Tag Archives: mma training

Conditioning the Fists for Striking

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One of the most underdeveloped aspects of the martial artist’s arsenal is the conditioning of his fists for striking.
The tendon strength, wrist strength and flexibility, and the overall structure of the strike is an exploitable weakness that needs to be addressed.

In this article we will examine several different push-up variations and isometric exercises to fortify the structure of our strikes.

This type of training will work to enhance the power generation of all manner of striking.

Do these push-ups slowly and purposefully with full attention to the movement.  These are not meant to pump up your beach muscles, rather they will strengthen the connective tissue in your hands, wrists, forearms, and shoulders to build structure and encourage the correct alignment for all your strikes.

Fudo-ken (fist) Push-ups 

Place the weight of the body on the fists.  Make sure the wrists do not bend. After performing several repetitions (or as a separate exercise) simply hold the body in the Fudo-ken push-up position. Relax as much as possible and allow the correct structure to support the body on the fists. Try this in the upper position, lower position, and halfway point of the push-up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do the same isometric holds with each exercise.

 

Shuto (sword hand) Push-ups 

Hold the hands in the form of a shuto strike.  They should close to a 45 degree angle with the thumbs supporting the fingers.  The weight is on the meaty, inside portion of the hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fingertip Push-ups 

Place the pads of the fingers on the ground like you are clawing it.  Try to squeeze the ground as you press up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wrist Push-ups

Place the wrists on the ground. These will be very difficult at first if you have not done them before.  Take them slowly.  If necessary, perform them on your knees to build strength.

 

 

Train these basic exercises thoroughly. Study this well!

Be sure to check out part 2 of this article, 5.5 Principles for More Effective Strking in ANY Martial Art.

Learn exactly how to upgrade your striking skills in ANY martial art with these resources from Warrior Fitness Training Systems…

 

 

 

What is Specific Physical Preparation for Martial Arts?

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Every once in a while it’s fun to think about how much the exercises we train on a daily and weekly basis actually translate, or carry over, to the activities for which we’re training.

Depending on your training program this can either be a great way to confirm that you are moving in the right direction, continuing to make progress and see results, or it can be a bit disheartening to realize just how little what you are doing actually carries over to your chosen field of endeavor.

In the case of budo (martial arts) practice, like any other sport or physical activity, there must be exercises specifically crafted to enhance performance. A solid base of General Physical Preparation (GPP) is necessary, but not sufficient.

What is GPP?

The first step in ensuring you are building martial skills on top of a solid foundation is General Physical Preparedness (GPP). The goal of GPP is enhanced work capacity. This is the ability to run faster, jump higher, and hit harder.

When work capacity increases, it allows the budding warrior to adapt more easily to increases in both mental and physical demands. In other words, it increases your capacity and level of readiness to absorb higher levels of specificity in training. In order to be more, we must become more.

When talking about the martial arts, which tend to be seemingly limitless, one must possess the physical, mental, and spiritual endurance to “keep going!”

 

Moving From GPP to SPP

While the goal of GPP is muscular adaptation and general readiness for training, the main focus of SPP is neurological adaptation — to train movements, not muscles.

Specific Physical Preparedness builds on GPP by increasing the development of characteristics necessary for a particular sport or activity — or, in our case, martial arts.

It is a uniquely designed and targeted system for enhancing strength, flexibility, endurance, and conditioning which builds on the GPP base by furthering development in the exact physiological profile of the martial art.

Therefore, GPP helps to make you effective while SPP makes you efficient. The end stage goal is of course to be both effective and efficient in each and every movement.

The Training Process Cycle

If your strength and conditioning program is stuck in the GPP phase of development then you may not be realizing the type of performance gains that are possible with a specifically crafted SPP level.

Strength and conditioning training must eventually approach as close as possible to the demands of the activity to maximize the training effect.

Since your body adapts specifically to the stresses placed on it, you improve according to the type of training you do. This is exactly why your training program must cycle through from the general to the specific.

Ready to take your martial art training to the next level?

Check out the vast array of SPP for Martial Art Training Programs Available from Warrior Fitness Training Systems HERE <<===

 

Stronger Than Fear

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Are you stronger than your fear?

Or do you stay in your comfort zone and allow fear to get the better of you?  You can tell every time when you start to push against the edge of your comfort zone – you begin to feel afraid.  Maybe you don’t call it fear.  Maybe it’s resistance.  Maybe it’s discomfort.  Maybe it’s just a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach that goes away if you you stop pushing forward.  Call it what ever you want.  I know what it is.  I call it by it’s true name – fear.

How do you become stronger than fear?  By feeling it, acknowledging it, and doing the thing you fear anyway.  As Mark Twain once said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not the absence of fear.”

Mark Twain Courage

One way to face fear and push past it is by enduring brutal physical training.  This type of training is NOT for the faint of heart.  However, when you go through it, face it, and come out on the other end, you are a stronger person – mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Here is a sample of one conditioning workout with an MMA fighter I am currently training:

Traditional Martial Artists of the World – UNITE!

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Traditional martial arts all have a long history of intense, sometimes downright brutal, physical training to forge the warrior’s combative body, mindset, and spirit.

This training has, up until very recently in history, never been optional. If you did not have the strength of will to endure it and push through then you simply did not make the cut and were not taught higher level skills. Not that you would be considered somehow unworthy or anything silly like that, but you would be thought physically incapable and therefore not worth the teacher’s time to train you.

Each school of martial art had its own type of tanren or forging process to harden the aspiring martial student. Continue reading →