Aerobic Considerations in Combat Sports
Strength and conditioning for combat sports requires a proper evaluation in order to best prescribe an aerobic exercise program. This provides the best case scenario for minimizing overtraining, reducing risk of injury and improving weaknesses. While there has been robust research on strength, power and agility, measuring aerobic fitness in combat sports is slightly more complicated.
As an athlete, coaches facilitate you learning new technique or improving on current ones to better develop the skill set to win a fight. Not good at guard? Lets drill that. Take downs a little weak? Take an extra 10 minutes after class to improve them.
Similarly, exercise prescription for improving cardiovascular ability needs a proper assessment first, then implementation of a plan specific to your needs.
In traditional “field” sports like football or soccer, it is very well known how much time will be spent sprinting, jogging and resting. In combat sports, there is a high degree of variability. Several factors needs to be considered with each individual athlete- how they fight, what their strengths and weaknesses are, their opponents style of fighting, their “gas tank” and how much power they can develop to control an opponent.
Let’s review the different variables that make up aerobic capacity.
- Mechanical efficiency
- Maximal aerobic capacity
- Metabolic thresholds
- Anaerobic capacity
Mechanical efficiency can be described as an athletes capability in executing a specific technique with proper form. Sure, you have a great single leg in the first minute of a match, but what about in the last 30 seconds when you’re down by 2 points? Mechanical efficiency can make or break a fight. Currently, only a few assessments are capable (and validated) for measuring mechanical efficiency.
Maximal aerobic capacity is described as the oxygen uptake based on aerobic metabolism. While there are validated tests for measuring VO2 using treadmills and bikes, few tests exists for combat sport-specific activity.
Metabolic (anaerobic) threshold can be described as the highest intensity of exercise sustained for a period of time without lactate accumulation. Lactate accumulation is one factor that limits muscle force production. Several tests exist for general and sport-specific activity. Think of this threshold as the point when you get “gassed out” when scrambling.
Anaerobic capacity is the maximal amount of ATP resynthesized via anaerobic metabolism. ATP can be thought of as the “currency” of muscle contraction. This is usually high-intensity, short duration activity. Several tests exist for general and sport-specific activity. Think of anaerobic capacity as how much power or strength you have at a given point in your match.
As you can tell, creating a specific test, or battery of tests to effectively measure these variables to develop a conditioning program can be quite challenging. While general testing exists, sport-specific tests for combat athletes is not always very well defined in the literature.
My intuition tells me that while an athlete can subjectively describe where they are on the aerobic capacity spectrum, the objective measurements of these characteristics needs to be combat-sport specific when prescribing conditioning programs.
Test selection identifies a certain characteristic in combat sport athletes, attempting to differentiate between physiological capacity or sports performance.
Low sports specificity tests include the 1RM, maximal isokinetic strength, counter-movement jumps, squat jumps, 40-m sprint, 30 second continuous jump, repeated contractions on an isokinetic dynamometer, Wingate testing, repeat-sprint tests and maximal aerobic capacity testing.
While these are great for strength and aerobic assessments, the findings do not necessarily translate to how well an athlete can perform within the context of a sport. For example, a BJJ athlete may have a 1 RM bench twice that of his opponent, but if his gas tank only lasts for 20 seconds in a match, the opponent can just wait until they’re tired before capitalizing on their lack of muscular endurance.
Sport specific assessments include exercise circuits and simulated combat with a live opponent. Exercise circuits like burpees, press-ups, throws or striking may appear sound, but the validity of these tests need to be elucidated. For example, performing burpees for 2 minutes straight may demonstrate a full body, explosive-type movement typically seen in combat sports, but it may not accurately reflect the technical or tactical demands an athlete requires during a match. Even repeated-bouts of burpees, like performing 30 seconds of movement, then 20 seconds rest, does not account for “active rest” that would typically occur in a match. Similar limitations exist for sport-specific movements like throwing, takedowns or striking. Simulated combat presents the closest assessment- since a live opponent will be actively defending or attacking, keeping the pace as close to competition as possible. With simulated combat, one tradeoff is differences in fighting styles between athletes.
So how can we improve our assessments and interventions?
The first is developing an assessment protocol to accurately address the 4 determinants of aerobic function we described in the beginning of this video. This will help the strength coach to identify opportunities for growth with the athlete. Second, we can properly prescribe exercises, and perform the necessary reassessment after a predetermined amount of time.
One interesting approach a patient of mine spoke to me about was strategizing based on energy level when fighting and is position-specific. For example: if the opponent has good standing game, but weaker ground game, and there’s plenty of gas in the tank- then the focus will be on take downs and ground work. If on the bottom, with half a tank, then the focus will be on defense, waiting for an opportunity to capitalize on. In this way, energy system dominance can be managed while still considering tactical issues. The benefit to this approach is its utility- it encompasses technical, tactical and conditioning components.