MMA Fight Fit - Round 1

MMA Fight Fit – Round 1

6/7/2012

The other day I tried out the Daily Ultimate Training (DUT) and it was a tough workout. But I've heard people in the gym talk about the MMA Fight Fit class being even crazier than the DUT. One buddy of mine described it as “the DUT on crack.” I put myself on the MMA Fight Fit wait list hoping a spot would open up and my wish was granted. I got to try it out tonight.

Much like the DUT, Fight Fit is a circuit workout with a number of different workout stations. Each exercise is performed for 1 minute, rotate to the next exercise and immediately get into it. Repeat until every workout station is hit, take a 1 minute break. Repeat for however many times we did it, felt like we were there for about 45 min...but I really wasn't keeping track of time, I was just trying to breathe.

Here's the workouts we did (I don't know what they're really called so I'm just making it up):

• Wall sit – pretty self-explanatory,if you feel comfortable in the wall sit, sit lower!
• Plank Punches – a large medicine ball is on the ground, put your right forearm across the ball and hold a plank, keep your back straight. Punch the ball 3 times with your left hand, place your left forearm across the ball, remove your right forearm and punch the ball with your right hand 3 times. Hold the plank the entire time. This one burned...a lot.
• Hooks – open palm strikes (aka, slap) on a punching bag. Focus on speed, not power. I always started fast and eventually slowed to a moderate pace I could barely hold for the whole minute.
• Body hops – A 90 lbs dummy, which resembles a human body, is placed on the ground. Hop over the dummy side-to-side non-stop keeping your feet together. A couple times I lost my balance because I tried to land as close to the dummy as possible.
• Sprawl to kick – sprawl onto the ground, hips low. Pop back up and kick a heavy bag as hard as you can. Sprawl again, kick with the other leg. Go for power on this one.
• Sprawl to jump – sprawl just like above but when you pop back up jump as high as you can. By this point I'm lucky if I jump 2 inches off the ground because I'm dying.
• 1 – 2's – jab cross, jab cross, jab cross on a heavy bag. Keep going as fast as you can.
• TRX cable jumps – hold onto the cables keeping your body at an angle to the ground, squat and jump as high as you can. I was jumping higher than I thought because I used the cables to pull myself up. Even though I used my arms a bit, my legs burned.
• 1, 2, 3, kick – jab, cross, hook, kick. Repeat and beat the hell outta that bag. I had fun with this one but I think I need to learn how to kick properly.

That's 1 circuit. We did that about 3 times then our coach Scott Junk, who is a pro MMA fighter and participated in the 10^th season of The Ultimate Fighter show, switched up a few parts of the workout.

• Instead of plank punches, we lifted the medicine ball overhead, slammed it to the ground, caught it and sprawled. This one gave my wrist some problems...dang wrist.
• Instead of body hops, we placed both hands on the dummy's chest, sat on the right side of the dummy with our left hip on the ground, shift your body to hop over to the dummy's left side and bring your right hip to the ground. Repeat. I liked this one, it resembled a jiu-jitsu drill.
• Instead of sprawl-to-jump, do 1 jumping jack, drop down and do 1 push up, then 1 mountain climber. Stand back up and repeat. I was actually thankful for this one. I had an easier time with it and was able to catch my breath a little even though I was moving fast. I did a lot of this kind of movement when I did Insanity so I was used to these kind of movements.
• Instead of jumping with the TRX cables, we held onto them, positioned ourselves so our feet were flat on the ground, body parallel to the floor, arms extended straight up from our chests toward the ceiling holding onto the cables. Keep your hips up in a bridge, don't let them dip, and pull your arms to lift your chest to your hands. This one was tough. My grip failed me at one point and I almost dropped flat to the ground but I managed to adjust my hands before that happened and held on.
• The rest of the exercises stayed the same. We did this circuit 2 or 3 times.

The workout was a killer. DUT on crack for sure. At each circuit I would start strong and when I started tiring it was only halfway through the rotation. Only one thing to do: keep going and feel the burn. During one of the breaks I was struggling to catch my breath. Coach saw it, looked me dead in the eye and said, “don't let your mind tell your body it can quit. Don't listen to it, your body can keep going.” All I thought was yes sir. Coach actually walked around yelling and barking all sorts of motivation. From the outside it sounds like he's chewing us out when he yells “don't quit,” “you're losing this fight, what are you gonna do, push or give up?” “quitting is easy, anybody can be a quitter but can you push through” and so on, but it was actually motivating when I was in it. He also helped out when we weren't sure what to do...a lot of us are new to the MMA thing.

At one point Scott Junk made a comment about taking breaks when he wasn't looking and how it's only cheating yourself and so on. Honestly, I had no idea where he was most of the time. He's got a big voice so he's loud and clear whether he's right next to you or across the mat. Besides, I was too focused on trying to keep breathing and not passing out to worry about where he was. At one point everything burned, lungs, legs, arms, core, all of it. It was awesome!

MMA Fight Fit...good stuff. More intense than the DUT classes I've done so far. I'd even say more intense than the Insanity workouts. Just like the DUT, you rotate among exercises with a small group of 3 or 4 people, which helps. It didn't matter that I didn't know who they were. We all suffered together and we all prevailed together. Before the Fight Fit class started I weight 168 lbs, when it was over I was 164 lbs. I sweat out 4 pounds in less than an hour doing that thing. I hope I can get in more of these classes. I heard that they're different every time, which is even better. Time to go check to schedule and register for another one!