Fit for purpose
Recently, I’ve had a few people ask me the same question: “how do I get fit for MMA?” The answer is not as simple as you might think. Getting fit in general isn’t too tricky – for the most part you just have to train. Getting fit for something specific, however, is a little different.
There is one simple example that immediately comes to mind. If you got up and went for an hour run every morning, you will get fitter than you are now – for running. When you run you get what is called a steady state heart rate, which means you hold a certain heart rate for a pre-determined amount of time. The more you do this the more efficient your body gets at the task. Your heart pumps more blood per beat, the blood carries more oxygen and your muscles get stronger and therefore uses less effort for each stride. As your heart is pumping more blood and your muscles are stronger, you can run faster at the same effort compared to your starting point. In a nutshell, that is fitness.
The problem with MMA is that there is a huge skill factor. When you start MMA, you’re constantly playing catch up. When your body is trying to go faster than your brain can handle, you end up rushing and this leads to fatigue. Let me explain with an example. If I’m training BJJ, when I’m rolling with a white belt my brain is going rather slow as I have a big advantage in technique and experience, and therefore, I am not getting pushed technically or mentally. If we changed this rolling partner to a black belt though, I would end up playing catch up most of the time. When I do get the upper hand, I am working so hard to get/keep it that when I lose the position, I am breathing heavy. This is because I have run out of technique and ability so the only thing left to use is strength and athleticism, which doesn’t take long to run out and that is when you are in big trouble. Think about any great athlete and you will see they have the ability to jog while everyone else is sprinting. The greats just seem to be able to be in the right place at the right time and they make it look easy – the same occurs in fighting.
Even if you have all the technique and ability in the world, fitness is still a core ingredient to success. We will look at some ways to get that specific fitness to add to your MMA skills. The first thing to look at is the duration. Even if you’re fighting for the UFC title, the longest you will ever compete in MMA is 25 minutes, that is through five five-minute rounds. For most of us though, you are looking at either 3 x three-minute rounds or 3 x five-minute rounds. This means your fitness training should be around the 15 – 25-minute mark. This does not mean that your workout is only 15 minutes long, it just means that when you are pushing hard you want to keep the workouts around the 15 – 30min range.
There are options of 2 x 15-minute rounds 3 x 10-minute rounds and so on. Consider one round of one minute of cardio (rowing/running) one minute of bodyweight (push ups/burpees) one minute of weight based training (kettlebells) then one minute of power moves (box jump) then one minute off, repeat this 5 times and you have a 25 minute workout. That is just one example. In terms of strength though, you need to be able to produce force fast (power) and all so produce a lot of grunt (strength). This means you have to have days when you lift for power and other days where you are just lifting for weight. The main lifts you want to do are ones where you are using more than one joint. These are big movements, not isolation lifts like bicep curls. The big movements are really important for MMA as you are training to strengthen the movement not the muscle. Think of the primal movements: Push, Pull, Jump, Squat, Bend, Twist and Lunge. If you keep your lifts along these lines you will be heading in the right direction.
Then the real kicker is to combine the cardio and strength, which is what happens in competition. This can be using the weights to get your heat rate up. 10 bodyweight dead lifts, 1 x 10 metre shuttle, 9 dead lifts 1x 10m shuttle, 8 dead lifts… and so on until 1 dead lift. Again, this is only one example, but it gives you an idea on how to combine strength with cardio.
With MMA training, there are three key factors. The first is intensity. You have to keep the intensity high. This is because when you are competing, the intensity is right up there, and you need to practice in that zone. Secondly, do not train for long duration-low intensity as that never happens in the sport. Instead, you need short duration high intensity, instead of going for a 5km run, you’re better doing 200m sprints with 1min rest for 20mins. Third key: train the movement not the muscle. Think of the movement you want to strengthen and find a way to put resistance on it to improve. Imagine you have an upcoming fight with your twin who has same amount of skill and talent. Your twin has run 5km every day to fight you. Whereas, you have been doing specific training. I am betting that you will beat the twin. As someone who trained me years back said “any fool can get fit”, so don’t just get fit get fit for purpose.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor