I know Long slow distance has fallen out of favour recently, but it is an important part of the puzzle as there are certain adaptations that only come from running distance (or doing some other activity at and equal intensity and duration). All Thai camps I've been in run about 10km a day. Most pro boxers also run LSD.
I know that the best I've ever performed in boxing was when I was running 10km and up 6 days per week, whereas when I experimented with interval training, I got tired easier in the ring. Also, it does help with weight management, without being too taxing for other more important training.
Here's a great thread by Joel Jameson (a top mma strength and conditioning coach), where he explains this in more detail. An interesting read for those interested in s & c. Read only the posts from EZA (Joel Jameson) and don't bother with the other posters though.
http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f14/myt...ng-965299/
Quote from the thread:
""The anaerobic-glycolytic system is only going to sustain energy production for a couple of minutes so the oxidative system has to take up the slack til the end of the round, and then work to recover the anaerobic systems during the rest period"
No this is not how energy systems work in the real word and is largely a belief that stems from the totally misleading energy system charts found in most physiology textbooks. The glycolytic system does not "sustain energy production" but rather it contributes to it in conjunction with the aerobic and alactic systems.
Energy production is never fully sustaind by anaerobic energy production because when the lactic system is being used it means the aerobic system is also working at its maximum capacity. Your viewpoint of how these systems work together is incorrect.
"Charlie francis developed world class sprinters from a young age and maintained that "endurance work must be carefully limited to light/light-medium volumes to prevent the conversion of transitional or intermediate muscle fiber to red, endurance muscle fiber". This goes for any explosive-based, intermittent sport athlete; not just sprinters."
A) there is very little to no direct evidence fibers shift from slow to fast or fast to slow, but rather they can alter their meta bolic properties in favor of oxidative or glycoltyic meta bolism and they can of course change their cross section area, and their contractile properties through changes in nervous system function. It is the nervous system that determines contractile velocities as studies have shown if switch innervation between fast and slow fibers their behaviors reverse.
B) Charlie Francis works with athletes who are almost purely alactic, of course he's concerned with only the highest threshold fibers and of course he wants them as glycolytic as possible. This is not what you'd want in a fighter, or even remotely close to it. Fighting is a single max effort 10s sprint, you need fast twitch oxidative glycolytic fibers, not just fast twitch glycolytic fibers. These fibers are still capable of tremendous power output and yet they can still derive ATP oxidatively.
"Yes maintaing 14mph for 2 hours is amazing, but it's the amount of highly oxidative red fibres that endurance athletes posess that allows them to maintain this pace. Would those guys even be able to go 3 minutes on the pads with a striking coach? They'd certainly struggle"
This is total nonsense. Marathon runners certainly have higher percentage o oxidative red fibers but the key to their endurance is that their fast twitch fibers are also incredibly oxidative and thus there is no real lactate accumulation even at relatively high power outputs.
If you think a marathon runner couldn't hit the pads for 3 minutes you're fooling yourself, they certainly wouldn't have the same power as an MMA fighter and would lack technique but they would have no problem doing a 3 minute round. Obviously specificity comes into play here, but they are still capable of tremendous oxygen supply by the cardiovascular system.
Also, MMA athletes are really not explosive athletes I hate to tell you. Compare their power outputs to real power athletes like weightlifters, shot putters and throwers, jumpers, football players, etc. and it's not even remotely close. Obviously MMA requires high power at times, but MMA is a power-endurance sport not anywhere close to a pure power sport.
I've trained many of the best athletes in the sport and can show you definitely with tests that their alactic and lactic power isn't even in the same ballpark as world class power athletes. Even top level NBA players, can generate above 6w/kg in pure alactic power while the best MMA I've ever seen is in the high 4s and low 5s. Comparing lactic power of MMA compared to explosive lactic athletes isn't even remotely close either. I don't think you have quite the right viewpoint on the energy system devlopment needs of MMA.
"The only way to really solve this is to carry out a study on fighters comparing differnet methods of energy systems development. Until then, most of this is really speculation."
No, the way to do this is to have over 6 years of direct tests of energy system development from a wide range of fighters and that's exactly what I have. I can show you direct and indirect tests measuring aerobic, anaerobic, and alactic development profiles of over 50 top level and amateur fighters over the last 6 years and their responses to various training methods as well as correlation to performance using heart rate variability, differential ECG, etc. This is hardly just speculation on my part. If you'd like to learn more you'll probably want to buy my book that's just about to be released, I cover all this in detail in there."
