Are You FIT to be a Warrior?

It goes without saying that the role of a warrior in society is to protect self and others. Yet, how many of us aspiring warriors don’t realize that health, fitness, and overall well-being are the primary qualities on the forefront of “self” defense? Most of us may train our entire lives without ever being involved in a dangerous altercation, but the same cannot be said about avoiding the dangers of lack of physical exercise such as osteoarthritis, ill health, heart disease, cancer, type II diabetes, and obesity to name a few.

Physical fitness (and proper nutrition!) plays a leading role in the prevention of these diseases and conditions, as well as in the protection of our overall health and psychological well being.

Many of us spend 40 + hours a week sitting in an office staring at a computer where the most exercise we get during an 8-hour stint is to walk to the bathroom several times a day followed by wandering into the cafeteria to see what pre-packaged garbage is waiting for us in the vending machines.

Then, often we come home from work exhausted (from what?) and flop on the couch to watch TV in order to “unwind” (again, from what?) before finally dragging ourselves upstairs and into bed for the night.

We have conditioned ourselves into laziness and inaction. Yes, I do mean “conditioned”. Conditioning does not only apply to being fit; it is possible to condition your body for anything, including being over weight, tired all the time, and to completely lack motivation for any type of physical activity. No wonder Americans are among the fattest people on the planet! (By the way, I am only picking on Americans because I am one; however the rampant increase in obesity is a worldwide problem and getting worse. Just look at recent news articles from the UK on the same subject.)

Challenges of Discussing Fitness

One of the challenges that arise when we attempt to discuss fitness in a meaningful way is that the term itself is extraordinarily vague. Some people think of a triathlon athlete as “fit” while others believe a power lifter is “fit.” Unfortunately, neither of these examples conforms to the actual definition of fitness; they are just two extreme ends of the spectrum.

Fitness Attributes

Fitness is essentially made up of nine different attributes:

• Strength
• Power
• Agility
• Balance
• Flexibility
• Local muscular endurance
• Cardiovascular endurance
• Strength endurance
• Coordination

All of these components must be present to constitute a suitable definition of fitness.

Warrior Fitness Methodology

The Warrior Fitness training methodology blends all 9 of the above qualities together to construct a comprehensive fitness program applicable to all walks of life. This blended approach allows for a wide variety of options, based on each individual’s fitness needs, when crafting a complete program. The variety enables each program to be tailored specifically to the individual while still remaining true to the overall Warrior Fitness philosophy of health, fitness, and growth, balanced with recovery.

Warrior Fitness: Conditioning for Martial Arts

Warrior Fitness Book

Jon

Jon Haas, "The Warrior Coach" has been training in Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu for more than 25 years and is currently ranked as a Kudan (9th degree black belt) under Jack Hoban Shihan. He has also trained in Okinawan Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Russian Systema, BJJ, Krav Maga, as well as Internal Martial Arts of Yiquan and Aiki.He is a certified Underground Strength Coach-Level 2, a certified Personal Trainer as well as founder of Warrior Fitness Training Systems. In 2008, Jon wrote the book, Warrior Fitness: Conditioning for Martial Arts, and since then has created numerous other online training and coaching programs helping people around the world become the strongest, most capable versions of themselves!

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