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Fighter's Body, Fighter's Mind: A Comprehensive Guide to Muscular Strength
Why strength train? Because the secret to great martial arts
performance does not lie in technique alone, but also in how well
you can manipulate your body against a variety of forces. These
include your own weight, your opponent's weight, and inertia for
quick changes in speed and direction. Many sports make an effort to
match you as closely as possible to your competitors. For example,
you will be grouped according to your gender, age, weight, height,
and skill level or number of years in the sport. You will be
weighed, sometimes measured, and asked to disclose your rank or
competition record. This is done in an effort to level the playing
field. But have you ever heard of a martial arts competition that
required you to take a strength test prior to entering?
The ability to exert your strength properly and at the right moment
gives you a competitive edge over your opponent, both physically and
mentally. When you are physically strong, your acceleration, body
balance, recovery, and reaction time improve and make you an overall
more efficient fighter. This is true whether you compete in free
sparring, techniques, forms, or breaking. Your strength may be of
even greater importance in situations that do not make allowances
for differences in gender, age, weight, height, or skill level and
background; for example, when you are faced with a real adversary on
the street. Superior strength and conditioning might allow you to
outrun an attacker, ward off an assault, physically injure an
assailant, and recover from sustained injuries quicker. Superior
strength and conditioning establish your reputation as a formidable
martial artist that is not to be messed with, in or out of the ring
or competition arena. Having a strong and well-conditioned body also
sharpens your mental edge. When you know that you can take your
opponent the distance, your confidence grows, and with it your
motivation and warrior spirit, both of which are important qualities
in order to outdo the competition.
A good general fitness base is a must to ensure that your body is
ready to participate in athletic performance at the spur of the
moment, and not just "in season." Part of this book is devoted to
educating you on the importance of strength training and fitness,
and to give you knowledge of different strength training methods.
Once you have achieved a general fitness base, you will feel more
inclined to put your plans into practice, because you have prepared
your body for exercise and no longer need to question the validity
of the principles. The rest of the book is devoted to giving you the
ability to design a martial art specific strength and conditioning
program. The general fitness principles are valid for all people,
but the martial art specific programs are based on the art you
practice and on your personal physical and mental characteristics.
In order to make good use of such a program, you need to educate
yourself on several factors affecting athletic performance, which
must then be interrelated and work together in order to maximize the
gain for the effort. These include:
1. Exercise physiology and human anatomy, or the study of inherited
genetic factors such as muscle build, bone structure and body
functions, and exercises that target specific muscle groups.
2. Biomechanics, or the study of the principles of movement in
relation to martial arts and strength training.
3. Physics, or the study of natural laws of motion that help or
hinder performance.
4. Psychology, or how to gain a mental edge, including how to
approach your training or an upcoming competition.
5. Outside factors, such as your ability to understand and adapt to
variations in your opponent's build or in the environment.
