Progressive Training and Conditioning for Fighters

To accomplish this task within a twinkling of an eye is often injurious and risky. So, attain your goal gradually and systematically.

Base conditioning, intensive preparation, pre-fight restoration and post-fight recovery are typically the four sections that I compartmentalize my training in.

Instead of specifying, I prefer to give an overview of the needs of each phase because of varying requirements and limitations for each fighter and several types of training tools at their disposal.

At the very outset of the training system, the aim is to make up cardiovascular system, lung capacity, and muscular power and endurance.

A large share of aerobic training needs to be accomplished at 65-80% of your maximum heart rate meant for a span of 20-60 minutes. In fact, in this time span, your technical weaknesses, if you have any, need to be pointed out and perfected. This time also has to be exploited to have new fighting skills.

A period of 2-16 weeks can be enough for the basic stage of conditioning and it varies according to your present fitness or may be due to a bout training scheduled very soon.

Having completed this stage, you can get into the stage of intensive preparation provided your fight is scheduled. This stage endows you with bodily, psychological and emotional stamina in consistency with the particular demands of a fight. Here, anaerobic exercises are recurrently done at 80-95% of your maximum heart rate for a span of 20 or less than 20 minutes. This stage makes sparring more powerful usually against fresh opponents altering in every 2-3 minutes. This period is supposed to enhance your present strengths rather than attaining new techniques.

A training period of 4-6 weeks is good at this stage because more than this probably denotes over training. On the other hand, if the training period stays for less than 4 weeks, it can't let your body fit properly in the scheme of thorough training.

The week on the eve of your bout training changes into the restoration phase before fight. For me, 2 final difficult weeks of intense preparation are for squeezing the body like a sponge.

Here, one looks for reducing the level and intensity of training in order to let the body get back energy to the best of capacity. Rather than lifting weights at this point of time, one should let the muscles be free from through training and refill stores of glycogen stores.

Monday should be the deadline of sparring if you go to fight on Saturday. After this Monday, forget about lifting weights and strive to lessen the degree and intensity of training by about 20% daily.

A reasonable 80% on Tuesday, 60% on Wednesday, a light training of 40% on Thursday and in this way use the Friday for 40 minutes of drills and shadowboxing and a span of 30-60 minutes for stretching.

Start relaxing yourself and to do it efficiently, go for a movie. On the very day of fighting, I would prefer playing a light game of soccer or basketball in the morning on the day of competition and once the lunch is over, an hour's sleep can be ideal before that fighting moment. This reduction of through training's intensity makes a fighter physically and psychologically fit and fresh. These are immensely important aspects to perform better.

It is of paramount significance to engage yourself in a period of lively rest for a week or so in the post-fight recovery stage. Depending on your interest and nature, you can do things like playing a game or choosing to hike.

It is all about a psychological relief from the through pressure of competition that can be obtained by the variety of things rather than by things properly arranged. Keep yourself aloof from the movements of fighting but you need to be dynamic physically.

The necessity of this stage lies in the fact that this makes you fresh and lively in order to start another training phase.