How to Prepare to Fight a Bigger Opponent

I'm thrilled to announce that our very own Tyler Lee, an exceptional talent on our sponsored grapplers team who fights for Immortals Jiu Jitsu, pulled off a comeback win in his super fight last Saturday at the Ironman Grappling Championship at Ascension Athletics in Bristol, CT.

Quick Background. I'm Sam Akinrinade, Head Coach at Willpower Athlete Academy NYC. Tyler has been following the Willpower Bands Training Method for the last year to develop faster stronger grappling techniques. He's been in the Willpower Strength 4 Grappling Program at our Academy for the last 4 months where we've been optimizing his speed, strength, and stamina for grappling.🌟

About 6 weeks ago Tyler asked us to focus on helping him get ready for the January 20th Superfight with IGC against a much bigger, longer, more experienced fighter. 

Here's an inside look into Tyler's powerhouse preparation strategy 📋:

Assessing the Opposition Tyler, with his immense strength, speed, and endurance, faced a heavier, longer, and more experienced opponent, 20 lbs heavier to be exact. He was giving up over 10% of his own weight! So we needed to craft a short term program to adjust for a bigger opponent

Crafting a Big Guy Strategy Tyler's quickness and endurance were our trump cards. So we needed to focus on maximizing:

1. Control of Defensive Position to consrve energy
2. Quickness to avoid getting stuck under your opponent
3. Recovery Time so when the opportunity came, he could finish strong

Tailoring the Training Regime To boost these key skills, Tyler's training zoomed in on:

1. Control: Holding grappler-specific defensive positioning under load.
2. Speed: Boosting acceleration, change of direction, and max velocity.
3. Stamina: Swift recovery from high-intensity short-burst output.

Fight Highlights Tyler's opponent initiated a strong attack off the whistle. Despite being trapped in a top mount, Tyler held his ground, maintained his composure, and at the 3 minute mark with his opponent showing fatigue escaped to his feet. 

Now Tyler could start applying pressure.

Tyler hit a slide by to mat return to back mount then applied an unconventional rear naked choke of the jaw. After half a minute of what must have felt like having his head popped like a watermelon, his opponent submitted.

Tyler certainly did all of the work last weekend. But this also shows that our training methods are battle tested.

If you want to start seeing huge lifts to your grappling strength and conditioning, pick up a set of Willpower Bands and Book a Class at our NYC Academy @thefitfaction.