I had lunch today with my good friend and MMA Legend Maurice Smith as well as Jens Pulver and thought I’d share some of the discussions and insight that came out of our lunch conversation. Aside from our argument about the upcoming Randy vs. Lesnar fight, I think there some important lessons a lot of fighters out there could learn from these two guys who have been around since the early days of UFC and even before.
Let me start by telling you about Maurice’s car just because it’s ridiculous. Awhile back he bought this older porsche, I’d say it’s early 90s era, but it had a completely rebuilt engine that put out about 750-800 horsepower – no joke! For whatever reason he then decided to paint it bright yellow with red hubcaps. Aside from looking like a car Ronald McDonald would be proud of, the thing is RIDICULOUSLY fast!
We hit over 130mph in 3rd gear in a matter of seconds and I have to admit I was scared for my life. Now whenever he comes around I try to get him to give some unsuspecting person a ride just to see the look of pure terror on their face when they get out.
Anyway, after our little argument (although Mo says he doesn’t argue, he just debates) we started talking about training and the general philosophy of different camps and schools out there. In case you’re not familiar with them, both he and Jens have been around the game for many years and both have held the UFC belt in their careers so they have as much experience and knowledge in the sport as just about anybody.
A lot of camps out there are of the school of thought that the best training for MMA is simply getting in the ring or cage during practice and sparring. There are a lot of camps out there, some of them are even the best known, who literally spend the majority of their practices sparring at 85-100% day in and day out. Many camps have sparring sessions 3-4 or even 5 sessions per week.
While this approach will definitely either make you into a warrior or break you, it’s simply not the best strategy for long term success. First, this type of training is very hard on the body and sooner or later you’ll start to get injuries, joint problems, recurring cuts, etc. You can definitely see that some of the camps out there that had all sorts of fighters on top of their game a few years ago are now barely even mentioned anymore, and I think this is definitely part of the reason.
Second, sparring might make you tough and give you experience putting everything together, but you will only progress so far if all you’re doing is getting in the ring/cage and throwing down. The majority of your training time should be spent drilling, learning new techniques and practicing them over and over again, before you start sparring and trying to use what you’ve learned. This is basic motor control 101 and how the body learns yet many fighters don’t get this basic principle of performance.
Consider a sport like football, at the highest levels they literally spend maybe a couple weeks in training camp going live and hitting, the rest of the time they are running through drills, watching film, working on technique, and game planning. I spent time working with the Seahawks earlier in my career and I can tell you they maybe spend 10% of their overall time scrimmaging in the same way that fighters would spar in the ring. Virtually all pro sports are like this for one simple reason: it’s how you get better at the highest level and the only way you can have true longevity in the sport.
If a coach in the NFL had his team scrimmaging live against each other day in and day out the players would think he’d lost his mind and he’d get fired and yet in many MMA camps across the country have a “if some sparring is good then more must be better” mentality. As the sport continues to evolve I think so too will the training methods and more and more coaches will start to realize the best way to develop a fighter is piece by piece through technique work and intelligent training, not just by having him get in the ring/cage and slugging it out with a bunch of tough training partners.
I’ve personally seen a ton of top level guys who have come from camps with this mentality and they all said they felt like they haven’t gotten better in years and they all had a ton of nagging injuries.
Maurice and Jens have both been in the sport more than 10 years and are still fighting. Mo is over 40 now and still able to compete at a high level and the reason they are both still fighting while a lot of guys from the early days aren’t is because they have been smarter about their training. They have worked technique and drilled while others were killing themselves day in and day out.
Whether you train in MMA or not, there is a valuable lesson to be learned from the converation and that is that more is not always better. Smart training beats training that is hard but undirected every time in the long run. You can go in the gym and lift your ass off, condition like there is no tomorrow until you can barely stand, but is this really going to make you better? Does doing something as hard as you can always mean you’re doing the right things? The answer is that to really to get to the top, or just to see continuous improvements, it takes hard work that is also smart. It takes an intelligent approach, not just driving yourself into the ground every day.
Training hard AND smart is how you see real results and real improvement. One without the other will only get you so far. This has been my philosophy when it comes to strength and conditioning for a long time and one of the reasons I believe I’ve been able to have such great success with the athletes I’ve trained.
If you’re a member of this site it means you’re looking for a smarter way to train so you’re one of the few that really gets it. There IS a better way to train than what the vast majority are doing out there and I’m going to share with you the methods, techniques, strategies, and programs I’ve spent years learning so you can train not just harder, but smarter and get results when others hit plateaus – that’s what 8weeksout.com/ is all about.