Best Sports for MMA Conditioning

[Warchild10]

Man, swimming is great for your lungs and your upper body. It strengthens and lengthens your muscles, while building up your endurance better then even running. Like GoRider said it's a dog to do and if you alternate your strokes you will find NEW LEVELS OF EXPLOSIVENESS! Its fuckin scary. Especially in an olympic pool. ::shudders with fear::

Besides ask Bas Rutten and my he fair well on the other side Carlson Gracie recommended swimming to all his fighters as thier mainstay in cardio.

 

[Mark Limbaga]

Football, gymnastics swimming

 

[JT RIPPER]

cycling, track work, circuit weight training, lots of core work on the stability ball...this is more valuable than you can possibly imagine, especially if you have someone that knows what they're doing to help you out

 

[ratman201]

Swimming is good. I find I tend to dog it or cut it short so I can ogle girls in the hot tub...which is both good and bad.

This is why I dont go to a normal gym anymore. The women are too much of a distraction.

 

[Pacquiao3:16]

Soccer. works on conditioning and footwork.
Swimming, for your conditioning. Try boxing or kicking underwater.

 

[quebra-tudo]

Hacky sack.

 

[GoRiders]

Maybe keep in mind that you might want to chose some alternative sports that are both fun and will help you cross train. Don't burn out with too many sports that require discipline. Swimming for me fall into this category. I know it is good for you but damn is it hard to get through a set sometimes.

Hacky sack is fun social and great for flexibility.
Mountain biking is great all body work out and is extremely fun and social.
Soccer is great but hard to do in an non-organized manner.
Rock climbing/bouldering at a local gym is awesome fun and something you can do as an alternative work out that just blasts your arms. Also focus on going to the point of failure vefore stopping which most sports don't do.
I love playing squash. Great for anerobic burst plus flexibilty and it's fun.

Try lots of shit then mentally position these activities to yourself as a reward day. That always works for me - swim a km and then tomorrow the reward is an hour of bouldering. Then I look forward to both. Stoopid sounding but it works.