Excellent short article on the role of hard sparring (striking) in MMA training. The author is saying a limited amount of hard sparring is preferable for long term ability as hard sparring is too injurious to be productive. What do you guys think? Personally I now do no striking at all, (class times and work clash) but in judo and bjj I roll hard maybe 60 minutes a week, and spend the rest of my time lightly (the other guy isnt however) rolling to avoid injury and gain better timing.
Completely agree with it. A couple of hard sparring sessions in a fight camp is good to prepare you for it and to push you, but they shouldn't be the norm. Even ignoring injuries I doubt you learn much from sparring if you spend it trying not to get knocked out
my old coach used to have his guys do technical sparring year round, and only during the fight camps was it hard sparring, and that was more shark tank stuff to test a persons will under pressure than anything else (new partner every minute or so etc) As already said you dont learn anything new when all you are doing is trying to stop your opponent taking your head off its shoulders or recovering from hand or foot injuries Grappling is as you say different, you can roll hard week in and week out, randori week in and week out, but striking is different and i think people are beginning to see that, especially in MMA when you cant afford to be injured as there is so much to learn and drill outside of straight striking
