How to design your own MMA Workout Plan

_This post has adapted from the original post written by Eric Wong in Ezine Articles. Eric is a strength and conditioning coach for top UFC fighters.

Wong is a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) through the NSCA
He publishes a regular newsletter on training and nutrition for MMA that’s read by over 12,000 athletes around the world. He is also the author of the internet’s best-selling program for mixed martial artists called the Ultimate MMA Strength and Conditioning program, as well as other programs and workouts.


If you want to setup your own MMA workout program, then this article will definitely help you out.

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Setting your goals

When starting to train for MMA, one of the biggest mistakes that newbies make is to train without properly planning. Setting your goals according with your current situation is crucial for success and progress. When beggining a strength training and conditioning program for MMA you should ask to yourself these questions:

• Do you have any injuries, pain, or movement limitations to address? You should first try to fix any problems before training for further goals.
  
  
• Do you have a fight coming up? If so, how many weeks do I have? If you do not compete and you only want to stay fit, just pick 12 weeks as a good period to begin with. Then you should stablish mini periods of 2-4 week blocks to focus on one area of improvement at a time, for example strength, endurance or cardio.
  
  
• What areas do you need the most work - examine your body composition, strength, power, or endurance. Focus on power-endurance the last 4 weeks leading up to the fight or to your 12 week period.
  
  
• How many days a week can I commit to strength and conditioning for MMA? 2-3 days a week is sufficient to get good results, more could lead to overtraining.
  
  
• What aspect of my mixed-martial arts technique training do I need to focus on the most? It could be strength or cardio. Whatever this aspect is, you shouldn't perform your strength and conditioning training on the same day you train your MMA skills, as your muscles could get extremely fatigued and harm your performance.
  
  
• What are my weakest points, the exercises do I hate, that I should probably do more often? Usually when we do not like an exercise is because we do not have a great performance( in my case that would be the pull ups). Training your weak points will make you a more complete fighter and mentally tough.
  

Exercises that should be followed in any MMA Workout Program:

• A dynamic warmup to improve your mobility before your workout
  
• The big compond exercises to build your general strength (squats, deadlifts, lunges, chinups, bench press)
  
• Unilateral exercises to develop your stabilizer muscles and maintain muscular balance (1-arm rows, 1-arm presses, 1-leg stiff-leg deadlifts)
  
• Static core stability exercises (planks)
  
• Dynamic core stability exercises (woodchops)
  
• Rotational power exercises (medicine ball throws)
  
• Injury prevention exercises for the shoulder (cuban press, external rotations)
  

Then you're putting these exercises together into a workout, ensure that you're hitting the full body in your workouts, since you'll only have 2-3 sessions to do. If you do a body part split, you just won't have enough stimulus to cause adaptation.

Rep ranges, rest, and sets depend on your situation and what you need. (You can find 2 MMA workouts to build strength and muscleI used successfully for one month based on Erics principles).

Conclusion

As we commented in other posts, best way to train MMA is following a MMA training program which covers all the aspects of strength training and conditioning that a fighter must have. Eric provides you the logical steps to follow when designing an MMA Program.

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