Lunge exercises show not only how strong you are but the muscular balance between your knee muscles (quads, hamstrings) vs. your hip muscles (glutes, hip flexors).
Before figuring out how much you should be able to Lunge, you’ve gotta know how to Lunge properly.
You can’t compare your Bench press to someone else if you lower down to your chest and Joey from the gym only goes down halfway – the technique must be the same.
So first, watch this vid to make sure your technique is perfect:
Now that you know how to Lunge properly, let’s figure out how much you should be able to Lunge, compared to your Squat, and compared to your bodyweight, to have a good level of strength as an MMA fighter:
“The only question to ask yourself is, how much are you you willing to sacrifice to achieve this success?
– Larry Flynt, Creator of Hustler Magazine”
Yeah, I know that Larry Flynt may not be the most inspiring of sources for a quote, but his quote is relevant to what I want to talk about and it was one of the first that came up when I searched “success sacrifice quote” in Google.
I’m writing this post after meeting with Joe, a mixed martial artist who wants to have his first MMA fight in April 2010.
You can connect with your current Facebook account or create a new uStream account and ask me questions and get your answers live on the air.
For this episode, I’m going to answer the following questions and more:
1) "I’ve been training fairly regularly in terms of balancing BJJ, karate, weights and NRG circuits. Still, once in awhile (right now) just must have hit the same muscle more the usual – glutes, hip-flexors and calves are pretty sore, so I put off my regular training day since I would have been doing deadlifts. I felt like I ‘could’ have done the workout but decided to rest up an extra day.
What are your thought on training and Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness (DOMS)?
Thanks, Jason Peters"
2) "i was just wondering is there an exercise that i can improve my roundhouse kick with more power or speed? khammanh comany"
3) "Except from the muscles how can I strength joins & ligaments so that they are not more a kind of bottleneck in the effort to lift heavy? Your advise is much appreciated,Thx, Petros"
4) "How do you get over being beat especially if it was your first fight! marty ramsey-whitwell,tn"
There are a bunch more I got over email that I’ll be covering too if I have the time.
Make sure you check out the show, again, it’s live on…
Love the name and goal of this kickboxing event – to help bring MMA to Ontario.
We need MMA in Ontario. Bad. I can’t keep going to Montreal for events – I’ll get fat on poutine and smoked meat sandwiches! Il y a delicieux!!!
Anyway, I cornered 7 fighters – we had a big crew up at the event and it was a good time.
Congrats to Matt, Kyle, Jason, Justin, Bill, Chris, and Joe for competing and laying it all on the line.
You’ve gotta watch the first clip – Matt hits a low blow, and the ref doesn’t jump in and his opponent is just standing there, he pops him, not once, but twice! Hilarious!
I mean come on, it was his first fight, and it was the ref’s job to step in. Either way it was funny and it was good that the kid didn’t get hurt.
Was up at the folks’ cottage in Parry Sound, Ontario a few weeks ago and it was one of the most relaxing trips I’ve ever had.
I went for 2 great hikes kinda wandering in the forest. There aren’t any paths to hike, so you either stay on the cottage road or you wander through the forest.
Found a wicked hike up the Canadian shield that gave me a great view of the lake and the fall colours. For those of you who don’t know, the Canadian shield is basically a bunch of rock that lines highways and dots the landscape throughout Canada.
Anyway, the trip got me thinking about recovery and how important it is to MMA fighters.
Think of it as just as important as BJJ or strength and conditioning and you’ll have a long, healthy career.
Here’s the vid, hope you enjoy it and I’d love to hear YOUR recovery strategies – leave a comment below.
Cardio as it’s popularly referred to by Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg every UFC is what will keep you from looking like the Ultimate Fighter Heavyweights.
Man it’s so frustrating seeing dudes on TV who can’t hold their hands up… in the first round!!!
Anyway, the term cardio doesn’t include just one aspect of fitness, like the name implies, and if you don’t understand how cardio is developed, you’ll never be in great shape.
Luckily, I’m going to tell you what you need to do.
So here’s how developing your cardio is more than just running, or intervals, or 5 minute circuits, or CrossFit:
If you’ve been watching the Ultimate Fighter Heavyweights, maybe you’ve noticed that Rampage’s team is much like a gang of schoolyard bullies who go around and beat kids up for their lunch money.
Their various antics on last night’s episode just went on to solidify this fact… Not to mention the fact that they still haven’t won a fight.
The caricature painting was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen and seemed like such a waste of time.
Whereas these guys could’ve spent their energy on coaching their fighters, they were out getting a painting drawn up of Team Rashad. Brilliant idea guys!
The segment where Kimbo and 2 other guys were sitting around the pool and talking about who was gonna win the fight between ‘Titties’ and Zak was the most evident of the mentalitiy of these fighters.
They were talking about who they thought was going to win the fight, and they made their pick based on who they thought was going to go ‘crazy’ and ‘lose it’.
Since when have you seen a fight won by a guy who just went crazy and lost it?
Maybe Tank Abbott a decade ago… But not anymore.
Now, you’ve got true martial artists who show compusure… Guys like Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, Georges St. Pierre, etc. etc.
Going crazy won’t help you out.
You’ve got to be relaxed and calm to let your skills shine. Once you get all riled up and you’re emotionally on the edge, you lose the ability to adapt and change your gameplan, if need be.
So if you’re a budding fighter, don’t follow the lead of these thugs – take the champs who win with class as your role models and do what they do – train hard, stay consistent, continue to learn and grow, and fight with class – and you’ll be a successful mixed-martial artist.
Chad ‘The Boss’ Leonhardt first contacted me after he grabbed a copy of the Ultimate MMA Strength and Conditioning Program and he had a few questions about it.
He’s a pro MMA fighter and the head instructor of the Gladiators Academy in Shreveport/Bossier City, an affiliate of UFC Fighter Tim Credeur’s school of the same name, and a super cool dude.
You may have even seen a video of his brutal knockout of Dan Keenan in Bellator IX. If not, watch it here (it’s only 30 sec!):
Chad recently had a fight this past weekend on the Cage Kings: Breaking Point card, which he won in the first round via TKO.
I asked Chad a bunch of questions about lifestyle, MMA, training, and what it’s like to be recognized in the street by strangers.
He answers everything I throw at him and gives some great tips to anyone looking to have their first fight. Check it out:
You just injured your back and you know there is some severe tissue damage eg. you’re squatting and you fail and get crushed by the bar
You know you have a spondylolisthesis or other extension injury (if you don’t know what this is, you probably don’t have it)
Doing so will make you worse!
But, if you’re one of the guys who simply wakes up stiff in the morning, or if you hurt your back tying your shoes or bending over doing something light like brushing your teeth or just moving the ‘wrong’ way, this will be PERFECT FOR YOU.
Here are the exercises to do, in the proper order:
McKenzie Pressups – 10 reps
Hip extensions – 8 reps x 5 sec hold
Birddog (aka Horse stance horizontal) – 4 reps x 10 sec hold
Side bridges – 5 reps x 10 sec hold on each side
Might sound easy, but there are key details that you must know and do to make the exercises effective, for those, watch the video (and take notes or follow along as you’re watching):
Make sure you do everything right, like the breathing during the McKenzie’s, the glute squeeze and heel drive during the hip extensions, and the proper alignment during the Birddog and Side Bridges…
These details are as important as making sure you keep your hands up when boxing…
So if you have an incident where you throw your back out, do this right away and then another 2 times the same day…
Or if you have LBP now, do it 2-3 times a day.
Either way, leave a comment below with your results: