Outfighting in Mixed Martial Arts Personal Training

jamie03066
20 hours ago
2 min read

03.02.2026

Mixed Martial Arts Personal Training

Hour four of my client Mixed Martial Arts Personal Training took our focus onto outfighting. Last week we recapped the Jeff Chan seminar material, which worked a lot at long range attack and defence. Therefore, it made sense to go through our cross-training and look at ways to isolate outfighting strategies

Two people practise martial arts in a gym with red mats. One kicks, wearing gloves. Text reads "OUTFIGHTING IN MIXED MARTIAL ARTS" with a blog link. — Mixed martial arts training in action at Clubb Chimera, showcasing out-fighting techniques. Read more about it on the blog!

Fighting on the outside

We used the outside zone approach to look at three areas of MMA. The outside zone places one fighter on the inside four squares and his opponent on the surrounding squares. The outside fighter can only attack the inside opponent when occupying the inside squares. The inside fighter cannot cross to the outsides. This encourages the outside fighter to drop their attack and exit, planning both beforehand. Meanwhile the outside fighter tries two different strategies: defend the outside edge or draw the opponent into the centre. We sparred for three-minute rounds.

Round One and Two - We wore MMA gloves but restricted sparring to Boxing techniques only.

Round Three and Four - Still wearing MMA gloves we now permitted kicks as well as punches.

Round Five and Six - Outside fighter is only permitted punches and kicks wheres the inside fighter tries to clinch.

Submission Grappling

We then sparred for 2 x 5-minutes rounds restricted to just Submission Grappling. This is a great way to finish the session as the format allows for intensive sparring with minimal risk from strikes. In line with the lesson's theme, we pitted top position against bottom position, which is a bit like outside verses inside fighting on the ground.

Warm-Down

The session concluded with a comprehensive full-body cooldown that incorporated mobility exercises, isometric training using the PNF (Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation) stretching protocol, and dynamic stretching.