I'm just getting back into mma and as of now my cardio endurance is terrible. I am starting to drop weight which will definitely help, and aside from mma practice I want to do road work. Currently I can barely jog 1/2 a mile in 4 mins without gasping for air and I can almost make it 1 mile in 10 mins before the brink of death. I'm 5'8" 210 (19% bf) so it's not like I am extremely overweight, and my cardio should be much better, and i plan to drop to 165ish. This is my first time running in about 2 years, and even when I was active in mma and football I always hated running, but I need to do it. Does anyone have any recommendations as far as a running regimen? Thanks.
When I started running, I spent the first 4 weeks or so doing incline treadmill walks, all 40-60 minutes, gradually increasing the incline and the speed so that they got progressively harder. After that, when I hit the road I was able to do a very slow 3k pretty comfortably. Maybe three days later I did a very slow 4k, and then after that 5k. Over a period of months I garudally increased the distances I was running, until it was more like 7k-8k per time, around three times a week, and then eventually a little bit more still. I stayed doing these long, slow runs for about about 6 months, before I started doing some timed 5ks and tempo runs. But you don't really need to do those for aerobic conditioning- you only need to do them if you want to get faster. Like a lot of exercises, it is just about getting over the "hump"- being able to do it once, so that you can gradually progress from there. The incline treadmill walks are good for that.
Run longer even if its a very slow jog. Also, as you may know running cardio and mma cardio are two different things. If you are not going to a fight gym, go online and order a fit deck. They are great.
Slow down and run at a comfortable pace and the speed and distance will come. If every run is a time trial you'll wear yourself out pretty soon and likely injure yourself on top of it. Run at a pace that you can hold a conversation at, even if it's barely a jog. Concentrate on adding time every time out, if only a minute or two and don't add more than 10% time/distance per week to avoid over-training or injuring yourself.
Thanks for the responses guys. And I know there are other ways to get conditioning better and mma conditioning is different from running conditioning, I will be doing that stuff as well, but I also want to be able to run. I was looking up programs and this one came up, it looks pretty good to me, what do you all think? http://www.besthealthmag.ca/get-healthy/fitness/the-ultimate-beginners-running-program
