Strength & Conditioning | Scramble Brand

“If you could only take one supplement, it would…

February 22, 2019
by Matt Benyon

Guest post by William Wayland of Powering Through Performance Centre.

BCAAs are present in any good source of protein, the anabolism overplayed, Glutamine was going to going to make us buff, then heal our guts, but the evidence failed to appear. High doses of Vitamin C were going to give us super immune systems and it just gave us diarrhoea. Antioxidants were going to speed our recovery and help us live forever and speed recovery and it just turned out it was blunting recovery. Meanwhile a steady and large body of research was gathering around a widely available supplement often gathering dust in cupboards the world over, that supplement is creatine. And it is back to protect our brains.

Another creatine article! That’s right, humble creatine is a supplement that just won’t go away. Creatine monohydrate is the most effective ergogenic nutritional supplement currently available. It is one of the most widely studied and one that seems to increasingly expand its scope of application. Creatine monohydrate supplementation safe, but has been reported to have a number of therapeutic benefits in healthy and diseased populations ranging from infants to the elderly. The studies in the elderly and its application in cognitive illness are of particular interest as its way out side of the scope of use for what has long been traditionally a sports & bodybuilding supplement.

At present, creatine monohydrate is the most extensively studied and clinically effective form of creatine for use in nutritional supplements in terms of muscle uptake and ability to increase high-intensity exercise capacity.

The benefits of creatine supplementation with training include increased muscle creatine and PCr content, lean body mass, strength, sprint performance, power, rate of force development (RFD), and muscle cross sectional area. This is thanks to its effect on satellite cell proliferation and mTOR signalling which all affect protein synthesis. In long-term studies, subjects taking CM typically gain about twice as much body mass and/or fat free mass (i.e., an extra 2kg of muscle mass during 4 to 12 weeks of training) than subjects taking a placebo! In more recent research creatine supplementation demonstrates potential as a neuroprotective both before and after traumatic brain injuries. In particular, creatine may have potential as a pre-emptive neuroprotective against traumatic brain injury and subconcussive injury in high-risk populations such as collision athletes. Further prospective research has been conducted into areas as diverse as pregnancy, adolescent depression and fibromyalgia.

“The quickest method of increasing muscle creatine stores may be to consume ~0.3 g/kg/day of creatine monohydrate for 5–7-days followed by 3–5 g/day thereafter to maintain elevated stores. Initially, ingesting smaller amounts of creatine monohydrate (e.g., 3–5 g/day) will increase muscle creatine stores over a 3–4 week period, however, the initial performance effects of this method of supplementation are less supported.

Clinical populations have been supplemented with high levels of creatine monohydrate (0.3 – 0.8 g/kg/day equivalent to 21–56 g/day for a 70 kg individual) for years with no clinically significant or serious adverse events.” ISSN

Habitual intakes of 3g a day have also been suggested and doses up to 30g a day for 5 years being tolerated with no ill effects.

Despite attempts by supplement companies to reinvent the wheel and push novel suspensions of creatine and or additives such as various carbohydrate mixtures it seems standard monohydrate powder is good enough. Monohydrate powder is also the most clinically researched form as well.

There was for a time concern about caffeine / creatine interaction despite working via very independent mechanism. The worry was about GI interaction and absorption of creatine in presence of caffeine. It appears for the most part such worries are unfounded.

Weight gain is another area of consternation over creatine consumption; it seems this facet is somewhat idiosyncratic. Creatine can cause a gain in water weight via retention, how much is part of responsibility of the individual to track. I make sure fighters track their bodyweight while initially consuming creatine. Something I’ve known athletes to do to stymie this effect is consuming of high strength caffeine supplements to offset this. Quoting examine.com citing 2 studies that tracked caffeine and creatine interactions, when consumed with caffeine which obviously has diuretic qualities “There do not appear to be inconsistencies in water weight gain from creatine supplementation. Either all subjects gain weight or none do. No between group differences seem to exist.”

It’s easy to suggest creatine may well be an overplayed supplement, there is little buzz around it as it has been with us for some time. It is however quickly going from being supplementary to dare I say potentially a essential nutrient. The knowledge base continues to expand and we may well find out much more about his humble supplement.

https://examine.com/nutrition/does-caffeine-counteract-creatine/

Scramblog

The Best Workout with No Equipment

February 7, 2019February 7, 2019
by Matt Benyon

Guest post from William Wayland, of Powering Through Performance Centre.

A question I’m often asked is my recommended workout requiring no equipment. I often get it from Golf pros looking for hotel room-based solutions for training, but also travelling grapplers and or those training in remote locations with no gym available. A lack of equipment is little reason not to implement a good progressive training session. The point here is to avoid the same overdone prescriptive approach and empower YOU to build something that will work for YOU.

How to structure a session

Jumps – Vertical Jumps – Bounds – Skips etc
Lowerbody – Hinging and Squats
Push/Pull – Press-ups –Chin-ups-Rows etc
Extras – Core – Hamstrings- Grip

Jumps are always something that, for the grappler, fall into ‘general physical capability’ – it’s nice to have but being great at it isn’t entirely crucial to the sport. Listed from entry level to hardest, movement skills like vertical jumps, counter movement jumps, broad jumps, single leg split squat jumps and kneeling jumps can be useful to employ at the start of a session. Why at the start? Well, this is where the most neurologically demanding work should go during a session. It is also the reason why we keep the reps low to focus on quality.

The humble push-up done properly can be a full body exercise with enormous scope. Done properly it includes core and glute co-activation. The other advantage is the proper shoulder and scapular positioning that a good push-up demands is something worth investing in over, say, jumping straight to a bench press.

Single leg work: Lower body training is easily achievable with some creative thinking. This includes a variety of hinges and squats that can be performed with no equipment. The bodyweight squat for most is easy but should still be invested in. Once you can do a decent bodyweight squat many often suggest the pistol squat but this is often far too much of jump for many, especially those of the heavier persuasion, this a good option lies in step downs and eccentric partials until good mechanics are established.

The Posterior chain requires working on hip hinge both standing and laying positions. The trick is first making sure you have good hip hinge mechanics with two legs before moving onto two legs. The Single leg BW RDL, is a great place to start before progressing into glute wind ups. In the laying position, master good hip position and extension before moving onto the single leg hip thrust and then explosive single leg hip bridging which has plenty of potential transfer to grappling sports.

Exercises for the upper posterior are trickier as these often require external load, things like rings or pull-up bars can be enormously useful. Again positioning can be trained initially with no load prone IWT. While chin-ups and pull-ups may seem like a given for some, others will have to start with things like iso holds – bent arm hangs and eccentric only pulls to build up the capacity to do full movements. Horizontal pulling is probably the trickiest element to employ without equipment, but a low bar can allow for the implementation of supine rows and other variations.

Extras for my athletes usually pertain to things like core strength, grip and neck training all essentials for collision sports athletes and all work investing time in. Core strength in this case is referring to ability to brace effectively, as grapplers often flex, twist and rotate plenty during the course of training. As a starting point I encourage athletes to practice the skill of bracing, this takes form of passive and active planks, planks plus movement.

Neck work requires a little more creativity: a band or a towel or partner added resistance can be very useful. Grip Training can take form of simple dead hangs, two on one hangs and active grip switching. Or if you have a pair of Scramble Grip Trainers these can employed; I know yes they count as equipment but they are seriously useful.

Sets & reps will often come in the form of charts for suggest rep ranges, but without equipment this has little meaning if for example you can do 20 push-ups without breaking a sweat. You could load the movement but that defeats our equipment-free ethos so the other way to attack this issue to add tempo based variations with the examples if already presented. For instance: eccentric tempos focusing on the yielding element of movement or isometric’s focus on static holds. Another way is EDT sets, where you put 10-20s on the clock and strive to complete as many reps as possible in the time slot. Just be sure to keep the reps tidy and rests reasonable.

Equipment free conditioning

Equipment free conditioning is entirely possible for instance if we borrow from the lactate GPP method I’ve posted about in the past on Scramblog. We can set the clock for 5 minutes and look to perform alternating sets of 10 reps for instance.

Push-ups x Rows 10 x 10 for 5 mins
Single Leg Squats alternating 10 x 10 for 5 mins

This gives both a local conditioning peripheral conditioning effect which is crucial for jiujitsu and grappling sports but also builds global conditioning as well. While I mentioned at the start that I’m trying to avoid something prescriptive here’s something I use when travelling with minimal equipment, I’ve even done this while travelling, for example in a hotel room.

⦁ Seated Jumps 5 x 3
⦁ Glute Wind-ups – RFESS 4 x 5 Each side
⦁ Push-ups / TRX Rows using door wedge 4 x 10-15
⦁ Breathing Planks

This is simple enough that I’ve committed it to memory.

We at Scramble hope you enjoy the information presented here. If so, please share this article and look out for the next post from S & C ubergeniusman William Wayland.

BJJ

[VIDEO] Pull Up Grip Variations for Grapplers – Dan…

November 22, 2017
by Matt Benyon

Daniel Strauss is a man who knows a thing or two about grip strength. And jiu jitsu, too.

Here, Scrambler and Polaris veteran The Raspberry Ape goes through some grip variations for pull-ups. Pull-ups are often described by lazy people like me as the best exercise you can do for grappling, if you only had the time for one.

Check out the video below.

Scramblog

Reflections on working with masters athletes

October 10, 2017
by William Wayland

The masters athlete, the taped up, cauliflower eared, long warm-up taking, joint cracking, slow to get going leaders in our sport. Masters tournaments seem to be more popular than ever. A large population of my athletes in grappling sports seem to be masters athletes ranging from 35-50. Why? This is possibly due to the fact the Jiujitsu population is aging past its mid/late 2000’s boom and still want to compete. Masters athletes are time poor and cash rich meaning they can afford S&C coaching, where as junior/senior athletes are notoriously time rich and cash poor. Working with this population has taught me a lot over the past few years some of those insights I’ll share in this short post. For the purpose of this post I’ll class anyone over 35 as a masters athlete.

Well planned resistance training can prolong a competitive career.

Resistance training as an adjunct practice maybe the best thing you can do battle age related decline. I know I’m biased but the benefits almost make resistance training non negotiable for instance; ‘Resistance training may be effective for reducing low back pain and easing discomfort associated with arthritis and fibromyalgia and has been shown to reverse specific aging factors in skeletal muscle’ with a bevy of benefits some older athletes are still reluctant to get involved. This is possibly due to poorly lead strength training in the past or a hesitance to engage in something new. While your face may get uglier the rest of you can certainly stay in good condition.

Masters Athletes are time poor.

Ah life it ruins all our best laid plans. Adult responsibilities mean masters athletes have little time beyond training and usually train in very strict routines, family, work and responsibility generally should and need to come first. This means training needs to be carefully planned, often I’ve found high intensity low frequency generally suits this type of athlete. Training in the gym needs thrive on largest return with the smallest amount of input. This doesn’t mean training isn’t hard its just time efficient.

The spirit and nervous system are willing the flesh is not.

Often masters athletes present with attitudes and movement/neurological efficiency of much younger athletes. What generally lets them down the condition of their soft tissues, joints and tendons. A potentially disastrous scenario when rolling and training with younger athletes especially when and if the ego rears its ugly head. Older athletes need to be discerning when picking their partners. But as strength coaches we can with good application of eccentric, isometric and hypertrophy work build robustness into their training. What generally trashes this population as mentioned above is high volume and high frequency training. Training needs to be targeted, planned & strategic. This plus with a limited capacity to recover can a problem. A little bit of stress can yield results that will have masters athletes belie their years too much and we can quickly end up crashing and burning.

Dietary Care and Habits take 2nd place.

Masters athletes especially those with busy work commitments often have poor dietary habits often eating sporadically, on the fly, under eating and put too much faith in supplements to support ailing joints. Higher protein intakes maybe useful for decreasing age related muscular decline as well as aiding recovery. Much positive support for gelatin (hydrolyzed collagen) has also recently come to the fore, which been shown to “helps to reduce joint pain associated with osteoarthritis”. I often encourage this population to figure out their calorific requirements as a guideline. Younger athletes can under eat and still perform I’ve seen athletes in their teen and early 20’s thrive on horrible diets. Masters athletes have no such wiggle room and soon progress comes crashing to a halt as a result.

Yoga as a cure all.

A lot of masters athletes I work with usually at some point take yoga as cure all to the persistent tissue problems life and the sport hands them. I’ve discussed my disdain for excessive yoga in the past. I’m of the opinion that excessive yoga can do as much if not more harm than excessive weight training. People forget that we sit on a spectrum of ability to generate stability and tension under stretch. For some adding mobility and flexibility when in fact that they need is stability can be the equivalent of throwing water on a chip pan fire. I’ll repost my stance on mobility with this excellent Dan John video.

If you add yoga to an athlete masters level or not involved in a collision sport, do it judiciously.

They enjoy process as well as outcomes.

If asked make an effort to explain to masters athletes why they do anything, they generally I’m guessing due to the wisdom of age enjoy the process as well as the outcome. Where as I’ve had younger athletes some high profile, despise the process but knuckle down because they understand the outcome. Masters populations generally understand supplementary training as facilitating their ability to stay in the game rather than dominate it. Masters athletes due to time constraints take careful consideration over the ‘extras’ they apply to training.

Get familiar with movement variations and derivatives

They are not powerlifters or olympic lifters so having plenty of movement derivatives available is crucial. The will often present with movement issues due to the wear & tear caused by the sport so having safe loadable movement variations that don’t exacerbate pre existing conditions is important. I’ve mentioned before how I make extensive use of movements like neutral grip work on pressing and pulling, Zercher Squats/Good mornings, Snatch Grip Deadlifts, Floor Pressing and Hand Supported Squats & Split Squats.

Often strength coaches and trainers can have a hard time breaking from strength sport norms. Just because it isn’t a powerlift or olympic lift does’nt mean it can’t be applied to provide maximum stimulus. being doggedly chained to certain lifts and or number chasing can cause problems.

This is an ongoing series of blog posts from William Wayland CSCS of Powering Through, owner of Powering Through Performance in essex, who works with UFC and other high level combat athletes. Twitter. Facebook

MMA

Perils of intensive weight cuts at UFC Japan

September 22, 2017
by William Wayland

The issues of problem weight cuts is a persistent one. This was recently highlighted at UFC Japan when Mizuto Hirota attempted to make weight. You can clearly see Hirota struggle to even make it too the scales, let alone get off them again. Its worse still for an opponent that made weight effectively and now misses out on a fight because their opponent failed to do so.

Miss today’s #UFCJapan weigh-ins? Mizuto Hirota’s trip to the scale was a little scary. Full rundown here: https://t.co/tacfafCSZ1 pic.twitter.com/qYHILHczyQ
— MMAjunkie (@MMAjunkie) September 21, 2017

The UFC medical staff later determined the Japanese fighter to be unfit to compete. He was 4lbs over the limit of 146lbs.

This ironically came the same day a study dropped from the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research; showing that repeated effort suffers 24hrs after acute dehydration. I’ve argued before that heavyweights aside you are often seeing fighter under perform on the day due to delayed effects from acute dehydration. This seems to effect grip strength, repeated efforts and throwing ability. With the body of research growing slamming weight cuts, the question is why do we allow the culture to persist? With new weight classes & lead up weigh in and % reload limits being argued as options hopefully something will change. Without healthy fighters there is no show!

Strength & Conditioning

Powering Through Performance now open in Essex

July 11, 2017July 12, 2017
by William Wayland

Making ambition reality.

Those of you that have followed scramblog since it started maybe familiar with the strength & conditioning posts I’ve been putting up for a few years now. I’ve posted less frequently recently but for a good reason I’ve opened my own Strength & Conditioning facility

After 5 days of hard graft, we got Unit 8 Eckersley Road, Chelmsford, Essex shipshape and ready. Pulling a few 16 hour days we managed the impressive feat of getting it turned around.

We managed to install brand new matting, 13m Black Astro Turf and two full BLK BOX power racks with band pegs, hip thruster, dip station, multi grip pull up bars, a 3 bay rig and 4 brand new Ski Ergs. 8 New 20kg Bars, Eleiko Bars, Safety Squat Bars, Football Bars, Suspension trainers and a good mix of Again Faster Bumpers and we are super happy with the results.

For a group of Amateurs installing (apart from a few engineering friends who instructed use on how to use a drill and a spanner) we managed to pretty good job installing the racks, rigs & flooring.

I’m aiming to offer one of the finest small group training/personal training and private strength & conditioning facilities available. Its a place to train, for those passionate about training.

At the facility we offer, Group Strength & Fitness Classes, Powerlifting, Olympic Lifting, Junior Golf Strength & Conditioning and regular HIIT classes. We also offer athletic memberships that include, regular athlete group sessions, assessments, physio & training programs.

Fancy checking us out please visit http://www.powering-through.com/

It may see like a strange detail but we also have little additions like places to put phones, keys and drinks when training to keep gym floor clutter to a minimum.

Athlete Data Management & Analysis is also something I wanted to bring into the gym.

Opening your own gym is never an easy feat, the real work starts now. If you are ever in the area drop in for a session. – William

William Wayland is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). Working in Essex, UK. William is responsible for the preparation of UFC fighters, Professional boxers, World Champion Grappling Athletes and Professional Golfers. www.powering-through.com