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

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

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

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…

“a punching bag is one thing, sparring is another.” – Mirko Cro Crop

He admitted that he didn’t use to have sparring partners in the past, and in his latest fight he brought in 3 professionals in which they trained hard with an emphasis on sparring.

He went on to say after this change that his conditioning was much better in his latest fight against Pat Barry, where even in the third round he felt great and that this was the best he’s ever felt conditioning wise.

Bruce Lee once said that the best way to condition for an event is repetition of the actual performance of the event. A while back I wrote about how sparring is the absolute best way to mimic the mma conditioning of a real fight. Read it here

As simple and obvious as it is, not enough mma fighters actually spend enough time sparring.

MMA conditioning workouts of all sorts are great supplemental workouts to increase your strength and conditioning for mma, and they are also great to isolate and focus on a particular attribute, such as anaerobic endurance, power endurance, maximum strength, etc.

However, when it comes training your body to condition itself for a fight, there’s no substitute to the closest thing to the actual event, sparring.

But there’s no longer a need to take my word for it, a legend in the sport and still every improving mma fighter, Mirko Cro Crop said it himself.

I’ve always been told to only take advice from those who have the results you want, and what better advice about mma conditioning can you get from a living legend in the sport who’s been fighting for over a decade.

Train hard, train smart, fellow fighters and fans.

Derek Manuel
MMA Conditioning

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

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.

For example, have you ever followed someone’s mma conditioning workout, whether it be out of a book, video, coach, or magazine, and you see instructions on how long to perform each exercise as well as how long to rest in between?

Do you pay as strict attention to the time instructed to rest as you do for the time instructed to perform an exercise?

If you can honestly say yes, then pat yourself on the back. However, are you SURE you ACTUALLY rest for ONLY the time instructed in between exercises?

Next time you are performing your mma conditioning workout, (and if you need one check out the reviews of the top mma conditioning workouts here), I want you to pay strict attention on the rest periods between each exercise or round.

More often then not, unless you are training with a coach, athletes who do their mma conditioning workouts on their own will take a little extra time, whether it’s conscious or unconscious, in their rest intervals.

For mma fighters, this can literally make all the difference, in a negative way, in your conditioning.

Allow me to get a little scientific on you for a second. I’m not an advocate of using big words and I hate people who use them just to sound professional, so I’ll do my best to keep it as simple and down to earth as possible.

For any science freaks out their, I know I’m not using the scientific names for these systems, but the point is to educate the reader, not confuse them .

The 3 Energy Systems

There are three energy systems the body depends upon when it comes to cardiovascular conditioning. There is the ATP system, which is used for up to about 10 or so seconds of maximal output in energy, such as a set of lifting heavy weights, or an explosive movement such as shooting in for a take down and driving your opponent to the mat.

Then there is the anaerobic system, which is energy produced in the absence of oxygen, which usually lasts around 2 minutes. This is when you are using near maximal output for a relatively long period of time, such as sprinting or a fast paced grappling match.

Finally, there is the aerobic system, which is when your body uses oxygen to produce energy for lower energy outputs for longer periods of time.

When you’re training using well put together mma conditioning workouts, the rest periods are just as important as the exercise periods. Often times when doing high intensity exercises such as sprinting, rest periods can seem to go by extremely fast.

The mistake you don’t want to make is lose control of time during rest periods and end up resting 60 seconds when you’re supposed to be resting 20. Or resting 30 seconds when you supposed to rest for 10.

A lot of times athletes wait to catch their breath to move onto the next exercise or set, resting twice or three times as much as their supposed to. By making this mistake you may be failing to develop one of the the energy systems.

By not properly developing all three energy systems, especially the ATP system and the anaerobic system, you’re going to find yourself still gassing out in high intensity events, such as an mma fight or grappling match.

I’ve been known to ramble, so the moral of the story is this: If you are following a mma conditioning workout that specifically states to rest for 30 seconds in between intervals, make sure you ONLY REST FOR 30 SECONDS, and NO MORE, and so on for all of the rest of the rest period instructions.

Otherwise you may be cutting your mma conditioning potential short by just a few seconds.

Train hard (and rest hard), fellow fighters and fans,

Derek Manuel
MMA Conditioning Workouts