Over the last few years people who compete in MMA, boxing, kickboxing and other combat sports have, in general, come to the opinion that high intensity interval training (HIIT) is the ticket to having great cardio in a combat competition. One thing is for sure, it definitely takes more than getting up in the morning and running 5 miles to get good functional cardio. That being said, a conditioning program the relies totally on HIIT training is going to be inadequate for having high level cardio.

The reason why is that, effective aerobic training causes eccentric cardiac hypertrophy. The result of eccentric cardiac hypertrophy is efficiency of the heart pumping. In other words, the left ventricle is pumping more blood with each heart beat. Whereas, HIIT results in concentric hypertrophy which leads to a thickening of the heart walls. This does not improve the hearts efficiency with regard to blood flow.

This is not to say that people shouldn’t use high intensity training. You should use aerobic (slow longer distance) and HIIT together in a structured program specific to the combat athlete. However, you should be aware that slow twitch (long distance cardio) comes at the expense of fast twitch (explosiveness) and vice versa. So, you should gauge the strengths and weaknesses of your athlete and program a training regimine accordingly.

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