TAMPA, Fla. - Before surgery slowed him this offseason, Russell Martin had been engaged in a new kind of training.

New for him, anyway.

Martin, signed by the Yankees in December to be their starting catcher, said he enters spring training 15 pounds lighter than last spring (215 compared with 230). And he credited that mostly to training in a similar way to high-level mixed martial arts athletes.

"Those guys, of all the sports, they have to be in the best shape," Martin said yesterday morning. "Because if they're not in shape, they get tired, they get beat up. So it's like, they have to be tiptop. You want that way in any sport. You want to push your body to its maximum potential."

Martin, 27, received guidance from someone in the MMA know. Martin, a Montreal product who lives there in the offseason, said he worked with the same trainer who trains MMA star Georges St. Pierre, also a Montreal resident. Martin said he was a fan of St-Pierre, attending a bout and watching - he was quick to say he didn't participate - a sparring session.

Martin described the training as "high-intensity work with short recovery times" that has him feeling in better shape than he has been in years.

"Taking swings," he said, gesturing to the batting cage. "I never get tired."

Much of the "high-intensity" work was done during the first part of his offseason. The second half Martin has been relegated to working on his upper body, otherwise recovering from the surgery he underwent Dec. 17 to fix the small meniscus tear in his right knee, discovered during his physical after signing a one-year contract with the Yankees. A right hip injury sustained Aug. 3 cost him the rest of the 2010 season, but Martin said the hip essentially was healed before the surgery.

He said the knee is "not completely 100 percent," but that he's running at 75 percent and will squat and catch this morning for the first time since surgery.

"I think I'll be ready for the season for sure," he said. "I can't predict the future but how I feel right now, I feel pretty good, so I'm pretty confident."

Martin has looked at video of some of the Yankees pitchers and is ready for Monday when pitchers and catchers have their first workout. He knows general manager Brian Cashman has said he'll start, but he's not taking it for granted.

"You have to prove yourself out there," said Martin, who followed up All-Star seasons with the Dodgers in 2007 and '08 with poor seasons in '09 and '10. "I have to prove myself to the pitchers. The guys are going to have to like throwing to me. If they don't like throwing to me, I'm not going to catch."

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