What's Involved in an MMA Metabolic Resistance Workout

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A Marine conducts Spiderman push-ups.
A Marine with Marine Forces Reserve conducts Spiderman pushups at Marine Corps Support Facility New Orleans, March 29, 2019, during a Total Force Fitness event. (Sgt. Andy O. Martinez/U.S. Marine Corps photo)

Contributed by Marcus Colburn:

Mixed martial arts fighters are modern-day gladiators. They enter the ring to the sound of rap, rock, old-school hip-hop, reggae and even country-and-western music, but the one thing every MMA fighter has in common is a powerful athletic physique built from metabolic resistance training. These modern-day warriors know better than to do bodybuilding, because those workouts just take too long and leave you puffed up, slow and inflexible. That's not how modern man should be or look.

Metabolic resistance training is the answer to the needs of these gladiators. Circuit-style lifting, body-weight exercises, a Navy SEAL-type no-quit attitude and total body movements make these men into the toughest athletes in professional sports today. But here's the thing: Hard-core weight exercises are a waste of his time and probably don't add anything to a vicious knockout power. Instead, he gets more out of body-weight circuit strength and endurance training.

Here's the "perfect" metabolic resistance training body-weight circuit that will not only improve your physical strength and endurance for any sport, but it also will give you a killer body that will make you stand out in the crowd. If you want to get lean, build that V-shaped upper body and essentially have the most bad-ass, cover-model body with the athletic skills to back it up, you can't get better than this program.

Ground rules:

Go through this circuit 3-4 times.

Rest 1-2 minutes at the end of each circuit.

Rest as little as possible between exercises within the circuit.

As you get better and stronger, add resistance by wearing a weight vest.

  • Prisoner squat 20 reps
  • Close-grip push-up 15 reps
  • 1-leg squat 8 reps per side
  • "Perfect" pull-up 1 rep short of failure
  • Bulgarian split squat 20 reps per side
  • Spider-Man push-up 12 reps per side
  • Body-weight row 15 reps

Notes on the moves:

Spiderman push-ups: Just doing push-ups with your feet way up high on a wall like a proverbial "wall crawler." Or have a friend hold your legs so you're more in an upside-down position.

Prisoner squats: Squats done with hands behind your head with no weights but lots with deep leg movement.

Bulgarian split squats: Squats done with no weight, with legs as far apart as possible being able to go low.

Discover the breakthrough metabolic resistance workouts guaranteed to give you a buff body and ultimate fighter physique.

While serving with the elite Navy SEAL jump team called Leap Frogs in 1997, Marcus Colburn was involved in a life-changing parachuting accident. After free-falling to 3,000 feet, Colburn opened his chute. But the SEAL above him did not and continued free-falling at 90 mph. The other jumper tore through Colburn's chute, hitting him in the head and hand with his body. The impact sent him twirling unconscious through the air with few cells left on his chute, and he hit the ground, changing his life forever. Colburn's amazing recovery became his biggest challenge and surviving the accident is a miraculous story, but what is even more inspiring is how he handles his life after the accident.

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