Sports Realm

If you are a mixed-martial artist and you have been in a fight that’s gone the distance, then maybe you understand the awful feeling of having nothing left to give with a couple of minutes left in the round. If you haven’t gone the distance or have not had a pro fight yet, then use the 5 tips in this post to make sure you are the one maintaining pressure and imposing will – not your opponent.

1) Do sprints and intervals instead of long, slow runs.

Mixed martial arts is a sport that requires explosive, quick moves and strength at various times through a 5 minute round. Who knows if you will be in a clinch, defending a shot, escaping the mount, or sinking in a triangle. One thing you do know is you WON’T be jogging around the ring at a slow pace for 30 minutes. Trained in this fashion will help you get your time down for your local charity run, but won’t do anything to help you knock your opponent out.

Instead, stay with sprints and intervals if you’re going to do running workouts. One particualr good sprint workout should be to warm-up for five minutes doing a dynamic warm-up routine, then doing 5 short 40 yard sprints where you gradually improve your pace from about 60% to 90%. Rest a moment, then perform a 100 metre sprint, walk back to the beginning, and repeat for a total of 10 sprints. This workout will beat distance running hands down for being able to enhance your performance in the cage.

2) Take 2 recovery weeks off for every four weeks of conditioning.

This tip is huge, and it has helped skyrocket the fitness of the athletes I train. Most fighters have a thing about working themselves to death – this mindset is what makes them tough, but also what keeps them injured and often over trained, limiting performance in both training and competition.

You are able to avoid these complications by taking a couple weeks from your conditioning workouts. You’ll still do your Training for mma training and strength/power workouts, but let the conditioning go for 2 weeks. When you get back to it, you’ll be fresher and prepared to take your conditioning up another notch.

3) Do more specific workouts within the 4 weeks leading up to the fight.

Sprints and intervals are good, but they are not specific to mixed-martial arts. The workouts that I have my athletes perform include jumps, sprawls, quick feet drills, core stabilization exercises, explosive push-ups – all movements that are utilized in a fight, performed as quick and explosively as possible. I call these workouts NRG System Complexes, because they make use of every energy system from the body and are made up of a lot of diverse exercises.

Each complex lasts about 5 minutes, as well as your goal ought to be to do 4 complexes in a row with 1 minute of rest where you feel fresh and powerful within the last round. So the closer you get to the fight, the more specific you need to get together with your conditioning routine.

Make use of the tips in this article and you’ll improve your conditioning and your opponents will wish they didn’t waste so much time training doing slow, hour long runs.

If you plan on mma training be sure to pick up some MMA Fight Shorts and MMA Gloves from mmashortsnadgloves.com