Warm Up Properly With The Machida Brothers
We all know that warming up is important. Warming up makes you more flexible, more mobile, and just over all more ready to take on a more intense training session. Pretty much everyone in the world knows this. The problem isn’t a lack of knowledge, it’s that warming up just sucks. Warming up is usually pretty boring and can even be a slog to get through.
This is mainly because a lot of coaches don’t properly develop a plan for their warm ups. They mainly just do either a jog or some kind of sprint followed by some exercises. This makes the start of a lot of martial arts classes look more like conditioning than a warm up.
Keep in mind that warm up is preparation. It’s so that your body is ready to deal with the training ahead and make the most out of it. This is why you want to have the right intensity in your warm up to be just right.
Too intense and it will be too much for your athletes and they won’t be good to train as they’ll be too tired to actually improve. Too light and they won’t be ready to handle their training and they might hurt themselves.
This is why we have one of the strongest pairs of brothers in MMA history to show you just how they like to warm up.
In this video, Lyoto and Chinzo Machida go over a drill they like to use to get ready and warm up for their MMA training.
Who Are Lyoto & Chinzo Machida
Lyoto and Chinzo Machida are some of the best examples of Karate being successful in MMA. The pair were trained basically from birth by their Karate master father. The two then went on to become two of the best strikers in the sport of MMA and Lyoto even became UFC light heavyweight champion. The pair now both compete at the top of Bellator MMA’s leaderboard.
MMA Strikers Warm Up With The Machida Brothers
For this drill you are going to need to have a partner. The drill starts off with you and your partner being at a very far distance from each other. We’re talking so far that no matter what technique you throw, as long as you don’t step forward first, it will not land.
From that long range one of you is going to throw a rear cross at your partner, remember from that far distance. After one partner throws the cross, the other partner will slip to the outside accordingly. Off of that slip, that partner is going to throw a shovel hook to the body with their lead hand and then a lead hook to the head, while they step off to their rear side.
Now the partner that originally threw the rear cross is going to counter that lead hook with a lead hook of their own.
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Now the partner that first slipped the punch is going to throw their own rear cross that the other partner will parry. After parrying, that partner will throw their own cross that will be parried and followed up by a counter cross by that partner. That counter will be parried as well and finally the sequence finishes off with a counter cross by the person who threw the first punch of the sequence.
Do this drill slowly at first to really get a hang of it as it can be confusing. Once you master this drill at a long distance, you can move into mid range. Once you get mid range down you can finally move into short range and do it.
Once you get this down, for your warm ups you can just do one sequence for each range.
Remember that you aren’t actually trying to hit your partner, this is just a warm up, you can hit each other later.
Learn More From Chinzo And Lyoto Machida
If you like this takedown and want to learn more from the Machida brothers, Lyoto and Chinzo, then check out their complete Karate style striking guide, “Machida Sparring By Lyoto And Chinzo Machida” Available exclusively on Dynamic Striking!