Cardio for MMA Fighters

If you’re an aspiring MMA fighter or have some fights under your belt and are looking to improve your cardio, then we have some top tips for you. Cardio is your staying power in the Octagon – there’s no point wanting to be an MMA fighter without working on your cardio since you’re going to be blowing hard after only the first round with inefficient lungs and weak and heavy muscles. You can be as strong as an ox with excellent groundwork, great boxing and solid Jiu-Jitsu but if you really don’t have cardio, you might as well submit straight off the bat.

The Muscles Need Blood and Oxygen

This is key to your cardiovascular system working to its maximum efficiency, with your heart being the key factor here. If the heart is bigger and stronger, it can pump more blood around the body and hold more blood at any one time. A good way of improving the size of the heart and therefore the volume of blood the heart holds at any one time is by adding in traditional steady-state cardio into your routine.

In contrast, HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) can vastly improve the strength of the heart, thickening the muscle and walls and therefore increasing the amount of blood pumped out with each beat. With the large volumes of blood being pumped around the body, more and more oxygen is being circulated and used up by the muscles. The faster the muscles recover the better and HIIT is perfect for doing this by including longer sets and shorter rest periods.

Strength

Some don’t believe that strength and cardio go hand in hand and are at complete ends of the fitness spectrum or shouldn’t be compared at all. IN some respects these people are correct, however when it comes to MMA, a combination of strength and cardio is incredibly important. Strength actually aids your cardio in terms of how close you need to work to your max strength levels during your fights. If you’re constantly having to work at 100% to grapple your opponent to the canvas, or need to wrestle them off you, you’ll be using more and more of your body’s energy and cardio capacity to do so. If you’re muscles are twice as strong, you’ll be needing less effort and energy to do the same move, therefore being more cardio-efficient. Naturally, you’ll be building in strength training into your fitness routine for MMA, however ensure that you have a good balance between strength and cardio – it’s not all about being a complete beast!