First off, what is combat fitness? How would you define this. Then once we get a definition for what we mean by combat fitness, how would you achieve this level of physical toughness? Let’s look at what we mean by combat fitness first, then we’ll talk about what you need to do to get there, next.
Combat Fitness Definition
To my mind, combat fitness means you body is ready for anything-long marches, running, sprints, heavy lifting of equipment, ability to stand up to stress for long periods of time. That’s combat style fitness. In other words, this is fitness in the most general, inclusive of ways.
The difference between combat fitness and sport specific fitness is you’re not training for a specific sport. If you train for tennis, you don’t need to be able to lift heavy weights. If you train for powerlifting, your hand eye coordination is not really a factor.
Everything is a factor in combat fitness!
So, we’re going to need to address all the types of fitness there are. You can think of it loosely like this, aerobic conditioning, anaerobic conditioning, strength, and especially muscular endurance. These are the building blocks of combat style fitness.
How to Achieve Combat Level Fitness
So, how do you achieve this elite level of fitness? Well, for one thing, we’re going to have to throw away some commonly held misconceptions. For instance, steady state aerobics will not have a very big place in our fitness routines.
It’s been shown that anaerobic exercise increases aerobic capacity even more than aerobic exercise does. So, why do much aerobic exercise? Unless it’s to specifically train your muscles and mind to accomplish a certain type of task, like hike for 20 plus miles a day, then there’s no real reason.
Do you need big muscles for combat type fitness. No! What you need is strong muscles. Big and strong, oddly enough, don’t necessarily go together. As a matter of fact, they often do not go together at all! We’ll use bodyweight exercises for combat style fitness. For one thing, this type of fitness needs to be portable. You need to be able to workout anywhere, anytime to keep in your peek level of conditioning.
There’s certainly more to know about combat fitness, but this is enough to get you going in the right direction.