MMA Techniques and Exercises: Vitor Belfort

Explosive Hand Speed - If there is one MMA technique that you need to take from "The Phenom's" game, that technique is extra explosive hand speed. Vitor has been around for a long time, and is one of my favorite fighters of all time. If only he could have beat Randy Couture! Vitor is on a 5 fight win streak and is in line to be the next challenger to Anderson Silva's throne (Anderson Silva is one of my favorites, but when this happens, I will be pulling for Belfort). His explosive hands have got him there. If you want to become a better fighter, you should strive to develop your hand explosiveness to the level of Belfort's. How do you get it there? First of all, as many have said, notably Bruce Lee, power and speed go hand-in-hand. Develop power and you develop speed. Develop speed and you develop power. Ways to develop speed and power, like Belfort's, in MMA:

1) Specialized Heavy Bag Work

The heavy bag is known to develop power in punches all in its own, but you can specialize your heavy back workout so that it will work even more to your advantage. If you are trying to develop the power and speed in your punches like Vitor Belfort, then try doing what I call 8Set Heavy Bag Work. From the time you start on the heavy bag until you finish you will NOT continuously through random combinations and strikes. Instead, each time you approach the heavy bag, you will throw each punch as hard and as fast as possible, and in sets of 8. You cannot hit the heavy bag once without following with 7 more very quick very hard punches. Once you throw your eight, back off for about 5 seconds, circle, and attack again, with all the power and speed you can. Not only will this develop explosive power and speed, but it will work your cardio and also get you out of the rhythm of 1-2 1-2 punching on the heavy bag, that so many people get in to. As you know with Vitor (or you will know if you watch the videos), his explosive punches come in wolf packs.

2) Candle Flame Exercise

Noted by Bruce Lee, this is a very simple but utterly effective technique for increasing punching power and speed. All you need to do is light a candle, then punch at it. Try to put it out with the acceleration of your punch.

3) Sparring

Grab some head gear and get to it. A helpful drill will be to throw punches while your partner blocks. If he misses a block, you should be able to stop close to his face. The ability to stop a punch on a missed block within a quarter inch of your partners face is superb reaction time, and reaction time is speed, and again - speed is power and explosiveness.

4) Y = mx+b

Remember, the shortest path to anywhere, including someone's face, is a straight line. The straighter your punch, the quicker.

5) Speed-Bag

The name says it all here. Practice, practice, practice.

6) Watch The Videos

I have included some videos, 3 of which are either him training or him instructing. Watch and learn. The other two are highlights. Watch the hands in action.

Explosive punching power and speed is an MMA technique that every truly great fighter should possesses. If you want to be one of the few, give these exercises a try.

This article is part of a series to help amateur mixed martial artists improve their game by providing broad overview of different techniques and attributes that make a complete fighter, and then giving acute insight into how to get there. If you want more exercises to develop different MMA techniques, look out for other contributions to the series.