Here is some feedback and some more pull-up variations that drifted in from the ether since the last newsletter (which had the link to the 19 Pullup Variations video)

1 – Here are two other BJJ-oriented pull-up videos that Martin Rooney made available online (thanks to “Shanghai BJJ” on Sherdog for pointing these out). Get more information about Martin Rooney at Training For Warriors

• Partner Gi Pullups
• Gi Pullup Series

2 – This is the Typewriter Pull-up (similar to my Triangle Pull-Ups). Thanks to Ike, a Grapplearts Newsletter reader, for writing in with this.

” I have always liked the typewriter variation. Go to the up position and hold chin above the bar, Now move your body right and left towards your hands,then back to center and down. Smokes the delts, traps, and lats. Enjoy!”

3 - Here is a variation on the Towel & Gi Grip Pull-ups. Thanks to Philip, another Newsletter reader, for sharing it.

“I cross my arms to replicate a palm-up palm-up, or palm-up palm-down cross collar gi choke. It really simulates grabbing the opponents collar and sucking them in for the choke.”

4 – and some advice from Ryan (Precision Health Studios)

“One thing I vary is the tempo of these movements. You can perform pull-ups for speed/power (like your plyo pull up) by performing 3-5 as fast as possible to work fast twitch fibers. Heavy eccentric pulling movents work well functionally for grappling.

Also, for those individuals who have difficulty with regular pull-ups can use superbands under the feet to give them a bit of a boost, or have a partner help you with assisted pullups.

Finally, remember that while TRX suspension handles and rings are cool, a few feet of chain or ropes work just as well.”

5- A question from “Snitz” on the Sherdog forum:

Question: “Awesome! Pullups are a staple of my workouts, being a crossfit devotee. What do you think about kipping?”

Stephan: Kipping Pull-ups are great, that bar was a little low, the cage too unstable, and my kipping skills not yet polished enough to show them properly in that video.

In previously newsletters I’ve sung the praises of the pull-up. Grappling is much more about pulling than it is about pushing – using your arms to maintain the over and under grip in rearmount, tightening up the rear naked choke, bodylocking an opponent, or hugging someone’s leg when applying the kneebar are all examples of pulling. Pull-up training makes your pulling movements (and your isometric holds) much stronger.

So check out the new Youtube video I finished editing last night. It features 19 variations to challenge your upper body pulling and gripping muscles.

For your reference, here is a list of the exercises I show:

1. Standard Pull-ups
2. Standard Chin-ups
3. Parallel Grip Chin-ups
4. Wide Grip Pull-ups
5. Triangle Pull-ups
6. Alternating Chin-ups
7. Towel Grip Chin-ups
8. Gi Grip Chin-ups
9. Bodylock Pull-ups
10. Short Choke Pull-ups
11. Crunched Pull-ups
12. Upside Down Pull-ups
13. Weighted Pull-ups (weightbelt)
14. Weighted Chin-ups (medicine ball)
15. Weighted Chin-ups (weight between knees)
16. Reclined Pull-ups
17. Reclined Rope Pull-ups
18. Plyometric Reclined Pull-ups
19. Weighted Chin-up (heavy bag)

I filmed this video in a 40 minute span and was getting tired by the end – I wonder why? My lats were also pretty sore for the next few days, a pleasant and ever-present reminder that my body was recovering and getting stronger.

Additional resources on this topic:

• My Favorite Upper Body Exercise
• More About Pullups
• Details on the Rear Naked Choke (including the “over under” grip)

As is so often the case, Mark Twain said it best: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” This applies to dogs, grapplers, MMA fighters and jiu-jitsu players alike.

Obviously a grappling match is a physical and technical battle, but having a strong will to win gives you the edge when technical and physical attributes are closely matched. The size of fight in the dog (or the will to fight of the jiu-jitsu practitioner) is not constant however, and sometimes it can disappear altogether. When you’re sparring you can sometimes feel the exact moment when your opponent’s will to fight slips away. All of a sudden he doesn’t want to be there anymore, his movements and techniques lack conviction, and often he offers you easy submissions just to bring the match to an end.

The ebb and flow of your will to fight can be influenced by many things, but the two huge negative factors are 1) exhaustion, and 2) frustration. Both of these factors can absolutely sap your will to fight. In this article we’re going to take a look at preventing these fight killers.

1) EXHAUSTION

The most obvious reason for getting exhausted is that you might be out of shape. You don’t have to be fat to be out of shape: you might be skinny but if you’re not challenging your lungs and muscles at regular intervals then it is unlikely that you’re going to be in grappling shape.

What can you do about it? Check out these resources (all are previous articles and tips on Grapplearts.com):

• All else being equal, work on your endurance
• ‘Cardio’ for martial artists
• My default cardio workout
• Going anaerobic, part 1
• Going anaerobic, part 2
• Going anaerobic, part 3
  

If you ARE in good shape but still find yourself regularly exhausted while grappling then there might be some other factors at work:

You might be holding your breath while grappling.

and/or

Someone might be blocking you from breathing with their weight – choking your diaphragm. Escaping this often requires bridging, but not really to escape the position. Initially at least your bridging will be more about creating room to shift your body slightly and get his weight off your diaphragm.

and/or

You might be getting smothered, making it hard to breath, leading to exhaustion, leading to your will to fight vanishing.

and/or

You might be freaking out and wasting all your energy due to claustrophobia, a condition often undiagnosed among grapplers. Learn how other grapplers recognized and dealt with this condition.

2) FRUSTRATION

Frustration on the mats is very disheartening: it’s hard to keep your spirits up if nothing works, no matter what you do. Severe frustration can be enough to make most of us start doubting our own abilities, and can even make some people throw in the towel altogether.

If you’re feeling frustrated because opponent is bigger and stronger than you and nothing you try is working, then check out what I’ve previously written about this topic:

• Beating the bigger, stronger opponent
• Beating the big guy (again)

If you frustrated by your opponent’s technique then it might be time to change the rules and confront him on another playing field. Is he an open guard player? How about attacking with leglocks? Does he open your closed guard with ease? Maybe it’s time to baffle him with the half guard. You can read more about the concept of using your strengths against his weaknesses here.

Sometimes all you need is to make a little adjustment and your frustration vanishes. A good illustration comes from my own sparring: recently I was trying to escape my training partner’s sidemount and things just weren’t working at all. I started getting very frustrated with myself and my technique, but then I realized that I was only trying to escape by using lateral hip movements to put him back into my guard. I had been completely ignoring escapes involving bridging and/or coming onto my knees.

On that day I had a uni-dimensional side mount escape game, and this meant meant that my opponent could anticipate and shut down all my escape attempts, resulting in a very frustrated and disheartened Stephan Kesting. As soon as I realized what was going on I faked with lateral hip movement, bridged, turned and turtled. From there I spun and put him in the guard, and immediately started feeling a lot better.

Sometimes (albeit rarely) you will be outclassed on every front: your opponent is bigger, stronger, faster, more conditioned, more flexible and more technical than you. In this case you’re allowed to feel frustrated, so long as you take this frustration back to class with you and resolve to develop an unstoppable level of technique.

Several months ago I wrote a piece about online grappling drill videos. I recently came across a few other videos that are relevant to that list.

The first features Renato Tavares, a third degree BJJ black belt, and the second features Hywel Teague, the editor of Fighter’s Only Magazine

Longtime readers will recall that I’ve written about overtraining, under-recovering and exercise-induced illness before (e.g. Don’t Get Sick and Overtraining in MMA). It sucks to have a streak of hard training sessions interrupted by the flu, and being overtrained makes catching that flu almost inevitable.

About the only objective measure of overtraining I know of is to track morning resting heart rate. To do this take your pulse before you get out of bed: after a week of doing this you’ll have a pretty good idea of what your normal rate is. If your heart rate on a given morning is 10% or more higher than normal you might be coming down with something and/or be inadequately recovered from your last training session.

Most mornings I reach for the stopwatch and take my pulse for 30 to 60 seconds. These days I’m usually reading between 42 and 44 beats per minute. If I wake up and my heart rate is higher than usual – more than, say, 46 beats per minute – I monitor my body and energy levels very carefully that day. If I notice other signs of sickness (e.g. fatigue, sore throat, etc.) then I will either train very lightly or not train at all that day.

Another advantage of tracking resting heart rate is that it can tell you when your fitness is increasing or decreasing. A gradually decreasing resting heart rate usually indicates improving aerobic (and possibly anaerobic) fitness. Your resting heart rate can also go down if you lose a lot of weight, since your heart now has less body mass to force your blood through.

On a side note, one of my fitness goals is directly related to resting heart rate. I’ve been doing a lot of running and cardio recently, and my goal is to wake up one of these mornings and find out that my resting heart rate is 39 beats per minute or less. Wish me luck!

Someone asked me recently “if the bodyweight conditioning routine on your website is an easy workout, then what does your BJJ coach, Marcus Soares, consider a hard workout”?

With Marcus every warmup workout is different, although generally the sequence he uses goes something like this:

1. arm and chest exercises
2. leg exercises
3. neck strengthening
4. abdominal conditioning.

Every workout he does is tough (and they get even worse before a competition). Also for a while we were training at a place that had a lot of small dumbells (2 to 10 lbs) available, and the exercises that he made us do were just brutal.

To give you an idea of what a typical tough workout is I’ve written down a routine that he made us do a few days ago. I’d be lying if I said I did every repetition – I’ve only seen a few people do an entire Marcus workout perfectly, and they were all 160 lbs or less.

• Jumping Jacks c. 3 minutes
• 5 sets of 20 pushups and 20 “jumps”, for 100 pushups and jumps in total. Jumps are basically partial squat thrusts: keep your hands on the floor and hop your feet from being close to your hands to a pushup position (i.e. photos 2, 3, and 4 of this exercise without standing up).
• 50 Chinese pushups (Exercise 3 in Marcus’s ‘easy’ workout)
• 100 mountain climbers – start in a low sprinter’s starting position, both hands on the ground, one leg bent and forward, the other straight and backwards. One count involves jumping and switching legs (forward leg goes back back leg goes forward) and then jumping and switching legs again.
• Standing stretching forward and back
• Bodyweight squats for 3 minutes (I did c. 130 squats) – go from standing straight-legged to a low squat position with your back upright. The picture below illustrates the final position:

• 15 sets of a compound exercise where you do 3 partial squats and one jump up into the air, feet clearing the ground. For the partial squats go to a low squat position (pictured above) and bob your but up and down by c. 6 inches, but never straighten your legs. Leap up from this position as well.
• Hold the low squat position 1 minute
• Stretching: stand and place your legs apart, bend at the waist to touch the left leg, and then the right leg
• Neck bridging: 30 front and 30 back. Neck bridging was discussed in this tip – I did other neck exercises instead).
• Seated butterfly stretch
• 50 x straight situps, feet on ground (I did crunches instead)
• 30 x modified V ups: lie on back and lift legs to 45 degrees off the ground. Now lift your torso towards your legs and simultaneously open your legs to form ‘V’ – at the top of this movement only your buttocks are on the ground.
• 30 x modified V ups. Similar to above: start lying on your back and start flutter kicking your legs up and down. Maintaining the fluttering motion bring your torso off the ground towards your legs and return it to the floor 30 times.
• 50 x modified leg lifts. Start in a V-up position with your hands on ground and your back and legs off the floor. Your legs move in a “V” (i.e. up to the left, down to the middle, up to the right), remaining straight for all 50 reps.
• 50 x modified leg lifts: sit as above (hands and butt on ground, legs and back off the ground). Now pump your legs in (bring feet towards butt) and then out (legs straight and in the air) 50 times.
• 15 x teeter totter stretch (the last exercise in Marcus’s ‘easy’ workout)

This entire routine is done at a fast pace with no rest between exercises other than the designated stretches. Good luck getting through it!

When people think of conditioning they often imagine people doing cardio and strength training separately. In this paradigm you might run in the morning and then lift weights in the afternoon, or go lift weights for 45 minutes and then finish up with 15 minutes on the stairmaster. In today’s newsletter I want to point you in the direction of some interesting conditioning videos to give you some ideas you can use to spice up your workouts.

This separation of cardio and strength training IS a valid approach, and many grapplers have benefitted from it. The trend in recent years, however, has been to combine the two areas into a single workout, especially as one is getting closer to peaking for a specific event.

Periodization means not doing the same training all the time, and most high level athletes periodize their training. Periodization also means having a plan, and this has to be tailored to the athlete’s strengths, weaknesses and goals, as well as the availability of time, energy and equipment.

A very simple periodization routine might be as follows (assuming that you’re already in half-decent shape)

1. Spend one month powerlifting for hypertrophy and overall strength development using basic lifts (e.g. squats, bench, weighted pullups, etc.) done for fairly low repetitions (e.g. 4 to with perhaps 2 to 3 minutes of rest between sets. During this phase you might also be doing a couple of longer runs for cardio each week.
2. Spend one month concentrating on the more explosive lifts (cleans, jerks, snatches), plyometric movements (box jumps, clapping pushups, etc.) and sprint workouts.
3. The final stage would be a month of whole-body endurance training using a lot of supersetting and circuit training.
4. Now you would taper your training over about a week and prepare for your competition.

Most of the routines below would fall into the final category (whole body endurance training). Longtime readers of this newsletter will recall that I value endurance over strength when it comes to grappling, so it is perhaps predictable that I would find these types of circuits fascinating. I hope you enjoy them too:

Wanderlei Silva’s Routine
Yes, it’s done with the nose taped shut and the infamous snorkel

Fight Gone Bad by Crossfit
This is the circuit that BJ Penn compared to “a fight gone bad”, hence the name. I found the video a little confusing, so I went to the Crossfit site to find out what exactly they were doing

Alan Belcher’s S&C Routine
A nice example of ‘complex’ training (immediately following a low rep, high weight strength exercise with an explosive/plyometric exercise)

Randy Couture’s Circuit Weight Training Routine
Randy is THE man, need I say more?

Jake Bonacci Interview (S&C coach for Xtreme Couture)
In addition to demonstrating different exercises Jake talks about program design, which is possibly the most underestimated and poorly understood aspect of combative conditioning.

MMA Conditioning Circuit
MMA fighter Hywel Teague demonstrates a tough conditioning circuit.

Rich Franklin’s Workout
It’s interesting how Rich’s circuit, unlike many other pro MMA fighters, incorporates a lot of machine work.

Mirko Cro Cop Training
I particularly like the exercise which combines sprawls, lateral jumps and strikes, forcing Mirko to produce explosive power while fatigued, just like in a real fight.

Jeff Monson Pre-UFC Circuit Training Video 1
Jeff Monson Pre-UFC Circuit Training Video 2
It’s obvious from Jeff’s physique that he has put in a lot of time under heavy iron, but this is how he develops the endurance to stay strong even when tired.

Shawn Sherk Caveman Training
Shawn is one of the best conditioned MMA fighters out there, and this video helps explain how he got to be that way.

Brock Lesnar’s UFC Preparations Part 1
Brock Lesnar’s UFC Preparations Part 2
This guy is an animal. When is the last time you saw someone this big and strong with this much endurance?

Pablo Popovitch Preparing for the Abu Dhabi Combat Championships
I like how they use the monkey bars for different whole-body exercises!

And Now Some More Conditioning Videos

The next 6 videos I’m listing aren’t exactly circuits, but they are too cool to be left out of discussion of grappling conditioning. There are many useful grappling-specific exercises and variations in these videos.

Karl Gotch Conditioning for Combat Sports
Karl Gotch, may he now rest in peace, trained many of the pioneers of Pancrase, Shooto and Shootwrestling in Japan. His influence can be seen both on the techniques used in Japanese combative grappling and in the conditioning methods used in many Japanese dojos.

Sambo Conditioning
This is just a class warmup, but the exercises they do are significantly harder than would be done at the average recreational club.

Jiu-jitsu Specific Pullup Training
Scott Sonnon presents some pullups that look like they would benefit both grapplers and rock climbers, two sports with similar grip and pulling strength requirements

Frank Shamrock Conditioning
This video shows Frank doing some isolated exercises and some very nice solo flowing on the ground

Damian Maia in the Gym
The BJJ star shows off some of the unique exercises he does in the gym

Combative Conditioning
This is a highlight video from a commercial DVD which I haven’t seen but looks good.

RossTraining
Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the videos and witness hard work without a lot of expensive equipment.

Ginastica Natural
I have to include this video: It’s not really conventional conditioning, but it is applicable to grappling. Ginastica Natural is a movement and exercise system developed in Brazil, resembling a combination of yoga, gymnastics, contact improvisation dance and animal kung-fu. It has influenced many top Brazilian grapplers.

Grips and Hips
The guys on the video are from the Ralph Gracie competition team. They took home Gold, Silver, and Bronze at the 2007 Pan-Ams.

Randy Couture Preparing for Tim Sylvia, UFC 68
Randy sparring, doing plyometrics, resistance band training, etc.

Q: I would like to own a grappling dummy but all the ones I have looked at are very expensive. Do you have any suggestions?

A: There are many commercially available throwing and grappling dummies available on the market, including the Bubba dummy, Erik Paulson’s Motion Master and Submission Master dummies, the Adam Takedown Machine, the Big Blue Dummy, etc. These are all quality products and can all be valuable training accessories, but as you point out they are very expensive, ranging from c. $400 to over $2000, not including shipping!

One possible solution is to try and make one yourself. An example of plans can be found on this site. If you make it and find that you DON’T enjoy using it then at least you are only out about $50, rather than ten times that much.

One quick note: if you build a dummy make sure that the knees and elbows bend. I have only limited experience with grappling dummies, but I have found that I prefer dummies in a ‘turtle’ position rather than in a standing position (ie straight legs and arms). The ‘turtle’ position simulates ground postures and positions (both top and bottom) much better than a straight up, ‘standing’ position.

Q: I was wondering if you had any tips/techniques/ideas/routines for anaerobic conditioning drills?

A: Yes I have some suggestions for you. First of all, check out some routines here and here, first published on this site a long time ago:

If these aren’t enough for you then also check out the interval training suggestions on this site: www.trainforstrength.com/Endurance1.shtml

STAIR TORTURE

I have a love-hate relationship with running stairs. Today it hurts to sit down and it hurts to stand up. I limp around slowly, but still feel a bit smug about having had a great workout three days ago. Nothing gets your heart rate up and your lungs burning like hill or stair sprints,

I used to run a lot of stairs as part of my conditioning program. My favorite was the “Wreck Beach” stairs, consisting of about 400 steep steps going down to a nude beach (this is the West Coast, after all). One sprint from bottom to top took a little less than 3 minutes, and after 3 repetitions I’d be completely, utterly done. It’s been years since I lived in that area, though, and getting to a good set of stairs takes too much time to do it regularly.

So recently, while out and about, I found myself with a half an hour to kill. I saw some steps heading down to the ocean and decided that it was time to do some anaerobic work. I walked down the stairs, and then sprinted up as fast as I could, trying not to chuck my cookies near the top. The trip from bottom to top took about 2 minutes, so I walked back down and did 2 more sets. Recovery time plus walking to the bottom of the stairs took about 4 or 5 minutes each time, so the whole workout took less than 20 minutes. I’m not exactly what my final heart rate was, but it was probably between 180 and 190 beats per minute after each sprint.

The reason my legs are killing me is because my legs are essentially unaccustomed to this kind of work. You can do all the lunges, running, squats and stairmaster you want, but none of it simulates the extreme stress of uphill running. It’s fantastic, effective and efficient conditioning for the legs, heart, lungs, and fighting spirit.

————————————-

Next week I’ll continue working my way through the pile of questions submitted by the readers.

If you have ever met or trained with my BJJ coach, Marcus Soares, then you probably know that he considers physical conditioning to be very important for the BJJ fighter. In the newest Grapplearts article Marcus discusses the how, why, where and when of BJJ conditioning. He also shares a bodyweight conditioning routine you can use to get fit anywhere, without any specialized gym equipment.

Whenever I read an interview with a fighter there is usually a question that goes something like “what do you do for conditioning?” Too often the fighter says something like: “I run, I swim, and I lift weights”

This generic answer is frustrating to me because I want details! How long does he swim? How often? What strokes does he use? When he runs, does he run steadily or does he do sprints? When he lifts weights does he bodybuild, powerlift, olympic lift or do circuit training?

I want to know these things for several reasons. Firstly they are interesting trivia. Secondly they may give me some good ideas for my own training. Thirdly – and this is what this week’s tip is all about – part of me wants to see how my own level of conditioning stacks up against his.

Now I’m not a superstar competitor, but I do dispense conditioning advice fairly frequently in this newsletter. If I follow my own philosophy then I need to post my own training achievements for other people to scrutinize, criticize and compare.

So here are my ‘numbers’ (i.e. the best I ever did at an exercise or event). Keep in mind they reflect a 10 year span during which I fluctuated from 205 to 220 lbs, depending on my ratio of weight training to cardio at the time.

1. 400 meter sprint: 1 minute, 17 seconds (yes this is slow: I don’t have alot of fast twitch muscle)!
2. 1.5 kilometer run: 9:45
3. 1.75 kilometer run: 11:02
4. 11 kilometer run: c. 55 minutes
5. Firefighter Combat Challenge: 1:32
6. Barbell squats: 225 lbs for 25 reps, 405 lbs for 2 reps
7. Barbell bench press: 225 for 3 reps
8. Body-weight pull-ups (good form): 20 reps
9. Weighted pull-ups: 50 lbs for 5 reps, 80 lbs for 1.5 reps

I have always loved running at nightfall. Tonight I slipped out of the house at 9:30 pm, and ran for 40 minutes, thinking mainly about two things. The first was the fantastic montage from the movie Ali, where a young Cassius Clay is running through darkened city streets preparing for his match with Sonny Liston. The second issue bouncing around in my head was the controversy between aerobic Long Slow Distance training (LSD) and anaerobic High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) for jiu-jitsu and grappling conditioning.

As discussed in Cardio for Martial Arts, conditioning sessions can be long or slow, easy or hard. Most MMA and jiu-jitsu conditioning experts currently advocate HIIT, consisting of short bursts of high energy exercise and/or some form of circuit training. According to this school of thought, grappling matches and MMA rounds are essentially sprint events; the old school boxer’s long hours of roadwork are counterproductive and only condition fighters to run long distances, not to fight.

I know I am in the minority here, but I think that doing some LSD or aerobic work is very important, at least for me.

In various phases of my competitive career I have alternated between doing a lot of anaerobic work and a lot of aerobic work. When I was trying to get on the fire department, for example, I was running longer distances 5 times a week (a typical run was 45 minutes long) and my grappling felt GREAT.

After I got onto the fire department I competed in the Firefighter Combat Challenge, an essentially anaerobic event. Accordingly I did tons of sprints and relatively little distance work. Despite a lack of fast twitch muscle I eventually ran a 1:32 in this event which is a very good time (1:40 is considered ‘elite’ level), so my anaerobic conditioning must have been pretty good. My grappling did NOT feel as good during my Combat Challenge career.

Now two anecdotes don’t prove or disprove anything, it is just food for thought. Perhaps LSD’s beneficial effects on me are reflective of my fighting style (fairly measured and even-paced), or perhaps there was something else entirely going on. Regardless it would be very hard to convince me not to do aerobic work if I were preparing for a major competition. Furthermore I sometimes hear rumors that there are some elite fighters – Pride’s Fedor Emelianenko for example – who also run long distances as part of their training, so maybe I’m not totally out to lunch

I’m not anti-HIIT at all, I just like to include a lot more LSD training than is currently fashionable. I run slow and fast, long and short, depending on my mood and my training schedule.

I’ve got to take my post-run shower now, but before I do I want to emphasize that, for the vast majority of people. any training is better than sitting on the couch. If running longer than 15 minutes bores you silly then sprint, sprint, sprint. If you don’t like to be gasping for breath, then enjoy your long jogs, and don’t worry too much about these academic debates.

This week I added a new article to the Grapplearts library called The Drills of Shaolin. In this article renowned BJJ and MMA fighter Vitor ‘Shaolin’ Ribeiro show four of his favorite drills that he uses for conditioning and sport-specific skill development.

Now 95% of people who read this article are going to look at it, think that this is sort of cool stuff, and then let the material fade from memory. I am urging readers of this newsletter to actually try doing a very specific workout and see how it feels.

Here is my challenge:

Get a willing partner and spend a couple of minutes fooling around with each drill, just so you have the body mechanics down. This will make it harder to cheat when you actually start training.

Now take the first drill (the swinging armbar) and do it AS FAST AS YOU CAN for 40 seconds. Your partner watches the clock so that you don’t have think about anything else other than armbars and how tired you are. When you are done, switch top and bottom positions (no resting) and your partner does his 40 second sprint. Switch positions and repeat until you have each done the exercise three times

Now immediately go on to the other exercises (kneemount drill, top armbar drill and guard passing drill). You and your partner each do 3 sets of 40 seconds for each exercise. Try to keep your movements FAST AND LIGHT from beginning to end, and don’t rest between techniques or between sets.

The whole workout is just over 16 minutes long, with ‘only’ about 8 minutes of work for each partner: sounds easy doesn’t it? Give it a try and see!!

This week I will continue to discuss pull-ups, which are my favorite upper body strengthening exercise. Here I tackle a few questions I’ve received since last week.

Q: How many sets of pull-ups do you do in a session?

A: If I am doing a ‘normal’ strength training session I usually do 3 sets, but it really depends on my energy levels and what other exercises I’m doing in that workout. If I am tired I may only do one or two sets. If pull-ups are the main focus of the workout then I may do 5 or 6 sets, varying hand position each set.

Q: How many pull-ups do you do in a work out?

A: Again this really depends, both on the speed of the pull-ups and on how many sets I do. If I do the pull-ups slowly and with good form then I might only be able to do 10 to 12 pullups per set, so if I do 3 sets with strict form I will do about 35 bodyweight pull-ups. If I do the pull-ups faster with slight cheating (kicking with the legs, etc.) then I can do a lot more. The number of pull-ups someone can do is affected by their bodyweight, strength, grip, endurance, hand position and the speed of the pull-ups. Don’t get too hung up on the total number of pull-ups you can do, just do them!

Q: How much time for recovery is necessary after maxing out?

A: I usually rest one to two minutes between sets of pull-ups (and most other exercises as well). The less time you rest between sets the more you are working on muscular endurance. The longer you rest the more you are working on strength. Sometimes I shake things up and jump on the stairmaster for a minute between sets of pull-ups, which really makes me feel miserable!

Q: What about seated pulldowns on a cable machine? Are these equivalent to pull-ups?

A: I think that pull-ups are mostly superior to cable pulldowns, but obviously doing pulldowns is better than not doing anything at all. Pull-ups are harder (especially if you add weight) and they may also impart a little bit of gymnastic athleticism.

If I could do only one upper body exercise it would have to be pull-ups. Grappling is much more about pulling than pushing, and pull-ups are a convenient way to develop strength and endurance in your lats, biceps, and other pulling muscles.

You can do pull-ups in the gym, on a tree branch, or on monkey bars in a playground. I try to do pull-ups using three different hand positions: palms facing away from me, palms facing towards each other, and palms facing me. This develops strength in slightly different ways, and on the mat you never know exactly how your arms are going to be positioned.

Here are some additional pullup variations you may want to experiment with:

• Pull-ups with extra weight (tuck a dumbbell into your lifting belt)
• Pullups with static hangs: pause in mid-pullup
• Pullups gripping a gi or towel draped over the bar
• Upside-down pull-ups (pike up so that your feet face the ceiling)

Don’t get too hung up on the number of repetitions you can do. The maximum number of pull-ups achievable really depends on how fast you go. If I go up and down really fast, and bounce a bit at the bottom of my pullup, I can probably do twice as many as if went through each pullup slowly and smoothly. They are tough no matter how fast you do them.

Some people say that you should change your conditioning workouts on a weekly or even daily basis; “you have to shock your body” they say. I believe that there is some truth to this, but I also think it is important to have a routine, or a constant workout that you do repeatedly.

Let’s talk about my default cardio workout. To do this workout I run a trail over gently rolling hills near my house. Close to the end of the trail is a park where I usually stop and do two sets of pullups. After the park I have 5 more minutes of running uphill and then I’m headed for the shower. All in all it takes me about 25 or 30 minutes to complete the run, and I usually do it once or twice in an eight day cycle.

Do I think that one should vary one’s conditioning routine? Absolutely! Do I believe that sprint work is important? Yes, especially close to competition! So why do I do this same workout again and again? Here are some of my reasons:

1. By doing the same workout periodically I have an objective measure of fitness: if it takes me over 30 minutes then I am either out of shape, tired, or getting sick.
2. It maintains my aerobic fitness, which is the base for your anaerobic fitness (see one of my early articles www.grapplearts.com/Martial-Arts-Cardio.htm for background information on aerobic and anaerobic fitness)
3. It conditions my body for more intense training, such as stair running or intervals
4. I don’t have to think or plan this workout: I just go do it.
5. If I am not feeling energetic I can do this run slowly and still achieve some base aerobic conditioning.
6. I enjoy it: running a trail through the forest is quite relaxing

Until next week…