"Conditioning is your best hold." - Karl Gotch
It took me a while to fully accept the importance of physical conditioning in martial arts.
I had a difficult time accepting cardio workouts because I associated stamina with sport and not for self-defense.
I was totally wrong of course because in a real life altercation a tremendous amount of force and energy maybe exerted therefore you need as much stamina as you can have.
Having stamina alone is not enough though you need to know how to moderate it while operating under combat.
If you look at the military the Marine Corps for example they are lean and mean fighting machines.
More than muscle mass I have come to value cardio.
I don't know how accurate it is but I have heard that 5 minutes of jump rope equals running a mile in 7 min.
A Boxer may need to go 12 rounds.
So the minimum would be to do 12 rounds of jump rope with 1 minute break in between each round.
1 round of course is 3 minutes.
Now I'm not a Boxer and I have no intention of competing in a Boxing match but I would like to be fit enough to do 12 rounds of jump rope.
Since my goal is self-defense which can include grappling situations I sometimes gear my workout more towards MMA.
The goal there is 5 rounds, each round being 5 minutes long.
I mix it my routine making it more chaotic.
To add to the chaos I try to ramp up the pace towards the end of the round.
It's very difficult to do that for every round but I try to do it at least once because in real life it can be much harder to pace yourself.
Especially if the bad guy is clueless about such things and decides to go guns blazing all out.
I also do this cardio work while wearing a lung training mouthpiece device.
This is so important because ever since I used the Bas Rutten O2 Trainer my life had drastically changed and I became asthma free for the most part.
It was truly a miracle.
Another really good cardio workout is to repeatedly jump on two stacked car tires.
This wears me out incredibly fast!
Another one I like to do is to just hit the punching bag.
For this I like to go 20~30 minutes.
At first I had to go by 3 minute rounds instead of non stop 30 minutes.
First round I would focus on footwork.
Second round I would focus on speed.
Third round I would focus on power.
Fourth round I would focus on defense.
Fifth round I could focus on close range.
I take the same approach when I would go do sprints at night.
I was more of a sprints guy than a long distance runner.
To the first lamppost I would focus on my stride.
To the next lamppost I would focus on my feet kicking off the ground.
To the final lamppost I would focus on swinging my arms rapidly.
You can always add different techniques but focusing on the technique helped me focus on the task at hand and not get swallowed by the event, since the even is so dauntingly hard.
I believe that is the key, many people go into a fight thinking they are gonna be Superman but then quickly find out that they are not and that the action itself of fighting is something they are not use to and is much harder than they expected.
This realization can come crashing down on you destroying your will.
By working on cardio you get to combat the famous saying "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." - George S. Patten Jr.
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