In a sense, all grappling begins with a battle of grips.  Even in the standup game, the clinch positions and pummeling are extensions of the grip. Submissions are set-up by a proper gripping situation and to an extent, strikes can be too.

Randy Couture uses his grips to set up his preferred clinches, so does Karo Parisyan. From what I’ve seen, Jens “Lil Evil” Pulver uses grip fighting to set up his favored style of dirty boxing. A lot of fights really get dictated by the flow of the gripping positions.

Here are some videos to get your creative juices flowing.

First things first, the vid above shows some of the two handed gripping positions like the s-grip and the gable grip.

From the guard, there is one particular gripping situation that has both frustrated and delighted me – depending on who’s using it. You have one deep overhook and use that arm to reach over to the opponents non-hooked wrist. You’ve blocked his use of both of his arms and you’ve one free arm to punch, manipulate an armbar, or get into rubber guard’s mission control. In the video above, Kenny Florian uses this grip to stand up from the guard.

I was first shown this by Eric down at Fusion gym – I’ll tell you, it’s tough to escape.

Double wrist control from the guard is more potent in submission grappling than it is in MMA, and even more potent in gi jujitsu. In the video above, Frank Trigg illustrates why. Circling thumb-side and delivering elbows, compressing the hips forward when you do, helps break the grip and deal damage at the same time.

This circling applies both ways though, if you’re on the bottom and a guy is double wrist controlling you, you can swim around like this to break his grip.

Above: Greg Nelson, at Erik Paulson’s CSW, elaborates on grip training, freaky wrestler strength, and training.

For Judo players and gi Jujitsu, grip fighting is huge. Every match begins with a grip, and if you can control the grips throughout, you control the match. The above video shows a drop seoi nage drill that is pretty slick. Tony, one of my instructors, showed me something similar that the Gracie-Baja guys were killing people with down at the Mundials. You set up the same way, entering in for seoi nage, but instead of passing through the legs you disappear on the the side of the legs and remain control of the sleeve. You finish with an easy single leg take down, among other things.

Here’s a Judo friendly grip strategy video and another one about setting your power hand.

WARNING NOTE – I AM NOT A DOCTOR. I AM NOT A PHYSICAL THERAPIST. IF YOU ARE INJURED, GO SEE A PROFESSIONAL.

Kneeling on the mats for hours, slamming someone’s face into your knee from the Thai Clinch, heelhooks and knee-bars – fight sports can be tough on the knees. Many fight cards have been changed due to knee injuries, so much so, that it’s almost common.

I injured my knee a while back and have since done some research to help me understand the subject. Boy, there is a lot to know. Here’s what I found out.

To See A Doctor Or Not To See A Doctor, That Is The Question

“I’m I really hurt bad enough to go see a doc? Can I afford it?”

If you had an unlimited pile of money, sure, if it hurts – why not go see a doctor and check it out? Or maybe you’re on a team of some kind and lucky to have a a sports medicine specialist on staff- then the check up is free. Of course, there’s the chance that there’s nothing the doc can do to make you heal faster and all you need weeks of rest and relaxation.

To me, there are two major distinctions in terms of knee pain.

1. You just had a sudden pain hit while you training – caused by a distinct injury.

2. A nagging pain that develops as you train, over time.

For the second type of pain, go see a professional, because it may not get any better if you don’t do something different.

For the first type, I think Medline Plus gives some good advice:

Call your doctor if:

• You cannot bear weight on your knee
• You have severe pain, even when not bearing weight
• Your knee buckles, clicks, or locks
• Your knee is deformed or misshapen
• You have a fever, redness or warmth around the knee, or significant swelling
• You have pain, swelling, numbness, tingling, or bluish discoloration in the calf below the sore knee
• You still have pain after 3 days of home treatment

(From the National Library of Medicine’s MedlinePlus Encyclopedia: Knee Pain, www.nlm.nih.gov )

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Get A Correct Assessment

Maybe you’ve decided to go see doc, maybe you’re going it alone. Either way, before you know how to fix the problem, you have to know what the real problem is.

If you want a professional, get a doctor, orthopedic specialist or sports medicine doc to check out your knee. If you’re not sure who to go to in your area, see if you can find who your local college football, basketball, or wrestling team uses.

I understand, there are considerations. I’m not rich and I don’t have great insurance. Plus, I’m a “do-it-yourself” kind of guy. If you are going to wait it out and try self-diagnosis and home care, you might try checking out this knee problem page at www.webmd.com or this knee symptom page at www.jointhealing.com to see if you’re on the right track of identifying the problem. It’s important.

For instance, if you tear the the ligaments on the sides of your knee (the extracapsular ligaments, the MCL/ LCL), there is a good chance of the injury healing on its own. However, the other ligaments (intracapsular ligaments) have “have limited potential for spontaneous healing and frequently require surgical reconstruction” (source).

Common Problems and Solutions

In terms of injuries, some of the most common are (in no particular order):

• Hamstring tendon strain
• ALC/PCL/MCL tears
• Knee-cap (patella) dislocation
• Patella tendinitis (jumpers knee)
• Cartilage injury
• Bruises
• Iliotibial band syndrome (runners knee)
• (For a full list, see here)

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However, in the textbook Introduction to Sports Medicine and Athletic Training, it states that the most common sports knee injuries are MCL tears (I happen to have one right now). In the fight-sports, it seems that ACL injuries are almost equally common.

There is a great ACL Injury FAQ posted on grapplearts.com with some awesome specific info, and if you have one, check it out.

One good thing about knee injuries it one simple formula solves a lot of problems.

R.I.C.E.

R. Rest. You know, not working out.

I. Ice – Cryotherapy. From the above textbook, the general procedure is to ice your knee 4 times a day, for 20 minutes a session, each session 2 hours apart.

I’ve heard some guys say 10 minutes on, 10 off is good, but I’ve had good success with the textbook version.

Another tip from the text – when you make an ice bag, make sure you squish out all the air in the bag before you seal it. You’ll get better cold coverage on your knee.

Also, make sure you ice the top part of your knee, not popliteal fossa – the soft underside. It’s got a network of capillaries, veins and nerves. Icing can damage the stuff back there.

C. Compression. Apply gentle pressure to the knee – a knee brace or knee sleeve will do the trick. Make sure there is a “snug” feeling without being too tight. Maybe something like this:

E. Elevation – get that knee lifted up and try to stay off it.

Drugs

Here’s what I’ve been told by a nurse. Taking some medicine will serve two main purposes: pain-relief and swelling reduction.

You want to take a full dose of an anti-inflammatory – Ibuprofen, Naproxin, Aspirin. It seems logical, if you have minor pain just take a minor dose, right? In terms of controlling swelling, you really need the full (as directed) dose to get the anti-inflammatory effect you’re looking for.

The thing is that some inflammation can help, bringing in some good body chemicals, but too much inflammation is bad. Many injuries are serious enough that the body overcompensates with it’s swelling so taking some Ibuprofen for the first day or so after the injury is a good thing. As the swelling goes down and you don’t need pain management, you don’t need them. However, your mileage may vary. People react differently to drugs, even over the counter ones. You know the drill – use common sense and seek medical advice when needed.

Supplements

I’ve never been a big user past my weekly multivitamin, but some people swear by the them. Glucosamine, shark cartilage, omega 3 fatty acids/DHA/EPA complex (like highly the ever popular supplement Flameout ), calcium, vitamin C – there is a wacky, wild world out there pimping supplements to helps your joints. You can read about some of them here.

I think there is some value to a few, and if you’re training hard I’d make sure you’re taking enough of the most important sports supplement: food. There are many guys who are over-training or have symptoms of over-training because they aren’t getting proper nutrition from well balanced meals.

Rehab

If you have to lay off the knee for a while, you’ll need to be extra careful when getting back into training. When it comes to specific knee rehab exercises for you, I’ll leave it to your physical therapist. In general, here is a decent list of knee rehab exercises. The list includes stuff like step-ups, calf raises, squats (you can do just the first 1/4 if you need). Another list with some different options can be found here. It talks a bit about stretches, coordination, and usage of the stretch-bands.

In this article, there is a more structured, “back to full function” approach, as well as an outlined workout program.

Of course, these are just examples and may not suit your injury. However, whatever the game plan is to heal your knee, you have to see it to the end.

When you’re sick and the doctor gives you a set of anti-biotics, you need to continue taking them as the prescription dictates until they run out, even if you’re feeling better – if you don’t you risk re-infection with a now resistant bacteria. In this context, we get that. But when it comes to training, we just like to jump the gun. If the doc says, 6 weeks, no training – take six weeks off. If the doc out lines 12 weeks of recovery exercises, do them.

If you’re passionate about your sport, take extra care not to push too hard. When you have a weak link, you’re more likely to injure yourself again. You’re still at risk of re-injuring the knee, or even injuring another body part. While protecting the bum knee, you can put other parts in danger -that’s what happened to me, I was nursing a hamstring tear on one leg, then I hurt the knee on the other leg.

In the majority of texts I read, when things aren’t too serious, you can exercise with weights as long as your knee tolerates. Just take it slow and easy.

If you’re looking for a simple book to supplement your knee knowledge, you might want to pick up “Treat your knees” by physical therapist, Jim Johnson. It’s short, to the point, and solid scientifically.

Surgery

There are times when things are serious enough that no amount of rest and exercise will fix the problem. It’s time to consider surgery. Can you put it off? Sometimes. From the stories I’ve heard, most people said that they wished they had gotten it done sooner. Many people can continue walking around, living and training, but remember, there are injuries that absolutely cannot be undone with ice and TLC. If one of your cruciate ligaments are ripped to shreds, it’s only a matter of time before re-injury.

If it’s come to surgery, a book you may want to consider is “Heal your knees” by orthopedic surgeon Robert Klapper and water therapy expert Lynda Huey. They show a bunch of exercises like pool walking, underwater bicycle kicks and quad extensions. This book talks about x-rays, MRI’s, surgery, post-hospital advice, etc. To me, it would be more useful if you think you’re going to have to go under the knife than the above “Treat your knees” – which is more pragmatic and abbreviated.

Prevention

In an interview with MMA trainer, Greg Jackson, he says:

If you’re training smart and the people around you are trying to help – not hurt you – that’s important. I think most people get injured when their teammates are trying to take their head off. You can be competitive without trying to blow each other out of the water. So you need a cooperative competitive dichotomy and you’ve got to skirt that line. Most injuries I know come through people getting a little overzealous, rather than just the freak injuries.

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I think this is spot on for knee injuries. Good training partners both push protect you. The first line of defense for your knees is a safe, quality training environment.

Know when to tap, when to stop. One of the defining attributes of adulthood is knowing when to stop. There is a difference between discomfort pain and injury pain. Don’t let machismo mess up the next few months of your training.

If you’re knees are sore, give them time and protect them.

You can also do specific exercises to prevent knee problems. Here’s a page about specific ACL injury prevention – their program includes warm ups, stretches, agility drills, etc. If that’s too much, make sure you read the article “What squatters Knee’d to know“, by Frederick C. Hatfield, aka Dr. Squat. Hatfield goes over proper lifting shoes, knee wraps, and proper squatting technique.

Talking with a friend of mine who does some flexibility and strength coaching at the U of U, he gave me the tip to make sure you’re adjust the angles of your feet when stretching. He also mentioned that you don’t want to hit the same exercise the same way every time. For example, you will want to pick different variations of the squat, such as the sumo squat where your feet and knees pointing slightly out, squatting with a wider stance. Making sure you’re getting strength and life with those different joint angles is important to keep the knee stable and strong.

Resources/Refrences

http://www.gundluth.org/upload/docs/Services/SportsMedicine/knee-MCL%20gradeII-1+instability.pdf

http://www.jaaos.org/cgi/content/full/8/6/364

http://www.jaaos.org/cgi/content/abstract/3/1/9

http://www.fpnotebook.com/Ortho/Knee/CltrlLgmntTrOfKn.htm

http://www.fpnotebook.com/Sports/Pharm/RcThrpy.htm

http://www.fpnotebook.com/Pharm/Analgesic/NnstrdlAntInflmtry.htm

http://www.fpnotebook.com/Sports/Pharm/LclCldThrpy.htm

http://www.grapplearts.com/ACL-Injury-FAQ.htm

http://sfuk.tripod.com/articles_03/sports_injuries1.html

Of course in this case, when I say push ups, I’m not talking about a brassier or those most excellent rainbow ice-cream popsicles. I’m talking about the exercise that separates the men from the boys, the women from the little girls, and the hardcore from the sub-species of sissies known as wusstards.

Now that I’ve done some name calling, you probably want to know how push ups are going to get you cut, punch a hole through a brick wall, or just be stronger fighter. If you do want that,pay attention so you can forever leave the wusstard category, and join us over here at hardcore.

Relevance and Versatility

Push ups and variations are a staple of MMA training because they positively affect many of the things you do in the ring. Take down defense, punching speed, jujitsu escapes … push ups can even help with clinching power. Not only do they directly help specific MMA moves, but there are hundreds of push up variations. Variation is important to keep steady progress (or break through plateaus) and keep over-use type injuries at bay.

Strength Endurance

In MMA, you want to be able to generate high levels of body force for extended periods of time. The push up is one of the primary measurements – and builders of – strength endurance. Squeezing, pushing, etc. Even when you’re looking to develop speed, you need a strong core foundation of strength to reach higher echelons of performance. Without a proper base, you’ll be held back in many areas – regular endurance, max power, and top speed.

Plus, strength endurance goes hand in hand with grit and will power.

Hand Speed

Speaking of hand speed, you can develop sensitivity and hand speed with push ups. You just have to do them right. The right type of push ups can develop wrist/forearm strength and help prevent hand injuries.

Chest and Shoulder Development

Unless you put on a few pounds to make the next weight class, fighters shouldn’t be interested much in body building. When I say development, I mean increasing the muscles capacity to do work, and not increasing its size.

It’s nice to have big pec’s to impress the ladies, but they won’t make you fight any better. Certainly, if you need more strength, but just can’t get your nervous system squeeze any harder (fairly unlikely) putting more muscle on the bones will mean that you can lift heavier and generate more force. Like I said, “IF”.

With that aside, push ups are meat and potatoes chest, triceps, and shoulder developers. They will even assist you in punching harder by helping you keep shoulders relaxed, arms up. Relaxed shoulders = faster punches = more punching power. Depends on the type of push up your doing, but for most of them, that’s the general idea.

The Rules

Lets outline a few rules here.

Tempo matters.

Many people think they can crank off 20 or 100 push ups – but they are really just flopping up and down, head bobbing up and down super quickly.

Slow on the way down – don’t just fall down with gravity. *Lower* your self to the ground. Faster on the way up – forcefully push. It is optional to pause for a count at the bottom. No bouncing your chest off the ground like a trampoline.

The exception the this rule is when you do plyometric (explosive) push ups.

Quality over quantity.

It’s better to do 5 super strict push ups than 50 crappy push ups.

Hand position.

Appropriate hand positions include pushing up on your palms, fists (weight resting on your two knuckles closest to the thumb) or fingertips. When doing plyometric pushes, limit yourself to the palm on the ground style.

Fighters should prefer push ups on the knuckles because it strengths their wrists and teaching proper alignment when punching.

As for the position of each hand on the floor – like wide/narrow push ups – it depends on the specific variation. In general, keep your hands directly under your shoulders, the bottom of your palm about an inch closer to your feet.

Ears pulled away from your shoulders, neck long.

Your head should be in the same position relative to your body when at the top of the push up as the bottom.

Lats pulling your shoulders into their sockets.

Imagine for a moment that you are bench pressing. As you lower the bar, try to bend the into a horseshoe shape. When you do the push up, screw your shoulders into their sockets by “gripping” the ground and twisting two imaginary lids on a pickle jar. The lids need to be twisted towards each hands respective pinky finger.

When you’re doing this, you aren’t actually rotating the hands. You are just engaging the lat muscles with some mental imagery.

Stiff like a board.

Unless the variation requires it, your hips and torso should be solid and straight as a plank of wood.

Elbows in.

Don’t let them flare out. Keep your chicken wings down – ie: elbows tucked in to your ribcage.

The Exercises

The Basic Push Up.

Uppercut Push Ups

Your palms are facing your head, the fists are tight and positioned mid chest, close to your ribcage. Pretend you are doing bicep curls. This one hit the triceps, much like a reverse grip bench press.

One-Armed Push Ups

One armed push ups are pretty hardcore. Try them out after you’ve done a few weeks of regular push ups. They are an instruction on whole body tension. If you want some more specific training for the one armed push up, check out Pavel Tsatsoline’s book, The Naked Warrior. Here’s a video with a couple of variations. Note: In the vid there is about ten seconds of the dude doing kenpo karate, then he goes into the push ups, so don’t wig out.

Plyometric Push Ups: Clappers

Alright, that’s a little advanced, but you get the idea. To start off, lower yourself down and then explode up, pushing yourself off the ground. While in the air, make one clap, and bring your hands back underneath the shoulders to catch yourself on the way down. You absorb the drop of your body into the muscles, not your joints, so don’t have stiff arms and locked arms.

There are several variations of this type of push up. One of my favorites is getting one of those yoga blocks (see below) and putting it under one hand so it is elevated higher than the other. Hands are shoulder width apart. You explode up, flying up slightly to one side. As you come down, the opposite hand falls on top of the block. Like the picture below, but with a push up.

You can do this push up without the ballistic tempo and get a good stretch and range of motion in one side of your chest – similar to when you use push up handles.

Swiss Ball/Medicine Ball Push Ups

I was first introduced to these type of push ups by basketball players (they did them on a basketball, of course). The idea is that you’ll work your core and stabilizer muscles. You can put your feet on the ball or put the ball under your chest.

Hand Shuffle Push Ups

Here’s a video that shows a few examples of shuffling your hands while doing push ups that can help increase hand speed. These, in addition to clapping push ups, can boost your hand speed.

Gear

The push up handles that Chris uses in the video.

The yoga blocks that you can use to elevate one of your hands.

Most people understand that there is a difference between exercise for the sake of health and longevity versus exercise for the specific purpose of increasing sport performance.

Those who are interested in mixed martial arts and already have a dedication to working out should be commended. Your mental grit and willpower will make you a better fighter.

However, despite their good intentions, many would-be fighters are doing various exercises and performing work out routines that will have little or no impact on their performance in the ring. Worse yet, they may be doing things that are decreasing their MMA conditioning.

Ultimately, there are two questions that need to be asked for every exercise, drill and workout.

1. Why am I performing the exercise?
2. How will this exercise help my performance?

Body Building Vs MMA Training

I’ve heard it said that body building is the worst thing to happen to American strength training – and I tend to agree. In body building, your goal is to build a visually pleasing body – a sculpture. In MMA, any statuesque muscles and ripped abs are merely a by-product of training, not our goal. When we start the path of training to compete in fight sports, let us be careful to make sure we keep our goals in mind.

Muscles adapt to stimulus in some fairly predicable ways. It makes sense – do a few weeks at weighted bicep curls and you body will reorganize and change your body to be able to perform that exercise better. Not only do muscles respond to the weight lifted, but also the tempo of how they were lifted, the number of times lifted (sets/reps), the movement angles and the body positioning when lifted.

Now, in general, we don’t want to think about training body parts, but movements.  Kicks, punches, take down defenses – you know, the movements of MMA.

Be Specific

There are two definitive physical exertions in MMA – the burst of movement – like a flurry of punches – and the grind of strength-endurance  – like when a grappler is struggling to sink in a submission.

When you think of training the cardiovascular component of MMA, you need to think in terms of your expected output in the ring. Do you and your opponent have a foot race around the octagon before punching? More likely, there will be a few “feeler” strikes thrown, followed by a fast exchange of blows – possibly an explosive take down.

15-25 seconds of a ballistic fury of punches on your heavy bag, followed by 30 seconds rest models real cage fighting more than doing laps – especially from a energy output perspective. I’ve said it before, triathalon training isn’t proper cardio for MMA.

Also, in terms of the bursts of activity, MMA’ers want to be able to produce maximal power for their strikes. In part, the explosiveness comes from body’s ability to quickly recruit muscle fibers to help out with the action. On the flipside, maximal muscle contraction isn’t about quickly recruiting muscles fibers, but just about recruiting them period. Bench pressing your one rep max takes several seconds – and you know how grueling and slow that can be. However, that kind of exertion doesn’t really take place in MMA.

Now for the strength-endurance part. When you’re not striking, you’re grappling – clinching together, squeezing, pushing. Strength-endurance is the ability to exert your muscles at the higher ranges of tension for a length of time. This can be either one continious, long push, or a series of pushes in a lengthy series.

Two common tests of stregth-endurace are push ups and pull ups. “Drop and give me 20″ is just the start. It’s reported that Ken Shamrock had to perform 500 hindu squats to get into the Lions Den.

How Specific?

Certainly, we could argue that you should only be doing the exact movements present in the sport – sparring, heavy bag punching, weighted grappling.  That would be pretty specific wouldn’t it?

Well, there are problems with the “only do ultra specific exercises” mentality. Two come to mind immediately.

First, overuse injuries. Our bodies just can’t do the same exact thing every day for months on end. Rock climbers and tennis players alike know this. Carpal tunnel syndrome anyone?

Second, muscles and bones don’t grow to reach their max potential without multidimensional strength development. Plus, muscles can also develop synergistically in groups – like the biceps and triceps.  Strength in one body area can be throttled by lack of strength in another.

The truth is that there is a range of specificity – exercises that are close enough to the movement increase your proficiency. Earlier I mentioned about the speed of lifting your one rep max – I didn’t mean to imply that building your 1RM won’t be helpful – because it can – but that it isn’t the topic right now.

Body Positioning

The [study] results stress the importance of selecting exercises in which the posture closely resembles that of the movements they are attempting to facilitate.

- From the article The specificity of strength training: the effect of posture ; European Journal of Applied Physiology; Volume 73, Numbers 3-4 / May, 1996 (link)

For the purpose of skill enhancement, you want to perform exercises in the same body position in which you’d see them in the ring. Again, this makes sense. Even though it works the quadraceps, the seated leg raise doesn’t influence the squat max like a front squat does. You are pushing the weight in an entirely different plane, one against gravity one perpendicular to it. Seated leg presses should be good for your butterfly guard sweeps and up kicks – but not as much so for your standing kicks and knee strikes.

The study cited above did some work along those lines of thinking.

Specific Doesn’t Mean Isolation

Don’t get too hasty now – remember that your body is like a team of muscles. When the muscles are coordinated, they will all help each other out. Take punching, for instance. If you want to puch harder, you’re going to need to specific shoulder, lat, arm and chest muscles to move the fist to another dude’s face. However, if you have a weak base, your punch will lack the back up power to knock out opponents. Pushing from your legs increases the punching movement’s speed and power.

Some Odds and Ends

• Free weights model MMA much better than weight machines. When fighting, you’ll have pressure exerted on you in all different directions – training in one static plane is … let’s leave it at “bad”.
• Multiple joint exercises are a great way to go. Not only are they an efficient use of your time, but activities like punching use muscles from your feet all the way up to your shoulders. Squats, bent presses, side presses, turkish get ups, dead lifts, kettle bell swings, etc.
• Explosive movements should be done with care, under good supervision. I love plyometrics – box jumping, medicine ball throws, snatches, clean and jerks, etc – just make sure you’re trained to do them right or expect injury pains.
• You need some wit to add weight to certain movements. If you wear wrist weights when boxing, in what direction does this add resistance? Hmmm… how would you add non-ballistic resistance to those punches in the opposite direction of the punch?
• If you’re competing in a match with 3 rounds of 5 minutes, train accordingly. Training in a circut that has 5 sets of 3 minutes wouldn’t do the trick, nor would one continuous exertion of 15 minutes.

Of course, this is a throwback to basic goal setting. I am reminded of an exchange between Alice and the Cheshire cat from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to
Alice: I don’t much care where.
The Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.
The Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.

For further reading, check out the NSCA’s article of specificiity for sport – those guys know their stuff. Another good read is The Physical Needs of MMA part 1 and part 2.

If you can spring for it, below is an excellent book. Dense, serious, and scientific. I got my copy from the University of Utah library.