MMA Explosive Power: Your Power to Weight Ratio

I'm going to continue my posts on helping you improve you MMA Explosive Power by discussing your Power to Weight Ratio, and how you can improve it to increase even more your MMA Explosive Power Output.

In combat sports such as MMA, Boxing, Wrestling, Judo etc you will most likely be facing a weight category that must work to be inside of before your fight even begins. Given this it is essential that you can produce maximum output for every bit of weight you do carry. That means a total and complete focus on only the useful weight needed such as functional mass verses carrying useless fat stores.

When it comes to MMA performance in general, not just MMA Explosive Power, you need to remove as much possible fat, and you do this because fat provides no useful function to you while adding only useless weight. If you are to do this then you need to correctly influence your Power to Weight Ratio.

Your Power to Weight Ratio determines how much power you will be able generate in relation your weight. The obvious factor here is that every fighter should aim to increase the maximum useful muscle mass the carry while cutting the none useful mass, and this must be done such a way that you still make your weight category.

I am going to present you some nutrition and eating strategies to use alongside my other MMA Explosive Power Workouts to allow you to effectively cut useless fat and maximize your Power to Weight Ratio.

Power to Weight Ratio: Athletic Body Composition

Body composition research and theory should underpin everything you do as an athlete, and it should do so because it is informative in many ways on topics such as your energy demands, nutritional needs as well as being useful to some medical applications. In relation to sport performance body composition must be monitored due to the fluctuation created in fluids, electrolyte balance and body mass created by physical loading as a result of training. All of these things influence performance. The requirements of making weight for a fight can lead to severe disruption due to use of extreme methods of fat and water loss.

When you use body composition as a base you can evaluate the effect of training and nutrition combined in order personalise the weight loss plans you do use by adjusting to the evidence provided with regards to the changes within the body. This will enable you to positively impact your Power to weight Ratio for your upcoming fight, and cut away any useless fat weight in manner not damaging to your body or performance levels. Careful and consistent evaluation of your body composition over time will give a significant indication of your over all physical condition in the training time leading up to a fight. It is much better to apply gradual metabolism based fat loss prior to a weigh in than to use quick fix short term dieting and weight loss methods.

Power to Weight Ratio:Essential verses Not Essential Mass

If we are going to be building essential mass and removing none essential mass we need an understanding of what these types of mass are, and also some thoughts on how our training will these levels of mass.

Lean Muscle Mass

This is the mass we want to build and maintain because this the mass used to produce our explosive power. However one the standard tools for fat loss which is aerobic training can be damaging to the type of fibers we need to build and maintain if we are to maximise our ability in our weight division. If the focus is on endurance training you run the risk of producing an endurance athlete with little explosiveness. I am not saying you don't need endurance, but your endurance training should be as fight specific as possible. This will positively affect your Power to Weight ratio by allowing you influence the correct muscle type while training for endurance.

Fat

Fat although it does perform a function in the body in the form off "essential fats" is not useful in the production of explosive power and will negatively affect your Power to Weight ratio. In several studies the amount of body fat mass(relative fat mass) the athlete carries will be a direct a correlation of the athletes performance, and supports the approach I use with athletes in removing all fat mass as much as possible from the athlete without affecting health.

High levels of fat mass has been shown to have negative impact on factors directly relating to effective training for MMA Explosive Power, affecting kicking power, punching speed and agility. In order to this without affective health it is most effective to this metabolism based specifically of the individual rather than using quick fix methods such as voluntary dehydration. You are probably familiar with the concept of having a fat loss or cutting diet and having a separate diet for bulking up. However for you to have a positive impact on your Power to Weight ratio you need a diet aimed at keeping muscle.

Power to Weight Ratio:Nutrition Guidelines

I am going to outline some of the guidelines and methods I have used with fighters over the course of fight preparation to help them maintain Explosive Power and Strength while cutting out fat mass.

1. Periodized Nutrition Plans -This involves keeping nutritional intake closely regulated all year round. My fighters maintain a strict nutrition program all year. There no excesses permitted between fights.This prevents fighters from gaining increases in body fat, and prevention is a big part of solving the problem in the first place. All fighters I train will have a separate nutrition plan for off periods, base fight conditioning or prep phase, intensity building phase, peak conditioning phase, weight making phase and a recovery/ transitional phase directly after a fight.
2. Consistent monitoring of Body Composition - This is done to ensure the needs of athlete are met and to evaluate the nutrition plans effectiveness. The main aim is to ensure there are no major fluctuations such as major unplanned increases in body fat as the program progresses.Calorie intake will be provided on a daily basis based on evaluations around body composition. No one days calories needs will be specifically the same  day to day if a fighter is to reach peak without gaining even a small amount of fat mass.All energy needs will be specifically planned for for nutritionally based on your individual metabolic rate.
3. Effective Recovery - This is vital if fighters are to train to their maximum in pre-fight training. Recovery is the start point for improving performance. It applies from the stand pint of nutrition by getting your recovery meals perfect and it applies to management f the training load in removing the possibility of over training and burn out. This also applies for how you prepare in the period between fight and weigh in.
4. Maintain High Protein and Amino Acid Intake - Many of us don't have a problem maintaining the correct of protein and during all phases of the fight prep we should aim to load on protein just like any other muscle building period. However one consistent point  make to all of my clients and athletes is taking on adequate amino acids. This will further to maintain our lean muscle mass. For obvious reasons please avoid using any type of mass gain shakes with your training.