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Luger's Training program

36K views 269 replies 9 participants last post by  luger0 
#1 · (Edited)
I started roughly 14-weeks back on a Monday.

I place a high priority on overall endurance Monday/Tuesday, go for maintenance lifting, cardio and runs Wednesday through Friday and do light workouts over Saturday/Sunday.

I have a 70-pound bag in a shed, there is no air or power in the shed. The only amenity within the shed is a pair of primitive shelves on one wall.

Soon there will be a trio of resistance cords and a speed bag. The cords will be a 15,30,& 50 pound.

Within the month there will be a bench-press set.

So far I do a routine of 5-10 sets of 30 for all of my lifts/exercises on the 1st day (Monday) then I double the set-load for the 2nd day (Tuesday)

The exercises are as follows:
1. Regular push-ups, Elevated Regs.
2. Regular diamond, Elevated Diamond.
3. Side Rotated Fist-Push ups, Elevated Fists.
4. Regular Fist-ups, Elevated Fist-ups.
5. Spider-man pushups, elevated.
6. Planche pushups, elevated.
7. Crunches, 40-pound crunch, 80-pound crunch.
8. Elevated leg crunch, 5 & 10 pound ankle weighted reverse.
9. 50 pound and 60 pound Pull-overs.
10. 75-pound bench-press.
11. Curls (dual-armed) 40 & 60 pound.
12. 2.5 pound punch training.
13. 15-30-50 pound strike training (as soon as the cords come).
14. 60 pound squat.
15. 60 pound dead-lift.
16. 60 pound dual armed overhead presses front and rear.
17. 30 pound single handed curls and 50 pounds.
18. 30 pound punches (dumbbell)
19. 30 pound overhead presses and 50 pounds
20. 30 pound sit ups with single-handed dumbbell.
21. 100-pound squats.
22. 100-pound dual arm curls.
23. 100-pound stair climbs.
24. 100-pound walks (30-minutes)
25. overhead pull-ups, weighted.

From 26-28 I try to do at least bi-weekly.

26. light ab curls on machine 60Lbs heavy is at 120lbs.
27. machine overhead press, light 80 pounds and heavy at 140 pounds.
28. hip press machine, light at 80 pounds mid at 180 and heavy at 250 pounds.

29. Cardio/strength mini-circuit: 5 regular push-ups, 5 lateral fist push-ups, 5 vertical fist push-ups, and then elevated versions of these for 5 each, then 5 60lb dual armed curl, 5 overhead dual press @ 60lb, and 5 60lb squats in under 2 minutes.

This is primarily the body workout portion.

Now for my Striking I have a 70-pound punching bag that I plan on attaching 2-45Lbs plates and possibly 2-10Lbs.

I am Working on a blend of boxing and muy thai.

Right now I work on the bag three times a week for at least an hour up to 3 hours. I don't stick to one set I'll mix in as I please.

For monday I work on shin conditioning: sets of 100 roundhouse waist-level or into the abdomen-core and I do at least 4-5 sets.

For Wednesday, I work more on combos with the leg-strike to clinch range with the elbows and knees. I'll throw a heavy roundhouse run to the bag and stay in striking to clinch-range for about 5-10 seconds then dart out and do 10 of these for a set and do 5 or 10 in a workout.

For Friday, I combine all together: The shin-conditioning and combos all in one. Friday's normally run 3-hours.

When I have a training partner I'll do what I like to call fight-pace training. I will use the combos, with leg & hand-strikes at full force, full speed for 5 minutes take 2 minutes off and do 10 rounds in a workout.

This method is where I exert all of my force as fast as possible to see where the breaking point is.

In a few weeks I'll start semi-live sparring with 2 partners.

If anyone wishes to comment and add any conjecture please feel free.
 
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#53 ·
Hey guys, I took a few more days of re-coup and started light-training last week until luck shined my way sunday morning.

I was helping a lady on a prep-day for this weekend's coming re-enactment and fell from about 6-foot. I was extremely lucky that I landed on my feet. I knew something was out of whack when the large left-toe was hurting.

Later on in the day I found out it was bleeding a little and was swelling up a little.

I tried going out to the bag yesterday and had some success it definitely hurt to spin on the left foot, but I got some work on the free-style boxing and some leg-strikes on the right-side.

I swear if I am not in pain something is wrong.....
 
#54 ·
Yesterday was good.... I worked on overhand pull-ups, an hour of bag-work, got in 5 sets of 50 situps and called it good for the day.

I've got some swelling on my right-shin from striking the bag...fairly painful but it goes down quick.
 
#55 ·
I bumped up my weight training yesterday, I ended up buying two 10-pound plates for my adjustable dumbbell.

Right now it holds 50-pounds.

I worked on some bag-routine yesterday earlier in the day and lifts and body work later in the day with several circuit drills.

I don't know what it is called when you do a reverse press to your chest from the ground with the dumbbell but it definitely felt good with the extra 20-pounds. Right now I can barely get a single rep in at a 50-pound single-handed curl which is a fact that will be disappearing fast.
 
#56 ·
Things are going well with my 20 pound increase to my 3-core lifts the curl, overhead press and bent over row. The 50 pound dumbbell is providing me with a fun challenge now haha!

I am depressed though....somehow I messed up my left leg again. I may have slipped into a mode where I have been stretching my right leg more than the left and it is catching up.

We will have to see if that is the case.

Last week I started to implement a new stretch into my regimen, that could be the culprit as well. You stand on one foot and balance yourself out and try and raise your free leg as high as you can while maintaining your balance and keep it there for at least 60 seconds or as long as desired.

I have felt the potency of the stretch in 15-seconds of holding it on my left-side compared to 5-seconds on the right.
 
#57 ·
I am loving the gains I am seeing with the increased weight.

I have been working on the three heavier lifts daily now, and I am pulling off 4 sets of 10 curls and overhead press and 4 sets of 20 bent-over rows as a workout circuit for the upper body.

It isn't getting any easier as I increase in strength, it just means that things will become more enjoyable as I Push through and shatter my minds grip on what is possible.

Hopefully things will look better for finances after I deal with all of my medical expenses and my tax returns come. I can definitely say I will be glad to retake a nursing course early in the spring so I can bring in some much needed income.
 
#58 ·
Today was a good day of training. I spent the day on tightening up my striking techniques with my hands and kicks.

I can say I definitely need to work on my shadow-striking game more often than I do currently. I have been getting some decent instruction from a friend of mine who is a retired amateur boxer. This guy was crazy in his day one of his best losses ended in his being knocked out, but he ended up throwing a monstrous hook to his opponent's jaw that cracked in in two different places.

He has been helping tighten up my right-hook which is feeling pretty damned nice. The biggest thing that was plaguing the right-hook was the fact that my elbow was dropping before impact. I have been told that if you keep your elbow around shoulder height you can produce vastly greater power in the strike.

Over the course of today, I spent an hour this morning and an hour this evening working on the shadow-strikes. I know people have told me it is one hell of a workout and I definitely know that to be damned true now. I want to focus on this for a few weeks now while I gain power in my upper-body at the same time working on those 50-pound lifts.

I have one issue when I throw the thai roundhouse when I'm shadow-striking....It sounds odd but I feel so comfortable when I can throw the strike into a bag but when I throw it into thin-air it feels completely un-natural. How do you combat that feeling? Is it a mental issue?
 
#59 ·
I have one issue when I throw the thai roundhouse when I'm shadow-striking....It sounds odd but I feel so comfortable when I can throw the strike into a bag but when I throw it into thin-air it feels completely un-natural. How do you combat that feeling? Is it a mental issue?
lol This is funny. I almost posted this the other day actually. I have a hard time with this too. I'm really not even that good at shadow boxing... just feels awkward... but the kicks are REALLY bad. I feel retarded even trying and it seems like no matter how hard I try, my form is all jacked up. But on a bag, its not bad. Idk.
 
#60 ·
Today, was excruciatingly painful after this morning's workout.

I decided to push myself past my normal build-up workouts with the 50-pound dumbell and ended up doing 10 sets of 10 curls and 5 sets of 20 bent over row as a warm-up routine.

from there I proceded on working on my shadow-striking and punch-endurance. I ended up doing sets of 50 left jabs and 50 straight rights for a total of 20-sets or a thousand punches. Apparently when I was finished with that I wasn't satisfied and went on and worked a simple three punch-combo set of left jab- left jab- straight right and mixed it up to right jab- right jab- straight left for 300 combos of each.

After throwing close to 2-thousand hand-strikes I was utterly exhausted. I could barely keep my hands held high.

One note to bear in mind was the fact that I was not wearing any gloves during the workout. If my biceps weren't hurting whenever I moved them I would be working on another night like that.
 
#61 ·
I can finally say my arms are feeling much better now, I was able to work on my shadow striking after 3 days of having to sit without working on the regimen...

I did the shadow-work like before but I was wearing my 12 ounce boxing gloves this time around.

I gotta say that doing this work is extremely satisfying but difficult.
 
#62 ·
Gotta love the punch-drills, worked on busting another one of them out tonight.

I also added a new ab-workout that I go into in-depth detail here: http://www.mmaforum.com/training-nutrition/84382-simple-but-beautiful-ab-workout.html#post1305995

I can feel the affects after doing 3 sets of 20 for the toe-touch, directional crunches and side crunches.

It is great I actually worked up a decent sweat doing this and I plan on incorporating this style of core-work into my overall regimen.

I notice if you constrict as tight as you can and hold the breath it hurts that much more when you do these exercises which I love.

I won't be doing a whole lot this week except for sporadic light-lifting, the punch-drills and this new core workout-plan.
 
#63 ·
Things have been going well this week no major injuries to speak of which is extremely pleasant.

I have gotten three punch-drills in over the course of monday-wednesday and friday.

I have been working hard on my new core-workout plan, I have built a simple but brutal circuit around the standing core-work.

I will start with 20 standing sit-ups/crunches, 20 45-degree crunches and 20 side bends. From there I go and do 5 80 pound overhead presses, 5 80-pound dual curls and 5 80-pound squats.

I have been able to go through this cycle 5-times in a row. I love the insanity of this circuit.

I am having some difficulty stretching my right leg due to a slight issue that hopefully will be resolved.
 
#64 ·
I must say that I can notice slight-improvements to my overall cardio in relations to being able to throw more punches without gassing out and being able to keep stricter form of them when I do.

I was able to work the kink out of my right leg with a weighted split, it popped a few things into alignment and now I can resume my kick-training.

Overall I have been working on my core daily with 12 circuits of 3 to a set with each set I am doing 20 standing situps (constricted core toe-touch stretch), 20 standing 45 degree angular crunches and 20 side bends.

From there I do 5 75-pound overhead press, 5 75-pound dual-armed curls and 5 75-pound squats.

I have also been targeting my flexibility a fair amount I can see improvements from 3-days work on this, spending an hour a day solely on increasing my range of motion.
 
#65 ·
Things have been going well, I have been working on my core and power circuit all week and am loving every pain-filled moment.


My punch-drills are coming along nicely, I am able to keep an increasing number of strikes crisper both in their power and technique.

I was foolish earlier today though... I thought that my right leg was doing well, but I guess not. I was working on my right thai round-house kick and was able to strike to around 5 foot a few times but trying to push higher gave me some issues.

When I worked on this strike with the bag this summer I never ran into the issue I've got now. Which is lying inside of the thigh.

"Basically there is a tight-spot in the center of the inside leg that starts a few inches in from the groin that runs a few inches to the knee.

Has anyone ran into this before?"

Other than that things are good.
 
#66 ·
Things have improved drastically, over the last five days.

I owe a great deal of thanks to Squirrel Fighter, that lovable bastard knows what he talks about when it comes to stretching. I cannot say that I can pull a chinese split off yet but I am working my way up to that potential.

I modified the stretch to be able to do the same end result. For example my right leg was needing stretched...so I try to scoot it out as far as it will go currently.

In essence this isn't modifying, but just my flexibility hindering me from going further...at least with this stretch.

I have been making strides with the butterfly stretch, got mom conned into helping me. She got a ruler out, and I am 4 inches away from having my knees touch the floor!

In other news, I have been able to get into a rhythm that is punching out workouts that are at least twice as brutal than I was going into October "pre-injury".

I have been working on the cardio/explosive power circuit with the calestinic sit-ups. I am able to go through the cycle 6 consecutive times in a row now. I have moved from 12-cycles per day to 24. Which translates to 1,440 calisthenic sit-ups, 45 degree crunches and side bends and 120 75-pound dual arm-curls, overhead press and squats.

I am looking forward to bumping it up to cycles of 12 for 4 a day. Hopefully with that and my punch technique/endurance training my cardio will sky-rocket during the winter.

My goals for the new year are simple:
1 work on boosting my cardio.
2 work on overall explosive power.
3 buy another straight-bar and 2-3 hundred pounds of plates
4 when I move north buy a 6-foot thai bag and another straight bar.

My plan of attack is to maintain the punch-drills.
Work on utilizing 3-straight bars with 75-100-125 pounds and use those three in the cardio/explosive circuit drills, going from light to heavy in a set of three and doing that for 4 cycles.

I have several people who are wanting to help me with advice in my training locally:

I have a friend who is willing to work with me one on one to hone my striking skills.

The other works at a community college as an assistant coach for a soccer-team who supervises the weight-program for the team. He is giving me various ideas on how to tweak my regimen.
 
#67 ·
New style pushup

I am always looking for ways to keep things rolling with a varied plan of attack on my body and last night I found a unique style that I can actually pull-off with relative ease.

I don't know what the name of the push-up is...but you basically form a diamond like you would for diamond push-ups and place your hands out in front of you. From what I can tell your arms should be at a 45 degree angle to your body.

With my limited knowledge on targeting body-parts in workouts I would have to say that this style targets your triceps more-over than most push-ups would.

I have implemented this into my cardio/power circuit with 5-reps per circuit. We will see how torn my body is come Monday.
 
#68 ·
Holy Crap

That new overhand-diamond push-up is bloody brutal....this is what my cousin at west-point calls it at least.

My triceps are aching after doing two sets of 15 yesterday, I want to continue but it is too painful to force the work both in my arms and my core.

I felt a fun sensation in my core yesterday, but just a moment ago I was starting to get a hell of a workout...it feels like it targets your entire center-core from the waist-line all the way to your pecs.

It didn't help with the last set of 15 I constricted my core as tight as possible before starting haha!

I am more than happy that I was playing around yesterday morning searching for new push-ups, this overhand diamond push-up is going to be put in full swing when I recover from this momentary shock to my body. I feel it will be a great addition for my core/explosive power circuits.
 
#69 ·
Things were going great, I was in as close as I can call full-recovery from my injury in October.

I had finally worked out my kink in the left inner-thigh last night and started working on shadow-kicking.

I decided after kicking for 15-minutes that I was going to do some intense cardio as a warm-up for stretching. I did box-jumps for 15-minutes, and 6 cycles of the cardio/power conitioning.

I ended up stretching my quads per quad for 5-full 1-minute periods rotating back-and-forth till I hit the 5-minutes. From there I went onto a semi-advanced dual-quad stretch where you lay you back to the floor while you're stretching the quads.

I had touched my back to the floor, but I raised it slightly...like a bounce I think and then my left knee started popping I think 3-times in total.

Now I am in fairly horrible pain, I took a epsom salt bath last night and tonight. I am not sure how long this injury is gonna side-line me...but when I come back I'll be easing into the stretching regimen with extreme-care.
 
#70 ·
Things are improving little by little, at least I can go through a 5-hour shift without having too much discomfort.

It sucked though, today I was working on a regular cash-register. I had troubles if I would face the computer in front of me and then try and rotate left which is my bad leg now haha.. I didn't have nearly as bad of a time monday when I was working on express due to the fact that the bags were to my left on the same counter as the computer..all I had to do was shuffle left haha.

I have some good news in light of all this shit. I found some old elastic braces from high-school. I wrapped myself up last night and started to stretch lightly for 90-seconds on my bad knee. I was able to work on some thai-kicks with the braces on.

I wonder due to this injury...if I will need to continually wear a soft-brace during training or even matches. We shall see though.
 
#71 ·
Good-News

I went to the chiropractor today to make some payments on my standing bills with her.

During my stay I was talking about the injury to the knee and she is telling me I should continue with the light workout plan that I am currently pursuing.

Right now it takes me about 45-minutes to warm up my legs to a safe-level. I am able to do shadow kicks in front of a mirror without too much trouble.

I can rotate left further and further which is a good sign that what went wrong is correcting itself in due-time.
 
#72 ·
I am happy that a week has gone by now and things are going better with my left-knee.

I have been picking up the tempo slightly with catcher-squats.

In the past I was the teams sole catcher for baseball, I would sit in the squat for the night and it didn't bother me. Since hurting the knee I thought why not try this as a way to stretch out the quad and hamstring muscles.

I started doing light 90-second sets and doing 4 sets a day with my 75-pound bar on my shoulders doing the catcher's squat.

Last night I moved onto a 4-minute set, my legs were burning with a fever after that. I would like to build up the tolerance to place a 125 and eventually a 150 pound bar on my shoulders and work up to sitting in the pose for up to 3-hours daily. I have heard that the chinese sit in a similar pose while they eat, why not become even more flexible right?
 
#73 ·
Rest

I have had time to devote to recovery, it is tough not working on improving myself.

But I am taking some advice from a few friends and waiting till the new year comes, then I plan on resuming my regimen.

I love the addition of the overhand-diamond push-ups in my circuit training.

I feel so weak after doing 15 of them to start the circuit off, right now I am only able to make 2 cycles of the circuit. When I resume with full vigor I am planning on shooting for 6-cycles again.
 
#74 ·
Weighing in on the Year

I have to say I think I have come a fairly long way since I joined this forum so many months ago.

Sadly i has been only 7.5 months that I have been with you wonderful people. During that time I hit an all-time low of 158-pounds, while shattering mental-roadblocks along the way.

I have been pushing hard on being able to strike with rapid-pose, gain explosive power and a cardio-base that would allow me to step up to the sport.

Today was a good and bad day, this morning I hopped on a scale with "dry-weight" no meals or liquid in the body that was introduced excluding the night prior. What I saw shocked me it revealed that I am walking at 178 pounds.

It came as a brutal shock to my mentality that I had gained back the 20-25 pounds that I had cut away through the past year.

I am not sure how this will effect me in terms of competing.

I envision that the next time you are lucky enough to read something like this post I will be walking around at 185 or 204 pounds.
 
#75 ·
New Work

I started a new job at work yesterday in the produce department. I took an offer for a full-time load of hours.

There will be 40-hour weeks for a while now. I have to see how long it adjusts before I can crank up my regiment of training. Right now the job is kicking my ass in overall exhaustion from hauling 50-pound boxes around for 8-hours out of the day.

Do not get me wrong the job is easy enough with the weight that I tote around...it is unique running on your feet for the whole duration.

I feel when I adjust to the work-pace this new job will only aid me in my goal to get into the combative side of this sport!
 
#76 ·
5-minute cycle

I have made my power/cardio circuit into a killer beast...!

Yesterday was my 1st full day back on training after starting the new job.

I am doing 25 overhead-diamond pushups to start the cycle-5 overhead-press, 10 lunges per leg, 5 squats, 5 curls, and 25 of the standing core workouts sit-ups, 45-angle crunches and side bends.

I did a single cycle before work yesterday and today, after punching out the last side-bend both days I collapsed from exhaustion.

I hope that doing these brutal-circuits will allow me to keep moving at a rapid-speed at work.
 
#77 ·
Been Awhile

It's hard to believe that I was consumed by a cold for nearly 10-days.

I feel much better now after taking some of sweptleg's advice about rest and recuperation...not necessarily garnered due the illness haha.

My mind had told me it wasn't worth the momentary gains to continue full-pace with the circuit-training while I was barely surviving a single cycle.

Work was no picnic either....I was extremely sluggish and felt like crap each day, couldn't really breath well.

I am working on getting my core-strength built up with the overhand-diamond push-ups while I strengthen my knee.

I have some good news regarding the knee injury...yesterday I spoke with a good friend who works as a strength and conditioning coach for a college soccer team nearby. I asked him if he knew anything about what was going on with my leg.

It seems through what he was suggesting and after 4-hours of digging through the anatomy of the leg, I have come to the conclusion that my IT band was hurt...to what extent I have no idea.

After trying one of the stretches he suggested I thought barely anything happened, so with the aid from one of my heroes here "sweptleg" I was able to get the new stretch down pact.

I held the new-stretch where you place one foot over the other and stretch as far down as you can for two 30-counts. From what I can tell I will need to work on this stretch for some time, but at least I can say it works to alleviate my pain on the left-leg!
 
#78 ·
Stretching Circuit

I have been releasing the stress of my days with a nightly sauna-bath, afterwords I will start stretching.
I love being able to do the stretches right after the bath, due to the increased flexibility.

I just finished a long 4-part circuit.

I know that what I am doing is semi risky...but isn't all of the stuff we do to obtain our fighting form this way?

I will press my 75-pound bar over the head and go into a standing-side split with the bar on my shoulders.

I did this for 3-cycles, the 1st cycle went like this:
15-second holds at 6 different spread-points then as low as I could get for 5-seconds.

2nd cycle same as the first one but held the stretch points for 30-seconds and 10 seconds on the final stretch-point.

3rd cycle same as the previous, but held the stretch points for 45 seconds and 15 seconds for the final stretch-point.

between each cycle I sat in a catchers pose for 15,30,45 seconds and did butterfly stretches for 15,30,45 seconds.

After I went through these 3-cycles I went and worked on the stairs.

I did standing elevated side-splits first at the 4th-step, then rotated my leg so my heel was on the step and did the toe-touch stretch that way, held each pose for 15-seconds.

Then did the same for the 5th step, between each of these 30-second cycles I did the butterfly and the Illiotibal stretch, both at 30-seconds each pose.

I feel really good right now. I hope that I am motivated to do this stretching circuit after each sauna-bath.

If things go like they should I may be able to reach a full side-split in 4-8 weeks time. I am positive on one thing the slower I progress into this highly flexible pose the better...

I am maintaining the power/cardio circuits doing 4-per day. I will keep the cycles this way until I am able to do them at a explosive rate.

I hope the flexibility will allow me to improve my form for technique.
 
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