Fighter's Body, Fighter's Mind: A Comprehensive Guide to Muscular Strength and Endurance Training for Martial Arts

Strength and endurance are essential attributes for any martial artist, affecting everything from how hard you punch to how high you jump. Whether your goal is to defeat an opponent in the ring or on the street, the stronger you are, the better the odds of walking away as the victor.

Fighter's Body, Fighter's Mind: A Comprehensive Guide to Muscular Strength and Endurance Training for Martial Arts is a total approach to building your strength base. Learn how to use machines, free weights, bodyweight exercises, and plyometrics to build your muscles while increasing speed and flexibility. Each muscle group is discussed in detail; how it is used in martial arts and how to develop it; which exercises are most effective; and how to take advantage of anatomical strengths when striking, kicking, blocking, and grappling.

Beyond muscular strength, this book looks at the concepts of cardiovascular strength endurance; the impact of flexibility on strength; how to gain a psychological edge on your opponent; and the anatomy, physics and biomechanics of power. The book also covers discussions on whether winners are born or made; what it means to be fit, and fit for what; principles of overload, progression, and specificity; cross training to prepare your body for combat; comparisons between male and female physiology; risk factors and practicing while hurt; and fluid intake and regulating the body’s temperature for maximum performance.

Fighter's Body, Fighter's Mind: A Comprehensive Guide to Muscular Strength and Endurance Training for Martial Arts wraps up with training plans for karate, tae-kwon-do, hapkido, judo, jiu-jitsu, aikido, muay Thai/kickboxing and mixed martial arts as well as advice on designing your own personalized strength training plan. An earlier version of this book (now out of print) was previously published under the title Strength and Power Training for Martial Arts.