Are you overwhelmed by the MMA gym membership fees? Relax, you don’t have to go through all the strain. However, it will augur well to see you idling in your house. As an MMA enthusiast, there are best MMA workouts you can perform from the comfort of your residence. Sounds good, isn’t it? Well, we seek to help you begin your MMA training in earnest before you join an MMA gyms.
The guidelines presented here seek to make your training more effective. In your quest to become a badass MMA fighter you need to be disciplined. Every sport requires discipline in order to hit the set target.
The availability of space is a key necessity when it comes to home training. Take your time to clean up all the mess around to ensure the place is clean and free off any debris that might hurt you. Also, you don’t want to destroy items inside your house. Therefore, make sure that the training area is spacious. We know you are asking yourself what you need to kick start the training.
Generally, to begin the training you need hand gloves, hand wraps, jump rope, and heavy bag. This ensures you begin your conditioning with vigor and strength.
Table of Contents
Essential Elements of MMA Workouts
a) Condition your body
As a trainer, your endurance level should be a necessity. This will be independent of your interests in MMA. In a span of five minutes, you will have depleted all energy in your reserves. This will be as a result of strenuous training you require to defend yourself from your opponent.
Gaining or building up endurance does not require joining an MMA gym. It is possible to work on your endurance from your home. How do you work on endurance? Well, this will depend on your fitness level. We advise you to begin running 2 miles per day if you are within the average fitness level.
Also, make cardio workouts part of you. After a few weeks, we recommend you to include sprint drills to your schedule. Sprint at full speed for 5 seconds and take a rest of 2 minutes. At least ensure you can go 6 rounds per day. If you are a beginner, jogging is for you. This will help you to make sure that your heart rate is at an optimal level. Jog for at least 30 minutes and you can prefer to walk in between the 30 minutes jog. This will surely work on your endurance levels.
b) Develop your grappling skills
In MMA, grappling is such a vital skill. It places you in an advantageous position compared to your opponent and determines your chances of winning the match. Developing your grappling skills ensures you can take your opponent to the ground at ease.
These grappling skills ensure that you can position yourself in a dominating position and throw punches that will make you a winner. These are skills that you can develop from the comfort of your home. Invest in grappling bag and glove and begin learning these skills in earnest.
c) Basic strikes
As you strive to develop your skills in MMA ensure that you learn the basic strikes – MMA books can help. Becoming an MMA professional does not come in a silver platter. Therefore, it will be important for you to learn how to throw punches, how to defend yourself and deliver super awesome counter attack punches, how to increase the speed and force and how to ensure good flexibility of your limbs.
Discard the notion of becoming a professional fighter within a month. The process of becoming one does not happen in a fortnight. Take your time and you will enjoy the fruits of your hard work and resilience. One more thing, you will not only need to engage your physical power in training but also your mind.
Let your training help you prepare for all the outcomes you come across at the boxing ring.
The best MMA home workouts
Having discussed the basic items you need to include before you initiate your home training process. Let’s now shift our gear to the best MMA boxing home workouts you can practice from the comfort of your home. Secure the following equipment to kick start the home training; hand gloves, hand traps, heavy bag, and jump ropes.
1. Jump rope
At the start of any workout, it will be important for you to increase your heart rate. This will be possible by jump rope. It is an excellent way of enhancing your cardiovascular workout at the same time working on your speed, and coordination training. You can begin by doing five 5 minutes rounds with a one-minute break in between the rounds.
However, if you are a beginner and new to jump rope, it will be advisable for you to begin with 5, one minute rounds and remember to include 1-minute breaks between the rounds. Do not pressure yourself too much since you will have a chance to show your prowess during the main workout. Based on your fitness level, we recommend you to follow the following schedule.
Advance level
- Perform five minutes jump rope
- Rest for one minute
- Repeat the process five times
Intermediate level
- Perform three minutes jump rope
- Rest for one minute
- Repeat the process for 5 times
Beginner level
- Perform one-minute jump rope
- Rest for one minute
- Repeat the process for 5 times
Independent of your level of expertise make sure you take a rest after completing jump rope rounds. Wrap your hands and grab your gloves. Ensure that the rest is short and efficient.
2. Shadowboxing
Although optional, shadow boxing is a good MMA home based workout. Shadowboxing is relatively easy and straight forward. You only to imagine that you are in the boxing ring throwing jabs punches to your imaginary opponent. It is best done in front of a mirror. This will help you see the type of striking you applying and what can you do to improve your striking skills.
As a beginner, ensure you complete your shadowboxing workout with knees and kicks. However, if you are advanced, do not worry about the kicks and knees just workout on your efficiency in throwing powerful punches. Make you sure your assumptions are a bit more realistic and therefore we don’t expect you to remain stagnant with your movements. Learn to be flexible and comfortable to enhance your flow.
Try to complete 2 to 3 five minutes round and ensure they are fast-paced and involve a lot of movements. If you have limited time you can choose to complete a single five minute round. After the workouts, be sure to feel a difference in your legs and that’s what’s required. This will help you in boosting your stamina. You will be ready to take your opponent down once you get to the real boxing ring. You becoming a champion is the bare minimum. Some of these are the best kickboxing combinations that you can apply;
For beginner
- Jab-rear leg kick
- Cross- lead leg kick
- Jab-rear head kick
- Cross-lead head kick
- Jab-over head
Advanced level
- Jab cross-lead head kick
- Cross lead hook rear leg kick
- Jab cross-lead hook to the body- rear head kick
- Cross lead knee ( switch or step) lead hook cross
We use the word rear and lead because these kickback combinations are meant to be used in both stances; orthodox (left foot first) and southpaw (right foot first). This will help you in your quest of becoming an MMA professional by providing you with an array of options of bringing your opponent down.
As a true MMA enthusiast, it will be vital for you to learn both stances. So, if you have gained some expertise in boxing you can throw a couple of elbows after throwing some punches or knees. Lastly, if you decide to do a lead knee/kick you can switch your feet into the kick/knee.
3. Heavy bag workout
Are you looking for a workout that helps in advancing your martial arts skills at the same having fun? Then, a heavy bag workout is for you. This type of workouts gives you an option to do the workout with your partner. Nevertheless, having a training partner in this workout is even funnier compared to when training alone.
All you need is to develop a well-stipulated plan that allows you to perform 3, five minutes rounds with a one-minute break in between the rounds. In all these rounds, it will be advisable for you to practice the different aspects of boxing. Here we shall give you a brief break down on what is expected in each round.
First-round
During this round, let speed and power define your fast-paced punches. Enhance your close and long-range punches. You want to become a professional MMA, isn’t it? Well, throw two to three hard combos and be sure to change the rhythm
Second round
In this round, focus on your kneeing and kicking movements. Ideally, under this round, all the activities are quite similar to those found in the first round. However, let not this round be primary for enhancing boxing skills. You can begin by kicking low, mid-range and finally high. Start by throwing fast-paced left kicks continuously without ceasing and complete the exercise by throwing a higher right kick.
Third round
In this round, you are supposed to bring into practice everything you have learnt in the first and second rounds. That is kicking and punching. Even though this session may heavily drain you physically remain resilient and do your best to maintain your intensity. After all, it will only take you five minutes. Ensure you throw combos that vary in speed and power.
As said earlier. Be sure to take a passive or active rest of one minute after every round.
Burnout round
In the boxing ring burn out is a point in time when you expect high-intensity battles and this greatly determines who is announced as the champion. In home workout, burn out round will be you vs. the heavy bag. However, you can have your training partner or another person to challenge you. All you need is to have a stopwatch to time yourself. You can also keep track of calories burned from boxing.
Then, in an interval of 30 seconds dedicate 30 seconds of works out and 30 seconds of rest. In the 30 seconds of work, ensure you push yourself harder and take a of 30 seconds. While working with your partner, it would be a greater idea to interchange. In that, while you are throwing fast-paced and hard punches your partner should be taking a rest.
4. Push-ups
For some reason, you may fail to secure a heavy bag for training mma but don’t lose hope in gaining mixed martial arts skills. This is because they are home workout that will we are sure will help you greatly. In fact, these are workouts applied by many professional fighters especially when they travel.
Push-ups help you greatly in improving your chest exercises. Do as many as possible but 2 to three sets of push up are enough. After you are done with push-ups, finish the exercise by engaging in several works out aimed at improving your abs. They include; planks, sit-ups, medicine, ball oblique tests, and leg lifts.
Conclusion
In conclusion, you have a variety of MMA workouts you can perform from the comfort of your home. Even though, this can place you in a better position you still need more to become a professional MMA fighter. This is because home-based training may not mimic the real experience of getting inside the boxing ring. Facing off your real opponent may be coupled with a rise in adrenaline.
You will hardly experience this when training alone in the house. Therefore, home-based workouts should help you keep fit. Going forward, it would be advisable for you to look for a facility with professional trainers. Be sure to gain more unique skills that will help you in becoming a professional MMA fighter. We wish you all the best.