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I think this question should be asked in the health or body building forum but I can answer it as I’ve lost 60 lbs.

It depends on how you take the workouts as well as what martial art you will take. Muay Thai and karate could be great cardio as well as the boxing portion for your striking. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu will give you hard core muscles but won’t really help you gain much muscle anywhere else. Judo may help you with cardio but then again Judo, BJJ, Aikido and those martial arts that base their philosophies on leverage and weight distribution won’t help much with gaining muscle and will help only a bit with cardio because you are suppose to work on technique not on out muscling your opponent. Wrestling will make you bigger because while they work on leverage and weight distribution like Judo, BJJ, etc. they also use strength because while the BJJ artist and Judokan will say if there is an obsticle simply get around it, a wrestler is told to smash through it.

Case in point:

BJJ masters are Marcelo Garcia, Gustavo Machado, Demian Maia, Thales Leites, Royce Gracie, and BJ Penn. These guys aren’t those big bodybuilder types.

Wrestlers: Chael Sonnen, Dan Henderson, Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin, Bruno Sammartino, Randy Couture, Kurt Angle, and Gray Maynard these guys seem to be the bigger and stockier guys that can power out of their opponents.

Muay Thai/Karate/Taekwondo/Kung fu artists: Lyoto Machida, Shogun, Anderson Silva, Bruce Lee, Cung Li, Bas Rutten, Anderson Silva, and even Mike tyson in his prime. These guys are more toned hence the more detailed and sculpted frames.

I’m generalizing of course but for the most part you can kind of get the idea. This also depends on how you wish to take your training. I train in Judo, wrestling and BJJ and was born stocky and now I have more of slender physique because I jog for an hr. a day as well as some strength training so my body is more slender and I’ve got a lot of power. I also eat fruits and vegetables so to keep that slender look.

Like I said, it all depends on how you want to view your training. To answer your questions more directly, though, boxing is known for great cardio and upper body strength. I can’t answer about MMA because there are so many things you can train. I don’t evactly know what you are looking for because as I said originally this is such a general question that you can write a book on it and this is also a question for a personal trainer or in the other forum.

My last note is on the fact that you are a girl. Your genes will never allow you to get very big unless you start injecting yourself with human growth formulas and steroids. Men get huge because of our testerone, women usually get toned because of their higher level of estrogen. While both sexes have testerone and estrogen we both have different levels of one of them.

it would most likely tone you up and make you gain about 25lbs if you eat and do everything right.