Timing Yourself vs. Taking Your Time Mark Hatmaker
OK, here's the hypothetical--you're having a conversation with a couple of your combat sports buddies and one of them says, "Man, I put in some monster training last night. Three rounds on the banana bag, three rounds on the floor bag, 50 push-presses at 135 pounds, and then I rolled for 30 minutes straight."
Buddy #1 is pretty impressive, huh? I mean, if we assume that those rounds were 5-minute rounds, he already did a half-hour of work before those push-presses, and then this monster still has it in him to roll for another half hour. This guy is solid, right? Let's see how Buddy #2 stacks up.
Buddy #2 says, "You got me beat, my training clocked in at around the half-hour mark, 28 minutes and 13 seconds to be exact."
28:13? That's it? Buddy #2 needs to step it up, Buddy #1 isn't even through with his bag work and Buddy #2 is packing it in. Get your game face on, Buddy #2--am I right?
I'm sure you're way ahead of me regarding this trite hypothetical. Our two buddies' workouts only possess quantifiers not qualifiers--in other words, we know approximately how long they worked but not really anything about the quality of that work. We really can't assess any training regimen without knowing the value of the Double Qs of Quantity and Quality.
Three 5-minute rounds on the banana bag is not impressive in and of itself without knowing the work rate/quality rate. That is, is this a lazy 15 minutes of poking a meandering jab out there occasionally, or swinging a random round kick now and then? Or, are we looking at someone who is delivering some 2, 3, and 4-point combinations at a good clip and all with some serious pop? These two animals are completely different things. Same time spent, time spent differently.
Let's say Buddy #1 hit his 50 push-presses in this manner. 10, rack the bar, get your breath. 8, rack the bar hit the water fountain. 6 more, rack the bar and find that mirror next to the squat rack that always gives a good view of your awesome shoulders. 5 more reps, rack it and text your friend. Et cetera.
Compare that with Buddy #2 who busts 10 reps, racks the bar, huffs and puffs for five breaths. Grips and hits 8 more, racks, gasps for five breaths. Continues on with this oxygen gulping pace and at rep 50 he racks and collapses in a heap under the bar.
Two athletes, both did the same 50 reps (same quantity) different quality.
Let's look at that 1/2 hour roll. (It could be a 1/2 hour of on-the-feet-sparring for what it's worth). Is this 1/2 hour some serious hardcore athletes in each other's business throughout? Or, are we looking at lots of stalling and "laying and praying"? (Chances are, at half an hour we are looking at the latter, or at least a mix of the two because, as we all know, if you are rolling at speed 5 minutes is too long and 30 minutes is an eternity).
I use the twin Buddy analogies as, all to often, quantity in training time seems to be mistaken for quality. It is an easy mistake to fall for, I mean, after all, if three rounds on the bag are good, six rounds should be even better, right? Well, that depends, are we sacrificing quality for quantity?
What I propose is a slight alteration in our training approach that allows us to keep both quality and quantity tuned to their optimum settings. I suggest that rather than simply centering combat training around the baseline of rounds completed we shift to technique, tactics, drills completed. (BTW-We call this concept Gaming the Gear and you can find many examples of it in our book on boxing conditioning and their MMA correlates).
For example, rather than simply banging the heavy bag for three rounds we could set a goal of choosing a combination du jour, say a jab-cross to switch kick to the liver. Instead of three five minute rounds your job is to work this combination in three sets of 100.
Start a timer and hit that combination 100 times. Kill the timer after rep 100. Mark your time and rest one minute. Start it again for the second set of 100. Your job is to match, beat, or at the very least not fall more than 20 seconds off of your first sets time. Rest and repeat a third time. Record your slowest time and when your decide to work that combination again, that best time is your minimum baseline.
In the realm of sparring (on the feet or on the ground) strive for activity over stalling. Have your coach call for mandatory movement (even if it puts you in a hot spot) anytime the action lulls for too long. If you have no coach or third party to make the call, use an interval timer set for every 30 seconds that you and your partner will agree to step-it up upon its sounding if the action is at a lull.
I am not suggesting throwing working rounds out the window, but I am suggesting that a generous mix of working in the prescribed manner above can go a long way towards upping the quality of your work and your work rate even when the quantity has been increased.
Timing yourself puts more pressure on you to perform at a work rate similar to conditions actually encountered in the fight. Rounds have a tendency to be treated as day-job work deadlines, or homework assignment due dates, the time the task takes expands to fit the provided deadline.
With that in mind I suggest losing the deadline where you watch the clock and switch to timing yourself and attempt to beat the clock.
| 
