Hocevar Performance

As you may know I am a fan of mixed martial arts and have lately started back up with training. I have done this for a couple of reasons:

1). To better understand the demands of the fighters that I train (I have been very active in the training of some high level MMA fighters and wrestlers)

2). The competitive drive never lets me be average at anything and as I started training I realized at that point I was “average” at MMA.

I can’t tell you how much I have learned by training the sport as well as studying it and applying my knowledge at the same time. I’m not saying you should train every sport from which you have athlete clients but it can definitely give you an edge. The least you should do is start watching more of the sport and/or your athletes games to look for things that you could help them improve and realize what the demands of the sport are.

At Hocevar Performance I’ll get the athletes from different sports trying out other sports. Sometimes just to change it up and have fun for conditioning and work on better movement and coordination, and sometimes to show them that other sports are just as hard (there is a lot of talk about what sport is “easier”).

These past couple of weeks Jason “The Punisher” Perry has been at Hocevar Performance preparing for his title fight coming up on June 12th on Olympia, WA and I can honestly say that even though we had limited time, he made great improvements and is ready for the fight. As it was a conditioning day at the gym , I joined in with the other guys which created a great atmosphere and really pushed the intensity. This was the final conditioning session with weights before we go into tapering off as the fight gets closer.

I can honestly say since I have started training myself I have made quite a few adjustments with the training of my fighters. I quickly realized that some methods are not as effective as I thought, while others are coming back into the loop, even though I disregarded them before. What does that tell you? Get your ass in the trenches! I will be the first to tell you that you need to continuously educate yourself, but it won’t be much if it doesn’t apply in the real world.

I know you may have heard this a thousand times before, but people still don’t get it: “Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” Some guy named Bruce Lee knew what he was talking about.

Don’t do what someone else says just because they are well known, apply it, test it and assess whether it will help your athlete get better or not. If it doesn’t, then I could care less who thinks its the “holy grail.”

I feel like I went on a rant here. Oh well.

Finishing thoughts: Surround yourself with a great team, work harder than anyone else, work smarter, believe in what you are doing……and then go smash some heads!

IIf you are going to be at the MMA fights in Olympia, WA  this coming Saturday June 12th, come and introduce yourself.