Medicine Ball Training for Combat Sports Conditioning

Medicine ball training has always been a staple in the combat sports conditioning toolbox. Medicine ball training can be traced back as far as early Greece where Hippocrates, the father of medicine used weighted balls to enhance the health and vitality of his patients.

There is no doubt that ancient gladiators and warriors included medicine ball training within their regimens as well.

Medicine ball training is ideal for combat sports conditioning for several reasons:

1.Most medicine ball drills are basic, easy to learn movements that offer incredible benefits for combat sports preparation. There is very little learning curve associated with medicine ball training. Just take a brief look at all the sport skills a modern mixed martial artist must learn. They must learn and practice elements of boxing, kick boxing, wrestling, Brasilian Jiu-jitsu and Judo.

Now imagine piling on even more complicated skill work within his conditioning program. Not only is this a waste of time, it’s also irresponsible on the part of the conditioning coach. Medicine ball training delivers incredible benefits without additional skill work.

2.Medicine ball training matches the velocity of combat sport skills. As your combat sports conditioning program shifts from a general conditioning phase into a specific phase you need to match your conditioning drills with your combat sport demands. This includes drills that share the same velocity and speed as your strikes, kicks and take-downs.

Medicine balls can be thrown, slammed and kicked in sport specific movement patterns making them an excellent option for combat sports conditioning.

3.Medicine ball training is an excellent introduction into high intensity exercise. Medicine ball training can be instantly scaled down meet the needs of any combat athlete. Several exercise variables can be manipulated such as weight, speed, movement depth and range of motion. Medicine balls are the ideal tool for the scaling of exercise variables.

Once you understand the benefits of medicine ball training it’s very important to select exercises that will have the most carry-over and directly impact your combat sports conditioning.

In this article we’ll specifically how to use medicine ball training to enhance the Ground & Pound game frequently seen in modern mixed martial arts.

Finally, if you’re not medicine ball training chances are your competition likely is.

Medicine Ball Training for Combat Sports Conditioning.

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Respect,

Jason C. Brown