Randy Couture is one of the most widely known MMA fighters in the sport today. In addition to his long career in the sport, he has made a name for himself as a champion in both the heavyweight and light heavyweight divisions, as a relentless competitor, and as someone in ridiculous shape for being 47 years old. With a stable of top athletes that train out of his Xtreme Couture gym, Couture employs the services of strength and conditioning coach Jake Bonacci to help him and his team prep for their fights.
Although Couture’s training methods are not a closely guarded secret, Victory Belt has worked with Couture to give readers a never before seen in-depth look at Couture’s methods in Xtreme Training: The Fighter’s Ultimate Fitness Manual.
From VictoryBelt.com:
Randy Couture is known throughout the fight world for his incredible stamina, extreme work ethic, and grueling fight pace. In his cutting edge fitness manual, for the first time, Couture unleashes the training methods that catapulted him into the upper echelon of mixed martial arts competition and allowed him to claim five world titles in two different weight classes.With the help of world-class strength and conditioning coach Jake Bonacci, Couture teaches you how to increase your power and cardio by laying out his trademark exercises. Instead of displaying a random series of disjointed activities, Xtreme Training takes a revolutionary approach by arranging each section according to movement pattern and resulting action. Drawing off more than twenty years of fight experience, Couture not only details how each of these movements will directly benefit your fight game, but he also explains how they can be tailored to increase your various physical attributes. The science is broken down in layman terms and detailed on easy-to-follow charts and graphs, allowing you to design a training routine that fits your specific needs.
Leaving no stone unturned, Couture also breaks down his fight preparation workouts and rigorous training camp in never-before-seen detail, leaving you with no guesswork. All the workouts in Xtreme Training have been battle-tested by countless top-level MMA athletes. Through thousands of step-by-step color photographs and descriptive narrative, Couture demonstrates the skills, drills, and sparring methods that have allowed him to stay on the top of the MMA mountain into his late forties and claim a spot in the UFC Hall of Fame. Bringing you into his world, Couture teaches you how to become leaner, stronger, and more powerful than the competition.
Whether you’re looking to educate yourself on proper program design and learn the actual physiological mechanisms that cultivate strength and conditioning or you’re simply looking to follow a world-class training program to reach your athletic potential, this book is for you.
As with all Victory Belt releases, this book is packed with information. The book’s main sections focus on General Physical Preparation, Sport Specific Training, and Training Routine. Over 300+ pages, complete with illustrations, Couture and Bonacci demonstrate hundreds of exercises for different parts of the body, offering plenty of helpful tips on proper posture and lifting technique. Couture also offers tips on how you should feel while you are performing the exercises to ensure that you are doing them properly.
Some of the exercises employ various dumbbells, barbells, a stability ball, medicine balls, exercise bands, and other gym equipment, but a number of the exercises are designed to use the body alone. The vast majority of the exercises could easily be done with minimal equipment in the comfort of your own home, a trip to the gym isn’t necessary.
Just flipping through the book could initially seem intimidating because of sheer volume of information and the fact that the book is tabbed into sections such as “Full-Body Metabolic Conditioning” and “Isometric Support” which may not be in most people’s vocabularies. However, the book is also full of technique breakdowns and plenty of plain language to make it understandable by readers of all exercise experience levels.
While the majority of the book could easily be used by athletes in any sport, or just your average Joe or Jane looking to get into better shape, MMA practitioners will be the ones who get the most benefit from the Sport Specific sections. Divided into “Sport Specific Standing”, and “Sport Specific Ground”, these sections focus on dynamic exercises designed to back up solid techniques with improved strength and speed.
The final section of the book is devoted to a full layout of a ten-week training camp. Couture notes that this layout will not work for every single fight, depending on the style of your opponent, but it does provide an excellent template on which to base training. I would absolutely recommend this part to any MMA fighter who has not had the benefit of a fully-structured pre-fight camp. Granted, this section does require training partners and a gym that focuses on multiple disciplines, but for those who wish to do a sort of boot camp to get in shape, eliminating the sport specific spots would still allow for a great ten weeks of exercise and routine.
For more information on this book and others, visit VictoryBelt.com. To purchase the book, head over to BudoVideos.com or Amazon.com.
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