Okay, I need help. Duh. Got a “client” who is doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 3 days a week and Muay Thai 3 days a week. He wants a training program which will maintain his current strength and help him to gain muscular endurance (as well as cardio vascular endurance) but still have something in the tank for his 6x weekly martial arts training. He is not interested in gaining extra muscle mass necessarily; but I don’t think he would mind a little extra. Wouldn’t hurt if he lost a couple pounds of blubber. 38 year old male. quite strong. former sprinter. 190 pounds, 5 ft 11 inches. diet habits questionable.
I do brazillain Ju-Jitsu for fun, I’m not doing it right now as I’m focusing on sprinting, but from my experiance it is tought to do bjj three times a week along with sprinting a couple of times a week. I would have him focus on lifting heavy ,doing tempo runs and caleistenics too get him in shape and strong. Mabye he can handle sprinting and bjj without having the bjj suffer but I couldn’t.
Cardio and Muscluar endurance should be taken care of in the practices. Wow, 6x a week. That is alot!!! Oh as well, I think you should be telling him what he needs and not the other way around.
Weights should be after practice, and keep them general (Dead lifts, Bench, Squats etc). This will be to increase his strength, which will give him strength reserve.
The key here will be sleep and diet. Does he get enough protein? and is he taking ZMA yet?
if you have him to do sprints mabye you could have him do what Charlie does for linemen, shorter distances. Mabye like no more then 10-20 meters. I could see this helping him during takedowns and having the ability to explode. Just some thoughts
How about a modified WSB program. Maybe 3 exercises/workout. lift 3-4x/week rotating through ME Upper, ME Lower, DE upper, DE lower. For the other two supplemental exercises try doing reps for time, ie. DB Bench for 5 min, or try supersetting EDT style (read coach staleys articles at t-mag) for the strength endurance/lactic training.
as far as supplemental lifts I’d do DB bench and chin/row
on lower body days I’d do 1 leg squats and glute ham raises
Dont forget abs.
for conditioning I’d do a davies style GPP circuit. I know he’s not popular around here but his GPP circuits are great for MMA
First of all, does he plan on competing? If not, he has all the cond. he could ever need. I would just add weights 1-2 times a week. If he is going to compete, start out by adding weights 2x per week. day one-squatting, day two-pulling/pushing. after he has gotten used to the lifting, you could add cond. work in the form of tempo or my prefrence would be a weighted sled ah la Westside. I would avoid full speed work on the track as well as plyos. There is too much other training and he won’t be able to recover(if he’s running in the ring he’s got other problems than cond.). I feel speed will be addressed by getting stronger and more tech. skilled as well as relaxed
Just a bit of info…this guy does not plan to do any competitive sprinting…but he does plan on competing in jiu jitsu and possibly vale tudo type events…i will try to talk him out of the vale tudo stuff…an old fart like him should just be happy he has all of his teeth.
MMA(or vale tudo) is a very demanding sport that requires a lot of tech. and tactical knowledge in addition to outstanding conditioning. If you are going to be working on his Strength and Cond., be sure to touch base with his MMA coach/coaches often to avoid over training him. Skill traing should always take precedence over strenth and cond. IMO.
I second Bryce. Overtraining in MMA is really easy to do (especially when the Ath is doing 6x MA a week).
I agree that the weights are probably the only thing that can be added to a program like that. I think he is getting his GPP from his MA classes. Maybe a bare minimum basic strength routine (low volume) could work in this situation