Photo from PurdueSports.com

Domenic Reno, Purdue University’s (Ind.) senior associate director of football strength & conditioning, has found parallels between football and mixed martial arts (MMA)—leading him to introduce MMA as part of the performance program for Purdue’s football team.

Reno first became familiar with MMA after joining a fitness center specializing in MMA, Brazilian jiu jitsu and kickboxing.

While Reno was training there, he ran into Bellator MMA fighter and former Purdue defensive tackle, Matt Mitrione. Mitrione was looking for someone to train him for an upcoming fight and Reno was a perfect fit.

According to an article from Purdue, “Mitrione's traits from the gridiron and in the octagon made transitioning from football to MMA training nearly seamless for Reno. He first began building up Mitrione's mass before transitioning to more conditioning to get the fighter to the ideal weight and shape for the bout.”

The ways that certain skills and techniques correlated between football and MMA became clear for Mitrione and Reno.

“You have to have good footwork to play the defensive line and you have to have that in the cage,” Mitrione told USA Football last year.

After working with Mitrione and seeing the benefits of introducing MMA concepts to football players, Reno began incorporating the MMA-style workouts as cross training for Purdue’s football program.

In addition to footwork, the MMA training challenges football players to improve on eye-hand coordination, focus and technique.

"Twice a week we do mitt drills with the football players to work with eye-hand coordination and the speed of the hands. We put the gloves on and the guys love it. It's low impact on the legs, it gets their blood flowing and they want to do it because it's something different than what they're used to doing,” he said.”

One of the other key areas that MMA training can improve—hand speed—is applicable to all positions, according to Reno.

"The building of the hand speed is huge, no matter what position," he said. "It translates to wide receivers, defensive backs, defensive line, linebackers. The only position group I don't have do the mitt work is the quarterbacks."

Read more on Purdue’s MMA training here.