TAMING THE ANACONDA - Mick Spinks

DRILL OF THE MONTH with Mick Spinks

For a host of whole-body, combat related strength-endurance drills, get yourself a heavy rope.

THE TRAINER 

Sifu Mick Spinks is the head coach at Double Dragon Mixed Martial Arts Gym at Sutherland, NSW. He is a master of Jin Wu Koon Double Dragon Shaolin kung fu, in which he has been training with Master Chan Cheuk-Fai since the 1970s, but is also a Brazilian JiuJitsu Brown-belt and one of the country’s most renowned trainers of kickboxers and MMA fighters. Having trained several successful kickboxers like Commonwealth champ Grant Barker in the 1990s, Spinks has now moved on to MMA and coaches several topechelon local fighters, including Ian Schaffa and Bernardo ‘Treko’. He is known for both his technical expertise in both teaching fighting skills and tactics, and creating conditioning programs. 

THE DRILLS 

The heavy rope in our gym — affectionately nicknamed Anna, short for ‘anaconda’ — is used a number of different ways. A common exercise employed for overall conditioning and a cardiovascular workout is waving it in an up-and-down motion, as shown in the attached pictures. The rope goes around a fixed pole and whips up the pole, which is an indicator of your action. The idea is to keep the rope moving continuously in a wave-like motion, such that as soon as the wave reaches the pole, you are already starting another. Other methods to move the rope are double-handed crossovers, alternate-arm waves, alternate-arm high lifts for reps, arm circles and turning quickly with the rope to simulate a judo throw, for repetitions. You can also lay the rope out, then haul it in, gripping hand-over-hand until you pile all the rope up at one end, then sprint it out straight again, and repeat. These rope exercises are mainly employed as part of an anaerobic interval circuit, which may incorporate any number of other exercises in between (e.g. skipping, burpees, etc.). 

THE RESULTS 

This sort of rope work is surprisingly demanding and provides a full-body workout as you are required to activate the whole body as one unit to keep the rope moving correctly. This is functional for fighters as it has an element of whole-body co-ordination, timing and flow. Regular rope training like this results in increased cardio capacity, builds strength-endurance and also develops an incredible grip. When Double Dragon Gym hosted Canadian strength and conditioning coach Charles Poliquin, he told me that UFC Welterweight Champ Georges St-Pierre uses similar rope routines in his pre-fi ght preparation. A new program called ‘Battlerope’ using these kinds of exercises has also become very popular among firefighters and law-enforcement/military groups in the USA, as they require a high degree of functional fitness and stamina. □

Blitz Martial Arts Magazine, FEBRUARY 2010 VOL. 24 ISSUE 02