I do it because if I don't I get my butt handed to me in the ring because my opponent has been doing daily sprints for the last 8 weeks. I DONT do it because i like it.
Tony, thank you for your kind words. I am indeed a professional trainer. I used to weigh about 300lbs, had knees that spontaneously dislocated, impinged shoulders, back problems, etc. I like to think I know a little something about losing fat while improving your health and performance. Master Betty I understand the desire to increase your explosive work capacity for better performance during sparring/fighting. Going for a jog in the morning isn't conducive to this goal however, or I should say you may get some benefit but there are far more effective methods to accomplishing that goal.
For a fight I need to completely manage my weight - the easiest way to do that is with a daily jog and it's exactly what virtually most ring fighters do from MMA to boxing to muay thai to thai boxing to kickboxing to karate and on and on and on. A whole lot of people who're experts in their fields advocate a mix of jogging and sprints.
Fair enough, but lot of people who are "experts" in this industry also recommend crunches for core strength, bosu balls for balance work, high fiber cereal for a healthy breakfast, and other things that are no less ridiculous just because a supposed 'expert' touted them as beneficial. When I think of experts in this industry I think of Charles Poliquin, Mike Boyle, Christian Thibadeau, Chad Waterbury, Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, Dave Tate, Dan John, Gray Cook, Alwyn Cosgrove, and others. To my knowledge (and I could be mistaken of course), none of these guys nor their respected peers would tell an MMA hopeful to alternate jogging and sprinting for endurance training. I'd recommend being very careful of assuming that what's popular for athletes must be what works. Athletes do a lot of stupid things out of tradition and out of superstition, and a lot of great athletes succeed in spite of poor training choices (Michael Phelps atrocious diet is a great example). It's popular for baseball players to keep lucky socks, lucky underwear, lucky dirty undershirts, etc. It's gone on for many years, and hundreds of players swear by it. I don't care how many people play with superstitious grigri however, it still doesn't do anything. As a general rule, I've found that the more people do something, the more likely it is to be incorrect, rather than the opposite. Not telling you what to think, just encouraging you not to assume that what the majority practices must be correct, or is even likely to be. Matt Hughes wouldn't have dominated the sport so much had he trained the way everyone else does (sissy weight, lots of body weight and cardio, very little heavy lifting). What if Royce Gracie had gone with striking because that was what the overwhelming majority of MA practitioners had emphasized for years? Many of the best, most memorable athletes in any sport have succeeded because they didn't do what everyone else was doing, and that's why they stood above the rest. It's the same reason I'm never the first to gas in a fight and I have to fight guys 50 lbs heavier than me to get someone close to me in strength: because I don't train like everyone else who has sub-par explosive capacity and strength.
not to get into an arguement but none of the following actually train fighters for a living : Charles Poliquin, Mike Boyle, Christian Thibadeau, Chad Waterbury, Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, Dave Tate, Dan John, Gray Cook, Alwyn Cosgrove, and others those that do (joel jamision, martin rooney) do advocate areobic work, and guys that previously didnt like joe defranco are starting to put it in his guys logs its done for various reasons, all you need to do is look at the role the aerobic system plays in aiding the alactic and lactic system via the removal of waste products, the role it plays in recovery between rounds and actually have your anearobic threshold tested then stick a heart rate monitor on during sparring and rolling and see what your average HR is and you can see how important it actually is, thenfactor in the fact a fight can laste up to 30 minutes and the lactic system shuts down after 90 seconds andyou start to wonder which system is actually producing the most power during a fight
I guess you mean they don't exclusively train fighters? I don't see why that makes them less qualified. I think the fact that they work with MMA fighters as well as people from other sports gives them better insight into what works, what doesn't, and how different sports should be trained for. As for Rooney, I'll admit I am not the biggest follower of his work (not because I don't immensely respect him, I simply haven't read everything of his) but from what I have read and understood he's a huge advocate of heavy lifting and a bit of sprinting for fighters. From an article he wrote with Brian Krahn that personifies the way I train myself and other fighters: This is exactly what I've referenced in the past. Someone with great aerobic capacity might be able to dance around and move their limbs for a long time, but they can't destroy anyone's face. You need strength and explosive work capacity for that. As he says, you don't win fights and intimidate fighters with endurance, you do it by slamming them around and beating their face in with superior force production.
Man I've spent a fair amount of time helping produce fighters at a professional level and I've seen first hand the difference in fighters who ARE doing their roadwork and fighters who aren't. Trust me, they need to run.
They train the strength area, so advising roadwork isn't really their job. Defranco advocates road work. Tate is a powerlifter, dan John is a strongman CT is a "muscle coach" running ain't their thing. I can put in roadwork nearly everyday, and still make it to training or hit the weights or do my circuts etc. You think I'd be able to do that if i was doing intense intervals everyday? This also makes it better for weight management since i'm doing it far more often. The 'risks' of steady state like muscle loss or less fat loss than sprints are tiny, it's so little difference.
I'm not sure what prompted this notion, but the job of these coaches, and any good coach, is not just to manage strength, but provide a program that addresses the strength, mobility, and energy system needs of the athlete. As far as I know everyone I mentioned provides complete programming, not just a small piece of it. You seem to think running 'aint their thing' because it's not a relevant component to their profession, but I think it's more accurate to say they don't advocate it because they don't think you need to, not because it's not their area of expertise. I've seen videos of boxers at Cressey Performance running the prowler for energy systems work, even though EC is "just a baseball and shoulder guy". Once again, a good coach knows how to program for every quality the athlete needs. When you understand the underlying physiology and anatomy, you don't need to reinvent the wheel with every new type of activity you encounter. Yes, I know you could. At least 4-5x a week that is. Of course "intense intervals" is about as general a term as "resistance training" so we likely have different ideas of what constitutes appropriate interval work. However, even if you couldn't do it every day, when did the frequency with which you could do something become an indication of how effective it is? It's not smart to do deadlifts over 90% more than once a week if you're a fairly strong lifter, but does that mean they don't belong in a solid program because you can't do them as frequently as something less demanding, like bodyweight squats? The big risk of steady state work isn't a ton of muscle loss, though that is a concern. The more you train your slow twitch fibers (steady state work) the slower and weaker you'll become, and the more you train your fast twitch fibers the faster and more powerful you'll become. You can't ride two horses with one ass, and you can't be impressively strong and explosive while doing aerobics nearly every day. This is the law of specificity.
I find this topic extremely enertaining. Socra have you come across this knowledge through research, school or a combination of both? Just now I decided I want to learn more about the human body. Maybe I have finally found something worth studying.
I went to school and studied exercise science, but I don't attribute my knowledge or success to that. I also am certified through the ISSA and YMCA, but I didn't get much out of that either. I attribute the bulk of my knowledge (95%) to independent study. I used to be a 300lb sack of fat with knees so weak and out of whack that they spontaneously dislocated. I had shoulder impingement on one side and was borderline on the other, I had back issues that would put me on the floor in spasms. Basically, I was an obese mess. Fast forward years later and I'm 200lbs of explosive power, I can squat over 350 deep without so much as a knee sleeve, I can press 200lbs overhead without a shoulder issue, and I can deadlift 500lbs with my bare hands and no weight belt without any back issues. I attribute a lot of my old injuries to my high school strength and conditioning coach, who taught athletes for a couple decades, didn't know his bicep from his arsehole, and left myself and many of my peers with a plethora of shoddy joints. It's sort of why I get a bit ****ed when people give bad advice (I'm not upset with anyone in this thread or anything, I just mean in general, mostly the stuff I hear from other 'trainers' and 'professionals'): I remember how much bad advice messed me up, and I think people need to be pretty damn sure of what they're talking about before they start telling others what to do with their body. What you don't know can hurt yourself, and hurt others. I would say nothing is more worth studying than the human body other than perhaps the human mind (psychology, neuroscience, behavior science, etc.) Everyone has a body and always will, so you'll never find yourself in a position where you have nothing to do with all that knowledge you've accrued.
Interesting. When my mother passed away I became extremely depressed and shut myself out with the world. I spent a majority of 2 almost 3 years playing Warcraft. All that sitting and terrible eating habits ( fast food everyday ) I went from 185 to 275. Had a wake up call and started hitting the gym. At that time my routine was horrible now that I think about it since I used machines and light weights. Also finished with 35 minutes of cardio( though I switched it up ). A combination of that and healthier eating habits I dropped to 210 in a year. All that sitting has left me with lower back pain and tight hip flexors. Having picked up a better routine I want to make sure i lift and train as efficient as possible ( hence the creation of this thread about morning jogs) Glad to say I've gone from 135 back squats to 235. Unfortunately I can't go deep because of my tight hips. At parallel and lower my back starts to round. Sorry to get slightly off topic but I always feel some connection with folks who have gone through a dramatic change in weight like myself.
That is mighty impressive Tony. REALLY IMPRESSIVE. Seriously, great job mate. Sounds like you really think a lot about what you do with your body, and because of that I'm confident you'll learn and grow very quickly in your fitness knowledge.
I was mostly concerned about the fact you said you would run early morning does that mean when it's dark out? And plus the fact that maybe a early morning schedule would not be as flexible and fun as it would later in the day when you are done with your days events.And then had more time to rest and possibly go somewhere and cool down and relax. Just my thoughts on this....
Yea it would still be dark out. I walk my dog for about 20-30 minutes early mornings before work so I figured I might get some jogging in. As Socra said that might not be the greatest idea, I Could just hop on my bike and give my dog more of work out =P
Then you will have two stray dog magnets you on a bike and your dog.Not trying to be discouraging but to be aware is a good thing.One thing I would do if I was you is drive your route and check it out to see if there may be unchained dogs around that time of day or other things like pot holes or some other obstacle.I knew a guy who was doing cross country and he step in a hole full stride and really twisted his ankle bad.
Running in morning have good sides, but don't do it more then 30 - 45 minutes. If it feels good ofc, if it make you feel sick then don't.
i have followed Rooney and talked to him a fair bit about his training, his warm ups last over 30 minutes and are entirely aeobic in nature, as are alot of his circuts, he also uses HR monitors for all his fighters and toned back his circuts to more closely match their HR ranges in fighters (ie stopped trying to kll them with lots of lactic work), and defranco, tate the angry coach and alot of others overs at elite fitness advocte aerobic work as i said its not that hard to understand the three different energy systems and how they relate to each other, its also not that hard to see which is the most imprtant to fighting, just test your lactic threshold then train with a HR monitor on and see where you spend the majority of your time Aerobic work dos not mean just easy work, it means threshold work, it means alot of things intervals, sprints are all used to develop the power of the system not just caridac development, the capacity of the system that is one part but only one part of aerobic training
If I'm running in the morning, I never eat beforehand, simply because I don't want to puke it back up. When you're in the military for a while, you get used to running several miles at 0500. Doesn't make it any more fun, but you learn pretty quick that breakfast often revisits you in an unpleasant fashion if you're not careful.
Icefield I know a lot of coaches use aerobic warmups, but I don't see the significance unless they're actually saying that these low intensity warmups are what give their fighters power and endurance in the ring. If I did the same thing with a weightlifting workout, would I not find that I spend the majority of the time just breathing and recovering between sets aerobically? Is it therefore correct to assume that I need to be training my aerobic system to get better at lifting weights? I'd say a fight is largely aerobic the way 8 sets of 3 heavy deadlifts is largely aerobic. However, you don't end a fight with your aerobic system and you don't lift a heavy ass weight with your aerobic system, so why would we focus on what system is being used the majority of the time, if the majority of a workout, like the majority of a fight, is a lot of "filler"? Like Rooney says in the article I linked, nobody complains of how great their opponent's endurance is, but everyone is scared of someone much stronger and more powerful than them. Why? Because nobody is going to knock you unconscious because they can dance around on their feet for 40 minutes straight. But even the guy who is gasping for breath can break your face if he still has explosive anaerobic work capacity left in the tank. Do you ever watch UFC? Do you not see this all the time? There are guys that can go round after round after round, but you only have to survive the first few minutes to avoid being knocked out. Why? I say they have great aerobic endurance, but once they lose the ability to EXPLODE with 100% force production they have lost the ability to destroy you, and they are not a significant threat any more. I don't doubt that aerobic endurance is important. I don't doubt that many coaches improve the aerobic endurance of their athletes of course. I do, however, doubt the notion that great aerobic endurance is how you end a fight, or that aerobic endurance is somehow the end goal, rather than a byproduct of the true goal: developing explosive work capacity and strength.
