MMA Conditioning Workouts for Mixed Martial Arts

MMA conditioning tips to improve your training...

The right MMA conditioning methods will transport you to another level in your mixed martial arts training. Pretty soon you'll be running circles around the guys in your gym, leaving them a tired mess, unable to keep up. Meanwhile, you'll walk off the mat sweating profusely, but hardly breathing heavy.

Don't be fooled into thinking that technique is everything. Frank Shamrock always said that his best submission hold was his conditioning.

Rickson Gracie is also fanatical about his conditioning. This is despite the fact that he has the best Brazilian Jiu Jitsu technique on the planet.

Whether it is for MMA or Grappling, you always need to backup your technique with infallible conditioning. While technique is extremely important, it does you little, if any, good when you're too tired to use it.

Technique and conditioning go hand in hand in MMA. The better your conditioning is, the longer you can perform crisp techniques. The better your technique, the less energy you waste, which can also help you outlast an opponent. Unfortunately, many people are wasting time with conditioning workouts that really have nothing to do with MMA training.

Proper Conditioning for Mixed Martial Arts

I'll admit that when it comes to strength and conditioning, something is always better than nothing. But you should still choose your training and conditioning methods wisely.

Having good conditioning while you are running is one thing, but it doesn't mean you'll be in good shape towards the end of a grappling match or an MMA fight with a huge guy on top of you trying to choke you out. So anytime we talk about conditioning for MMA, grappling, fighting or whatever, it's important to think about what will carry over into the gym, into the ring, or onto the mat.

Being in good condition for MMA also has a ton of carry over to functional fitness in general. Once you're in shape on the mat and in the gym, your body will perform better in any other arena you choose to enter.

The Best MMA Conditioning Exercises

Some of the best conditioning drills and exercises that are MMA specific are the ones that happen to be portable too. By portable I mean you can do them anytime, anywhere, and without any equipment. For example, when Rickson Gracie was traveling around the world giving seminars, like most world class grapplers do, he needed a way to keep his conditioning at its peak. This would be very difficult if he had to find a gym to lift weights in. Instead, he was able to use the same conditioning drills and bodyweight exercises that he always uses because they barely require any equipment. This way he could condition his body for about an hour every morning, despite the fact that he was living out of a suitcase and waking up in a different hotel room every morning.

Here are a few such conditioning drills that will work for any mixed martial artist:

• Hindu Pushup - This exercise has been used by combat athletes, including Rickson Gracie himself, for hundreds of years.

• Bodyweight Squat - The Lion's Den, one of the top MMA schools in the US, used to require that you could perform 500 of these.

• Other Bodyweight Calisthenics - Basic exercises like situps, pushups, pullups and supermans are still being used by MMA fighters like Fedor Emelianenko, Rickson Gracie, and probably any other combat athlete you can think of.

High Intensity or Low Intensity Conditioning
For Mixed Martial Arts?

A realistic conditioning routine for mixed martial arts is not just about what exercises you train with, but also how you train with them.

MMA is a very explosive and dynamic sport. I talk often about how great bodyweight conditioning is, but let's look a little deeper at how you can use bodyweight exercises and drills more effectively.

During a mixed martial arts fight or a grappling match, an athlete needs to be as explosive as possible. Fedor Emelianenko is simply the best I have ever seen at this. He uses his bodyweight momentum and movement to create a ton of power whether he is punching, striking, taking his opponent down or reversing his opponent from the bottom. His movements are all very explosive and very quick. His extreme power and explosiveness allowed him to toss Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira around the ring unlike any other fighter has been able to. Even Bob Sapp, who outweighed "Big Nog" by 100 lbs, was not able to man-handle him the way Fedor was able to.

Commentators like Bas Rutten are also quick to note how incredibly fast Emelianenko's reflexes are. I used to wonder if he had a special way of conditioning his body to react in such an explosive manner. Then I saw him running through some of his MMA conditioning exercises and I noticed a very important detail about his training.

Fedor conditions his body with a lot of bodyweight calisthenics and conditioning drills. But when he performs them, he does something very important. He performs each repetition very explosively. Whether he is performing a pull-up, a basic push-up, a simple sit-up, or kicking over from a bridge, Fedor explodes very fast during every repetition. This is a huge tip that most people, even the people who use the same exercises, miss. In fact, I haven't seen anyone else use bodyweight conditioning drills with the intensity that Fedor uses. Some people might even watch him and assume that he is using poor form, but I don't believe that is the case.

Emelianenko understands that a well conditioned body for mixed martial arts needs to be an explosively conditioned body. And he trains for that explosiveness in every repetition. The piece of information that I really want you to take from this is that there is a huge difference between doing a regular pushup versus performing the same pushup very explosively. Think about how you can apply this explosive conditioning tip to your own MMA workout routine.