Want to get revved up on fight night? Blending MMA training with motocross is a sure-fire way to see your opponents eating dirt.

UFC lightweight Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone recently revealed he loved nothing more than hauling his ass onto a dirt bike and letting rip at his TapouT Ranch in Albuquerque.

“Everybody can be out there and we'll have the dirt bikes out there with horses, guns [laughs], you name it, we got it,” stated Cerrone.

Let's face it, while jumping into a cage for a living is a dangerous profession at the best of times, jumping onto a dirt bike in your downtime and flying through the air at 80mph seems a little insane.

Yet there is a method to Cowboy's madness.

Dirt biking can improve your performance in the Octagon and likewise.

While MMA and motocross may not at first seem like obvious sparring partners, they hold some distinct similarities: both require big cojones, both may require you riding a 250lb monster and both can end in an instant.

Professional freestyle motocross (FMX) champion Myles Richmond can still vividly recall the day he was on his wheels riding towards an uncertain fate, understandably nervous.

“I was driving up there and didn’t know what to expect,” he says. 

But that day Richmond wasn’t on his dirt bike about to engage in his usual death-defying flips while catching air, he was in his car driving to his first mixed martial arts workout.

A long-time fan of MMA, Richmond had decided to take the sparring outside of his living room, where he and his friends would challenge one another after getting hyped up watching UFC pay-per-views, and actually test himself in the cage.

Fellow rider Beau Bamberg, the friend that originally introduced Richmond to MMA training, also remembers walking into Team Quest in Greshem, Oregon, almost eight years ago and encountering UFC veterans Matt Lindland and Chris Leben hanging out in the lobby in between training.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect, if they’d be meatheads or what,” Bamberg says. Thankfully, the former middle and high school wrestler says that Lindland, Leben and the rest of Team Quest at the time welcomed him with open arms.

That didn’t mean that Bamberg was exempt from getting whooped up on like any other gym rat.

“I get my ass kicked all the time in that place,” he says with a chuckle.

But getting out of his comfort zone has helped Bamberg become a better rider.

He says that MMA training is far more demanding than FMX, thus giving him that extra boost in cardio to last the distance on the dirt track.

“MMA is ridiculous in the pace and duration.

In freestyle, I’m out there for a minute or two at a time and I don’t have someone trying to choke me,” he explains.

Former Pride and UFC fighter Chris Brennan couldn't agree more. Brennan gave up the cage to become a strength and conditioning coach for dirt bike riders in Texas and can see how having a good MMA base can improve your bike skills.

“Motocross racers need more endurance than freestyle riders do, but freestyle bikers need a good deal of raw strength to wield their heavy bikes around on the ground and in the air,” he says.

“The muscle groups [used in motocross and MMA] are kind of similar. You need a lot of core strength for both supercross and freestyle motocross,” Brennan adds.

“In freestyle it is kind of a one run deal and is over quickly so those guys do not have to do a lot of conditioning, mostly just strength.

But my [supercross] guys go for 20–30 minutes with an average heart rate of 190 beats per minute.

So we do lots of legs and upper-body strength with a focus on muscle endurance. We’ll do lots of shadow boxing with dumbbells to work through that lactic acid burn, as well as medicine ball workouts.

For legs we do lots of squats, lunges and straddle jumps.” 

Brennan himself has begun to enter, and win, motocross races and says his MMA conditioning was key to his success.

“I wasn’t even in great condition, MMA wise but I was in really good shape for motocross,” he says.

“Halfway through the race the other riders were fading but I was so much stronger. My MMA training really plays over into that. It is kind of a similar amount of time, 25 to 30 minutes for a race and for an MMA title fight, with your heart rate going up and down as the pace changes.” 

Brennan is also struck by the similarities in the psychology needed for both MMA and motocross.

“I trained a bunch of kids and they finally got me on a dirt bike and talked me into racing,” he says.

“When I got there, sitting on the line with 40 other riders couldn’t be any closer a feeling to waiting for the referee to tell you to fight.

Most guys seem to get nervous during that time, but I couldn’t believe how relaxed I was. It was the same feeling as starting a fight and it’s my favorite part.”

Bamberg, Richmond and Brennan all seem to agree that a common thread in the minds of bike riders and fighters is the need to test themselves in dangerous situations.

But Brennan also believes that mental fitness can be trained. 

“We do a lot of visualization, just like any sports psychologist would have them do.

That’s why I ended up having them doing cross training. I have them hit pads and the heavy bag. I also have the riders get in the ring with me and box.

That nervousness simulates what they experience in a race. Once they realize that they can get through it, their confidence goes up and they can’t wait for a race day,” he says.

Bamberg has experienced this confidence boost first hand.

“Getting in the ring or on the mats definitely helps my confidence on my bike,” he says.

It seems that when your sport requires incredible focus and physical performance in the face of real danger, taking part in another sport that allows for an analogous experience can pay dividends for athletes.

What's more, this commonality breeds mutual respect among riders and fighters.

Richmond was welcomed into Dan Henderson’s gym a couple years ago for an ESPN special, Bamberg says that his rider friends are always asking him questions about MMA, and Brennan says that the two types of athletes often share similar lifestyles.

“There are two sides to it for both sports,” Brennan explains.

“There are guys who are hardcore, always training and don’t party.

Then there are the guys that are also doing well but party all the time. Both sports have fighters at polar opposites.

Basically, they are both the guys you will see at the Hard Rock in Vegas,” he laughs. 

If you're lucky enough to see riders and fighters both lounging at a club in Vegas, they might also be wearing the same types of clothing.

“You wouldn’t believe how many TapouT shirts I see at motocross events these days,” Brennan says. 

Brands like Metal Mulisha have sponsored motocross athletes for years, but also support fighters including current Strikeforce champions Nick Diaz and Gilbert Melendez. 

According to Metal Mulisha co-founder Larry Linogle, this cross-cultural pollination seems to be a naturally occurring one.

He says that they started sponsoring athletes, riders and fighters to help support them as friends.

And the image that, say a Nick Diaz embodies as a fighter, fits in well with those in the dirt bike world according to Linogle.

“Nick Diaz is by far one of my favorite guys. He reminds me a lot of everything I stood for in my sport not giving a fuck about none of that,” he says.

“We are not going to just pick the next guy that’s on the next big fight card [to sponsor]... Really it just has to do with a lot of image and whether or not we like them or not.”

The outsider, extreme sport identity that motocross and MMA share has also bled into fashion with other players like Skin industries and Nogi. According to Brennan, the need for adrenaline is very real amongst both fighters and riders, going part of the way in explaining the natural gravitation of both sports towards one another and, of course, the athletes in them.

In motocross, athletes fight gravity and unforgiving earth while trying to earn style points.

In MMA, fighting style doesn’t directly affect points and the battle is against another person, trying to take you out.

Yet perhaps, more than cross training and culture, the greatest connection between moto riders and fighters is the gameness they all possess.

“Riders are just like fighters in their simple need for adrenaline,” Brennan says. “Motocross is so dangerous. I’ve seen so many guys injured with broken necks and more and while they are in the hospital, in bed and unable to move, they are asking, ‘When can I get back on my bike?’” 

MMA vs Motocross: Which is more dangerous?

In MMA you’ve got to fight a bruiser trained to knock your head off or tear your limbs apart.

In motocross, riders have to control a burning0hot machine underneath them (and sometimes above them) while flying through the air at a rapid pace.

So which one is more lethal? Well, a comparative scientific study has yet to be done on the topic to date but MMA veteran, motocross strength and conditioning coach and amateur competitor Chris Brennan has a decisive answer.

“Racing is absolutely more dangerous,” he states.

“Within a few weeks of starting to ride, I tore my ACL (the ligament that runs through the center of your knee).

In MMA I worry about losing, in motocross I worry about getting hurt.

You’re on a 250lb bike, going 80 to 90mph, 40ft up in the air at a distance of 140ft across sometimes.

It’s definitely more dangerous than MMA.”

Brennan says he’s seen riders laid up in hospitals with broken collarbones, necks, backs, wrists and more, all from a single crash that wasn't even “that bad.”

He recalls one particularly illustrative occasion where a youth amateur he trained to ride saw a fatal accident up close and then had to continue the race. 

“There was a big crash in this race and one kid was laid out on the track. They brought an ambulance in and took him away.

He ended up dying.

But they red flagged the race while he was being taken away and then afterwards they got everyone to the starting gate and restarted the race,” he remembers, still astonished.

“My kid was five feet behind the kid that died and he had to go back and restart the race.”

MMA exercise for Motocross warriors

MMA fighter Chris Brennan moved to Texas a number of years ago to follow his kickboxing coach Pete Spratt.

But even before his own MMA gym could get established and take traction (he is finally opening one up this summer), the always-fit Brennan found himself in high demand as a strength and conditioning coach for motocross riders, going on to found Next Generation Sports Performance.

Here he explains three exercise (for the upper body, lower body and core) types that translate well from MMA to bike riding:

Upper body

“One of the things we do that's important is push-ups on a piece of equipment called the perfect push-up or something similar.

This is because there are so many wrist injuries in motocross and doing push-ups this way keeps the wrists straight in line with the forearm and hand preventing it from bending too sharply and avoiding aggravation of the wrist or injury.”

Legs

“Jump squats and or straddle jumps are another great exercise for not only building muscle in your quads and hamstrings but also building muscle endurance which is extremely important especially in long races or fights that go in to the later rounds.”

Core

“For your core, I like to have my guys doing something called ‘build-ups’ or a ‘plank.’ Doing a plank while raising arms and or legs really focuses on the core and that's something that's important in virtually every sport.”