Avoid Potential Injuries While Improving Flexibility and Strength
Flexibility and strength are the key components for your overall physical fitness that have a vast range of positive effects on your body. They allow you in improving mobility, posture as well as muscle coordination.
The more flexible your body is, the lesser will be your chances of getting injuries and muscle soreness.
It allows you to maintain the appropriate muscle length and improve muscular weakness. The best way for improving flexibility is by stretching your body through easy movements.
Muscular strength is needed for many important reasons. It’s needed for performing everyday activities such as opening doors, lifting boxes, climbing stairs with much more ease.
Increased strength offers many benefits such as gain in muscle mass, developing stronger bones, improving the flexibility of your joints, and decreasing the risk of injuries.
Martial arts is a sport that demands some great levels of flexibility and strength. The first goal for anyone who practices martial arts is to improve their strength and flexibility to optimize their performance.
Here we will be discussing the role of martial arts in improving your strength. And, have a look at some of the exercises recommended by professional martial artists for improving both; flexibility and strength.
What Is The Best Martial Art For Improving Your Flexibility and Strength?
BJJ is the most effective martial art that works to develop your flexibility and strength at the same time.
The basic jiu-jitsu techniques you perform on the mat while rolling with your partner work for stretching your muscles and tendons that increase your flexibility in the long run.
While rolling, your muscles experience microscopic tears and achieve hypertrophy. When you recover these muscles through diet and rest, they grow with increased muscle mass and strength.
Seeing the immense physical and psychological benefits of jiu-Jitsu you will be compelled to get yourself a performing BJJ Gi and get ready to roll.
Why Should You Join an MMA Training Session Instead of a Gym?
If you want to improve your overall physical fitness or to be specific your strength and flexibility then you should give martial arts class a try.
The martial arts classes offer much more benefits than those long hours at the gym.
In addition to improving your strength, martial arts classes offer effective cardio sessions to improve your aerobic endurance.
Here are some reasons to motivate you for joining martial arts classes instead of going to a gym for regular strength training or cardio.
Intensifies Your Workouts
Lifting weights at the gym and running on the treadmill seems just like a child’s play when compared to martial arts training.
MMA training regimens give you an intense mix of aerobic and anaerobic exercises. The practitioners can burn somewhere up to 800-1000 calories every hour.
Burning calories in such a high amount make it a lot easier for you to achieve your fitness goal in less time.
If you want to end each day with a calorie deficit then training martial arts and sticking to a healthy diet makes it significantly easier for you.
Offers a Full-Body Workout
If you want to start training for MMA then you must know that it’s an incredible way to give you a full-body workout.
The training incorporates different styles from famous martial arts disciplines like wrestling, BJJ, boxing, etc. You practice different movements from these disciplines which help your body to perform at optimal levels.
The different training patterns target your core as a result you get a flat stomach and those coveted abs.
We often talk about full-body workouts as those exercises which work for the full physical strengthening of your body and engage the majority of muscle groups.
But, we don’t realize other necessary elements in a full-body workout that include flexibility, coordination, reflexes as well as cardiovascular health.
Martial arts training doesn’t only build physical fitness but also helps in improving the other aspects that play an important role in maintaining your overall health.
Boosts Your Confidence
We know that martial art training is closely related to real street fights. It teaches effective methods for defending yourself if you ever land in a fight with someone.
Knowing that you can stand up and defend yourself boosts your confidence. You feel more comfortable while walking down the street alone at night or even traveling to other places.
It’s a sport that focuses on individual improvement, it motivates you to do better and also gives you a sense of responsibility that boosts your self-esteem.
Martial Art Training Techniques For Improving Your Flexibility and Strength
As we discussed, MMA training comprises different combat disciplines. So, let’s have a look at some of the best techniques they offer for boosting your strength and flexibility.
Yoga Poses Practiced By BJJ Professionals
The majority of martial art professionals practice yoga as a warmup before they start to train. Here are some yoga poses that you can practice as a beginner for increasing your strength and flexibility.
Downward Dog Pose:
Cobra Pose:
Cat-Cow Pose:
Stretching Techniques
These are the techniques by MMA practitioners for improving their flexibility. Most of the dynamic stretches mimic the actual sport an athlete is about to perform.
Some of the dynamic stretching techniques used by MMA athletes are as follow:
Strength Exercises For Martial Arts
You can’t undermine the importance of strength in MMA. You have to have high levels of strength to survive inside the cage.
Here are some of the best strengthening exercises used by the majority of martial art athletes:
Practicing BJJ Techniques
Practicing jiu-jitsu in routine helps your body to become more flexible and develop strength.
It’s because of the different techniques you practice while rolling on the mat that forces your body to adopt difficult positions which improve your flexibility and strength.
Heavy Bag Drills To Improve Strength:
Punching the heavy bag is not only for improving your boxing accuracy or for the sake of fun.
While practicing punches and kicks you engage muscles in your upper and lower body at the same time, wearing the appropriate workout gear while practicing on your form and technique will serve you well while performing BJJ.
Heavy bag workouts not only build as many muscles as possible but are also a great exercise for muscular and aerobic strength.
The Wrap Up
Improvements in both strength and flexibility are unmatched in comparison to martial arts, specifically Brazilian Ju-Jitsu. Rather than exercising separately for cardio and strength at the gym, you can get the benefits of both from just one training session that will burn tons of calories in a full body style workout. It’s very important to perform dynamic stretches to properly warm the muscles up for your session. In combination with compound weight training you should see dramatic increases in strength over time.
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