Straight to the point and straight to what we all want to know.
Can a powerlifter be simultaneously an MMA fighter and a powerlifter?
The answer is no. Or yes, but he will be a very bad one.
The powerlifting training itself involves lifting heavy weights for a minimum number of reps.
What this type of training is doing is building your body so it can bear a sufficient amount of load for a short period.
Even though all powerlifters are very strong individuals, they all lack the condition and endurance that it takes to last three rounds in the octagon.
This is due to the excessive weight that they usually have and the types of training that they usually do.
Agility and mobility.
When powerlifting, you are gaining muscle mass and fat and all that is making movement more difficult.
Even though your enormous muscles will be capable of pushing some heavyweights.
When needed to act fast, they’ll refuse due to the weight that they themselves have.
Even if you include stretching sessions before and after your training (as you should) it doesn’t help with the range of motion of your extremities.
Range of motion and flexibility as you already know are some of the most important features that you should have if you want to be successful in the MMA sphere.
However, if you want to transition from one sport to the other, you might very successfully do so.
Even more, if you go from powerlifting to MMA you might have an edge by being more powerful than your competition.
Nevertheless, in order to switch sports, you will need to go through considerable changes in your daily routines and adapt to new regimes.
First of all, losing excess weight is a must.
This will gain you speed and improve your endurance. Including heavy cardio or HIIT sessions will be something new for you as a powerlifter, but you’ll must increase your stamina first, to be able to endure the length of the rounds.
Second, a complete change of your diet.
For those that don’t know who CT Fletcher is, he is a powerlifting legend.
He speaks about the times when he was pushing three big cheeseburgers in a meal in order to input as many calories as possible.
For powerlifting naturally, the types of calories are not so important since the need is so high that you cannot reach it if you choose only ‘clean’ food.
On the contrary of this, when training to be an MMA fighter you should take more into account what you eat and the types of calories you are taking.
After implementing the diet, implementing endurance training, and improving your flexibility and agility as an ex-powerlifter you can use your muscle power and muscle memory to deliver some bone-crushing hits.
Finally, a transition is possible, but competing in both is more-or-less not a good idea.
You can become a good MMA fighter even if you come from powerlifting, as long as you are not trying to be both.
