Today I wanted to write about mma strength training. There are all different types of strength a fighter needs to optimize his or her performance in the ring or cage, but today I just want to go over absolute strength.

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