Taking your opponent down in a combative competition or fight initiates dominance and control of the situation. When you establish dominance and control in a fight it allows for a better flow of results increasing positive positioning and execution to wherever the position may lead you. Training your takedowns must take consistency and a meticulous tactical progression in practice. You must drill your takedowns successfully while maintaining a level of understanding of how to set it up and finish. Whether it be a double leg, single leg, high crotch, low single, or Greco style trips, and Judo style throws the goal is to get your opponent down and maintain a solid position.

As you may know I work with some of the most elite level fighters and grapplers around the world my job is to increase their abilities from a physical perspective to take their opponents down. Once you’ve established a sound technique and are proficient in those takedowns from a technical standpoint my goal is to make sure that those techniques are enhanced by improving strength, power, and overall speed. In order for me to do that we must start by laying a foundation of strength that can potentiate into those other qualities.

First we must understand the muscles and the planes of motion the body goes through to effectively perform a solid takedown. For the most part the muscles of the posterior chain (back, glutes, hamstrings) come into play on almost every takedown of you do not have a strong backside you will not be able to produce force going forward or have the stability to maintain balance and produce explosive throws. We also have to take a look at the anterior oblique sling (Obliques, Serratus Anterior, TFL, Psoas, QL) this allows for improvement on throws and trips. Transverse abdominals which allow for rotational power to initiate hip tosses (Judo, Greco, and freestyle) dominating positions or the ability to stabilize for a pin, and transitions into strikes or submissions. Neck and grip strength are also important for controlling the opponent we do this through Isometrics and quasi isometrics to increase the strength but not the overall circumference of the arms and neck that can hinder movement quality. Of course if this is a goal then we can train through isotonic or even isokinetic repetitions.

First we must start with a base, improving on overall strength, joint integrity, and stability will be key when setting a platform for the rest of the qualities to be efficiently worked. Compound exercises such as, squat, deadlift, bent over barbell rows, chin/pull ups, and pressing movements need to be worked in mid to low repetitions to increase absolute strength and strength speed. This is particularly important for the younger athletes looking to improve on their inter/intramuscular coordination and overall technical efficiency. This can be done in a 4-6 week block depending on time and the abilities of the athlete along with experience levels inside the weight room.

Once that’s accomplished we can start to move on to movements that yield higher correspondence to the takedowns in the athletes game. Here are some exercises that have been used by myself in the past that has yielded the greatest response..

• Rack Pulls
• Sumo Deadlift
• Zercher Squat
• Zercher Box Squat
• Trap Bar Deadlift
• Split Squats
• Goodmornings
• Pendlay Rows
• Hip Bridge
• Pallof Press
• GHR Sit Up

These can be done first in your workout to ensure greater intensity throughout the set. Once you have worked in your strength you then want to start to improve on your velocity and power this will allow for greater explosive movement into the particular takedown. Using speed strength and explosive strength exercises and tempos to elicit the greatest response is key. When it come to increasing velocity you must move weight very fast with the maximal amount of intent. This can be done with several different exercises and movements. The exact speed on a movement for explosive strength should be around 1.2-1.5 m/s this can be done with about 30-40% of your 1rm. For speed strength you should move load around .75-1.0 m/s and should be around 70-85% of 1rm. Olympic style lifting can be done if the athlete has the proper structural and functional prerequisites to those higher technical based movements. You also can implement accommodated resistance, ballistics, and plyometrics to improve on true explosiveness. Here’s a list of my go to exercises to improve on velocity and the higher rate of force development...

Speed Strength

• Power Clean
• Power Snatch
• Hang Clean
• Hang Pull
• Snatch Grip Hang Pull
• Clean Grip Hang Snatch
• Hang Snatch
• Dumbbell Hang Snatch
• Dumbbell Clean
• Push Press
• Dumbbell Push Press
• Single Arm Push Press with DB
• Single Arm Snatch with DB
• Landmine 2 Arm Push Press
• Landmine 1 Arm Push Press
• Landmine 1 Arm Snatch
• Landmine 1 Arm Hang Snatch
• Kettlebell Swings

Explosive Strength

• Box Jumps
• Single Box Jump
• Depth Jump
• Box Squat Box Jump
• Drop Jump to Box Jump
• Hurdle Jumps
• Broad Jump
• Single Leg Broad Jump
• Single Leg Lateral Jump
• Medicine Ball Chest Overhead Throw
• Medicine Ball Underhand Overhead Toss
• Medicine Ball Slam
• Medicine Ball Rotational Slam
• Medicine Ball Rotational Toss

Improving speed and explosiveness is key once you’ve developed strength. With that being stated we must look at the body as a whole training the muscles that cross the joint to allow for the production of strength and power to occur. So we must simply identify and assess the weak links throughout the kinetic chain. We do this through watching the athlete train in their sport also watching the breakdown of specific muscles while performing compound exercises. Once that’s established we then can hit the muscles with more volume to allow for higher strength and some muscle activation to be present allowing for an overall increase in performance.

For more info on how to properly program strength, power, speed into a training block checkout my online mentoring program where I go over all of my methods and protocols I use for my elite level athletes.

So in the end it comes back to understanding the sport acquiring a sound systematic approach while properly analyzing the situation. Making sure to incorporate all qualities of physical performance keeping in mind to drill and train takedowns in practices.

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In the world of mixed martial arts there are many factors involved. With a tremendous amount of training from tactical, technical, s&c and even recovery methods there is many categories that need to be addressed through a training camp or even throughout the quadrennial plan. With that being said we must I’m understand each individual training sessions intensity levels, duration, and overall volume to help reduce the risk of overtraining and increase performance. In the essence of technology we can utilize objective indicators to give us more of a future outlook on how things are going and what state of being the athlete is in throughout camp. These objective indicators are things like heart rate variability, and velocity base training monitors. This is a great way to utilize a means of overall readiness and give you real time feedback on how that session or sessions prior affected the athletes nervous system. With that being said not every coach or athlete has the ability to afford one of these monitors and in my experience most of them do not want to even bother with them due to inconvenience at times. Now I know this may seem odd but it definitely does happen. So another way we can indicate the state of the athlete is a form of subjective measures.

In the book “Supertraining” by Yuri Verkohshanksi and Mel Siff they explain the implementation of “Cybernetic Periodization” this is a form of auto-regulation based off an individuals prior training and overall fatigue. This is where we started implanting what’s called “RPE” or Rate of Perceived Exertion. This is a scale to measure intensity levels of a training session, set, or conditioning protocol. A 1-10 scale is given the individual and is asked how he or she feels after the work done. You can coordinate the intensity by giving out desired RPE numbers based upon the training effect. This also gives the athlete some autonomy on their own training allowing for a more well established training process.

The color system is used to hemp gage different training intensities. Red usually means high intensity, where yellow is moderate, and green is light. We can simply provide a schedule to the athlete and have them mark in the color allotted for each training session through the weeks. More info on this in page 196 of my friend Loren Landow’s book Ultimate Conditioning for Martial Arts. We also use a this to make changes in the training volume or intensity of the skills or s&c training which allows for a better overall training adaptation. The goal of cybernetic periodization is to optimize the training to allow for greater overall gains in strength, power, speed, conditioning, and tactical/technical training.

This can be done through any form of training, this is especially important for MMA athletes due to the demanding and numerous amounts of training sessions each week. Base your training around a set system, have a plan of action based upon the readiness of the athlete and make sure to properly formulate the exercises, sets, reps, and rest periods to improve on performance from General to Specific.

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For several recent years strength conditioning professionals have preached training optimal movement patterns rather than muscle to improve athletic ability. With that being said I do believe that holds some validity but we must look at the full spectrum of kinematics in the essence of general biomechanics and force production. Training is a process and in that process there must be a set system in place from a top down approach to improve on all physical, physiological, and hormonal aspects of human performance. That’s why understanding how to efficiently activate the muscles to fire effectively that will increase force production through the given movement patterns are majorly important for overall athletic success. 

The Nervous System: 
It all starts with the nervous system, JL Holdsworth once said to me “before you can train you have to turn on the gym lights” basically meaning before you work the joints and muscle you must activate and redirect the neuromuscular pathway. This comes from understanding the body as a whole, we must get the nervous system firing on all cylinders to enhance the contractibility of each muscle. The way to that is through soft tissue palpations increasing the sensory afferent/efferent input to allow for muscle action to be acquired. Once this is accomplished we then want to place the body in the proper anatomical positions to allow for the contractibility of the muscles needed in a given movement. 

What I learned from BodyBuilding:
I’ve recently asked in a podcast interview about what I actually learned from bodybuilding that has aided my ability to enhance athletic performance. My answer to that was I learned how to put my body in the correct positions to contract the muscles appropriately. This allowed for greater force output as a whole working through a given base set of movement patterns. Let’s face it if your glutes aren’t firing properly then it’s going to be pretty hard to squat efficiently. Placement of the feet and torque of the hips are crucial in the force application of the squat pattern. Same holds true for deadlifts and any other lower body core base movement pattern. I use a form of conjugate which allows me to assess movement through max loads I then take this evaluation over to what needs to be worked in order to bring up weak points along that particular movement. This will help me to determine what needs to be brought up to gain strength overall. 

Constantly Assess:
Like I said prior I utilize Conjugate Max Effort lifts that have the highest direct correspondence to the sport which allows me to identify weak points throughout the kinetic chain. Once that’s identified I then set special exercises that work the muscles needed to be brought up from a strength and hypertrophy standpoint that will enhance movement quality and overall strength. Working in sections to improve global strength adaptions is a must when developing an athletes readiness to perform. Here are some special exercises I use based off of lower and upper body compound lifts. 

Squat Deadlift Special Exercises:
• Glute Hamstring Raise 
• Reverse Hypers 
• Supine Hamstring Curls 
• Prone Hamstring Curls 
• Terminal Knee Extension 
• Single Leg Romanian Deadlift 
• Box Step Up 
• Abductor/Adductor Machine 
• Heel/Toe Raise 

Press/Pull Special Exercises: 
• Cable Tricep Extension 
• Face Pulls 
• French Press 
• Hammer Curl 
• Dumbbell Side/Front/Rear Lateral Raise 
• JM Press 
• Tate Press 
• Dips 
• Cable Flys 
• Back Extension 
• Chin Ups 
• Lat Pulldowns 
• Pull Over 

These exercises although single joint exercises allows for the body to work as a whole more effectively. More importantly increases strength throughout the entire body again working in sections to increase global force production. Train the muscles after you have identified the weak links in the chain through the tester lifts (compound exercises). Your builders (special exercises) are there to improve on your ability to get stronger by plugging up the gaps. Make sure to always assess the lifts that have the highest relevance and properly integrate accessory special exercises accordingly. 

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