Fitness Training for a Martial Artist

Hey well i just wrote this article for fun really and to help some people who are new to this. If they are any mistakes please let me know.

Fitness Training For Boxing/Martial Artists

Martial Artists need a moderately high state of physical fitness especially if your martial art entails competition fighting. Even if your martial art doesn’t include competition fighting you should still try and aim for a high level of fitness, as it will make your training much easier, improve your health and make you a more competent fighter.
Martial arts training it self is usually quite an intense workout but as you progress it can become easier and going to class just isn’t enough for you to progress in the fitness aspect of it.

The three areas of fitness a martial artist should be looking into are cardio vascular, strength and flexibility. Each of the fitness areas need to be addressed individually so we will split them into the categories above.

Cardio Vascular Fitness

Cardio Vascular fitness is so important for martial artists. Martial artists need to have a high degree of stamina and cardio so that they are able to spar effectively or even for getting through pad drills and forms in classes. There are many ways to increase your cardio and stamina such as running, jogging, swimming, biking and much more. Let’s start by taking a look at biking. Biking can be good way to burn fat, increase cardio/stamina and leg muscles but one great downfall is that it can be very detrimental to your flexibility so this is one I personally ignore. Another is swimming which is a good form of cardio and works all of the muscles groups. The last we will talk about is running and jogging, a very good cardio and stamina workout but for martial artists who have bad knees care has to be taken not to aggravate them further. Investing in a good pair of running shoes is essential and can even help people who have bad knees when running and eliminate common injuries such as shin splints.
Personally I do HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) because martial artists need more anaerobic endurance(without oxygen) than aerobic endurance(with oxygen). Especially if you are competing you usually have small bouts of say 3 rounds of 2 minutes not big long 60 minute rounds. Another reason is that HIIT training is the best way to burn fat without burning muscle. Studies have shown that long endurance aerobic activity can cause muscle catabolism (the breakdown of muscle tissue) which is something you wouldn’t want.

A good intermediate running interval training program is the jog/run program is to run for a minute then to sprint for minute. This type of exercise is quite intense so if you’re new to fitness and martial arts start with a walk/jog program similar to this. You can also incorporate this type of training into about anything relatively close to martial arts take the heavy bag (punch bag) for instance you could do a slow paced round on it for a minute then go fast paced for another minute.

As with any type of training variety is a very good key switch your training about increasing the length of sprints etc. You should look to be changing your program every 7 to 8 weeks in order to keep it fresh.

Strength Training

Mostly every martial artist wants to have great explosive strength but to be fair most don’t know how to train for it using free weights or calisthenics (bodyweight exercises).
The equipment you will need for this will be a barbell and a good amount of weight. Now to start we will dismiss a few myths about weight lifting. First being that doing a low weight / high repetition routine will lead you to “tone” muscles is a load of crap. The definition of a muscle is defined by your body fat percentage, the lower the body fat percentage the more defined a muscle becomes. Another myth would be lifting weights makes you slow when punching and kicking when in fact doing the right routines, weight lifting can make you faster and increase your ROM(Range of Motion), but some badly designed routines can and may lead to being slower. Now we will start what kind of exercises to do to gain strength. The exercises you should be doing are compound (An exercise that involves two or more joint movements) exercises such as the ones below. Isolation exercises such as bicep curls should be avoided as they are not needed whatsoever you will get enough bicep work from the compound exercises. The only isolation exercises that I would say to do are exercises which isolate the rectus abdominis (Your Abs). Core strength is as equally as important as the rest and is often overlooked but I will go into that later on. Even some people will disagree with having to even isolate the abdominals as quite a few compound weight exercises use the abs as fixators but each to his own.

• Squats
• Dead lifts
• Bench Press
• Military Press

These with the addition of weighted chin-ups and weighted dips will give you all round good strength. For strength gains you should be looking to be lifting weight with is 85 – 90% of your 1RM. The 1RM means your 1 repetition maximum. You should be looking at doing about 1-5 reps for maximal strength gains any higher you will be looking at hypertrophy(size) gains which maybe is what your going for too. When doing these exercises try and do them as explosively as possible say for example on the bench press when on the push part of the exercise push up as explosively as you can. Note this will be hard as you will be lifting a great deal of weight but that’s ok as your pushing as explosively as you can. Even if you want a bodybuilder type look make sure at least 75% of your workout is based around compound exercises as any less will result in pretty low physically enhancing gains. Personally I stick with 100% compound. You can also add some Olympic Style Lifts such as the clean and jerk, snatches and so on, as they help with explosiveness.

Core Strength

As I mentioned before in the latter part of the article I mentioned core strength which is very important because in the ring or the street you are going to need to be able to take hard blows to the midsection. But that’s not all the abs are useful for they play a big part in punching and kicking. Now lets look at harder exercises which develop your abs are v-sit-ups, jackknife sit-ups and crunches should be more than enough to get you started. Personally at some point bodyweight abdominal exercises become useless and end us focusing entirely on endurance as you will have probably have increased the reps so I suggest weighted abdominal exercises such as full contact twists but pretty much any of the other exercises for abs can have weight added to them in some way of form. Also as said before the abdominals get constantly worked from the strength training exercises.

The flexibility bit is coming soon.

Written by Christopher Sharkey April 2005

 

Great article Sharkey: I've made some random corrections/suggestions for you. I've only been so particular because I think it has the ability to be a good article, with a few minor mods (particularly punctuation. It's always good to read your work aloud and wherever you pause, put in a comma; it makes it so much easier to read). Sorry, I'm a teacher, so I get a little nerdy

 

Some good corrections there mate thanks. Im going to look into changing it with the new information. And yeah my grammer is pretty poor but long sentances.

Thanks

 

Need som tricep work in there mate

 

I dont agree about the tricep work because they get enough work from dips etc Any other work would be isolating them or am i forgetting something.


Cheers

 

Dips (behind the back) train the triceps well but normal dips i owuld frown upon. The norm for any serious muscle building is one compound and one isolation for each bodypart

 

Yeah but isnt the object here for maximal strength gains not bodybuilding. True but im sure on the normal dips the triceps get some work as a synergist maybe wrong though but mines feel so.

 

Dips yes will train triceps but adding an isolation for a while at least will build the strength more and will give a greater gain. Less is more in muscle building but an extra isolation in there would really hit the triceps and build them more.

Also squats don't hit the abs, they hit the lower back unless you are doing front or hack squats badly.

 

Im not 100% sure here but in weight training the abs play as fixators in 90% of weighted exercises.

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EDIT
Yeah i found out squats do hit the abs as a stabaliser and as you said so does the lower back(erectus spinae)

 

ABS give support for a lot of exercises but they aren't trained as such in squats and so on

 

I dont mean they get loads of work or that but they do get work from these exercises i wish someone else would go and confirm this for us.

 

Yes the ABS do give support, being a bdybuilder I know. But I still think a single tricep ex in there would be beneficial

 

Basically its an each to his own kinda thing.

 

good post, looking forward to the flexibility bit

 

Thanks mate dont know when the flexibility bit will be coming as that was an old article that i wrote and ive wrote newer ones since then so we'll just have to see.

Cheers

 

Sharkey and Count, you guys are so entertaining to read. Thanks.

If you're a bodybuilder, I'm a pretty ballerina. What contests have you won, or competed in? Okay...with that out of the way now...

The abs, obliques, lower back, triceps, biceps, forearms, chest, lats, and about a half-dozen other muscles act as stabilizers during heavy squats, when properly performed (I'm talking pretty much any variation, back, front, hack, etc.). That's not to say they get a sufficient workout and don't need direct attention, but they can get worked quite intensely.

If you're a bodybuilder who also happens to do martial arts, then I'd be fine with performing isolation exercises. However, if someone is a martial artist, and chooses to lift weights to benefit their art and increase their performance, then time in the weight room will best be spent performing compound exercises, as Sharkey wrote about, and not wasting time and energy on a tricep exercise, a hamstring exercise, a wrist extensor exercise, and a rhomboid exercise.

As an aside, Shark, overall, I like the article. Nice, solid advice that should benefit someone brand new to strength training.

Depends who you ask, buckaroo. According to Dorian Yates and Ronnie Coleman, back day is almost completely compound moves (various rows, pulldowns, and deadlifts). According to Arnold (in his prime) chest day is 3-4 types of presses (different "angles" to "hit the upper/lower/inner pec") followed by 2-3 types of flye-movements. According to Tom Platz (the guy whose legs are legendary), leg day is 3-4 types of squats and leg pressing, and 3-4 isolation moves (extensions, curls, calves of all sorts). So, not that it matters a whole bunch on this martial arts site, but I don't know where you get your information.

 

Thanks

Thanks again as this was an old article ive wrote a newer one since then with alot more solid advice especially for beginners. If the article is good enough maybe we can get it in the article section bit where the stretching one is with the pictures by Charles or sumone. As i see alot of threads in the H+F forum revolving around creatine.

Anyway thanks for reading.

 

Everyone has their own methods mate

 

Entirely true.

If more people remembered that, MAP would be a happier place.

 

Getting toned isn't just about bodyfat percentage, its about residual tension in your muscles, which is about how alert your nervous system is.

Also you could explain in it how by lifting weights your increasing your strength, that strength is not how much muscle you have but how well you have trained your motor units and your nervous system to tense, becuase thats basically what strength is, how effectively your motor units can tense