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Power is one of the most important physical attributes a fighter can possess. It can be the difference between a knockout victory or a loss \u2013 how many times have you seen a fighter behind on the judges scorecards only to see them win the contest with a knockout blow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A powerful fighter is one to be respected!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a lot of misconception in mixed martial arts and other combat sports that power training slows you down, makes you bulky and is generally not effective for fighters, but in this article we\u2019re going to discuss how we can use Plyometric training in MMA to build explosive power, without sacrificing other abilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The main issue around power training is that most MMA coaches aren\u2019t fitness experts \u2013 they\u2019re MMA experts and as such they lead their athletes down the wrong path when it comes to strength and conditioning. This is more of a problem at an amateur level (professional athletes will hire dedicated strength and conditioning coaches), so in this post we\u2019re going to look at what how we can improve power in mixed martial artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first thing to understand is what power actually is. <\/em>If you know what you\u2019re training for, you can begin to programme more effectively for the sport \u2013 both to build on strengths and to improve any weaknesses that you may have. The purpose of training is improvement after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of people confuse power with strength, but they\u2019re actually quite different things. In lay man\u2019s terms, power is generating force at speed (combining strength and speed).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strength is simply the ability to move a load. Here\u2019s a couple of real-life examples, so they make more sense\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n An example of a power<\/em> movement is a high jump \u2013 the athlete has to move a load (their body weight) off the ground quickly in order to clear a bar. This has to be done quickly, otherwise the jump wouldn\u2019t be successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An example of a strength<\/em> movement would be a heavy deadlift – the athlete doesn\u2019t necessarily have to do this quickly \u2013 if the load is heavy enough he wouldn\u2019t physically be capable of doing it quickly, but he has to use a lot of strength to lift the weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now we know the difference between power and strength, we can begin to discuss how we train for one over the other. For the purposes of this post, we\u2019re going to focus on plyometric exercises and show how they can be used specifically for mixed martial arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPlyometrics for MMA<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n