Swimming for MMA Training — Is it Good?
At first glance, swimming as an activity is not directly associated with the sport of MMA. Yet, you can often see MMA fighters doing various types of swimming workouts while preparing for a fight for example.
One of the key reasons is the fact that swimming is a low-impact workout. It supports recovery, builds endurance, increases lung capacity, and teaches you how to breathe. Though not every day, hitting the pool once or twice a week for a light session will improve your MMA performance.
In this article, we are going to explore all the benefits of swimming for MMA fighters. And how this specific activity improves their performances inside the cage.
Changes the environment
Swimming is the total opposite of most aerobic and anaerobic activities most MMA athletes do. Most of them focus on running, doing uphill sprints, skipping ropes, hitting the pads of a heavy bag, etc.
Thus, jumping in the pool completely changes the environment you train in, and it can be a nice diverse change in your regime. The one that will prevent training from becoming monotone and boring.
And no matter how versatile, fun and playful MMA is, doing the same drills in the same facility and with the same people will become your comfort zone. And from time to time, you need to step outside of it for a brief moment to make your life dynamic and stay motivated.
Swimming is a great option as it is the opposite of most martial art workouts. But at the same time is beneficial and it will improve your MMA game.
Stepping out of your comfort zone just once a week to change the environment, talk with different people and do different workouts will make you happier. And who knows, you might become passionate about it and focus on developing professional-level swimming techniques
Teaches you how to breathe
The breathing pattern in swimming differs a lot from the one in running for example. Since you can’t breathe underwater, you must mentally focus on controlling your breathing, and developing a pattern and rhythm. The science is very simple. If you don’t have a pattern or go out of rhythm, you will quickly get tired and be forced to stop the workout.
MMA is very similar and you need to develop relatively the same breathing pattern to manage your cardio during the fight. If you are doing it wrong and you stop breathing due to the sudden rush of adrenalin, which often happens in a fight, you will gas out and lose the fight.
Instead, swimming supports you in developing a breathing pattern, both through technique and increasing lung capacity.
Swimming improves lung capacity and lungpower
In the long run, swimming increases the lung capacity and the power of your lungs. This was confirmed by a study performed in 2015, which showed that swimmers’ lungs are greater in capacity compared with athletes from other sports such as football. Here is why this is important in MMA.
During swimming, there is a sequence where you have to hold your breath underwater for a brief moment. There are also specific exercises where practitioners would swim underwater without taking air for the full length of the pool, or as far as their fitness level enables them to go. Over time, this will increase the lung capacity and enable the oxygen to travel through the body more efficiently. Or in other words, it will boost your cardio and endurance.
In MMA, having the lung power to hold your breath for a long period of time is crucial and it might save you from certain situations. For example when you are fighting your way out of the chokehold. It literally enables you to stay conscious for much longer than non-swimmers or people with less lung power.
Builds endurance and core strength
Swimming is known as one of the best workouts if you are looking to develop endurance and strength. It is a full-body workout that activates and improves every single muscle group in your body. As mentioned above, swimming improves lung capacity and teaches you breathing patterns which result in better endurance overall.
When it comes to strength, water is 800 times denser than air so it provides enough resistance for you to improve muscle strength. Constant repetition of strokes will strengthen every single muscle group in your body. You can also target specific muscle groups by changing the style. Breaststroke, freestyle, and crawl, these styles all target different muscle groups.
Promotes recovery
Swimming falls into a group of low-impact workouts. Unlike rigorous MMA training, swimming in the pool doesn’t put a lot of stress on your body at all. In fact, it may help you recover if you approach it the right way.
MMA training is among the toughest in all martial arts. You have to continuously switch between striking and grappling and it is very hard to find enough time to recover. Thus, all MMA athletes, both amateurs, and pros have trouble with sprains and strains, muscle soreness, joint pain, etc.
Swimming and floating in the water engages all of these muscles in a less intense and relaxed way. And above all, it won’t further tear the muscle tissue and cause inflammation. It basically enables you to recover while still working out.
Punching water builds power
Some of the greatest boxing champions like Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali were quite famous for doing boxing workouts in the pool. This is a great exercise to increase the power in your hands. The key is to have your arms and shoulders submerged and focus on throwing fast punches in a proper motion.
The water is 800 times denser than air and provides enough resistance for you to enhance the speed and power of your shots. MMA athletes can also work on throwing their knees, even the flying knees where you have to jump into the air. Overall, throwing strikes underwater is very much the same as doing in on dry while carrying weights. But, of course, doing it in the pool is less stressful on your body and much safer.
Helps burn calories in a healthier way
MMA fighters, notably the ones who are competing as amateurs and pros, have to be at the optimum weight. They always must be close to the upper limit of the weight class they compete in, which is actually very hard to do. In order to do so, each athlete must do a lot of those HIIT, CrossFit, and long-distance running workouts to burn extra calories.
The problem is activities such as running, notably on hard surfaces, put a lot of stress on your joints like knees, lower back, and shins. Swimming might be a great way to diversify this segment of training as it is a low-impact workout. But at the same time, burns the same amount of calories if not even more, depending on which workout you do.
This is one of the key reasons why so many MMA fighters have swimming sessions in their training schedule. As a pro athlete, you want to avoid any type of injuries at all costs, and be in shape all the time as you never know when you will receive a call to compete.
Conclusion
Swimming is a full-body workout, extremely beneficial for MMA fighters in many ways. It enables you to boost core strength and improve both slow and fast twitch muscle fibers. Increasing the lung capacity improves your cardio and endurance which are the bread and butter of every MMA athlete, and it helps you maintain a healthy weight.
But most importantly, swimming is fun and dynamic. It enables you to switch your focus on an activity not related directly to fighting, which serves as a great distraction. It may help you relax from the constant pressures that come with being a fighter, and it certainly makes your regime more dynamic.
