I've seen a few good articles on fight prep over the last couple of months. I've noticed some consistencies and the occasional difference in opinion (imagine that). I'll look into gathering some links up and posting them this month. In the meantime, my friend Josh Robinson was nice enough to contribute to the site. Enjoy!
-Shawn
Fight Preparation
Fight preparation is often ignored and taken very lightly. Preparing for a fight does not mean that you go to your gym and roll with your friends/team members and then jump into a national level competition.
Even if you are having relatively intense sparring sessions, you need to break down your fight preparation for yourself as an individual competitor. Each athlete has his or her weakness and strengths and your training and game plan should cater to your needs.
Fight preparation should begin about 6 weeks before a scheduled competition (depending on the intensity of you training leading up to this point).
Any weight lifting that you have been doing up to this point should be pulled back significantly or stopped all together.
Any strength you've gained should have been gained by this point and no amount of lifting in the next 6 weeks will make a lick of difference come fight day.
Also, we are not interested in adding any additional weight before a fight. It's more likely that you'll want to shed any unwanted weight in order to qualify for a lighter weight class. Weight training prior to the 6 week lead up is something I can write about another time. After all, strength is a hugely important part of the game.
Your typical sparring sessions at most gyms are between 3-5 minutes at medium to high intensity. This should be increased immediately to 6 minute rounds with a 60 second break between rounds. Personally I would never spar less than 4 rounds. That is 24 minutes of hard sparring. Each week you should increase your sparring time maxing out at 12 minute rounds x4. = 48 minutes of sparring.
week 1 = 6 minute rounds
week 2 = 6 minutes rounds
week 3 = 8 minute rounds
week 4 = 10 minute rounds
week 5 = 12 minute rounds
week 6 = technique and game planning sparring only
When not sparring you should be perfecting techniques that have been successful for you and working tournament style drills. For example:
Start of on your back with a team mate in side control. You have 60 seconds to score 1 point. "GO"
Start in side control. You are up by 1 point. You have 60 seconds to maintain your lead or submit your opponent "GO"
Start on your feet. It's currently a draw. You have 60 seconds to score a single point. "GO"
Etc...
Do not obsess over any new techniques or tactics that have not been working for you in the gym. Do not try to introduce new submissions that you are not intimately familiar with. Identify what you have been successful with. What have you been catching people with? Focus on those strengths and perfect them. Figure out how to put yourself into a position to pull off that specific submission. This is where game planning comes into play.
Game plan, game plan!!! You must have a very specific game plan. Do not enter into a tournament thinking, "I have good submission skills and defense. I'll just roll and catch what he gives me." Doing that just means you are fighting HIS fight and hoping you'll be better at it. You need to fight YOUR fight. He should be trying to get out of your game. Not the other way around. This is essential.
If you are a good guard player and you are constantly nailing sweeps, triangles and arm bars from the guard then you better seriously consider pulling guard on your opponent so you can implement your game.
Now let's say you get to the tournament and your first opponent is standing very flat footed and high. Everything in your body may tell you to shoot in for a single. But in doing that you've already deviated from your game plan. What if he's an exceptional guard player. Now you're in his guard playing HIS game. You must avoid that initial instinct and remember your original game plan. Force them into YOUR plan.
Always have 3 options. Decide what those 3 options are before fight day. Know the 3 options you have from your desired position. If you are a guard player and option number 1 is your arm bar but you are unable to finish. Keep the arm, hook his leg and sweep for the points.
You get an "advantage" for the arm bar attempt and the points for your sweep. You now have a healthy lead. Another option would be to keep the arm and transition into a triangle. You MUST go through these scenarios in your head and your gym. Assume you will finish your submission. But have 2 other options in case you can't. Have those 3 options available so you're not putting all your eggs in one basket.
When not in the gym sparring or working on technique you should still be working on cardio and considering your weight cut technique. There is no wrong way to do cardio, but you can walk on a treadmill like you're just hanging out or you can do it in a way that will actually increase your cardio.
I have the benefit of living in California and I can use the hills/mountains to my advantage. I wear a 20lb weight vest and run the Santa Monica stairs. It's 400 stairs straight up the side of a hill. I run a quarter of a mile to the next set and run down 400 steps. I run a quarter mile back to where I started. Rinse and repeat. Don't take any breaks. Your break is that you get to run down and not up.
If I'm really moving it takes me 6 minutes to do 1 lap. I try to do 5 laps or more. That is a 30 minute rib cramping, lactic acid building, cardio crushing run. If you don't have access to this type of thing there is no reason why you can't throw on the same weight vest and run at a 10 degree incline at your gym for 30 minutes. Turn around and run backwards at the same incline every 5 minutes for 1-2 minutes. This focuses weight to the front of your quads. Similar to running down hill.
Good Luck and happy rolling!
About Josh:
Josh Robinson is currently teaching Muay Thai at the Beverly Hills Jiu Jitsu Club, where he also trains in BJJ. Prior to that he ran his own MMA program in San Diego. In Josh's 10 years of fighting, he has competed in professional MMA and Muay Thai fights, as well as national grappling tournaments. He's been coaching and cornering fights for the last 5 years.
