IN THE LAB

About an hour ago I hit my garage gym or "the lab", as I like to call it for some research. I came up with an MMA specific circuit which targets all the major muscle groups used in each fight as well as some specific functional movements involved in the sport. Now even though I am primarily a boxing specific trainer when it comes to combat sports I think I am quite knowledgeable and, even though I am not a huge fan I do watch the sport and have picked up on some of their movements. As for the techniques of the sport aside from the punching I can't really say much but from a conditioning stand point I think I know enough to put together a pretty tough and grueling conditioning workout as I have designed a couple in the past. As tough as they are, they are fun to do and have a lot of variety and movements in them. This particular one was pretty effective but I have some tweaking to do before I could finalize it. Maybe even a video. Stay tuned.

Personal trainers or sports coaches these days have to be more then just people who put exercises together, call it a program and put someone through it. We must have a beginning and an end to the program and we must strategize different aspects depending on what we are doing. i.e. meals and eating, workouts on their own or the psychological perspective of ones sport or program. This week I had to twice go beyond that coach or trainer to strategist to help people (hopefully effectively) get through a certain "tough spot" or down fall to push them through to the next level of their fitness or sport. I had a client who came to me 2 months ago with some limitations but with some goals in mind to achieve. Strength, mobility and cardiovascular goals were met and improvements were made but no change in body composition were made and we should have seen something after 2 months. We had a sit down and discussed the workouts which I was putting her through as well as what she was doing outside of training with me as well as her eating. We found that, like most people it is the commitment to proper nutrition that was the down fall and we had to do some re-tooling and re-education with to her eating habits. Lets hope we will now see some changes.
The second time was earlier today with my young fighter Mandy. She had recently lost her last bout and has been out of action due to injury but is now resuming her training with hopes of fighting in the very near future. We sat down together and watched both of her fights and compared them and looked at the positives and the negatives, weighed them out and decided what we needed to work on. As it turns out it was not so much technical nor physical but more mental, which is a huge aspect of the fight game. As a coach I have to come up with a psychological game plan as well every time we come out for a fight. I know the game because I have been there before as a fighter and she is a terrific learner and is early in her fight career so I know I will get her mentally, physically and technically ready for success in her next fight. Although I am early in my coaching career I am confident that the success I had as a fighter will carry over as success as a trainer and ultimately success for my fighters and clients.

Damn I love what I do.

Train to live, live to train TIP