How do you balance weight lifting and MMA training or Boxing?

G

Garnet_StrongerThanYou

Banned
Banned
Joined
Jul 18, 2019
Messages
6,595
Reaction score
13,983
If you are weight lifting 3 times per week.

Eating a lot, bulking.

can you do 3 MMA training sessions on your off days?

What about soreness? How do you mitigate this? How do (clean) MMA fighters mitigate this?

Surely you’re not squatting and deadlifting and the going to mma class later that day?
 
Figure out your goal and focus more on that. You can use MMA training as cardio/conditioning. But you're not going to bulk while cutting weight.
Your body will tell you what's too much or when you need to eat more or dial the training back. When it's taking days to recover or you're always sore and your lifts start regressing.

Would go lighter sparring (15-25 min) on weight days to save the energy. More of a warm up to sweat and loosen up. Cardio based days would be 45-60 min in gloves and more body weight exercises. Wasn't trying to bulk.
 
Garnet_StrongerThanYou said:
If you are weight lifting 3 times per week.

Eating a lot, bulking.

can you do 3 MMA training sessions on your off days?

What about soreness? How do you mitigate this? How do (clean) MMA fighters mitigate this?

Surely you’re not squatting and deadlifting and the going to mma class later that day?
Click to expand...
Figure out your priorities
Manage volume, intensity, and recovery
Soreness from lifting shouldn't be an issue after a week or two of training. Soreness from MMA will be the concern.
 
Off the top of my head...
-Find a good low volume, linear progression routine, that focuses on just a handful of the most essential lifts/movement patterns(squat variant, a pull from the floor, press variant, chins, etc).
-Prioritize your sport-specific training. Accept that your progress, by design, will be slow.
-If you’re bulking, that should help your recovery.
 
As long as you eat enough protein and get a good night's sleep it shouldn't be a problem tbh.

Pre-covid I was boxing 4-5x a week (1hr) at lunchtime and then 3-4 weights sessions in the evening/Saturday while intermittent fasting. And I'm not the fittest by any means. Once a month or so I would have a few days off and up my calories but you soon adjust to the intensity. Just take it slow and build up your sessions over a few weeks.

Unless your goal is maximising muscle size then it shouldn't be an issue, and even then ultimately its calories.
 
Your body is more capable than you think.

If you work I would say 2 s&c sessions and 4-5 mma sessions.

If you don’t than you can get in 5-6 mma sessions and 2-3 s&c sessions.

There are lots of people who lift and then train later. I always prefer to train in the morning and lift at the afternoon or night
 
For a while i was doing 2 a day workouts plus BJJ/mma.
If you know how your body responds to certain exercises you can plan this ahead of time. 2 to 3 exercises a session even if you have to. Enough time between workouts and type.
Good sleep and enough protein and calories. Contrast showers.
Self myofascial release/foam roll.
Breathing techniques if needed. Plenty of water/sun for the D.
Collagen supps or eat all of the chicken parts (cartilage, tendons, make bone broth).

Theres hundreds of ways really. Consistency within them will be paramount.
 
Honestly, you can manage it pretty easily. Start off with 2-3 MMA training sessions and 2 or 3 S&C sessions. As your work capacity improves and you can tolerate more load, start increasing your own training volume. Make sure you eat and sleep enough to recover and there should be no real issues.
 
I have the same issue but im working on it and found some way to manage weigh lifting and mma/boxing training

i usualy train the muscles that will not make me uncomfortable during training for example i will not work my arms at least 2-3 days before a boxing session

the thing is in my case im trying to bulk i dont have the level to start doing this i lift for strength to prevent injuries but im still sore after workout ussualy so i focus alot on recovery

try ice/cold bath after training and hot bat at least 24 hours after if you feel sore it will help it work for me, sleep is also important you can do 30-60 mins max naps it helps

some foods can "slowdown" or "worsen" the soreness like high saturated fat foods or sugary foods some doctors say that it cause inflamation (dr berg) hydrate your self well some mineral sparlking water can help with recovery hydratation is important (edit) electrolytes are important do not drink to much water it will dilute them some sprakling water contain alot more than regular water bottles check begind the bottle to see the mg/l content and compare by yourself

in my case iv seen that doing intermitent fasting (putting a 4 -6 hours btwn my meals) helped and made me feel better i was less tired

personally even with muscle soreness 27 to 48 hours after lifting session i train iv noticed that after warmup i felt nothing in some case the soreness was gone after the training i guess it helped with blood flow something like this of course i wasn't pushing myself as hard as i normally do especially on the concerned muscles

thats my small expericence and opinion hope it helps (sorry for my bad english its not my native language)
 
Fahcough said:
Figure out your goal and focus more on that. You can use MMA training as cardio/conditioning. But you're not going to bulk while cutting weight.
Your body will tell you what's too much or when you need to eat more or dial the training back. When it's taking days to recover or you're always sore and your lifts start regressing.

Would go lighter sparring (15-25 min) on weight days to save the energy. More of a warm up to sweat and loosen up. Cardio based days would be 45-60 min in gloves and more body weight exercises. Wasn't trying to bulk.
Click to expand...

this.

It’s going to be very, very hard to focus on both. Make one more of a priority.
 
Time and patience to be honest...and the vigor of youth.

I was at uni and training the following;

Gym work including weights 3-4 times a week, 1-2 hours each. Mainly doing 5x5 and assistance work.
Cardio out and about; 1-2 times a week - hard run and a light one
Skill training; Muay Thai - 5-6 times a week. 2 hours each
Kick boxing; 2-3 times a week. 90 min to 2 hours each.

The KB was at uni so not exactly difficult.

I think I was doing 20+ hours a week training for 2 to 3 years. A 6 month period was the phasing in the volume.
I think at one stage I was all 7 days, all quite hard as it is hard at that age to tell people to take it easy as this is your 3rd training session of the day.
Worst two days were squats on the wednesday morning, kbing lunchtime, MT hard pads in the evening. KBing on the thursday lunchtime, NT hard pads and sparring in the evening followed by a hard 3 mile run (sub 19 min with hills pace). Fridays were my 'let me just die in peace' day...while doing kbing.

I slept a solid 8 hours and ate quite a bit. The problem was maintaining weight as I was of the 'train to eat' mentality (2 burgers, bacon and cheese at 2300 after coming in from training and then going to bed).
Also; late teens/early 20s and just doing a physics degree so mostly doing that on my on time.
The question is, do you want to feel like a zombie, which I definitely did. A focused angry zombie, but still.


My training log (my second one, rip the great purge of 2007...maybe) will have the lower volume days. 2003-2006 were the above years.
 
RemyR said:
this.

It’s going to be very, very hard to focus on both. Make one more of a priority.
Click to expand...
Pretty much this. Constantly shifting weight classes when you are competing sucks. I made it a point to only lift twice a week and even then I wasn't really progressively overloading or eating in a surplus. I didn't start doing that until after I quit boxing.
 
It’s going be especially hard to focus heavily on both if you’re an old fart like me (37)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,236,678
Messages
55,433,969
Members
174,775
Latest member
kilgorevontrouty

Share this page

Back
Top