Competitive training vs Maintenance training

sul02

Hi folks,
I have a fairly general question on the above based entirely on strength / fitness rather than technique / sparring time.

At the moment i just randomly push myself doing cardio / strength training, feel great for a few weeks and then after that i lack energy and slack off until i randomly get energy back a few weeks later. Basically i need to put a bit more structure into what im doing to get more planned results....so here we go.....

If you start training for a competition eg BJJ, 3 or 4 weeks out, and aim to get to your target fitness eg running 4 miles, by the end of the 3 or 4 weeks, does this enable you to be at your peak competition time? Also how do you determine what your goal fitness should be?

Then once the competition is over you go back to learning new techniques in your normal class times. However you still want to do some road work as maintenance. Should the maintenance training be at a certain level compared to your peak for it to be effective eg instead of running 4 miles you should run 50% of the distance and do 2 miles? If so what level should the maintenance training be compared to your peak?

I was going to post in fitness but a good few lads here compete at a high level so could offer guidance for competing at a lower level:D.....
Cheers

Roper

When you run what you're doing is aerobic, BJJ has some aerobic work (anything you do for over a few minutes has) but by and large what you're doing is anaerobic. So train the way you fight.

Running doesn't do you any harm but it's not the most efficient thing to be doing if you're training for grappling. Your opponent is your bodyweight, so the first thing you have to do is to have the strength to master your bodyweight, plus someone else's. We have some targets for everyone in our gym regarding this. After that, it's about repeating those strength movements, over and over again for a given time. Does that make sense? So for example one of the lads sessions yesterday was C2 from this.

As for when to do what, I would say that the best time to build your strength is in the off season. You can dedicate more time to it, not have to worry too much about conditioning and since by and large your sessions will be made up of technical work, so you won't have to be too worried about being too exhausted from conditioning to do sparring. After that, say in the 4-6 weeks before competition, you might do one more conditioning and one less strength session per week.

OMCCABE

Your nervous system maybe struggling to cope with maintaining the work (that is presumably if you are going balls to wall in your trianing) if that is the case you may need to schedule a deload week to recover and also develop. Diet may also be a factor.

sul02

Roper, thanks for the reply. I see what you mean by conditioning using body weght training from your c2 circuit, I have to give that a go.

Does the intensity or reps increase gradually over the 4-6 weeks outside of a comp or is it enough to do one less strength and one more conditioning circuit?

Do you have a take on swimming for conditioning for grappling? I read that its good, but I think Id be more tired after a bodyweight exercise circuit than a swim.

sul02

Hi OMCCABE, I reckon diet could have been something to do with it on individual days but not when there was a pattern to it. The past month or so i have cleaned up my diet, just to be healthier (except saturdays )
Being honest I wouldnt go balls to the wall every time I train, but you could have a point in taking time to recover. Cheers for the reply