Strength and conditioning has a ton of great benefits for combat athletes. Today we will talk about three very important benefits you can get by implementing a good strength and conditioning program.

Injury Prevention

First a very important benefit you will gain is injury prevention. There is no doubt that one of the most important benefits to strength and conditioning is that it affords you a great potential to reduce injuries you could get from training. Being strong, more flexible and in overall better condition can greatly reduce both the amount of injuries you receive as well as the severity of the injuries. Just make sure that you do not injure yourself while doing strength and conditioning work. Safety needs to be a key element of any program you commit to using.

Conditioning lets you get in more work

Next time we are on the mats wait until we start sparring then start taking a look at how many people need to take a round off. Also take a look at how many people need to take an easy round and also take a look at how many are just not able to get a good round in all because of their conditioning. You will see a lot of students are not getting as much out of their training because they need to take rounds off.

Another thing to take notice off is watch how many reps people get in during drilling. You will notice people often are going light or slow during the drilling portion of class. They might be getting tired or they might be going light in order to save some more energy for rolling.

Speed

Pretty much any good strength and conditioning program will make you quicker and faster. That is always a plus when it comes to martial arts or the combat sports. A great way to prioritize this a bit is to just add a speed day into the mix. On your speed days focus on explosive movements. Traditionally many athletes have turned towards the olympic lifts and the variations to focus on speed. They are great just make sure you are safe when you are working on your olympic lifts.

Another option is to utilize some unconventional lifts or exercises that will give you many of the same benefits. Some great exercises you can add are:

  • Medicine ball slams
  • Wall Ball (throwing a medicine ball 10ft in the air against a wall)
  • Hitting a tire with a sledge hammer
  • Jumping onto a box

Those are just a few but there are many more. These will make you faster as well as more powerful plus they can also be a lot of fun.