The sport of mixed martial arts seems to be everywhere lately with fighters making appearances in major motion pictures (Randy Couture, Cung Le), showing up on late night talk shows (Jon Jones, Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez), to gyms offering mma fitness programs.
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that players from other major sports leagues are beginning to look at mma as a way of building their fitness levels.
We’ve already heard of NFL players training in mixed martial arts in the off season, now you can include players from Major League Baseball.
An article from the NYTimes.com (via MixedMartialArts.com), highlighted the recent training practices of Adam Dunn of the Chicago White Sox, Russell Martin of the New York Yankees, Ryan Rowland-Smith of the Houston Astros, and Brad Penny of the Detroit Tigers.
In addition to improving overall fitness, Martin said, mixed martial arts can make an athlete mentally tougher.
“You tolerate the pain and get through it,” he said. “Mentally, I know I’m in a good place because I worked hard …”
Martin, a catcher, worked with Jonathan Chaimberg, who trains Georges St.-Pierre, the U.F.C.’s welterweight champion. Martin said he was searching for a way to regain his All-Star form after two injury-marred seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
After a few months of six-days-a-week M.M.A.-style training sessions with Chaimberg in Montreal, where he lives, Martin increased his endurance and explosiveness and lost body fat. He said his upper-body routine was called the big rope.
“It’s a thick rope that you attach to a base of a wall and has a loop,” he said. “You create waves with the rope, and it’s like a 20-second sprint, a 10-second rest. You don’t do it for a long period of time. You do it for five minutes, get a good workout in and work on your conditioning.”
It seems to be helping. Martin is hitting .300 with three homers and eight runs batted in.