Quote:
Originally Posted by Rager and Quitter
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You'd expect that someone who has dedicated themselves to a particular sport to be in a constant state of improvement, whether that's focusing on the next opponent/team, or analyzing where they lack and improving generally, especially during the downtimes. Perhaps that's what really separates the average performers from those that excel.
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I agree on the improving, but unfortunately many fighters focus so much on improving technique that they neglect cardio when not in a fight camp, IMO
But let me explain, I don’t mean neglect cardio as if they never do anything that gets their heart rate up. But as someone that has plateau’d on cardio many times including recently, just doing regular training, even stuff that gets the heart rate up, may not be enough to make significant gains on cardio
In order to improve that, IMO, you have to do what I consider to be some of the most difficult and mentally-testing workouts around. I’m talking like sprints up a hill. Or a run at max speed for as long as you can
When doing these, as you know from experience, you have not only the muscles burning with lactic acid, but also that mental feeling of suffocation, taking huge gulping breaths like you are about to drown. I am talking about pushing yourself to the limits to improve cardio
It’s
extremely uncomfortable. Which is why I mentioned that only a very select few fighters have a reputation of maintaining their stellar gas tanks year round. The rest rely on fight camps to get their lungs and cardio system back to as strong as possible
Afterwards I’m guessing a lot stop training for max VO2 and go back to technique, practice sparring, etc