High-intensity training is one of the best and most effective ways to reach your fitness goals, whether for general health or conditioning as a martial artist. It helps push your mind and body to the limit while providing desirable results. No matter your fitness level, you can tailor a high-intensity workout to your needs. If you are a beginner, this article will serve as your guide to high-intensity training.
What Is High-Intensity Training?
High-intensity training is a type of training that utilizes exercises with bursts of energy in short intervals. These explosive movements, also known as aerobic exercises, break down the glucose in the bloodstream for energy without using oxygen. Within a brief period, a lot of energy is released, making your body’s demand for oxygen exceed the supply.
To many enthusiasts, the deal-breaker for high-intensity workouts is that it’s time-saving, which is critical for busy people to get into a quick workout before their day starts. Additionally, if you are into martial arts, you can do these exercises after every training session to make up for the extra work you need to improve your performance. High-intensity interval exercises can be done in half an hour, while a normal exercise takes an hour to finish.
Each exercise is done one after another with little rest in between to help push your body to its limit. Depending on the program you follow, some high-intensity routines give more time to the engagement of the exercises, while others give more time to rest. This also helps build mental toughness and resilience as you go through your exercises and sets.
The goal is to complete as many reps as possible within a set time frame during the workout. Some may follow 20-40 seconds of all-out activity, performing as many reps as they can with the given exercise, followed by 10-40 seconds of rest, depending on the intensity of the exercise. The rest period depends on the intensity of the exercise. Some advanced athletes may opt for low-intensity movements instead of complete rest during the interval breaks.
High-Intensity Training For Martial Arts
Martial artists generally perform variations of high-intensity workouts. Going all-out in all training sessions is not advisable, as it may be counterproductive and risk setbacks. To avoid burnout, which affects their performance during sparring, martial artists play with high and low-intensity training. For example, suppose a martial artist trains twice daily. In that case, they may perform a high-intensity workout after their first session and focus on techniques and movement drilling in their second training session.
Other martial artists, like the famous Jocko Willink, perform their workouts early in the morning and train in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the evening. High-intensity workouts can be done in half an hour, which is why martial artists can benefit most from this workout routine, allowing them more time to recover within the day. HIIT workouts are an excellent way to enhance athletic performance and build mental fortitude, which is crucial when facing a tightly contested match, especially in the later minutes or rounds of competition.
High-intensity training is not a new concept; it was incorporated decades ago by combining it with low-intensity workouts during intervals. It helps improve an athlete’s anaerobic and aerobic capacity, which in turn helps improve cardiovascular performance and muscular health. Some of the most known benefits of doing high-intensity workouts are:
- Helps Burn Calories Fast: This is essential for fighters trying to lose fat or cut weight for an upcoming competition. Relatively, high-intensity workouts result in a higher metabolic rate hours after exercise, which means you burn calories faster, which is beneficial if you are trying to lose weight.
- Maintaining Muscle Mass: A common mistake that beginners make when cutting weight is that they lose muscles in the process. High-intensity workouts help you lose weight and fat without sacrificing muscle mass and strength, which helps maintain your performance.
- Simple To Perform: Whether you’re a beginner or a professional fighter, high-intensity interval workouts are simple and can be completed in a short amount of time. They can incorporate both high- and low-intensity exercises into the routine and can be adjusted depending on your goals and fitness level.
- Improves Cardiovascular Health: By working hard in a short period of time and not longer, high-intensity workouts help improve cardiovascular and overall heart health. They also help maintain blood sugar levels within the body.
High-Intensity Workout For Grapplers
High-intensity training provides excellent benefits for grapplers. It helps build explosiveness, endurance, and muscle tissues, regulate blood pressure, and improve blood sugar. Most of all, it can provide maximum results in little time without sacrificing mat time. Below are some high-intensity workouts you can perform to help improve your grappling game.
1) Randy Couture Barbell Circuit Exercises
This grappling circuit exercise is one of the best ways to build endurance and strength and is highly used by the MMA legend Randy Couture. Randy performs this circuit workout for six sets, taking only a 60-second break between each set. The grappling barbell circuit workout consists of exercises such as the bent-over row, upright row, military press, good morning (for the lower back), split squat, squat with behind-the-head push press, and straight-legged deadlift, all done consecutively in one set.
2) Full Body Wrestling Stations
Wrestling station exercises are a common way wrestlers perform their strength and conditioning. In this example, there are six stations (exercises), with 45 seconds of activity time at each station and 15-second breaks between exercises. The first station consist of just burpees, which you can do with a free weight or just your body weight. The second is plate holds to work on the grips. The third exercise is a medicine ball slam followed by a sprawl and a circle to the opposite side while maintaining your stance.
The fourth station involves jumping rope for 45 seconds. It is then followed by rope slams, which work on improving the snap downs. For the sixth station, perform the Russian twists, which can be done with or without a medicine ball.
3) Wrestling Kettlebell Circuit
The kettlebell is one of the most common free weights a grappler uses. In this circuit, you will work on five kettlebell exercises: snatch, jumping lunges, alternating press, bent-over rows, and Russian twists. Each exercise is done for 30 seconds, with 10 seconds of rest in between before going to the next exercise.
4) Resistance Band Exercises
Resistance band exercises are simple yet highly effective for improving endurance and grappling techniques. They’re a staple tool used by Olympic wrestlers to enhance their skills and movements after each training session.
Conclusion
High-intensity workouts are one of the best way to improve your overall health and performance. They are simple but challenging and can be done in a short amount of time. Before going over the different exercises, make sure you have mastered how to perform each one properly. Try to incorporate high-intensity workouts into your routine and see how it goes!
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