MMA Fitness Assessments Part 2

Had a lot of people put their results into the first fitness assessment, which measured upper body push strength and endurance, great job!

So now, here’s Part 2 of the assessments for you to try out.

We’ll be taking a look at your lower body strength, power, and power endurance with these 3 tests.

One of them will even tell us if you’re ready for the NBA or not.

I’m sure you can guess what it is.

Anyway – here are the 3 tests – let’s see what you got:

1) Max vertical jump (inches)

Your vertical jump is a good indicator of your lower body explosive power relative to your body weight.

Here’s how to take it if you don’t have any fancy $1000 jump measurement device.:

1. Grab a roll of masking tape
2. Stand next to a wall with the hand you’ll jump and reach with and reach up as high as you can (not on your tippy toes)
3. Tape a line at your middle finger
4. Roll some tape around your 3 middle fingers
5. Jump as high as you can (no running start) and stick the tape to the wall at the peak of your jump
6. Measure the distance between the 2 lines – this is your vert

MY #: 32 inches

2) Back squat (3RM)

Heavy Back squats will give you an idea of your lower body strength. But if you’re not used to squatting heavy, work your way up to it, or just figure out your 6RM.

Also make sure your thigh hits parallel and your hip goes just below your knee – if you don’t know what this is, you’re probably not squatting low enough, so get your ass down!

MY #: 275 lbs

3) Vertical Jump Repeats (#) 

Unfortunately, this test requires that you do some math (sorry for you with concussions).

Here’s how you do it:

1. Multiply your max vert by 0.8 to find 80% of your max. For me this is 32 x 0.8 = 25.6 inches (round up to 26").
2. Tape a line 26" above the line where you reached your hand up
3. Stand in place and jump and reach the new line each time
4. Once you can’t reach the line anymore, record that number
5. Make sure you don’t pause between jumps, you should land, bend into it a bit then jump again right away

This test shows you your power endurance – how many reps you can maintain 80% of your maximum power output for.

MY #: TBD

So there you have 3 tests to give you an idea of where your lower body explosiveness and strength are.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to post their results to the last test – let’s see what you’ve got for these 3, post your results below.

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