Mixed martial arts can’t help but awaken something primal inside you. Man against man. The purest of contests. Only a few rules to govern their actions. It’s probably why it’s the world’s third most popular sport.
Even if you’re just a fan, it’s not always like soccer where you can kick around with your friends. MMA is a contact sport which can offer an understandable barrier to its unique form of play time.
Fortunately, but doesn’t mean you can’t train like a fighter, even if you only play basketball, run a little or lift weights to stay fit. Cross training with new sports helps you get prepared for anything and better conditioned for your favorite sports and activities.
Even if MMA is too bloody for you, here are a few of the essential reasons to try MMA training to enhance your overall athleticism. Time to touch gloves and get into it.
1. You’ll Clock Up Fewer Injuries
Cross training is a powerful tool for recovery after an injury because it stops overuse injuries by allowing you to change the stressors you give to your body, found a paper in Sports Medicine.
2. You’ll Be More Pumped To Train
A new challenge will give you a motivational spark. Cross training improves muscle performance and stimulates the mind, so you never become bored, found research at the Saint Louis University Medical Centre.
3. You’ll Dominate Your Recovery
You’ll avoid over training because you’ll be working entirely new groups of muscles in creative ways. This also allows other, often overused, muscles to rest and recover.
4. You’ll Have A Stronger Team
Sport teams who cross train together improved their teamwork abilities and relationships, resulting in better sports performance, found research in Journal of Applied Psychology.
Fighting Gifts
As a fighter you don’t want to do anything slowly, we need to teach our muscles to move quickly and accurately. A great fighter has a unique combination of strength, speed and flexibility.
To cross train properly, you can’t reap these rewards with a beat up boxing bag you bought at a garage sale. There’s just one piece of equipment that can help you optimize all your total body conditioning through MMA training, it’s the Bas Rutten’s Body Action System.
This system is the closest thing to a real sparring partner and an all-in-one device that’ll teach you how to throw every punch, kick and block you would use in MMA. It’s fully customizable for a person of any age and height so it won’t cause injury and will be the best piece of home training equipment you can use. Most of all, it’s super fun to use so you’ll look forward to your workouts.
Hear that treadmill? Yeah, we thought so. It can get packed away into a very small space and can be brought out each day with ease so you can punch out a brilliant cross training session. If you hope to become your teams MVP, even if you’re a team of one, this is what you need in your home gym.
Study References
Cross Training Injury Study:
Sports Med. 1994 Nov 18 (5):330-9. Effects of cross-training. Transfer of training effects on VO2max between cycling, running and swimming. Tanaka H. Exercise Science Unit, University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Abstract
Cross Training Saint Louis University:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140212144522.htm
Team Crosstraining:
The impact of cross-training on team effectiveness. Marks, Michelle A.; Sabella, Mark J.; Burke, C. Shawn; Zaccaro, Stephen J. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 87 (1), Feb 2002, 3-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.1.3