Are Your Workouts Making You a Weaker Fighter?

By Evan Hawke

By following a fitness regime that is not specifically designed for martial artists, you could be stopping yourself from reaching anywhere near your fighting potential.

The main problem for martial artists is that the priorities of most fitness programs are simply not in line with the priorities needed for proper combat fitness training.

In this article, I’m gonna highlight three training models that I know for a fact many martial artists are sucked into following.  Now this is not to say that these models are crap or that they don’t work for their intended purpose, merely that they are not matched to the needs of fighters.

Model 1 – The Hypertrophy or Bodybuilding Model

This is perhaps the most common model that beginner martial artists gravitate towards – usually because they seek their advice from commercial gyms which are largely responsible for the mass distribution of this type of training.  That and people just seem to want to bulk-up when they begin martial arts.  Here are some of the reasons why martial artists shouldn’t follow this model:

1. Muscle-mass is a poor indicator of strength.  Just because you might get large muscle from this kind of training doesn’t mean it makes you any stronger.  In fact bulky muscles without strength are a liability for a fighter.
2. This model makes use of isolation exercises that aim to stress one particular muscle by itself.  Again, whilst this may increase muscle size, it is a poor way of increasing strength – mainly because the body is a complete unit which generates strength through complex muscle interaction, therefore it makes little sense to work one muscle at a time, because you build strength that the body just can’t use.  Bottom-line – you don’t develop functional strength through bodybuilding.
3. Bodybuilding ignores power development – in combat, power is the king of physical attributes and hence a program that totally ignores power development should be avoided by fighters.
4. This model ignores the development of combat specific endurance and whilst this may be unnecessary for street-fighters, competitive martial artists need to develop this kind of endurance.

Model 2 – The Aerobic Endurance Model

This is another common model that martial artists use to try and improve their fitness and is characterised by the use of long, slow, aerobic exercises such as running and cycling.  This is mainly used by fighters who want to improve their endurance, however it also has several feature that make it unsuitable for fighters:

1. Combat is not a pure aerobic activity, in fact it is almost entirely non-aerobic and therefore you cannot train for it by using aerobic activities.

2. This model totally avoids power, speed and strength training.

3. Aerobic activities can actually diminish your strength, speed and power production capabilities.

Model 3 – The Strength Training Model

This is a model that some martial artists move on to after they get frustrated with Model 1.  This model is a little better because it uses multi-joint moves such as the Deadlift and these work the body the way it was designed to function i.e. as one-unit and therefore it does effectively allow the user to gain functional strength.  It still does have some flaws with regard to combat fitness however:

1. The goal of combat is not to lift as heavy a weight as you can – it’s to defeat your opponent and strength development alone does not play huge part in achieving this.
2. This model also ignores power development, speed development and combat endurance.

As you can see, these models are all lacking in some areas.  An interesting thing to note is that if you combine either Models 1 or 3 with Model 2, then the results are even worse.  This is because aerobic activities can reduce the amount of strength, speed and power you can gain – therefore, by trying to train for strength and endurance the typical way, you’re effectively cancelling out any training gains you’ve made – how screwed up’s that?!.

The Characteristics of a Good Combat Fitness Program

Here are the key attributes that a combat fitness program needs to train for – they’re in no particular order:

• Power

• Strength

• Speed

• Flexibility

• Stamina

• Balance

• Agility

• Cardiovascular Endurance

If you’re a martial artist and your program doesn’t train for all of these attributes, then you need to seriously think about changing programs – in combat you can’t afford to be lacking in any department, not if you want to walk away.  There are some things that you can do to 'fix' your training program, and that's what we're gonna look at next.

Some recommended program fixes

1. Make sure that you do exercises that tax a large number of muscles, for example Deadlifts, Handstand Push-ups and Pull-ups.
2. Include exercises that challenge your balance such as 1-legged Squats.
3. Do power exercises such as the Clean and Jerk
4. Mix sprints into your workouts i.e. do a set of Push-ups, then sprint for 30 seconds, do a set of Pull-ups, sprint back and then repeat this circuit a few times – this’ll help to improve you combat-specific endurance levels.
5. Include stretches in your warm-ups and cool-downs.

Hopefully this article has helped open your eyes to how martial artists need to be training for fitness.  Try out some of my suggestions and see how your performance improves.

All of the issues addressed in this article and a whole load more are addressed in my combat fitness manual Adapt and Overcome:  The Combat Effective Fitness Manual.  This manual gives you all of the key information that you need to begin realizing your combat potential.  When you get this manual, you get a combat-specific fitness solution in which I share with you 26 specially chosen exercises.  These exercises are illustrated with 134 color photos and you get 6-weeks of awesome workouts to follow.  To find out more, click here.