Raising Your Efficiency at WNY MMA & Fitness

You don’t have to look much further than Anderson Silva’s dismantling of Forrest Griffin to see a clear example of what superior striking can do in MMA. But the ability to control entire fights in the striking range, or use effective striking to set up opponents for techniques that favor your overall strategy, doesn’t come easily. Increasing the efficiency of your punching motion is key to giving you the fluidity necessary to raise your striking performance to the next level as practiced at WNY MMA & Fitness.

But how do you organize your training to get the maximum benefit and integration of skills for MMA? Part of the answer is style based—it depends on your strengths and what type of fighter you are. A former wrestler like Johny Hendricks will likely take a different approach than a former pro boxer and kickboxer like Anderson Silva. It’s also important to take into account the opponent you are preparing for and where you are headed with your skill set long term. All things being equal, the old saying, “what you put in is what you get out” still applies.

Raise your efficiency, raise your level
Punching is primarily an anaerobic activity—it is an explosive action. From a physiological standpoint, the minute you start throwing punches, you only have a maximum of 15-20 seconds of high quality output before the effectiveness of your punches takes a serious decline. On the heavy bag, a high level amateur boxer can throw about 200 punches per 3-minute round (assuming active footwork and head movement), and depending on the focus of the round, a high level pro can hit upwards of 300 punches per round. Here, we’ll outline a few of these concepts and learn how to apply them at WNY MMA & Fitness. You don’t have to take the words as gospel, feel free to apply the concepts and make modifications to the specifics as needed. 

Maximize your work
Once a fighter learns proper striking technique, the most significant component impacting progress over the long run is the striking work rate. Striking work rate can be broken down into two components:

1) The total number of punches thrown over time or during a given period of time. This aspect of work rate improves technique, speed, and efficiency.

2) The quality of striking, i.e. how hard, fast, and accurate those strikes are.

Your work rate for striking is where quality meets quantity, and is one of the biggest training assets that an MMA fighter can absorb from traditional western boxing. Because MMA training encompasses so many disciplines, it’s imperative that your time spent striking is of the highest quality—there isn’t a moment to waste. Follow the steps outlined below and I am confident they will take your striking to another level.

1.) Train for a high volume of punches to increase efficiency and improve technique

2.) Train for speed endurance and high quality speed to emulate the intensity of combat

3.) Integrate the improvements into your MMA game.

Step three will be taken care of through ‘business as usual’ WNY MMA training. Just ensure that you apply your techniques at full speed and maintain a high work rate. Other than intentional breaks and rest cycles built into your training, your goal is to maintain the new level of output attained through your striking ramp-up.