Categories

Life Lift

About the Author

Barry
Barry Oglesby is a professional MMA fighter and BJJ player, in addition to being the owner and head coach of Kyuzo Gym in Dublin, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu school. He also works as a Strength and Conditioning coach at a North Dublin secondary school, and can be found on the commentary team on Cage Contender, Ireland’s largest MMA show.
... show more ...

He can be contacted through the GrapplerMan.com website.
Other Articles by Barry

Archive

Recently Added

Three Steps to Coaching Success

by: Barry Oglesby

And so, you’ve made it; you’re now officially a Strength Coach. People ask you things about how to avoid injury, how to get fitter and how to get all buff n’stuff. Congratulations, you’ve arrived. Maybe you’ve gone through college to get here, maybe you’ve come through a weekend course, maybe you’ve just hung around the gym long enough for people to start asking you questions, or maybe, like me, you just wanted to get better at your sport by getting stronger. And now you find yourself in the curious position of being considered an “expert” on something you do for fun. All of this is good of course.

There’s no one single way to become a good coach. Despite there being lots of excellent qualifications you can attain, there’s still not one that guarantees you’ll be good at your job. Excellently qualified people can be dreadful communicators and never get their good material across, guys with no qualifications can have great practical experience, and some people can just coach naturally. For this article though, I’m going to take off my strength and conditioning coach’s jacket (it’s velour) and give you some perspective from my other role - the head of a sports team.

I’m the coach of a mixed martial arts and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu team here in Dublin, Ireland. We’re called Kyuzo Gym. Look us up and come train next time you’re in Dublin. Obviously, I manage the strength and conditioning of the fighters and grapplers there as well as my day job with other clients, but let’s suppose for a moment that I don’t, and that I’m going to hire you, the Strength Coach, to get my guys in shape for competitions and fights. I’m hiring, let’s see if you get the gig.

My point in this article is not to tell you your job... actually, hold on just a second. I’ve just realised that that is exactly my point. After all I’m going to be paying you. But I’d like to give you a different perspective. This is what employers, be they individual clients or heads of teams want, even if they don’t know it themselves. I think that in the great rush to come up with the newest, sexiest, most hardcore training method for fighting, that people have lost sight of the very simple things that the strength and conditioning coach is supposed to do. So here, in order, is your job description, along with what your job very definitely IS NOT:

1. Don’t hurt your athletes!

It sounds exceedingly obvious. In fact, it sounds like it should be obvious enough to not even write it, but before the end of this sentence, someone in the world will be hurt in the weight room. If you’d like to say a silent prayer for that guy now, say two, because by the end of THIS sentence, another one will be hurt. Well, probably. When you go chasing lifting numbers, or chasing big box jumps, things start to go wrong. My guys might get injured on the field or in the cage, but they should never get injured in the gym. Remember that I hired you to make my guys stronger to play their game, and when they’re hurt they can’t do anything I want. Now thanks to you wanting to put your name on the record board, my guy hurt his back deadlifting and can’t compete next week- You’re fired!

Injuries on the mat or the field are one thing - but training injuries are another entirely. In other words:

2. Keep your athletes injury free.

Somewhat related to Point 1, but by this I mean something different. I expect you to know my sport. I don’t expect you to be able to play it, but I expect that you should know enough about it to know the stresses and strains my guy’s bodies will be under. I want you to understand that combat athlete’s require additional neck strengthening, that guard players in BJJ get knee issues, and that back and elbow soreness is quite common among fighters. I want you to know these things and try to prevent their occurrences. If you don’t do this and choose to forge ahead with your back squat/box jump superset after our heaviest training session, guess what- You’re fired!

If you choose not to do proper rehab and prehab with your athletes? Yup, you're fired!

And although it seems obvious, I'll say it anyway:

3. Know your sport.
Yes it’s related to the previous point again, but you’ll find I’m a fussy employer and I repeat myself a lot. I once had a strength coach who couldn’t understand why my deadlift went down 30kgs in a week, despite me telling him I’d had a hard grappling session the night before and my grips were fried. This is like wondering why a tennis player has one side stronger than the other, or why a baseball pitcher has a sore shoulder. If you don’t understand the sport you’re preparing an athlete for, then how can you expect to train them? Now when I say this, I don’t mean that to program a strength and conditioning routine for grapplers you must be a grappler, or to do that for footballers you have to have played the game. No doubt these things help, but they’re not vital. What is vital is having someone in place who listens, studies, and analyzes the sport you’re involved in. However, if you're training grapplers on the mat (I'm talking technique here) or teaching a footballer how to dribble the ball, then clearly you need to have a skillset that only comes with having participated in the sport.

I’ve lost count of the amount of coaches who have taken fighters and tried to turn them into powerlifters or crossfitters, or even bodybuilders. Your job is to understand the demands of my sport, and to implement a training program to meet those demands. Your idea of what the sport is like is immaterial. I don’t care how great this new training program is supposed to be, if they’re not better in training or in competition - that’s right - you’re fired!

I could go on, but I think those three make my point well enough. From what I see every day in my job and on the web, people lose sight of the very basic, fundamental things that a coach is supposed to do in favour of the newest, coolest exercises or ideas. If you looked at the above list and were nodding along in agreement, I have good news: You’re hired!





CATEGORY: Training