What it Takes to Be An MMA Fighter: The Physical Aspects By: Kenny Florian

The physical aspects of being an MMA fighter require you to be athletic, strong, flexible, quick, explosive and versatile in your fighting skills. I believe the best arts to practice for MMA success are the following: Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Wrestling (Greco-Roman and Freestyle), Muay Thai and Western Boxing.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) gives you the skills you need for ground fighting. You will learn the crucial escapes, reversals, positioning and submissions to make you a threat on the ground. BJJ will teach the practitioner awareness, balance, composure and will detail the importance of tactics and strategy.

The value of maximum leverage and technique to control and submit your opponent is the essence of BJJ. Like wrestling, it is a physical game of chess-like moves that are used to set up your opponent. Not knowing how to fight on the ground can be a great weakness to an MMA fighter. BJJ gives you the ability to be effective and dangerous on the ground, whether you are on top of your opponent or on the bottom.

Wrestling is one of the world's oldest sports and has many physical and mental benefits. Wrestling will help you with the takedown aspect of your MMA game. It will make easier to put your opponents on their backs and help you defend against takedowns. It also gives you significant balance, agility and control on the feet or on the ground. A wrestling background can be an enormous advantage against superior strikers and can give you points on the judges' score cards.

Muay Thai is the national sport of Thailand and is very popular all over the world due to its effective striking techniques. Muay Thai is known for brutal leg and head kicks, its devastating knees and elbows and effectiveness to control, throw and strike from the clinch. Elbows, knees and kicks can all end a fight quickly by knockout, cut or ref stoppage. Knees to the body and kicks to the legs are weapons used in Muay Thai and effectively enable an MMA fighter to slow the opponent down and set up the knockout.

Western Boxing is known for hand techniques and footwork. Boxing which is acknowledged as the "sweet science" will help you evade punches and clinches with footwork and head movement. Martial artists and action movie fanatics most likely fear the "deadly" hand techniques of Karate and Kung Fu, but it is the leverage, skill, speed and agility that you learn in boxing that will truly turn your hands into deadly weapons in an MMA fight.

When you are learning these arts, you must be able to put them all into the context of MMA. Your punching is no good if you are putting yourself in a position to be taken down. If you are taking someone down, you must be able to submit your opponent or effectively strike them to make your wrestling effective. So each art needs the other to make you a true threat.

An MMA fighter should never think that that they need to switch modalities for each situation. They should be able to naturally flow from one technique to the other, be it a grappling or striking situation. Mixing the different techniques together will make you much more of a threat and will keep your opponent guessing as to what you will do next.

The best MMA fighters demonstrate an intangible beauty or a certain "something special" when they fight. Accordingly, winning is not merely enough. Smooth technique, knockouts, submissions or exciting takedowns and strikes will make your wins that much engaging and will bring great interest from promoters and fans.

If it seems like there's a lot work to being an MMA fighter, guess what, there is much more. In my opinion, MMA is the sport of the future and regardless of whether you are a fan or not, there is no denying the hard work and sacrifice these athletes go through.

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