Although I’m focusing on strength training for MMA fighters, the principles you learn in this article can be applied to any other martial art or self-defense system that you are using, so I hope that the information here will be useful to more than just MMA enthusiasts. You’ll learn some tips on what types of muscles you should be training in the gym in order to improve your punches and endurance in a match.
First of all, you should know that when you’re working on building your strength for MMA, your exercises will not be the same as what other people are doing at the gym! So when you’re designing the program, don’t just copy some other guy’s bodybuilding regimen, and don’t use some generalized weight lifting advice because they won’t work for your purposes!
One of the most common misconceptions is that just because an exercise is good for your muscles, that it will translate to better strength and power for a fighter. That is not completely true! Most of the people that you see at the gym are there to simply improve their health or to perk up their appearances. Their bodybuilding programs usually just focus on the “pretty” muscles that are used to show off, such as the biceips, pectorals, deltoids, etc… they tend to avoid the smaller muscles that are necessary for strength that can be applied in multiple ranges of movement. You on the other hand, need to build two different kinds of muscle fibers – slow twitch & fast twitch.
Your fast twitch muscle fibers are important for boosting the explosive power in your punches and strikes. Slow twitch fibers on the other hand, are important for endurance.
When training your fast twitch fibers with weights, you’ll be doing about 3-5 reps. You’re probably wondering “Why so low?” – Think of it this way: in a weight lifting competition, a power lifter will lift one extremely heavy weight. In order to lift this weight once, he needs to conjure up all of the explosive power in his muscles to complete his task. While power lifting is completely different from MMA, the idea here is the same. You need to do heavy weights at low reps in order to build up your fast twitch fibers for the strength in your strikes.
Slow twitch fibers are pretty much the opposite of fast twitch fibers. They get their energy aerobically and can take advantage of using carbs and fat for endurance (as opposed to fast twitch fibers, which are anaerobic and use only carbs). In a prolonged fight, these fibers are important for making sure that you can keep on enduring. When training these fibers, you’ll want to aim for high reps, such as 12-20 per set.
As for grappling, you need to be able to maintain a holding position for a long period of time without letting your opponent move you. To work on this, you can hold a weight in the middle of its lifting motion for as long as possible.
In order to work on your functional strength, you should be using free weights rather than machines because the machines are on a fixed motion. When you have a free range of motion from using free weights, you’ll be using the smaller muscles that are necessary. Also, doing exercises that use body resistance, such as push-ups and pull ups, are very effective.
With these tips in mind, you may want to seek out a full strength and conditioning program to fit your needs. The following two books are very popular and are recommended if you want to start an effective regimen.
