MMA Workout Routines

The newest league of MMA superstars have all shown that there is a new generation of athlete coming out. These ‘super athletes’ take their workouts to extreme, push their bodies to maximum of endurance, and sometimes further in their efforts, and in their quest to become MMA legends. Different fighters concentrate on different aspects of their game, striking, grappling, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, but if there is one thing that is proven time and time again is that anyone that gets into MMA cannot neglect their cardio workouts. How many fights have you seen where a competitor dominated a round, or even two rounds, but then became so gassed that they lost all ability to defend themselves, push the positions, and thus, lose the match. All of the current champions have phenomenal cardio, they can fight through five rounds with no problems, and they constantly prove that they have what it takes to be champions.

So, when you are starting out in your MMA careers you should not overlook the importance of a good MMA cardio workout. In fact, you should probably consider that before you even look into your technical skills. That said, cardio is not what many people expect when they get into the sport. Most athletes consider cardio the ability to jog mile after mile, or to do hundreds of reps at almost no weight. They think of it as low impact, long duration workouts. That is something of a fallacy though, because when you workout in that fashion, you may increase your long-run endurance, but you end up neglecting your ability to sustain bursts of energy for long periods. It may be counter-intuitive, but you want to feel the burn in your muscles. You want to get that build up of lactic acid in your muscles, and then push through it and continue. Increasing your anaerobic endurance increases your aerobic endurance, where the inverse is not true. Just because you can jog twenty-five kilometers doesn’t mean that you can sustain maximum effort for five minutes.

Oh yes, I know that pushing maximum effort to your limits every time is going to hurt, and you think it’s going to push yourself to the brink of injury, but you don’t have to push maximum effort, you just want to avoid the trap of pushing minimal effort. So how do you avoid that trap? Simple, you push near maximum effort, use a small number of reps per set, but take very short rest periods per set before you kick things into the next set. This way you are getting a still getting a lot of reps, but you push your body’s routine and limits to accommodate the greater weight, and thus build that intense high-strength endurance that helps you sustain maximum effort for longer periods of time. Here is a sample workout originally published elsewhere, start at 65% of your lifting capacity, and take 60-second rest periods between sets;

Sample Workout #1 — two days per week

Day 1:
Clean and Press: 15 sets x 2 reps
Curl Grip Chin: 15 x 2
Medium Grip Bench Press: 10 x 1
Deadlift: 20 x1
Abdominal Work

Day 2:
Dips: 12 sets x 3 reps
Clean and Front Squat: 20 x 2
Bent Rows: 12 x 2
Barbell Curl and Press: 6 x 4
Abdominal Work

Sample Workout #2 — performed every workout
Clean and Press: 20 sets x 1 rep
Bench Press: 8 x 2
Barbell Curls: 6 x 3
Chin: 15 x 2
Squat: 20 x 1
Abdominal Work

As your body starts to get used to these exercises, you will find that you should take shorter rest periods between sets, and then eventually increase your weight limits with the workouts. Generally, once you get down to about 20 second rest periods; look at increasing your weight limits. Don’t forget, your rest periods don’t have to be you standing there, gasping for air as your body is sore. Use that time and work muscles that didn’t get hit during your reps, perform the exercises with no weights, but it will keep your hard up, and keep you pumped up so that you can get right back into the workout when your rest period is over.

Sticking with one of these anaerobic, fast-push and high intensity, conditioning workout doesn’t just build your muscles and strength, it builds your endurance in a fashion you can use. Don’t get gassed out in the ring, that five minutes of maximum effort is nothing when you have a minute rest between rounds, especially when your body gets used to doing near maximum effort with 30 or even 20 second breaks. Go into every fight and perform every instance of your training as if you are going to go a full 25 minutes with you pushing your opponent to the limit of their endurance, so you can make sure that you don’t reach the limit of yours.