It wasn’t so long ago that I was watching an MMA event on pay-per-view, when I heard one of the commentators saying that MMA athletes are the most conditioned athletes in the world. Since that time, I have come into contact with many BJJ Black Belts as well as professional and amateur fighters. Many of these athletes really believe that their levels of athleticism are higher than the average football or basketball player. The reality is that, this perception is divorced from reality and that MMA is a different sport that requires a different type of conditioning. Moreover, in many ways MMA conditioning is superior to football but, football is also superior to MMA in many ways.

In the last blog post, I talked about Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) and how it is used for energy. Well, one of the big differences between football and MMA is that in football the body has to be more adept at have a fast rate of energy production, allowing the muscles to contract and relax very fast. Whereas, in MMA the priority may be to train for a longer duration of energy production.

This can be exemplified by NFL combine stats. For example, Kieth Marshal, who is very fast ran a 4.29 in the 40 yard dash. Make no mistake about it. There is no athlete in MMA who can do a 4.29 in the 40, period. Contrastingly, not to many people in the NFL could ever keep a pace that most MMA fighters do over the course of 3 x 5 minute rounds. At the end of the day, a Jadeveon Clowney or a Kieth Marshall utilize fast twitch muscle and rapid ATP production in a level that MMA fighters cannot, period. MMA fighters like Cain Velazquez, Jon Jones, etc have a more sustained use of ATP and this leads to a different type of athleticism.

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