Seminar- Getting fitter, faster, and stronger for martial arts

I was going to write up a bit on how to maximise your time in the gym for martial arts, but I think I’ll save it for another day, after we’ve done something that we’ve been thinking about for quite a while. I have put the idea out there to hold a Strength and Conditioning seminar specifically for martial arts and combat sports in the not too distant future, and I think it would be of interest to a lot of people for a number of reasons.

Firstly, there are probably a few million websites, blogs and the like out there purporting to tell you how to best train for sports and martial arts. Most of them hide behind the terms sport specific and functional to disguise their awful training methods. To give you an idea, I have read the internet- I got to the last page last week- and I have found just about 10 websites that I would read, look at their programmes and say either “yes, I agree with that” or “yes I could implement that tomorrow”. Let me tell you something you already know; most information on the internet is bullshit.

So there are two real problems. Number one is filtering the bad from the good. How do you know the information you’re receiving is correct? The short answer is that unless you’re 100% positive and have seen these methods before, you can’t be sure it works. I’ve seen some really slick websites that look cool and have bullshit content, and I’ve seen some sites that have a veritable goldmine of info that look as though they’re a primary school project. It’s hard to divide the good from the bad unless you know what you’re looking for. Of course if you do know what you’re looking for, chances are you don’t need the stuff you’re reading anyway.

The second problem is that once you have the proper resource, be it a book, a website or a DVD, you still have to implement that, and often that’s next to impossible for any number of reasons. Some programmes assume you have 4 hours a day, 7 days a week to give, and some assume you have access to what they have. To write a programme that suited everyone, took into account they’re time available, equipment at their disposal, other sporting requirements etc. would take an entire book. And newsflash, most people prefer Dan Brown to Dan John at bedtime, so probably wouldn’t read the whole thing anyway.

However attending seminars is different. The people (in this case, let’s call ourselves “the experts”, since we are) are right there in front of you and able to answer questions immediately, give you work-arounds if you don’t have the time or equipment, and more importantly, tell you why you’re doing what you’re doing and how to go about making it right. I’ve read a lot of books on a lot of subjects, and while they’re valuable resources, I’ve only ever really found books on strength and conditioning useful as resources to refer back to after thrashing the reality out with coaches and experts. There really is no substitute for experience, and when it comes to something you’re going to use every week but don’t necessarily want to gain absolute expertise in, you have to stand on the shoulders of giants, or at the very least, let them give you a jockeyback.

 
However, there is one catch. It’ll cost ya. As you may already be aware, we give away a lot of our intellectual property for absolutely nothing- on forums, on our blogs, on our website, and mostly in our gym to our members. Now we have absolutely no problem with that, by and large, but we are now getting to a stage where if we don’t answer an email with a detailed answer, we’re bastards. My Dad used to give me a life lesson along these lines- if you stop one day when it’s raining to give a guy a lift, he’ll be thankful. If you don’t stop the next day when it’s sunny, he’ll think you’re a bastard. Perhaps we’ve only ourselves to blame for being at people’s disposal for so long, plus myself Dan and Will like to talk training and like to answer questions.

 However now, we’re really quite busy, and time management is an issue. You may have noticed a decline in the length of posts on our blogs in recent months, and large gaps between posts too. This is because while we’d like to be doing all this kind of stuff, our first priority is coaching our members. We have a full MMA fight team, a full grappling team, a Muay Thai team, general gym members, GAA teams and other teams to look after. These are our guys. They pay us to train them. I don’t think they’d be happy with us if we said “sorry buddy, can’t come to coach you now, I have to answer John P Random by email, he’s having trouble fitting his new programme in with his boxing”.

The seminar
So I think the best method is for people to come and see us, pay a fee (to be decided on) and learn firsthand what we do for combat athletes. Here’s a loose outline of what you can expect from a seminar with us.

Introduction to Strength and Conditioning- why?

The fundamentals- theory and practical

Strength- Theory and practical

Conditioning- general & specific

Periodisation- when and why

Workshopping- Q&A

The dates and further information will be available soon, along with a specific outline for the seminar. It might also be a good idea to mail me with any material you’d like to see covered at barry@informedperformance.com and we may be able to add some time on at the end of the day for it if it isn’t already in the schedule. Alternatively, you can reply to this topic.