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

In the last post, I went over some things that don’t work when trying to develop your punching power. Today, I want to go over 3 exercise’s you can fit into your mma training workouts that simply kick-ass if you really want to develop that knockout power every mma fighter desires.

The following exercises should be trained together, no more then 2 to 3 days a week. Start off doing about 5 to 15 reps, 2 to 4 sets each exercise, with about 60 – 90 seconds rest between each set and exercise.

Remember that the key is to focus on technique and power in each rep, this isn’t your typical mma strength and conditioning routine where you’re trying to exhaust your muscles or test your endurance.

In fact, if you find yourself slowing down or getting tired then you’re not developing power at all, but performing a half ass conditioning workout. You need to either lower the resistance in each exercise, slow down, or perform less reps/sets.

Here are the exercises below:

1) Medicine Ball Side Tosses

Medicine Ball Side Toss

Start Position: Start standing perpendicular to your partner (or wall if you don’t have one) with your feet roughly shoulder width apart, holding the medicine ball in front of you at arms length.

Movement: With your arms nearly straightened out and your feet firmly planted in front of you, cock the medicine ball to the side slightly before you use your core and hips to rotate as fast as possible to throw the ball across to your other side.

Notes: The key is to use your core and torso to throw the ball, not your arms, and remember to keep your feet in the same position throughout the movement.  Start off with a light medicine ball, around 6 – 10 pounds depending on your weight and strength level. Remember, the key here is developing a powerful and “snappy” movement, you’re not supposed to be looking like a StrongMan lifting 500 pound atlas balls.

2) Sledgehammer Slams

Starting Position: Start off with standing in front of a piece of equipment that will give, such as a tire or other strong rubber. Word of Caution: don’t slam it against something that will cause the sledgehammer to bounce back – unless you plan on developing your chin simultaneously (that’s a joke). Stand with one foot forward, and the sledgehammer in front of you as seen in the above picture.

Movement: Slowly raise the sledgehammer in an arcing, half-circle angle vertically, and use your back, shoulders, and core to slam the hammer down on the tire as hard as you can.

Notes: The key is coordinating the movement with all the muscles for maximum speed and power. Really focus on using your core, back, and shoulders to develop the power. Your arms, just like a punch, should only be the delivering mechanism for the force, not the cause of it.

3) Power Push-Ups

Starting Position: Start off in the bottom/finishing position of the push-up.

Movement: With all your power, push with your arms and chest as fast and hard as you can, elevating your body off the ground as high as you can.

Notes: Power push-ups are a good supplemental exercise to develop that extra snap that just doesn’t get developed in the bench press. By starting from the bottom position, and ending the moving as powerful as possible (unlike in the bench press where you actually have to slow down at the end to avoid throwing the weight), you are coordinating the correct muscle movement where your arms, chest, and shoulders are used in a punch.

Summary

Progressively integrate these three exercises in your mma training workouts, and after a few solid months of consistency, you should notice considerable increase in your punching power.

This of course, is assuming you’ll still be working on sharpening your technique as well.

Give them a try, and let me know by commenting below if you have any questions.

Train hard, train smart, fellow fighters and fans.

Derek Manuel
MMA Training Workouts

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.

The first thing mma fighters must understand is the fundamentals, which is technique.

In order to generate the most force in your blows, you have to learn and constantly work on mastering the technique behind each punch. Boxing is one of the best style’s of combat to really learn the minute detail in throwing every type of punch in MMA.

Once you learn good technique, then you can work on developing power in your technique.

Power in your punches is essentially coordinating  each muscle involved in the movement of a punch to deliver maximum speed output and maximum strength output harmoniously.

The major muscles involved in punching are your legs, core, chest, back, shoulders, and arms….. yeah, pretty much all the major muscle groups in the body.

What many beginning fighters and athletes aren’t aware of however, is how to properly develop these muscle groups to coordinate these together for strength, speed, and technique.

For example, most people would think that developing a strong bench press is a good exercise to develop your punching power.

However, an exercise like heavy bench presses alone won’t develop punching power for several reasons:

1) The bench press only develops the chest, shoulders, and arms, leaving out many of the major muscle groups involved in throwing a punch.

2) The bench press is a pushing motion, whereas punching is rotating motion (the majority of power in your punch’s comes from your legs and core, and how powerfully you can rotate your hips).

3) Training for a fast and powerful punch by doing heavy bench press’s is like sprinters doing heavy lunges.

Now, what I’m not saying is that the bench press is necessarily a bad exercise for developing punching power.

Increasing your muscle strength in your chest and arms is a good thing, just like having strong legs is a good thing for sprinters.

However, the problem is that the development of your punching power would be very incomplete if these type of basic strength exercises were all you were doing.

Following the example with sprinters, though it’s important to have strong legs, it’s equally important that they learn to move this new strength quickly, and they do this with other supplemental exercises such as sprinting, sprinting with resistance, etc.

Summary

So by learning to develop strength and speed in these muscles, then training your body to develop the coordination between these muscles and the movement with technique training, speed drills, and other strength and power exercises, you’ll be well on your way to developing your punching power.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this article, where I go over 3 exercises in detail that will increase your punching power by developing all the major movements and muscles involved in striking.

Train hard, train smart, fellow fighters and fans.

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

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

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).

For mma fighters, this is a great exercise to include in your mma workout program from time to time, whether it’s in the form of circuit training or one of your main strength and power development programs.

Sledgehammer training has many benefits that transfer over very well to mma fighters and combat athletes, depening on how you structure your mma workout program.

The main benefits of sledgehammer training are:

• Grip strength and endurance
• Core strength
• Rotational power (key for striking, kicking, and throwing power)
• Muscular endurance
• Full body strength and muscular coordination

Grip strength is key for both strikers and grappler’s. Executing the exercise correctly will also develop your core strength and rotational power, which is the basis for developing knockout power in your kicks and strikes as well as explosive and powerful throws.

If you follow a mma workout program that emphasizes repetitive slams with the sledgehammer, this will develop your muscular endurance, especially in your back, shoulders, and arms – muscles that are all used heavily in combat sports.

And finally, since this movement requires major movement muscles and stabilizer muscles from your entire body, it trains your body to coordinate movements into one powerful technique, rather then isolated movements that train your body to work as separate units.

In other words, in case you’re wondering what the hell that means, it just means that it develops your body as one unit, or one weapon, which develops maximum power output –  ideal for mma fighters.

Here’s a sledgehammer routine that you can add into your next mma workout program:

Round 1

• 10 seconds vertical slams from the right side
• 10 seconds vertical slams from the left side
• Rest 10 seconds

Round 2

• 20 seconds vertical slams
• 10 seconds rest

Repeat rounds 1 and 2 without any additional rest in between for a total of 8 rounds, making it a total of 4 grueling minutes. Add this to one of your mma workout programs and you’ll notice considerable gains in your rotational power within weeks.

Train hard, fellow fighters and fans.

Derek Manuel
MMA Workout Program

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.

One limitation in traditional circuits is that typical bodyweight exercises do not overload the muscular system sufficiently enough to increase strength and power.

Though it is very important for mma conditioning workouts to condition a fighters body to move it’s own weight efficiently, it is also important that they include added resistance to really build tolerance to lactic acid build up that occurs in mma type movements.

Another limitation traditional circuit training has is not enough exercises that stress pulling movements, overhead movements, and side to side or lateral movements.

For a fighter to be in top condition, they must follow mma conditioning workouts that include exercises that work all of these movements.

Pulling is key for grappler’s pulling in the clinch or guard, overhead pressing important for building endurance in the shoulders for striking and other movements, and lateral movements are absolutely vital for developing power in striking along with core strength.

MMA conditioning workouts must include both bodyweight exercises, resistance exercises covering all planes of motion, and some type of power or plyometric exercise to really be complete.

Some examples of good bodyweight exercises to included in a mma conditioning workout circuit are:

• Push-ups
• Handstand push-ups
• Pull-ups
• Bear crawls
• Rope climbing
• Parallel bar dips

Examples of some good resistance exercises in a circuit are:

• Kettle bell swings
• Sandbag exercises (presses, squats, deadlifts, etc)
• Barbell complexes (every heard of the “Randy Couture workout?”
• Tire flipping
• Weighted sled

And finally, a complete mma conditioning workout will also include a few power or plyometric exercises, ususally in the beginning of the circuit and with just a few reps to focus on explosiveness and technique rather then fatigue.

Some examples of good power/plyometric exercises are:

• Box jumps
• Hurdle jumps
• plyo-push-ups
• Medicine ball throws (front slams, side toss’s, chest pass’s, etc)

Circuit training, like many other forms of physical fitness is constantly evolving. With the UFC and other big mma fight promotions becoming more and more popular, mma conditioning workouts are helping with this evolution to create the perfect athlete, whether in combat sports or otherwise.

For mma conditioning workouts that include the above exercises and more in complete and comprehensive programs specific for mma fighters, be sure to check out reviews of the top mma conditioning workouts here.

Train hard, fellow fighters and fans.

Derek Manuel
MMA Conditioning Workouts

Randy Couture has some of the best conditioning in MMA

Today I realized a very important lesson, and that is why it’s so important that your mma conditioning workouts need to be bad ass. I have been training in MMA for quite some time now, and tonight’s training was one of the most grueling workouts I’ve ever been through.

More importantly, I experienced the importance of the proper development of strength and conditioning if you are going to be able to last several rounds in a tough fight.

We did round after round of different “battery drills” with the focus on different grappling situations. One drill was the wall drill, where you have your back up against the wall and you have opponent after opponent try to take you down for a five minute round, then another round of taking your opponent down with his back against the wall, and so on with similar drills.

Let’s stay on the wall drill for the sake of this article. If you’ve never done this drill, you’ll get a test of your strength and conditioning instantly the first time you do it, and here’s why:

This drill requires you to use all three energy systems:

1) ATP-CP System: High energy or explosive movements without oxygen (lasts about 10 seconds)

2) Anaerobic System: High energy or explosive movements without oxygen (usually lasts about 2 minutes)

3) Aerobic System: Low energy over long term using oxygen (15 minutes or more)

Let’s say you’re the one attempting to take-down your opponent(s) for 5 minutes. When you shoot in for a take-down, whether it’s a single leg, double leg, or other, this requires the ATP-CP system.

Now your fighting to pick your opponent up, switching from a single to a double or visa versa, pausing for a quick second, exploding again to take your opponent down, but he’s both strong and has great take-down defense. This requires the anaerobic system.

You finally get your opponent down, and the next opponent is fresh and ready to defend (or a real mma fight example, your opponent immediately pops back up and you’re starting over). After several rounds of this, you begin to tap into the aerobic system.

Here’s the point…

If you don’t have the proper conditioning in ALL THREE of these energy systems, you’re gassing out one way or another.

And THIS is why proper mma conditioning workouts are absolutely critical. You can run around your block for 45 minutes a day for months on end, but that will only develop your anaerobic conditioning, so your ass will still gas out in this drill within seconds.

“But, Derek”, you say,” I don’t just jog, I know I need anaerobic conditioning as well, so I do some sprinting and other interval training as well, so what do you gotta say about that!”

Sorry to burst your bubble, do that all you want, then try this wall drill for 5 minutes – you’re still going to physically wear down within the first couple of minutes, if not seconds.

Why? Because you really haven’t done squat yet to develop your ATP-CP energy system, or any muscular conditioning.

Every time you attempt to pick your opponent up and he stuffs you and stays standing, that few seconds of explosive energy takes a toll not only on your heart and lungs, but now your body needs to provide oxygen to all of your muscles involved in that movement as well.

And since you haven’t developed this type of conditioning yet, your muscles aren’t going to be properly trained for this, thus wear out quickly and leave you gasping for air and your arms and legs feeling like noodles.

The wall drill is only one example of why you need to develop these three energy systems. In any MMA fight, you also need to take into account striking battles, defending take-downs, grappling scrambles and other movements that require a mix and match of all these different energy systems.

Summary

As you can guess by now, a good mma conditioning workout must focus on developing all three of these types of energy systems. If you lack conditioning in just one of these, then you’re still gonna gas out in any one of these scenarios no matter how well developed any one of the other energy systems are.

So if you’re just following a standard general fitness workout, or even worse, a conventional bodybuilding  workout with a few random cardio exercises thrown in, you’re not fully preparing yourself for the type of gas tank you need to go the distance in a grueling mma battle.

For some of the best mma conditioning workouts available today, you can check out some of these reviews here:

===> MMA Strength and Conditioning Program Reviews

Train hard, train smart, fellow fighters and fans,

Derek Manuel
MMA Strength and Conditioning

GSP is an example of a strength and cardio machine

Anyone who knows the type of conditioning that is required to survive several rounds in a mixed martial arts bout understand that a high level of strength, power and cardio is absolutely vital.

Traditionally, when an athlete wanted to develop their strength and cardiovascular conditioning, these would essentially be two separate workouts. The athlete would strength train at one part of the day, then go run several miles or some other similar cardio exercise at another time of the day.

Surprisingly few are aware that you can develop your cardio, strength, and power at the same time in one mma workout routine.

In other words, how would you like to kill two birds with one stone (how the hell did this saying get popular, anyway?) by developing your cardio in your next mma weight training workout?

What most people think is that anytime you are resistance training or lifting weights that you are only developing strength and power in your muscles, and not your cardio.

The fact of the matter is, anytime you are breathing hard, where your heart is beating faster and you are huffing and puffing, you are developing your cardio.

This means that if you are lifting heavy weights for an hour long period, and your rest periods are short enough that you are breathing hard the WHOLE workout, then you are getting a cardiovascular workout.

However, lifting heavy weights, doing low reps, and taking long rest periods -though still may be a cardio workout – isn’t ideal for the type of conditioning required for mma fighters.

So in order to maximize your time, effort, and most importantly your results in your mma workout routine where you are not just developing strength and power in resistance training but you are training in a way that still makes it a great cardio workout, you’ll want to try circuit training.

There are many, many benefits to circuit training that in most cases actually develop your cardio far better then running around your block for several miles.

Some example benefits of circuit training are:

- More intense cardio sessions than running: meaning you are actually working your heart and lungs harder in a shorter period of time then simply running can do

- Trains the conditioning of your entire body, rather then just your legs as with running or cycling.

- Much more effective at burning calories and fat, thus a more faster and effective way then traditional cardio exercises

- Specific circuit training mma workout routines can increase your strength, power, strength endurance, power endurance, or all four all while increasing your cardio capacity

- More sport specific to mma (circuit training exercises are more similar to muscles and movements used in a fight, rather then just running)

These are just a few of the key benefits of circuit training. The bottom line is that you don’t have to train your strength and your cardio separately like it’s traditionally done.

In fact, it’s more effective to do them together, assuming you are following a specific mma workout routine with this purpose.

Not sure how to set up an effective circuit training workout? Eric Wong’s Ultimate MMA Strength and Conditioning Program contains a lot of different circuit training exercises in his book, especially towards the end after the main workouts he has in there.

Check it out here for more details on his book, I bought it over a year ago and still follow his programs to this day, all good stuff and I highly recommend it.

Hope this helps,

Derek Manuel
MMA Workout Routine