Martial Arts Conditioning Exercises

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Pullups help build upper body strength by developing the muscles in your upper back. These are essential for those pulling motions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu when you control your opponent, as well as for the clinch in Muay Thai and mixed martial arts.

If you are unable to do a proper pull-up, start off with easier exercises such as jump pulls or negative pull-ups, where you stand on a platform. Get your chin above the bar by jumping or stepping onto a platform, then lower yourself slowly.

You cannot talk about strength and conditioning for martial arts without mentioning the humble push-up. This is useful for the striking arts, as the pushing motions help build strength so you can put more power behind your punches.

BJJ practitioners might want to try a variation of the push-up that uses the medicine ball. Push-up on a medicine ball, then roll it over to your other hand and repeat the motion. This is great for training your balance.

Thrusters help train your explosiveness and cardiovascular fitness. Start by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, holding the barbell just in front of your shoulders. Your wrists should be positioned under the barbell. Do a full squat, and as you extend your hips and legs rapidly, use the momentum of the upward movement to push the bar up above your head.

Aim to do about eight to 12 reps. The weight should be heavy enough such that the last three reps are challenging to finish. Keep your forearms parallel to each other, and your biceps should be next to your ears in the top position.

Your toes should be pointing forward as you look ahead of you, and ensure that you do not round your back. As you lower the bar in a straight vertical motion, stick your buttocks back with your knees slightly bent. If your form is good, you should feel the stretch in your hamstrings, rather than your quads.

Those with lower back issues, however, should stay away from the back squat. Lower yourself slowly using a three-second count, ensuring your knees do not collapse inwards and go further than your toes to avoid putting unnecessary strain on your joints. Explode upwards after you have reached a full squat before quickly lowering yourself again.

Very few people can claim to enjoy doing burpees, but they are still one of the best bodyweight exercises you can do for martial arts. The action of sprawling and jumping back up to your feet mimics many of the level changes you will have to do for grappling.

Before any strength and conditioning training, martial artists should stretch and warm-up. All stretches and exercises should be supervised by a trained martial arts instructor in order to prevent injuries and to ensure the proper technique is utilized. If you have had an injury or are in pain, please see a doctor before starting any stretching or exercise program. For additional stretches and exercises, please visit the main Martial Arts Physical Fitness section.

Personally I have always preferred a good balance in life, and that goes with martial arts and strength and conditioning; it keeps things fresh learning both the technical ability and the physical conditioning even if they are to be done separately. If you are part of a dojo that does not focus on fitness but rather uses its class time for technical training, the responsibility is on you to go out and supplement your physical conditioning to progress further.

This basically translates the mass of the object in motion is doubled when it hits with twice the amount of power, thus if you strike twice as fast your output will be four times the amount of force. A rough example of this can be seen in a little bullet vs a baseball pitch, speed will be the victor. Having speed can be very beneficial and wise to acknowledge if you are smaller framed or female. I find this formula gives good insight into understanding how legendary Bruce Lee was so powerful in his movements and able to be so fast and able to blow his opponents back with his strikes.

Looking at physics we clearly want to develop more speed to get the most impact; speed definitely has its advantages whether it is being the first to make contact, sneaking in the K.O shot, or simply just getting more shots in. So in order to increase our speed we must add different methods of stress to our body. You are an adaptive organism, and must constantly challenge yourself to produce growth and to gain increased results.

Before we move ahead it is very important that we first talk about technique as you will need a good foundation before pounding in hours of forming new muscle memory. So to go fast you must first go slow. That can sound counterproductive but let me tell you why. In the beginning when you are learning how to punch, you must first learn the proper way to strike and use your body weight before raising the speed. Using that Newtonian formula, being able to put your body weight behind your punch rather than just hitting with the strength of your arm alone will increase the mass behind your projectile.

Double the mass, double the output force, this can all be found within proper form which is what makes it so essential. Learning the proper method you will have to first learn all the little details. For example learning a punch you will first have to dig your foot into the ground, engage your legs, torso, and shoulders before delivering out the arm and clenching your fist upon impact. Of course all depending on which style and tradition you subscribe to, a simple punch can be taught in different ways. With incorrect movement comes unwanted movement which can be inefficient as it can create tells for your opponent, reduce your power, and slow you down with non-essential positioning.

Now before jumping in and reading all you can about weight lifting to add it to your martial arts training take these into perspective which kinds of weight training you can do. Strength is mandatory for martial arts especially the higher you climb within it. Be mindful and responsible with your tendencies to rely on brute force rather than spending focusing on technique.

So now that it is established we need a good solid technical understanding of the strike, you have your muscle memory engraved in and are working the bench presses to increase strength, what else can you do to increase your punching speed? One method is what Bruce Lee did with a barbell: he was not only training for how many reps he could do with the weight, but also how fast he could do the reps. He would time himself how fast he could do the set and aim to improve his speed doing is repetitions as he progresses.

What weight lifting and martial arts share in common is that they require good technique in order to stay away from injury. Along with good form comes having full range of motion allowing you to fully workout the targeted muscle groups.

If done properly, you should not be acquiring injuries and should notice a difference in your speed as you hit your bag over the months. If you are experiencing frequent injuries or no improvement, take those as signs to adjust your workout and to either dial up the training or dial down. Within several weeks you can make a solid change in your speed to deliver that devastating strike.

If you find you need to relax your muscles during class. Try tensing up your whole body, do a good tight squeeze of everything for just a few seconds and then release, you will be able to easily establish the relaxed muscles from the tense in a matter of seconds.

So If you are looking to improve your fighting endurance, spar! No use building stamina with biking when you need your entire body to be efficient and to have your set skills available to you. Unless of course it is your aim to primarily focus on your legs for the session. Long slow jogs will do you little benefit in the ring where you are expected to be explosive and quick for the round or duration it takes to get yourself to safety. With that being said jogging, street running, or forest running are all very helpful practices that can be used alongside your self defense.

Now even though sparring is the best method in training for stamina for the real fight, it is not really realistic to spar every day, you need to allow your body to recover. This is where pad work, water training, or jump rope comes in.

Jumping rope works because it trains in you a technical manner forcing you to do many repetitive movements learning good rhythm and coordination, doing a hundred jumps within a minuet will train you to do that hop as efficiently as possible. Even 10 minutes a day of jump rope will give allow you to out move someone who only weight lifts every time, with more bounce and agility you will be that much harder to catch and you will not be winded.

Developed by Dr. Izumi Tabata in 1997 with his colleagues at the Japanese Institute of Fitness and Sport, they found the Tabata protocol which seems to cross the boundaries and to increase both aerobic and anaerobic at the same time. It is fairly simple to understand Tabata training yet it is very exhausting to perform.

As with everything it all starts with the mind. The first and most crucial factor is being relaxed with a clear head; this will allow your body to just automatically react whether you are in a sparring match or driving a car. The faster you are able to register an opening made by your opponent the faster you can sneak that counter in or throw an attack he may not expect.

An age old boxing method of speeding yourself up is training your reactions and reflexes is by training with a double end bag or a speed bag. Contrary to popular belief, the speed bag was not designed to improve your speed, instead it promotes good hand eye coordination so you will be able to register the target in your mind quicker therefore being able to strike just as fast. Training with a double end bag will further increase the difficulty, so starting with a few punch combos and working yourself up is the best method to go, after a while like everything it will just become second nature when you start stringing on longer combinations.

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