lil MMA stack

Hello my friends and foes,

I felt compelled to share this short essay on different facets of my intense training regime I have been trying to optimize. This falls outside of my total foundational supplementation and is instead an effort to cluster certain interventions around my practice time. During the times you are at your maximal recoverable volume both nervous system wise and physically, all tools must be in use!

For a full MMA fighter’s stack, please join my Patreon.

This is always joyous fun… I love teasing the variables and every variable I tease teaches me more and more about human physiology! A frame to view this essay is the body as a rate limited machine, and all of this supplementation provides a missing substrate or removes a bottleneck.

Supplements:

I have begun taking these around 30 minutes before my PM MMA session.

1200 mg of alpha GPC

Research for alpha GPC is fairly fuzzy, but mechanistically I believe from a cost and efficacy standpoint supplementing alpha GPC is worthwhile (this is person dependent, some people can be quite sensitive).

Alpha GPC is choline (which is not permeable to the BBB) bound to a phospholipid, allowing it to reach our brain. Choline is a rate limiting substrate for acetylcholine synthesis, meaning production of this neurotransmitter could be bottlenecked by less substrate availability. There are many ways to increase ACh, but I opt for a simple and low risk alpha GPC over acetylcholinesterase inhibitors.

Whenever I step foot on the mat and get ready to learn, I am well aware that I am far past the prime age to excel in the world of MMA. And this, my friends, is why I remove bottlenecks on ACh production — I want every motor skill I develop during that session to be properly encoded, so it can later be stored and pulled from again at the very time I need it. I approach every skill with great regard, as I don’t know when it could be used against me or when I will need to execute it to further a fight.

Although this is VERY oversimplified: higher ACh temporarily = better skill and memory encoding.

In conjunction with it being cheap, accessible, and helping me meet my daily choline needs, I figure this is completely reasonable and would suggest its usage could be beneficial.

I’ve done my own reading of the literature for alpha GPC but if you want a comprehensive walk through I highly recommend this website: https://examine.com/supplements/alpha-gpc/?show_conditions=true

10g of collagen and 3g of glycine

Glycine is rate limiting for collagen synthesis, your body cannot build collagen faster than your glycine supply allows. Collagen also contains hydroxyproline peptides which appear to act as signaling molecules themselves. Beyond connective tissue, glycine is required for endogenous creatine synthesis and has well documented sleep quality benefits. It’s also worth noting that pairing your collagen with vitamin C around training has evidence for further augmenting collagen synthesis, as ascorbate is a required cofactor for the hydroxylation steps. For a combat athlete, that is a remarkable amount of utility from a pretty cheap amino acid. I also keep some of the Ray Peat reasons in mind with my supplementation here, but that is a broader health thing.

I have EDS… cursed and blessed with profound hyperflexibility, but along with that comes a very high injury risk. I need to stack all of the variables to give myself the most robust tissue I can possibly have — my extracellular matrix must be as optimized as possible.

Magnesium glycinate

I take mag split PM pre practice and PM post practice, and sip low amounts of magnesium in my remineralized water. Athletes need more than they think, and more than commonly suggested, and must pay attention to the back of their magnesium supplements as to ensure they are actually getting enough magnesium. EXAMPLE: 500mg of magnesium advertised but supplement is only delivering 90mg. 

Magnesium seems to have a positive impact on exercise performance (Zhang), and it is often a low hanging fruit as magnesium deficiency is one of the most common deficiencies.

I am not going to get into the weeds with mag, but one author sums it up concisely, commenting that magnesium is “involved with or linked to the promotion of Ca2+ transport in/out of the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR), regulation of glycolytic metabolic pathways, oxygen delivery and uptake, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production, an activator and cofactor of > 300 enzymatic reactions, regulation of muscle contraction and nerve impulses.”

The MMA benefit of mag is so goated as it is required for every step of glycolysis and helps clear lactate; keep the multifactorial benefits in mind when you take it because that makes it work better, lol.

I take / drink 200 mg of mag glycinate around practice time specifically. 

My drink concoction

I have been drinking water + electrolytes basically the entire time I have been training (or milk in my early MMA days because I was trying to bulk. in retrospect that was kind of gross), but I decided I needed to spice up my water, both remineralizing all of the water I drink, and around MMA practice additionally adding in some electrolytes (I like 40,000 volts as a product for this.)

I do around 3 hours (or more) of MMA in the evening. Even if I am not intensely rolling the whole time, it is still very taxing learning new techniques. I wanted to add in highly branched cyclic dextrin to keep the influx of fast carbs without gastric bulk, but it’s far too expensive for my unemployed martial artist budget (I don’t have a trust fund, I travel bare bones, drive a 97 corolla, and live in a 10×10 dorm. I do not know where people get this idea). 

I am gonna do a little more research and see if I can find a Chinese supplier and buy some bulk, or maybe sell it undercutting others just because I adore it for weightlifting and very long MMA training, but I have to see where the prices actually are.

Luckily I found a cheaper alternative called waxy maize starch, being highly branched (although not cyclic) and having a super high molecular weight. It is only about 5-10 minutes slower in gastric emptying than cyclic dextrin but considerably faster than maltodextrin, dextrose, or bananas. Warning, it stirs horribly. 

I take 1 scoop (45g) of waxy maize starch during training with my water for stable energy, glycogen replenishment, preventing low-carb brain fog, and preventing muscle catabolism. I have to divide the scoops and also use a little springy thing in my cup so it fully mixes.

You can’t replace carbs at high intensities — yes, in states like ketosis you may burn fats for longer but eventually you have to switch to glycolysis. I know it’s controversial but from what I can see, in elite athletes there is only so far you can go on keto, you have to add carbs back in eventually for optimal performance. But keep building that aerobic base! Maximizing the amount of work you can do using fat oxidation is always something I suggest and attempt to do myself.

6 grams of beta alanine

The only other powder I use in my drink is beta alanine. I do not expect the results to be incredible, but since it is cheap, easy, and has consistent evidence I do believe that it’s worth using. Beta alanine’s effects are NOT acute, they build up in your system.

Beta alanine is a non essential amino acid that binds with another amino acid in cells to form carnosine. Carnosine is an intracellular buffer that helps us buffer out excess hydrogen ions… but above its buffering capacity it also has evidence that it acts as an antioxidant.

The literature on beta alanine does seem to show a slight, reproducible benefit that manifests as improved performance in high intensity exercise. This meta analysis shows a 2.8% median improvement across studies (Hobson), and although that seems quite small, if I can use a powder and get a confirmed 2.8% improvement I will be happy to take it. You play when you have an edge, keep an edge in every single area possible. 

Since it is not acute, how long do you need to be on it?

It seems like the answer is around 4-10 weeks of 4-6g daily (I take 6). Carnosine content in muscle is increased 64% after 4 weeks of supplementation (Trexler), and notably the benefits appear to be greatest for efforts in the 1-4 minute range… which maps almost perfectly to hard MMA rounds. The upper limit of carnosine content in muscles has yet to be identified.

The research I have looked at mentions that beta alanine doses should be split throughout the day, Asian females seem to experience the most tingling side effect, but just use your own feeling to advise the amount and timing of your dosing. Personally the skin tingling does not bother me in the slightest, and there is no evidence that it is harmful.

One thing I should note is not to take beta alanine with taurine as they share the same transporters (Murakami).

This is rather rudimentary, more comprehensive supplementation is on my patreon. Joining gives you both more content, and a way to support my journey of training and knowledge aquisition. 

EDIT: Of course, 20g of creatine & DHA are also in this stack! That, however, is in my morning stack. I intended for this to be guidance on my stack close to practice as I am trying to optimize my variables. Let me know if you have any questions.

Sources

Shaw G, Lee-Barthel A, Ross ML, Wang B, Baar K. Vitamin C-enriched gelatin supplementation before intermittent activity augments collagen synthesis.

Am J Clin Nutr. 2017 Jan;105(1):136-143. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.116.138594. Epub 2016 Nov 16. PMID: 27852613; PMCID: PMC5183725. Balu DT, Coyle JT.

Dietary exposure to creatine-precursor amino acids in the general population. Amino Acids 57, 29 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-025-03460-7 Zhang Y, Xun P, Wang R, Mao L, He K.

Can Magnesium Enhance Exercise Performance? Nutrients. 2017 Aug 28;9(9):946. doi: 10.3390/nu9090946. PMID: 28846654; PMCID: PMC5622706. Hobson RM, Saunders B, Ball G, Harris RC, Sale C.

Effects of β-alanine supplementation on exercise performance: a meta-analysis. Amino Acids. 2012 Jul;43(1):25-37. doi: 10.1007/s00726-011-1200-z. Epub 2012 Jan 24. PMID: 22270875; PMCID: PMC3374095. Trexler ET, Smith-Ryan AE, Stout JR, Hoffman JR, Wilborn CD, Sale C, Kreider RB, Jäger R, Earnest CP, Bannock L, Campbell B, Kalman D, Ziegenfuss TN, Antonio J.

International society of sports nutrition position stand: Beta-Alanine. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2015 Jul 15;12:30. doi: 10.1186/s12970-015-0090-y. PMID: 26175657; PMCID: PMC4501114. .Murakami T, Furuse M.

The impact of taurine- and beta-alanine-supplemented diets on behavioral and neurochemical parameters in mice: antidepressant versus anxiolytic-like effects. Amino Acids. 2010;39(2):427–34. doi: 10.1007/s00726-009-0458-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]