The Fight Week
Mixed Martial Arts is a power endurance sport. Increasing power endurance is a trade-off between optimising 2 qualities commonly stand in opposition to one another: the rate of force production and producing that force for long periods. Putting it simply ,, you should hit hard and hit hard for long periods.
The main focus of my MMA training for the last month, plus the month in the future, has been on focusing on my endurance. Its a quality that has lagged far behind as Ive sought to enhance my maximum strength, my explosiveness as well as size of my muscle mass.
For a fighter, aerobic ability is amongst the most fundamentally important qualities to have, quite often overlooked at a time where HIIT, Tabata intervals and boosting your lactate threshold is seen as crucial for overall performance.
Boosting your capability to make use of your oxidative energy system (i.e. your aerobic capacity), efficiently, is fundamental to producing a high work rate throughout a three round or a five round fight. To that end, most of my supplemental Mixed martial arts training has focused on long slow distance runs, training at a moderate pace for 60-90 minutes. At these types of intensities, over that duration, my body is being trained aerobically resulting in a much more efficient cardiovascular system.
Another method to improve your oxidative capacity would be to increase the ability of your muscles to utilize oxygen as a fuel. Tempo training or continuous training, is designed to specifically focus on those muscle fibres that happens to be best adapted at using oxygen – the Type I slow twitch muscle fibres. These muscle fibres tend to be more efficient at employing oxygen for energy compared to Type II fast twitch fibres, that are better at using ATP/Creatine-Phosphate and glycogen.
Tempo training method
six-day a week MMA training program, which includes three sessions to raise cardiac output, I have one dedicated strength session. That strength session will depend on tempo training.
Tempo training targets time under tension (TUT) to find the desired result. The protocol Im working on requires lifting weights close to 60% of my 1-rep max (RM) at a slow cadence – 2-0-2-0. What this means is lowering the weight at a controlled pace for 2 seconds, no pause at the bottom, then lifting the weight at a controlled pace for two seconds, and then repeating without pause at the top. The muscles are in constant tension through the set, irrespective of how many reps you decide to do.
My focus is on using big multi-joint movements, such as squat, bench press and standing press, to target the maximum number of muscle fiber.
In the book, Ultimate MMA Conditioning, Joel Jamieson recommends selecting 3-4 strength exercises and doing 8-10 repetitions for between 3-5 sets. Rest durations will be restricted to 45 seconds MAX in between each set going up to 6-8 minutes in between each exercise.
I use the big four lifts – squat, bench press, dead lift and shoulder press, performing each exercise at a 2-0-2-0 pace:
Exercise Intensity Reps Sets Rest between sets
Squat 60% of 1RM 8-10 3-5 45 seconds
Shoulder press 60% of 1RM 8-10 3-5 45 seconds
Bench press 60% of 1RM 8-10 3-5 45 seconds
Dead lift 60% of 1RM 8-10 3-5 45 seconds
6-8 minutes active rest between each exercise (shadow boxing)
Effects of tempo training
After only four weeks of tempo training, it is difficult to tell what effect this mode of weight training has had on my muscular endurance.
Based on the scientific literature, slow twitch fibres which are crucial for endurance aren’t fully recruited during rapid explosive movements. Only slow movements, which result in the Type I fibres to remain under tension long enough may cause adaptation in these fibres to occur.
One article which discusses this is compiled by Thomas V Pipes, entitled Strength Training and Fiber Types. In it, Pipes takes muscle biopsies of the athlete before and after pre-determined training microcycles.
Pipes found that following a routine in which 8 repetitions (at the 8 RM) were used, the fast twitch muscle fibers of the trained muscle (in this case the quadricep using the leg press) hypertrophied.
However, he also found that the slow twitch muscle fibres atrophied (i.e., got smaller); and he also discovered that the volume of repetitions the athlete could perform at 80% of his 1 RM decreased, yet his 1 RM improved. The athlete was then placed on a routine using 12 reps (at his 12 RM). This time around muscle biopsy indicated that hypertrophy did actually occur, but this time it was in the slow twitch muscle fibres. Moreover the fast twitch fibres atrophied and the number of reps possible at 80% 1 RM went up, while his 1 RM decreased.
What this shows is the fact that with increased reps, i.e. an increase in TUT, by using a lighter weight, slow twitch fibres are targeted preferentially to fast twitch fibres. This means that, muscular endurance increases as opposed to maximum strength.
This correlates with the real-world example of bodybuilders. Bodybuilders have long used the principle of TUT to improve overall muscle hypertrophy. The result is muscles which are capable of a notable level of endurance but poor maximum strength in comparison to other weight trained athletes.
Another study I recently came across concerning this was conducted by Dr Patrick OShea, Professor Emeritus of exercise and sports science at Oregon State University (http://cbass.com/SLOWFAST.HTM).
He used electromyography (EMG) to analyze muscle recruitment order of muscle fibre types in the quadriceps of a properly trained athlete during performance of a one rep squat with progressively increasing loads.
Starting with 60% of 1 RM, OShea discovered that the slow-twitch fibres contributed 60% to the effort and fast-twitch muscles 40%. At 100% maximum effort, however, the proportion of slow-twitch fibres required was found to generally be only 5%, while fast-twitch fibres contributed 95%. Therefore lighter loads have been shown to target slow twitch fibres much better than heavier loads.
Conclusion
Thats the extent of my understanding at the present time. Using tempo training in your overall MMA training it is possible to effectively target slow twitch fibres, increase their cross-sectional area to make your muscles better able to utilize oxygen as a fuel.
How far this enhances your body being a better aerobic machine, however, I believe continues to be open to debate. There could be another mechanism by which TUT contributes to greater muscular endurance.
I posed this question on Joel Jamiesons forum, where I learnt of tempo training in the first place, and got the following reply:
The way I understand it, at least in theory, is that the hypertrophy of slow twich muscles reduces their oxidativeness, because mitochondrial density declines. Meaning, the same number of mitochondia have to produce energy for a larger mass of muscle. So there is less O2 energy available per unit of muscle. However, if mitochondia and capillaries also increased, which happens with aerobic training, it might not matter and O2 capabilities could potentially improve which would help reduce fatigue. Is tempo training equiv to aerobic training? Not sure!
However, generally with more muscle hypertrophy (more muscle fibre protoplasm) the same workloads lactic acid can be spread over a larger volume, and not affect PH locally as much. So performance decline should be more gradual, increasing endurance. Since muscles generally have mixed fibre composition, and faster twitch are known to hypertrophy more easily and more than slow twitch, there is a good chance this has something to do with it as well.
There are articles which Ive seen that say that hypoxia (depriving muscles of oxygen) can lead to hypertrophy, so the continuous training, i.e. sets performed with no pauses between reps, can deprive muscles of oxygen long enough to cause hypertrophy.
Finally, Joel himself had something to say on this topic:
The physiology of tempo training as Ive described Ive found pretty much only in some obscure Russian textbooks and I was first introduced to the method by Val of Omegawave. The cause of the local hypoxia has to do with the overall tempo, not pausing at the top or bottom of the rep and the overall loading. This is how slow twitch muscles are targeted, not just being youre going slow exactly.
Thats not to say fast twitch fibres arent working as well, clearly they are, but from what Ive read it is effective at increasing slow twitch hypertrophy and I cant argue with the results Ive seen so its obviously doing something. Slow twitch fibres, by their very nature, are extremely dense with mitochondria so you cant assume that increasing their cross-sectional area is automatically going to lead to a decrease in mitochondrial density. Even if this were the case, other forms of more direct aerobic work can easily increase mitochondria within these fibres anyway.
