The current rage in the world of sport is MMA; it sure has come a long way since Dan Severn and Tank Abbott. Even with the big dollar monetizing of the sport, there is still the rustic allure of a time when MMA athletes were training out of worn down barns somewhere in the middle of Iowa with nothing more some rusty iron, a burlap sack, hay bales, and plenty of wood to chop--only to emerge every 3 months to kick the crap out of a more polished technician.

Nowadays, the MMA athlete often has access to full service training camps and is regularly posed as the most 'well rounded' athlete on the planet. However, some of the 'underground' mystique still remains--and this remaining tradition is what we are going to delve into today.

This article is about developing top end physical attributes in a wide variety of athletes, everything from soccer to basketball and rugby to ice hockey; because they got access because they did not need a weight room to improve performance, pure and simple this is the training that turns an athlete into a dominant force.

The athletes you work with might not need to be ready to be punched in the face, lift each other up or go for five straight minutes for three to five rounds, but there is a lot of carryover in the tools necessary for the job. Although this article is not specific to fighters, it’s worth noting that athletes in combat sports such as MMA or wrestling provide many very useful examples because of their early implements/improvisation of these 'old school' training programs and protocols. That generation’s wrestler or MMA athlete was fond of sandbag training, flipping, carrying, pulling, pushing, lifting, loading, and throwing various inanimate objects. Why did they choose these implements over, say, the barbell was probably to a certain extent due to necessity and probably because somewhere deep inside they knew that doing this type very demanding work would best prepare them for victory.

Just as many sports have evolved these days, so too have the training implements, with manufactured kettlebells, sandbags, ropes, sleds, etc., all available for a very nominal price. Yet for some reason maximal strength and barbell based training seems to still be the flavor of the era. With good reason, too. There is plenty to “prove”—e.g. squat this much and jump or run this high or fast. Bench this many reps, clean this amount.

All of these numbers and corollaries work well in a vacuum; and as a strength and conditioning coach it is very easy to 'fall in love with numbers' (i.e. my guy(s) can lift X amount). However, when we fall in love with the numbers, we become blind to one critical fact: that 99% of the world of sport is NOT a strength or iron sport; and many times the strongest athlete in the weight room doesn't win.

The current knock on tools like kettlebells, sandbags, and TRX-suspension training is that you can't get strong with them. This so easily leads us to the question: Does strong mean better or does strong just mean strong? Let me use a quote my strong friend Dan John likes to use: “The goal is to keep the goal the goal.” Does being strong help an athlete? I would say so. However, I believe there is a more effective, intuitive, accessible, applicable, and dare I say faster way to get there than the current model.

These points lead me what I call my Ultimate Athlete's Gym. The set up would be as follows:

Ultimate Sandbags -- 1) medium and 1) small
Kettlebells -- 1) heavy and 1) pair of small/medium
TRX - 1 unit
Tire - 1 medium sized
(By the way, the out-the-door cost on this stuff would probably be in the $500-$700 range, so we are talking about investing somewhere around $50 to $70 per head.)

With this set-up, I believe a coach could effectively train at least 10 athletes and likely in the 14 to 20 athlete range if you were to implement a simple bodyweight exercise and a rest interval or 2, all within a 30 minute time frame. The size of the various implements would obviously be customized to the needs of the majority of athletes.

Beyond the “you can't get strong” argument, the next most common argument about is “it's just a tool.” This would be true if a coach were to simply use these tools like a barbell or dumbbell, but not when you allow yourself to utilize their full array of capabilities. For example when is the last time you performed a rotational deadlift with a barbell, as is possible with sandbag? Strengthened the shoulder and upper back and core from multiple angles with ease like when using the TRX? Taught the complex act of full triples extension in seconds as you can with sandbag shouldering? Gave an athlete access to great multi-planar movement like the get up and then had them seamlessly transition into a explosive power like that the snatch, as you can with the kettlebell?

The point is the implement is not just a gadget to simply add variety with. It puts power in the programming. The facts are as follows:

a) Most athletes give two shits about lifting and would way rather be out playing their sport, so we need to be effective both from a development and time perspective and we sure as hell shouldn’t be boring. As stated before, get it done in the 30 minutes or so, no marathon two-hour training sessions.

b) Most athletes are under-recovered on the verge of some sort of over-use injury. So again, the faster we can be effective, the more recovery time they have, even if it is just to take a nap.

All the above stated, I would like to present you with a new paradigm for training non-iron sport athlete. I like to use the acronym A-DIS³C

A – Accessibility
All the tools in my Ultimate Athlete's Gym provide great accessibility.

D - Diversity
This in not about being novel for the sake of being novel but about have a broader range of movement and loaded movement options available.

I - Integrity
This is about providing drills and progression if necessary that insure that the athlete is developing movement and musculature the way we intend.

S - Stability
Is the athlete able to stabilize his/her body? Can they move with integrity in all planes? Can we load them bi or unilaterally and challenge that stability to a greater degree.

S - Strength
Can we get them optimally stronger, or another way of saying it, can we improve their performance strength? Can we have them as strong in the fourth quarter (or final round) as they are in the first, or at least as close to it as possible?

S-Speed
This is the absolute hardest component to control in the training room. When speed is introduced a lot of shit can get ugly. When have high levels of accessibility and a reduced learning curve, we can introduce speed a lot faster (pardon the pun) and for athletes we have to recognize the value of speed.

C-Complexity
This like the cherry on top. When the athlete can handle complexity, we get to see how many layers he/she can handle. How about a single leg suspended rotational sandbag clean? Circus trick? Not at all. It’s actually a very useful athlete development drill, with a very short learning curve.

So enough with the technical speakl Let's get into a real program example. Let's take a look at a hypothetical two-day program for a field sport athlete.

Complete all Drill for 3 complete rounds, complete a full round before repeating.

Day 1

Heavy Kettlebell -- Clean + Hi-Pull Complex -- 3/3 per side

Heavy Sandbag -- Zercher Staggered Squats -- -- 6/6

Dbl Small KB -- Lunge and Single-Arm Press in Low Position -- 6/6

TRX -- Rotational Row -- 9/9

Small Sandbag -- Shuck Across -- 12/12

Sledge/Tire -- Hammer Lateral Chop -- 12/12

Day 2

Heavy Sandbag -- Get-up -- 3/3

Heavy Kettlebell -- Snatch -- 6/6

Small Sandbag -- Lateral Lunge and Clean -- 6/6

TRX -- CorkScrew – 9

Tire -- Flipping – 9

Dbl Small KB -- Renegade Row + Double Clean -- 12

If I were to coach this program in a live setting with a group of athletes, I would likely used time work intervals in the range of 40-70 seconds to insure time effectiveness.

Ultimately the goal of this article is to show those of you who coach athletes what is really available when you program with tools that will help your athletes succeed in their sport rather than just in the weightroom. As a strength and conditioning coach, it can be scary to not have those metrics that prove your worth, but these programs have always worked and still do.

In the words of Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until the get punched in the mouth.” These types of programs are meant to help your athletes get ready to take that (literal or figurative) punch and drive on. Because in the end the only thing that matters is whether or not you get to put a 'W' next to your name.