In the bodybuilding world, a big challenge with beginner bodybuilders is overtraining.

For the best and fastest results, bodybuilders must spend a maximum of 60 to 90 minutes in the gym per day developing the appropriate muscles, anywhere from 3 to 6 days a week depending on the volume of their training and their specific body type.

Everything else they do before and after these gym sessions must be very low energy tasks, since getting enough rest and allowing your muscles to rebuild themselves with minimal recreational activity in between is absolutely necessary.

With this concept in mind, outside of actually training in the gym, I’ve seen many bodybuilders (including myself) get lazy, which is actually preferred especially if you are really looking to gain muscle mass.

This mentality simply does not apply when it comes to mma and how you should approach your mma conditioning workouts.

Less Isn’t More in MMA Training

When I first began to study mma strength and conditioning many years back, I carried over the same fear of over-training that I had with bodybuilding. I always thought that for my mma conditioning workouts it is better to under-train then over-train.

After learning about what it means to reach the elite levels of endurance and conditioning of a mma fighter, I realized that actually reversing that principle is true in the sport of mma.

You see, mma fighters are some of if not THE most conditioned athletes in the world of sports. Where other sports only really require certain aspects of strength and conditioning for the athlete to reach optimal performance, it is almost safe to say that mma fighters require virtually EVERY aspect, which means there mma conditioning workouts must reflect this.

Work Capacity

One factor that many people don’t consider is work capacity; which is essentially how much physical exercise of all sorts you can endure with mininal rest. Keep in mind that this is not the same thing as how far or fast you can run for, or how much weight you can lift.

Think more along the lines of how many hours a day can you train (mma skill training, strength and conditioning, etc) without wearing yourself out.

The reason work capacity is so important to consider when it comes to your mma conditioning workouts is because the fact that mma fighters must develop all levels (at least to a certain degree) of strength and conditioning.

They must spread their different mma training workouts (ie: wrestling, boxing, resistance training, cardio, sparring, etc.) equally throughout the week, and this is simply a lot of work.

If you’re not in great shape and havn’t developed your work capacity, you’ll obviously wear out early in your training and won’t be able to take on your next skills training session or mma conditioning workout.

You may go for a run in the morning, box in the afternoon, but then just be too tired to do your weight training session later that evening. This is expected for beginners, but the only way to combat (excuse the pun) this is develop your work capacity.

If you don’t progressively spend more and more time working on these different levels of skill and conditioning and take the bodybuilding approach where you just train 1 hour a day and then be lazy for the next day or two, you’ll limit your ability to develop work capacity, which will then slow down your growth in all of these neccessary areas.

In Summary

MMA fighters are not bodybuilders where you workout for 1 hour then rest for the remainder of the day and the next. You must develop work capacity, and the way you do that is to progressively add to your mma conditioning workouts, slowly but surely.

An important point to keep in mind is that I am not suggesting you train when you are feeling overly worked or exhausted physically and mentaly.

Although most over-training symptoms come from lack of diet and rest, you CAN train too much to the point where it’s counterproductive. Use your common sense and know when enough is enough, but don’t use the excuse of over-training for being lazy either.

Train hard, fellow fighters and fans,

Derek Manuel
MMA Conditioning Workouts