As the above image of the heavyweight enigma Fedor Emelianenko suggests, looks can be deceiving. At first glance you wouldn’t think he’s a very physically strong or conditioned human being, but anyone who’s seen him fight would attest otherwise.

Have you ever rolled with an opponent who, before clashing, you thought you were going to be able to manhandle – only to discover he’s freakishly more strong then you anticipated?

What about the other way around? If you train in MMA or some kind of grappling art long enough, I’m sure once you were intimidated by the muscle size of your opponent, and then realizing right after you start grappling that he isn’t nearly as strong as you thought.

Some people naturally have better looking builds then others, and some people are naturally strong but don’t look it. And then there are those gifted with both, such as the case with Georges St. Pierre.

However, there are some people who can train as hard as GSP and for as long as he has (though I seriously doubt that many do) but will never have the physique of the Canadian welterweight.

Again, everybody’s born with different physical genetics, and everybody develops at a different pace then each other both looks wise and strength wise.

The point is this: for combat athletes, it is much more important to develop one’s strength and conditioning in your mma workouts and not gauge you progress on how you look.

Of course, any athlete who follows a solid mma workout and has a good diet will most definitely develop a better physique then if they sat around on their asses all day eating Twinkie’s, but this should just be a by-product of your training, and not the end goal.

If you’ve read any of my past stuff, you’ll know how I emphasize power endurance as the main physical attribute mma fighters want to develop to be in optimal fighters shape.

Power exercises means moving resistance quickly. When you are moving resistance quickly, you are not necessarily building the muscle fibers that are ideal for muscle mass and definition.

This means you can be very powerful, but not look physically imposing (i.e. Fedor).

Now, I’m a guy, and I like having a fit and muscular and lean looking body just like the next guy, so I’m not saying that working out with the goal of looking good from your mma workouts is necessarily a bad thing.

What I’m saying is that if you are planning on fighting or competing in some kind of martial art competition, remember to follow the advice of Pat Riley, “the main this is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

And the main thing in a mma strength and conditioning workout is to further develop your strength and conditioning.

If you want to throw in an extra set of curls every once in a while or do a couple ab exercises that have absolutely no use other then building a thick muscular six pack, go ahead, especially if it’s the beginning of your “training camp” and your fight isn’t for a while.

But the closer it gets to your fight or competition, you’d better be focusing on your performance in your coach’s eyes rather then how you look in the mirror.

Hope this helps,

Derek Manuel
MMA Training Workouts

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.

The easiest way to make sure you’r still getting the best out of your mma training workouts with these various pieces of equipment is to follow a progressive program the same way you would with a barbell/dumbbell mma strength and conditioning workout.

If one of your exercises, such as deadlifts, in your traditional mma workouts requires you to either increase the weight, reps, sets, or decrease the rest periods as you progress every week, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t keep this same formula in mind when deadlifting a heavy sandbag, or keg, or railroad tracks, or whatever the hell you decide to get your hands on.

If after a few workouts you can perform a desired amount of reps with the sandbag, instead of using that same weight, changing the exercise, or pointlessly doing more reps…. ADD MORE WEIGHT IN THE BAG!

The same goes with any other exercise outside of the standard iron. If you’re doing an mma conditioning workout that involves tire-flipping, then make a goal to decrease the time it takes to complete a set or circuit.

In summary, don’t just think that since you’re working out with sandbags and tires and any other awkward piece of equipment that you’re getting a good workout.

You certainly wouldn’t let yourself bench press the same weight day after day, week after week, month after month, with no progression be it in weight, reps, sets, or shorter rest periods – so it doesn’t make any sense to forget this important key when training with any other form of resistance in your mma training workouts.

Train hard, train smart, fellow fighters and fans.

Derek Manuel
MMA Training Workouts

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:

1. Include a similar bodyweight exercise for every heavy exercise you do

If you increased your deadlift one rep maximum by 25 pounds, this is a huge step to increasing the muscle and strength endurance of the muscles used in this exercise.

Now, by adding a similar bodyweight exercise, such as hip thrusts or burpee’s, either by doing super-sets or adding it independently, and doing several explosive set’s of these, you’ll take your muscle endurance up an extra notch.

This way you are not only training your body to increase its capacity to deal with heavy weight, but you are now training your body’s cardio capacity to move its own weight quickly and explosively.

2. Perform different exercises with various equipment using your own body weight

Another way to spice up your MMA workout routine and increase your muscle and strength endurance is to not only train with increasingly heavier weight, and not just condition your body to handle its own weight, but to take it one step further and develop your muscles to it to handle the weight of your opponents.

If you weigh 170 pounds, in most cases your opponents are going to weigh roughly the same (at least if you’re competing in an organized event).

That being the case, it makes sense to get your arms, legs, back, and the rest of your muscles used to throwing this weight around and feeling it’s resistance.

By doing various exercises with 170 pounds (or whatever your body weight is) such as bench presses, deadlifts, squats, sandbag workouts, etc, and by doing them in a full MMA strength training and conditioning routine, you’ll be developing your muscles capacity to handle your opponents weight in various scenarios.

Hope this helps

Derek Manuel
MMA Workout Routine

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:

Strength Training vs Light Resistance Training

Let’s say you can bench press 185 pounds for 1 rep, and I can only bench 165 pounds for 1 rep. In most cases, this means that you would most likely be able to perform more reps then me with 135 reps. Follow me?

Now let’s say you go on a MMA strength training program with a focus on just increasing your strength on all the major compound exercises – heavy weight, low amount of reps.

Meanwhile, I continue to build my muscle endurance by doing a lot of body weight exercises and high rep, light resistance exercises.

Fast forward 3 months. Through your strength training program you increased your bench press to 215 pounds for 1 rep.

Me on the other hand, didn’t increase any of my max lifts but I can perform more reps with 135 pounds in the bench press, and my cardiovascular and muscular recovery is much faster between sets with this weight…..

…. but so is yours with 135 pounds, right?

Think about it. Not only did you increase your strength, but you automically increased your muscle endurance as a by- product. Doing 10 reps with 135 pounds on the bench press is going to be much easier for you after you increase your 1 rep max from 185 lbs to 215 lbs.

But me on the other hand, although I can do more reps with 135 lbs, am probably still not going to be able to do much more then a few reps at 165 or  higher.

Did we both increase our muscle endurance? Yes. But what’s the difference and why is it important for fighters to include MMA strength training in their muscle endurance workouts?

Let’s say you and I weigh the same weight, and fought each other in a mma competition or grappling match (for sake of this example, let’s assume our skill and technique are equal).

Whenever we tie up in different positions such as the clinch, grappling, etc. and use physical force against each other, I have a much more likely chance of “gassing out” then you.

Why? Because since you are much stronger then me, your resistance against mine is much more work for me then my resistance against yours.

Looking at it another way, compare you doing reps with 165 pounds on the bench press vs me doing reps with that same weight.

Since I’m not as strong as you, I’m exerting MUCH more physical strength then you. Naturally then, my muscles are going to lose steam much quicker then yours.

Summary

In short, increasing your maximum strength is the foundation for all muscular conditioning. By developing your max lifts in your MMA strength training workouts, you will still be increasing your potential for muscle and strength endurance.

For mma fighters and trainers, it’s always best to mix these different mma workout routines so that you develop all the necessary attributes of a fighter.

If you’re looking for the best put together mma workout programs available, be sure to check out the top reviewed MMA Strength Training Workouts Here if you haven’t already.

Train hard, train smart, fellow fighters and fans,

Derek Manuel
MMA Strength Training

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.

When building strength with machines, a lot of the movement is guided and leveraged and the machine is doing what your stabilizer muscles would be doing without the support.

With free-weights, the movement is unstable, and when lifting the weight you are not only developing your stabilizer muscles by forcing them to keep your movement balanced, but you are training your brain to learn how to deal with resistance in an unstable environment, something mma fighters brain’s should become familiar with since they often find themselves in these positions.

Free-weights should make up the majority of exercises in your mma strength training program since they develop the type of raw and functional strength you simply cannot get through machines.

Balancing two heavy dumbbells will develop much more functional strength that will carry over to mma then trying to build strength doing bench presses on a smith machine.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I am totally against machines, there certainly is a time and place.

For example, if you are doing pull-ups and after a few sets your muscles are so exhausted you can barely squeeze out a few reps on your next, you can go over to the lat pull-down bar and reduce the weight to an amount where you can do the amount of desired reps.

This and other alternatives are great ways to build muscle endurance.

But for building strength, free-weights are almost always a better choice in you mma strength training workouts.

Once you are looking to develop other types of strength such as strength endurance and muscular conditioning, you can incorporate machines in your workouts along side of free-weights.

In summary, if you are looking to up your strength and power, free-weights should be the staple of your mma strength training workouts.

Mix it up with barbells and dumbbells, sandbags and kettle bells, doing exercises standing vs sitting, and even doing some exercises on the stability ball.

Each one of these methods are unique ways to increase your strength and stabilization muscles from various angles, something machines simply cannot do.

Train hard, fellow fighters.

Derek Manuel
MMA Strength Training

MMA weight training is a whole different ball game than most other sports. Virtually every physical attribute must be developed to the highest degree possible as well as work harmoniously together as one unit.

It has been proven time and time again that, much like having limited skill in various martial arts, having limited physical capacities can be a huge disadvantage as a fighter. MMA weight training and other forms of resistance training, if done properly, can greatly enhance a mma fighter’s strength and conditioning.

But the key phrase here is, IF DONE PROPERLY. There can be a lot of wasted effort in a mma weight training workout if the fighter doesn’t train with a specific purpose in mind. Standard bodybuilding or general fitness exercises performed the conventional way simply won’t cut it.

MMA Specific Weight Training

A proper MMA weight training program consists of the right balance of strength and power exercises coordinated in a way that supplements the techniques and skill of a fighter.

As an example, this means you don’t just do squats for the sake of getting “stronger or bigger legs.” You’ll want to know how to transfer your new found leg strength into specific application.

So let’s say you added 50 pounds to your squat. Now, you’ll want to work on developing leg power so that you are not just strong, but explosive, such as the explosiveness needed in shooting in for a take-down.

You can do this by supplementing your heavy squats with exercises like box jumps, sprints, or jumping dumbbell squats.

On top of leg strength from squats and leg power, you’ll also need to add supplementary muscle endurance and conditioning exercises to your mma weight training workouts. Newly developed leg strength will become useless in a fight if your legs tire out within the first couple of minutes.

MMA weight training workouts such as circuit training are great for developing the muscular endurance needed to accomplish this. Light-weight high-rep squats, split squats, and lunges would be good exercises to develop not only strength endurance in your legs but are great for developing all the muscles involved in the legs in a coordinating fashion.

Applying Your New Strength and Power

The final and perhaps most important step to maximizing your mma weight training workouts is to apply your new found strength and conditioning to your mma technique.

By combining specific weight training exercises with your skills training, you will not only be just developing strength and conditioning, but you’ll be coordinating your muscles to use your strength and conditioning for a specific purpose.

Apply this principle to all of your exercises and the respective muscles in your mma weight training workouts and you’ll be much more effective than just hitting the gym and doing a bunch of aimless exercises. Make every part of your mma weight training routine sport specific, and leave getting a good “pump” for the Guidos.

A Great Overall Complete MMA Weight Training Program

If you’re looking for a step-by-step complete and comprehensive mma strength and conditioning program, be sure to check out my personal favorite:

Ultimate MMA Strength and Conditioning Guide by Eric Wong

It’s tried and true and covers everything from A-Z with not only weight training for mma but diet, conditioning, stretching, and everything else in between.

Check out the rest of the details here ===> Ultimate MMA Strength and Conditioning Guide

Hope this helps,

Derek Manuel
MMA Weight Training

When training for mma, it is not enough just to have strength. It is not enough to just have endurance. One of the most important attributes to develop in your mma workout routine is strength endurance.

Strength endurance is not the same thing as muscular endurance, though both should be developed in your mma workout routine. Muscular endurance is the ability to execute muscular contractions over and over again for a length of time, where strength endurance is the ability to execute MAXIMUM muscular contractions over and over again.

Think 100 push-ups as muscular endurance and bench pressing your 1-3 rep max for as many reps as you can in a 3 minute period as strength endurance.

Why Strength Endurance is Important in MMA

Put quite simply, if you don’t have strength endurance then being stronger then your opponent isn’t going to be an advantage for more then a few minutes into the fight or even after a few seconds.

If your muscular conditioning isn’t developed properly then after just a few maximum muscular contractions (such as picking your opponent up for a take-down, defending a take-down, or failing an attempt for a guillotine choke) you’ll no longer have that level of strength available for the rest of the fight.

There are many different mma workout routines to help develop your strength endurance. You can develop it partially by just increasing your maximum strength, or working on your muscular conditioning.

If you want a mma workout routine to build both simultaneously, then one of the best ways to accomplish this is strength and power complexes or circuits.

Here is an example of a set of power complexes from a typical mma workout routine:

5 reps of heavy squats followed immediately by 10 reps of burpees. This would be 1 set, and the goal is to do as many sets of these as you can in a given time-frame, such as 5 minutes.

1 Round = 5 min

1 Set = 5 reps of squats followed by 10 reps of burpees

Goal: As many sets as possible in 1 round

In a full mma workout routine you’ll want to execute several of these “rounds”, with each round a different combination of exercises (in other words, round 2 would be 5 minutes of two different exercises other then the squats and burpees, such as deadlifts followed by mountain climbers).

Variations of Progress for Strength Endurance

Depending on what you want to focus on determines how you want to progress with a workout like this.

So if you wanted to increase your muscular endurance and conditioning, you can use the same weight each workout but work on doing more sets per round and/or decreasing your rest period between sets.

On the other hand, if you wanted to increase your strength endurance, you could progress by doing the same amount of sets per round and/or keeping the rest periods the same but increase the weight in each workout.

In summary, always keep in mind that anytime you build new levels of strength, it’s is equally important as a mma fighter to take that new strength and convert it into strength endurance, otherwise 80% of your strength potential could become obsolete very quickly in the ring or cage.

Hope this helps,

Derek Manuel
MMA Workout Routine

Before bringing in Philippi, Mir admitted that his previous mma workout routine for strength was just basic body building routines that made him look and feel good.

After incorporating many of the Strongman principles into his new mma workout routine, Mir’s whole perspective on strength training changed; along with his physique, strength and power.

In my opinion, a lot more fighters ought to take the same approach that Mir and Philippi have for their mma workout routine.

It still surprises me that serious fighters still lack basic knowledge and think that body building programs are effective mma workout routines for mixed martial artists.

Strongman Training and MMA

Although Strongman workouts are not 100% efficient in terms of carrying over to mma, they are a HELL of a lot better then body building programs.

Philippi knew enough to take many principles of Strongman training and incorporate them with the needs of an mma fighter, and the result was the beast we saw that put away the likes of Check Congo in a matter of seconds.

One of the best principles that we can take away from Philippi is the fact that he had Mir…

ADD WEIGHT TO THE BAR

He had him just focus on squatting, pressing, and pulling heavier weight. In one of their training video clips, you’ll notice that all the exercises he was doing – squats, farmer’s walks, sled dragging – all had HEAVY weight.

We as fighters often tend to over analyze sport specific training and some times forget the basics.

Although lunges, sprints, box jumps, air squats, take-down drills and many other more sport specific exercises for the legs of mma fighters are important, it is equally important to remember that your level of strength is the FOUNDATION for all the various uses of your muscles.

Think about it. Working on strength endurance when you don’t have a lot of strength is a waste and getting ahead of yourself.

Power is extremely vital for mma fighters, and power is simply strength x speed, which means without strength, your just fast, not powerful.

Think of strength as the basis of potential for all of your physical capabilities. More strength equals more potential for strength endurance, power, power endurance, muscle endurance, and so on.

Although a must for mma fighters for developing strength and power endurance and conditioning, things like circuit training, complexes, Tabata, body weight exercises, etc. all have a time and place.

Sometimes a Fighter Just Needs to Build Raw Size and Tire-Iron Bending Strength

I believe at least once a year a fighter should take around 2 to 3 months to focus their mma workout routine on increasing strength. One of the best ways to do this is the 5×5 system with just a few basic compound exercises.

Focus solely on adding weight to exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, bent-over rows, and military presses.

In increase of 20 – 50 pounds in strength for each of these lifts is not unrealistic if you do it right and follow a solid routine.

Take the Rocky Approach

Sometimes we need to take the approach Rocky Balboa took in his last epic series. I’ll end it with one of my favorite quotes from Rocky’s trainer when prepping him for his training for his last fight:

“…what we’ll be calling on is good ol’ fashion blunt force trauma. Horsepower. Heavy-duty, cast-iron, piledriving punches that will have to hurt so much they’ll rattle his ancestors. Every time you hit him with a shot, it’s gotta feel like he tried kissing the express train. Yeah! Let’s start building some hurtin’ bombs!”

Train hard, fellow fighters and fans,

Derek Manuel
MMA Workout Routine

Every fitness enthusiast is familiar with good old barbells and dumbbells. With just these two pieces of equipment themselves you can build a body that will make a supermodel drool or develop the raw strength and power that would even impress the local blacksmith.

When it comes to mma strength and conditioning, however, there is a limit with barbells and dumbbells to the type of power that mma fighters need.

With barbells and dumbbells, there are only so many power exercises you can do, such as cleans, snatches, or high pulls.

These exercises however are limited in terms of range of motion. In other words, you’ll notice that these particular lifts are all within the sagittal plane of motion – or vertical plane.

Mixed martial artists and combat athletes require development in power more in the transverse plane of motion – or any twisting movement that usually rotates from the core.

Punching, kicking, and throwing are all mainly in the transverse plane of motion, so it only makes sense to include these movements in your mma strength and conditioning workouts.

And This is Where Barbells and Dumbbells are Most Limited

Think about it; is it realistic (or safe) to swing or throw a dumbbell to the side, do a wood chop motion, or throw a barbell in the air while doing bench presses?

This is where medicine balls come in.

I’m sure you’ve seen them lying around your local gym, but you probably haven’t quite figured out how the hell an eight pound leather ball can develop knockout power, or just how and why to fit them into your mma strength and conditioning program.

Here are some recommended exercises you can (and should) begin adding to your mma strength and conditioning program right away so you develop the type of power that is required in throwing knockout punches and rib snapping kicks.

Wood Chops: Start with the medicine ball in front of your stomach with both hands. Extend your arms up and to the side towards your right ear, and then powerfully throw the medicine ball down diagonally (like you’re chopping wood) against the ground or the corner of a wall so that it is easy to retrieve. Work both sides. Keep your torso and head as straight as possible throughout the movement.

Side Tosses: Stand perpendicular to a wall with the medicine ball in front of your stomach in both hands. Now explosively rotate your body to the side as throw the ball with against the wall. Work both sides and keep your legs as stationary as possible through the movement.

Chest Passes: Lie down with your back flat on the ground and the medicine ball resting lightly on your chest with both hands. With a partner above you and ready to catch the medicine ball, explode the ball straight up with your chest and arms as powerfully as you can.

Medicine Ball Slams: Stand with your feet slightly wider then shoulder width apart with the medicine ball hanging by your stomach in both hands. Raise the ball up above your head, slightly raise up on your toes to build momentum, and slam the medicine ball down explosively with your torso and arms as one unit.

These are just a few good medicine ball power exercises you can utilize in your mma strength and conditioning workouts.

All you need to do is 3 or 4 sets max of 8 – 10 reps, with enough rest in-between so that each rep can be done as powerfully as possible.

Train hard, fellow fighters and fans.

Derek Manuel
MMA Strength and Conditioning

Most mma fighters know that absolute strength, or your 1-3 rep maximum in a given exercise, is by itself not very useful after the first 20 seconds of combat.

As soon as the lactic acid in your muscles build up and you’ve exploded with everything you had for a couple techniques such as a takedown, takedown defense, or a vicious striking combination, your absolute strength drops by a LOT unless you have develop strength endurance.

But what a lot of fighters fail to recognize is that strength endurance first begins with having a good amount of strength. Otherwise, you’ll just be continuously enduring a weak amount of strength.

So in the words of Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: first things first. Mixed martial artists should first off (and continuously throughout their career) build as much strength as their training and schedule permits.

One of the best and surest ways to build strength in an mma strength training routine is to use the slowly but surely method. Let’s say you want to increase your maximum bench press from 225 pounds to 250 pounds for 1-3 reps.

The surest way to do this is to follow either a singles program, where you do a high amount of sets with only ONE rep per set (such as 10 x 1) or a 5 x 5 program, doing two progressively heavier warm-ups and three sets of five with the same “working weight.”

Each workout, instead of increasing the sets, reps, or increasing the weight dramatically (even if you can) just increase the weight by ONE pound.

So let’s say the first week for the bench press you do:

1st set: 1 x 5 w/ 175 lbs
2nd set: 1 x 5 w/ 200 lbs
3rd, 4th, and 5th set: 3 x 5 w/ 215 lbs

After a few days of rest (at least 48 hours) you do the same workout for your bench press except you increase it by one pound, so it looks like this:

1 set: 1 x 5 w/ 176 lbs
2nd set: 1 x 5 w/ 201 lbs
3rd, 4th, and 5th set: 3 x 5 w/ 216 lbs

By following this routine two or three times a week, you’ll continuously increase your weight in the bench press by 2 or 3 pounds a week. It doesn’t sound like much, but after 12 weeks of doing this, you’ll have increased your bench press 1-3 rep max by 24-36 pounds!

This method is great for mma fighters because you never really increase the weight so much that you get sore, which isn’t fun if you have other skills and conditioning training to do throughouth the week.

You also run a very low risk of ever hitting a sticking point because you’re only increasing the weight by ONE pound, which makes it relatively easy to progress with not only physically but psychologically.

Give this a try with some of the other major compound exercises as well, and you will be well on your way of developing the foundational level of absolute strength needed for mma strength training.

Hope this helps,

Derek Manuel
MMA Strength Training