Exercises to Increase Your Fighting Stamina
More than any other attribute, stamina is probably the most important to a martial artist. The fact is that it is EXTREMELY easy to run out of fuel during a fight and the more stressful the situation, the more adrenaline pumping through his body, the easier it is to run out of fuel. Your technique becomes sloppy, you lose power, your guard drops, your footwork slows, your will weakens, and you become more and more defenseless with each exchange.
It is important to train to last in a fight. But this means knowing exactly HOW to train. There are different types of stamina and you need to know what they are and how to get them.
The different types of resistance are aerobic resistance, anaerobic resistance and muscular resistance. Aerobic endurance is the type of endurance that marathon runners need. It is the ability to last a long time at a constant pace.
Anaerobic endurance is necessary for running. It’s the kind of stamina that allows you to explode with all your energy and last longer than average, as well as recover faster.
Muscular endurance is the ability of your muscles to continue prolonged activity without failing. Do you remember doing wall squats in PE, feeling like your legs were on fire? That requires muscular endurance to sustain for a long time.
As a martial arts athlete, you will need all 3, although the most important will be your anaerobic endurance, followed by muscular endurance, and finally, aerobic endurance. You need to be able to explode with combinations consistently throughout your fight, never get tired of throwing punches and kicks, and hang in there until the end.
Basic exercises like running and lifting weights are obvious tools for developing these skills. But there are some unique exercises that martial artists can use to develop all 3 that relate specifically to the needs of the martial artist.
I will offer 3 exercises that you can add to your martial arts workout routine to start building your fighting stamina. Just remember, stamina takes time to build and is easy to lose. So stay consistent, have fun with the exercises, and change them often to keep them up to date.
Drill #1: Punch Out.
This drill requires a heavy bag or a partner holding a kicking shield. You’ll also need a watch with a highly visible second hand or a partner with a stopwatch. Start with 3 rounds of 3 minutes. For 30 seconds, you’re going to punch the heavy bag, mostly looking for power. Keep the pace slower and alternate hands, putting your entire body into each punch. After 30 seconds, pick up the pace and go for more speed and less power. Do this for 20 seconds. Finally, after the 20 seconds are up, finish with 10 seconds of full speed punching to the back. Don’t worry too much about power. Just hit the bag as many times as you can in those 10 seconds. And remember to breathe. After the 10 seconds are up, go back to the 30 seconds of power shots. Complete the cycle 3 times for a 3 minute round.
You can also vary the times to make them 1 or 2 laps of the cycle. For example, a 1 cycle round would involve hitting for 1 minute 30 seconds, then 1 minute, then finishing with 30 seconds. Also, as your skill increases, you can increase the duration of the 5 minute rounds or increase the number of rounds.
Exercise #2: The finisher.
This exercise is best done with a partner holding the focus mitts or Thai pads, but it can also be performed on the heavy bag. Although you can substitute any punch, the combination I use is Straight, Cross, Lead Hook, Rear Hook, Lead Uppercut, Rear Uppercut. This drill is called The Finisher because your mindset in all of this should be that you are going to knock out with each and every punch. Maximum power, maximum speed. Start by rolling the combination once. Take a short break, just long enough to catch your breath. He then rolls the combination twice without any rest in between. It should look like a perfect 12 hit combination. Again, just a few seconds rest. Then cast the combo 3 times, again as a long combo. Do this through 5. Then pyramid down from 5 to 1.
The key is to really put everything you have into every shot. To do this, you could imagine that it’s the last 10 seconds of the final round and you’ve just stunned your opponent, with this last chance to take them out. Or he could imagine coming home to find an attacker attacking his family. Whatever gets your blood pumping. He should be hitting so violently that his partner is forced back by his combinations.
You can change the combination, go from 1 to a high number or from a high number to 1 instead of pyramid, or add a kick at the end of each set to change up the exercise.
Exercise #3: Chain kicks.
This is a great exercise if there are at least 4 of you and you are feeling a bit competitive. You and your partner put on Thai pads or focus gloves and stand facing each other. Start off by launching a combination of kicks to the pads (we vary the kicks a lot, but a basic series could be front kick, front round kick, back round kick, side kick, spinning back kick). As soon as you’re done, immediately place the pads for your partner, stepping back to open up the distance after each kick so he has to constantly move forward and you keep moving between your sets of kicks. The first training pair to complete the chain of kicks 5 times each wins. Take a short break and then repeat. Best 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 5 wins everything.
You can increase the challenge of this drill by not only changing the type of kicks, the number of kicks, or the number of sets, but also by doing some or all of the body kicks or head kicks.
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