One of the top questions about MMA is whether training in MMA will help build ones muscles. This questions seems to plague many men and women, old and young, both online and in the gym. It isn’t hard to figure out why. Everyone who wants to get involved in a sport, wants to benefit from it with a better physique.

I’ve been in the MMA game for over fifteen years and counting. I have a degree in Physical Education. As you can imagine, I’ve been asked this question and variations of it too many times to count. We all want to get jacked. Whenever you watch popular MMA leagues like the UFC or ONE FC you see all these absolutely muscular, ripped fighters. It’s a natural progression for you to ask yourself “If I train in MMA, can I become ripped and muscular like these guys?”

The reason why answering “will MMA build muscle?” is difficult is that there are several key factors to this questions, and it will depend on it. Let’s hack into the problem chunk by chunk.

What causes muscles to grow?

Muscle growth, what most people mean by “building muscle” is what is called scientifically called as muscle hypertrophy. There are three basic types of muscles, cardiac (heart), smooth (typically in your digestive system) and skeletal muscles (that moves bones and other structures in the body). You are probably referring to skeletal muscles. Skeletal muscles are also called voluntary muscles, because you typically need to move them with commands from your brain (unlike cardiac and smooth muscles which move without you commanding them to). During exercise and other physical activity, these muscles, such as your biceps, triceps, abdominal and chest muscles, are targeted.

Skeletal muscles are made of bundles of fibers, called myofibrils. The contraction of these myofibrils causes the muscular contractions that are responsible for the movements of our body. With vigorous use, such as when you exercise, especially strenuous exercise, very small tears or micro-tears occur in your myofibrils. When these micro-tears heal, more myofibrils thicken and increase in number, increasing the size of your muscles.

There are two general types of skeletal muscle fibers: slow-twitch (Type I) and fast-twitch (Type II). More slow-twitch muscles fibers are activated in slower movements. They do not contract as fast, but they recover faster, meaning they can be activated more often, which makes they more useful in activities that involve endurance and sustained periods of strength. Meanwhile, fast-twitch muscles contract quickly helping generate speed and power. However, fast-twitch muscles recover less slowly, and are used more for bursts of power and speed. Most movements will recruit both fast and slow-twitch muscles, but in different ratios, depending on the speed and type of movement.

Activities that rely on repetitive strength like weight training or bodybuilding tends to use a lot more slow-twitch muscles. Repetitively lifting weights, typically done in a controlled manner, requires the endurance of the muscle fibers. This is good news for bodybuilders, whose main objective is growing their muscles. Slow-twitch muscle fibers hypertrophy to a greater degree, which means they add more thickness and size to your muscles. Fast-twitch muscles also hypertrophy but not as much as slow twitch muscle fibers.

Meanwhile, actions that have a lot of speed involved, such as throwing a punch or a kick as you would in MMA, use a lot more fast-twitch muscles. That doesn’t mean you will purely use fast-twitch muscles. Like most movements, punches and kicks will use and develop both fast and slow-twitch muscles. But they won’t “grow” your muscles as much as exercises that target strength-building and slow-twitch muscles.

Any physical activity will grow the muscles, the question is just how fast and by how much.

Is MMA the fastest way to build muscles?

If we are just talking about just become a muscular dude, all ripped up, then the answer unfortunately is “No”. All things being equal, the fastest sport that will get ripped and muscular is of course bodybuilding, the sport that specializes in building muscle.

That means if I have an average person that will train with the world’s best coaches three times a week, two hours each training session, and you ask me whether his muscles will grow faster from MMA or bodybuilding, the answer is bodybuilding. Growing your muscles is precisely what the sport of bodybuilding is all about. MMA is about fighting.

Of course, I said “all things being equal.”  There are a lot of other factors, like how you spend your training time, motivation and intensity of the training sessions. MMA of course takes a whole lot more skills that bodybuilding or weight training, and these skills take lots of time. And, as we will see later on in the article, a lot will depend on how your coach will train you.

How fast can MMA training build muscles?

As mentioned, MMA is not specialized for building or growing muscles. There already is a sport specialized in building muscle – bodybuilding. However, that doesn’t mean MMA won’t build muscle. Depending on your MMA training program, you can get pretty ripped and build your muscles in a short span on time.

In fact, it is very possible that you can build muscle faster training in MMA than a person starting out as bodybuilder, if you put other factors into play. If you train with a lot intensity, you will burn a tremendous amounts of energy and every train every major muscle group. When you do bodybuilding or weight training, the tendency is to focus on the muscles you involved in lifting and pushing weights. Meanwhile, heavy MMA training will not just train you for strength, but increase your cardiovascular system, meaning your heart and lungs, which will increase your capacity to train harder and expend more energy. This will results in a virtuous cycle of ever-increasing gains.

Especially when you are new to MMA, and your coach let you go through some really hard grappling or wrestling session, you can be pretty sure your muscles are going to experience stresses. When you get out of bed the next day with your body aching like it never did before, in places you never knew existed, you can be pretty sure your muscles are going to experience a lot of hypertrophy.

Compared to hitting the iron in the gym, it is hard to achieve the same level of total body workout that will leave your body sore for days than a string of very intense grappling sparring sessions or wrestling drills, with your training partner trying to tear your head off.

What kind of MMA training will you do?

MMA is a sport. There is no one correct way to train for it. Because it’s a competitive sport, on a very basic level, the training which is the most effective is the training which makes you win more often. Some coaches and clubs like to focus primarily on technique, with little conditioning exercises. Meanwhile, others like to use a lot of exercise, training you like an absolute beast. Whether you will build muscle through MMA training or not, and how fast you will build them, will depend on how training is conducted.

Coaches which focus on technique, while they might make more effective fighters in the long run, will not build your muscles as fast as coaches who focus on strength and conditioning. Meanwhile, there are coaches who will push you past your limits with extremely difficult strength and conditioning training that can be way more physically punishing than an ordinary day lifting weights at the gym.

If your coach runs you and your team through round after gruelling round of intense wrestling or grappling, you can be pretty sure you’re going home with lots of well-worked out muscles. However, if you have a coach who just lets his student line up and do punches in the air, nitpicking on their technique and talking all the time, you probably would get much of a work out.

While it is possible to make sweeping generalizations on how fast a sport, such as MMA, can build your body, the way your coach trains you will be the biggest factor. This is especially true with MMA that requires both high levels of skills and technique, and strength and conditioning.

Grappling-heavy MMA training tends to build muscle

From a purely muscle-building perspective, grappling training tends to build muscle faster that striking. I’m not saying that striking won’t make you buffed. Obviously, just by engaging in striking sports you can get ripped. But we’re on the topic of muscle-building, so let’s dive right into the reasons why.

One reason for this is biomechanics.  Human anatomy has a lot larger muscles for pulling actions, such as crawling and climbing, compared to muscles for striking and pushing. Compare the size of your back muscles, such as your lats (latissimus dorsi) which are meant for pulling something towards you, compared to your chest (pectoralis major) muscles which are meant to push.

Grappling sports keep in in constant contact with your opponents. This creates constant tension and struggle to. Just holding your position against your opponent is a form of exercise. It’s called an isometric exercise. If you have a 180-pound opponent pushing or pulling your, you body is exerting about 180-pounds of force of force resisting it. A moving, resisting body weight can train your muscles a lot faster than a barbell of the same weight can.

This constant application of resistance and force in grappling sports tends to build not just the major muscle groups, but your core muscles as well. The core muscles are the muscles of your torso that keep your body stable. It is true that striking also builds your core muscles. Each time your body throws a kick or punch, your core muscles have to be act to keep your body stable. However, in grappling, the core muscles are always highly engaged.

Lastly, grappling uses a lot more strength, such as during holds and escapes, rather than striking which uses more explosive power. As can be remembered, it is usually the slow-twitch muscles fibers that hypertrophy and gain size faster, as compared to the fast-twitch muscle fibers.

Which Muscles Will MMA Build the Most?

Being a fighting sport, MMA will build practically every muscle group of your body.We’ll use the weight training program for general fitness as a benchmark to compare and contrast. There will be some ways that your muscles will be built differently, compared to how one would be built from a regular weight training program.

The first difference, which was already mentioned, is the that MMA will build the core muscles a lot more than a regular weight training programs. Many of these core muscles are muscles that the average gym goer has not even heard of, such as the transverse abdominis or internal abdominal obliques. But these are the muscles that add overall multi-purpose strength, such as the kind of strength to lift and slam a struggling opponent on the mat.

The large muscles used for large movements will be built faster than your extremities. A weight training program might train your biceps and triceps and quadriceps a lot, since these will be isolated in neat little moves like bicep curl, tricep extensions and leg extensions. Meanwhile, being a combat sport, MMA will find always have the major muscle groups in play. A punch, if done correctly will throw the entire body in the motion, activating the entire chest, shoulders and arms, down to the core and legs. In fact, it will be likely that your large muscle groups, such as your chest and back muscles will get a lot of activation.

One thing that you’ll build in MMA are strong neck muscles, especially if you have a strong wrestling element in the training. Novices to wrestling almost always experience stiffness and soreness in their neck muscles like nothing they have ever felt before. Having to resist head control will put a strain on your neck muscles like no sport can (aside from wrestling itself and other grappling sports). Muscles like these are hard to train in the gym.

MMA programs which tend to focus on striking will build the extremities more than those that are grappling-heavy. Strikers will tend to have more developed shoulders, chests, triceps, and leg muscles, compared to their grappler counterparts, who will have stronger backs, biceps, necks and core muscles.

Compared to an average weight training program, there may be challenges to someone training in MMA to build leg strength. If it comes to just building the size of one’s leg muscles, weight training may be needed to build them. Unless, as an MMA fighter you train a lot in kicks, the leg strength does tend to be neglected in MMA. This is because unlike in weight training where you can isolate your legs for strength training, it is on often that find situations in MMA where you can use the full power of your legs to lift something. In other words, if an MMA fighter is not careful, he can end up with chicken legs.

How big can my muscles get with MMA?

The honest answer to this is that without the repetitive kind of strength training you get with weight training, you shouldn’t expect your muscles to get anywhere near the size of someone who trains with weights.

First of all, weight training targets the slow-twitch muscles which build muscle mass. MMA will make you stronger, but this will be the kind of strength that won’t add as much mass to your muscles. You will also be training the fast-twitch muscles in MMA, especially in striking and power moves, such as takedowns and throws. This is unlike in weight training where the primary target are the Type I slow-twitch muscle that grow the most.

A lot of the muscle growth in MMA happens in the muscles that are specifically trained, so are not as visible. The core muscles, support muscles,  tall those muscles you probably haven’t heard of are growing as well. Even the tendons and ligaments get stronger will all the wholistic training you get with MMA. Meanwhile, since weight training isolates muscles, like the bicep and chest and quads, any gains in muscle mass are easily seen.

Another reason why weight training builds muscles with greater mass is that weight training activates and isolates muscles throughout the full range of motion. This full range of motion translates to micro-tears more evenly distributed throughout the whole muscle, leading to overall larger muscle mass. The movements you make in MMA , as in most sports, mostly train muscles in the shorter range of motion required to execute the move. This can be the shorter range of motion needed for a punch, kick or a chokehold. This is a lot shorter than one full controlled repetition in weight training.

Weight training makes it easier to add more and more resistance, just by adding more plates. Resistance equals micro-tears, and micro-tears lead to hypertrophy, which is muscle growth. MMA training generally give you enough resistance to get the job done, such as to lift and slam your opponent, or you tap out your opponent. As your improve in skill in MMA, less and less strength is needed to get the same job done.

Maintaining muscle size requires constant attention. While in weight training this can be planned out, the nature of the sport of MMA calls for always working out different situations and angles. This means that muscle learns to adapt with whatever resistance it is meeting at that time, rather than have one specific groove of repeated motion, which creates the micro-tears that build the mass over time.

Lastly, MMA is really a game that relies heavily on skill. A lot more time is be spent learning the skills than causing hypertrophy in your muscles. In fact, spending too much time in the gym lifting weights trying to get buffed will most likely take away time that could be better spend sharpening your skills. But, one thing for sure though, you will get really fit, and even ripped, not just put on so much muscle mass.

Parting thoughts on MMA building muscles

In a contest on who will have bigger muscles, someone who trains exclusively in body building and weight training will always win out in the end over an MMA fighter, if the same amount of effort is applied. However, MMA can get you really fit, and your muscles will grow. If your concern is whether or not you will not look like a weakling if you exclusively MMA training, the good news is you won’t. Provided your coach trains you right, you can expect overtime, your chest, back and every muscle group will grow to some degree as your overall strength increases.

MMA as a sport is way too demanding to produce a weakling with no muscles. In fact, you will have the right kind of strength. This is the functional strength you can use to defend yourself, knock out someone out or throw him to the ground. While big muscles can look intimidating, MMA can give you the confidence and skills that are more important.

One thing for sure is that no matter how big the muscles are, it is still training which will determine how well you can use this strength. In Physics, Power is Work over Time. That means to make the most of your strength you should be able to fire your punching muscles with enough multiplying speed in the right series of movements at the right time. That’s why some a well-trained fighter can punch a lot harder than some gym rat who has had too many protein shakes. Even if you can bench press 500 pounds, if you haven’t trained this strength, you will not be able to transfer this force effectively to knockdown your opponent, supposing you hit him in the first place.