Recently, I was reading some posts on a Strength & Conditioning sub-forum of a big MMA message board. A poster had made a thread about whether or not he should do his "cardio" after his weight training, or vice-versa. He went on to make a comment along the lines of, "cardio is infinitely much more important for MMA than how much you're pushing in the gym."

I couldn't help but shake my head.

Many, if not most, MMAists are of the notion that cardiovascular activity is the most necessary element of strength and conditioning. In fact, there are many fighters that only do cardio - no strength training, flexibility work, recovery, or anything else. I'd argue that these trainees, while well-intentioned, are misinformed, and are short-changing themselves in their efforts.

Now, had the poster above said, "conditioning is infinitely much more important for MMA", then I'd agree 100%. But isn't "conditioning" and "cardio" the same thing?

Nope.

While cardiovascular fitness (what everybody is calling cardio) is a much needed element of conditioning - especially for MMA - it's by no means everything that encompasses conditioning. Conditioning refers to not only cardiovascular endurance, but also muscular endurance, as well as strength/power-endurance.

Cardiovascular/cardio-respiratory endurance is pretty much a "no-brainer." This refers to how efficiently your heart can pump blood throughout your body, and how efficiently your lungs can uptake oxygen. Cardio is often what is refered to as "wind." If you have good wind, you can perform a lot of physical activity, without breathing hard or your heart-rate increasing dramatically.

Cardio fitness can be increased by a variety of ways. The two opposite ends of the spectrum are High Intensity Interval Training - also known as HIIT (think sprints) - and Long Slow Distance training - also known as LSD (think jogging). There are also more "middle of the road" protocols out there, much like the protocols I've used quite a bit, MFD (Medium Fast Distance) and Density Conditioning. I tend to favor MFD and Density Conditioning for MMA, while HIIT is a more effecient use of time, and LSD is much easier on your CNS (Central Nervous System). I won't get into all these methodologies here, but suffice it to say that they're all ways of increasing your cardiovascular fitness.

Muscular endurance just isn't thought of by most folks. Put simply, muscular endurance is the ability of your muscles to contract over and over inside of a given amount of time. The more times your muscles can contract in the same amount of time, or the shorter amount of time it takes to contract the same number of times, the more muscular endurance you have.

Muscular endurance is closely linked with cardio, as they tend to be limiting factors of each other. Often you see trainees doing some sort of conditioning work, designed to increase one form of their conditioning, yet end up getting hindered by something else.

I've used this example countless times, but I'll repeat it here. Say you're out of shape, and decide to start jogging (what would be a form of LSD) a mile 3-4x/week. Initially, you have to stop and walk half-way through, because you're simply breathing too hard. You stop jogging, walk some, catch your breath, and keep going.

After a couple weeks, your cardio has improved dramatically. You're still not in great shape, but seeing as how you were in bad shape to start out, it didn't take much to improve. You're still breathing hard while you jog, but you no longer sound as if you're about to cough up a lung...or like a lawn mower that won't start. But you still have to stop and walk during your jog, but instead of half-way, now it's more like at the 75% mark.

Why?

Is it because you're breathing too hard? No. It's because your legs are burning and tired, and need the rest. You walk for a little bit, your breathing slows down even more, and you let your legs recover some, and go back to jogging again.

At the beginning, it was your cardio that was your weak point. Your lack of being able to breathe efficiently was hindering your exercise, and hindering you from increasing your muscular endurance. But now that your cardio has improved, it's your muscular endurance that's slowing you down, and it's hindering you from increasing your cardio. You need both muscular endurance AND cardio - without one, the other is almost useless.

Ever hear of boxers that are so tired that at the end of a fight, they can barely keep their hands up? Is this because they can't breathe, or because their bodies are just plain tuckered out, and their shoulders don't have any more "oomph" left in them to hold their hands up? Usually, it's the latter.

Think of it this way, too - the best cyclist in history is Lance Armstrong. He's competed in - and won several times - what many consider one of the most physically demanding events in the world, the Tour de France. It could be argued that his cardio and muscular endurance are some of the best in the world. Yet, he has run three marathons (the NYC Marathon in '06 and '07, and the Boston Marathon in '08). Remember now that he's going from cycling to running - both of which are very leg dominant, so one would think his carryover would be pretty dramatic. Armstrong's results? The best cyclist in the world finished in 856th place, 232nd, place, and in the top 500, respectively (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Armstrong). This just goes to show that muscular endurance and cardio, no matter how good they are, can still hinder you.

Think about how repetitive running and cycling are (i.e. - performing the same movements over and over again). To a certain degree, it would be tougher on your localized muscular endurance (e.g. - the legs). On the other hand, though, think about MMA - you've got to have superior muscular endurance throughout the entire body, or you could be facing the same sort of results.

Muscular endurance, like cardio, can be trained a variety of ways, to include complexes, density training protocols, and just plain using higher reps. Though for MMA, you're usually better served increasing your muscular endurance in your skills training and sparring.

The last element of conditioning I want to focus on is strength/power-endurance. (For the record, strength is the ability to generate a lot of force, power is the ability to generate a lot of force quickly. Squatting 350 lbs. is a measure of strength. Squatting 350 lbs. in 1.8 seconds is a measure of power.) All the cardio in the world won't do you any good, if you're weaker than a five year old girl at the end of the fight.

If strength is the ability to generate a lot of force, then strength-endurance is simply being able to generate a lot of force for an extended period of time. Power-endurance would be the ability generate a lot of force quickly for an extended period of time.

Now, you might be wondering if strength-endurance and muscular endurance are the same thing. They're not. Muscular endurance is just the ability of the muscles to contract - regardless of how hard they do it. Strength-endurance still involves the muscles contacting over that extended time period, but contracting forcefully. For example, let's say your maximum squat is 375 lbs. for 1 rep. Muscular endurance would be being able to do 500 bodyweight squats (no added weight) non-stop. Strength-endurance would be squatting 345 lbs. (a weight very close to your maximum) a total of 50 reps inside of a 20-minute timeframe. Power-endurance would be that same workout, only counting reps that were done in a certain time (say 2 seconds or less).

Strength-endurance can be increased a variety of ways as well, including density training or my "Singles & Doubles" approach.

To be a complete MMAist, you can't just have cardio - you have to have complete conditioning. Increase your conditioning, and you'll find yourself a better fighter.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.