COMBAT READY Program: 2-3 Day Split for MMA & Busy Athletes to Build Brutal Strength & Explosive Power

2-3+ day adjustable split for fighters & athletes looking for flexible and VERY effective methods to get stronger & more explosive while still training for sport/martial arts

Dec 07, 2022

∙ Paid

Contents:

Intro
Qualities Needed but Usually Lacking in MMA/Combat Athletes Training
The Difference a Quality Training Program Can Make
Goals of the Program & How to Arrange Your Schedule
High/Low Principle
Rule of 72
2-day split
3-day split
FAQ, Glossary, & Exercise Selection Samples
Training Protocols Explained
Cardio
Joint Restoration
Autoregulation & General Important Training Info
The Value of “Microsessions” & How to Perform Them
Cooldowns/Recovery Protocols After Training
Closing

Hey everyone, thanks for being patient the last few weeks with the holidays, personal adjustments and myself recovering from the flu. Don’t worry everything is going to catch up extremely quickly so expect multiple posts per week for the rest of the month and beyond.

If you have the Substack app I posted a short thread of upcoming post subjects – however those are subject to change in order slightly and some new ideas were presented to me as well which I will push to the forefront of the curriculum.

Previous posts are also being updated with additional information, tips/techniques, and a broader more well-articulated perspective.

This includes beginner, intermediate, and hybrid concurrent training programs - which I am designing to also be put on an app so you can execute the programs (which will have more details in execution and variation in how you approach - every program will be upgraded heavily).

Every member of the substack will have access to these programs to begin as they wish and I’m hoping to promote a community of those running the programs to chat with me and others regarding the training as well as topics in MMA/fitness culture etc within or adjacent to the app.

Some private videos and posts will also be placed in this chat as well.

I want to deliver on this because I really appreciate the 100+ subscribed members that have been reading the Substack since it started last winter. As more and more essays are added to this, I want it to be a powerful resource to inform your lifelong training experiences as the info has for me.

Without further ado, let’s get to the reason why you clicked on this post.

2–3 Day Split for Combat Athletes

Training for martial arts and strength and conditioning can be made fairly simple. However, *effectively* training for martial arts & strength isn’t always quite so easy.

My goal with this post is to bring together many of the concepts we have covered all year long and amalgamate them into a program you can all use in practice.

What I’m providing is a “skeleton” that you can use to set up your training week while *effectively* training qualities that your sport training alone will not maximize, and explaining how to fill out this program based on your circumstances.

I will also share the major reasons why a program and routine like this is valuable and important for those who want to be “combat ready” at all times.

There are several qualities that martial artists in the professional/competitive settings of boxing, kickboxing & MMA lack the most (compared to their other qualities & compared to other power sports):

MAXIMAL STRENGTH - ability to produce maximum amounts of force against resistance
EXPLOSIVE NEURAL DRIVE - Ability to produce the highest amounts of force they are capable of quickly. There is a “time” component here.
HYPERTROPHY IN AREAS MOST VULNERABLE TO INJURY - muscular & connective tissue development in the areas most frequently hurt in MMA/combat sports. (Ankle/foot, knee, shoulder, wrist/hand, neck)

It is slightly less true that these qualities are as weak in grapplers > strikers but it is highly dependent on the individual and their training history itself. (What school/college program they were in, if any)

Nor is it to say you can’t be a good martial artist without it…However you are certainly leaving tools and options on the table regarding what good you will make on your potential without it, as well as how healthy and capable your body is while engaging with a rough sport (even recreationally) to train & prevent injuries.

Not only does muscular hypertrophy help prevent joint injury, but so does joint/tendon unit development, and neural drive for strength and power/agility as these qualities allow you to access the most out of the muscle you have and are actually better correlated with long term injury prevention than only strength itself (source).

The purpose of S&C (strength and conditioning) as a field is meant to provide athletes what their sport practice itself does not, or does not maximally, provide the athlete.

In combat sports case, it is the aforementioned qualities for the most part.

This concept illustrates the value of a program like the one below:

By using a lower interference, but still effective, & focused program like the one below you will get stronger, faster, and more durable than you would without it so that you can win competition easier, stay healthy and prevent months of lost training or long-term injury by getting hurt less.

Note: I am not reinventing the wheel here. This program drew helpful inspiration from several authorities on the subject, as well as well-respected mentors of mine and has been used by myself and teammates/clients for 2+ years with great success.

I am only sharing with you my recommendations for a training split that works and should serve you in a variety of situations.

What a Difference a Good Program Can Make

For historically cultural reasons in martial arts, weight training has been frowned upon in sports like boxing, which frequently prevented many western trainees from making good use of effective strength and conditioning protocols for the sport and these cultural assumptions still prevent many from becoming as physically capable and athletic as they could be.

It is also the case that sports like this demand an extremely high skill level to be successful and this makes it difficult to dedicate as many training resources to the physical aspect of development.

This is why fighters often use calisthenics and light portable training tools. They are easily accessible done almost anywhere with low investment.

Thus, this leaves us with an extremely common issue where most fighters lack the qualities you can only truly develop through proper S&C weight training - maximal strength & hypertrophy - and have very few qualified coaches with specific experience on how to program and train martial artists for their needs and around their demanding schedules/lifestyles.

This also means that by utilizing solutions here and diligently executing them you can gain a major edge over your direct competitors and your peers.

A major example of what a profound effect this can have is the case of Georges St-Pierre. I have mentioned this many times before but Georges St-Pierre is the original inspiration for how I train today, and his case is a profound one. At the time he was competing the UFC, its athletes had very poor, unstructured, and primitive approaches from professionals working in a sphere that was much less refined when compared to strength training used in sports such as Track & Field and American football.

By finding a more advanced, professional and intelligent elite team of trainers cooperating together to form a strength training program, St. Pierre was able to use great physical ability (along with his skills) to overwhelm his competition who had an otherwise “more talented“ athletic pedigree in college etc.

His strength, explosiveness & conditioning were all extremely well balanced and formidable. Mobility & movement quality were high as well.

In comparison to many of his peers at the time, his training camp system was the elite of the elite.

However, you can read more about that here if interested.

Hybrid Athlete || Perfomance Fitness @_SwagHercules

George St Pierre was the original model for my “hybrid athlete” philosophy Yes he was an MMA athlete - but his training approach was diverse & his broad skillset reflected this I’ll describe his training methods & explain why they were effective Like/RT & I’ll make a tutorial

By taking advantage of a high-quality strength & conditioning program that compliments martial arts training, rather than interferes or deeply detracts from it, should give you an edge over your peers that aren’t using as high quality of a system - which as we implied above, they likely are not.