The MMA magazines currently proliferating the market have in many ways become clones of the body-building magazines. While they usually have a couple of articles relating to various facets of martial arts, they are filled with ads for vitamins and supplements, training equipment, and various types of certification programs. This, unfortunately, is the nature of the beast, so to speak. For while a magazine might be devoted to a particular subject such as martial arts, the bottom line is that they are designed to sell advertising because that’s the only way they can afford to keep the magazine in existence. So, they must keep coming up with new material to put in. And like the body-building publications, one of the prime ways they can do this is by putting in training routines utilized by one the champions du jour.
It's not my goal to denigrate any of these publications. My point is that in the same way that there is a big difference between a professional bodybuilder and the average person who goes to the gym a couple of times a week to train, there is likewise a big difference between a professional MMA fighter who is training for a fight and the average martial artist who is training for self-defense or recreational purposes. I think that many everyday martial artists (as well as many would-be cage fighters) look at these articles and without giving it any thought attempt to follow the same training protocols or regimens that are being used by some world champion. And the bottom line is that they may have little or no relevance to that individual’s own training.
In the same way, people would (and still do) look at Bruce Lee’s training routines and decide, “I’m going to do that exact routine myself, because if I do, I’ll end up with the same result.” That might possibly be true. You might end up with similar results. You might not. However, what is true is if you are not careful you might also end up injuring yourself in the process. In the same way the average individual could not possibly hope to follow some champion body-builder’s training routine or use the training regimen used by Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Michael Phelps for themselves, you cannot and should not simply adopt some professional martial artist’s pre-fight training program for yourself. These individuals have spent years of training and put in thousands of hours developing themselves and building themselves up to the level where they can handle such routines, and even then, some of them have suffered numerous injuries because of their training. For example, George St.Pierre, who has always been one of my favorite MMA fighters, has recently suffered a string of injuries that can be traced directly back to his training. In addition, like it or not, you may not possess the genetic make-up that will allow you to achieve the same results or attain the same level as the individual whose program you are following.
So don’t arbitrarily try to follow some martial art champion’s routines. Don’t open the latest magazine and try to adopt someone else’s training regimen for yourself. In the same way, don’t look at Bruce Lee’s training regimens and simply adopt them as your own. They were his routines designed for him at the time he was doing them.
There's nothing wrong in using other martial artists as benchmarks if you desire. Use them as inspiration or to get training ideas from, but train at your own level and train for your self.
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