Online MMA Training

If you are even a moderately serious martial artist then it can start to become quite an expensive hobby to have. Of course there is the cost of the classes / gym membersip itself, which isn’t cheap if you want to train regularly and have high quality tuition, the cost of any gradings you do or competitions that you enter, and then you also have to pay for all of the extra gear such as gloves, padding and protection for sparring, uniform / clothes, not to mention any extra equipment you want for training at home such as punch bags or weapons if you are learning a traditional martial art. And the same goes for setting up a martial arts club or gym. It is amazing how much gear you will need and how much you will end up paying for it all.

One great way to reduce these costs is to use a good price comparison website. The social bargain hunting website BookmarkedBy.Us is a good place to start, as it has a dedicated category for martial arts supplies price comparison which searches 1000′s of online stores for anything and everything you would need from pads and gloves to instructional books and DVD’s to Katana Samurai swords, and when it find the same product in more than one store it will bring up a price comparison page so that you can see which retailer will give you the best deal. Not everything that you might need is specifically labeled as MMA gear, so you are probably best off following the link above to the main category which covers all martial arts including boxing and performing a search for what you need, or alternatively if you want to just browse you can take a look at their MMA Gear Price Comparison search results page

Take a look at this page I created on squidoo for Sparring Gear Bargains, which also contains links to other pages I created on the same site featuring my pick of the best sparring videos from various martial arts (I made a page for each one) such as ninjutsu, karate, taekwondo and others.

In the highly competitive sport of mixed martial arts, the difference between winning and losing is often small. Combat athletes pay attention to every aspect of the fight game and now more then ever because of the immense popularity of the UFC, Strikeforce, WEC and Dream. Athletic performance and training to win is the goal not only for every MMA fighter, but also for any other competitive athlete. One great weapon for every athlete is the anabolic amino supplement Branch Chain Amino Acids. BCAA’s consist of three essential amino acids leucine, valine, and isoleucine. BCAA sports supplements help rebuild muscles after intense exercise and stress. During training, you will burn up fat and stored carbohydrates as fuel, due to the extreme training methods that go along with mixed marital arts; our bodies will next turn to protein as fuel. When this happens our muscles will use up these aminos and that will cause our body to turn into a catabolic state, which leads to over training and possible injury. Amino acids and BCAA’s offer many benefits to the MMA athlete that include:
· Muscle recovery · Help prevent muscle catabolism · Promote Protein synthesis · Fuel workouts · Boost Metabolism

Over the last ten years sports nutrition experts have found that you can increase the time of recovery by taking certain nutrients immediately following strenuous exercise. Experts agree that this could be the most important time for the athlete to supplement with a muscle recovery supplement like L-leucine, l-valine, and l-isoleucine. Amino acid supplements along with a combination of protein and fast acting carbohydrates help build muscle, increase testosterone, and help maintain a positive nitrogen balance for the athlete. Some other great recovery aids that work well with bcaa’s are:

· L-glutamine · ZMA · Creatine · HMB · Beta alanine

Any sport where weight classes are involved translates to competitors training on limited amounts of calories. The supplement Branch Chain Amino Acids has been shown to lower overall bodyweight and a decrease in body fat percentage. Athletes have also experienced a reduction in abdominal adipose tissue. When training for a fight or competition on a low calorie diet, introducing BCAA’s to your program may help you lose more weight without compromising your performance in the ring or cage. The best way for fighters to take BCAA’s is to take it 30 minutes before training and one serving immediately after your workout. MMA athletes should shoot for 50mg of bcaa’s per pound of body weight for maximum results.

Contributed to Online MMA Training by Josh Rafferty:

Josh was one of 16 fighters from across the United States to compete on The Ultimate Fighter Season 1, which airs on Spike TV still today. As a Mixed Martial Arts Veteran, Josh has had over 25 fights since 1998 and continues his career into 2009. Josh is also a coach and mentor to many amateur and professional fighters in his hometown of Cincinnati, OH.

DVD’s can be a great way to supplement your training and to get tuition and tips from some of the greatest fighters in the world, but it can be expensive to get everything you want, and as most people can only get them online it can be annoying having to wait for them to arrive. Amazon’s video-on-demand’ service is a good way to get instant access to videos which you can download and watch instantly on your computer for a much more reasonable price than DVD’s. So here is my pick of the best intructional videos from Amazon. You can get more info on each one by hovering your mouse over it: