An important facet to improving your fight game is doing circuit training for MMA. Circuit training will help you in improve as a fighter in multiple ways - it’ll push your strength conditioning, strength endurance, cardio conditioning and mental toughness... pretty much everything there is to MMA conditioning
You’ll go through excruciating circuit training routines that will make you want to stop and take a break... but don’t you bitch, keep going.
You know why you don’t stop? A couple reasons:
So basically circuit training routines are a must if your looking to be a fighter.
The conditioning for MMA is unlike conditioning for any other sport. MMA Conditioning not only pushes the human body, but also pushes the mind to it's outer most limits! Training for MMA is a gauntlet of pain that can make the weak of heart falter and the strong-willed get even stronger. Which one are you?
The ultimate goal for a mixed martial artists is to have the ability to take and dish out the maximum amount of punishment possible... to be able to sustain discomfort for prolonged periods of time.
When you do MMA conditioning you should concentrate on three areas. Drilling, Mental Toughness, Cross-training.
Drilling should be the bread and butter of your MMA training routine. Without constant drilling your body won’t be used to the movements and intensity of the actions that occur throughout a fight! You must roll, spar, and grapple nearly everyday in order to become efficient at each one.
You have to take a lot of beatings and be tapped out numerous times before you begin dishing out the punishment. Don’t get me wrong, it SUCKS because your getting your ass beat up all the time... but you can’t let your ego get in the way of learning from your mistakes.
When your sparring or rolling, make sure your focus is there and your concentrating on the task at hand... there’s no point to sparring if your not working hard at improving. There’s no way to make up for lost time in the gym. If you miss a sparring session, its gone.
It is imperative that your train your mind to overcome. Your mind is a muscle too, and you must train it just like you train every other muscle in your body. You have to do brutal, intense workouts in order to toughen your mind so that suffering isn’t unfamiliar and when you get into deep waters during a fight, it’s nothing that you can’t handle.
In training to be an MMA fighter you have to be humble. Humility is the best way to build confidence, and having an ego is the best way to have it shattered and give you a wrong sense of self-worth.
One of my favorite quotes is from the book "A Fighters Mind" by Sam Sheridan: In every discipline, the ability to be clearheaded, present, cool under fire is much of what separates the best from the mediocre... if one player is serenely present while the other is being ripped apart by internal pressures, the outcome is already clear... We cannot expect to touch excellence if “going through the motions” is the norm of our lives. On the other hand, if deep, fluid presence becomes second nature, then life, art and learning take on a richness that will continually surprise and delight.... The secret is that everything is always on the line. The more present we are at practice, the more present we will be in competition, in the board room, at the exam, at the operating table, the big stage...
Cross training is important for gaining in areas that are missed in drilling. Strength training, cardiovascular endurance, and flexibility training are the three areas you should focus on outside of the drilling and mental toughness aspects of MMA conditioning.
When it comes to strength training, explosiveness should be a priority. Muscular endurance is also very important, you shouldn’t be worrying about ‘maxing’ out on the bench press because that will eat up your cardio and kill you in the cage.
Olympic lifts are essential to getting the most out of your strength training routines. For example, clean and press, snatches, swings, clean and jerk etc. are great for full body explosive exercises. Kettle bells and circuit training are also good alternatives. Cardiovascular endurance should be worked on everyday. Running, swimming, biking, skipping rope or rowing are the main exercises to consider when creating your MMA training routine. Cardio is important so do not overlook it!
Flexibility training is important so your able to escape submissions and get out of compromising positions with ease. The number one flexibility training I would recommend is Yoga. Not only does yoga help with your flexibility, but it helps with easing your mind and relaxing your body.
Overall your MMA conditioning and MMA training routines should be done in the MMA gym with sparring and rolling, but we also emphasis on the other areas of fitness like Yoga, Tai-Chi,Meditation,Quigong or strength training to improve your game even more.