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1. Raw Strength – Crossfit involves lifting heavy weight usually at low reps. The benefit of this is that you develop incredibly strong muscles and tendons (which hold muscle to bone) without packing on more mass than your genetics allow. The lower the rep range, the more you begin working on pure strength and power. This is different to body building where you execute slow movements engaging as many muscle fibres as possible and experience the ‘pump’ and ultimately build a lot of bulky muscle – not useful for MMA.
2. Anaerobic Endurance – Do to the intense and relatively short exercise duration in Crossfit, your body has to work in its anaerobic zone. This means the body is working too hard to get enough oxygen to a) create energy and b) to remove lactic acid. Therefore Crossfit style training makes the MMA athlete accustomed to working with low amounts of oxygen in their system and helps build up a tolerance to lactic acid.
3. Muscular Endurance – Like with anaerobic endurance, the Crossfit athlete is required to perform high repetitions of athletic exercises making the heart work hard in order to get oxygen to those muscles to produce energy and remove lactic acid.
4. Mental Determination – Workouts often involve completing seemingly impossible repetitions of an exercise. This forces the athlete to push themselves far beyond what they believe they are capable of. This helps develop mental fortitude similar to competing in MMA and other combat sports.