Recently I had the opportunity to go and spend a few days Brendan Chaplin, a top S&C coach who works with loads of top teams and athletes. I saw some really good stuff particular with his MMA athletes which prompted today’s Q and A post.
AB - Brendan could you please give a quick introduction as to your journey to becoming an established strength and conditioning coach and an insight into the sports and athletes with whom you currently work.
BC - Sure, I started off lifting weights and training in martial arts when I was quite young, so I’ve always had an interest in the area, when I went to uni I took it up more seriously and tried to learn as much as I could about how to train. I took every relevant course I could afford that I thought would help me and finally decided to take a Masters in Strength and Conditioning through Bolton University. I was doing a lot of martial arts training, bits of personal training and working on the doors to fund everything! I disappeared to the states for a bit to work as an intern for Mike Boyle which was a great experience, and since then I have worked for the English Institute of Sport, Durham University, British Tennis, Hunslet Hawks, Huddersfield Giants Rugby League and a fair few more in between. I’m now at Leeds Met where I am the head of strength and conditioning as well as running Athletes Unlimited, my consultancy business. I work predominantly with Rugby League players and MMA fighters at the moment, as well as plenty of other sports including badminton, netball and judo. The variety is great, with all sports there are similarities, a squat’s a squat at the end of the day, but the cultures and specific differences make the job very interesting.
AB – That’s a great CV Brendan, during my visit it was great to see the work you were doing with the MMA fighters. MMA is growing in popularity and participation rapidly, this has been noticeable here in the North East. As an S&C coach what physical attributes do fighters typically need to emphasise?
BC - MMA Fighters need to strong and powerful to fuel the takedowns, and control the clinch, conditioned for short phases of intense activity such as clinching, scrambling on the floor and exchanging punches and kicks, and have the endurance to go for 15 minutes if required. You could write a book on this stuff but for the sanity of your readers, all these qualities need to have both the neuromuscular development and the cardiovascular development. You basically need to go from heavy strength to 15 minutes of endurance……and everything in between but the timing is the key!
The majority of the fighters I work with are well developed aerobically as a result of technical training and sparring, its the strength and power side of things that tends to need work. This is where I spend the most of my time, and then phasing in the conditioning closer to fight time, but the strength work stays in for the duration.
North Easts own Ross Pearson, TUF 9 winner.
AB – Could you explain to our readers how the preparation time leading up to a fight affects your programming and emphasis when working with an individual. I ask as I am aware that a fight can be accepted within a very short time period.
BC - I use a short to long approach to conditioning so the further out from the fight the shorter the duration the conditioning rounds are. 4-5 weeks out the emphasis will be on power and strength endurance for 20-60s or so, these times will increase so the intensity can be held for a longer period. It is a similar philosophy in sprinting working acceleration over short distances then working to top speed, then working to hold that top speed for as long as possible. It is a much better approach than the traditional aerobic base type approach and allows you to develop strength and power more effectively earlier in the programme.
The fighter will start their preparation with a programme based on the number of weeks remaining.
A sample of how hard the MMA lads work to get into shape. Train hard, Win easy.
AB – Some great info in that answer Brendan, the days of fighters pounding out the miles at 6am is gone. MMA is a sport were fight styles vary greatly, could you please explain how the opponents fighting style affects your training emphasis, for example would you prepare your athlete to adjust to, or counter, the style of their opponent? And what specific qualities would you look to develop when fighting a striker and a grappler?
BC - Great question. My fighters gameplan is the most important aspect of the preparation process. I try to develop the physical qualities required to execute this most efficiently and minimise any weaknesses. The percentage of time spent in training each quality will vary and is dependant on the gameplan. That said, you also need to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent and prepare for this in the physically too. For example a strong wrestler is likely to want to clinch and go to the ground. Therefore you need to put more strength endurance and reactive strength into the programme to prepare for this. If the opponent is a striker with excellent movement its important to work reactivity and footwork under fatigue. It’s completely different for each fight.
AB - Making weight is a very important and delicate part of training for MMA. How do you approach weight cutting to limit strength and power decrements?
BC - I use a 2 or 3 step diet approach rather than a gradual constant diet. The stepped approach basically means a heavy calorie restricted period (usually 7-10 days) which cuts significant weight, then the diet reverts to basic clean eating with a very slight calorific deficit. 2 steps is usually enough but sometimes 3 is needed. I got this from the nutritionalists working with GB boxing and wrestling and have adapted it for MMA. There are a fair few supplements which help with this as well as improving performance but I’ve got to the point where I’m pretty sure if a fighter is around 12% above their fight weight I can have them down to fight weight without any dodgy sauna sessions and other crazyness!
AB - I think a few fighters could learn a bit from this approach Brendan! During my visit I saw some great fighter specific exercises. If you had to choose a top 5 what would they be and why?
BC - Very difficult to answer that because they are specific to the fighter and the fight. In general I would say that the key exercises I tend to revert to are heavy sled pushes, cleans, deadlifts, split squats and chins along with a whole host of other stuff.
AB - Finally, what aspect of your S&C, if any, have you recently changed and why?
BC - Feedback based training- get yourself a power monitoring device like the myotest, it will improve the results you’re getting very quickly. Everyone likes to see progress!
AB – Great tip, I can imagine it’s a great tool for both the coach and the athlete Brendan. Check out the link for some interesting research upon using velocity feedback in order prescribe loading http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20180176.
Brendan, thanks for your time and for giving a great insight into MMA specific strength and conditioning! I look forward to visiting again soon.
If you want to check out more from Brendan you can head over to his blog, which has a ton of top notch info on all things S&C. For those of you on twitter catch Brendan @AthletesUNLTD.
