We recently had a BJJ session with a very young coach who put together a great session for us. He really is a young man and is tiny, weighing only 50 kilos. His assistant told me how strong the coach was despite looking like he wasn’t. I mentioned that no-one would like to be hit with 50 kilos. It’s an important point but is often forgotten when considering how to increase punching power. When...
Lyoto Machida has taken the MMA world by storm. He has brought something a bit different to the table, his fighting style incorporates his Shotokan and specifically sport karate background, which along with his other martial arts training has helped him fight his way to the UFC Light Heavyweight Title. He has had the karate forums buzzing due to the success of one of their own. For non-karate background MMA fighters he has proved...
One year ago Khan lay battered, knocked out in under a minute by Colombian Breidis Prescot. Destroyed and despondent Khan sacked his trainer, picked himself up and searched out one of the best trainers in the world, Freddie Roach. Roach trains Pacquiao so at the very least Khan had good training company! Pacquiao has improved hugely under Roach and Khan could expect to also. The recent clip I posted of Pacquiao training gives a...
Potentially the greatest, anyway. Yesterday it was announced that the Mayweather vs Pacquiao scheduled for March 13th is off due to a row over the drug testing procedure. It seems that the Mayweather camp has been casting doubts over Pacquiao’s status in regard of performance enhancing drugs, despite there being no evidence at all to suggest he is anything other than completely clean. Pacquiao has agreed to the standard drug-testing protocol of the Nevada...
Increasing Punching Power by Opening and Closing The waist area is packed with muscle and potentially will add substantially to your power punching. In karate Senseis often tell you to use your hips but they should really be interested in the waist. After all the hip is no more than a joint between leg and pelvis. There is a lot of muscle working across and around this joint which can contribute to the power...
Someone commenting on my original post concerning the Nigel Benn vs Gerald McClellan world title fight from way back in 1995 indicated that a new documentary about the fight was going to be screened on ITV in December. I missed the screening on the 5th but have just watched it on ITV player (there are still 21 days left to watch the documentary – The Fight of Their Lives). The bloke who commented mentioned that...
We’ve been working on distance and timing recently and this post will attempt to define and illustrate some of that work with video of exceptional boxing defense. I learnt very little about this subject before training at Primal where it was given great importance. It seems that this area of training is often neglected in many forms of martial arts, although it should not be. I am not the only person with this opinion,...
A critical quality of a true champion is the ability to keep fighting when the going gets tough. This never say die attitude will get the champion out of seemingly impossible situations to claim the win. There’s nothing more exciting to watch than a dramatic comeback from the (apparently) dead. If a comeback happens quickly then it is all the more dramatic and all the more exciting. On the other hand a comeback at...
In last weeks post about creating an impression of the early years Tyson I tried to get over how I attempted to achieve this rather abstract concept. It’s not easy to describe, almost by definition, because describing the process requires you to be left brained about a right brain activity. While, of course, the left and right hemisphere’s of the brain interact through the course of our everyday lives, the left hemisphere is dominant....
This post takes a look at the role the deeper core muscles play in connecting the top and bottom portions of the body, i.e. the torso and the legs. This connection is critical if the full potential of power generated is to reach the intended target, because often it is not. Muscles of the Core Muscles are arranged in layers, particularly in the middle of the body, commonly known as the core. At the...
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