I’ve been wanting to start training mma and i’m gonna finally start, I’m just wondering what type of clothes and gear i should buy which gear i should cheap out on and which i should spend a bit more money on
Hi folks, I'm a writer working on a novel set in the MMA world. I've had little success gaining access to it on the ground level when asking people to meet me for help with regards to my research.
I'm reaching out because I wondered if anyone would be interested in answering a couple of questions for me about their own MMA journeys, particularly those who have fought at a semi-pro or professional level. If anyone fancies helping out, to exchange a couple of emails or whatever, that would be awesome.
But also, if you guys could just answer these basic questions on the thread, that would be very useful. Basically wondering these things at the moment:
1: How did you get into the sport, first as a fan, and then as an athlete?
2: What were your early steps like? What sort of training did you receive and how did you progress through it?
3: What sort of diet do you eat to maintain the necessary level of fitness? Do you ever get sick of it?
4: When you first started competing professionally, how small was the purse and when did it become better?
5: How did you feel before your first fight? Nervous? Scared, even?
6: Have you ever had to fight one of your friends?
7: How did fighting affect your personal life?
If anyone can help me with this stuff, it would be greatly appreciated. Cheers for reading!
How do y'all fight smartly against a guy coming full throttle trying to take your head off, realistically, responding in a blitz and gassing out against them seems dumb, but staying at range and finding counter shots seems oddly risky. How do we tackle those guys that just wanna grab ya, does accuracy and timing really beat speed and strength?
I’ve made two posts here before asking for advice about conditioning and getting started in MMA. Thanks to the replies (and after spending many hours doing my own research), I feel like I now have a decent understanding of the physical side of things.
However, the skill-development side is still a big question mark for me. So I have two questions.
Question 1: Should I train on my own outside of team practice?
Right now I train with my team 3 times a week. I intentionally chose three sessions because I hadn’t been training consistently for a long time, and I thought five sessions would be too much to recover from as a beginner.
Outside of those classes, I could go to the gym and work on the heavy bag by myself, or if I find someone available, I could do some light sparring.
Do you think that’s worth doing at this stage, or should I first focus on learning proper technique in class before trying to practice on my own?
I’m a little worried about practicing techniques that I haven’t learned properly yet and accidentally turning bad habits into muscle memory. Is that a real concern, or would you say, “Go train anyway—you’ll definitely improve, and it’s worth it”?
One more thing: my gym is 1–1.5 hours away, so with travel and showering, every extra session takes at least 2.5 hours.
For context, my current weekly routine is:
3 skill training sessions
2 Zone 2 cardio sessions
3 mobility sessions
All of these are on separate days except for one mobility session. My Zone 2 sessions are usually around 30–40 minutes, and if I’m feeling particularly fatigued, I sometimes replace them with Zone 1. I’m intentionally avoiding a lot of HIIT for now because my mobility still isn’t where I want it to be, and I’d rather reduce my injury risk.
Question 2: How hard should I push myself during training?
In my previous post, I mentioned that I completely ran out of gas during my first class. On the way home I kept thinking, “My conditioning has never been this bad. Why did I feel like I was about to throw up?” (I didn’t actually throw up, but I definitely felt like I might.)
Then I realized what probably happened. During the warm-up I treated every exercise like it was a workout and did everything at 100%. Then we moved to the heavy bag, and I threw every strike as hard and as fast as I could. Looking back, it’s no surprise I had nothing left afterward.
For my second session, I approached it differently. During the warm-up, I treated it like an actual warm-up—enough to get warm and sweat a bit, but not enough to destroy my cardio before the real training even started.
On the heavy bag, instead of trying to hit everything as hard and as fast as possible with my still-limited technique, I worked in waves. I noticed fighters like Israel Adesanya often throw light, fast, low-power combinations to stay active, then explode into harder, faster combinations before slowing the pace down again. I tried to do something similar.
As a result, I had plenty of energy left for sparring. By the end of class, during the push-up/sit-up/plank superset, it wasn’t my lungs that gave out—it was simply muscular fatigue.
The next day I started wondering if I had held myself back too much.
Should I actually be pushing myself harder during both the bag work and sparring? Did I unintentionally leave too much in the tank because I was trying not to gas out?
Basically, how should I find the right balance? I don’t want to exhaust myself for no reason, but I also don’t want to train too comfortably and slow my progress.
Sorry for the long post—I just wanted to explain my concerns as clearly as possible.
Hello fellow fighters,
I'm new to MMA and, in general, I'm very unathletic, overweight, and don't have much muscle. I've had four training sessions so far.
During my third session, I got a small bruise in my groin area. It got much worse during my fourth session, so I had to cancel training and skip the next one. I'm also planning to see a doctor in the next few days.
The injury happened while practicing a takedown defense. We were catching the opponent's takedown attempt with a chokehold and then falling backward to throw them over us. That's when I bruised myself.
I really want to continue training because I'm having a lot of fun with MMA, but I also don't want to get injured every few sessions and have to miss training.
What exercises would you recommend that I can do at home to strengthen the most important muscle groups for MMA and help reduce my risk of injury?
Dustin Poirier is one of my favourite fighters, and he is able to use it especially well. However, at the same time, loads of people fail to use it too. I’m also a southpaw like Dustin and am thinking about using it, but I have a few questions.
How do you block the body using the guard? It
has heavy emphasis in protecting the head, but what about the body? (As seen in the picture of Leon attached.) Do you just turn into a Philly shell or keep the flared elbow out?
Is it even worth learning. Like I said, Dustin is one of the best to do it, and uses the stonewall guard well, but countless people have failed to use it.
It’s been ages since I saw that sub but revisited it. It’s just shocking how bad most fights between random people are, caught by phone cameras. Very weak punches, repeatedly punching someone with haymakers when they’re down rather than just giving a knee or a kick, just really terrible form all over the place.
People who train spend so much time training to get better while thinking they aren’t good enough, then you see random people filmed by a phone camera fighting and realise you’re probably doing alright kid.
So no videos not exactly to that point and I’d like to show videos once I get a bag set up. Any advice? I haven’t actually ever trained in a gym (I know just go to a gym, I hope to soon)
I feel like the cross is a bit over extended and I know the jab looks weird from that angle but anything else?
I want to start MMA, and I will. But I gotta organize myself well, since the gym I wanna go to is not close to my town, and I'm definitely not in the right shape to start (I will get an heart attack in my first training if I go like this). So, I will start my diet in two days, on Monday.
But while I wait and do my diet, what are the exercises that will help me the most in training and for MMA in general? Like, I have a jumping rope, but what else will I need for training?
Thank you in advance
So i just got selected for the nationals
To represent our state
But I recently lost my fight which was not in a bad fashion I dominated two rounds i completely mauled
Him but towards the end of the second my opponent secured a guillotine and got lucky
Because of his loss my dad is pretty disappointed and he doesn't want me to participate
But ye what can I do he's the one having my back rn
Currently 18
I’m been doing kickboxing for like 2 years my coaches
Aren’t the best I don’t wanna badmouth them because they are really nice poeple but if I’m being generally honest they legit don’t care about the poeple training there and are literally just tryna mkae as much money as they can from my kickboxing gym I would reckon I’m decent because I think I would consider myself one of the best however all off the better and experienced fighters left to other gyms makeing my sessions legit like unserious beginner lessons I always leave the mat with a lot of energy and they’re not willing to put us through competitomgs and give any of us fights I’m not that bothered to go to a new gym and go though that hassle but would it be worth is because I’m slowly losing passion as it is ?
I started a small club/gym in my area and am expanding my mma schedule and am thinking of adding an advanced mma class. Do you guys think most people would like to train at 8:30pm-10pm
Or it would be ideal to do 12pm mma class??
Me personally 12pm is way better but I’m curious what you guys think?
Hey guys! I’ve been recreationally practicing Krav Maga and Muay Thai for a while. Even though my endurance for long sessions has improved, I’m still pretty weak. Like, I can kick for as long as you want me to, but not even 100 of them can compare to a single explosive teep by a stronger opponent.
I added in some weightlifting. Think bench press, Bulgarian split squat, deadlift, cable kickback, bicep curl, etc. Usually, I do MMA 3x a week and weightlifting 2x a week, but I get so sore and I feel like I don’t have time to recover. I barely feel like I’m at 100% when I walk into a session anymore.
Is this a sign of progress? Am I pushing myself too hard, or will I stagnate if I do any less?
The MMA meta has shifted to favor strikers now that strikers have learned anti-grappling (Van vs Taira is a great example). Shooting for the legs in particular isn’t as good as it used to be (still a core move but not as reliable as it once was) now that strikers can sprawl hard, and getting a striker up against the cage is no longer a guarantee of a takedown. So as a grappler looking to transition into MMA, what takedowns should I focus on? I’ve heard some saying upper-body takedowns like the throws and trips of Islam Makhachev and Ronda Rousey are being redeemed—do y’all think this is true?
I’ve heard a lot of people give examples like Ronda Rousey, Karo Parisyan, Khabib+Makhachev (who weren’t judoka but did train a bit of judo), etc. to say that judoka do really well in MMA. All these fighters were at the absolute pinnacle of both sports, though. do judoka generally perform exceptionally? Do we have any counter examples of judoka who transitioned and fell on their face?
Is it too late for me to start mma? I’ll be 6 in December and I’m worried it’s too late for me to become UFC champion. My mom said she doesn’t want me training until I’m at least 7 1/2 😢
I'm 26, 6'1", and 201 lbs, and I've been thinking about starting MMA.
My background is karate for striking, and I also wrestled. I was never a state champion, but I'd say I was pretty good.
For people who train or compete, do you think I have a decent base to build on? What should I expect when starting out, and what would you focus on first if you were in my position?
Any advice is appreciated.