

References:

* Rosenbaum, D. and E. M. Hennig. 1995. The influence of stretching and warm-up exercises on Achilles tendon reflex activity. Journal of Sport Sciences vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 481-90
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8850574

** Mann, Douglas, Jones Margaret 1999: Guidelines to the implementation of a dynamic stretching routine, Strength and Conditioning Journal:Vol 21 No 6 pp53-55