Combat sports have grown significantly over the past two decades. Streaming services, social media platforms, gambling websites, and the proliferation of sports as a multi-trillion-dollar business have collectively contributed to the international interest in combat sports. While numerous disciplines exist within the umbrella of combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, jiu jitsu, and Muay Thai, MMA, which encompasses all these fighting styles into one contest, has become one of the world's fastest-growing sports.
Since its inception in November of 1993, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has held 732 events in 167 cities in 30 different countries. Moreover, the UFC has produced champions from over 15 different nations, which further drives the interest of millions of fans across the world. Organizations such as One Championship have brought MMA to East Asia, where there is an ever-growing fan base. Some sports analysts have predicted that MMA will be the world's second most popular and viewed sport within the next decade, second only to Soccer/Football.
The exponential growth of MMA means thousands upon thousands of athletes will participate in MMA, and these athletes will need the best available science to advance and sustain their fighting careers. This affords many career opportunities, including increased possibilities for promoters, managers/agents, skills coaches, sports nutritionists, and especially MMA conditioning coaches.
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The NASM MMA Conditioning Specialization (MMACS) course has been assembled by many of the top professionals in the arena of combat sports. This includes associates of the UFC Performance Institute, professors, researchers, and performance coaches from the Nova Southeastern University Fight Science lab, along with top neuroscientists, sports nutritionists, biomechanists, and many other leading experts. All the contributors to the course hold both advanced education and years of personal practice and coaching in combat sports.
The course will provide personal trainers, strength coaches, sport nutritionists, and MMA conditioning specialists with a detailed profile of the MMA athlete and comprehensive science-based principles for advancing their performance. Individuals taking this course will learn the multitude of factors they need to consider when developing advanced performance programs, including how to use NASM's Optimum Performance Training (OPT) model for MMA athletes. In addition, the sciences of nutrition, sleep, mental performance, and recovery are addressed. Whether the learner aspires to become a full-time MMA Conditioning Specialist, or they are a jiu-jitsu practitioner that wants to advance their physical and mental abilities, or a young aspiring coach that wishes to enter the field of MMA performance, the course will provide valuable content which will foster an immediate understanding of performance enhancement for the MMA athlete.
Section 1: Enhance Your Skills and Knowledge
The MMACS provides learners with detailed information and evidence-based principles of the most relevant physiological and mental qualities that are requisite for success in MMA. Topics include:
- The history of combat sports
- The kinetics and kinematics of striking, kicking, and takedowns
- Flexibility and mobility for the MMA athlete
- Core exercise and training for rotational force production
- Bioenergetics (energy demands) of MMA
- Cardiorespiratory conditioning for MMA athletes
- Training the biomotor abilities of the MMA athlete: strength, power, speed, agility
- Program design and periodization in MMA
- Skills demonstrations from world champion boxers, kickboxers, and MMA athletes
- Nutrition and hydration strategies
- The science of weight cutting
- Sports supplements
- Sport psychology and coaching methodology
- Rest and recovery methods for the MMA athlete
- Marketing and business strategies for MMA conditioning coaches
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MMA is a sport that includes a complex integration of numerous combat skills. These athletes often require training a minimum of two times per day, and more often three times per day. During fight camps, such high volume and high intensity training regimens are often coupled with calorie-restricted diets as they attempt to make weight for their respective division.
As a result, the MMA athlete cannot afford additional training sessions that may further tax their physical and mental capacities, yet do not provide direct translation to advancing their fight performance. Therefore, the MMA conditioning coach must have an in-depth understanding of the physical and mental demands put upon the athlete in training camps and the specific qualities needed for success in competition. The MMACS course provides both the content and guidance needed for developing conditioning programs with these factors taken into consideration.
Section 2: Boost Client Performance
The MMACS course provides detailed information regarding the kinetics and kinematics of MMA skills, how to properly evaluate an athlete using a variety of assessments, the cardiorespiratory demands, and specific conditioning protocols for improved endurance, as well as strategies for integrating the NASM OPT model for enhancing an MMA athlete's strength, power, mobility, and agility.
Tony Ricci, one of the course creators, has often stated that all MMA fighters need the same physical and mental qualities to excel in a match. However, they don't all possess these qualities equally. Some fighters have great striking power but need better endurance, others may need to enhance their grappling strength, and some have outstanding cardiorespiratory endurance yet need to produce more force and power when punching.
The MMACS course provides insight into each quality fighters need to succeed, as well as a chapter on testing and assessment, which will foster the MMA Conditioning Specialist's capacity to produce detailed programming according to the needs of each MMA athlete. Moreover, these methods of assessment and programming translate to all populations for the purpose of developing individualized programs.
Section 3: Expand Your Career Opportunities
The interest in martial arts has grown significantly over the last 20 years with the explosion of MMA organizations such as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Bellator MMA. According to Statista (2019), the average purchases of UFC pay-per-view events from 2001 to 2005 was 84,400. From 2014 to 2018, the average purchases increased to 455,000 per event. The explosion of interest in MMA has led to a significant increase in business for gyms and studios offering MMA-inspired training and conditioning services. According to Statista (2023), 2.52 million people participated in MMA for fitness in the United States in 2022.
Section 4: Comprehensive Learning Experience
As with all NASM courses, the MMA Conditioning Specialization includes reading materials, visual diagrams and illustrations, video discussions, demonstration videos, along with study aids and practice quizzes. The course not only includes many of the best evidence-based principles for MMA performance enhancement, but its instructional design and presentations are highly engaging, allowing those taking the course to enjoy the learning process.
Conclusion:
There is little debate about the rapid growth of combat sports, particularly MMA. As MMA expands in popularity, so do the number of people participating in it, the number of events held, the number of support staff needed to operate the sport, and most importantly, the need for top-quality conditioning coaches. This includes a need for coaches who can raise performance, provide nutritional guidance, and support the rest and recovery for the MMA athlete.
Now is the ideal time for all those who hold an interest in coaching MMA athletes to invest in knowledge and prepare themselves for the many opportunities that await in one of the world's fastest-growing sports. NASM's MMA Conditioning Specialization is a comprehensive course for gaining valuable knowledge and insight into the sport of MMA and preparing oneself to meet the exciting challenge of advancing performance for these elite athletes.
References:
Statista. (2019, Jan.). Average number of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Pay-Per-View (PPV) buys per event from 2001 to 2018. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/861468/ultimate-fighting-championship-average-ppv-buys-per-event/
Statista. (2023, Feb.). Number of participants in mixed martial arts for fitness in the United States from 2011 to 2022. Retrieved from https://statista.com/statistics/756780/mixed-martial-arts-for-fitness-participants-us/
Authors and Reviewers:
- Andrew Payne | MS, APTD, NASM CES, PES, CNC, BCS
- Brian Sutton | EdD, MS, MA, PES, CES, CSCS
- Cassandra Evans | MS, RD, CISSN
- Charles Stull | MS, RDN
- Corey Peacock | PhD, FISSN, CSCS
- Gabe Sanders | PhD, CSCS, CISSN
- Gavin Pratt | MS
- Jace Fuchs | MS, CPT, PES, CES, CSCS
- Jamie Tartar | PhD
- Jonathan Mike | PhD, CSCS
- Jose Antonio | PhD, FISSN, FNSCA
- Katie Dabrowski | DPT, CSCS
- Katie Espinoza | MS, NASM-CPT, CNC
- Monique Mokha | PhD
- Paul La Bounty | PhD, MPT, CSCS, CPSS
- Scott Carpenter | BA
- Tony Ricci | EdD, DSc, FISSN, PES, CSCS