I did an MMA workout and I'm destroyed.
Good morning Reddit friends.
To summarize the story, I've been practicing Jiu-Jitsu and grappling in general for a while now, I'm currently a purple belt, and I was inactive for 6 months due to a change of state. I couldn't find a gym near my house since I moved.
Then an opportunity arose for me to train MMA at a local gym at a time that would be perfect for me. I didn't waste any time and scheduled the class and enrolled (I was really crazy without training, literally).
I've always trained in combat sports in general, but always separately. At 12 years old I started with Boxing, transitioned to Kickboxing, Muay Thai, and finally stopped at Jiu-Jitsu and never changed sports again.
The thing is, the workout destroyed me, literally. During the warm-up alone, I couldn't even stand anymore; it was extremely strenuous. There were five people in the training session, including me. I saw that they were also tired, but not as much as I was. We did a takedown and takedown defense exercise, and I was in so much lower back pain and so tired that I couldn't even take down an anvil, which was awful in Jiu-Jitsu.
My question here is for MMA practitioners in general: is the training really more physical and intense than the rest of the fighting? Or is my fatigue just a reflection of the six months I was inactive?
I've already stopped and returned to training Jiu-Jitsu. Obviously, I felt a difference in my stamina and physical strength, but it didn't even come close to what the MMA training I did was like.
I trained on Tuesday, today is Thursday and there's already training, and I'm not in any condition to go because I'm in so much pain all over my body, in my ribs, lower back, forearm, I'm exhausted, man, lol.
I'm on the team that prefers to train with "high volume - low intensity" because that way I absorb more knowledge, I can train better, so I'd really like to know if the training is always extremely intense, if everyone who started MMA went through this and adapted, or if it's just that the gym I went to has this preference for extremely physical training.