Not right now no. Part of the plan is to work into Olympic lifts in short order. I have increased my sparring volume quite a bit in the last month and my body is still getting used to it. Next I will re-add MedBall Explosive throws, and once my body is used to those I will move to Olympic lifts. As well I am at about 193lbs right now (down from 203lbs not too long ago), and will be fighting at 167lbs in November (God willing 
hehe). Weights for me always seem to make me pack on alot of weight. When I do start lifting, it will general, and once or twice a week max.
Herb,
if you can reproduce one of these these photos,
i can hold your first victory coming easily.
Probabily you already heard about Rickson Grace ?
http://rickson.com/
I saw an TV Special about Grace´s life philosophyâŚ
He used to get a âcamp trainâ where he lives like animals for a while.
He can do incredible things with body, he is a real legend in my country.
The Gracies are legends. All of them. They are the ones who brought UFC to North America.
If you havenât already, check out my web page. I have a new article posted which addresses, in general terms, some concepts to think about when constructing your training program for MMA.
Remember, itâs the loading parameters (sets, repetitions, load, tempo), not the lifts themselves, which determine the training effect (eg increase bodymass, max strength, speed strength, relative strength, etc)
As far as cutting down to 167 by Nov, may the lord-god-almighty-in all of his heavenly glory and divine and holy sanctity, rain down upon you with the holiest of blessings and good fortune. LOL!
Last nights training was by far the most difficult cardiovascular endeavour I have encountered in my lifeâŚand I made it all the way through. It was an hour and a half of continual drills and sparring consisting of 3 minutes on, one minute off with the occasional 2 or 3 minute break. Cardio has always been my weakness, but after last night (and of course the months prior) I have been climbing over wall after wall and I am feeling great! We even ended the session with explosive jumps and push-ups where you get your whole body off the ground. Today is my light tempo day.
Well it has been quite a while since I posted last on this thread. Doesnât mean I havenât been training my butt off. I just got home from training and my entire body is shaking. I think I may have overdone it. Anyways, I will be eating lots of good wholesome recovery type food and drink over the weekend. If anyone has any specific questions about my training, please ask.
UFC 50 tonight. Two Canadian boys fightingâŚone for the title!!! Donât miss it.
Yo Herb,
whens the big day,
i went to http://www.wffchampionships.com and the site doesnât list any events for November, so i e-mailed Jason Towns and got no reply.
did you have any trouble gettin down to 167?
TD
Life took a big turn for me in September when I went back to University full time. I was around 180 and dropping when classes started. I am at about 203 now. I havenât trained in almost 2 weeks and I feel gross. On Monday my school schedule changes so I will be able to train all of November consistently.
From what Jason told me, the fights are going to be on Dec 11th. I am in no condition cardio-wise to represent Team Toshido, so I doubt I will be fighting. But, since it is local they might fix me up with a fight anyways. So, my plans did not come to pass as I suspected. Anyways, weâll see what happens.
Herb,
good luck with the university, you have your priorities in order.
td
I have a cracked rib at the moment and am not training. However, after the Vancouver Seminar, my trainer/instructor/master is willing to experiment with our workouts. I am working on a class plan to organize things a bit better so that we can break down the different parts of training and incorporate a better system of rest in between sets of sparring rounds or rounds on the heavy bag. Basically I am starting where I can, which is to increase recovery methods with the pro fighters and to incorporate tempo instead of road work (especially for the guys over 200 pounds). I will attach my mock-fight training log here.
James, any input would be nice. Can you think of any elements (listed in the left had column) I can add to this?
Herb, personally I would like to see some training volume allotted to the development of strength speed. Obviously, as you have illustrated, technique and skill work must come first.
What must be noted however, is that as absolute strength increases so does speed strength, so long as speed strength/power is being trained. And in your case it is both by way of med ball work and plyos.
Speed strength can only be developed to a degree, and until absolute strength increases, speed strength will plateau.
The challenge with MMA is that MMA practice/striking/bag work/grappling etc is both taxing to the CNS and the muscular system. And strength speed work is a significant stress to the CNS.
Thus, I favor the implementation of strength speed work early in the prepatory period for an upcoming fight, then as you progress through the cycle you begin to reduce the volume of strength speed work until eventually you may only perform a small volume of maintenance work, with as little frequency as possible while avoiding stiffness, as the volume of skill/technical work/conditioning and any other MMA specific training must consume the vast majority of training volume.
I have had good results with the fighters and wrestlers whom I have worked with on a correspondence basis by utilizing strength speed percentages between roughly 75-90% 1RM. By utilizing low repetitions within these percentages one is able to significantly reduce CNS stress of limit weights while at the same time avoiding the muscular soreness that usually comes as a result of straining with weights in the 8-15 repetition range.
If you opt to incorporate some of this be sure and maintain an inverse relationship between intensity and volume.
You might even want to consider reducing the volume of specific plyo work in favor of strength speed work. As the med ball work and striking/bag drills have significant reactive component
Here is my updated version. I have added a section for weights and colour coded it to make it look pretty and more cooler.
Herb, you could even go with 1 primary lift per session and 2 assistance lifts. Here are a few combinations:
- squat (strength speed)
pullups reps
Dips reps
or
- press variation (strength speed)
pull ups reps
lunge/step up variation reps
or
- OL lift variation (strength speed)
Dips reps
rows reps
etcâŚ
the lifts for reps can be performed weighted or bodyweight only, depending on level of physical preparedness.
I like to have one lift which targets hip extension and a couple others which target push/pull upper body wise.
Here is the latest. I am sure in the next while it will undergo many changes as well I will have one for the different training phases. This one would be moving directly into a fight, without the taper here listed.
Looking better and better. This is good; thinking as we go.
A few more thoughts; you might want to think about only performing tempo and abdominals, and possibly med ball on tues, thurs, sat. I think tempo every day, in conjunction with everything else will be too much. This way you can treat tues, thurs, sat as general conditioning days, while your mat time on mon, wed, fri is specific.
Mon, wed, fri would still remain the high CNS stress days, while tues, thurs, sat would serve to increase conditioning as well as active recovery from the acyclic stresses of MMA practice.
Agreed. Abs can easily be limited to Tues, Thurs and Sat because the abs are being used all the time on the mat anyways. Getting rid of tempo on the heavy CNS days works for me as well. From the benefit I would receive (if any), it is too much hassle to drive to the field to do such low volumes of tempo.
Regarding the Medicine Ball work, what I had in mind was explosive throws, very low reps right after the weight session. And I am not talking about a 100 pound med ball or anything like that 
. Too much stress for that day? Med Ball is something I love! I would almost give up a weights session to get in a good med ball session. Nothing feels better than launching a med ball into the next dimention. Such a feeling of POWER!
My rib is healed and I have been to training 3 times already with no problems. My weight is at 214lbs, but I am not worrying about my weight since I know it will fall off as I continue to train.
My goals are to get to the next practice and after that to get to the next practice etc.
have you ever read Warrior training by rooney??? I have not read it but heard it was a good read for MMA trainingâŚit is kind of pricey though?
No I havenât read that. I probably wonât either. Perhaps my instructor has read it though. I am not interested in gathering mass amounts of knowledge for myself. I just want to fight and I am learning more than I can handle from my instructor David Lea www.fighttraining.com or www.wffchampionships.com. and from the world class instructors that come through our doors (or are in the area putting on seminars) such as Marc Laimon (one of the trainers for the show The Ultimate Fighter), Chris Brenan, Carlos Newton, Vitor âShaolinâ Ribiero.
Anyways, I am more into training than reading at the moment. Perhaps if I ever start to coach fighting I will read up on it a bit more.
I am weiging 223 pounds. I remember when I was 18 and would fight at 168 pounds. Oh the good ol days. Mmmm fudgesicle.