Your personal training programe

Hi Steve,
Your always in great condition & ready to fight.
Whats a week of training in the life of Steve Morris entail.
PS. I can't seem to email yourself or Trish, Emails bounce back undeliverable.

Regards

Rob.

Hi Rob

I don’t train in a routine way. The only time I ever did that was in Japan, and as you know, then I was putting in 8-10 hours a day so I didn’t have much time for innovative expression!

I’ve always been an experimenter, so it’s always been a case of trying lots of different things. And recently, having the three kids in the house and not a lot of space or time, I’ve had to get creative. For example, I’ll walk up and down with the youngest in my arms doing knee-ups; twenty minutes, kid goes to sleep, I get a mini-workout. Or I’ll keep a sandbag and a punch bag in the barn, and every time I have to go outside for some reason, I’ll do a few lifts or some short-duration bag work. Not so much as a workout, but as if suddenly somebody’s appeared who I have to deal with. I’m imagining scenarios and working them out.

It would be misleading for me to just give you a list of some of the exercises or drills I might do in a given week, first, because that’s always changing, and second, because the training isn’t just about physical exercise. It’s more of an internal process.

I’ve always looked for ways to facilitate the response of the neuromusculoskeletal structure in time and intensity. With me it’s always been stimuli/reactive response oriented, particularly with regard to explosive release.

What I’ve found over the years is that that process has got more to do with the impression in my mind of the explosive effect I want to achieve than with the physical exercise that might achieve it.

One thing I’m doing when I’m at home is shadow-fighting with mini-situations in my mind. Anybody looking through the window would see me moving about the house and periodically breaking out with a burst of explosive shots. I’m working in my mind’s eye, and I know how to facilitate that. Long experience has allowed me to understand the processes. So I’m working to enhance the neuromusculoskeletal structure’s response to an imagined stimulus. And because it’s a total body movement, I get a total body workout.

I’ll do that sometimes with a weighted vest on. I’ll do it with 5lb dumbbells, as well as other supplementary exercises. But whatever it is, it’s always explosive.

The main thing is that my training isn’t just about performing exercises. I never train blind.

I not only train externally with the idea of an opponent/opponents, but internally with the idea of how to go about enhancing the structure. Because I understand, for example, how the muscle spindle works and how motor recruitment depends upon the rate of stretch or the final length of muscle fiber in which the spindle is embedded, I can set about enhancing that recruitment with combat in mind. That’s what I do.

In particular, I work to increase the sensitivity of the muscle spindle so that minimal stretch or no stretch at all elicits the myotatic response, and that’s done through the clarity of the impression. This sets the reactive sensitivity of the spindle via the gamma efferent system. The way the spindle has been set and the physical stretch of the muscle in turn determines the number and type of motor units recruited to overcome a load.

Rather than doing external plyometrics, I’m doing internal plyometrics, so to speak. And I know it’s not a normal training program!

I’m not being mystical here. Nothing to do with chi!! I’m coming from my understanding of Western sports science plus an instinctive/intuitive understanding of how my body moves.

Having said all that, as you probably know, my main way of maintaining a basic aerobic and anaerobic condition is indoor cycle. But I don’t just ‘cycle’. I understand the key points of a skill, so when I cycle I actually work those components repetitively within the cyclonic motion of the bike. For example, working on my posting leg, I’ll be focusing on using the ‘post leg’ to press down and make the effort whilst cycling, and freeing the other leg to be thrown into the target with the assistance of the hands.

I also use the cycle by sitting behind it, something I discovered in 1975 or so when I’d injured my knee and needed to rehabilitate it. I got an indoor bike and just worked the good leg giving the bad leg a free ride until I could start to use it. It was while doing that that David Dubow asked me to help a friend, Larry Brodie, who had one leg. How could he train? I thought about it, then I sat behind the bike and used my arms. And I’ve been doing it ever since! Don’t know if he did it, but I did! And we’re finally seeing it being used in gyms.

That’s one of the influences on my cyclonic way of punching.

I also saw an article by Lance Armstrong a couple of years ago, how when using a training bike, he talked about rotating a barrel, so that you’re not pressing on any specific point when you pedal. Instead, you feel you’re making contact and delivering pressure for the full point of the cycle. I’d also discovered that for myself back in the seventies, and it’s part of that clawing action for kicks both in the kicking leg and the support leg. I’m working flexors and extensors within the movement. Sometimes I focus only on one or the other, but you can actually focus on both.

And when I do that work, I’m working the reflex patterns of my body. It’s rather like I’m sitting up there, running. My body’s zigging and zagging reflexively. I’m strengthening the movement patterns I need for fighting. It’s a great way of interconnecting the body. Hard to describe, but easy to show.

And I do that training every morning, anaerobically. I always watch fights; lately I’ve been watching Ramon Dekker, the one with the Eminem soundtrack. You get a great attitude workout as well! Brilliant. I do it in intervals. I’ll ride through the clip very high intensity working on whatever particular part I want, I think it’s about a four-minute clip, I’ll get off, switch over say to sitting behind and doing arms, and repeat the clip. I’ll do that either with two arms or one arm, concentrating either on punching or pulling or both. And I’ll keep this up for about 30 minutes.

I also put on Tito Le Bambino’s music and do my knife and stick drills freeform. Trish saw it the other day and went, ‘Wow!’ So if I fail in the martial arts, she reckons I can open up a Latin dance club…but seriously, I do that to work on the syncopation of the movement with respect to the knife, the free hand and the footwork. That really gives you a great sweat and it’s fun. And you can be really creative on that one.

I used to do the same thing in the late Seventies to Buddy Holly music, all my stick and knife moves, but times have moved on. You gotta get with the current flavour. And I suppose there’s another secret, Rob. I’m not an inhibited guy! And I’ve never taken my 63 years seriously. I’m from Mick Jagger’s generation, ‘I hope I die before I get old.’

Nice to see you over here, by the way.

Steve

"I also put on Tito Le Bambino’s music and do my knife and stick drills freeform."

Yes, it works!
I also make this remembering (visualization) that broken and synchopated rithm in real fight!
Brazil have a lot of type of this music, include in Capoeira circles (our African heritage)!

But what are the Tito´s songs do you prefer to increase the rithm?
Maybe this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkxE8vfdtM4&mode=related&search=

works for me my friend!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Steve,
Many thanks for the reply.
I've been trying to workout how I could, put in more work , without ending up with excessively long & draining training sessions, particularly as you teach us that we must be working at a very high intensity, when we do train.
Do you think, I could incorporate these short burst training sessions, throughout the day, and reduce the longer evening sessions I tend to end up doing.
I know in the past you have layed out for us the training pyramid, with generally aerobic & personal conditioning in the mornings, then partner work ect later in the day.
Having to be in work at the crack of dawn, all my training is usually done straight afterwork, with generally two facets of training in one session, ie personnal conditioning plus skills & drills ect.
After 3 weeks of these sessions I'm pretty much over trained, if I'm walking around knackered, it does defeats the object, I'm obviously not going to be in the condition you aim for ie, ready to go at any time.


PS:- Still can't get through on the email, recieved Trish's mail yesterday & replied, but it bounced on me again.( It may be something to do with my surname, some system filter it out as a potential sex line ect)
Myself & Rory will be along to the Coventry sessions starting September if thats ok.
See you then.

Regards

Rob

If you’re looking for street combativeness, then the smaller cycle training sessions like I do for example are very productive. You’re not training for a peaking point in three weeks time like a pro fighter would be. You could still use the three week cycle if you were looking to break through to a higher level of performance, but you have to make sure at the end of that cycle that you have 3 or 4 days off for recovery. This is what gives the system the ability to overcompensate and bring you back stronger than you were before.

In those 3 or 4 days you can do a little light work just so that psychologically you feel you’re doing something, because you can get addicted to a training rhythm.

But for you I think the shorter workouts throughout the day would be more appropriate. It’s a little like snacking rather than having one huge meal.

For me, I do my training kind of randomly, mixing specific with non-specific of varying duration but never longer than twenty minutes and even doing as little as five.

Personally I think the smaller cycle is more appropriate for street fighters because you can put more intensity into the shorter duration work period, and you’re setting a pattern where you can switch it on and switch it off very easily.

Also, psychologically you’re not trying to raise a big effort at the end of the day when you’re knackered, you’re actually hitting this thing during the day.

For me, I’m able to fit stuff in very flexibly depending on what I’m doing on a given day, and because I know exactly what I’m trying to achieve, I don’t have to think about it. But for you, in a job all day, you might have to be a bit more creative in the way you structure what you do. But the thing is, what you have to measure it by is this: is your performance improving or not, in all those many senses of the word (psychologically, physiologically, physically, etc.) and above all are you feeling competitive or are you just feeling like a pack horse?

I watch a lot of guys training in MMA and they train and fight like pack horses. You don’t want that. That’s not good for MMA, and it's definitely not good for the street.

One final tip, Rob: you need to find out what your highest intensity that you can achieve is, over say a 5-10 second period. Then with that energy output in mind, you work to do that over and over again (with active or passive rests in between) until can complete say 5 minutes. Then take a minute rest and repeat the same process, or a different one. Even if you only do 10 or 20 minutes, you can get a lot of work in.

You're raising your anaerobic capacity, and you'll find that a lot of other things fall into place, too, like emotional factors, aggression level, violent images, etc. will not only come out of this training, but you can feed them back into it.

Most important, you really do learn to switch on and off on a hair trigger. And that's a big advantage in the street.

If you want to be more street-oriented, you could set the time limit according to what you anticipate you might need on the street, nad then break that down into intervals. And then to increase your capacity to sustain that, you can repeat the same or different scenarios until you complete say 20 minutes. There's lots of ways to do it, once you get the idea.

Steve

Thanks very much Steve,

I'll take this information away, and digest it.

Rob

Great posts Steve, very helpful.
Best wishes, Ken M.

Approximately half of the work time, i.e. 5-8 seconds. It's approximate, and it's better to have an active rest, do a little footwork or whatever. But don't be looking at the clock; the dynamics of the fight are asymmetrical.

Hi Steve,
Ref your quote 'Training isn't just about physical exercise.It's more of an internal process'.
I must admit until I attended your training sessions, and began reading your material, watching the video's, all my training had only ever been a workout, with very little thourght going into the internal process.
Obviously I've missed out on a big part of the jigsaw in my martial arts training.
Can you suggest any simple mental / physical drills, along the lines of the 'hands in pockets when walking to feel the posting leg', that I and others could work throughout the day, to bring us more in touch with our internal side.
Regards

Rob

Hi Steve,
I like the idea of shorter and more intense workouts. It can be so easy to drift into a pack horse mentality.

Ive just had 10 minutes on my heavy bag going all out for about 10 second bursts (approx') and then a short rest and repeat, I now feel like chucking up!
Cheers, Ken

Rob &Ken here's an interesting piece on intense interval work. Also, coincidentally, that old cheetah's back in the picture frame again!

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/fast-twitch-muscles.html

Rob, the drills I create come about because I have an objective. Sometimes the drill is created by a spontaneous process. Sometimes I have a problem I'm trying to resolve, and a drill or a procedure emerges. The difficulty is, although you want me to prescribe drills, the more important thing is the process of solving problems. And the key to that is identifying the problem, or the thing you're trying to achieve. From there it's a creative process measured against something objective.

I wouldn't want to act as a guru by prescribing drills, because the idea isn't simply to perform drills, but to be engaged in a process of goal-setting and problem-solving. The hands in the pockets one is a tip my dad gave me; I only developed it further because I saw that it was a way of sensing the interconnectivity of the way I engage the shoulders in the process of walking by pressing alternately on my thighs as I walk.

You see a lot of country people who climb hills, they do this anyway. IT's a natural way of engaging the quad and forming a closed coupling in the body.

This internal thing, it's got a lot of misconceptions attached to it. You can actually end up 'sensing' things which exist only in your mind. A good idea is to look up proprioceptors and get an idea what they do. And once you have an undestanding of that, you can anticipate what might be happening through them. Just being aware of their existence can make you consciously aware of pressing your foot against the floor and activating an extensor thrust. That I would suggest as a starting point.

The kinesiology gives you some kind of internal road map. I looked around, but I've no longer got my books and most of the ones that I could remember the titles of, they're out of print. But if you're going to read, read stuff that's sports oriented and not therapeutic. THere are two areas of kinesiology and you don't want to touch the latter. Jon Law might be able to help you on some titles.

Hi Steve,
I see what you mean about the 'Cheetah'.
I was employed a little while back to do some consultancy work at Perth Zoo. They have Hyenas there & I mentioned to the Zoo curator that as strange as it may sound they are one of my favourite animals. He replied 'they have to be one of the most aggressive animals on the planet, the pups will try to kill each other off as soon as they can stand'!
Regards, Ken