Want to Recover Faster? Build Your Aerobic System.

When most people hear the word cardio, they think about not getting tired. In combat sports, that usually means being able to train longer, spar harder, or make it through a round without feeling like your lungs are going to explode. That's certainly part of it, but I think it misses one of the most important roles of the aerobic system.

Your aerobic system isn't just there to keep you moving.

It's a major part of your ability to recover from the work you just did.

That distinction is particularly important in MMA because fighting isn't one continuous maximal effort. A fight is made up of explosive actions and periods of lower-intensity activity. There are hard striking exchanges, takedown attempts, scrambles, clinch battles, positional exchanges, and moments where the pace drops before it suddenly increases again. The fighter isn't simply trying to produce one great effort. He has to produce one effort, recover, and then produce another.

The ability to recover between those efforts can have a huge impact on performance.

Cardio Isn't Just About Not Getting Tired

Imagine two fighters who are relatively equal in strength, speed, and technical ability. They both throw a hard combination, both scramble, and both have to work through a difficult exchange. The first fighter recovers relatively quickly. His breathing settles, his heart rate begins to come down, and he is ready to work again.

The second fighter doesn't recover as quickly. He's still breathing hard when the next exchange begins. His movements aren't quite as explosive, his decisions aren't quite as sharp, and his ability to produce another hard effort has already started to decline.

Now imagine that happening repeatedly over the course of a fight.

The difference can become enormous.

This is why I think the traditional definition of "cardio" is incomplete. We tend to think about conditioning as the ability to continue working, but for a fighter, the ability to recover enough to work hard again is just as important.

The UFC Performance Institute specifically identifies heart-rate recovery during the one-minute interval between rounds as an important conditioning measure for MMA athletes. That's not an arbitrary number. It's directly related to the demands of the sport. A fighter has five minutes to work and then only 60 seconds to recover before being asked to do it again.

What Happens When the Explosion Ends?

MMA requires several different energy systems to work together. When a fighter explodes into a takedown, throws a hard combination, scrambles out of a bad position, or produces some other high-power effort, the body has to produce energy very quickly. Those explosive systems are extremely important, but they aren't unlimited.

Once that hard effort is over, the body has to recover.

Energy stores have to be restored. The cardiovascular and respiratory systems have to begin returning toward normal. The metabolic consequences of the previous effort have to be dealt with. The muscles need to be prepared to produce force again.

The aerobic system plays a major role in that recovery process.

This is one of the reasons I think the aerobic system gets misunderstood in combat sports. It isn't simply the system that allows someone to jog for an hour. It is active throughout a fight and contributes heavily to the processes that allow an athlete to recover from high-intensity efforts and continue producing work.

The explosive systems allow the fighter to produce the effort.

The aerobic system helps the fighter recover from the effort.

You need both.

The One-Minute MMA Test

There probably isn't a better example of this than the one-minute break between MMA rounds.

A fighter has just spent five minutes fighting. His heart rate is elevated, his breathing is hard, his muscles have been working, and he has repeatedly used the energy systems required for explosive activity. Then the horn sounds and he gets one minute.

Not five minutes.

Not ten minutes.

Sixty seconds.

During that minute, the fighter has to recover enough to go back out and perform again.

That's why heart-rate recovery can be such a useful way of looking at MMA conditioning. If an athlete's heart rate drops more quickly during the recovery period, that gives us some indication of how effectively their aerobic system is supporting recovery. The goal isn't necessarily to obsess over one particular number. What matters is the trend and whether the athlete is becoming better at recovering from the work being asked of them.

This also gives us a much more useful way to think about conditioning than simply asking whether someone "has good cardio."

The better question is: How well does that athlete recover from hard work?

The Fighter Who Recovers Faster Gets to Use His Skills More

This is where conditioning stops being a physiological discussion and becomes a performance discussion.

Better aerobic fitness doesn't magically make someone a better fighter. It doesn't teach someone how to box, wrestle, grapple, or make good tactical decisions. It doesn't fix technical weaknesses.

What it can do is help an athlete continue expressing the abilities they already have.

A fighter might have excellent power, but if he can't recover after producing it, that power becomes less useful as the fight progresses. He might have excellent wrestling, but if every takedown attempt leaves him exhausted, he may not be able to keep attempting them. He might have excellent technique, but if fatigue causes his movement and decision-making to deteriorate, he isn't going to be able to express that technique very well.

This is one of the reasons physical preparation matters so much.

The goal isn't simply to make someone physically fit in some generic sense. The goal is to build the physical capacity that allows the athlete to repeatedly express the qualities required by the sport.

You don't just want the ability to produce a great effort. You want the ability to produce another great effort after the first one.

And then another.

And another.

This Matters in Training Too

The recovery benefit isn't limited to competition.

MMA athletes train frequently, and the quality of that training matters. If an athlete is constantly carrying unnecessary fatigue from one session into the next, that can eventually affect the quality of their technical work, sparring, strength training, and conditioning.

This is another reason I don't look at conditioning as simply adding more work.

The goal isn't to make the athlete capable of tolerating an unlimited amount of fatigue. The goal is to develop an athlete who can recover from the work that actually matters.

That distinction is important.

If better aerobic development allows an athlete to recover more effectively between hard efforts and between training sessions, then it can indirectly improve the quality of everything else they're doing. They can attack a technical session with more energy. They can get more out of their strength work. They can perform better during sparring. They can come back the next day more prepared to train.

That's a much more useful role for conditioning than simply seeing how tired we can make someone.

So Does That Mean Fighters Should Just Do Long Cardio?

No.

This is where the discussion usually gets oversimplified in the other direction.

MMA absolutely requires high-intensity energy production. Fighters need to be able to produce explosive efforts repeatedly, and the anaerobic systems are critical to doing that. Developing the aerobic system doesn't mean ignoring those demands or turning every fighter into a distance runner.

It means developing the different physical qualities that contribute to performance and understanding how those qualities interact.

The aerobic system provides an important foundation for recovery and sustained work. The anaerobic systems allow the athlete to produce energy at much higher rates when the situation demands it. Both are necessary, and the goal of a good conditioning program is to develop them appropriately rather than treating one as a replacement for the other.

The method also doesn't have to look exactly like MMA.

This is another common misunderstanding about specificity. An MMA fighter doesn't need every conditioning session to involve punching, sprawling, shooting, or grappling. We can develop physical qualities through a variety of methods and then progressively make the training more specific as appropriate.

Running, cycling, rowing, sled work, intervals, and other conditioning methods can all have value depending on the athlete and the quality we're trying to develop. The exercise doesn't have to look like fighting for the adaptation to be useful to a fighter.

As the athlete gets closer to competition, there is certainly value in making more of the conditioning increasingly specific to the demands of MMA. But general physical preparation has a place, particularly when it allows us to develop a quality without adding unnecessary technical or physical stress to the athlete's sport training.

The Goal Isn't to Make the Fighter Tired

I think this is where a lot of combat-sports conditioning gets turned upside down.

There is an easy temptation to judge a conditioning session by how exhausted the athlete looks afterward. If everyone is lying on the floor, breathing hard, and covered in sweat, the workout must have been good.

Not necessarily. Fatigue is a consequence of training. It isn't the objective. The objective is the adaptation.

If we're trying to improve aerobic capacity, we should select training that develops aerobic capacity. If we're trying to improve the ability to recover between repeated high-intensity efforts, we should train that quality. If we're trying to improve the ability to produce power repeatedly, we need to consider both the ability to produce that power and the ability to recover between efforts.

Making someone exhausted is easy.

Making someone better is the hard part.

Cardio Isn't the Goal. Recovery Is.

The next time someone talks about having "good cardio," I think it's worth asking what they actually mean.

• Can they work for a long time?

• Can they maintain their pace?

• Can they produce repeated explosive efforts?

• Can they recover quickly between those efforts?

• Can they recover during the one-minute break between rounds?

• Can they recover well enough between training sessions to continue producing high-quality work?

For an MMA fighter, those questions are much more meaningful than simply asking how long they can run.

The aerobic system is constantly working in the background of the fight. It helps provide energy, supports sustained activity, and, perhaps most importantly, helps the athlete recover from the high-intensity work that makes MMA what it is.

The fighter who recovers faster gets more opportunities to use his skills.

• He gets more opportunities to use his strength.

• More opportunities to use his speed and power.

• More opportunities to wrestle, strike, scramble, and make decisions.

That's why aerobic development belongs in a serious MMA strength and conditioning program.

The goal isn't to turn an MMA fighter into a runner.

The goal is to build the engine that allows a fighter to recover from one hard effort and produce another.

You don't build an aerobic system so you can run longer.

You build it so you can fight better for longer.