MMA Training Blog: MMA Training Workouts and MMA Strength and Conditioning for MMA fighters and fans

July 25th, 2010

How to Develop Punching Power (Part 1)

Derek Manuel

It is said that, just like some people are born naturally stronger, or naturally more athletic, some people are born with more punching or knockout power then others.

However, just like strength and athleticism, punching power can be developed with the proper mma training workouts. The key is to take what talent you were or weren’t born with and focus on developing it from there – whining about “unfortunate genetics” won’t get you anywhere.

First and foremost, we must understand what constitutes punching power, then we can properly understand how to develop it.

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MMA Conditioning, MMA Strength Training, MMA Workout Routine, MMA Workouts

July 12th, 2010

MMA Workouts with Odd Shaped Objects

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Derek Manuel

Although mma workouts weren’t the first to include odd shaped objects with various strength and conditioning exercises, the sport is certainly helping it grow in popularity.

Outside of being an exciting way to add spice to your mma workouts rather then the same old push and pull exercises with barbells and dumbbells, their should be a method to the madness.

Just because your flipping tires and throwing medicine balls and carrying around a sandbag doesn’t necessarily mean your optimizing your mma workouts if there’s no formula for progression to it.

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MMA Strength Training, MMA Workout Routine

July 6th, 2010

MMA Strength Training for Muscle Endurance Part 2

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Derek Manuel

MMA Strength Training for Muscle Endurance

Last week I wrote about how increasing your maximum strength (ie your 1 rep max on the bench press) will actually indirectly increase you muscle and strength endurance.

This week, I wanted to add on one extra tactic you can add to your mma workout routine to really develop your muscle endurance in conjunction with newly added strength.

Let’s say you took my advice and really worked on increasing your maximum strength with a MMA strength training workout focusing on a few important compound exercises.

Although this will tremendously help increase your muscle and strength endurance, it is still important that you get your body used to moving its own weight repeatedly without getting tired.

There are two ways you can do this in your MMA workout routine:

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MMA Conditioning, MMA Strength Training, MMA Workouts

July 1st, 2010

MMA Strength Training for Muscle Endurance

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Derek Manuel

When most people think of developing muscle endurance, they immediately think of body weight exercises and light resistance resistance training for higher volume of reps.

Although this is indeed a good way develop muscle endurance, if this was ALL you did, you would actually be limiting the development of your muscle endurance tremendously.

You’d be developing just the same if not better muscle endurance by doing the exact opposite: lift heavy weight.

“What the hell are you talking about Derek,” you might say, “you’re trying to tell me lifting heavy weight for low reps is a better way to build muscle endurance? You’re crazy.”

Although I indeed may be a little crazy, there is some truth to what I’m talking about; let me explain:

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June 29th, 2010

The MMA Diet: Intro & Pre-Breakfast

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Derek Manuel

When it comes strength and conditioning for MMA, I would be completely remiss without ever covering the topic of diet and nutrition.

If you train but neglect your diet and nutrition, it’s actually better for you that DON’T TRAIN AT ALL.

Why? Because after a strength and/or conditioning workout, your body then relies on two components to repair: rest and nutrients. Without the proper nutrients to restore muscle tissue, you’re really just wasting your time.

So what’s a good diet and nutrition plan MMA fighters should follow?

If you’re looking to cut weight safely and effectively, maintain balanced energy for your training throughout the day, build lean muscle, burn fat, or all of the above, then you gotta check out Jonathan Stamey’s blog post series on The MMA Diet.

Check out his first blog post here on The MMA Diet: Intro & Pre-Breakfast

If you’re just winging your meals, waking up every morning and not eating immediately upon rising, and just plain not taking your diet seriously, you need to read this post NOW.

Stamey has years experience in MMA (with an emphasis on boxing) and physical fitness, and all you have to do is just take one look at his physique to know he know’s what he’s talking about.

Check out his physique and his exact eating stragety on how he gets and maintains it here:

====> The MMA Diet: Intro & Pre-Breakfast <=====

Train hard, train smart fellow fighters and fans, I hope this helps

Derek Manuel
MMA Training Workouts

MMA Conditioning

June 13th, 2010

Mirko Cro Crop’s Excellent Point on MMA Conditioning

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Derek Manuel

In the post fight interviews after the explosive and wild UFC 115 card, Mirko Cro Crop confirmed a great point regarding mma conditioning that I wrote about a few months back.

When asked about his training coming up to the fight, the Croatian native talked about how in the past he would be able to do 5 -10 minutes of high intensity rounds on the punching bag. But then, 3 – 5 minutes into a fight, he would still find himself gassed out.

This is when he stated a very important point when it comes to mma conditioning that I think few mma fighters realize when he said…

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MMA Strength Training, MMA Workouts

June 3rd, 2010

MMA Strength Training: Free-Weights or Machines?

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Derek Manuel

MMA Strength Training: Free-Weights or Machines?

MMA strength training is much more complex then what most other athletes require. Though there is no one best way to develop mma specific strength, I often time suggest free-weights over machines at least 75% of the time.

The main reason being is that mma fighters need to develop not only the major muscles of the body, but they equally need to develop their stabilizer muscles as well, and machines take a lot away from this.

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MMA Conditioning, MMA Workout Routine

June 1st, 2010

How 60 Seconds or Less Change Your MMA Conditioning Workouts Forever

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Derek Manuel

When conditioning for MMA, every second of exercises AND rest count

If you’ve been training with mma conditioning workouts for a while but you still find yourself gassing out in your training or competition, you may be making a mistake in your training that can be fixed in 60 seconds or less.

One of the biggest but perhaps unnoticed mistakes that I’ve seen mma fighters or combat athletes make in their training is not enough attention to the time they “rest” in between sets, reps, intervals, or rounds in their mma conditioning workouts.

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MMA Workout Routine, MMA Workouts

May 27th, 2010

MMA Workout Program with the Sledgehammer

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Derek Manuel

Sledgehammer MMA Workout

When you think of hardcore or old school training methods to develop raw strength and power, usually the picture of some bad-ass looking dude wielding a sledgehammer like it was Thor’s Mighty Hammer and slamming it on an old monster truck tire comes to mind.

Although this exercise goes back decades, to this day it is still a vital one to throw in your mma workout program. On top of the many physical benefits, it just feels damn good to swing a thick wooden stick with a big chunk of iron at the end with all your might.

It brings to the wielder a feeling a raw power and animalistic aggression that smith machines and sissy looking stability ball exercises simply can’t provide (nothing against these exercises, of course; they have their time and place).

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MMA Conditioning, MMA Workout Routine, MMA Workouts

May 25th, 2010

MMA Conditioning Workouts: New Age of Circuit Training

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Derek Manuel

Bear crawls is a great mma conditioning exercise

Circuit training has been around for a long time. It is a staple in exercise routines for developing cardiovascular endurance and muscular conditioning.

As the sport of mma becomes more and more popular and the standards for mma fighters strength and conditioning continues to increase, mma conditioning workouts need to be more refined and sport specific then ever.

Traditional circuit training had trainee’s doing typical “old school” exercises such as push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups.

Although these will continue to be staple exercises for any athlete, fighters and combat athletes need more sport specific mma conditioning workouts and exercises.

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How to Develop Punching Power (Part 1)

MMA Workouts with Odd Shaped Objects

MMA Strength Training for Muscle Endurance Part 2

MMA Strength Training for Muscle Endurance

The MMA Diet: Intro & Pre-Breakfast

Mirko Cro Crop’s Excellent Point on MMA Conditioning

MMA Strength Training: Free-Weights or Machines?

How 60 Seconds or Less Change Your MMA Conditioning Workouts Forever

MMA Workout Program with the Sledgehammer

MMA Conditioning Workouts: New Age of Circuit Training

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