Without doubt some of the fittest people on the planet are people participating in combat sports like wrestling, boxing, Jiu jets, martial arts, and of course Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Unlike other sports where fitness is a very similar standard, athletes in these sports are also some of the strongest and most powerful. Trying to combine incredible strength with fitness is extremely difficult to do, and if you add the complexity of skills required for each sport you have a great appreciation of how committed and disciplined these athletes really are. Oh yeah, did I mention the fact that there is a good chance you can get hurt in competition from an opponent trying to take you out! We know that strength training is essential for these sports but how much is enough? The biggest mistakes we see are where people forget that the strength workout is meant to complement the sports training, not take its place. In this article we drill down deep into the specific demands of these various sports and examine what are the best exercises and methods with strength training to enhance your sporting performance. Make sure you check out the video at the bottom of the page with a gruelling circuit workout.

Optimal Movement with Fundamental Patterns MUST Be Obtained First

I know this sounds boring but you simply cannot build incredible strength, power, or the exciting sports specific exercises without developing fundamental movement skills first. Learning how to squat, lunge, bend, push, pull and twist are all basic movement patterns we need to create the more powerful and explosive actions required in your chosen sport.

If there is a problem at the basic level it is multiplied when the pattern is needed in a more complex action. The body has no choice but to compensate and find another way to complete the task. This compensation results firstly in poor performance as the body becomes slower and inefficient, but more importantly it exposes joints to serious damage and injury.

In one of our articles from a few years back – How to choose the right exercises for your sport we discussed this in detail and how many amateur sporting athletes make this costly mistake. Their excitement at trying some amazing tough workout they saw on TV or social media means they skip this learning stage and go straight to the “fun stuff”, only to suffer injury at a later stage.

To keep this article short I won't include all the details of these fundamental patterns but these are covered extensively in the FREE REPORT below. You can download instantly by clicking here.

Also another great article to read with excellent videos and examples of each pattern is here – Why You Should Never Sacrifice Exercise Technique

A solid base of cardio conditioning is also very important before implementing intense workouts where you are pushing the body to the limit. A good 4-6 weeks of basic cardio activity like jogging, cycling, and swimming at low to medium intensity is vital to prepare for the more intense training to come where fatigue becomes a big factor.

Okay, so now that we have established the foundations what is next?

You Must Understand What Energy System Your Sport Requires

Before jumping into programs and exercises we need to know what the main focus of the training is. For example boxing requires incredible upper body strength and power, but Tae kwon do athletes need very little upper body work, as 98%of scoring techniques involves kicking. Wrestlers and Jiu Jitsu fighters require elements of power too, but they require massive amounts of isometric strength with the neck, shoulders and core. Grip strength is massive in these sports and we do not even need to mention how important the legs are.

The MMA fighter is obviously a combination of all of the above and is why it is rated as the most difficult of all the sports.

The length of the bouts can vary a lot as well which is very important when designing the length of a workout or circuit. Boxers have 3 minute rounds, Tae Kwon Do 2 minute rounds and MMA and wrestling bouts are 5 minute rounds.

One thing common to all these sports is each bout produces very high levels of lactate with high heart rates.

Lactate also affects the muscles ability to function and you know when someone hits their threshold for this is when you see the person completely “gassed out” and barely able to move. The only thing they can do now is to stop to allow their muscles to regain oxygen which is not good if you are in the middle of the round.

The fitter the fighter, the better able he or she is at tolerating high levels of lactate to avoid “gassing out” and recovering more rapidly between rounds to stay at their optimal capacity.

It is vital these athletes use training methods have to push themselves way beyond what is comfortable and learn how to cope under extreme duress. Most people are familiar with this with interval training at the running track. It can also be used with cycling, swimming and even stair climbing. For more ideas on interval training read our article – Interval Training Why It Is the Best Way to Improve Fitness Fast

Traditional running intervals works to some degree for the fighter, but exercises that use the upper body should be incorporated because the ability to remove lactate differs between muscle groups. When the fighter is either grappling or punching, lactate build up needs to be removed as quickly as possible; if only the legs are efficient at this, then the fighter will fatigue in the upper body sooner which is of no use to them.

This explains the difficulty of achieving elite level fitness using general methods. To become top in your class the fitness method must be specific to your sport. It is all about efficiency.

For example a world class runner is not the fittest in a swimming pool, or on a bike, and vice versa. Their fitness from running helps to some degree but not to the elite level of the other sports for their muscles are not efficient at these other activities.

If you develop fitness with methods specific to the sport you compete in over a consistent period of time, the body becomes smarter and adapts to the constant training overload by finding more ways to become efficient. It is this efficiency that fighters are searching for and gives them the edge on their opponents.

The big question is how do you do this in combat sports? What exercises do you use?

Unlike running and cycling that use a singular highly repetitive action that can easily be trained for efficiency, (eg wind tunnels for cycling), fighting and combat sports are very random and chaotic requiring multiple movements making it very difficult to train for efficiency. This is where carefully designed workouts combining an array of specific movements matched with the intensity demands of the sport is needed. This is commonly known as CIRCUIT TRAINING and is essential to the fighter’s fitness.

Shortly we will provide you with some workout ideas to do exactly this.

Be Careful Of Over-training

Before getting into the workouts we must discuss the big danger with these sports which is over-training.

When you have a great set of workout and laser focus of trying to progress it is easy to begin to push too hard, train too long, and do way too much. While we can work to achieve our potential, we must always consider our abilities and our limitations and avoid the danger of over-training which can be a serious problem to your health.

We must recognise that recovery and nutrition is as important as the training itself. It can be a very delicate science trying to find the right balance between too much or not enough training. Not every week may be the same for you have to account for things in life that may impact on your recovery such as work, stress, lack of sleep, family commitments etc.

The two most important things to understand are;

1. High intensity training yields the greatest results
2. The higher the intensity the harder you train the longer you rest.

What you need to do is determine what is the optimal frequency to train based on your workout intensity. If each of the sessions is optimally timed (at the peak of the adaptation phase), you will increase strength at a maximal rate.

See chart below.

You have to factor in the time you need for training the skills of your sport. There is only so much time you can train so you have to be well planned to ensure you are focusing on what is the most important thing at that point in time.

“Never let the strength sessions take over from the actual sporting training.”

Some people become so obsessed with their amazing feats in the gym they focus too much on their strength training and neglect the time needed to practice the skills of the sport. It is great being able to squat 150kg but if this does not assist the specific demands of your sport it is wasted time and energy.

Repeatedly working on the same energy system at a high intensity will lead to fatigue and possible over-use injuries and could lead to burnout. It is important to have several workouts that differ in intensity and exercise selection and know which one is best to use for specific times.

We have covered the topics of over-training and recovery in great detail several times on our website and I encourage you to read the articles below that provide great examples and much more detail about getting this right.

• How to avoid over-training and why less is more
• Best foods and methods to speed up recovery

Finally, we are ready to start training!

Four Workout Methods to Cycle Through

To cater for the various demands of training and cover as many bases as possible I find it great to break things up into different objectives.

These workouts are listed below from easiest to hardest

1. Mobility, stability and injury prevention
2. Movement development & functional strength
3. Power training
4. Fighting fitness with Circuit training

I will give a brief explanation of the purpose of each below with examples of exercises to use.

1: Mobility, Stability & Injury Prevention

Objective: To prevent injury and counter the damage of the repetitiveness of the sport

I have never competed in combat sports myself, but I have trained with several boxers, kick-boxers, Jiu Jitsu fighters and a MMA fighter. The reason these people sought me out was for help with injury, usually to the lower back or shoulder. One guy who came to see me after suffering a horrible injury to his neck and shoulder and was a Jiu Jitsu fighter was Christian Haider.

Read his story below as to how we helped him get back to his sport where in August 2019 he won gold in a white belt grappling tourney and went 6 wins 0 losses for the day. He also graduated to his blue belt not long after which is amazing considering how much pain he was in only 2 years earlier and he had given the sport away.

"After years of coping with pain I had finally crashed hard in January 2017. I was lost in deep depression and pain that was hard to describe. I spent every waking moment focused on the pain and the disability it was inflicting in my life. I couldn't sit, couldn't run, couldn't lift, couldn't do anything without paralysing fear. I had tried massage, chiropractor, osteo etc. I was all out of options and truly lost and hopeless. Finally I came across the No Regrets testimony page and after reading some of the stories I decided to drop in and have a chat to Nick. Straight away everything he was telling me made sense, I had put my trust in so many health professionals however so I was naturally a little pessimistic that what he was talking about could actually fix me. The pain I was experiencing in my neck was so strange that I felt no one could possibly understand what it was or how to fix it, I had been convinced it was a herniated disc, or a bulging disc, or maybe even a dodgy spine that would inevitably cause tremendous pain for the rest of my life.

After 3 months of hard work and listening to the team at No Regrets, I was finally experiencing a reduction in pain and had regained hope.

Fast forward 2 more months and here I am now, doing Jiu Jitsu again, sitting for hours again, running again, and doing whatever I want! The pain no longer rules my life. It's not until now, 5 months later that I realize that what really saved my life was the fact that the team at No Regrets were not entirely responsible for fixing me, they were teaching me how to regain my freedom myself. They simply showed me what I needed to do and the rest was up to me. I had to to lift the weights, I had to put in the hard work. Thank you Nick and Nathan for showing me there wasn't anything wrong with me that I couldn't fix with time and hard work. You have given me hope that has truly saved my life.

If you're reading this and you're in pain right now, you have come to the right place. The team at No Regrets will change your life. – Christian Haider

As you can easily see here sometimes the best strength program is not just about trying to “crush it” and annihilating the body, but a program that can counter the damage of the specific sport.

Many of the great exercises you will see in the circuit workout for Jiu Jitsu and wrestling can be very risky for the discs of the lumbar spine. Holding the lumbar spine in flexion with load for excessive lengths of time or even repeatedly performing this action is the fast way to developing a bulging disc injury. If we know that you are doing a lot of this in training we may avoid using too many sit-up or ab crunch movements to avoid creating more damage.

Instead we may use exercises to promote extension as seen in the video below.

I would also include a lot of unilateral movements in this program, especially with the legs. Single leg deadlifts and single leg squats would be of high priority here as they are quite complex movements and not suited to being used in circuits and the highly fatiguing training to come. As opposed to other sports combat sports spend more time with two feet on the ground so these exercises can sometimes be easily missed in training.

It is important to know that with all the people we see for hip and knee injuries the single leg stance is often the critical part of their program that resolves the injury. This means that if it is used a lot in your training to ensure efficient and strong movement it can go a long way to preventing injury.

These type of workouts are more low intensity and can be completed more often. For more detail on exercises and programs specific to stability and mobility refer to the articles below.

• Stability training what is it really and how to do it right
• Everything you need to know about Mobility training

If you are dealing with a shoulder or back injury right now it is important to use a program tailored to your specific needs. A detailed assessment that identifies your weaknesses and movement dysfunction is critical for finding a long term solution that gets you back to your sport without fear of re-injury just like Christian. There is step by step programs we created for back and shoulder injuries you can download instantly by clicking the image below.

Movement Development & Functional Strength

Objective: To develop strength with functional movement in preparation for advanced power training and endurance fitness.

This is really a follow up to the fundamental skills we discussed at the beginning of the article. If you are not injured and possess optimal mobility and stability the obvious progression is to enhance strength. Wrestlers require significant strength and this phase of training is vital to the success in their sport. But it is not limited to the grappling sports for even the Tae Kwon Do martial arts competitor needs a certain degree of strength to be able to generate power.

 All functional strength workouts for fighters should include all of the key movement patterns, however there are four exercises that stand out above all others and what I would label my “go-to” for fighting strength.

• Deadlifts for HIP POWER and GRIP STRENGTH
• Single cable push with weight shift for strength with STRIKING
• Farmers walks for GRIP STRENGTH needed in wrestling
• Turkish Get-ups for CORE STRENGTH with ground work.

These exercises would make my foundation of the program and I would add in other variations around these key movements. If I am looking for a significant challenge I will use the farmer’s walks and Turkish get-ups between supersets of the other exercises. This adds a huge amount of volume to the muscles crucial to movements used in grappling sports and very quickly increases grip strength without the problem of adding too much stiffness to the body. This is without a doubt my favourite strength workout to use.

See article – My Favourite Strength Workout

Watch the video below for an example of this workout.

Other times I will use a more traditional strength workout and minimise any fatigue by shortening the time under tension. For example I will do 4 sets of 4-6 reps instead of the 3 sets of 8-12 reps.

This is important for the fighter looking to gain strength but not too much size and risk adding excessive weight. Reps of 1-5 trains my body more for maximal strength than muscle size. It is not taxing on the cardio vascular system but will provide significant strength gains that will assist with the next stage which is power development.

Power Training

Objective: To increase explosive power for striking and take-downs.

This is of high importance for the striking sports like MMA, Boxing, Kick-boxing and Tae Kwon Do. The grappling sports also require power training with take-downs so this training method cannot be ignored.

Power differs a lot to strength and also the fitness training methods. It is defined as the ability to generate force quickly; and defined mathematically as force x velocity. A very misunderstood method of training and many exercises are easily abused. Most people think if you get stronger this automatically would make you faster. This is not true.

The secret to developing incredible power lies in the speed of contraction.

Often the best exercises require lighter loads than your maximal strength ability in order to move fast enough. Developing the ‘wind-up-and-rotate’ velocity for explosive kicking or punching through weight training is impossible for the weight slows the movement down too much.

Exercises like box jumps, sledgehammer slams, battling rope slams, and all versions of medicine ball throws are perfect examples of movements that are loaded but not too heavy. Their challenge comes in the form of speed. See video below with 10 exercise variations of the battling ropes.

Olympic lifting is a great power exercise but does come with huge risks. I would argue there is other choices of exercise more beneficial to the fighter, especially those with rotational movement. Speed of the movement is the critical element, not the load. Even the sporting skill of kicking or punching explosively with a single effort at 100% could be the exercise.

You must be very careful of excessive volume creating fatigue when using power training. Fatigue ruins your ability to move fast enough to improve your explosive performance. You should train to a point where you are never tired and could easily do 3 or 4 more reps. It is wise to have an extended break before attempting again when you are at 100% capacity.

This type of training is not about strength and definitely not about fitness. In many ways this workout does not feel very tiring to the muscles and to some degree it is not. But it is very taxing on the brain which is why you have to keep reps short and use good periods of rest to get the most out of this training method.

You can read more about power training in the article – Why we all need to include power exercises in our training

Okay this brings us to the last phase which is the fitness training. This is where we see the sports specific exercises all layered upon each other back to back for periods of 3 minutes for boxers and 5 minutes for wrestling and MMA.

This training is brutal as you are about to see.

Circuit Training -  Why It Works So Well For Combat Sports

Objective: To expose the athlete to high levels of lactate and fatigue to improve cardiovascular output during competition.

This is the style of training many are familiar with and will often see shown on TV or You Tube. These workouts aim to combine the aerobic and anaerobic energy systems at the same time.

The anaerobic system provides the short, quick, all-out bursts of maximal power, while the aerobic system contributes to the athlete’s ability to sustain effort for the duration of the match and to recover during the brief periods of rest or reduced effort. Circuit training is the perfect workout to enhance performance when fatigue sets in.

You must understand that circuit training will not increase muscular power which is why you need the other program to be completed on a separate day to ensure you maximize your ability to move at high speed. Strength is a major component of power and therefore the blending of strength development with power endurance development is a priority for wrestling success.

You could very easily create a general strength workout with 6-10 exercises back to back without a rest to create a circuit workout. And while this may yield some fitness gains and fatigue it will not be sufficient if you do not include some of the specifics needed with fighting sports.

If You Compete In Grappling Sports You Must Include ISOMETRIC Holding

If we start with the grappling sports there is a huge element of having to firstly exert and withstand rotational forces. Practically every wrestling move can have a static component and pulling and pushing moves may develop into static actions. Therefore, besides the need for isometric grip strength that we used in our strength program with farmers walks, the importance of isometric muscle action must be emphasised in a wrestling and grappling positions and postures.

An isometric exercise is a form of exercise involving the static contraction of a muscle without any visible movement in the angle of the joint.

A simple example of isometric holding would be to use the bench press with a 5 second hold at halfway of the movement down. After 5 seconds let the bar come right down to the chest and then push it right up to the start before doing again. Farmer’s walks automatically do this and I would reduce the load and increase the distance to walk for this workout.

Watch the video below of the tyre flip and wrestle exercise to see an example of isometric strength in the middle of a power movement.

One of the best exercises to use to promote high levels of lactate with grip strength is the battling ropes. Mixing in 10-15 seconds of repeated intervals between sets of other exercises increases fatigue levels rapidly and forces the fighter to learn how to tolerate being “gassed” but having to remain strong.

Duck walk exercises for the legs are exhausting and it is amazing how something that looks so easy is so hard and just destroys you. When the legs are fatigued you will notice a huge loss of power so it is important for the fighter to learn how to cope with this by using workouts like this.

Constantly switching from isometric holding exercises to movements with speed and explosive power without a rest is the best way to program this. Usually one of our circuits would include at least 8 exercises and as many as 15. It all depends on the person.

The length of time each circuit would last should be determined by the length of the bout used in competition. A boxer would program for 3 minutes and a wrestler or MMA fighter for 5 minutes.

There is many ways you can do this so have fun with it. Just try to include all the key movement patterns and overload the specific patterns to your sport. If you are a boxer you will keep most of your movements standing and look to overload striking and agility based actions. If you are wrestler or MMA fighter you might include more groundwork and look to fatigue the grip.

Summary

I hope this article gives you a stack of ideas to go away and work with. The best athletes in all sports are very organised and are not always trying to annihilate their bodies with exhausting fitness workouts. The break up their training into parts where they can focus on precise techniques, maximal strength, explosive power, and recovery. Injury prevention should always be a high priority with your strength work so you can stay competing. Use your workouts to keep your body fresh and primed for the training and competition and you will see great results.

There is no doubting strength and conditioning is everything to the combat sporting athlete, but there must be an intelligent method for selecting exercises and workouts. I hope this article gives you some ideas of how to do this and provides you with the tools you need to succeed.

If you enjoyed this article, live in Melbourne and would like to organise a Free Consultation to discuss how we can help you improve your strength and movement fill in the form below and I will be in touch within 24 hours to schedule a time.

About The Author

Nick Jack is owner of No Regrets Personal Training and has over 14 years’ experience as a qualified Personal Trainer, Level 2 Rehabilitation trainer, CHEK practitioner, and Level 2 Sports conditioning Coach. Based in Melbourne Australia he specialises in providing solutions to injury and health problems for people of all ages using the latest methods of assessing movement and corrective exercise.

References:

• Strength Training for Combat Sports - by Peak Performance
• Combat Core - by Jim Smith
• Movement - By Gray Cook
• Corrective Exercise Solutions - by Evan Osar
• Athletic Body Balance by Gray Cook
• Diagnosis & Treatment Of Movement Impairment Syndromes - By Shirley Sahrman
• Low Back Disorders - by Stuart McGill
• Back Pain Mechanic - by Stuart McGill
• Anatomy Trains - by Thomas Meyers
• Motor Learning and Performance - By Richard A Schmidt and Timothy D Lee
• Assessment & Treatment Of Muscle Imbalance - By Vladimir Janda
• Scientific Core Conditioning Correspondence Course - By Paul Chek
• Advanced Program Design - By Paul Chek
• Twist Conditioning Sports Strength - By Peter Twist
• Twist Conditioning Sports Movement - By Peter Twist
• Twist Conditioning Sports Balance - By Peter Twist