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Punch up your workouts, MMA-style

Staff photo by TIMOTHY P. HOWSARE

Mixed martial arts fighters, pro or amateur, are among the most physically fit athletes on the planet.

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By TIMOTHY P. HOWSARE

Hernando Today

Published: September 24, 2009

Updated: 09/28/2009 10:39 am

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Howsare

Less than three years ago, I was a gibbering heap of ketchup-stained, size-extra-large sweat clothes, sitting in front of the tube and stuffing my face with burgers, french fries, pizza and potato chips with ranch dip.

It wasn't always that way. When I was in my late 20s and early 30s, I weighed in the 130s and rode my bicycle in organized 100-mile rides called centuries.

Then, for some reason, I gave up my healthy habits, and my pants size ballooned from a 31 to a 42.

I became a "born again" exercise evangelist in April 2007 when I got sick of looking and feeling like a giant wad of cookie dough. I'm now wearing size 32 pants and competing in 5Ks and triathlons.

Besides doing the usual stuff to stay fit — running, bike riding and lifting weights — I'm in a mixed martial arts class.

Mixed martial arts is a full-combat sport that combines elements of boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, jujitsu and other disciplines.

Besides participating, I'm an avid fan, always watching Ultimate Fighting Championship events with my martial arts buddies at local sports bars.

Unlike most men, I don't really follow most sports. I don't watch football, baseball or basketball. I never played sports in high school and was always the last kid picked for teams in gym class.

I'm sometimes teased in the newsroom for my lack of sports knowledge. What I do love is shopping for clothes, and I'd probably be good at covering fashion. ("And Jessica is wearing the pink and teal evening gown …")

So why does quiet, shy little me like mixed martial arts — arguably the most brutal of all contact sports — so much? Well, for one thing, it has to be the best all-around workout there is. And, to quote a line from the movie "Fight Club" — "After fighting, everything else in your life got the volume turned down."

I used to be the kind of person who went to pieces over every little problem. Now it seems as though nothing rattles my cage. Getting the daylights pounded out of you every week and living to tell about it makes you a stronger person, I suppose.

A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to write about my sport; my first sports story was a preview of XFC 9 held Sept. 5 at the St. Pete Times Forum. And to top it off, I had press credentials to watch the fights from ringside.

XFC, or Xtreme Fighting Championships, is a Tampa-based mixed martial arts promoter. The company also owns two training gyms and recently signed a deal with HDNet to broadcast events on cable.

Mixed martial arts fighters, pro or amateur, are among the most physically fit athletes. The Marine Corps knows this and sponsors events; there also were recruiters there looking for a few more good men.

I asked a recruiter what qualities they look for in a potential Marine.

"You have to have courage; you have to have pride in what you do and be self-motivated," he said.

Martial arts is a good start, he added.

When mixed martial arts bouts began in the early 1990s, they were not unlike scenes from "Fight Club" — bare fists, no timed rounds and no referees. They were so violent that federal legislation banned the sport from cable TV.

Rules are now in place to make the sport less bloody and a little more structured, like pro boxing. One of my mixed martial arts buddies, John "The Lithuanian HitMan," was attending XFC 9 with his wife, Michelle, and their 11-year-old son, John, who is training to be a fighter.

Sitting at ringside, I could hear the thump of the fighters' bodies against the mat. I also heard a lot of gasps for air. Pretty cool. And pretty familiar.

In the main event, War Machine (formerly John Koppenhaver) eliminated Mikey Gomez with a torrent of strikes. War Machine dominated with his excellent stand-up, while Alfonso ruled with superior ground work. Punching, kicking, throw-downs and wrestling all at the same time.

To win at mixed martial arts, you must train in all aspects of fighting.

When the sport was first demonstrated to me 21/2 years ago for a story I was writing, I watched a 140-pound kickboxer spar with a 240-pound grappler. The kickboxer was faster on his feet than the grappler, but managed to hold his own when the much-bigger grappler took him to the mat. This is what turned me on to the sport.

When I train, I'm better at stand-up than ground work. I love to box, and that's where I've made the most improvement. I'm not that good at grappling, partly because I've never been overly flexible from the hips down.

In the year-and-a-half I've taken a class, I can tell the range of motion in my legs has improved, and I think this has helped my running and cycling. Who knew mixed martial arts would help me cross-train?

Mixed martial arts is a growing sport, but it's a fairly tight community of fighters.

I was thrilled by the first bout of the night, in which Sean Bartlett beat Jesse Benton. I know Bartlett, now with Team XFC. He's from Brooksville and used to train at my gym. It was a little scary for me to think that I had sparred with a guy who was fighting for real.

I'm glad he never hit me as hard as he hit Benton. I've already had two cracked ribs, a sprained ankle and a banged-up nose.

However, I always seem to bounce back from these "minor" injuries. Besides — cracked ribs are God's way of teaching you that you need to work on defense.

Timothy P. Howsare can be reached at (352) 544-5284 or thowsare@hernandotoday.com.

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