According to the latest UFC news, Abu Dhabi is going to be the hotspot in April for MMA as lightweight contender Frankie Edgar takes on BJ Penn for what’s been described as the biggest fight of Edgar’s life. You can be certain that both physical and mental conditioning is included in Penn and Edgar’s bout preparation.
While many training programs focus on preparing the body to fight, a key component of any serious mixed martial arts training covers the mental aspect of fighting. A fighter may be trained to the peak of physical condition, but if he can’t deal with the mental aspects of pain, if he lets his opponent “psych” him out, or if he fails to see “tells” in his opponents’ moves, all that physical conditioning will have been for nothing.
Training one’s mind for mixed martial arts competition can be much more difficult than training the body. It isn’t as easy to identify progress in mental conditioning, and what works for one person may not be right for another.
But people who are up to date with UFC news know that the top mixed martial arts competitors have added mental preparation to their training programs.
Here are just a few mental conditioning components:
Visualization
To succeed in this dynamic sport you need to learn to visualize the bout. Think of ways it can play out, likely scenarios, the best moves to make.
Self-knowledge
This entails knowing the limits of your body, what it can do, what it can be pushed too.
Application
It’s great to know all of the technical moves in MMA, but knowing when and how to execute them is the difference between a champion and a contender.
Counter-intuitiveness
When a punch comes your way, your instinct is to avoid it. Your opponent knows this and can use it to his advantage. By training your brain to be counter-intuitive — to know when to take a punch, and how to take it — you strip this advantage away from your opponent and gain the advantage of unpredictability.
Check the UFC news, and you’ll see that both Edgar and Penn are not just working out, they’re also doing things to enlighten the mind and spirit. This can be anything from study to just spending time with the family to clear the mind, as Edgar is doing.
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