Strength and Conditioning Epsom, Surrey
Strength and conditioning for sports performance
We focus on specific movement patterns based on movements in your sport.
An athlete specific programme is strength and conditioning for those who need increased strength, power, speed, agility, endurance, and cardio-vascular fitness. For example; in sports such as boxing, MMA, muay thai, brazilian jiujitsu and golf, the aim is to increase the power of the swing, punch, kick. etc.
In fight sports you will need greater agility abilities to move around the ring, octagon or mat at high speeds to get in position to execute a shot; tennis will be more demanding therefore will contain explosive work and agility drills which get the body moving faster in all planes of motion. With so many sport disciplines out there, we need to understand that to be excelling in these sports we need a foundation which is strong enough to hold all the moderations that will be made later in the programme.
I have been currently working with two specific athletes that have stood out from the rest. Hadleigh Jalil Hadleigh Jalil (@hadleighj_1) • Instagram photos and videos and Nathaniel Wood ɴᴀᴛʜᴀɴɪᴇʟ ᴡᴏᴏᴅ (@theprospectmma) • Instagram photos and videos. These two fighters bring their positives and negatives to what I assist to develop into the ultimate all round athlete.
Nathaniel Wood has built a solid, stable, strong foundation in the mixed martial arts game. He is now signed to the UFC.com | The Official Home of Ultimate Fighting Championship where he continues his fight career. Since November 2020 we started working together in his off season, increasing his range of motion to assist with challenging moves in his mixed martial arts. Kicking high wasn’t always a task he could master due to the tightness of his body.
So this is where a strength and conditioning coaching is key to understand how to build a big pyramid. First you start with a large foundation, the wider the foundation the higher pyramid, We worked on opening his hip capsule for more ROM (range of movement) to improve his kicks, that way when he throws those shots, its like getting hit with a baseball batt!
We then started training for his fight on September 4th 2021 which has now been postponed due to a hand injury. Building up to this date focus was now on strength, Your probably thinking hold on, your training for a fight date and your not even near the top of the pyramid? Correct…
In order to develop an athlete, the aim is to focus on their weakness, not their strengths. Its pretty self explanatory, however coaches just don’t have patience or are always wanting to please the athlete with the latest trend to increase power!
In order to understand any scientific theory, you have to understand the formulation that led to the outcome. You don’t build champions by rushing through stages, it’s a preparation phase throughout there career priming them to what one day will be the world title fights. You have to be prudent, look down their scope, where do they see themselves? Depending on their vision also depends on how we structure our plan. Are we preparing them for the next fight? Sure, but even the slight performance overall percentage increases will have them fighting better than their previous fights.
How? Because their always improving their athleticism to become the ultimate all round athlete. The aim is to cover all areas with intricacy before you move onto the next level off the pyramid. I learned this the hard way, training Daniel Egbunike Daniel Egbunike (@dannydkdarko) • Instagram photos and videos for his southern area title fight before he pulled his hamstring on the 60m indoor sprint track David Weir Leisure Centre | Gym & Athletics Track | Everyone Active. This was because I stepped him up the phases to quick!
Patience is what creates champions, hard work and consistency following what is a established pyramid that has shown results in variety worldwide competitive sports.
Hadleigh Jalil is a new up and coming professional boxer, with potential to be signed with an established promoting team. We have two completely different athletes here, one who fights using every part of his body and one who studies intensively fighting with just their hands. So where does the sports specific view on training come in?
It comes in right after you have built the foundation of the pyramid. The focus is on the athleticism of the athlete, NOT trying to be as sports specific as possible from the get go. This is why dynamic athletes do well at adapting to sports because they have a better engine/system than the other peers. Take for example Damian Warner who has just won Olympic gold for Decathlon Tokyo 2021 with a record breaking 9,000 points. Damian Warner breaks Olympic record in men’s decathlon (olympics.com)
If he would off jumped in just the long jump individuals he would of won a bronze medal! Incredible athleticism, and yes, sure bio-mechanics (length of limbs, bodytype..etc) and phenotypes makes a difference depending on discipline, but at the end of the day it’s the hard work and dedication in improving your athleticism which separates you from the rest, and as Damian showed this year, its improving every area of weakness to win Gold.
“From my point of view, it is not the coach who becomes world champion, it is a team. Not just the players who played, but the whole squad, and also the team behind the team. Because if you want to achieve success, the whole team has to work perfectly, like a machine, and all the pieces of the puzzle need to fit together into one picture.”