How Do Fighters Improve Strength? Build Fighters Strength!

We often see fighters use lots of kicks and punches, but in self-defense sports such as Brazilian jujitsu, fighters actually use joint locks and chokes to disable their opponents. Besides skill and technique, working on strength is an essential aspect of the game. Obviously, to use these chokes and locks, fighters need to take their opponents to the ground.

How can they do that if they are not strong enough? What is even more, you will need strength to resist attacks because, you know, your opponent will not just stand there waiting for you to attack. Especially when you meet with an opponent who is equally skilled as you, strength will be the element determining the winner.

Basic Strength Exercises For The Lower Body

Squats

Having strong legs will ensure you a takedown. A very effective exercise that engages not only your legs and glutes but also your back and hamstrings are definitely squats. Now, this may seem like a simple exercise, but why don’t you think twice? If you ever tried doing squats and haven’t felt all these muscles working hard, then you probably did something wrong.

As suggested in this article, there are a few key things to pay attention to when working squats if you want to avoid injury. Based on the article, squats below parallel are actually not bad for the knees, as it is mostly assumed.

First of all, the position in which you get when you do these below-parallel squats is a natural position for our bodies. Now, let’s see why squats will not hurt your knees if performed correctly. A squat is not a knee-dependent but a hip-dependent movement. Of course that your knees have to bend, but the majority of the stress goes to the hips. However, the thing with the hips is that they are surrounded by muscles. These muscles have the ability to quickly adapt to this stress as they get stronger. All this means that the hips are much better protected from the knees. To make sure that the hips get the majority of stress while doing your squats, you should pay attention that you drive your knees slightly out to the sides and push your hips back during the descent.

The next thing to pay attention to is the position of your back. When doing squats, you should assume a more horizontal back angle. This keeps the stress off the knees because it allows the hips to do their part of the work. What is even more, you will also improve the strength of your back. When squats are done correctly, they work all the muscles mentioned above, protect the knees and the spine. At the same time, this will allow you to lift heavier weights as you progress.

Here’s a video tutorial that shows the perfect form of squats.

Deadlifts

Basically, when doing deadlifts, you will feel that they work almost the same muscles as squats. Why do them then? Well, deadlifts target those muscles in a different way, and thus the exercise has a different effect on improving your strength. In other words, with weighted squats, you begin by lowering the weight whereas with deadlifts, you lift the weight from the floor.

Deadlifts are also an upper-body exercise, as they work the arms and shoulders, which squats miss to target. So, this exercise is a good choice if you want not only to have strong legs but also to improve your physical ability to work your guard.

Upper Body Exercises

Bent Rows

With bent rows, fighters don’t work only their back muscles but shoulder muscles as well. This exercise primarily focuses on the shoulder muscles around the rotator cuff making it stronger and healthier. Although this is a simple exercise to perform, you should never forget that doing it correctly will reduce your chances of injury. So, check the video below to see how to do bent rows.

Bench Press

This is maybe not that much popular exercise nowadays, but it is definitely one of the major upper-body exercises. So, how does it actually work? Bench presses will work the front of your shoulders, triceps, and back. If you want to isolate the muscle groups even further, you can change your grip on the bar. It is now obvious why fighters include these presses in their strength training — all these muscles are extremely important in grappling.

How Do Fighters Improve Their Grip Strength?

Working on improving your grip will actually challenge not only your hands but also your wrists and fingers. Thus, you will be able to hold the weight for longer time and lift more weight. The first thing that probably comes to your mind is a gripper — a simple and effective exercise for improving your grip strength. However, there is more you can do to get that crushing grip. So, how do fighters train grip?

Farmer’s Carries

For this exercise, you will need two kettlebells or dumbbells. The exercise is simple to do, and it doesn’t focus only on your grip but on your forearms, shoulders, core, and hips. To do the exercise, walk a distance of 20 feet holding two dumbbells or kettlebells, one in each hand. The exercise adds motion to your grip, so you will really feel that weight. As you progress, you can try walking for 40 or more feet.

Barbell Holds

This one is similar to deadlifts, so you won’t have any problem with them. First, grab the bar with a double overhand. Your hands should be shoulder-width apart. Stand tall as you would for deadlifts. The point of this exercise is to hold for time. If you are a beginner, you should go for about 5–10 seconds. You should try to do 3–5 sets of these.

Plate Pinches

As you can guess from the name itself, you will need plates for this exercise. Find two plates that are flat on one side so that you can pinch them together. It is recommended to begin with 5 lb plates. Pinch them and hold for about half a minute and repeat this for several sets. As you progress, you can move to two 10 lbs plates. With this exercise, you will improve your pinch grip.

Towel Pull Ups

Yet another exercise which will help you improve your grip by leaps and bounds are towel pull ups. All you need are just a couple of towels and a standard pull up bar. Drape the towels over the bar and perform regular pull ups.

Band Hand Extensions

Another exercise that will strengthen your grip and prevent injuries as well is known as band extensions. Now, there are professional bands that you can buy, but you can also use thick rubber bands or even rubber bracelets. Read on to see how to perform this exercise.

Place your band around all 5 fingers. If the band is not that thick or strong, you can even wrap it a few times around your fingers. Then, extend your hand outwards and keep repeating the movement. Another option is to extend the hand outwards and hold for some time. After a short break, extend again and hold.

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All these exercises are a very simple addition to your strength training routine, but they can yield great results. Otherwise, why would all those fighters include them in their strength workouts?