It’s something of an honor to be asked to do a guest post for Smitty and Jedd, especially as I’ve been a big fan for some time. For people that don’t know, my name is Barry Gibson and I own and operate Grapplefit Training in Sunderland, England. I have been the regular strength contributor to Fighters Only Magazine for almost four years now, and have had the concept of Grapplefit for at least seven years. Only now is it becoming a reality and I have my own unit where I train combat athletes full time. I also run fat loss boot camps for ladies and gents not involved in the fight game. One of my more recognizable clients is Ross Pearson – TUF season 9 lightweight winner and now UFC fighter. At the time of writing, Ross has just defeated Aaron Riley at UFC 105.
SEE THE KILLER WORKOUT VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP (more…)
The beauty of complex training (CT) is that it’s simple and it works. CT is the blending of strength and speed. In essence, CT is nothing more than a ME exercise immediately followed by a DE exercise. This is an enormously effective style of training. To better understand why it is so effective we will first need to look at the science behind CT.
Here is footage from a few different conditioning days for Mike who is in-season right now. He is getting ready for sectionals.What you’ll see in this video are movements that target:
Grip Strength
Shoulder Mobility
Leg Strength
Shoulder Strength and Strength Mobility
Rhomboid/Trap Activation
Knee Strength / Stability
Ankle Mobility
Power, Strength and Muscular Endurance
Rotational Core Strength
Circuit Progressions (not done on the same day)
Here are some examples of some in-season conditioning circuits for muscular, strength and power endurance.
First Circuit: (not shown)
Power Rope Double Slams, Alternating, Throws, Zig-Zags
DB Swings
Repeat 3x
Second Circuit: (not shown)
Pull-ups
Band Pull Aparts
Third Circuit:
Landmines
Band Pull Aparts
One-Leg Squats
Check out my new article in Men’s Fitness. The original article was titled How to Increase Punching Power for MMA Athletes, but it has been restructured to:
Get a Fighter’s Physique
Throw serious punches to build muscle and burn fat
Get yourself a copy of the magazine for this month, or check it out online. The article comes with a pretty extensive workout program. In the magazine, I have a couple other small blurbs too!
Tom won a unanimous decision over Kyle Kingsbury Saturday night! Unfortunately, he injured his hand and he is working to get that healed up right now. Tom was an animal with his training and completed some of the toughest conditioning circuits I’ve created during the lead up to the fight.
We here at Diesel are proud of Tom!
Tom is looking at his next fight in the UFC at 185, so he is going to be dropping down to a more natural weight.
