Did anyone catch the UFC event last night featuring Georges St. Pierre vs. Carlos Condit?
They showed some clips of GSP training in Montreal, and in the short clip they showed I thought there was some dangerous stuff going on. They were doing extremely heavy sled pulls and in which the feet were splayed out to the sides and knees were collapsing inward due to the load. There was also some shots of balance work (e.g. balancing on one foot on an unstable surface which in this case was a piece of PVC pipe while having medballs thrown to him).
Apparently he had been suffering from knee problems for a while prior to his surgery, and and MRI showed MCL damage and a complete tear of the ACL.
Does anyone know if there was ever any conclusion as to a definitive injury cause, or if it was an accumulation thing? Obviously it sounds like the latter. I suspect there are a few things in there that could be toned down for safety based on the clip I saw.
I’m not trying to throw anyone under the bus, obviously they have produced one of the most dominant fighters ever. However, he has a lot of different people he’s working with- gymnastics coach, weights coach, boxing coach, etc. so it seems like it might be important to audit the overall training for safety risks. Does anyone have strong experience in the MMA field?
No doubt GSP had been using resources which the rest of the MMA world do to recovery from injury. Something we can’t discuss on here.
If you are interested from recovery from ACL injury your better off seeing your local physio or doing a search on you tube.
GSP would have to be the most over rated athletes going around, there’s a lot of hype with UFC fighters.
Just being objective, I was watching GSP power snatch ( 40kg) bench (90kg), jump squat ( 80kg) and these lifts weren’t explosive or powerful.
If you are interested in strength and conditioning for MMA, I would recommend searching for Randy Couture training. His training is specific for MMA and low risk for injury.
I wasn’t looking to get into a discussion about how he recovered from injury, just if there was a definitive cause established. There is no need to address any other topic, especially that one.
I don’t think he’s that overrated- he’s held the title for ages and nobody has beat him convincingly. Regardless of how he looks doing his lifts, he is subjectively much more explosive than most of his opponents while he is fighting. We also don’t know what the context of the lifts was- was he lifting at the end of a workout? The beginning? Who knows.
I was more interested in it from a risk management perspective. If you don’t take unnecessary risks in training, there will obviously be less of a need for rehab. Thanks for the tip on Couture stuff, I will take a look!
UFC is pretty interesting as it appeals to people’s sense of the extreme aspect of sport. I am not sure there is much concern in this sport for the bigger picture, long term perspective. Agents and the management staff would find it easiest to dispose of the talent for younger , fresher players.
I won’t ever forget the player who came to work with Charlie from one of the greatest football clubs in the USA from Texas. He was an amazing athlete and wanted to know how I made such fantastic burgers. ( Yes, I am patting myself on the back here) . He told us he had been a super star his entire high-school career in football, came to the NFL and got injured. He said the entire team was filled with guys just like him only now his career was in jeopardy as they were giving him one last change to get rid of this injury. The team staff had not done the job. He came to Charlie completely discouraged but after 10 days he was as good as new.
I am certain a person could make a career in the niche of educating and supplying therapy and training as a package to some of the UF guys. It might take a bit of time as there is an educating component first , then some practical work and then followed by enough time to show whom ever what you are saying could extend their career in multiples.
The professional athletes who eventually found Charlie understood that proper training, rehab and nutrition was their ticket to a longer , healthier career. Not all coaches, trainers and administrators in sport care about tomorrow. That is the ugly side of professional sport.
I’ve got quite a bit of experience with MMA, and with the training. I know one of GSP’s training partners, and trust me, MMA fighters in 2012 know how to train. What you see on TV isn’t necessarily what they do for training all the time.
Also, I know that Charlie influenced at least one of the top MMA trainers in the field today. Joel Jaimeson mentions Charlie in this video, and he attended one of Charlie’s Vancouver seminars years ago. I’ve also consulted with one of the trainers of one of the top fighters in the UFC today, and I can’t say two sentences about training without mentioning Charlie.
There’s a common denominator with all these fighters, no need to elaborate.
Chris Leben, Chael Sonnen, Rampage, Victor Belfort, Ken Shamrock, Sean Sherk, Stephan Bonnar,Hermes Franca, Alister Overeen, Nate Marquate.
GSP is also notoriously famous for the same.
Maintaining my objective view here, Anderson Silva and Jon Jones are great athletes, however I don’t put GSP in the same class for a multitude of reasons ; the first mentioned above.
Here’s a quote from his website: “In the last couple of months I’ve been heavily experimenting with the use of “tempo intervals” in the training programs of various athletes. Popularized by the late Charlie Francis, these relatively low intensity intervals have proven effective in various regards in my experience so far, so I’d like to share how I’ve been using them and the benefits they appear to offer.”