Imagine yourself a MMA fighter!

VIDEO: See this incredible spinning elbow blow to the head!

Striking may be picked up quickly but every fighter needs to be intelligent as you need to predict what your opponent is going to do and plan you defence/attack strategy. Intelligent striking is difficult to teach and understand as you need to increase your reaction time and balance. A good striker will be able to counter attack effectively and predict when an opponent is about to strike. Top MMA fighters such as Shogun, Chuck Liddell, Anderson Silva, Vitor Belfort and Mirko Cro Cop have been successful as well-versed strikers. Apart from outstanding striking they have great sprawl and takedown defence which detours opponents from shooting in for a takedown.

Strength.

If you’re going to be able to overcome any of the techniques used on you, or execute the maneuvers to beat your opponent, having the strength advantage is a key. Working body to body training should be utilized whenever possible.

Wrestlers are so strong because of this. But when that isn’t available, you can move to weight training. Focus on the big moves for strength building, targeting major muscle groups: dead lifts, squats, bench press.

Speed.

Your speed is very important. At any point of the bout you want to finish it, you have to count on catching your opponent off guard, and if your speed isn’t fast enough to do so, then you probably will not be able to do your job and get your hand raised.

If you’re working on speed, you must do it from every position. Attempting submissions and throwing punches can be practiced at a higher pace in training (with your training partner’s discretion).

Conditioning.

This is your most important area to focus on. It is incredibly advantageous to be stronger and faster than your opponent, but can you keep it up for 5 x 5 minute rounds? Every time you’re training strength and speed, you should be increasing the length of time you’re doing it for along with the pace and intensity.

Unfortunately many martial arts styles are also rigid and a lot of the techniques you have learned will be useless in the octagon. It is time to add some devastating blows that you can really use to punish your opponents. perhaps the best way to do this is pick up a few techniques from different styles that are the most effective and brutal and form them into your own MMA style. Let’s take a look at some moves you may want to add.

The Jumping Knee
What a beautiful move this is. Nothing quite shows off like knocking your opponent clean out with a jumping knee to the head. Between the hardness of the knee and the power you can get behind this move it is devastating even if you don’t land it exactly on target. It is not even as tough to master as you might think, give it a shot.

Hammer Fist
If you get your opponent on the ground you want to be able to finish them of quickly. Perfect your hammer fist strikes for some serious ground and pound to mash your opponent into the canvas. You want to look for the camera, all too often you see fighters on top throwing nothing but mosquito bites, you want to be dropping sledgehammers on them.

The Knee Breaker
This may actually land you in trouble but swift straight kick to the knee could break it, ending the fight in record time and put any thoughts or a rematch far out of your opponents mind. Exactly how Dana White will feel about you destroying one of his fighters like a twig could go either way.

The Elbow
Particularly the forward horizontal elbow to the face. Gives you devastating power and a get shock to your opponent at close range. The tip of the elbow if great for breaking bones and making them bleed a lot, which not only will shake them up but score points with the judges even if it is not serious.

MMA training has now moved over to the local gyms and used by personal trainers to diverse the training from the gym and make losing weight more enjoyable. MMA training covers all aspects of fitness from a full body workout to strength training, cardiovascular work and more importantly trains the brain. It is easy to strike and attack an opponent but to try and defend an attack and be one move ahead of your opponent is hard to teach and can only be taught through good MMA instruction.