It is an understatement to say that explosive legs and hips are important in MMA or any other combat sport. The majority of power and strength generated in punching, kicking, throwing or controlling your opponent on the ground comes from these two areas of human performance.
Performing an alternating lunge jump while holding a heavy bag builds power and anaerobic endurance primarily in your legs and hips. It also simulates driving your opponent up and back when you have double underhooks on him or her, say after defending a takedown and then standing up while in control.
The heavy bag provides great resistance and places a lot of torque on your body, especially the core, so you get a good core workout too. If you don't have a heavy bag or grappling dummy, you can just fill a large duffle bag with old clothes and weight plates if you have them and use that instead.
With this exercise it's important to explode your hips forward when jumping up and keeping your back as straight as possible at all times.
Here are the biomechanical and kinesiological details on the heavy bag jump functional exercise for MMA/wrestling/jiu-jitsu:
Prime mover muscles
Performing an alternating lunge jump while holding a heavy bag builds power and anaerobic endurance primarily in your legs and hips. It also simulates driving your opponent up and back when you have double underhooks on him or her, say after defending a takedown and then standing up while in control.
The heavy bag provides great resistance and places a lot of torque on your body, especially the core, so you get a good core workout too. If you don't have a heavy bag or grappling dummy, you can just fill a large duffle bag with old clothes and weight plates if you have them and use that instead.
With this exercise it's important to explode your hips forward when jumping up and keeping your back as straight as possible at all times.
Here are the biomechanical and kinesiological details on the heavy bag jump functional exercise for MMA/wrestling/jiu-jitsu:
Prime mover muscles
- Quadriceps, hamstrings
- Hip extensors, hip flexors, gastrocnemius
- Rectus abdominis, multifidus, transverse abdominus, biceps brachii
- Hip flexion, knee flexion
- Hip extension, knee extension
- Keep chest up, back straight and heavy bag tight to body
- Rounding back during lunge