What is “the young punk”? Greenhill puts it this way:
To the young punks, we OGs are nothing more than moving and breathing grappling dummies that makes them feel good about themselves. The young punk always feel like a bad ass after he’s beaten up a 40+ year old man or 100lbs woman that made an honest mistake by getting on the mat with them thinking the young punk would be a good training partner. And since I’ve been watching and battling these assholes for all these years and I never seem to stop hearing stories from other OGs about being beaten up and hurt by these punks.More than dealing with “the young punk”, Greenhill provides advice on how OGs can set reasonable expectations for their instructor, their training partners and themselves. Little that Greenhill says is earth-shattering. I suspect, like Lloyd Irvin’s work, much of what Greenhill has to say can be either divined elsewhere or figured out on one’s own. But also like Lloyd Irvin’s work, Greenhill’s ihateyoungpunks.com website is creative, original and very much well-worth subscribing to, in my opinion. I look forward to each e-mail.
Here’s the most recent one. It focuses on conditioning, something that is important for all grapplers, but particularly important for OGs who find themselves competing against the strength, quickness and endurance of many a younger training partner, young punk or not. The previous e-mail dealt with properly warming up and included a tip about using Mineral Ice (or a generic alternative) regularly before heading out to class.
Anyway, here is advice worth remembering on the proper kind of conditioning that will help make us all better grapplers.
“Survival Secret #7B - The second tip of The Training Triangle is the physical conditioning. Like I said in the last email, sparring does NOT get you into shape. It will reveal what kind of shape you are in, but grappling champions aren't depending on sparring to get them in shape. When you're training for grappling competitions, you need a conditioning routine that focuses on high intensity intervals with short periods of rest. Because it's so easy to be lazy when you're sparring, especially when you get fatigued, you will not give maximum output with continuous movement. There are too many opportunities for you to rest. If you are resting most of the time, instead of moving and bursting, you can't get in shape that way. That's why successful grappling competitors have conditioning coaches that put them thru off-the-mat routines to push their cardio capacity to enable them to be more productive during sparring.
Another mistake that is made with conditioning is applying the wrong type of conditioning to grappling. Long-distance running will get you in shape, but won't produce the best results for grappling like short-distance sprints will. Sprints are close to replicating the physical output of grappling because it requires maximum output for a brief interval, rest, and then repeating the interval. If you do decide to do some kind of off-the-mat cardio program, it must be an interval-type training with burst and rest periods because that's how sparring sessions and grappling matches go. Grapplers burst for periods of time, then they stop to rest, burst again, rest, burst again, and repeat this process until the training period is over. You don't need to be engaging in long distance running or any type of activity where you are at one interval level for a long period of time. If you think sitting on your bicycle at the gym for twenty or thirty minutes is going to help you on the mat, it won't help as much as you think. I agree, it's better than nothing, but it's not giving you what you need to perform on the mat.
If you decide to try an off-the-mat cardio routine, you need to check with your doctor to ensure that it's ok for you to engage in an routine to augment your grappling training. Make sure that the program you are using was put together from someone who knows what they're talking about and the cardio routine was designed specifically for someone of your age group. Don't follow any cardio routines that somebody gives you over the Internet, especially from some young punk that's trying to "toughen up" the OG.
