MMA Workout Routines

Posts Tagged ‘MMA conditioning’

Whenever a professional fight commentator comments on Anderson “The Spider” Silva’s matches, underneath all their words, generally comes the term ‘unorthodox’. Many consider the middleweight champion the top pound-for-pound fighter in MMA when he is on his game, and as he has shown time and time again, he is always on his game when he steps into the ring. He has only risked loss in one fight, to contender Chael Sonnen, but Silva managed to pull out a submission with seconds left in the fight.

The middleweight fighter has not been defeated in his time in the UFC, even when he stepped up his game and put on twenty pounds in order to fight at light heavyweight vs. popular fighter Forest Griffin. He again showed his ability as a top fighter by taking out Griffin in the first round of the fight. Silva has also never been shy about his desire for a fight vs other superstar fighter George St. Pierre, the UFC welterweight champion.

With a fighting pedigree and record like that, Anderson Silva must have a training regimen that puts all other fighters to shame, right? Well, like the fighter himself, Silva’s training routine is comparatively unorthodox compared to fighters that show the same level of talent and conditioning. Silva does not punish his body with workouts that last all day, every day, he doesn’t spend every waking hour thinking about fighting, and he doesn’t carefully plan out his diet for meal after meal.

What Anderson Silva does do is try and maintain a balanced workout schedule between conditioning and technique training. He spends a great deal of time honing his knowledge of different techniques, so that he can always approach his opponents from different angles, and confuse them by never using the same types of techniques repeatedly. From UFC’s All Access show, Anderson Silva took them through a week of his training. His technique training has a specific schedule. He works Jiu-Jitsu on Monday, Muay Thai on Tuesday, and traditional boxing on Wednesday. For Thursday and Friday he repeats techniques he learned the early part of the week and puts them together in combinations built to confound his opponents. Sparring two days a week reinforces that training style, and gives him a chance to put it all together.

His diet and conditioning workout is just as unusual, in that he doesn’t pound his body every day of the week like some fighters. His strength training routine lasts two hours a day, four days a week, while he cycles through a thirty-minute training cycle. He also runs forty minutes every day to build his cardio. This workout is moderate compared to many other fighters, but it means he also doesn’t abuse his body and push things to injury. He doesn’t pay attention to the specifics of his diet, but he keeps his calorie intake at about three-thousand calories a day, and does his best to eat lots of high protein foods, such as one of his favorites, sushi. He does avoid alcohol and sugar intake, but other than that, he doesn’t specifically pay attention to his food intake. It is a very casual attitude towards his diet that many fighters don’t seem to share. In an aside about his life before fighting, Anderson Silva admits that during his time working at McDonalds, he developed a taste for the Big Mac, and so now before a fight he often indulges himself with a couple of burgers before fights.

Despite Silva’s unorthodox fighting style, and training style, the UFC fighter is obviously doing something right. He is the longest reigning UFC title holder with 9 title defenses under his belt, against some of the strongest middleweight fighters in the division, as well as two decisive light-heavyweight bouts that never went out of the first round. Anderson’s attitude, good humor, and unusual fighting style also make him one of the most entertaining fighters to watch, and he proves above all that it doesn’t really matter the specifics of how you work out and condition, as long as it works for you and how you want to approach the octagon.

When you watch the UFC events, you constantly hear the mantra, “conditioning, conditioning, conditioning.” They are always talking about one opponent having excellent conditioning, poor conditioning, or better conditioning then their opponent. In the current fight game it looks like conditioning is what you need to up your game. Usually when they are referring to a fight, conditioning means the ability of one fighter to keep up maximum output for as long as possible, or at least until their opponent gives out.

There are various kinds of conditioning though, conditioning for explosive power that will take you off the cage, or off your back when an opponent tries to hold you there, endurance conditioning that says you can dance for three rounds without losing a step, even endurance conditioning where you can simply out-exert your opponent and grind them into the mat. You want to work every kind of conditioning in some way into your workout. There is almost no ‘catch all’ circuit, but there are a few general workouts better suited towards someone new to the sport until you find your best workout style.

First things first though, most MMA fighter conditioning workouts have a strong anaerobic component. They go for maximum effort in the minimum amount of time during their circuits, but it is always wise to warm up with a good aerobic workout. This loosens your muscles, stretches you out, and gets your body ready for putting out everything. Depending on your fitness level, consider this as a method to warm up before you get into a heavy workout;

Jogging 3-5 km,
Hitting an Exercise bike for 45 minutes,
Jump Rope for 30 minutes,

All of those basic exercises will get you nice and ready for the intensity you need for your all-around conditioning workout. Here is a sample workout that is common among several MMA gyms;

Hindu Pushup

Squat jumps 30 seconds
Shadow box 30 seconds
Hindu pushups 30 seconds
Shadow box 30 seconds
Situps 30 seconds

Repeat immediately with no break for a total circuit of 5 minutes, but pushes your body to work into that anaerobic workout where you can make real conditioning progress. Take 1-3 minutes to rest, with a goal being 1 minute, then immediately jump into a second set of that circuit. Repeat as many times as you can until you drop flat from exhaustion. The goal is to push your body hard, and feel the anaerobic burn so that your body can work all muscles groups needed for a career fighting in MMA.

Randy Couture has a physique that many men would envy as a result of a training routine that is deceptively simple. He’s known for his signature fighting style that mixes martial arts with Greek wrestling, but he attributes much of his success to a religious regime.

Using 50 pounds on a barbell, Couture does a crazy routine that centers targeted muscle groups in quick repetitions. Much of his routine is done in a standing position, but it is combined with squats and lounges for a full body workout. Here is a quick breakdown of what the Couture regime focuses on:

• Biceps/Triceps
• Glutes/Hamstrings
• Lower back/Lower Abs
• Shoulders/Upper back
• Thighs/Calves

MMA Conditioning Workout -

In 2008, a quiet light heavyweight made a huge splash in the UFC coming in as a late addition on the prelim card of UFC 87. He hasn’t looked back since. His only blemish on his near perfect record was a disqualification against Matt Hamill for use of illegal elbows.  Since then he has fought some very tough opponents, although you wouldn’t know that the way he just tosses them around. When he fought the decorated wrestler Ryan Bader, you would have thought Bader didn’t know how to wrestle and he was a Raggedy Andy doll.

The 6-foot-3 former All-American Greco-Roman wrestler’s training program is as unorthodox as his fighting style. Every exercise is meant to push his muscles to max capacity so he can explode during his fights.

Usually starting two months before his fights, Jones begins his strength and cardio training three days a week. His strength and conditioning coach, Kelly Tekin, explains “We went by feel and used a lot of explosive exercises to train his muscle fibers to fire faster,” and, “We also relied on a lot of heavy compound exercises to keep muscle on his frame.”

Below is an example of a typical training day for Jones.

AVERAGE DAY
1. Hang Clean (5 sets of 5 reps)
2. Barbell Push Press (8 sets of 5 reps: 30 sec. rest between sets)
3. Lying Leg Curl (6 sets of 6 reps)
4. Depth Dumbbell Snatch (4 sets of 4 reps)
5. Ring Twists (3 sets of 4 reps to each side)
6. Clean from Knees w/Jump (3 sets of 10 reps)
7. Medicine ball superset (run the cycle three times for a total of three supersets)
•    Medicine Ball Power Up (5 reps)
•    Medicine Ball Sprawl and Jump (8 reps)
•    Medicine Ball Plyo Push Up (8 reps)
8. One-Leg Straight Leg Walking Dumbbell Deadlifts (3 sets for 25 yards each)

Jones’ cardio is worked with high-tech equipment that tests his muscles in ways reserved for fights. For example, Tekin would place a tackling dummy on top of a non-motorized treadmill (called the Tred Sled), then hook Jones into a special vest with resistance cords attached to it. “I would push the dummy as hard as possible, as if I was doing a takedown, for 5-10 seconds,” says Jones. “Because I was being pulled backward by the cords, it’s a strenuous exercise that really builds up your explosive strength.”

Another unique tool Tekin uses is the VertiMax—a platform with resistance cords attached to it that strap onto Jones’ hands, waist, knees and ankles. Jones’ coach then hooks him up, then he does knee strikes, kicks and punches for 30-60 seconds at a time, switching stances (from traditional to southpaw) in between rounds. “The extra resistance made it difficult just to keep my hands up, let alone throw a punch,” says Jones, “After being tied into that thing, once I went to knee a guy without being strapped into the machine, it made my strikes that much more powerful in the Octagon.”

The one thing with Jon Jones is that he’s always been training, partly from being an All-American wrestler but also having to keep up with his two older brothers that are pro football players.

If you have the dedication to follow a plan like this, you have a chance of not only increasing your fighting strength, but your overall fitness will greatly benefit from this.