Anyone know a guide to physical conditioning

[stylesbjj**]

I read this in another thread:

"Big difference between being in cardio shape and being in good physical conditioning for a rough sport like MMA. Olympic marathon runners are in phenominal cardio shape, they'd run any MMA guy into the ground. But if started MMA (or rugby, or wrestling etc) they'd get a lot of injuries because their bones, tendons, ligaments, and muscles weren't strong enough to take the stresses involved. In fact, the major reason professional sports (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB etc) have their athletes do weights is not to gain strength (most of those guys are already as strong as they need to be for their sport), but to prevent injuries ... the body responds to stress by strengthening the structural fibres.

BJ takes time off from training, and the body responds by reducing the strength of structural fibres/bones, basically canabilizing itself (ie in evolutionary terms, why put a lot of resources into keeping up fibres that aren't being used ... back when getting enough to eat was a daily struggle, it made sense). Its why you get weaker when you stop training, and it's not just muscles, its all the connective tissues, bone density etc. You can find a fair amount about this in physiological text books, it's pretty basic stuff."

Going to end the bj conditioning conflicts. With proof from bjs own mouth.


I am very interested in this since I an injury prone. Does anyone have a manual on this?

[TheHammer]

Originally Posted by stylesbjj

... Does anyone have a manual on this?

A manual on what? I assume you mean weight training. Try the strength & power forum.

[Brendon Katz]

"I am very interested in this since I an injury prone". i think thats the crux of ur post right?

its pretty much accepted fact that training weights correctly will reduce risk of injury.

start off training weights with a high rep (8-15) and low set (1-2) scheme to allow ur body to adjust. do that for about 6 - 8 weeks, then go onto the lower rep (1 -5) and higher set (4+) scheme generally suggested in s&p. find the exercises u need to do by readin the stickies in s&p.

[Dan's Knuckles]

Originally Posted by stylesbjj

I read this in another thread:

"Big difference between being in cardio shape and being in good physical conditioning for a rough sport like MMA. Olympic marathon runners are in phenominal cardio shape, they'd run any MMA guy into the ground. But if started MMA (or rugby, or wrestling etc) they'd get a lot of injuries because their bones, tendons, ligaments, and muscles weren't strong enough to take the stresses involved. In fact, the major reason professional sports (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB etc) have their athletes do weights is not to gain strength (most of those guys are already as strong as they need to be for their sport), but to prevent injuries ... the body responds to stress by strengthening the structural fibres.

BJ takes time off from training, and the body responds by reducing the strength of structural fibres/bones, basically canabilizing itself (ie in evolutionary terms, why put a lot of resources into keeping up fibres that aren't being used ... back when getting enough to eat was a daily struggle, it made sense). Its why you get weaker when you stop training, and it's not just muscles, its all the connective tissues, bone density etc. You can find a fair amount about this in physiological text books, it's pretty basic stuff."

Going to end the bj conditioning conflicts. With proof from bjs own mouth.


I am very interested in this since I an injury prone. Does anyone have a manual on this?

I have a few problems with the previous statements.
First; Runners do strength train to prevent injuries, especially good runners, and especially elite runners who have coaches that know what they are doing.
Second; Endurance athletes have greater ability to utilize oxygen in the long term, their physiological adaptations are specific to this, sprint athletes, or repeated sprint type athletes, such as boxers, soccer players, MMA athletes, they primarily rely on their ability to use an anaerobic energy substrates, and then recover with efficient aerobic substrate metabolization, this is the reason why someone who is used to endurance training may have difficulty in a more repeated sprint type sport.
Third; the types of injuries that strength training will prevent have nothing to do with ligaments. Bone and tendons are strengthened by strength training, it's called Wolfe's law. Ligaments, on the other hand, I am fairly certain you cannot strengthen, and anybody applying stress to their ligaments in hopes of strengthening them is pretty misguided, I doubt that a sprinter's arm will break in an armbar because they haven't been curling.
Fourth; Sprinters, Football players, Ruggers, Wrestlers, MMA athletes, Boxers, they all strength train to get stronger, and to increase their ability to produce power. It always helps to be stronger than your opponent, why do you think baseball players get all roided up? It's damn sure not for injury prevention (don't take steroids, steroids are bad for you, gotta throw that in there).
Fifth; When the body breaks down tissue, it's called catabolism (catabolic, the opposite of anabolic), not cannibalsim. When it builds up tissue, it's called anabolic, when it burns things for energy, this is metabolism or metabolic. There are several reasons why these three things can happen, and I'm not going to bother going into it because it would take too long, but yes, people do de-train after not training. This does not mean that brief rest periods aren't necessary to prevent a plateau or overuse injuries.
Sixth and finally; A great deal of injuries in sports has nothing to do with a persons fitness or conditioning (while a great deal do) many have to do with poor biomechanics, poor or ineffective neuromuscular control, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[The Jake]

Originally Posted by Dan's Knuckles

Sixth and finally; A great deal of injuries in sports has nothing to do with a persons fitness or conditioning (while a great deal do) many have to do with poor biomechanics, poor or ineffective neuromuscular control, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This seems to be my lot in life. Lol.

- J.

[The Colonel]

Being a distance runner myself I can tell you that strength training is very important. Its important for two reasons, 1) doing distance running beats the hell out of your connective tissue, strength training helps runners to be better able to take the strain of repeating pounding of their feet on pavement. 2) a runner that does strength train will have more power and more kick in their legs when it really matters in a run/race. I have a buddy I run with who runs way more than I do but I've always been much more interested in weightlifting AND running. I can out kick him on hills and sprints and can generally beat him in a race because he doesn't do any kind of resistance training whatsoever.

[Dan's Knuckles]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Being a distance runner myself I can tell you that strength training is very important. Its important for two reasons, 1) doing distance running beats the hell out of your connective tissue, strength training helps runners to be better able to take the strain of repeating pounding of their feet on pavement. 2) a runner that does strength train will have more power and more kick in their legs when it really matters in a run/race. I have a buddy I run with who runs way more than I do but I've always been much more interested in weightlifting AND running. I can out kick him on hills and sprints and can generally beat him in a race because he doesn't do any kind of resistance training whatsoever.

Both awesome to hear, and true.

[stylesbjj**]

Well, I was thinking more of specific exercises that prevent injury but not nessesarily are meant for strength. For example, our basketball team does a buncha rotational stuff with their shoulders that prevent shoulder injuries.

[Dan's Knuckles]

...I don't know exactly what "rotational stuff" you're talking about, and while there are several exercises for the shoulder that you can do to prevent injury, I doubt a basketball team would be doing them.
If you are on a highschool or college basketball team, ask your Athletic Trainer for a good injury prevention and prehab program.