Creating the Complete Athlete with Bodyweight and Kettlebell Training

15 05 2013

Well, it seems my last post was a bit of a hit. My views on Womens Fitness seem to have resonated with many of you, so if you shared the article, I thank you.

I do want to reiterate the closing statement, be sure to pass the message on. I know that my regular clients, readers and colleagues all feel the same, but we are in the minority, getting the message out to the majority is a bigger deal.
That’s where people like Linda over at Get1Active.com and Rannoch, the man behind the 100 Rep Challenge idea are doing fantastic work, because they are speaking directly to those that need it the most.

Anyhow, back to my usual business.

I have promised one of my lads that I’d do a detailed post about the Squat and Squat technique.
Well, I tried, but my video camera threw a hissy fit and failed to record any of the presentation. So, you’ll just have to wait, I’ll get it done for you I promise!

Half the legs, more than double the challenge!

Half the legs, more than double the challenge!

The alternative would be to come down to Tullamore on June 2nd.

Why Tullamore?

Well, my good mate Kieran who runs Dolan Fitness has asked me to teach a workshop on Kettlebell and Bodyweight Technique. Needless to say, the squat is a big part of both training modalities.

The workshop will also look at:
-Fundamental movement patterns and how to load them
-Core strength, developing and learning to use it
-Power endurance, because getting tired is for other people!
-Mobility drills for freedom of motion and injury prevention
-Breath control for power, recovery and endurance
-Implementing bodyweight and kettlebell drils into a wider training program

Bodyweight and kettlebells, a perfect combination

Bodyweight and kettlebells, a perfect combination

Well, that’s the aim. I have 6 hours to get as much info into the participants as possible, it’ll be a busy day. Make sure if you attend you bring, and use a notepad!

I’ll be showing many of the methods I use on a regular basis with my BJJ and Muay Thai fighters, the Rugby and GAA lads and anyone else who comes in looking to develop their athleticism.
While I do use barbells, we keep them for Squats and Deadlifts, preferring instead to develop movement skills with bodyweight and kettlebell exercises.
Some of our methods are fairly mainstream and will have been seen by most, other things we do tend not to be so common.

Yet they work and we have the results to show for it with lads dominating in their chosen arenas.

I’m chomping at the bit to run this workshop, it’ll be the first time I’ll have run this combined training modality event, usually I run either bodyweight or kettles, this one will bring together the best of both.

So to remind you:

Workshop: Creating the Complete Athlete with Bodyweight and Kettlebell Training

Location: Dolan Fitness, 14 Axis Business Park, Clara Road, Tullamore

Times: 1000 – 1600

Cost: €50pp

To book, drop me a line in the box below, bearing in mind that places are strictly limited:

 

See you there!

Dave
http://www.wg-fit.com


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Top 5 Exercises to Become a More Explosive Fighter

10 05 2013

This week I’ve been on a bit of a rant about the role of Strength and Conditioning in the Martial Arts.
By the term martial arts I include everything from Boxing to Ba Gua, MMA to RBSD, Kung Fu to Kickboxing and Karate.

I don’t really care what system or style you follow, I do care about how effective you are at putting it into practice. And to get the most out of the arts, regardless of your goal, you need a physical body to back you up.
In  my gym on any given day I may have guys training for the ring or the octagon, others training purely for the Art and others who train because it may one day save theirs or their families lives.
This last one is my favourite  I spent ten years working various nightclub doors in a variety of countries. Now I have two small boys, 5 and 2, who need their Daddy, and god help anyone who threatens them.

Anyhow, before this gets a bit intense…..

Physical training is of vital importance I spoke about this in the last two posts.
Getting stronger in my youth is the only reason I was able to attain my black belt and bring home several trophies.
It’s the reason a former member of the Wild Geese Kickboxing club went from a string of losses to a string of victories.
It’s why a man in his mid 30′s with a list of health and physical ailments was able to fight two professional rules MMA bouts, one of which was against a much younger and more experienced opponent.
It’s the reason why one of our BJJ blue belts could go to the European BJJ championships and come back with a bronze after only a year of training.

Anyhow, you get the idea. Being strong is good.

So what are the top lifts for a fighter?

In my opinion the list is as follows:

      1. Deadlifts
        Without a shadow of a doubt, the deadlift is king when it comes to preparing for combat. You need a powerful hip extension for punching, kicking, throwing and bridging. This brings it. Keep the weight high, but not so high it becomes and extended grind. Multiple sets of 3 reps with a 5 rep max is a good start point.        Deadlifts-1AOM
      2. Kettlebell Swings and even Snatches.
        Much the same action as the deadlift, but now we’re working for reps and building the ability to generate power over and over. These ballistic type exercises activate the stretch reflex and have been attributed to strengthening the elastic fascia in the body. That means you can develop that spring like power that all those wiry old men that seem to be carved out of oak. You just don’t have to get old first!
        Do swings single handed and you’re working the rotation of the core as well, which is no bad thing.
        Use a fairly heavy bell and go for reps or time with these.

        The Kettlebell swing - feel the burn!

        The Kettlebell swing – feel the burn!

      3. One Arm Push Ups
        The king of upper body exercises for fighters.
        Granted the load is limited, it is a bodyweight exercise, but the benefits are great. You gain pressing strength, shoulder and core stability and get to work the same force vector of a punch, the diagonal line from hand to opposite foot.
        As strength increase we can elevate the feet or even work to doing plyometric versions of this already tough exercise.
        Multiple sets of 3-5 reps are best here.
      4. Pull Ups and Chin Ups
        I’m not interested in what grip you use, just do them. A lot.
      5. Clean and Push Press.
        I can’t get enough of this lift, nor can my fighters. This is not an upper exercise, it’s more like an exercise in total body power that is merely expressed in the upper extremities.
        With strikers I tend use a single heavy kettlebell, grapplers tend to get more out of double kettlebell lifts. For comabatives and MMA, mix it up.
        The clean portion of the lift requires the hip snap, same as the swings above, dialing in that posterior chain. The push press comes through the quads, into the back and out through the shoulder and arm.
        Put it all together and it even sounds like a punch!
        Vary the rep range on these, but keep them snappy!

Centre your supplemental training around these five lifts and you’ll find yourself becoming faster, stronger and more powerful than you thought possible.
You’ll also be harder to hurt!

I’ll be in Tullamore at my friend Kieran Dolan’s place, Dolan Fitness where I’ll be teaching all the above techniques and more in our “Kettlebell & Bodyweight training workshop – Developing the All Round Athlete” Workshop  on June 2nd.

The workshop will look at:
-Fundamental movement patterns and how to load them
-Core strength, developing and learning to use it
-Power endurance, because getting tired is for other people!
-Mobility drills for freedom of motion and injury prevention
-Breath control for power, recovery and endurance
-Implementing bodyweight and kettlebell drills into a wider training program

Places are limited so drop me a line to get involved:

 

Regards

Dave
http://www.wg-fit.com

 

 

 


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Categories : Bodyweight training, Kettlebell lifting Dublin, martial arts

Bodyweight Minimum Standards, How Do You Measure Up?

25 02 2013

What a weekend!

Saturday just gone I was over in Galway teaching the Bodyweight Workshop.
Sunday I was with Wild Geese Martial Arts founder, Paul Cox where we presented at the Filipino Martial Arts Exchange, then when I got home, the wife and I took a rare night out together at the movies where we saw Mama.
The Missus spent most of the movie clinging onto me with one hand and shielding here eyes with the other hand. Big scaredy cat!

Mama

But anyhow, back to the workshops..

Galway was cool.
I’ve run the bodyweight workshop in a few gyms now and always been blown away but the response I got from the attendees. In each workshop, at least half the attendance are instructors and coaches in their own right, and still they leave blown away by the possibilities of training with zero equipment.

Duckwalks - feeling the buuuurn!

Duckwalks – feeling the buuuurn!

Now I’ll admit, we did digress once or twice and grabbed the odd bit of kit to illustrate a point or show how to progress a movement by adding external resistance, but the majority of the work requires nothing more than your body and few feet of floor space.
The best thing is that when I created the workshop I actually wasn’t that confident that the first half would stand up to scrutiny, after all, how long can we talk about a simple Push Up and a Bodyweight Squat?

Well? How long?

An entire hour on each movement is how long. And that’s not even going into mad variations. We take the movement and dissect it, we strip it back to its absolute foundations, look at regressions, common errors and then progressions. The progression we build to are the unilateral versions, the Pistol squat and One Arm Push Up.

What makes the day workshop special is that it seems this level of technical detail in these simple exercises is largely missing, or possibly more accurately, it’s forgotten.
Very few people give these movements their due.

And that is a problem.

Each time I run the course, I have some very experienced gym goers and athletes humbled by these exercises that are considered basic.
Watching a person doing a Push Up or doing a Squat can tell a story. It shows limitations, structural imbalances and body awareness. It gives an idea of how well a person can move athletically.

So here’s a few minimum standards for these bodyweight exercises, see if you can pass them. Remember, quality is key here, I won’t accept half reps, poor quality reps, so neither should you. Accept nothing less than perfection.

And before you go on, no, I’m not perfect, some of these I struggle to meet:

Elbow Plank – Minimum acceptable standard: 2 minutes

Push Up – 50 real reps (25 for women), chest will touch the floor between the hands and the arms will come straight on each and every rep. Keep the spine in neutral throughout, that means no sagging heads or backs. (I rarely do high rep push ups, so don’t know if I can still do this. I’ll check this week..)

Bodyweight Squats – 500 reps, full range ie hamstrings meet the calves on each rep. Keep the feet flat, although 500 Hindu squats is also good.

Wrestlers Bridge – Weight on the forehead, for 1 minute. (This one gets me!)

Single leg bridge – 50 reps per leg, from floor to full hip hyperextension.

Pull Ups – overhand grip for 15 (5 for women) full reps. I give slight rider on these, I don’t expect guys to relax into a dead hang at the bottom, as that messes with my shoulder so I don’t like it as a technique. Keep the shoulders retracted the whole time.

Once you have these, try then the following:

One Arm Push Ups x 10 each hand.
Pistol Squats x 20 each leg

20 of these per leg please.

20 of these per leg please.

Just to reiterate, quality must come before quantity.
Do your bodyweight numbers add up?

Next week I’m up in Crossfit Causeway teaching Kettlebell Technique. That’s going to be a blast!

See you there!

Dave
http://www.WG-Fit.com

 


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Train to BE Good, not just LOOK Good

28 01 2013

Don’t think bodyweight training is cool?

Check this out!

Awesome eh?

Did you notice the meatheads in the background? Did you see them looking on with bemusement?
I’ve actually had that happen to me when I’ve trained in a commercial gym.

It always amuses me that being able to move our own bodies with control, power and coordination causes such confusion. After all isn’t this the point of training in the first place?

Yet almost everyone goes to the gym and remains as stationary as possible for their training, we even have chairs to sit in for shoulder presses!
There’s even machines to sit on so we can train our legs. Think about that for a moment.

A machine designed to help you move as little as possible

A machine designed to help you move as little as possible

To get the very muscles that propel us over great distances or at great speed, we sit down. Where’s the logic?

Most are training just to look good standing still.

But we don’t live life standing still. We don’t interact with others standing still. We don’t fight standing still. We don’t kick a field goal standing still.

All these things require us to move our body though space.
They require coordination, not just of our limbs, but of our mind and body, of our central nervous system and of each muscle fibre firing at the right time in the right sequence.

Now we’re not talking about specific athletic skills, no boxer ever got good at throwing a punch without throwing thousands of punches.
We are talking about general physical ability or athleticism.

I have worked with many “gym bunny” athletes. Guys who do the whole stationary training thing. Guys who have bulging muscles that look the business but just don’t deliver when it counts.
After a few weeks of bodyweight based training, they ALWAYS report improvements in their athletic prowess. They move better, more fluidly, quicker and with less joint stress.

I’m not saying we don’t let then use weights, of course we do. But when we have them lift, they do so on their feet. We reinforce the lessons learned with bodyweight training by loading those same movements.
We increase the load by adding external resistance in the form of Kettlebells or Barbells, especially for lower body and total body strength. But for upper body strength I mostly change the leverage or the intensity of a bodyweight drill.

A push up can become a plyometric push up or better yet a one arm push up.
In my opinion, unless the athlete requires additional mass, the one arm push up is the absolute best upper body training drill.
Combine that with pull ups and there’s little else needed to build a powerful torso that will deliver in under any circumstance.

Here’s some footage from my Bodyweight Training Workshop detailing how we progress an athlete into the One Arm Push Up:

I’m running this workshop next over in Galway Kettlebells on Feb 23rd.
The day is dedicated to the mastery of bodyweight fundamentals and their progressions into ore advanced exercises. We also finish the day with Animal and Martial Arts based moves, some of which are featured in the showcase clip at the start of this post.

If you need to revitalise your training, improve athleticism, develop agility and move with the ease and grace of a professional fighter, drop me a line as places are limited.
For details on the workshop CLICK HERE

Regards

Dave
http://www.WG-Fit.com


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Causes of Knee Valgus

14 01 2013

Well I was in the middle of writing a post on the methods I employ to speed recovery between training sets and also increase general endurance.
Half way through I realised I don’t have the video footage I needed and my camera is in the gym. My bad, I’m stoopid.

worffacepalm

So I guess you’ll just have to check in later in the week for that one!

This did lead to a small issue though….

What the hell do I write about for this morning?

And then I come across THIS from one of the biggest brains in the Strength & Conditioning industry, Mr Bret Contreras.
Whatever Brett writes is worth a read. He takes the science research, goes through it with a fine toothcomb and then presents it to us mere luddites in a manner we can almost understand!

The article I’m referring to today is from his Strength & Conditioning Research journal, which is an excellent resource for all coaches.
This particular one talks about a thing called Knee Valgus.
Click this image to go to the article:

Click to read article

What is knee valgus?

It’s where your knees pull together, giving that knock kneed look.
It’s very common when people squat, even more common in the female population.

bilateralvalgus2

So what’s wrong with knee valgus?

It can put an excessive amount of stress on the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL). Which obviously aint good.

So how about do we go about fixing it?

That depends on the cause.
As Brets post states, some potential causes (which are also the ones I always look for)

decreased gluteal activation or strength, increased hip-adductor activation and decreased ankle-dorsiflexion range of motion (ROM)

Makes sense. For the knee to move into a valgus position the hip must rotate internally, in orther words our external rotators aren’t working right and our internal rotators (Adductors, Hip Flexors) are doing overtime. It may also be that the arch of the foot has started to collapse leading to the ankle tracking poorly.
It all follows the alternating joint theory nice and neatly, where the ankle should be mobile, the knee stable and the hips mobile. An problem at one joint means another must take up the slack by becoming more/less mobile/stable.

I don’t think any one symptom occurs independently but they have a cascade effect, either from the top down or the bottom up.

The study in Brets post talks about the Gastocnemius (the fat part of the calf) is mentioned as being over active and causing problems for the Anterior Tibialis on the front of the shin. Something I’d never considered.
Could this also help explain shin splints?
Maybe.

Needless to say I’m going to start paying more attention to peoples gastroc flexibility and have them work more ankle mobilisation as soon as I see any valgus during squat movements.
I use two ankle mobilisations already with the guys, the primary drill being the Wall Ankle Mobilisation (catchy title, eh?)

Here’s top coach Eric Cressy explaining how it works:

It’s one of the drills I teach during the Squatting section in my Bodyweight Workshop.
The next workshop is coming up on February 23rd at Galway Kettlebells.
This is filling fast, so if you want to learn:

- Joint mobilisation for the whole body
- In depth examination of the Push Up and Squat movements, with progressions for more advanced practitioners.
- Martial Arts & Animal movements for strength, conditioning and mobility
- More, in fact as much as we can fit in!

Drop me an email to book your spot.

Regards

Dave
http://www.wg-fit.com


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Integrated Strength for Combat Sports

3 12 2012

punchStrength is important. We know this.

Yet how many guys do you know who are monsters in the gym yet can’t seem to apply this strength in the outside world, be it during a rugby match, a fight or any other physical endeavour?

I’ve known plenty. During the years I worked as a nightclub doorman I stood beside many huge monsters. I’d listen to them telling stories of their gym prowess, how big then benched that afternoon, numbers that I could only dream of hitting.
Yet whenever it kicked off, it was me, the smallest of the crew, that they relied on.
So why could these huge guys with massive bench presses not apply this strength to a real world scenario?

They never looked to integrate that pressing power with the rest of the body.
This is a huge mistake in my book.

Coordinated movement is powerful movement. Watch a fighter move, see how fluid they are? Do you see excess tension? No, they are graceful, cat like.
Their muscles fire in a coordinated fashion, they work synergistically, they move the way they are designed to, not the way some body building protocol is telling them to.

So in terms of upper body, coordinated strength, I don’t favour the bench press. I still use it, it’s is great for maximal strength, but it needs help. And the top exercise for real upper body power, the kind of power that travels from the feet, via a strong and tight core into a powerful shoulder, well that is the One Arm Push Up.

For a long time this was my primary upper body movement. It’s still an integral part of my own training and it is an essential part of all my fighters and rugby players routines.
Each person I’ve introduced to the drill has discovered their striking or throwing power has gone up and their injury rate has gone down.

During yesterdays Bodyweight Training Workshop I videoed the teaching points, including the progressions into the One Arm Push Up.

Here’s the clip:

 

And for your viewing pleasure, here’s me suffering through a One Arm Push Up set after a kettlebell press workout.
You’ll notice two things about this workout:

1 – I’m using the Ladder protocol, my prefered training method with this drill. A ladder set goes as follows: 1L/R, 2L/r, 3L/R. This is one set, I performed 3 sets of this. To progress either do more sets or add rungs to the ladder (1,2,3,4)

2 – I’m swapping hands in the bottom position. This amplifies the intensity of the exercise as it removes the stretch loading f0r the first rep on each change.

Here’s the clip:

I can’t recommend the One Arm Push Up enough if you are a fighter or involved on contact sports.

Regards

Dave
http://www.WG-Fit.com

 


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Develop Cat Like Agility with Animal Movements

27 11 2012

Last week I asked my facebook members what they would like to work on in their training.
I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of people who included Agility as one of their answers.

Too many attend gyms, lift weights, get stronger and leaner and in doing so become locked into the movement patterns they train the most. It’s not just the gym population but runners, cyclists and even many martial artists.

People become locked into the movements that they train in the gym at the expense of all other natural movements.
Hence we have cyclists who can’t run or jump. We’ve Judo/Jiu Jitsu players who walk around hunched over, we have strength athletes that can’t lift their arms over head and so on, so forth.

So to hear people recognising that agility is an important part of fitness makes my heart sing!
If you play a “chaotic” sport, such as rugby, Mixed Martial Arts and a few others that require constant changes in posture, changes in direction, height changes, speed & power generation in a variety of directions, then you’re probably going to be fairly agile already. But most sports are becoming more and more contrived, meaning the people that play them are becoming more and more locked into certain movement patterns which leads to losses in mobility and as a result agility.

And that’s those who play sports. What about those that simply lift for general fitness/aesthetics?
I was at another friends gym a while ago and was surprised at her own lack of athletic movement even though her I highly rate her strength training routines and the aesthetic results they give.

But without an athletic outlet, you simply end up looking good while standing still.  For me, that’s just not good enough, we need to look good in motion. We need fluid, cat like movements, not stiff muscle bound actions.

And the best way to do this?
With animal based bodyweight drills.

Animal movements have been a staple of traditional martial arts conditioning since day dot. And for good reason.
Animals run, jump, crawl, roll and simply enjoy their bodies. Animals don’t “train” they play.
And while, yes, we do need progressively programmed training, we must never forget to spend time playing.

Animal movements invite us to get on all fours and crawl, to roll, to spin, to jump and to flow.
and while they are doing so they train the body to move in various directions, not just the saggital plane.
They are joint mobility, they are asking for strength and power to be produced in unusual directions, re wiring the nervous system, developing coordination, endurance and with gentle persistence, agility.

During this Sundays bodyweight workshop I’ll be sharing a host of animal based drills taken from the Asian martial arts that ask you to roll, crawl and jump, forwards, backwards and with a little imagination can be combined into universal patterns.
All while having a bit of fun.

There are still a few places available.

Event: Bodyweight Workshop – Equipment free strength & fitness from the martial arts and more.
Location: Wild Geese, Magennis Place, Pearse St, D2
Times: 1000 – 1600
Cost: €50pp
To Book: email info@wildgeesema.com

Regards

Dave
http://www.wg-fit.com


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How to use Bodyweight Training for Athletic Power

26 11 2012

You all know I love bodyweight training.
There’s something special about moving freely powerfully and unheeded by anything external. It’s just you against gravity.

When you train with bodyweight movements it brings about a superior level of body awareness, a level of athleticism and an aspect of playfulness that you just don’t get with other training formats.
Of course, I use kettlebells and barbells, but no matter what I’m working on, or what my clients are working on, there is always a good deal of bodyweight training in our programs.

Considering most of my guys are involved in contact sports, be that the array of martial artists I train, the rugby players or the GAA lads, it’s clear that strength, power, and agility would be priorities. But also my triathletes and runners seriously benefit from the increased agility, core strength and body awareness brought about by moving their own bodies through space in a variety of patterns.

The problem with bodyweight lies in loading. How do we recruit the high threshold muscle fibres, how do we develop real strength and power as opposed to simply doing endless sets of push ups and crunches a la most bodyweight programs?

Well the answer lies in changing the leverage of the body to both increase the workload on the target muscles and also boost the intramuscular coordination as the body struggles even harder to stabilise itself.

Check out this video of an upper body strength set I recently performed after a Kettlebell Pressing set.
In it I use a very tough variation of the one arm push up, starting from the bottom position, each hand change I add an extra rep. Here I do a ladder of 1L/R, 2L/R, 3L/R. That was enough!
In between I do some Lever lifts, a powerful drill for core strength, proprioception, the lats, the serratus and much more.

Here’s the clip:

One arm push ups are a standard for all my fighters. Take another look at my body position during the push up. The slight lateral curve of the spine the drive from the hip, though the torso finishing in a powerful extension of the shoulder and arm. Visualise the same movement but stood up, it’s a punch. A big right cross.

But what about the legs? How do we develop explosive power through the lower body?
Well, my go to drill for this is the Knee Jump, or as we call them, the “Monica” after one of our members (long story..)

The “Monica” starts from a dead stop and relies on a very powerful explosive contraction from our hips to propel us upwards from a kneeling position to our feet. You cannot perform this drill slowly, only genuinely explosive power will get the drill done. And for a contact athlete, thats a vital skill to have.
In this video I show the Monica and how we increase it’s effectiveness by combining it with other jumping and plyometric drills.

Watch the clip below:

 

None of these drills are easy, they don’t suit beginners, but if you train hard and need to bring your athletic performance to the next level, add these in.

I’ll be teaching these and much more during the Bodyweight Training Workshop this Sunday 2nd December.
Places on the workshop are limited, so be absolutely sure to book your place asap:

Event: Bodyweight Workshop – Equipment free strength & fitness from the martial arts and more.
Location: Wild Geese, Magennis Place, Pearse St, D2
Times: 1000 – 1600
Cost: €50pp
To Book: email info@wildgeesema.com

Regards

Dave
http://www.wg-fit.com

 


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Body Weight Training Workshop

23 10 2012

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Ask Dave: Bodyweight Training for Rugby

2 10 2012

“hey dave,

I just wanted to ask you if you had any ideas on bodyweight exercises specific to rugby.
I train twice a week at rugby but have no access to weights or equipment outside of my training time.
Would be awesome if you could help
thanks man!
Liam”

Hi Liam,
Thanks for the question.

First, there are no exercises that are specific to any sport other than the sport itself. We use exercises to develop attributes that make us better able to perform the sport.
With that in mind, we need to think about the needs of a rugby player.

Now if this was private consultation I’d quiz you on your individual wants and needs. Usually I half listen to your wants and wait until you get round to telling about the things you really suck at. This is where program design starts.

My training philosophy is and has always been to figure out the weaknesses and hammer them into strengths. If we keep doing this, always reassessing, always looking to see what is our weakest link and then bringing that up, we should end up with a truly well rounded and well prepared athlete.
of course I add in a few “wants” just to stop keep you interested……
Now back to the question.

A rugby player needs:

Strength, Power, Agility, Speed, Quickness, Resilience the ability to recover quickly.

The order these fall in will vary according to position. There aren’t too many super agile prop forwards or massively powerful fly half’s, but everyone has a finger in every pie.
So what bodyweight drills will help tick of these boxes?

Strength:

Unilateral Drills such as 1 Arm Push Ups and Single leg Squat variations.
A sample bodyweight only strength session may look like this:

  • 1A: 1 Arm Push Up x 3-5 L/R
  • 1B: Pull Up x 3-5
    perform 3-5 rounds with 1 min breaks between 1A & 1B. A backpack stuffed with books will add weight to the pull up whereas simply elevating the feet will increase resistance in the push up.
  • 2A: Pistol Squat x 3-5L/R
  • 2B: knee jump x 3-5
    perform 3-5 rounds with 1 min breaks between exercises. Pistols may be performed to a box/step/coffee table if full range is too much.

Power:
Plyometric and Jump training, such as broad jumps, knee jumps, plyo push ups.

Reps here should be kept low, personally I stick to 3 or 4 reps on plyo’s with plenty of rest between sets. The goal is to get more bounce, more height and this takes rest.
Plyo’s must come first in the workout.
Jump training doesn;t rely on the stretch loading cycle and are generally done from a dead start. These can go from 1-5 reps in a set.

Agility:
Burpees, Deck Squats, Sit Throughs, Bear Crawls, Spiderman Crawls,
Depending on how you wish to structure your training I’d do a double whammy and put these into a conditioning circuit.

Speed:
Sprints. Find a hill, sprint up it for 20seconds, walk back down. Rinse and repeat.

Quickness:
Agility Runs, just mark out a few plays with rocks/t-shirts or whatever is handy and away you go.
Now, if your Rugby coach has you doing these you can skip these in your conditioning. Otherwise it’s a good idea to either schedule a session just for these and hill sprints, or add them to the end of a strength session as a conditioning finisher.
Remember, you are trying to build skills here, so each round should be as explosive as possible.

Resilience:
Higher rep training helps hold the body together, as does some core specialisation. I like guys to finish strength workouts with high rep sets of push ups or squats. Not only are these great conditioning but they also help keep the body running right. There are other ways of achieving this, with bodyweight circuits on the clock. This is also a great time to add in animal drills that develop coordinated movement.

Recovery Time:
Circuits and interval training are key here. As a rule of thumb, set up work to rest intervals of 2:1. Eg 30 seconds work, 15 seconds rest.
Make it as close to match conditions as possible, so short intense bursts of effort, some static work (like plank or bridge holds) some explosive work.

The next question then is how to structure all this?

Click Here to begin Training like a Combat Athlete

In the WMD manual, which is my now infamous Boot Camp program, I split the week into three training sessions each with a specific focus:
Mondays – Strength, often opening with Plyometrics before hitting up a full body strength set.
Wednesdays – Cardio, alternating between callisthenic drills and sprinting for time.
Fridays – High Intensity Circuits to develop recovery time.


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