For anyone deciding to start training for MMA, fitness is a major issue. Fitness is the key to success and most successful fighters will tell you that being fit at an elite level has helped them throughout their tough career. Fitness is the goal of all athletes should strive for- the point is where do you start?
To be fit is not defined only by what type of activity/sports you do, but how long you can do it and at what level of intensity. Fitness takes time, patience and a lot of energy.
One of the essential factors in fitness is to have solid cardio-respiratory endurance. If you are constantly out of breath and tired, then you will definitely need to work on that before considering a fight. Every single athlete has to build his cardio respiratory status before he/she can compete in any sports. Once this improves, all component of the fitness game also start to improve.
Cardio respiratory endurance is defined as the ability of the body’s heart and lungs (respiratory) to supply oxygen (fuel) during periods of continued physical activity/stress.
In all individuals, the ability to sustain a physical demanding sport requires that the heart continues to pump oxygenated blood to your muscles and then take away the waste products. Every part of the body needs oxygen and without this function, one can’t exercise. The aim of cardio respiratory endurance is to build the capacity of each muscle to work more efficiently and also recover much faster at less reserves of oxygen.
With exercise, one slowly builds up the body’s ability to deliver more oxygen for the working muscles. To build this type of endurance, the exercise must repeatedly utilize the large muscles and train them to work under differing conditions.
The more intense the training, the heart will start to beat faster as it has to deliver more blood at a faster rate. However, the heart can’t continue to beat fast forever and there is a safe limit for all individuals. Once the exercise stops, the heart will slow down and the muscles will get a chance to rest and the waste products will be removed. With time both your heart and the muscles will quickly adapt to this hard work and also recover faster at rest.
To build the cardio respiratory endurance, there are guidelines set by the American College of Sports Medicine. It suggests that one perform aerobic exercises anywhere from 10-60 minutes a day for 3-5 times a week. The name of the game is to start slow. They highly recommend that during the exercise you achieve the training heart rate.
The training heart rate is easily obtained the following way: Subtract your age from the number 220 and that will be the maximum heart rate. Then obtain 60% and 80% of that number. These numbers reflect the lower and upper figures of your heart rate. You should try and stay in the middle. If the heart rate goes above or below these two figures, you should stop. By constantly staying in the required heart rate zone, your cardio respiratory endurance will build immensely in a few months.
The easiest way to monitor your heart rate is to know how to measure your pulse. On the wrist one can easily measure the pulse and this should be a regular feature in your exercise regimen. A large number of products are also available to measure you pulse rate.
You can perform any type of exercise to increase your cardio respiratory endurance form sprinting, jogging, cycling or walking. The activity selected does not have to be strenuous or heavy to improve your cardio respiratory endurance. Make the program fun and go slow, enjoy the type of exercise because the road to MMA is long and hard.
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