Fighters Only

Issue 080

The 10 essentials of building better cardio with MMA training

Paul McVeigh is a sports scientist and a professional fighter, ranked as the number-one bantamweight in Europe

Completing my series on 10 tips relating to great MMA cardio, here are my final five strength-and-conditioning knowledge bombs for you to ponder.

1 Do it every day

If you are doing a movement and you think it is important, why not do it every day? Now, before everyone explodes with joy from the thought of bench pressing heavy every day, I have a few stipulations. First of all, we are not talking about exercises but specific movement patterns. Here are the ones important enough to do every day.

I am not suggesting these patterns need to be loaded every day or that the reps cause fatigue. Imagine two athletes, both front-squat heavy two days a week but one of the guys also warms up every day with body weight squat variations. Which guy is more likely to maintain his mobility and avoid killing his knees and spine? He might even squat more weight as his technique and mobility improve.

The warm-up is a perfect place to hit all the above movements and barbell complexes are a great way to do it. Pick up an empty barbell and do the second set of exercises for eight reps in a row without dropping the bar until we come to the push-ups and pull-ups.

In the space of a few minutes we have covered a lot of bases and are ready for whatever activity is in front of us.

2 Technique is more important than programming

You can be a super genius when it comes to programming for strength but if your lifting technique sucks you are at best not going to be very successful, and at worst break yourself. Make sure you have great lifting technique. Video yourself lifting and get others to critique you. If you are having trouble with a lift, drop some weight or confine the movement to the warm-up until the movement pattern looks good enough to load. A 180kg deadlift done well has more carryover to performance than 190kg dragged up your body with a rounded back.

3 More is not always better

Running one mile a day made you feel better, running four miles a day made you feel fit, six miles made you feel like an athlete and 10 miles made your knee hate your guts. All physical qualities are subject to diminishing returns and it is important to recognize this.

The volume of training is a big issue for the combat athlete, so try to make sure your goals match your behaviors. If you have a fight coming up but want to simultaneously improve your squat by doing 10 sets of three reps, the chances of you making that MMA sparring class are slim. Trying to do everything at once is a recipe for overtraining and injury.

The same logic applies to guys who have trained hard and gotten really strong. If you can bench press 150kg getting to 175kg is going to require a lot of effort and the impact this will have on your performance is debatable. You may have more to gain by working on converting that strength into speed and power, which will have greater performance benefits.

4 Technical Failure

Nothing in the weight room makes me laugh as much as watching a dude grind out a hard set of pull-ups and catching those last few partial reps with a mixture of trapeze swinging and vicious air humping. This creative individual has reached technical failure a few reps previous but carries on because his workout told him to. Those last few hideous yet amusing reps did not really do anything for the athlete.

When you cannot do another rep without the technique breaking down that’s the time the exercise should end. Go heavy, go hard but make sure your technique is up to scratch and your body will reap the benefits

5 Every system has something to offer… usually

Somewhere, somebody is having great success with the training modality you hate. That is the problem with the body being so adaptable; everything works to a degree and because of that degree someone swears by it. Five years ago MMA guys were training like bodybuilders, if at all, and getting long runs in. You may scoff but they were winning fights. From their perspectives, their methods probably did have some merit. Many good judokas have a monster overhand right or left; the mechanics of throws like seionage are similar. José Aldo attributes his athleticism and kicking ability to a childhood playing soccer. Guys who rock climb have unbreakable grips and Olympic lifters can bridge out of anything. The message here is to be open-minded try out new ideas and sports for fun and see what physical changes and perspectives you can pick up.

MOVEMENT PATTERN - EXERCISE

HORIZONTAL PRESS - BENCH PRESS, PUSH-UP

HORIZONTAL PULL - INVERTED ROW, CABLE ROW

VERTICAL PRESS - MILITARY PRESS, ONE-ARM PUSH PRESS

VERTICAL PULL - PULL-UP VARIATIONS

KNEE DOMINANT - FRONT SQUAT, WALKING LUNGE

HIP DOMINANT - DEADLIFT, GOOD MORNING

Torso (anti rotation, extension, lateral flexion) - Barbell

anti rotation, ab wheel, one-arm farmer’s walk

EXPLOSIVE - HANG CLEAN, JUMP SQUAT, SNATCH

8 REPS IN A ROW

HANG SNATCH