What MMA people train vs. what bodybuilders train, usage of protein, and more.

[Kambei Shimada]

That's what I do. I compete currently in sanshou, working to have my first MMA fight next year and in the past I've fought in boxing and muay thai.

Some days I am trying to get my max benchpress up or do squats or something, and the next day I'm doing 10 rounds of supersets with hundreds of pullups and dips and whatnot until I want to hurl and my muscles feel like they are on fire. Just keep mixing it up, man. Look up some articles on muscle confusion. Try to vary your workouts as much as possible. Why do just one?

Or, just do the www.crossfit.com daily excercises.

Thats pretty much how i do it also.

As my aim is to work on both strength and endurance I tend to vary my workouts.

[snowman]

Unfortunately, there is no "good" answer to your overarching question. Which I think is: "What should I be doing?"

I have been an MMA competitor, with a good quality fight team, and we had a strength coach. Basically we were told to do everything. Literally.

Some weeks it was low weight/high reps, (often in a circuit) for exactly the reasons Randy does it.

Other weeks it was maximum explosive power workouts (heavy weights, very few reps).

Other weeks it was pure endurance, etc. There is no one, perfect workout philosophy for MMA athletes, because the discipline is so eclectic.

I recommend you come up with three workouts, each catered toward a specific physical goal. Then I would cycle them every 4-6 weeks. In a year, all your physical attributes will be much better!

Scrapper any chance of you posting up an example of your 3 routines?

[Scrapper]

Keep in mind that these workouts are illustrative, not representative. Feel free to mix and match, plug in or remove exercises, and generally muck with the details. But in all honesty, this is how my workouts usually went while I was training and competing.

Of course, every day was different, and life gets in the way.

Workout #1 raw explosive power:
Day 1-Dead Lift (5X5)
Bench Press (5X5)
Squat (5X5)
Hanging Clean/Overhead Press (5X5)

Day 2-Barbell Row (3 sets 6-10 reps)
Low row (3 sets 6-10 reps)
Lat pulldpwn or pull ups (3 sets 6-10 reps)

Alternate lifting days with training days.


Workout #2: Muscular endurance/staying power
Circuit 1-
Sumo dead lift/High pull (Low weight, 10-15 reps)
Pull ups (to failure)
Bench Press (8-12 reps)
Barbell Row (8-12 reps)
Complete this circuit as quickly as you can. MOVE FAST. At the end of the circuit, rest 5 minutes and repeat. Try to complete as many circuits as possible in 45 minutes. Alternate with training days.


Workout 3- Cardio/speed
Day 1- Pushups (feet elevated 12") At least 100. Break it up any way you have to.
Weighted Situps-At least 100. Break it up any way you have to.
Dumbell shadow boxing. (grab a pair of 5-lb dumbells, do combo drills for 5 3-min
rounds.)
Pull ups- At least 50. Break it up any way you have to.

Day 2-Interval sprints at the track. Weighted vest or drag a tire for extra pain. (30 minutes)
Any decent plyometric routine for 20 minutes. Be creative.

Day 3-Get Bas Rutten's All-around fighting cd and do the MMA workout on the heavy bag. Don't be a *****, do all the sprawls.

Alternate with training days.

[snowman]

Nice man, thanks, and your rotation was 4-6 weeks? did you take a week or 2 break between rotations?

[Scrapper]

Maybe a week or so. Just to prevent overtraining. Keep in mind I was doing a competitive MMA workout 2-4 times a week (depending on my work schedule).

The reality of it is that you won't do every workout all the time. Stay consistent as best you can.

Hell, Nowadays all I do is heavy weight training and hitting the bag.

[Rancid Pantaloons]

I read the first post but I couldn't really figure out what you are asking for.. if you are asking what you should do then you should tell us what you are going to use your body for.

[Emevas]

TC: My advise to you is that if you are unaware of how to train, you aren't in a position to be desigining your own routine in the first place. Don't stress yourself out how high reps vs. low reps, just find a pre-formated routine designed by someone that knows what the hell to do and follow it religiously with no deviations whatsoever. As much as it sounds like blind faith, it's really your best bet as you take your time to research and learn what is going on. I used to be the same, and tried to design my own routine based on bits and pieces of things I had heard over the net. My routine sucked and led to injury and stagnation. I then just swallowed my pride and just started following routines by Pavel and Westside Barbell, and my training took off, all the while I started doing my own research and found out why and how certain things work.

Look into the Starting Strength routine, or something from Ross, or even the trainforstrength.com routines, and start reading up from legitimate authors and sources (rather than just bodybuilding.com or google answers). Get an understanding of the basic biology behind strength training, and then you won't need to worry about which rep scheme for mass.

[Teh El Macho]

Scrapper's and Emevas' posts hit the nail right on the head.

To the OP, have you read the sticky thread?

[Raining_Blood]

Any rep or weight range is merely a tool for developing qualities. There is no better or worse it just depends on what qualities you are trying to develop. So what rep or weight ranges you are using depends on the stage of perdiozation you are currently in and what you are trying to achieve in that stage.

To scrapper, im going to have to disagree with you on the cardio/speed workouts. Cardio and speed are to very different qualities and have a negative transference on each each other. Trying to develop them at the same time will lead to lessened results. Also your use of plyometrics after interval training is somewhat contradictive. Look up charlie francis or any of the russian guys for more info on speed/power development but the rest of your workouts are spot on.

[Scrapper]

Cardio and speed should be developed in the actual medium for which you intend to use them.

IE. the training mat/ring/floor whatever.

They wanted to hear what I did when I was competing. So I told them. Perhaps cardio/speed was a misnomer, but I had to categorize that cycle as SOMETHING.