Why we don’t train fighters…

Seems that with the boom of Mixed Martial Arts that every martial arts school, gym, studio, etc. has become some form of MMA. That’s cool by me; we all need to evolve and train differently to maintain our edge in business or personal life. This thought actually came to me while discussing our programs with a potential student. The conversation geared towards his experience in the cage, where he boxed, what his grappling experience was, and so on. This is where he said that he wants to train to be a fighter. Great! I say, though we don’t train fighters here; we train athletes that fight. And so he gives me the ever common, perplexed, “WTF?!?” look….and I tell him, we don’t train fighters, we train athletes who fight. Below is an over-simplified description of what I feel a fighter is:

A fighter:

• is a generic term for combat athletes
• does what he/she needs to do to survive
• is driven by sheer determination and will
• is willing to suffer if he/she must 
• is willing to die if he/she has to
• most importantly, it’s a mindset.

This is something I cannot teach another human being. As a coach, I can ONLY equip my student with the necessary weapons to compete. Being a fighter has a certain set of intangibles that the student must develop through their own inspiration. I am not saying that combat sports athletes are not fighters; quite the contrary. To perform at such a high level, a combat sports athlete needs to have this mentality. Whether the most or least successful competitor, preparing for the fight and actually showing up ready to face another skilled opponent demonstrates the “fighter” mentality that one needs to participate in combat. Point blank…I respect all combat athletes regardless of wins or losses.

What I am saying, is that entrusting someone else to teach you what you need to find within yourself is a recipe for disaster. That leads to inflated promises from the coach (it is a business you know) and diminishes the most important component of the fighter’s mindset…internal drive. No one can teach you what needs to be inside. The most successful competitors endure that which the others don’t. The most successful competitors make great personal sacrifice in their quest for what drives them. The most successful competitors reach deep within the recesses of their own psyche to find the will to continue.

Anyone can come to Diesel Training Grounds and learn how to strike, grapple, and compete. Anyone can come in and train to improve performance. Anyone can break through personal or preconceived restrictions here. What I never say is that I train fighters;  I train athletes who fight.

Any thoughts would be welcome….

 

Since When???

Anyone that knows Diesel Training Grounds knows one thing; we ARE dedicated to making our members fitter, stronger, more functional, leaner, or whatever our members have come to us for. That being said, all of us who step into a gym, strength & conditioning facility, speed and agility classes, etc. all have a single common thread.

WE ARE ALL BODYBUILDING

That’s right, we are all bodybuilding. Every time we step into the gym, we are bodybuilding. Bodybuilding in its purest sense is NOT the competitive bodybuilding we see. That is only a part of it. As bodybuilders, we strive to make ourselves stronger, fitter, healthier, or more functional than the day before. As bodybuilders, we seek to enhance what we were genetically, physiologically, and psychologically given.

WE ARE ALL BODYBUILDERS

This brings me to my point. I have enjoyed the parody commercials laid out by Planet Fitness. I find them to be humorous at best. Watching more of them though has led me to ask…since when has being fit, athletic, aesthetically pleasing, well conditioned, or good-looking wrong. By their standards, anybody that is a “bodybuilder” is a lunk.

AND, that means you…..

• the person that works out 5-7x per week to keep losing the weight
• the athlete that needs to find their performance edge
• the 50+ year olds that can squat, deadlift, and bench their own weight on a bar
• the “hard gainer” that wants to muscle up because they will feel better about themselves
• the person that is post-surgery trying to regain their quality of life

Yes, Planet Fitness is targeting you and labeling you a lunk.

Yes, Planet Fitness IS passing judgement on you (I thought they were judgement free)

This all comes from a company full of :

• cardio equipment (hamsters on a wheel??)
• purposefully choosing how much you SHOULD lift (anyone see anything above 60lb dumbbells there)
• having free pizza whatever-day and free bagel whatever-night

Really?!? Since when has it been wrong to be fit and strong. Since when has it been wrong to have a muscular body? Since when is it wrong to eat right and train hard? Since when is it wrong to be able to meet or exceed what nature has given you?

I, for one, would be 170lbs at lightest or 300lbs at heaviest if I did not work out. I would be unable to move things by myself if I did not work out. I could NEVER train BJJ, MMA, or striking if I did not work out. I would not run my own strength & conditioning, speed & agility, BJJ & MMA business if I did not train. I’d never be able to coach high school and collegiate athletes from a position of authority if I did not train (the last 2 also means I would not be able to support my family…just sayin’)…

That is what a “bodybuilder” or “lunkhead” or whatever else Planet Fitness decides to label us can accomplish……a better quality of life and much success through hard work and discipline.

Stay Diesel my friends!

Fitness versus Fatness

The other day, I read an internet article on fit versus fat in the Olympics. This article sheds light on the speculation the larger framed athletes, specifically women, are enduring. These critics are completely clueless as to what it takes to step onto the world stage. They are completely clueless about how many countless hours and sacrifices that elite athletes endure just to “make the cut”. These nay-sayers should go out and learn, through experience, what it REALLY takes to be fit enough to compete; even at the earliest levels of competition.

Most sports’ requirements dictate the type of physiques an athlete may develop due to the adaptations required for said competition. At Diesel Training Grounds, we are charged with strength and conditioning, athletic development, and general fitness training. Our athletes demonstrate the prototypical athletic physique along with the speed, agility, and fitness needed to compete. By comparing the athlete to sport ratio however, anyone can conclude that not all athletes are built the same, regardless of their competitive fitness levels. Let’s analyze our demographics:

Combat Athletes: These athletes demonstrate the overt physical traits; muscularity, strength, speed, stamina, and explosiveness. Appearance may be obvious due to weight class restrictions or requirements.

Racers: Our racers, swimmer and runners, display the “longer and leaner” appearance. They may not be as bulky as other the other athletes, carry muscle and at times more body fat that our combat athletes.

Team Sports Athletes: Quantified as our Football, Basketball, LAX, Soccer, Tennis, etc. These athletes may or may not demonstrate the appearance found in the magazines. While size and shapes differ, the fitness requirements don’t. They still maintain commensurate strength levels related to their sport and athletic requirements. Even our largest athletes can get onto a field and move with speed, agility, and balance.

In the aforementioned article, many “Sideline Olympians” are criticizing the fitness levels and appearance of the Women Powerlifters, a Swimmer, and other athletes. Let’s break that down also:

Powerlifters: Lifting inhuman loads over your head requires an extraordinary amount of strength, flexibility, and cardio fitness. Since Powerlifters have to move various amounts of weight (at times massive, at times not), it’s no wonder that they are huge. Who cares about 6 packs and muscle striations when your picking up 100% or more of your bodyweight.

Swimmers: Ever put a bodybuilder into water? What happens? They sink…they can’t float…simple physics….there’s no buoyancy. Fat mass is less dense than water; lean mass is more dense than water.  A swimmer NEEDS a certain amount of buoyancy, along with strength endurance,  core control, extreme cardio fitness to swim distances against the resistance caused by the water.

Team Sports: Team Sports are a mix of skill and conditioning. Look at a soccer player, they are of different shapes and sizes due to the stop and go nature of the game, the amount of players on the field, and positional requirements. Compare them to a basketball player where offense and defensive transitions are a fast break away with only 5 on the court. There’s an obvious difference. Look at a Badminton versus a Tennis player; both racquet sports but requiring totally different training methods; ergo sporting different physiques. Training protocols and sport-specificity will always determine the adaptations that an athlete will make; physically and aesthetically.

In summation, these “Sideline Olympians” should SHUT THEIR MOUTH and train like those they criticize for a month…that’ll teach them what true fitness is.

Fitness & Fads

The fitness industry needs a major overhaul!!!

Enough with the fads, enough with superficial certifications, and enough with the BS re-certifications requirements trainers “need” continue. I am not against continuing education; I’m against paying you to say I am “certified”. “Certified” doesn’t make you a good trainer or coach, it makes you an educated one. Across the board, a squat is a squat whether you are NASM certified, ISSA certified, or ACE certified. Furthermore, after two years (the normal re-certification time limit) and are an ACTIVELY PRACTICING trainer, you DON”T forget what you have learned.

WHY am I writing about this??

• I recently went to a workshop which was billed as a conditioning specialty in my niche market; it was not.
• While enrolling into that workshop, I was told that my CPT (certified personal trainer) certificate lapsed, although I hold ADVANCED credentials from the same certifying agency. Not to mention I am completing another ADVANCED credential from them.
• I recently received an email to get certified as a P90X instructor to boost my training business.
• I’ve heard and seen about a million different certifications; ALL claiming to be on the cutting edge of the industry.

WHAT should be done??

1. Keep the integrity in workshops; offer it, deliver it. Don’t sensationalize something to create relevance; knowledgeable people will eventually see through the BS.
2. Revise recertification standards so that active trainers stay certified; we are honing our skills daily.
3. STOP offering BS certifications; clients will buy P90X for a couple hundred, NOT PAY US a couple thousand for the same thing.
4. There are so many certifying agencies, health clubs should do their due diligence upon hiring a “fit-pro” and find several certificates or credentials they recognize; instead of making a rookie and obviously broke trainer to pay for it him/herself from the ONE they push.

4 changes are not enough; there is so much more that has to be changed in this industry. This profession NEEDS to be taken more seriously and not equated to selling “snake oil & tonics” because that’s what is being pushed to the trainers by certifying agencies and gyms.

 

MMACS Workshop…a reflection

On June 17th, I attended a workshop that was presented by one of the more popular certifying agencies in the fitness business. What compelled me to go to this event was the fact that I have been looking for more efficient ways of working with my amateur and professional fighters. So, rather than spending Father’s Day at home with my expecting wife, the trek to the “Northeast’s Mecca of Training” began.

Waking up at 5 am…on a Sunday…after celebrating my 3rd year anniversary (fortunately only dinner and a show)…was NO easy task.

Making the 5:50am train to NYC began the 1-hour long commute to NYC. I finally arrive to my first destination at 7am; with enough time to have a small bite and coffee. I was starting to get those butterflies as my expectation of this wealth of abundant knowledge would soon be presented. A half-hour later, I arrive to the location where the workshop was slated to run from 8am-5pm.

With registration, introductions, and small presentations out-of-the-way, I’m thinking “HELL YEAH!” once I’m told we’re working our butts off today. Lead from the front, right? Never ask your athlete what you can’t do, right? Getting up the mountain is optional, coming down mandatory, right (thanks, Jim)?

Then, the verbal part of the program starts and I slowly start doubting. Not the qualifications of the instructors, but the ACTUAL and FACTUAL content. It started to feel like it was geared towards trainers that want to train people LIKE fighters, in small groups, using fighter’s tools. HMM….I start to think more….then I thought “Idiot, you’re here to learn, not criticize”. With my ego back in check, I drive on; though still unable to shake that feeling. After a break, it’s on to training techniques. The typical…Jump Ropes, Speed Ladders, using Thai pads as cones; ALL stuff that Diesel Training Grounds already does. Ok, I think, there is more to come….

NOPE!!

It goes back on how to train small groups…using MMA type training. Training small groups..kind of like CrossFit training. Training small groups, where you can simultaneously train an amateur, semi-pro, or pro COMBAT athlete along side a 40-year-old soccer mom. Here’s where I tuned out. I was committed to the program of learning MMA Conditioning, not MMA-like conditioning. Besides, 80-90% of what was taught, I had learned through mentors, prior training jobs, and so on. I began to realize that this was geared to the personal training segment; not the performance enhancement segment.

Here’s the clincher…

I really liked what the instructors did. They put personal trainers and group fitness instructors through a similar type of kick-butt, metabolic conditioning, gut wrenching, leg burning, core activating, strength/endurance building, type of workouts that seem to be the norm at Diesel. I felt the instructors were spot on with how to kick someone’s rear into bikini shape using the training techniques that when properly programmed, WILL get a fighter into serious warrior mode. Re-injured an all, I went through this workshop refining things that I love to do…so it was a win there. Kudos to the instructors for how they made us sweat. Props for the instructors for breaking personal trainers into a NEW and EVOLVING field.

NO PROPS to:

The certifying agency that had the AUDACITY to call this a Mixed Martial Arts Conditioning Specialty. To them I scream “BS”. This workshop taught me how to refine the things that I know and implement daily; plus a few things that I did not think of. But, this IS NOT for those who actually train combat athletes. This IS NOT for those who work with the Chris Wings, Frankie Edgars, GSPs of the world….nope this had 0 to do with how to make aspiring athletes or elite athletes better at their trade. While trying to be on the cutting edge of this exciting segment, this agency forgot one thing…personal training is one thing, true athletic development is another animal. While both can be done in private, semi-private, or small group sessions; the nuances that each segment possess has to be bridged with the knowledge of both fields of expertise; not just the general side of things.

Quite frankly, while missing my family and arriving late to a family BBQ, I realized I was happy that I went. I learned how to do things, how NOT to do things. I experienced the euphoric feeling of completing a kick butt workout and appreciated being trained by fellow pros. I appreciate the networking and the camaraderie that I was exposed to. I am grateful that I did not injure myself any further; and, was tough enough to grit it out when needed. That teaches a lot about yourself.

I just feel that the course’s title could have AND should have been more accurate as to what it really was all about. The fitness industry still has a long learning curve ahead in order to achieve more credibility…at least in my humble opinion.

Schools & Discipline…

Over the weekend, I read an article about a house party that took place in a neighboring town. Cops are called, students arrested, news article is published. Pretty standard for festivities that spiral out of control…..EXCEPT……

The town’s school district is contemplating revisions to “off-campus” discipline. Basically, the district is seeking to be able to suspend student-athletes for misconduct off-campus and unrelated to school activities. Under these revisions, which were previously instituted and made more lenient, student-athletes will face sanction for off-campus transgressions on the athletic side of things. The justification, according to the article, education is a right and sports is a privilege.

Guess What?!?

We agree with that stance. Student-Athletes should be held with a higher standard than the non student-athlete. On the street, a karateka, judoka, mma fighter, police officer, soldier, etc…is held at a different standard than the average Joe when it comes to a fight. Combat-trained people need to display a certain amount of restraint due to their skills. While I used the most extreme of comparison, student-athletes need to be held accountable for their misbehavior both on and off the field as well.

An athlete represents their program and school in the field of competition. If a college team has a “problem athlete” they rescind scholarships. If a professional team has a “problem athlete”, they trade them or waive them. High school student-athletes should be held accountable appropriately as well. If we don’t hold our athletes liable when they misbehave, they will ultimately confuse administrative inaction as an endorsement to act as they please.

Is a “Mercy Rule” a good idea in athletics

Mercy rules work best when in the formative years of the athlete..for example elementary school. Once an athlete hits middle school or high school, sportsmanship should be imparted through the coach’s behavior; NOT manipulated by the administration. Implementing a “mercy rule” at the middle school or high school level robs a team the chance of a learning lesson or experience under pressure, not to mention a comeback victory or digging DEEP to make a game respectable.

Sportsmanship is should be left to the coaches to teach. If a coach keeps the attack dogs on the floor when decimating an inferior team, the administration should deal with the coach accordingly. If the athletic directors don’t deal with a coach, then the league should deal with the school. By removing the onus of sportsmanship from the coach in a live competitive situation, “higher-ups” will unnecessarily impact the team dynamics. The athletes, while learning the wrong values from an unsporting situation, are still following values of obedience and execution of the coach’s game plan. Athletes cannot be punished for that.

Inferior athletes shouldn’t be punished either for lack of ability or experience. They should not have the fair shot at making a game respectable nor learning how to deal with severe adversity taken away from them based on the score of a game. A 25 point lead in basketball is really 12 layups, 8 3-pointers, and a couple free throws away. While 25 points IS generally a blow out, it is not utterly impossible to catch up at least enough to make a respectable game. At least allow an athlete to mount a serious effort without the pressure of a running clock, no fouls, etc…in order to learn how to properly play through adversity. All inferior athletes on superior programs to get the playing time they’re busting the butts for in practice to get. Make the overpaid officials earn their money.

Ultimately, sportsmanship is a coach, program, and school-wide responsibility. At the game level, it’s the coach who represents the core values of the program. The school administration is responsible for dealing with issues that arise with the program. The league is responsible of dealing with each school’s program.

Implementing a “mercy rule” will be detrimental to the development of inferior teams. Address unsportsmanlike coaching tactics with the coach, not the kids!