UFC middleweight attraction, Josh Samman details his workouts via a unique and ultra detailed tracking system.
This is a guest post from our Bloody Elbow brother, Josh Samman and the first in a new series I'll be doing with several fighters called Training Tracker. As Josh progresses through this training camp leading up to his fight with Eddie Gordon, he will be conducting a series of interviews and guest posts detailing his progress. This one is an in depth look at his method of tracking his physical conditioning progress.
"I don't know where this term ‘training camp' in MMA came from. There's no campground. There's no tents."
-Nick Diaz, G.O.A.T.
Hello BE community. The following is an entry in a new series created by Steph Daniels called "Training Tracker", in which Bloody Elbow will follow the training methods of professional MMA fighters as they progress through a training camp en route towards fight night. From what I understand this is the first of many to come from various fighters, and I am honored to be asked to bring in what I think will be a cool way for fans and aspiring fighters to get a better idea of the particulars that a fight camp entails at the professional level. This is by no means an attempt to insist that this is the one and only way to get ready for fights, simply my contribution to the community with the methods that have worked for me.
As much as I love Diaz, and as amazing as the above (and all Diaz quotes) are, training camps are a very real thing in MMA, and the term came from other professional sports. A training camp, put plainly and most simply, is just a period of increased diet and exercise. Diet is something that can be kept up year round, but in order to be in optimum shape for fight night there are indeed peaks and plateaus to the human body that are achieved through exercise, and it's best to reach those peaks in the final days leading up to the fight.
The following is a system that I have created and used for years now for my own camps, in which I've attempted to devise the most methodical approach possible to getting in optimum shape by a certain date. My approach is constructed around three important guidelines; quantify or rate your daily workouts, keep meticulous records of said workouts, and make sure you're being honest with yourself, otherwise it's all pointless. The concept is that if we are to learn and grow from each successive camp then we need to be able to assess what was done in each prior camp and what can be improved upon. All of this is impossible without information to analyze, which is where the record keeping comes in.
Each day has a target goal of what I call "workout units". Workout units are a method of classifying workouts based on intensity. This gives me the ability to revisit days, weeks, and months afterwards, with numbers, to quantify my results and track my progress along the way. Now when I say quantify, the goal is to assess the workout in two ways- one with hard data, and two, with the difficulty level that I completed said workout. Workouts are written down in a log with as many details as possible, as well as given 1-5 points, or "workout units", based on intensity of exercise. A "1" is breaking a light sweat, and is usually reserved for more passive exercises. A "5" is when you're looking around and realize you've been on every fucking machine in the gym, or maybe a conditioning exercise that had you reaching for the bucket to puke numerous times.
My goal for each day is 10 workout units, including at least one workout where I am pushed to a point that I would classify it with a difficulty of 4 or 5. Some days it will be less than 10, often days it will be more, but the goal is 70 per week.
Any and all workouts are evaluated and recorded. Workouts always target one of three categories; technique, strength, or conditioning. Of those three categories, they are all split into another three sub-categories, which allows me to see exactly how much time and effort I dedicated to very particular areas.
Conditioning is absolute first priority during camp. I watch several dozens fights every month, in all combat sports, and in my opinion the winner is most often determined by who can breathe better. Conditioning for this purpose refers to lung function specifically, as muscular conditioning is classified in conjunction with strength workouts. It is my opinion that in order to be an elite athlete you must first be an elite endurance athlete. As anyone who has ever trained in combat sports can attest, there is nothing in the world harder than defending yourself against an aggressive opponent when you are exhausted, and there is not a much easier task I've come across than picking off someone who is much more concerned with getting their next breath than they are what exactly I'm going to be striking them with. It's absolutely boggling and insane to consider, but it is absolutely true that when you are tired you would rather get punched in the face than keep your hands up. It's not intentional. The moment you begin to fatigue, your hands just inadvertently drop. It's not as if you can't pick your hands back up, you're able to the moment your coaches remind you to. It is just that in the economy of the human subconsciousness, somewhere in there, we decide that that's a good trade off, potential brain damage in exchange for a few extra seconds to regain a comfortable breathing pattern and dissipate the lactic acid in our arms. It makes no sense, but what we gather from all of that is that the better you breath the better you will perform, bottom line.
Anywho, conditioning as it stands in this system is done mainly through three exercises; running, swimming, and rowing. These include a wide range of distances and pre determined times, and are always included with detailed numbers. Too often MMA conditioning is done in the soon-to-be-outdated "I did x number of rounds on a circuit/sparring/heavy bag/etc." The number of rounds you did is one way to look at it, sure, but unless you have an advanced force measuring machine implanted in your trainers mits, or sparring partners headgear, simply counting number of rounds is probably the most misleading and inaccurate way to determine true output potential. Each round is different, from punch velocity, numbers of punches, movement traveled around cage/ring, all those things are too hard to determine. Instead I choose to use conditioning exercises that are much more practical to track, and more precise. Sometimes the exercise will be a timed mile, sometimes it will be a 15 minute run and maximum output will be determined in distance. Sometimes it will be a number of different improvised breathing/distance challenges in the pool, or maybe one long mile/half mile swim for time. Sometimes it will be a 15 minute row, where the unit of measurement in something called a "split time" or average per 500 meters. Sometimes my cardio for the day will be just a short 5 minutes of maximum output on an ERG (indoor rowing machine), or sometimes maybe a 10 minute row. The idea behind that is to be prepared for any length and pace of fight. If he sets a pace where he wants to really find out who has more gas in the tank, or if I sense that he's a fighter that can't keep up with a frenetic pace in the first round, then I am then able to step on the gas, put it in that gear, and be able to exploit a difference in conditioning, or at the very least match his pace. Separate breathing exercises are also done out of the gym, and are given one point for every time done throughout the day.
Technique takes second priority during camp, at least one activity that day will be solely dedicated to martial arts. Technique training is split into three; pure striking, pure grappling, or MMA, and is done primarily at MMA Masters in Miami, Florida, under the tutelage of Cesar Carneiro and Daniel Valverde. MMA is preferred over pure striking or pure grappling whenever possible. Technique is almost always done in 5 minute intervals whenever possible, and the number of rounds are recorded upon completion.
Strength training in the form of lifting is done in bulk in between fights, but is continued far into camp, to the week before leading up to the fight, albeit with less priority. Strength workouts (lifts) are also divided into three classes determined by body area; upper body, lower body, or core. Splitting all my lifts into three separate body parts allows me to lift every day should I decide to, and still have two days of recovery in between each lift for that particular body area. Lifts are specifically evaluated on three criteria; amount of sets, amount of rest in between each set, and level of muscle failure with each set. These three things are evaluated on a relative scale, and also may be better determined by assessing muscle soreness in the following days. All lifts are designed to target muscular endurance as well as explosiveness, and in order to best accomplish this I traditionally do three sets for each particular exercise, starting with a light weight that I can perform 30-40 reps of, to an increased weight of appx 20 reps, down to a set with heavy weight that I can perform 8-12 reps of. I try to limit lifts to movements that mimic those done in a fight. This means lots of multi-muscle engaging, with several specific pushing and pulling motions. I don't split my days into bis & tris, delts & traps, or whatever other combination of vanity workouts that many gym goers swear by. No curls, not much flat bench, functional strength training for my sport only. I'm far more interested in what my ability is to pull someone's head into a knee (in the form of lbs), as well as the strength and velocity with which I can drive my knee and hip forward into said head that I just pulled down, much more than I am interested in figuring out how much I can deadlift for a one rep max. Lower body workouts include hip abduction and flexion exercises, which are often given their own day. In addition to a series of lifts, various grip strength exercises are also factored into this category, and given one point per occasion.
Many times exercises that will be geared towards one thing will overlap with another. Sparring would still fall under technique even though there is certainly conditioning involved. Running surely taxes the lower body, but it would still be classified as conditioning as opposed to lower body strengthening. Workouts always fall under the category they were intended for when being recorded.
Here is an example, from March of 2013, leading up to the Kevin Casey fight:
Monday must have been a day when I was in Tallahassee, because I was doing the two things I do most when I'm training in Tallahassee, running stadiums and hitting mits. Before I moved to Miami I had built my own camp in Tallahassee, with a good friend and boxing instructor named Joey Burtoft. He and I still work together when I am in town, and have competitions to see who can keep going until the other drops, often reaching 9, 10, and 11 five minute rounds. Great fun.
Right below that you'll see a recording of a stadium workout, at FSU's very own Doak Campbell. Doak Campbell has one of the longest straightaways in a college football stadium in the nation, and it proves still to be one of the best tools to determine exactly how much hell I can take in the form of physical exhaustion. All stadium workouts are split into three parts with a minute rest between each. This day was 27 total, in series of nines.
"BE" stands for breathing exercise, which is a very specific practice that I do, and I do it ideally three times a day.
Tuesday was a day in which I designated rowing for daily cardio, and I rowed a 142.1 split time for 15 minutes straight (time/500m). This is a couple weeks before the fight, and is very close to my personal record.
"SB" indicates a workout done by simply shadowboxing, refining technique through repitition. These workouts are sometimes up to an hour long, and usually are accompanied by weights, either two or five lb hand weights. A shadowboxing workout would have to be unusually strenuous for it to ever rate above a 1.
Many days I will take note of my weight throughout the camp, especially if it is abnormally high or low.Tuesday I felt it was kind of high for being so close to the fight, and took note of it.
By Wednesday I was back in Miami. Clint Hester usually comes down to do both of our camps together, and was training with me this day, as noted. Many times I take note of who I specifically trained with that day in order to help in memory retrieval of what my sparring sessions felt like in the days leading up to the fight. Often times reminding myself who I sparred with will jog my mental memory as to how I did and how I was feeling that day. Sometimes if I don't perform up to par I will write down exactly what happened that I didn't like, and how I could change it next time.
Wednesday also was a day for my mile test, which is a weekly test I do to gauge what should be roughly equal to a round of fighting, at the fastest pace I can possibly muster. Towards the end of camp, I will always shoot to be sub 5 minutes for one mile, as well as sub 15 minutes for 2.5 miles.
Sauna conditioning is performed at least a few times a week, in conjunction with extensive stretches, This increases my flexibility, as well as makes things a quite bit more comfortable for me when I finally have to get in the sauna to cut the last few lbs before weigh ins. 30 & 30 indicates the amount of minutes spent in the sauna, in two intervals. Sauna sessions always score a 1.
Thursday was business as usual, with an added grip exercise added in, which is also an exercise that rarely scores over 1.
Here is another example, from my current camp, with another detailed breakdown below:
Many of the times when record keeping, it ends up being alot of codewords I have with myself, mainly for convenience sake. Up top on Sunday I have a series of rep counts that I did for a leg workout. The leg press, as it stands, is one of the of the few workouts that I do more than 3 sets of. I start with one plate, and add another on each side for each corresponding number of reps. I don't include the weight in the notes because I know what each number of reps in the series implies, simply by counting which set number it is.
The swim did on that same day is a particular exercise I do, seeing how many laps I can swim in a pool (freestlyle) while only coming up for a breath every fourth stroke. The moment I'm unable to continue without coming up for another breath before my fourth stroke, that particular challenge is done and I move on to something else. I will do additional workouts in the pool that same day, but that is the one that I will record and try again within a week or two. At the end I still give myself a rating based on the overall time and effort spent in the pool that day.
Since falling victim to recent injuries, I've begun to factor in one point, or "recovery unit" into the 10 point/day quota, including any ice baths, electronic stem therapy (arp) sessions, or massages. I've also began to keep notes on what areas of my body are especially sore, and if I have any injuries forming or lingering at the time. The "arp" you see on Thursday indicates a treatment session with a rehabilitation tool called an "Accelerated Recovery Performance" machine.
For the core exercise recorded on Tuesday of that week, there are various additional exercises I will perform that day, much like the swim. The plank is simply the one I chose to record that day for record keeping, and the plank time for that day was 5 minutes, with 2.5 minute side planks as well, which is par the course for muscular endurance at this time of training camp. On core lift days I will also target obliques as well as lower back.
The upper body exercise on Wednesday is more of the same. Many different upper body exercises will be done on that day, but at least one will be recorded, this time, the number of pullups I can do in succession, in chin up grip, hammer grip, and wide grip. This is honestly a number that is slightly lower than I'd like it to be, and I'll be subsequently dedicating more time in the coming weeks to upper body strength.
So what does this all mean? Well, two things primarily. One, it gives me tremendous confidence as I look back at the end of each camp to see how much of my life I really have dedicated to this single event over the past two months, because it literally ends up being almost every moment of it.
Equally important though, is that after my camp all this information allows me to assess what happened in the fight and see how it correlates with the training that I did. Arms get tired too fast? Hips didn't feel as strong as they should have? Any shortness of breath during the fight, and if so, what was I doing at that time, at what round/minute did it occur during the fight? These are all things I can go back and speculate about with a greater degree of certainty as to why they happened, and improve upon them, whether I won or lost.
Without this information recorded, training camps would be a giant blur of punches and kicks and sweat and dirty clothes and sushi and egg whites. Every camp I've done for several years now has been meticulously recorded. I could tell you the exact number of rounds that I spent hitting mits and sparring while on The Ultimate Fighter. I could tell you the moment that my hamstring began to malfunction before my most recent injury. I could tell you my personal record on any and every exercise I've ever recorded, should I feel the need to track it down, or tell you where I was at 5 weeks before a fight in a training camp 3 years ago, compared to where I am 5 weeks out now. You could formulate bar graphs, pie charts, whatever nerdy unit of measurement that best tickles your fancy, with the data you can do whatever you want, and apply in a very practical and systematic way.
I have a formula that works best for me, a ratio of all my exercises that I split my time into, and I know the number that I feel I perform my best at, when I have done x amount of each of the categories and sub-categories. The ratio that I do workouts in and find my success with took years to hone, with lots of trial and error, and I'm still learning. The things I do in a camp may be drastically different than what another fighter or coach may think should be done in a camp, but that's fine because at the end of the day I'm the one that has to step in there and face the results of my preparation.
This is a method best reserved for the obsessive, if you haven't gathered already. Everything is hyper-specific, and it allows you to plan your workouts almost weeks in advance, albeit tentatively, based on how your body is feeling at the time. The extent that I take it to doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a definitive blueprint, a casual fitness goer could just as easily water this down and dilute it a bit, personalize it for yourself around the workouts you prefer. If you play another sport, or even if competition isn't your thing and you're just looking for a good system of tracking results and bettering yourself, this could still be a good place to start.
Thanks to everyone who made it this far, hope you guys gained something from it!
Feel free to leave any questions you may have in the comments section, and make sure to tune in and see if my my tricks of the trade pay off at UFC 181 on December 6th against Eddie Gordon.
-J