Getting ReadyTo Rumble

T3’s Mixed Martial Arts Fighter Grapples With the Latest Training Tech to See if It Can Prepare Her for a Forthcoming Cage Battle.

- Polly Beauchamp

MMA, or Mixed Martial Arts, is a tough business. If you’re not good enough to defend yourself and attack your opponent as necessary, you get punched in the face (and these gloves aren’t as padded as boxing gloves), kicked all over your body, grappled to the floor and put in all manner of locks.

DING-DING!

You need to have mental and physical determination to fight in a cage. You have to be prepared to push yourself, especially when training. There will be times when all you want to do is sit on the sofa and eat cake; but you know you have to go to your training session and stay on the clean diet. Before the T3 editor contacted me to see if we could raise my fighting and training game with the latest tech, I used old-school methods: running, hitting bags, sparring… But with a fight coming up in four weeks, it’s time to step things up a level.

WEEK ONE

I decide to start the week with a 6.5-km hill run, plus some judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and kickboxing. What better way to track my running performance than with the new Apple Watch Series 2? I’ve got the aluminium bezel, as it’s slightly lighter [30 per cent lighter, actually – Ed] with the white sport band. I can leave my phone at home while I’m out, thanks to the built-in GPS, and get a detailed report of my run – including where I sped up and slowed down – in the Activity app on my iPhone when I get home. And, of course, I can continue to measure my heart rate.