Question for BBs who do MMA

[bashu]

Have you been able to more or less maintain your muscle mass while training for MMA? If so, how? I'm thinking about focusing on another sport for a little while, just for a break, but I don't want to lose everything - just spent too much effort building it up to throw it away. It almost feels trapping

 

[dragonfire101]

I have been able to maintain some, but its too hard and I can't do both. Too much stress to recover from both. I don't think its feasible to do both if serious about one or the other. Too much muscle gets in the way of MMA.

For instance doing MMA I would stay around 200 at 5 10'. While bodybuilding would be at least 20-30 lbs more...

 

[Amazon Doll]

Have you been able to more or less maintain your muscle mass while training for MMA? If so, how? I'm thinking about focusing on another sport for a little while, just for a break, but I don't want to lose everything - just spent too much effort building it up to throw it away. It almost feels trapping

I didn't lose any muscle training mma 15 hours a week, but I still lift 3x a week. I'm the most muscular person in my school and I am the only girl there.

 

[taz]

you will never maintain all of it. anyone who says you will has never gotten into a ring, octagon, or competed on the mats. you have to develop totally different muscles if you want to be really competitive. and the muscles you do have need to be functional in a different way. for example, i can pretty much grab and throw nearly every guy in my camp if they get mount on me. and they will go pretty far off my body if i put all my power into it. but i cant maintain that for any period of time.

you can keep much of the raw power and you can still be pretty jacked up. but if you are going to compete you will notice how being overly muscular causes your punches to not be as crisp or tight and your crab guard or helmet guard doesnt quite lay tight enough to the body to actually protect your sides. your kicks will also be insanely strong but the technique will be off just a little bit which will be easily picked apart by an opponent.

but you should give it a try man. it is a blast. and you can always go back and get all that muscle back on pretty fast brother. why not give something else a try for a while? best of luck!

 

[terraj]

It was always one or the other.

Could move much better at a lighter weight....

 

[nickels]

It was always one or the other.

Could move much better at a lighter weight....

Not to mention the severe shortage of training partners over 75 kg (given your location).

 

[dieselbuilder]

yea I was doing frequent lifts and MMA classes. I remember my bicep tendons were getting killed because of the combination of arm day and me throwing hooks into pads.

 

[Hellbent]

From my experience no. But I've started at a new gym and have been doing a lot of circut cross training so my cardio has lots of strength exercises thrown in.

I still got decent size, but its a fine balance trying to get the most cardio out of your body while maintaining strength.

I figure once I'm done with MMA I will go back to getting size back again. But it does suck seeing some of my best lifts go down

 

[cal]

I'd like to hear big dave smiths input on this...



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[dan525]

Whether it's possible to maintain the size isn't the issue. Calories and training will determine that. The muscle is a trade off. Power vs speed/endurance. I am not saying you can't have a combination, but muscle mass requires alot of blood flow which carries oxygen. Think Mariusz and Carwin. Both guys gassed out probably due to expending so much energy and oxygen trying to use that muscle mass.