Revolutionize Your Training: Building A Fighter's Expert Guide to Combat Sports Performance

Are you a combat sports athlete constantly battling fatigue, injuries, or plateaued performance? Building A Fighter offers a premier online training platform and a comprehensive approach to strength and conditioning specifically designed to help MMA, BJJ, wrestling, and kickboxing athletes achieve their goals. Founded on pillars of Performance, Longevity, and Community, Building A Fighter helps you increase your capabilities both on and off the mat, leaving your body healthier than when you started.

The Core Philosophy: Train Smarter, Not Just Harder

At Building A Fighter, the philosophy is centered around creating a "well-oiled machine" out of your body, prioritizing proactive care over reactive injury management. This isn't just about being tough; it's about being smart with your body to ensure longevity in the sports you love.

Key principles driving their approach include:

• Individuality Breeds Ingenuity: While fundamentals are crucial, a boilerplate approach limits potential. Elite performance comes from an individualized approach that fosters unique attributes and addresses specific needs, rather than treating everyone the same way regardless of experience, weight class, or movement literacy.

• Intention Drives Adaptation: The how you workout dictates your results. Training with purpose and intention – whether focusing on tempo, speed, or specific movement portions – yields different and superior metabolic stimuli compared to mindlessly going through motions.

• Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing: In the pursuit of optimization, it's easy to get sidetracked. Building A Fighter emphasizes identifying and accomplishing the primary goal first, avoiding overzealous attempts to work on every variable at once.

• Build Successful Systems: Reproducible, high-quality results come from efficient and intelligent systems, not just "flying by the seat of your pants". This applies to every aspect, from practice flows for skill coaches to testing and progression for strength coaches, and assessment methods for healthcare practitioners.

Comprehensive Training Methodology for Combat Athletes

Building A Fighter's approach is meticulously designed to optimize every aspect of a combat athlete's physical preparation.

1. Crucial Assessments

Understanding your current fitness level is paramount. Regular assessments provide insights into your progress, help identify weaknesses, and allow for training adjustments. Building A Fighter assesses athletes across seven critical categories:

• Strength: Measured by tests like 3-rep max trap bar deadlifts, split squats, landmine presses, and weighted pull-ups.

• Power: Evaluated through exercises such as med ball shot put, broad jump, and vertical jump.

• Endurance: Assessed via tests like a 3-minute push-up test and 1.5x trap bar hold.

• Aerobic: Tested with a 15-minute max calories on an Airbike.

• Alactic: Examined using short, intense Airbike intervals (:06/:30 on Airbike x 10).

• Lactic: Measured with 30-second on/off Airbike intervals.

• Movement Quality: Includes assessments like breathing in supine, sidelying shoulder sweeps, deadbug complex, and overhead squats.

It's recommended to re-test every six months to track progress effectively.

2. Strategic Programming and Scheduling

Improper scheduling is identified as the #1 reason fighters feel overtrained, fatigued, or consistently injured. Building A Fighter emphasizes:

• Workload Management: Your training volume and intensity must be tailored to your specific goals. If you're gaining size, volume increases; if you're in camp, S&C volume decreases to accommodate sport-specific training. Building A Fighter offers resources like a workload management worksheet to help achieve this balance.

• Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE): Rate each training session on a 0-10 intensity scale to manage overall stress. Easy sessions are 4/10 and below, moderate are 5-8/10, and high-intensity sessions like sparring are 9-10/10.

• Prioritizing Sessions: Rank each session's importance, especially as you move through different training cycles (in-camp vs. out-of-camp).

• Macro to Micro Planning: Coaches should have a macro plan, a meso viewpoint, and the ability to make micro-adjustments to avoid short-term gains at the cost of long-term growth and prevent overtraining.

3. Dynamic Warm-ups and Essential Cool-downs

A proper warm-up primes your body, reduces injury risk, and enhances performance. It should increase heart rate, prepare your shoulders, spine, and hips for movement, and engage your nervous system, all within 10 minutes or less. Cool-downs, including static stretching and breathing exercises, help gradually decrease heart rate, reduce soreness, and calm the nervous system for better recovery.

4. Tailored Training Levels

Training programs are adjusted based on your experience level.

• Beginner (Under 2 years S&C experience): Focus on mastering primary patterns, total body workouts, and 1-2 modality conditioning. Out of camp, build muscular endurance and an aerobic base. As camp nears, introduce basic plyometrics and strength work, shifting to more plyometrics and alactic power towards the end of camp.

• Intermediate (2-5 years S&C experience): Diversify with upper/lower body splits and multi-variable conditioning. Out of camp, focus on General Physical Preparedness (GPP) using tools like sleds and density circuits. In camp, emphasize strengths while using accessories for weaknesses, focusing on strength-speed and alactic capacity/lactic power.

• Advanced (5+ years S&C experience): Engage in complex, specialized regimens including lactic conditioning and conjugate setups. Out of camp, address all deficiencies and increase GPP. In camp, bias max effort work with volume, incorporate unilateral/offset loading, and prioritize alactic power and multi-level plyometrics.

5. Specialized Training Concepts

Building A Fighter integrates specific methods for combat sports:

• Core Training: Focuses on anti-rotational and anti-extension stability rather than just crunches. Key movements include Pendulum Chop and Hold, Farmer’s Carries, Stir The Pot, and Sled Windshield Wipers to build total body rigidity and connect feet with the core for force generation. Emphasizes "building that Power Barrel" by expanding the trunk with air, not just sucking in.

• Movement Quality: Addresses common issues like low back overuse by promoting true hip extension and efficient mid-back (thoracic spine) movement for punching power and stability. Movement flows combine multiple movements into cohesive patterns, enhancing mobility integration and reducing "blockiness" in combat sports.

• The Mario Kart Training Paradigm: Out of camp, the goal is to be a generalist, fixing deficits and raising lower stat bars to create a balanced athlete, ready for any challenge. In camp, training becomes highly specific, raising the "ceilings" of qualities tailored to the upcoming opponent and game plan.

• Top Movements: Incorporates less common but highly effective exercises like Landmine Split Jerks for upper body power, B-Stance Trapbar variations for sport-specific trunk stability, Sandbell Punches for upper body power endurance, Sled Power Rows for triple extension power, and Pogo Hops for bounce endurance.

• Intentional Sprint Work: During camp phases, the focus shifts from lactic capacity to repeat power, utilizing increased rest ratios in sprints (e.g., 1:4 or 1:5 work-to-rest) to maximize power output and adaptation.

Recovery and Injury Mitigation: The Pillars of Longevity

Building A Fighter understands that recovery is as crucial as training itself.

• Comprehensive Recovery Tips: This includes effective workload management, good nutrition ("Eat like an Adult"), and prioritizing ample sleep (minimum 7 hours nightly with a consistent bedtime). Every hour of lost sleep can increase injury risk by 6-10%.

• Smart Supplementation: Recommends multi-vitamins, fish oil for brain health and anti-inflammation, creatine for explosive power (with a note on water retention), and caffeine for pre-practice energy.

• Recovery Modalities: Beyond the basics, effective modalities include contrast therapy (sauna and cold tub) for bang-for-your-buck benefits, though cold tubs may be avoided if muscle mass gain is a priority. Foam rollers and massage guns can provide temporary relief, but active mobility work and blue zone cardio (easy 3-5/10 intensity for 45-90 minutes, 1-2 times a week) are the best long-term recovery solutions.

• Proactive Healthcare: They advocate for a culture change in combat sports where injury is seen as part of the journey, not a sign of weakness. The emphasis is on fixing the root cause of issues, not just treating symptoms. This means getting "tune-up bodywork" like a high-performance car, rather than waiting until you're completely broken down.

• In-Camp vs. Out-of-Camp Therapy: Clinical goals shift depending on whether an athlete is "in camp" or "out of camp". In camp, the priority is mitigation – helping the athlete feel good and perform optimally, often utilizing manual therapy for quick fixes. Out of camp, the focus shifts to elevation – addressing chronic movement faults and long-standing issues that can be detrimental to health and performance.

• Weight Cutting Awareness: Building A Fighter highlights the significant injury risks associated with rapid weight loss. Research indicates that for every 1% of body weight lost beyond an average of 5.7% (for healthy athletes), the risk of in-competition injury increases by 11%.

Your Path to Becoming an Elite Fighter Starts Here

Co-founded by Dr. Austin Schoen, a Chiropractor and Strength Coach, Building A Fighter brings a unique combination of expertise to combat sports. Their online training app delivers customized strength and conditioning programs with features like a weekly training calendar, instant messaging, and workout tracking, removing barriers to consistent, effective training.

Whether you're looking to develop power, build muscle, improve health, or enhance your overall game, Building A Fighter can guide you. Stop plugging through your practices tired and injured. Take the first step towards optimizing your training schedule and performance.

Ready to revolutionize your training? Visit buildingafighter.com to explore programs, or DM "workload" on Instagram (@buildingafighter) to sign up for a 100% FREE 15-minute call focused on optimizing your schedule, where you'll receive a free individualized PDF of your optimal training schedule.