Neuromuscular conditioning refers to the practice of conditioning your mind to allow you to move faster and to increase your strength. This is not a new idea, but it's not often talked about. The mind is one of the most powerful tools of a fighter, and conditioning it yields great results. Strength training will usually use neuromuscular conditioning to increase strength without increasing size. By working at high weight and low reps, you are creating new connections in your mind that allow you to more effectively control your muscles--they begin to work together more seamlessly.

Working with high weight, though, isn't always the best way to go about neuromuscular conditioning. Sometimes it's better to work with a lower and more comfortable weight that will allow you to learn the form and get your muscles working together correctly. In weight lifting, you might want to bench at a slightly lower weight, and then significantly increase it once you've taught your muscles to work together. In MMA, neuromuscular conditioning refers to learning motions that you will use in a fight.

In MMA, it is often best to work with resistance bands that can offer assistance (or resistance,) as this will teach your mind to work on a different level. Going through an accelerated motion several times will allow you to do it in a fight with nothing but instinct--if you train at your normal speed, you will be limited to that speed, since your mind can not work to balance and coordinate you at a faster speed. For strength, you can go through several functional motions over and over again to increase the power with which you can complete them, which is similar to weight training. The main difference is that you'll need to work with oddly shaped objects, like a wrestling dummy.

Most of your training in MMA will consist of neuromuscular conditioning because this is the best way to gain strength without increasing the mass of your muscles. Since you're trying to be as strong as possible at your weight, it's important not to add much muscle.