Should I do extra cardio or is cycling enough?

Hey so im training mma 9-12 hours a week at the moment in for 4 days a week.

The journey there is 30 minutes and the journey back is 30 mins. So im doing between 4-8 hours cycling per week, depending on if I cycle home or stay in town inbetween morning amd afternoon classes.

Is this enough or should I do specific cardio as well as the journey there and back?

 

Depends. If you're just training for fun/self defence etc then you're probably getting enough. If you're training for fighting you should fr finitely be doing extra work.

 

I wanna do interclubs soonish and eventually amateur fights when im ready.

What cardio should I add to my 4-8 hours of cycling.

Not sure if its cardio but I sometimes do mma pad workout. They have a constant pad bashing for 45 mins. Not sure if thats cardio, gym also offers hiit.

 

Honestly just maintenence running might be enough. 3-5 miles 3 times a week. Add in some sprinting. The mid-range run is for recovering in between rounds. The sprints are for what it's going to feel like actually fighting.

 

I spar about 3 hours a week. 5 minute rounds, sometimes its going hard. People love to grapple hard at least.

 

Striking sparring shouldn't be too hard to begin with, you need to keep what brain cells you have for after you have some technique, especially in MMA fight gloves.

 

Test your resting heart rate and heart rate recovery between rounds of sparring

Those two numbers will tell you if you need extra conditioning or not.

Otherwise it's pretty much guess work

 

My suggestion shouldn't surprise anyone.

Jump rope! It's cardio that includes a footwork agility drill. You will be amazed at how much your footwork improves jumping rope a little each day.

 

You’re already exercising between 13 and 20 hours per week; I think you need to be careful about adding running to your weekly training volume.

I’d recommend maintaining your 1-2 rest days per week, plus having one lighter week per month. (That’s as well as the basics: getting ample sleep and eating healthily.)

You can’t get fitter without ample sleep, rest and recovery. Also, I’ve found under-training a little is better than over-training.

This is what I’d do instead of running. Cycling can be amazing cardio!

If you up your cycling, then it becomes increasingly important to have a good bike fit. Having a session with professional bike fitter will prevent injury.

 

Seconded, you've only recently started training, and your already getting injuries from too much volume of training, adding in extra volume straight away isn't a good idea yet.

 

Here are a couple of relevant articles:

Training effect = Work x Recovery

How your recovery relates directly to your performance

 

Thanks for this advice. I have a good bike used to work as a courier on it. My route to the gym isnt too intense. Few hills here and there.

I ride fairly hard, used to do it for money so I ride hard.

Ill see about getting a heart monitor to check what its like after sparring rounds.

 

Fitbits and Garmin make awesome wrist bands for tracking all sorts of things from pulse to daily steps to calories. And they come with apps for recording long term trends. I'd say price of $100 US on up to.

 

Chest straps are cheaper and more accurate than newt fitness watches. Fit watches are good for monitoring your resting hr and your sleep patterns which help you monitor recovery and stress levels.

But there are other cheaper ways to measure recovery and stress, monitoring grip strength is one very easy way to.measure stress and recovery for example and super cheap to do.

Get a good cheap chest strap and watch and monitor your 1min recovery between rounds. Good rule of thumb is if your HR drops 30 beats in a minutes rest you are in fairly good shape.

If your resting hr is between 50-60bpm you are also in fairly good shape and don't need much if any extra training.

 

I want a strap too. Any recommendations?

 

I use the polar H10 chest strap and I've been very happy with it.

 

Polar have a great rep and can be found for under £70, they allow you to track and download I believe work outs?
If all you want is a strap that measures HR and links to a watch which allows you to set max mum HR etc and doesn't have to link to.a smart phone then can be even cheaper.

I've used a bhip 9 for years it cost I think £30, aldi occasionally do a crane version for instance which is £30 ish, just look up Amazon reviews on the different versions .

You can go super cheap £30 for a strap and watch or a bit more for the polar ones but they are all cheaper and more accurate when working out than any fitness watch.

Depends on how you want to use it really!