What is Ground and Pound in MMA? Ultimate Guide

Martial arts history is very old. There is a lot of evolution in all martial arts, particularly in the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Many new techniques become part of the game every new year. There are some techniques in martial arts that look very simple and easy to execute on your opponent. But in reality, these are very difficult to execute. If they were easy, then everyone would be doing that technique on their opponents.

One of these techniques is ground and pound. You may think what is difficult in this technique? It's simply striking with your fists again and again. But the thing is, how are you going to be able to take your opponent to that position? What are the techniques you are going to use for that? How are you going to strike your opponent? All these answers will be discussed in this article on the topic of Ground and Pound in MMA.

Ground and pound is one of the most common techniques in mixed martial arts (MMA). It is played by many fighters to get victories. Ground and pound, as the name suggests, is the technique in which a fighter takes their opponent to the ground, gets on top of them, and starts striking them again and again until their opponent taps out. Ground and pound have two words. Pound means to strike someone forcefully, and ground means, in this context, to put your opponent to the ground. So, ground and pound is taking your opponent to the ground and striking them.

MMA fighters do ground and pound mainly for two obvious reasons which are following;

• Striking and punching again and again to your opponent can lead to technical knockout if your opponent has faced a lot of damage which is decided by the referee.

• Ground and pound cause your opponent to lose control over themselves. All they try to do in that situation is to just defend themselves. This opens many opportunities that help you to take submissions over them or any other attacks for knocking your opponent out.

You cannot explain the ground and pound technique without mentioning Khabib Nurmagomedov. Khabib has been famous for doing ground and pound over their opponents and winning the match just because of this technique. It is a signature move for Khabib. Following is the step by step guide on how can you do the ground and pound in Khabib style.

Striking is the last thing you do in the ground and pound technique. There are many other things you have to do before striking your opponent. Following are all those things which you should do.

The first thing you have to do is to get yourself into a dominant position against your opponent. Your opponent must be submissive to you. Examples of such dominant positions are;

• Full Mount

• Guard

• Half Guard

• Side Control

You can also do ground and pound from the standing position which will be discussed later in this article.

It is very important for you to keep your position in balance. Don’t let your opponent off-balance you. That is when you will lose. The things people do to maintain their balance include lowering their center of gravity, posting their knees or hands, or using their hips.

The biggest mistake MMA athletes, particularly those who are just starting, is mindless striking . You have to strike strategically. Don’t just strike on their face. Here is what you should do.

• Throw hammer fists and punches on their face.

• Try to make body shots.

• Throw elbows on your opponent.

• Not just do one thing. Do multiple things and confuse your opponent with what you are going to do next so that they cannot make themselves ready for the defense.

Your opponent will be trying continuously to save themselves from your strikes because this is all they can do. They cannot attack you if you are doing the ground and pound correctly. So you have to counter their defense. Following are the ways to prevent your opponent from defending themselves from your powerful strikes.

• Sit straight. Don’t lie to them. This will increase the distance for your punches. This increased distance will create more powerful punches.

• Use your one hand to get their face free from their hands for your punches.

• Apply pressure on their head so that they can’t move themselves a lot. When they cannot move, they cannot defend themselves.

Your opponent will try to escape from your strikes and submissions. Take control of them, and don’t let them escape.

Ground and pound from the standing position is such a powerful strike that your opponent can’t face it for a long time. You can generate very powerful punches by standing on your opponent. Follow the steps below to generate powerful punches when you are standing on your opponent.

• The first important thing for doing the ground and pound from any position is to be in a dominant position against your opponent.

• You can throw punches on your opponent to make them fall on the ground.

• Step forward your one leg and keep that leg in a bending position.

• So now, you have to keep moving beside your opponent, trying to create the right angle.

• Don’t punch when you are not perpendicular to your opponent.

• Move to their side, make a right angle, and then you can throw hammer fists, which are the kind of ground and pound strikes.

• They will try the guard position. For this, use your one hand to nullify their guard and the other hand to throw punches at them.

• Then, move again and be perpendicular from the other position, nullify their guard, and then boom! Throw powerful punches and knock them out of the ring.

The guard is one of the most common positions in the professional MMA match. So you can easily make use of that opportunity to start ground and pound on your opponent. For executing the ground and pound from the guard position, you can follow the steps given below;

• Once you are in a guard position against your opponent, make sure you are on your toes a little bit. This will make it easy for you to stand or rise if it becomes necessary when you are doing the ground and pound on your opponent.

• Be close to your opponent.

• Slightly move your opponent’s hips upward.

• Press your opponent’s upper body down towards the mat.

• Now, move your arms in between your opponent’s arms and keep your elbow in between them. This will make you come face to face with your opponent. Your opponent’s arms will not be stopping your arms from making punches now.

• You can also move your head closer to them and in between their arms.

• Now, you are in a perfect position to make punches on your opponent. Start throwing hammer fists, elbows and as mentioned previously, don’t strike in the same way. Change it and confuse your opponent so they cannot defend themselves.

Follow the tricks below for doing the perfect ground and pound;

When you are in a mounted position, you are in a great position. But that is not what you need for perfect ground and pound. You should not be throwing crazy punches on your opponent. Your hips are sitting down. Your weight is heavy on your opponent. Your knees are on the ground. You should control their head, arm, and hips. You should mix your strikes. Make sure your every punch counts. So that is everything you should keep in mind when you are trying to do the perfect ground and pound technique.

The second trick for making the perfect ground and pound technique is to grind your head on soft parts of your opponent’s face. When they feel that, they will try to turn it over. But you are already punching them on the sides of their face. So you are doing two things: grinding your head and punching their face.

The third trick is letting your opponent relax for a second. You may be thinking how is this even a good trick? Well, the trick is to let your opponent relax and show them that you are going for some submission move like seeing their legs, or a knee bar or any other thing. Just let them relax and think that now you are done and going for submission. Suddenly, make a big, powerful punch on their face. A lot of knockouts happen due to this big, powerful punch.

The last trick is to keep the palm of your hand on their mouth and nose. Try to suffocate them. Not literally, but a little bit to show them that you are going to suffocate them. They will try to turn their head away. As soon as they do this, punch their face with your elbow.

Ground and pound is a very effective technique used in mixed martial arts (MMA). The chances of knocking your opponent out with this technique are very high. Another thing that makes this technique very important for you to learn as a BJJ athlete is the easiness and simplicity of technique for execution. You can easily learn the technique and execute this technique on your opponent. There are many positions from which you can make this technique on your opponent. 

Ground and pound is one of the most common techniques in mixed martial arts (MMA). It is played by many fighters to get victories. Ground and pound, as the name suggests, is the technique in which a fighter takes their opponent to the ground, gets on top of them, and starts striking them again and again until their opponent taps out. Ground and pound have two words. Pound means to strike someone forcefully, and ground means, in this context, to put your opponent to the ground. So, ground and pound is taking your opponent to the ground and striking them.

You can do ground and pound from a lot of positions. The first thing you have to do is to get yourself into a dominant position against your opponent. Your opponent must be submissive to you. Examples of such dominant positions are full mount, guard, half guard, and side control. You can also do ground and pound from the standing position which will be discussed later in this article.

• The first thing you have to do is to get yourself into a dominant position against your opponent.

• It is very important for you to keep your position in balance. Don’t let your opponent off-balance you.

• Throw hammer fists and punches on their face.

• Try to make body shots.

• Throw elbows on your opponent

• Do multiple things and confuse your opponent

• Use your one hand to get their face free from their hands for your punches.

• Your opponent will try to escape from your strikes and submissions. Take control of them, and don’t let them escape.

• Apply pressure on their head so that they can’t move themselves a lot. 

• The first trick is to make yourself heavy on your opponent.

• The second trick for making the perfect ground and pound technique is to grind your head on soft parts of your opponent’s face.

• The third trick is to let your opponent relax and show them that you are going for some submission move like seeing their legs, or a knee bar or any other thing. Suddenly, make a big, powerful punch on their face.

• The last trick is to keep the palm of your hand on their mouth and nose. Try to suffocate them. They will try to turn their head away. As soon as they do this, punch their face with your elbow.