Archive for the ‘News’ Category

The reason that the good guys at y0ur gym are the best is very simple – they have trained longer, harder, thought about it more, sacrificed more and made it their mission to be the best they can be.

If you have just read that and thought “yeah but I have a life”, then news flash – they will always be better than you. In all of my 20 plus years in martial arts I have heard all the excuses; I slept in, I went out the night before, I had something on, and the list goes on and on. The people who come up with these excuses, in my experience, have not gone on to be one of the top dogs in the club. The people that go on to the top level seem to train as much as they can and don’t make excuses when they can’t make it.

Everyone has seen the young guy with all the talent in the world give up the sport because Friday night drinks and chasing girls becomes more important. Or the guy with all the athletic ability in the world who goes on to the next thing because they don’t dominate everyone after six months of training. Then an average Joe turns up to most sessions and improves at a steady level without setting the world on fire then before you know it they are giving the good guys some grief in sparring.

In my experience the guys that put in the most time are usually the best. With MMA there is a direct link between what the top guys do and how they progress. It sounds obvious, but if it is so obvious why aren’t more people doing it? So here is the secret – the guys at MMA that are the best at BJJ train BJJ on their night off, the guys that are the best wrestlers wrestle on their night off and the guys who are the best strikers do striking training on their nights off. Then for the big shocker the guy that can keep up with everyone at everything does BJJ, Wrestling and Kickboxing.

Yes, doing all that training is hard, especially if you have family and a job, but the good guys seem to find a way to get to training and fit everything else in. I believe the best way to think of  this is the old saying –  “if you want something done give to someone that is busy”. Again they do not make excuses they just find a way.

Therefore if you are truly into your training and you want to make gains then you will find a way. You will not be the person that sleeps in for the morning training, goes out the night before training or would rather stay at home instead of training.

Stop making excuses and train.

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://mma.uprise.co.nz/

You do a lot of sessions to get your skills up then you find it hard to get out of bed in the morning, either through poor recovery or poor nutrition. And for the record, poor nutrition leads to poor recovery. In terms of nutrition is pays to keep it simple as most of us are not dietitians, so here are a few simple guidelines to keep in mind for your diet.

Keep it simple - if you can spell it you can eat it. Look at the ingredients of what you are putting in your mouth and if you do not know what it is then you shouldn’t eat it. There are a lot of chemicals in our food that our bodies are not designed to deal with. If you think for 1000’s of years we have eaten things that come from the earth - both plants and animals. Our bodies have not had to digest such things as Butylated Hydroxyanisole, also known as BHA. If you saw some BHA in a labelled container chances are you would not want to try it for fear of what it would do to us when ingested, but as soon as someone else puts it on some food and packages it we don’t seem to mind.  BHA is is a phenol-based food preservative that prevents food from going rancid. It is commonly added to cereals, potato chips, chewing gum and vegetable oils.  In short you can spell steak, carrots and so on, so stick to them.

Keep it simple with fluids too. All you need is water on a non training day – you should drink 0.03% of your body weight in water, so if you weigh 100kg you should drink 3 litres a day, and if you are training then your water intake will need to increase. Sip the water throughout the day as the body is not good an dealing with big volumes of water at once. Avoid “sports” drinks and especially stay away from “energy drink” – they are just pure evil.

The other basic rule is eat clean before and after training. Having some junk food is normal, but it comes down to the timing of when you do it. If you are on the way home from training it is best not to stop off and get some takeaways as this is when your body needs the fuel to repair itself from all the hard work. The same applies for before training - if you have a big session the next morning then eat clean the night before. Eating clean is just eating natural foods, which is food that you can spell.

Do not avoid one group of food. There is a nasty rumour going around that carbohydrates are bad and fats are bad - this is not true if you are active. You need both otherwise your performance will suffer. For those of you not sure what a fat, protein or carbohydrate is here is a simple guide – if it has eyes it has protein, which usually has some fat with it (nature designed it that way for a reason).  Vegetables fruits and grains do not come from anything with eyes, so they are usually higher in carbohydrate.

For those of you who a bit more scientific here is a more detailed version of preparation and recovery strategies. For those that go on to read there is mention of carbohydrates and protein so here a little guide to know which is which.

At the end of the day anyone can train hard. How you recover and adapt will determine just how hard you can train and therefore how you can get gains in your performance. Here are some strategies that athletes use to maximize results:

 

The times immediately before and after exercise are vital. Follow these guidelines to ensure that your training has maximum impact.

In the 4 hours before training/competition

• Eat 150-200g carbohydrates (CHO) in the 4hrs pre training – this is a lot of food by the way

Examples:

Cereal bar = 20g CHO

Banana = 20g CHO

Honey sandwich = 50g CHO

To find out food composition of your favourite pre- and post- workout meals, there are all sorts of websites that tell you the nutritional content of foods that you can check.

 

Within 5 minutes of finishing training or event

•  Drink fluids (water)

•  Eat carbohydrates and protein

•  Warm down with a light jog walk for 5-10 minutes then stretch

 

Within 10 minutes of finishing training or event

•  Keep drinking fluids (water)

•  Keep stretching

Then if you are really keen:

•  Ice buckets ~ 10C submerge: 3 x (30-60 seconds in / 2 minutes out)

OR

•  Contrast showers: 3 x (30-60 seconds cold / 2-3 minutes hot)

•  Always finish on cold

 

Within 60 minutes of finishing training or event

•  Keep drinking fluids and you should have drunk 500-1000 ml by now

•  Continue to eat and you should have eaten 1-2g CHO per kg of bodyweight and 10-30g of protein by now.

•  Glutamine may improve glycogen synthesis. This is probably a useful supplement.

•  Ask yourself – what did I learn from this training/game?

 

Evenings

•  Work on stretching and self-massage to stretch out tight muscles

•  Massage/self-massage 2-6 hours after trainings can improve recovery

•  Ice any injuries (10 minutes ice/10 minutes light stretching movement/10 minutes ice every 2 hours) don’t stop doing this till swelling and pain is gone.

•  Relaxation work and meditation, yoga, music, reading.

•  Have some fun and change the mood

•  Go to sleep no later that 10.30 pm.

•  Light pool work can be useful: 10 min spa, hydrate, stretch 10 min, 2-5 min floating

The day after

•  A light recovery walk or jog (25-35 minutes) at a low intensity ie. Below 65% of maximum heart rate.

In short, be good before and after training or competition and this will aid with recovery and performance – it is a very simple formula.

 

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://mma.uprise.co.nz/

The old adage “pressure will turn coal to either diamond or dust” basically means you either crumble under pressure or perform – which one are you?

The pressure that most people think of is the pressure that others put on you. When you are the favourite in a fight and everyone expects you to win and no matter how you perform you can only meet their expectations. This type of pressure is what the All Blacks go through week in and week out - if they win it is expected, and if they destroy the opposition then they played well. If they lose, however, then all hell breaks loose. The big problem with this type of pressure is that in the build up for the fight all you hear is that you are going to kill this guy, and it seems like everyone tells you that you will smash through your opponent. When everyone tells you this it becomes hard not to believe it and that can make it very hard to keep the hunger and the focus for the fight. Your opponent for that fight however will have no problems keeping focused for the fight as everyone is telling them that they are turning up to their execution. When you are the under dog the worst thing that can happen is that you lose and everyone expects that, but if you give the guy a run then in most people’s eyes it will be close to a win.

The other type of pressure, what I consider to be the worst, is the pressure that you put on yourself. This can be to keep a perfect record, because that is what your favourite fighter has or have each win by knock out as that is what the popular fighters do. Whatever it is that makes you measure yourself against others is the pressure that you put on yourself. This also flows through to training when you are one of the top guys at training then you must prove it at every session. Everyone there lifts against you because you go hard and they will remember forever the night that they get the best of you. This pressure causes you to work your A-game each time because anything less, heaven forbid, may result in defeat at training. All this pressure does is stop you from working new skills at training due to the pressure you have put on yourself to beat everyone at training.

With the nature of fights generally your first fight isn’t too bad as you are up against another person who is unsure and inexperienced. This is usually the same thing for the first few fights you have. One night you will turn up and find yourself standing opposite a guy who can match you in every department. What tends to happen in these fights is whoever has been pushed harder in training will come through. The guy that is used to beating everyone all of a sudden finds his moves are not having the success that he is used to and his opponent has an answer for everything that he does. One of two things happen here - they lift their game and take it to the next level as they know sooner or later the other guy will crack, or they clam up for fear of losing as the pressure has just got to them.

There are many examples at the top level of guys making stupid decisions on the big stage, doing things that they have never done before, due to pressure. Your body has muscle memory and knows what to do, and when you try and make minor adjustments in the heat of battle you interrupt the muscle memory and it can end up making things worse.

The best example of muscle memory is golf. Players may have a four foot put to win the US Open - a putt that they would hole 99 times out of 100 as they have drilled it so many times. However this the pressure makes things different and they start thinking about things with their stroke that their body usually just takes care of, when this happens they brain can get in the way and they miss the putt. The good thing about fight sports is that a lot of the time we are in reaction mode, because of the speed of the sport, but there are moments that everyone has done over-thought something and missed the technique – I would be surprised if someone has over thought and got the move!

The moral of the story is that pressure is there either from other people or the pressure you put on yourself, and it is how you deal with it that is the key. Keep in mind that your body knows what to do and your brain will only get in the way. Think of the best sparring that you have done and how much thinking was done, it is all about being in the moment and letting your body do what it knows how to do. However don’t confuse a fight plan and tactics for over thinking as they are separate things completely. Over thinking is usually when you worry about what happens after the move and not about getting the move right. Stop thinking and just do – Enjoy.    

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://mma.uprise.co.nz/

So you have had a bit of success in competition and you are the number one guy at your gym. Congratulations – you have stopped learning.

You need your training partners to be able to push you, even beat you, so your game keeps evolving and you keep learning. Once you can beat everyone you train with then there is a very real threat of complacency. Especially with MMA, where you may be able to beat everyone at your gym with your MMA skills. You need to seek out those specialists that can beat you in their world, BJJ Wrestling and striking, so you continue to learn.

The specialists such in BJJ, Wrestling and Striking all have very developed games in their own area. With these specialists we can never match them in their world so our goal is to be able to hang with them. If we can wrestle with wrestlers, roll with BJJ guys and then strike with some good boxers / kickboxers the chances are you will get a beating in one if not all of these areas and that means your game is developing.

If you train with people that you can beat all the time then you get a false sense of your ability and, at best, your skills will stagnate as there is nobody there to push you to develop your game. The other big problem with this environment is that you become afraid of losing, because you beat everyone every time you do not want to seek out those people that can beat you as then people will find out that you are not invincible after all.

In reference to my last post, NZ is too small. As NZ is small there is going to be people at each gym who are the top dog and it is hard for them to go train with others as it may limit fights that they can get, by training at other gyms. However this does not stop you training with the specialists around your gym. Failing that do some training trips to become the small fish in the big pond and get beaten – then your game will go to the next level.

Being the best is great but once you are at the top of the mountain there is only one way you can go and that is back down. At the very least, if you get to the top of the mountain you can no longer climb and it is only a matter of time before people catch you up, change mountains and keep climbing. If you look at any dominate athlete, it’s not that their skills decrease rather everyone else lifts their game to match them. In short make sure you have people around you that can give you hell in training.

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://mma.uprise.co.nz/

If you want to succeed - and by succeed I mean world class - in any fight sport, then you need to get off shore. There are plenty of good fighters in NZ, but to get to the next level they need to go overseas.

In the years that I have been involved in the sport I have seen some divisions where there are almost as many titles as there are fighters. I believe that a New Zealand title should be a stepping stone and not the goal. If you have five good wins you will be close to a title fight in New Zealand. Once you win it you can either defend it ten times and get the other titles in your weight division or look to go overseas.

One plan could be to have 5 – 7 fights in New Zealand then have 5 in Australia, and then get over to the US as soon as you can. You should spend about a 3 years max getting your feet wet in NZ and Australia before going overseas. The reason for going over as soon as you can is because you have to start from scratch and the earlier that you do that the better it will be for your fight future.

When you are in America training and fighting you can get 5 years worth of competition in one year, as they have a lot more competitions with more competitors. Let’s face it-  there are divisions in Wrestling and BJJ in NZ that have 3 -4 people in them which makes a medal rather easy to get. In the US you will not get any easy medals and you will learn about hard competition and if you really want to get somewhere in the sport that is what you have to do.  

You can’t understand how good the top guys are until you train with them - to put it bluntly, they are just better. We can get to that level as well but we need to train in the same environment. At the fight gyms in America the average guy is the same as the average guy in NZ . The difference is that instead of having two good guys and one “boss” on the mat you have 20 guys that are very good and 5 guys that are at that top level. Having guys like that on the mat means you get to see the intensity that they train at, which is something you can’t comprehend until you are on the receiving end of it.  When you train with guys at the top level if lifts your game as you have to improve to survive, as well as training at a higher level day in day out, so to get to the top in the fight world you have to train with the best.

There are a lot of good fighters in NZ and as the money is not there they have had to hold down a job and have a family which makes their achievements even more impressive when going up against full time athletes. Could a lot of NZ’s become world class fighters? Yes, and some have, but many of them have gone overseas to chase their dream.  

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://mma.uprise.co.nz/

Due to the nature of MMA, you sometimes need to train at different locations under different instructors. If you live in the perfect world, all those trainers get along and don’t mind you bringing your bad footwork to boxing, your habit of pulling guard to wrestling, and your wrestling to the BJJ mat. As much as we don’t want to believe it we are a pain in our respective trainers butts, because we take what they teach us and modify it for to suit MMA. We don’t follow the rules of their sport, and we injure people.

The rules that I am talking about are our distance in striking (as we have to be a at a different distance due to takedowns), pulling guard in wrestling to try to triangle the guy that just pinned us, and being a munter in BJJ - crush and kill! Since we bring a different mentality in the room when we train, relative to the others there, the instructor can get a little frustrated at the other skills that we use that stuff up the other people training – you can understand their frustration.

Here is the beauty of MMA; by nature fighters believe that it is all about them, and that they are actually helping everyone out with these different skills. Sadly that is just not the case.

In the real world, unless you live in a city where MMA is popular then you are going to have to travel to get your MMA training fix, as well as improving your skills in the individual areas. In a lot of cases the travel is needed as your kickboxing coach doesn’t like the trainer of the other club down the road, the wrestling coach’s top student jumped ship to the other local club so you can’t train there and you are a Gracie BJJ student and the other school is run by another name which is not as cool so you can’t train there either.

Everyone that has trained more than one style has had this issue where you have closed-minded people that stop their students training any other styles. In my history as an MMA trainer I have had 3 guys kicked out from various other styles because they are training MMA. To me this is very small minded as those guys are going to bring back new skills to their schools and everyone will get better for it.

In most cities the martial arts community is relatively small and in my experience the various schools never get along. The instructors have never met and may have sent an email to each other, just to confirm that they do hate each other. But if people put their ego to the side to grow the sport then everyone would do better for it. Why can’t we all just train at other gyms every now and then? Now don’t get me wrong here – you stay loyal to your club and instructor. But if you miss you normal session due to work then why can’t you go down the road and get some training in at the other club? Training at other clubs is great, as you get to see what different things people do as well as experiencing different styles.

I believe that we need an open door policy so anyone from other clubs can train with you, especially in MMA - all it can do is grow the sport. Therefore if you are a trainer or senior student get to know the top guys at the clubs around you and see if you can pick a fight with them to get some training in with other top guys – just make sure it doesn’t limit your possible fighting opponents.

 

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://mma.uprise.co.nz/

Are you in the way of your own progression? Excuse me while I talk about myself for a little bit.  My MMA career can be broken down in to two parts – before I trained at Xtreme Couture and after I trained at Xtreme Couture.

Before I trained at XC, I was training wrestling, BJJ and kickboxing - nothing strange there. In each of those classes I always felt like I had to be the best, there otherwise I was a failure. In my mind, if I couldn’t beat all the people I trained with then how could I beat opponents in competition? This would mean that if I got tapped, pinned or punched in the head I would go home and mentally beat myself up as in my mind I was no good.

Then I went to America and trained at XC - this is where everything changed for me. At XC, the first few sessions that I did were with the ‘normal’ guys - I did well and was happy with how it was going. Then reality turned up in the form of the pro training, where on my first session I did live wrestling drills against Randy Couture. I got a great lesson in wrestling from him, and many others. In my mind I could deal with this, as wrestling was not my strength, but I wanted to see how it would go with striking.

The striking didn’t go so well as I came up against one of the best K1 fighters of all time, and got my beans! All that was left was BJJ. I got my answer in BJJ in the form of Robert Drysdale, and became the first person I know to get physically get turned inside out! 

This left my one saving grace – an all rounder. I was sparring with an English guy who was one of Dan Hardy’s training partners. He was older and smaller than me so I was feeling rather confident. We started striking and I was using every trick in my book to hang with this guy who was 6 inches shorter than me. It went to the ground and in my head I thought “lets see what this guy’s ground is like”. After being swept, passed and hanging on the edge of surviving and tapping out I got my answer.

After that trip I found out that there was no point trying to be the best, as there are guys out there with crazy skills, who will be better than you. Rather than being depressed, I found a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders as I didn’t have to worry about being the best, because that was so far away for me to even worry about.

So after that change I had to do my best to put my ego aside and work on my skills to become better. This didn’t come easy for me and I still struggle to this day with it. There is a guy that I train with and I have more experience than him so I have seen his growth and it has been rather impressive to see the change in him. What he does is pick a move and work it for a few months. The first time he tried this on me I defended the move got in a good position and tapped him and didn’t think much of it. A few months down the track he went from the same move and had fixed the holes in the move and had me in all sorts of trouble, then further down the track he got me and I was tapping. Next thing I know he has put that move on the shelf and he is working his new skill. This guy has no ego about how he goes on any given night as he is working on improving his game not winning each and every roll.

 

In short, it’s not about that night and defeating the people you are up against, but it’s about making yourself better by working your skills. Yes, the first few weeks suck as you can get a hiding, but slowly and surely the bad spots are few and far between and things start working for the better. Eventually you develop a new skill set that you can rely on.  

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://mma.uprise.co.nz/

This post is inspired by the Mayweather – Ortiz boxing match.  There has been much discussion about how Mayweather ended the fight. For those of you that do not know what happened, Ortiz was getting a bit of a pasting for the first three rounds, and this continued into the fourth. Then, for some reason, when Ortiz had Mayweather against the ropes and was unloading heavy shots that were not getting through, Ortiz sat back on his heels and then lunged forward leading with his head (also known as a head butt).  The ref took a point from Ortiz, then on the restart Ortiz touched gloves and gave Mayweather hug.  Ortiz then inexplicably looked around to see what the ref was doing, and in that time Mayweather landed  a big left hook then finished him with a right hand.

People seem to have a problem with Mayweather punching when Ortiz was “not ready”. Here is my take on the situation – if you are boxing for a world title you can’t give your opponent any opportunity to punch you in the face. On the flip side, if you are fighting for a world title and your opponent gives you a chance from their mistake to finish the fight then you would take it with out hesitation – so what it the problem?

If you are in a competitive match and your opponent messes up, why should you not capitalise on it and pounce on them? If your opponent throws a punch at your head and you slip the punch and they lose their footing, you wouldn’t hesitate to jump on them. The same goes if someone slips while throwing a head kick.  It is a simple process – if someone messes up technically, tactically or mentally, then why shouldn’t you make the most of it and go in for the win?

The other side of the coin is that when you are fighting you have to assume that your opponent will take each and every opportunity to get the win against you so you must be ready for that. As soon as the match starts and you go to touch gloves you have to assume that your opponent will not want to touch gloves and try to punch you in the head. You must also assume that your opponent will stretch  and bend the rules as much as they can to get any and all advantage over you to win.

At the end of the day we compete to win, especially in the fight game, so why not do what needs to be done to get the win? If your opponent gives you even half a chance TAKE IT – as you may not get another one.

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://mma.uprise.co.nz/

With all the athletic requirements of MMA it seems that the sport favours the younger athletes. Case and point – there in one UFC champion who is over 30 years of age, Anderson Silva, and he is considered one of the best pound for pound fighters on the planet.

If you look at the last few title fights, not including the middle weight division, you will see that the younger fighter has prevailed more often than not. 

Heavyweight – Shane Carwin v Cain Velasquez: Carwin is 36 years old and Velasquez  is 29 years old - Velasquez won via KO.

Light Heavyweight – Shogun v Jon Jones: Shogun is 29 years old and Jones is 24 years old - Jones won via KO

Welterweight – Matt Hughes v GSP: Matt Hughes was 33 years old and GSP was 25 years old - GSP won via KO.

Lightweight – BJ Penn v Frankie Edgar: BJ Penn is 32 years old and Edgar is 29 years old, Edgar won via a 5 round unanimous decision.

I could go on and on with examples of the younger guy winning over older opponents. Yes, there will always be wins by older fighters but if the opponent is five years or more younger then the percentages sway towards the younger fighter. This trend is present in the other organisations as well – Dan Henderson is the only title holder above the age of 30 in Strikeforce, for example.

Keep an eye on what happens to the sport - most of the champions, if not all,  will be in their 20’s and as they come to the end of their career another young guy will step up and take the mantle.

The training that these young guys are doing is making a big difference, as when the “30 plus” started training they were either wrestlers, grapplers or strikers, and they then worked on their skills to become more rounded as a fighter.  This is where the young guys excel – they train MMA as a complete sport and have always put all the aspects together so their game is well rounded from the outset. From there the young guys will just keep evolving the sport, making it very hard for the old guys to stay on top.

Sadly for us guys over 30 there is not much we can do except for beating the odds to get the win over the young guys.  

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://mma.uprise.co.nz/

When you are an instructor or trainer you must lead by example and demonstrate through your actions what you expect from your fighters. Does that mean that the instructor has to be able to beat everyone on the mat?

Take BJJ for example. You expect your instructor to be able to tap you out at will. Chances are they have been doing BJJ longer than you and should have more tools to handle your game. But what about a 50 year old who has been black belt for 15 years, who has a young charge that competes at any opportunity and is knocking on the door of a black belt? Should the instructor still be able to handle this younger, stronger and more athletic guy? And what happens when the young guy, god forbid, taps the instructor – does that then mean that the young charge has taken over the mantle and it is time for the instructor to make way for the younger, stronger student? The simple answer is HELL NO!

Consider this – if you had a chance to train with Helio Gracie before his passing you would jump at the chance, even though at his age, with all due respect, he would not have the physical ability to defeat you. This means that even if there is a student who gives the instructor hell it does not mean that that person knows more or should take over instructing. The instructor has years of knowledge and knows his game as well as other people’s games inside and out and can make improvements on all of his student’s games. This is in direct contrast to the “young” lion at the club who knows how his game works and how to beat  the other people on the mat but has not yet learned the ability to make someone better using their strengths and weaknesses – all they know is how to defeat people.

There is also another way your instructor might get beaten, and it should help the club and not hinder it - when someone who is very good turns up to train at your club. There are two types of instructor - the first is the instructor that will avoid being shown up in front of his students for fear that they will think he is crap if someone beats him on the mat, cage, or ring. The second type of instructor takes the opportunity to train with someone that can push him and that he can learn from. So what can students learn from seeing someone beat their instructor, other than to change clubs? The students learn that there are more levels above your instructor (in some cases there will not be anyone better) and that there are ways to beat them. This gives the student belief that they can get better than their instructor and go on to another level.

This is by no means disrespecting trainers in any way - but a good trainer is always looking to improve themselves and their students and their ultimate goal is to make their students better than them, because if this does not happen then the sport will not grow.

Gareth Lewis

Head MMA Instructor 

http://mma.uprise.co.nz/