So you’re looking to up your game a bit, and add a few more cards up that muscled sleeve of yours? Well here’s a few ideas, to help take you above some of the common sticky plateaus that combat athletes can run into from time to time. We added some explosive total body movements, resistance bands, partner moves, some burpee conditioning, and a bit of forearm and grip training.
Lateral Lunge Press– Load your back leg with as much weight as you can, and spring off that leg as you press the weights forwards, upwards, or overhead.
Lateral Lunge Press Step-up– Same as the above mentioned exercise but adding a step-up to the mix.
Band Sprints– Choke a couple of heavy duty resistance bands (Jump Stretch Bands used here) around a fixed object while wrapping the opposite end around your waist. After that it’s as creative as you want to be, run as fast as you can and drop into a grasso lunge. Some ideas to make things more combat related are to have a partner at one end, sprint over, shoot in, and practice take-downs with resistance, or you can always set an object far away and run over to pick it up.
Band Punches– Choke a band around an object and attach the opposite end in either the nook of your elbow, or right along you palm, whichever you prefer. When it’s around the elbow it makes hooks a bit more difficult to do.
Double Band Press– Essentially just choke a couple of bands around a fixed object (half rack shown here) and press away. The bands will really activate your abdominals because as you press forward the elastic resistance will pull you back. Also great for rapid punching with lighter bands.
Band Straddled Box Squat Jump– Could I have said that any easier??? Wrap a couple of bands bandolier style so that they form an X over your body. This makes things like walking, running, jumping, and squatting a bit awkward. Slowly lower yourself down onto a bench or box that you’re straddling and explode up in the air, landing back on the outside of the bench. This one gets the heart pumping and is awesome for conditioning.
Lateral Swing Reverse Hyper– Using a bench or a ball do a reverse hyper, but instead of moving up and down, maintain a tight posture so that you’re entire body is parallel to the floor. While keeping everything tight, swing your legs and hips laterally in a slow and controlled manner as far to each side as you can. To add a combat oriented version slide yourself more up onto a bench and keeping your hips on the bench swing as fast as you can side to side. Straddling makes things a bit easier, but is also a bit more realistic when gaining side control or passing the guard.
Partner Squats– No weights, no problem! Just grab a partner and heave them over your shoulder. Squat away, make sure to go even on each side. For some combat emphasis, fireman them, and squat. This one really can be a doozy on the core because of the odd object nature of a person.
Burpees– Just the standard type of burpee, start standing up, squat down and place your hands out in front of you as in a push up, followed by a push up, and a stand to jump.
Forward and Backwards Burpees– A regular burpee but instead of jumping up at the end of the movement, trying leaping forwards or backwards.
Lateral Burpees– A regular burpee with a lateral hop at the end instead of a vertical one.
Twisting Burpees– A regular burpee with a twisting jump at the end instead of going straight up.
Up-Down with Forward Leap and Front Tuck– A watered down burpee without the push up is an up down, and instead of going straight up leap forward, land and do a front tuck roll to a stand. You may want to have a lot of room for this one.
Lateral Up-Down– Basically an up-down but instead of going up, you jump sideways.
Jumping Lunge Up-Down– This one is a bit more complicated but you drop down onto one leg as if preparing for a sprint, jump straight up in the air as you would for a jumping lunge, and land on the opposite leg repeating the previous step.
Up-Down with Knee Tucks– Drop into an up-down and jump up tucking your knees as close to your body as you can.
Wrist Roller– Not really directly relating to combat but the forearm strength derived can be an added bonus. Josh has come up with yet another way to make a seemingly easy exercise into a difficult and yet effective exercise. Instead of rolling your wrists upwards or downwards you use your fingers to gently roll the weight up. This takes much more time, but yields fantastic results as you can see. Watch closely since this one is learned easier by visual, than by explanation.



Hope you enjoyed this article as there are many more compilations on the way.