When a Fighter Says They Do Strength and Conditioning

Coach’s Quick Chat Episode 1: When a Fighter Says They Do Strength and Conditioning

Featuring Singdam, filmed during performance testing at the Yokkao Training Center in Bangkok.

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Video Transcript:

When a lot of fighters say they’re doing strength & conditioning… they’re actually not!

They’re doing conditioning training with weights.

“But it’s all squats and presses?”

It’s like someone saying they’re doing Muay Thai, when they’re doing Kung Fu.

“But it’s all punches and kicks.”

So it’s not just what you do, but how you do it that determines the effect. So you’ve got strength, and you’ve got conditioning – they’re two parts of the puzzle.

Strength training is all the neural adaptations that you’re training for. So it’s maximum force (your strength), and how quickly you can apply that force (you’re power).

And that part of your training is all about producing the strongest spark. And fatigue plays no part in that.

Whereas conditioning is the metabolic part – it’s how you supply energy, and use energy in the muscles. And fatigue play a part in that.

And bear in mind that fatigue will “dull” your spark. So if you are going for those neural adaptations… you cannot work them in fatigue, it’s not a conditioning drill – it’s something different.

And what’s important depends on where you are in your training plan, how far away you are from your fight

So when you’re putting together your sessions, just make sure you know what you are training for.