MMA fitness program question

[dumblucky]

Out of curiosity, what is the current take on MMA fitness prep - the piece that takes place outside normal muay thai/bjj class?

I know its a broad question but I'm trying to find out what people would do if they had to design a program for an MMA fight taking place something like five months from now.

How would you approach it, who would you reference, how much time would you spend lifting/ running/ hitting the bag, what kind of exercises would you do, how would you do your interval work, how would you taper, etc?

Its a hypothetical question so you can assume a perfect world and limitless resources.

[TheRuss]

When I asked my BJJ teacher about this, his response was (almost verbatim): "Go to class and participate in post-class free-rolling". Which makes sense, but it's somehow unsatisfying - especially given the conundrum that with BJJ, the better you are, the less work it is to do.

He did have some novel takes on it, though - he'd take the guys who had matches coming up and pair them up with bigger opponents, have them roll until the bigger opponent fatigued, then put them with another opponent and have them roll, so on, so forth.

My gut answer (beyond what my teacher recommended)? Road work, jump rope, resistance-training circuits, and hill/staircase sprints.

[Sang]

my favorite is interval sprint training spaced to meet your round/time requirement. for me it was 600m in 2 mins, 1 min break 6 times. when every training session hurts more than any fight could (was throwing up twice a week) everything starts to get easier.

Sorry that i cant give you a big post on other stuff like soft/hard ab work, overtraining, weights and all that, had surgery yesterday so pretty stuffed on pain killers right now with a cast on one hand.

[Teh El Macho]

Out of curiosity, what is the current take on MMA fitness prep - the piece that takes place outside normal muay thai/bjj class?

I know its a broad question but I'm trying to find out what people would do if they had to design a program for an MMA fight taking place something like five months from now.

How would you approach it, who would you reference, how much time would you spend lifting/ running/ hitting the bag, what kind of exercises would you do, how would you do your interval work, how would you taper, etc?

Its a hypothetical question so you can assume a perfect world and limitless resources.

Have you check the sticky thread? If not, do so. Anyways:

1.) The current take would be to develop and maintain a really good anaerobic capacity, your "gas tank", and perhaps being the strongest you can possibly be within your desired weight class. Which one you give priority over the other depends on your strength and weaknesses after ironing out any conflicts with your actual MMA skills training (which is always number one.) This leads me to the following:

2.) It's a very individual thing. Individuals differ, and as such, it's impossible to generalize the specifics. It's not only based on the individuals's physical strenghts and weaknesses, but also on the strategy he might choose to follow. Other than getting your "gas tank" ready, everything else can change from one fighter to another.

The opening chapter of BJ Penn's book covers some basic conditioning principles. You could browse that at your local B&N. Better yet, get Ross Enamait's book "Infinite Intensity" - you can also get his other book "Never Gymless" as well as Mark Rippetoe's "Starting Strenght" - see my signature. All those three blend perfectly, BUT start with "Infinite Intensity" to see a good strategy for developing combat conditioning. The Pit and Diesel Crew also have good materials on the subject.

None of these are going to tell you how often to do this and how much to do that. They'll give you a template that you need to analyze and digest and mold to your needs.

I will also suggest you use the search function. We have several threads on that topic already. In fact, go check the sticky thread and see the strenght/conditioning links on it.

[Aikislacker]

What the guy above me said. Also check out Crossfit.com. Do that as scheduled and your classes. It should be all you need. Many others have found that to be the case.

[Yohan]

What the guy above me said. Also check out Crossfit.com. Do that as scheduled and your classes. It should be all you need. Many others have found that to be the case.

We have a pretty high level guy in my class who has been doing crossfit. His fitness is great and his fighting is better and he's been doing crossfit for the last year or so. We were having a conversation regarding crossfit and working out in general and how it relates to our new schedule at the fight gym (8 more intense sessions in 5 days total). He was saying that he didn't feel he could handle his portion of the schedule and do crossfit and he only comes to 3-4 sessions a week.

I've got the same feeling with my program. I was doing the 7 less intense sessions per week along with 2 weight days and 2 conditioning days. I tried to just add in the additional sessions and intensity and keep up my current schedule and it just hasn't worked out for me. I ended up injuring myself the first week under the new schedule, and again this week. I've been dealing with additional fatigue and performance hits during training. I could probably handle it better if I could do my fitness stuff AFTER my skill work, but I haven't been able to work that out yet because of the hours at the fitness gym.

I'm going to sit down with my strength coach and re-do my routine probably based on some of Martin Rooney's stuff. If you want to see more details about how I'm going to be restructuring my training program, see this thread, as more details will be forthcoming in the next day or 2:

My most draconian schedule yet - Martial Arts Planet