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MMA
STRENGTH &
CONDITIONING
Blueprint MMA STRENGTH &
CONDITIONING Blueprint
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
03... About Me

04... What Physical Characteristics Distinguish High-Level MMA Fighters?

06... What About Conditioning?

09... Activity Pro昀椀le Of An MMA Bout

10... What In昀氀uences Success In MMA Bouts?

11... Assessments

13... How Do Testing Results In昀氀uence Your Program?

14... Strength Training For MMA

18... Why Full Range Of Motion Is King

19... Exercise Selection For Building Strength Applicable To MMA

20... Strength Training Program Design For MMA

22... Periodization Strategies To Peak For Fights

23... Conditioning For MMA

24... Why Roadwork Isn’t Enough

27... Repeating High-Intensity Efforts

28... Conditioning Funnel System For MMA

30... What Agility REALLY Is

36... Why You Can’t Stretch Your Way To Flexibility And Mobility

37... Planning Your Training Week

38... Super Advanced Training Methods

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I’m James de Lacey and I love to

help 昀椀ghters like yourself become
absolute machines. I have a Master’s
in Sport & Exercise Science and spent
my career working in professional
and international level sport as a
strength & conditioning coach before
dedicating myself to combat athletes.

While I’m a practicing martial artist,

my passion lies in helping 昀椀ghters cut
through the absolute dogshit training
advice presented on social media
from various weekend-certi昀椀ed
“trainers.”

You’ll see I love the science behind

training. I’ve published research
in the exercise science space and

ABOUT ME
continue to avidly read, interpret,
apply, and collaborate with various
coaches and researchers on the latest
昀椀ndings.

My goal is to break it down for you

to easily understand the what, when,
and how to maximize your MMA
performance. Enjoy!

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WHAT PHYSICAL
CHARACTERISTICS DISTINGUISH
HIGH-LEVEL MMA FIGHTERS?
There is still little research regarding physical preparation and MMA. However, there has been
a large uptick in the past 7 years, which is most relevant to today’s style of MMA.

The best way to determine whether a physical quality is important for MMA is to compare
higher and lower-skilled 昀椀ghters.

If a physical quality is greater within a higher-skilled cohort, it is likely important for MMA success.

When 15 semiprofessional MMA 昀椀ghters were compared to 14 amateurs, this is what they
found [1]:

Greater back squat 1RM relative to bodyweight (1.84 vs. 1.56 x bodyweight).
Greater relative impulse (force x time) during loaded and unloaded jumps.
Greater impulse at 300 ms during loaded and unloaded jumps (producing more force faster).
Greater peak power, velocity, and force for each jump.
Greater peak rate of power development.
Similar 1RM relative bench press and isometric mid-thigh pull between groups.

This shows MMA requires high-force actions and having a stronger lower body is important for
performance. Further, being able to produce high forces at varying speeds underpins many
MMA sporting actions.

Upper body strength may not be as important since force is typically generated from the
lower body and transferred to the upper body.

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The same subjects were also analyzed during jump performance [3]. Here’s what they found:

Higher-level MMA 昀椀ghters jumped higher and generated greater force, velocity, and power.
They also had shorter eccentric phases meaning faster eccentric loading, and are able to
produce more force faster than low-level MMA athletes.

It means you should develop the ability to rapidly go from an eccentric to concentric
contraction to maximize force generation during striking and grappling. This is vital in MMA as
you have limited time to execute techniques before an opponent can react to defend or evade.

Legendary Russian sports scientist Yuri Verkhoshanksy has an excellent visual representation of
this concept he calls the “working effect.” It’s a force-time graph representing impulse, which
is the product of force and time.

But to keep this simple, Verkhoshanksy de昀椀nes the working effect as “the amplitude of the
impulses of force overcoming the external resistance force.”

This could be bodyweight, external opposition, or external implement. But what you need to
know is this:

An increase in the working effect requires increasing maximal force output and/or increasing time
of the force generated to overcome the external resistance.

However, increasing the time to produce force is not advantageous to the MMA 昀椀ghter. Taking
longer to punch, kick, or shoot makes it easier for your opponent to slip, block, or sprawl.

Therefore, MMA 昀椀ghters must develop the ability to produce maximum force in shorter time
frames, as demonstrated by the high-level MMA 昀椀ghters in these studies.

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WHAT ABOUT
CONDITIONING?
This time, high and low level MMA 昀椀ghters performed 10- & 20 m sprints, 12 x 20 m sprints
every 20 seconds for repeat sprint ability, and a Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test level 2 for
endurance. Here’s what they found [2]:

Higher level MMA 昀椀ghters had faster 20 m but not 10 m sprint times.
They were faster in the repeated sprint test across all sprints.
They covered more distance during the Yo-Yo test.

Importantly, the practical differences between the high and low-level MMA 昀椀ghters during
these conditioning tests compared to the strength and power tests were much lower,
indicating strength & power characteristics may be a better determinant of MMA success.

That’s not to say conditioning isn’t important. But it doesn’t seem to indicate high and low
level MMA 昀椀ghters as well.

We can look at the aerobic capacity of MMA 昀椀ghters based on their VO2max. Just be aware
VO2max doesn’t predict endurance performance and is limited by central function (the heart’s
ability to pump blood).

Regional Brazilian MMA athletes showed very poor VO2max values at 44 ml·kg-1·min-1
indicating generally poor aerobic conditioning in these athletes [4].

While regional and amateur MMA 昀椀ghters in the USA showed VO2max values of 55 ml·kg-
1
·min-1 ranging between 50 and 60 in the welterweight division [5].

This seems to be on par with what the UFC PI indicates as the average VO2max in their elite
MMA population [6].

Another study in elite MMA (it was not mentioned what they considered elite) found 5 MMA
athletes had VO2max values of 60 ml·kg-1·min-1 in the welterweight division but it wasn’t disclosed
the individual values so it’s dif昀椀cult to draw conclusions from such a small sample size [8].

Further, a case study on Top 2 Australian ranked MMA 昀椀ghter observed a VO2max value of 56
ml·kg-1·min-1 in the middleweight division putting him within the 68% of the UFC population in
that weight class [9].

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These values are also similar to those found in

elite amateur boxers indicating the importance
of the aerobic energy system in MMA.

However, some athletes in the UFC display

even greater aerobic performance. Within the
same welterweight division, the top 2.5% of
昀椀ghters have VO2max values greater than 65
ml·kg-1·min-1.

Elite lightweights and 昀氀yweights in the top

2.5% have VO2max values greater than 67 and
69 ml·kg-1·min-1 respectively.

A Polish UFC middleweight has been observed

to have a VO2max of 58 ml·kg-1·min-1 placing
him in the top 16% of UFC middleweights in
terms of aerobic conditioning [10].

For reference, elite endurance triathletes have

VO2max values ranging between 70-80 ml·kg-
1
·min-1 [7].

Research is far scarcer regarding anaerobic

qualities in MMA. This means we will have to
resort to single-athlete case studies.

The Australian ranked MMA 昀椀ghter referenced

earlier was also put their anaerobic power and
capacity testing for the upper and lower body [9].

This athlete showed absolute upper and lower

body peak power of 841 and 934 Watts for the
30-second Wingate test.

This translated to 9.7 and 10.4 W.kg when

calculated relative to body weight. Anaerobic
capacity for the upper and lower body came
out to 542 and 711 W, respectively which
translated to 6.1 and 7.9 W.kg when calculated
relative to body weight.

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Another case study investigated a Top 10 UFC Light Heavyweight who displayed similar lower
body anaerobic power in relation to body weight of 10.4 W.kg with absolute anaerobic power
topping out at a whopping 1075 W [11].

Only some wrestlers have been shown to display similar absolute power outputs [12].

Another case study with a UFC middleweight found upper body absolute anaerobic peak
power to be 720 W which translated to 7.1 W.kg when made relative to body weight [10].
Anaerobic capacity was 630 W translating to 8.1 W.kg relative to body weight.

This middleweight displayed less anaerobic power relative to body weight but greater
capacity relative to body weight compared to the Australian middleweight.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any data on non-elite MMA athletes to compare to. However,
lower body anaerobic power and capacity in sports such as wrestling and boxing show similar
values to our case studies listed above relative to body weight [13].

It is interesting to note that the Polish UFC middleweight showed extremely high upper body
anaerobic capacity values of 8.1 W.kg which exceeds lower body values in almost all sports
such as boxing, hockey, basketball, and soccer [13].

Perhaps this speci昀椀c athlete has a strong wrestling background and has developed the ability
to handle high-power outputs for long durations.

Overall, the limited research suggests that MMA is a mixed energy system sport requiring
a very well-developed aerobic energy system to not only handle 昀椀ghting 3 to 5, 5-minute
rounds but to also facilitate recovery between rounds.

Further, anaerobic qualities may differ by the style of 昀椀ghter where wrestling based MMA
athletes potentially show greater upper body anaerobic capacity.

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ACTIVITY PROFILE OF
AN MMA BOUT
The work-to-rest ratio of regional-level MMA has been found to be 1:2 to 1:4 [14]. Work time
ranged from 6 to 14 seconds, while “rest” time lasted 46 to 62 seconds. Data from the UFC
seems to align with these 昀椀ndings work to rest ratio was found to be 1:3 to 1:4 [6].

They found that the work period was approximately 8-14 seconds of high-intensity effort, with
lower-intensity effort lasting 3 to 4 times longer [6].

We can sum these 昀椀ndings up to suggest that a 1:2 to 1:4 work-to-rest ratio is valid regardless
of the level of competition.

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WHAT INFLUENCES SUCCESS

IN MMA BOUTS?
351 UFC 昀椀ghts were analyzed from 2014 to
ascertain what technical components in昀氀uence
a winning performance [15]. They found winners
were able to increase activity from round to
round, whereas losers decreased activity.

Winners spend the 昀椀rst round ‘reacting’ to

an opponent and ‘feeling them out’ and then
transition into an ‘anticipatory’ mode where
they are better able to read their opponent. In
contrast, losers reduce their key actions after
the 昀椀rst round.

Winners are better able to anticipate their

opponent’s attacks making developing
technical skill and agility important qualities.
On the ground, winners had greater submission
attempts, advances to half guard, side control,
back, and mount position than losers.

What Does This All Mean?

I’ll sum all of this up into my philosophy for

strength and conditioning for MMA.

Develop the ability to repeat high-intensity

efforts.

That’s it.

The question becomes, how do you do that?

No, it’s not CrossFit or random puke-inducing

circuits with burpees. I’ll explain more in a bit.

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ASSESSMENTS
Just because you reach a certain testing benchmark does not mean you’re suddenly a better
昀椀ghter. However, becoming stronger and faster with better conditioning can help realize
your skillset.

Here’s some basic thresholds that can be helpful for dictating the direction of your training.

Back squat >1.6 x bodyweight

Vertical jump >45 cm (17.7”)
Reactive strength index (40 cm box) >2.5
Maximal aerobic speed >4.2 m/s

These are what I’d consider absolute minimum thresholds to hit for most 昀椀ghters based on
research and my own experiences. Here’s how a decent range will look:

Back squat: 1.6 - 2.0 x bodyweight

Vertical jump: 45 - 50 cm (17.7 - 19.6”)
Reactive strength index (40 cm box): 2.5 - 3.0
Maximal aerobic speed: 4.2 - 4.5 m/s

Does this mean your physical training tasks are done? No, these are within the average range
of most UFC 昀椀ghters.

But it gives a few basic benchmarks to aim for. How do you measure each one?

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Back Squat: Multiply your bodyweight by 1.6 - 2. It should equal or be under the
01 load you squatted. For example, if you weigh 200 lbs, you should be able to squat
between 320 - 400 lbs.

Vertical Jump: Stand against a wall and reach your hand marking the wall with chalk.
02 Jump and mark again. Measure the distance. Not an error proof exercise but an easy
no equipment 昀椀eld test. The My Jump Lab is the best phone app for this.

Reactive Strength Index (RSI): Stand on a 40 cm box, step off. When you hit the
03 ground, jump as high as you can as quickly as possible. Ground contact time should
be minimal. I like to aim for <250 ms on the ground which you can measure with the
My Jump Lab app. There’s a learning curve to this exercise. Here’s what it looks like:

Maximal Aerobic Speed (MAS): Pick your mode or equipment for the test. Running,
04 cycling, and rowing are the best options. Perform a 1200 m time trial. If you start too
hard, you’ll ruin the test. Gotta pace yourself correctly. Divide the distance by the time
in seconds to get your MAS number. For example, 1200 / 300 = 4 m/s. Your MAS will
be different between the exercises chosen. The benchmark is based on running but is
very similar for rowing.

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HOW DO TESTING RESULTS

INFLUENCE YOUR PROGRAM?
Most people test then forget about it.
Testing must in昀氀uence your training. Here’s
some general guidelines you can follow:

Under strength/power thresholds: Focus

on maximal strength with low-volume
extensive plyometrics.
In range: Blend of maximal strength and
power-based exercises.
Above thresholds: Minimal/low volume
of maximal strength with higher volumes
of power-based exercises.

You may have a 2 x bodyweight squat but

lack reactive strength. In this case, you’d
perform most of your training towards
various plyometric exercise with less
maximal strength volume as an example.

For MAS:

Under threshold: Can make easy gains

by increasing low-intensity conditioning
volume such as steady state cardio.
Within range: Compliment with interval-
style training. Long and short HIIT.
Above range: Higher-intensity
conditioning such as sprint intervals
(depending on the training cycle) but
less overall conditioning.

All conditioning includes a day or two of

pure off-feet cardio sprints for 6-10 seconds
with maximal rest (2-3 mins).

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STRENGTH TRAINING
FOR MMA
This section covers everything do to with weight room based training. This includes strength,
hypertrophy, speed, and power development.

FUNDAMENTALS OF STRENGTH TRAINING FOR MMA

Everything we do in the gym to prepare for MMA hinges on this simple graph (and other
adaptations, but I like this visual):

It’s taken from a research paper by Paavo Komi [16]. It shows the change in force by change in
muscle length. Essentially, the force produced during a muscle contraction.

For a given change in muscle length (e.g., a bicep curl), we have an increase in force
generated from circle 1 to circle 2. We then have the length feedback component known as
the muscle spindles.

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It is sensitive to the rate of stretch and “excites” the muscle to increase force production to
circle 3. But the force feedback mechanism, known as the Golgi tendon organ, doesn’t like this.

It pumps the brakes as a protective mechanism to dampen force production, leaving you at
circle 4 for the 昀椀nal force output. The goal is to raise circle 4 as high as possible for a given
change in muscle length.

How does heavy strength training and jumps/plyometrics help?

We can enhance the sensitivity of the muscle spindles through plyometric training. Improving
sensitivity increases excitation and, therefore, force generation.

Maximal strength training desensitizes the Golgi tendon organ so it doesn’t pump the brakes
so early.

Untrained individuals have the Golgi tendon organ kick in too early, and this is why beginners
can’t express their maximum outputs in the gym. Desensitize this response by lifting heavy loads.

This is one of the adaptations showing why you MUST perform heavy resistance training AND
high-velocity strength training.

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Here’s another graph by Kraemer and Newton, further illustrating my point and why I’m
constantly preaching you can’t follow a bodybuilding or Powerlifting program for MMA [17].

All sporting movements are constrained by time. As mentioned earlier on the “working
effect,” we must improve the ability to generate high forces in short time frames. Now, this
doesn’t apply as greatly to grappling actions where slow, grindy movements give almost
in昀椀nite time to apply forces compared to striking actions.

Boxing and Muay Thai techniques occur within 50 - 300 ms [18]. Hence the importance of high-
velocity strength training and plyometric exercises.

The graph shows different training types. The solid line represents untrained subjects. The
dashed line represents heavy resistance-trained subjects (e.g. Powerlifters). The dotted line
represents light resistance power-trained subjects (e.g. track athletes).

While heavy resistance-trained subjects display the greatest force, they don’t display the
greatest force generation at lower time points, as denoted by the 200 ms mark.

Again reinforcing the point of performing heavy resistance training AND power training. But
can’t you just lift the bar faster as many strength coaches will say?

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Moving the bar faster is not the same as leaving the ground when jumping or projecting a
medicine ball when throwing.

The black squares represent a bench throw while the white squares represent the bench
press performed as fast as possible. Depending on the load, you can spend 40 - 50% of the
concentric phase decelerating the barbell.

Whereas throwing the barbell allows you to continue accelerating, which powerful sporting
movements mirror.

What exercises show this kind of velocity curve?

PLYOMETRICS JUMPS THROWS OLYMPIC LIFTS

There are many other muscle architecture and neuromuscular adaptations to each type of
resistance training but this overview gives you the most important bits of information about why.

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WHY FULL RANGE OF

MOTION IS KING
Muscle 昀椀ber contractile velocity is proportional to its length. Meaning how quickly your
muscles contract is determined by the number of sacromeres (blocks of muscle 昀椀bers) are in a
row. Muscle 昀椀ber type also plays a role here.

Sarcomeres shorten at 2x the muscle 昀椀ber length per second [19]. For example, having 10
sarcomeres in a row would shorten at 20 昀椀ber lengths/second, whereas 5 sarcomeres would
only shorten at 10 昀椀ber lengths/second.

How do we add more sarcomeres? Eccentric training is a potent stimulus for this. Think Nordic
curls for the hamstrings and weighted negative pull-ups for the upper body.

But full range of motion lifting is another method that has been shown to be superior to
partial ranges of motion lifting [20].

Contractile velocity isn’t the only bene昀椀t of increasing sarcomere length. You shift the angle of
peak torque up and to the right, meaning you produce more force at longer muscle lengths [21].

This has the potential to reduce your risk of injury in susceptible muscle groups like the hamstrings.

It’s why full range of motion resistance training IS mobility training. And no amount of static
stretching will get you there (effectively).

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EXERCISE SELECTION FOR BUILDING

STRENGTH APPLICABLE TO MMA
There are hundreds of Instagram and TikTok “gooroos” shilling you entire training programs
with “speci昀椀c” MMA exercises. Fuck them.

Speci昀椀city exists on a spectrum. I’m not one to say there aren’t more speci昀椀c exercises than
others. But our goal in the gym is to enhance strength, speed, and power (and sometimes
muscle mass). Most of these exercises you’re fed on social media don’t have the loading or
intent behind them to elicit ANY adaptation.

And that’s all it really is. Are we providing the body with a strong enough stimulus to adapt?

The easiest way to think about exercise selection is to start with the
7 basic movement patterns:
SQUAT HINGE PUSH PULL LUNGE TWIST CARRY

For MMA, I would add:

THROW JUMP

Should every session have all of these? No. But your training week should cover most of these
most of the time.

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STRENGTH TRAINING PROGRAM

DESIGN FOR MMA
For a busy MMA athlete, twice a week in the gym is more than enough. It’s all you have time
for anyway. If you’re a recreational MMA athlete who goes to class for the cardio and social
bene昀椀ts and wants to look good, then three to four days in the gym is potentially better.

But I’m going to assume most of you reading this fall into the 昀椀rst camp. MMA 昀椀ghters who’s
main focus is getting better at MMA.

Since you’re in the gym twice a week, they should be full-body sessions. Upper/lower splits
can work and, in my experience, can be quite good for older athletes (if you’re careful with
the volume).

But full body sessions allow you to hit muscle groups twice a week, which is generally superior
for strength development.

How should these sessions look? Here’s a template you can follow:

1 Warm-up circuit
2 Jumps/plyometrics/throws (don’t have to do all 3)
3 Full body power exercise
4 Heavy lower body
5 Upper push
6 Upper pull
7 Core/carry/grip (don’t have to do all 3)

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This is a basic template that can change depending on

the main goal of training. However, you can use this if
you’re after speed and power or maximal strength.

Just reduce your volume of speed and power

exercises if strength is your goal and vice versa if
you’re going after speed and power.

You can also make one day more heavy strength

orientated and the second day more power
orientated. Both work, up to you how you want to
plan your training. I like the way I presented as if you
can only get into the gym once that week, you’ve
covered most of your bases.

You’ll notice I haven’t blocked strength training into

only strength, or only hypertrophy, or only speed
and power. It’s because I don’t believe in block
periodization for mixed sports like MMA.

Yes, you can target one quality to maximize training

effectiveness. But you blunt and diminish other
important qualities you need for MMA. By the time
you get to your 6th week of power/speed training,
it’s been months since you’ve done any strength or
hypertrophy exercise.

Yes, there is carryover between them all. But you

need more than carryover. It’s why I take a vertically
integrated approach to training. It means you cover all
qualities within a training week.

It doesn’t mean you perform maximum-volume jumps

and heavy squats. It means you prioritize the quality
you want to improve and reduce the volume of the
others. But they are always there.

If you spend 8 weeks in a hypertrophy phase, then 8

weeks performing maximum strength, you can’t hit
the ground running in week 17 performing intense
plyometrics and jumps. That’s a recipe for injury.

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PERIODIZATION STRATEGIES
TO PEAK FOR FIGHTS
A simple heuristic to follow is to reduce total volume, range of motion (in some exercises), and
focus on speed and power based exercises.

It’s about having little to no residual fatigue after your strength training so you have more
energy for hard MMA technical training sessions.

You should feel like you want to do more when you’re done. That is a good sign you’ve done
the session correctly.

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CONDITIONING FOR MMA

ADAPTATIONS VS. WORKING OUT

The biggest mistake is doing your conditioning just to get a sweat and breathe hard. This is
99% of what you see in 昀椀ght camp build-up videos and other pros doing.

Conditioning sessions should target speci昀椀c adaptations depending on the time of year
and your strengths and weaknesses. The adaptations are dictated by intensity. The general
spectrum looks like this:

Low-intensity = preferential central (heart) adaptations.

High-intensity = preferential peripheral (muscle) adaptations.

Moving across the intensity spectrum will give you a mix of both. Whether you need more of
one or the other requires rather extensive lab testing. However, here’s my simple rule to make
it practical.

If your MAS score is under the threshold presented earlier in this mini ebook, you should
spend much more time on the lower-intensity end of the spectrum. It’s a low-cost, low-fatigue
method of improving conditioning.

If you’re well over the MAS thresholds, you may want to sprinkle in more high-intensity efforts
and less lower-intensity efforts.

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WHY ROADWORK ISN T ENOUGH

I’m going to touch on a controversial topic. You don’t need to run. You don’t need to wake up
at 5 am to log your miles. Any training modality that simulates the same duration and intensity
will give you the same bene昀椀ts.

For example, any off-feet cardio equipment. If you don’t get to as many MMA classes as
you’d like, then shadowboxing, shadow wrestling, and medicine ball circuits are superior, in
my opinion, and more likely to transfer to MMA.

I’m not saying running doesn’t work. I’m saying there are other similar methods to gain the
same outcome.

But back to roadwork and this obsession with zone 2 cardio. Yes, basic aerobic 昀椀tness is
needed to do well in any sport. If you have an MAS score above 4.5 m/s, adding more volume
of long, slow, steady cardio may not be what you need.

Here’s why.

Cardiac output is the limiting factor in VO2max [22]. MAS is the maximum speed obtained at
VO2max and is a much easier 昀椀eld test measurement

Regardless, it’s why continuing to improve your VO2max with loads of zone 2 cardio may not
be giving you the adaptations you need.

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At some point, you’re not limited by your

heart pumping blood. You’re limited by your
muscle’s ability to use the oxygen being
delivered through the blood.

I believe that point is somewhere around the

4.5 m/s MAS mark based on my experiences
with athletes and the team sport research
surrounding MAS.

What should you do instead? Sprint interval

training targets muscular adaptations to resist
fatigue and recover faster between rounds.
Coaches much smarter than me have been
implementing these with impressive results.
I’m not talking sprinting over ground. These
are performed on a bike.

There is brand-spanking new research in this

domain that no one is talking about (except
me… seriously). I broke it down in this video
here:

In this cohort of professional boxers (yes,

not MMA but I’ll explain), it didn’t seem
that recovery during sparring was limited by
the heart but by the muscles [23]. Essentially,
you’re improving the mitochondria’s ability to
ef昀椀ciently upregulate and downregulate from
the onset and cessation of exercise.

Therefore, you’re able to suf昀椀ciently re-

oxygenate the muscles between rounds or
high-intensity efforts. This becomes more
apparent (and important) in MMA with
grappling actions that require more muscular
strain than pure striking.

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It is likely that MMA is more peripherally taxing than centrally taxing, meaning conditioning
should likely be geared towards muscular adaptations (once a decent base has been built).

Does that mean we abandon zone 2? No.

One important peripheral adaptation is muscle capillarization. These blood vessels are the
delivery mechanism for oxygen to the working muscles and mitochondria. A greater capillary
network may mean more oxygen diffusing from the blood to the muscles which equals better
endurance.

If we go by our intensity spectrum, we’d expect capillary growth would occur at the high-
intensity end.

However, the highest capillary-to-muscle 昀椀ber ratio is seen in high-level endurance athletes
who spend most of their training time performing low-intensity steady-state cardio [29].

Further, shifting to higher-intensity training may reduce the growth of new capillaries or have
no effect whatsoever [29]. To add another layer, your muscle 昀椀ber type distribution plays a role
in recovery. Athletes who are predominately slow twitch recover faster after high-intensity
exercise, whereas fast twitch-dominant 昀椀ghters may take over 5 hours to recover [30].

If you are fast twitch dominant and rely heavily on sprint training, you may dig yourself deeper
into a hole as the week progresses with added technical training.

All of this to say, cover the entire intensity spectrum. Listen to Jon Mackey talk the importance
of low-intensity conditioning below:

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REPEATING HIGH-INTENSITY EFFORTS

This brings us to repeated high-intensity efforts. The key to MMA performance. Typically,
targeting low-intensity conditioning is seen as the gold standard for repeating high-intensity
efforts within repeated sprint ability [24][25].

The mechanism underpinning this is the heavier reliance on aerobic processes to regenerate
phosphocreatine (PCr) stores between sprints. In short, PCr is needed to convert ADP back to
ATP as the muscle’s energy source for contractions.

But not all research agrees with some papers only showing moderate correlations between
VO2max and repeat sprint ability [26]. One reason this discrepancy may exist is the effort given
by the test subjects. For example, one paper stated their subjects tended to save energy to
counteract fatigue, as shown by the 昀椀rst sprint of each block being slower than their maximal
sprint effort [24].

However, MMA is not a sport of sprinting. And high-intensity efforts often involve working
against an opponent of similar weight when grappling or throwing a 昀氀urry of strikes mixed
with clinching and bullying your opponent.

This is where the term repeated high-intensity effort was born and includes any effort,
including sprinting like wrestling, scrambling, throwing, sweeping, and striking [27].
Interestingly, the relationship between repeated sprint ability and RHIE is poor, showing the
strenuous demands of non-running activities like wrestling [28].

A study in rugby league demonstrated this using GPS to isolate and quantify collision
demands from running. They found a greater reduction in collision performance (tackling) than
speed, with a 14% difference [27].

Therefore, enhancing repeated high-intensity efforts will take more than hitting the pavement.
You need power! And the ability to sustain it repeatedly.

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CONDITIONING FUNNEL
SYSTEM FOR MMA
This is where it all comes together. You may be confused from the sciencey sections above,
but this should (hopefully) clear things up.

It’s called the Funnel System.

Think of the right side as the 昀椀nal weeks of 昀椀ght camp. The left side is out of 昀椀ght camp. If
you’re not competing, you can still move through this funnel by spending most of your time
on the left side and spending 4-6 weeks closer to the right side.

Outside of performing random circuits until you crawl out of the gym, the other common
mistake is blocking training as I mentioned in the strength training section. For example, some
昀椀ghters might start only performing long-distance runs and reduce the distance as they get
closer to the 昀椀ght, so they become middle distance and eventually short distance.

With conditioning, we must raise the ceiling and deepen the well. This is the backbone of
repeating high-intensity efforts.

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Training focuses on intensities above and below what typically is performed in technical
training. If you ever measure your heart rate during MMA training, you may 昀椀nd it undulates
through the middle, potentially between 130 and 170 BPM (give or take a few beats).

You don’t get much time at very low-intensities, and you very rarely get to express maximal
speed and power with full recovery to raise power output.

So, one session will include alactic power intervals consisting of 6-10 sec maximal effort
sprints (use off-feet cardio equipment) with complete rest (2-3+ mins). Your goal is to
maximize the Watts presented on the screen and stay within 10% of that number each rep.

This is about quality, not how much work you do. You also have speci昀椀c conditioning options,
like hitting the heavy bag with the same work-to-rest ratio. These intervals are best performed
directly after one of your strength training sessions as it saves time and you’re already primed.

Your second (and potentially third, depending on your training schedule) will be lower-end
aerobic work. Initially steady state cardio and some interval-based long high-intensity intervals.

Steady-state cardio can be 30-60 mins at a continuous base at a nose-breathing pace.

Typically 110-140 BPM I’ve found works best.

For long HIIT, anywhere from 2-8 x 2-8 minutes at 90-100% MAS. This is where your MAS
score is put to use. Multiply your MAS by the work interval in seconds. For example, if your
MAS is 4 m/s and you want to perform a 2-minute interval at 100% MAS, 4 x 120 = 480 m.

That’s the distance you must cover during the work interval.

You can also go by feel if you don’t have a MAS score for whatever reason. One of my
favorites is performing multiple sets of 40-sec work @70% effort / 20-sec rest. You can also do
this with 30 sec / 30 sec.

As you get closer to a 昀椀ght, you have more options. E.g. reducing the rest during alactic
intervals, performing short HIIT MAS blocks, and performing maximal sprint intervals with little
rest. Here’s just some examples:

Short HIIT: 3 x (5 x 30 sec/30 sec @100% MAS) w/ 2-3 min rest between sets
Sprint Intervals: 10 x 10 sec / 10-20 sec rest

Where do you place intense conditioning? Typically, on your harder MMA training days you
consolidate your hardest training sessions on one day and your easier sessions the following.

This is performed directly after training or separate sessions by at least 6 hours ideally. They
can also be done after strength training to save time.

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WHAT AGILITY REALLY IS

I still remember watching an old UFC Countdown where an athlete had an “agility coach.”
The “coach” had the 昀椀ghter catch tennis balls that were being thrown against the wall from
behind his back, run through ladder drills, and rapidly switch his hand position from overhand
to underhand while holding a barbell. Why is this considered “agility?”

I’m sure you’ve also seen the thousands of Instagram videos of athletes or coaches looking
like the video is sped up 2x speed as they do random ladder and cone drills in the sand. What
is the point of these obstacle courses?

“Fast feet” is not a good enough explanation.

To fully understand how to train agility for a combat athlete (or any athlete), we must know
what agility is. So 昀椀rst, we must de昀椀ne agility for 昀椀ghters.

Agility for 昀椀ghters can be de昀椀ned as the ability to maintain or control body position with a
rapid change of velocity or direction in response to a sport-speci昀椀c stimulus.

The last part of this de昀椀nition is the most important.

Often you’ll hear the term ‘reactive’ agility. However, based on the de昀椀nition, all agility
is reactive, as movements are in response to a stimulus. Therefore, the term ‘reactive’ is
redundant and will be retired when used in conjunction with agility.

Agility can also be offensive or defensive. For an MMA 昀椀ghter, offensive agility could be being
able to reposition to land a successful counterstrike. Or reacting to an opponent’s defense to
a takedown and quickly switching the technique to complete the takedown.

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Defensive agility can be something as simple as slipping a punch or sprawling to defend a

double leg. It’s important to note that in combat sports, both 昀椀ghters are always in a state of
attack and defense.

You may notice a theme here. None of these agility maneuvers look anything like catching
tennis balls or running through a ladder.

Agility can also be an open and closed skill. What’s the difference? An open agility maneuver
means it is in response to the environment (i.e. reactive).

A closed agility maneuver means it is pre-planned. For MMA, this may be pad combinations
or drilling takedowns.

The agility examples I gave at the beginning of this section would all be considered closed
chain agility movements. Sadly, these closed chain exercises don’t carry over to competitive
昀椀ghting. However, that doesn’t mean closed chain agility exercises are useless… Just the ones
I mentioned in the beginning are useless.

You will see why shortly.

Do an academic literature search for agility and [insert martial art here] and you’ll 昀椀nd a few
journal articles mainly in taekwondo and karate. If you dig deeper into these studies, you’ll
see that the tests used to assess agility are closed chain agility running tests or agility tests
reacting to a non-sport speci昀椀c stimulus [31][32].

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In fact, some papers just compare athletes of different sports and their reaction times and
agility test scores [33][34]. While this may tell us how quickly a 昀椀ghter moves, it doesn’t tell us
anything about how agile they are for their martial art.

To 昀椀nd out why, we need to look outside of the martial arts and into the invasion sports.
Invasion sports consist of team sports such as rugby, American Football, soccer, basketball,
and hockey to name a few.

But why invasion sports? Because agility is extensively studied in this area as these sports require
hundreds of agility maneuvers per match in a multitude of different directions and scenarios.

So let’s breakdown agility for MMA through the research performed in invasion sports. When
performing agility tests such as the ones mentioned in the previous section, what is actually
being measured is the change of direction speed (CODS).

This means the athlete or 昀椀ghter knows when, where, and how the COD movement is being
performed.

But, CODS and agility are independent qualities. A 2015 study by one of the top experts in
agility, Dr. Warren Young, showed that CODS and agility display a correlation of only 21%
when averaged out over six different studies [35].

Since the correlation is well under 50%, it indicates CODS and agility are independent
qualities In other words, being quick and changing direction (or quick at bobbing and
weaving) does not necessarily mean that you will also be quick when having to react to a
sport-speci昀椀c stimulus such as slipping punches.

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From this, we know that agility is more than just physical. I’ve broken down agility into two
main components.

To make this even easier to understand, cognitive ability can be renamed decision making
speed and accuracy.

To have great agility, both accurate decision making speed and physical factors must be at a
high level. And at a high level for both offensive and defensive agility. This is why you can’t go
from only hitting pads with perfect technique and footwork to sparring at a decent level.

There’s an added component that hasn’t been trained when only hitting pads which is the
ability to accurately make decisions quickly in response to your opponent’s actions.

In team sports, there is a clear distinction between who is attacking and who is defending.

In combat sports, however, both 昀椀ghters are attacking and defending at the same time. This
means the thought process is slightly different from team sports when it comes to agility.

For example, a team sport athlete might be thinking if he can maneuver between defenders
but not have to think about defensive maneuvers himself. While a 昀椀ghter may be thinking if
he slips my punch, am I open for a shot?

A more attacking mindset may be throwing feints and seeing how the opponent reacts or
pulling on the back of the head to see if they react hard enough to shoot for a takedown.

A defensive thought process may be is his feint setting me up for a head kick or is his wrist
control along with his footwork being used to set me up for an arm drag?

Finding the correct solution to an opponent’s movements only comes when a 昀椀ghter is well
experienced and has seen the same or similar scenarios over and over again and has been
able to solve the problem.

That is when they can start to anticipate what will happen through their knowledge of the
situation by the recognition of similar patterns through visual scanning which allows them to
make the correct decision.

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HOW DOES AGILITY DIFFER BETWEEN

ELITE AND NON-ELITE ATHLETES?

As always, I like to compare elite and non-elite athletes when making my arguments.

Unfortunately, no research has been performed within combat sports so we will have to turn
to team sports again.

In netball and rugby league, higher standard players had faster decision-making times to
sport-speci昀椀c stimuli compared to lower standard players [36][37]. In Australian Rules football,
professional players were found to be faster and more accurate in their decision-making ability
when reacting to an attacker changing direction compared to elite junior players [38].

Similar results were found in elite soccer players who were faster and more accurate at
anticipating pass direction in one on one situations compared to recreational players [39].

Higher skilled athletes are also less susceptible to feints (just watch Adesanya vs. Costa at UFC
253 to see this play out live) [40][41]. But most importantly out of all of this…

Higher skilled athletes ONLY perform better when reacting to a SPORT SPECIFIC STIMULUS.

What does this mean for your training? Performing reaction drills with tennis balls, ladders, or
昀氀ashing lights provide a stimulus too generic to carry over to 昀椀ghting. Agility must be trained
as an open skill with the sport-speci昀椀c stimulus with the physical attributes to support it.

I’ve covered the physical training above, so I won’t touch on that. Technique is covered by
your MMA coach. But what about the cognitive factors?

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Agility isn’t just about making fast decisions. It’s about making fast decisions accurately. You can
react as fast as you want, but if you choose the wrong technique, you could end up on the 昀氀oor.

Decision-making factors aren’t performed in isolation. Everything works together through

exposure to many different scenarios.

So, how do you develop fast, accurate decision-making skills? By being exposed to as many
different 昀椀ght scenarios over and over again. By failing and making the wrong decisions and
correcting your technical decision next time, you recognize the same pattern or situation. This
is how open-chain agility training is performed.

This can’t be developed through pad and bag work. It needs to be learned through light
sparring, positional sparring, or hard sparring. For grappling, much of the situational
awareness and experience needs to be developed through hard sparring.

You need to be able to put pressure to feel how an opponent will react to what you do. While
closed-chain drilling may help you recognize the reaction pattern, doing it live is a different story.

I have some epic podcast episodes breaking all this down I’ve linked below for you to dive
deeper.

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WHY YOU CAN T STRETCH YOUR WAY TO

FLEXIBILITY AND MOBILITY

I’m going to make this short and sweet. Static stretching does not improve your mobility.
What do I mean by mobility? An active range of motion. Flexibility is passive and you don’t
want extended passive ranges of motion (which static stretching can arti昀椀cially produce).

Unfortunately, static stretching doesn’t cause any changes in muscle architecture and instead,
the acute increased range of motion is improved stretch tolerance.

For example, 3-8 weeks of stretching don’t change muscle or tendon properties but increases
extensibiltiy and tolerance to stretch [42][43].

The best mobility training you can do is full range of motion lifting and long muscle length
eccentric training. I’ve already covered this in previous sections regarding increasing fascicle
length and enhancing force production at longer muscle lengths.

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PLANNING YOUR TRAINING WEEK

How your MMA gym structures weekly training will be unique so I’ll give an example and how
the framework for you to work from.

You want to create some form of undulation within the training week. For example, a common
week structure is Monday, Wednesday, Friday (sparring) are hard training days and Tuesday,
Thursday, Saturday are “easier” training days.

It doesn’t always pan out this way but we’ll go with it to illustrate the point. Let’s assume you
don’t have a 昀椀ght upcoming so you have 2 strength training days and 3 conditioning days.

Assuming you train MMA 6 days per week, you would double day Monday and Wednesday in
this instance.

The mornings would include your strength training days with one of the sessions 昀椀nishing with
your alactic intervals.

For the 2 low intensity conditioning sessions, you’d perform them on Tuesday and Thursday
OR replace one of the days with Saturday. You can do these directly before or after training
because the intensity is low enough not to be an issue. You can also have these as a separate
morning session.

If you leading to a 昀椀ght, you would remove one or both low intensity conditioning sessions
and replace with another high-intensity conditioning session directly after sparring or after
Wednesday session.

If you only train MMA a few times a week, then you can do your extra strength & conditioning
on your off days.

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SUPER ADVANCED TRAINING METHODS

You can get very far with the methodology presented in this book and adding more training
methods will just lead to confusion. Instead, I’ll leave resources below I’ve created or from
podcast guests that may interest you if you’re looking for more advanced training methods.

High Volume Power Training

Cluster Sets & PAP
Flywheel Training
Wearable Resistance
Blood Flow Restriction
Neurology
Square 1

WHERE TO GET MY TRAINING PROGRAMS

Look, I get it. Even armed with this information it can
be daunting creating your own training plan. So I’ve
done it for you.

You can get my repeatable 6-week MMA strength &

conditioning program here.

But the better value is within my Training App and

community. You’ll have access to EVERY strength &
conditioning program including Dominate The Cage
(8-week MMA S&C) and an entire years worth of MMA
programming.

Plus you get direct access to me and other coaches in

the Discord community.

You can learn more about it here.

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