What can I do to help improve my speed for a take-down during fights?

 First and foremost an MMA athlete must be proficient at wrestling. If the athlete does not possess excellent wrestling skills, they must seek out a good wrestling team, club, or coach to begin to train take-downs with and to improve their technique. Once that is accomplished, the athlete can look to their strength program to give their body more explosiveness.

The athlete must first stabilize and strengthen the core and lower body and eventually begin to train for an increase in rate of force production. Movements best designed for this desired outcome are a variety plyometrics. Some examples of these plyometric exercises are squat jumps, split squat jumps, and one-legged squat jumps (for the most advanced athletes). Other more traditional strength exercises that will aide in the development of the lower body musculature and increase rate of

Try practicing take-downs with some resistance tubing attached to your waist and/or shoulders to improve your speed during fights. This can easily be done by simply using a weight belt and sliding the handled end of the tubing through the belt, then putting the belt on. Once this is completed, attach the looped end of the tubing to a stable surface such as a post or tree. With the tube in the back of you, move forward until you feel some resistance, then get in an athletic stance and shoot forward with good technique. Finally, return to the starting position with control (the tube will tug you back so be careful). You can even put a heavy bag in front of you for more closely simulate a real fight situation. During exercises such as this, you should only use resistance that allows you to maintain good technique as heavy loads will disrupt form and can hinder your performance.