Whenever I watch ufc or ofc, I notice the fighters are flooded with so much impact to their bodies. How are they so durable tho? I get they do conditioning. I also do body conditioning because I do mma too. But whenever I spar someone it hurts so much after. In the moment, my adrenaline deals with it but afterwards everything hurts so much. Do they also feel this?
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For a moment I read this as “mama” fighters and thought, mom’s are just pretty damn strong?
In addition to what everyone else said, it’s simple natural selection. The guys who couldn’t take the ridiculous damage simply stopped competing, you’re only seeing the most naturally durable and hardened motherfuckers because they’re the only ones who made it that far
I used to be a lacrosse goalie and I can only imagine the process is similar. Beyond techniques to reduce the incoming momentum of the punch, you sort of just learn to deal with the pain and it toughens you up over time. I’ve gone to the hospital with severe afflictions only to be discounted since “I am in no visible pain”. After the test results come back, they offer me a list of pain killers unprompted.
You can definitely train yourself to ignore pain. As long as you’re still functioning they will just keep going despite the pain. + adrenaline obviously helps out
Pain tolerance is a tolerance, like anything it must be built up and wanes with inactivity. Even an elite pro fighter will have a really significant pain tolerance difference after a camp vs before.
Conditioning, adrenaline, training, all viable factors that build pain tolerance. But psychology and mindset play what is probably the largest role.
If you’ve got a goal that can only be achieved with immense physical pain/stress, if you’re committed to it enough you will endure and surpass your normal limits to get there.
Stories of people dragging themselves, possibly mauled by a bear, miles through snow and sub zero temperatures where they should have gone into shock and died within 20 mins but somehow cling to life for days. Or the classic “mother lifts car off child; destroys body in process, normally can’t open jar of pickles”. Your brain controls what your body can do, and your mind (I.e. you and subconscious you) partially controls your brain. Psychology is probably the single most powerful and least understood part of human biology, and it’s that single minded dogmatism that some people really attach to (e.g. “I am going to fucking win no matter what”) that can really push the limits of what traditional conditioning/chemicals alone would allow.
It’s the combo of all of those things in the perfect cocktail at the right time that creates legends and myths of legitimately superhuman feats.
It’s called conditioning. During training, their bones consistently take impact, causing them to slightly fracture. When these fractures heal, the bone is slightly stronger. Doing this for long periods of time will strengthen your bones a great deal.
As someone else mentioned, adrenaline also plays a huge part. They may seem resistant in the moment, but they start to feel it the day after.
mma fighter here, the answer is consistency. everyone i train with is running at a baseline level of horrific levels of soreness/pain. we literally just goto practice twice a day, fuck our bodies up really bad, go home, eat sleep repeat. overtime i guess you kind of condition your body but honestly it’s largely mental. i know when i get on the mat and i feel like dog shit, i know deep down i have the power to get warmed up and start sweating and i’ll subconsciously forget about my pain so i can train. it’s up to me to force that tho. also lots of guys are on steroids/peds lmao
MMA fighters are conditioned to take a beating. This is done through constant training and sparring, being hit over and over and over again. The body becomes accustomed to this trauma and is able to react to pain in a more effective way.
This is why MMA fighters don’t fight 3-4 times a week like a lot of other sports (basketball, hockey, etc) play. They tap into adrenaline and keep going, but the recovery time is pretty severe. They can block out the pain during the fight, but you won’t see them matching up against someone else for a while, because they have to let their body heal, and then recondition to get back in fighting shape after an extended rest period where their body heals.
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