Combat Sports Strength & Conditioning Guide
For anyone who trains martial arts, from twice a week for the love of it to your next fight camp.
A complete strength and conditioning system built around your martial arts training. Get stronger, more explosive and better conditioned, without the gym wrecking your classes. However often you train, there's a template built for your week.
- Templates for 1 to 4 classes a week, so your lifting supports your training instead of competing with it
- 50+ ready-to-use templates, from year-round training to a full 6-week fight camp
- Conditioning matched to the real demands of sparring, rolling and fighting
- 200+ exercise library with full explanations and technique cues
- Works for boxing, MMA, BJJ, Muay Thai, wrestling, judo, karate, and more
Whether you're on the mats just twice a week or building towards a fight, the pattern is usually the same. You show up, you spar, you grind through HIIT circuits until you can barely stand. And then you go to the gym and do whatever feels right that day. Maybe some bench press, some lateral raises, a bit of running to build your gas tank. But there's no structured system behind it. And deep down you know that the effort you're putting in deserves better results than you're getting. And you're right.
Your S&C doesn't have much structure. No periodisation, no progression model, no plan for how strength, power, and conditioning fit together across the span of months. You mostly just show up and wing it.
Your lifting and your classes keep getting in each other's way. You're too sore from yesterday's lifting to train properly today, or too tired from class to lift well. And you've never been sure how many sessions of each your week can actually take.
You gas out when it counts. Several rounds into sparring, deep into a hard roll, or the final moments of a fight. Your conditioning crumbles because it hasn't been built for the specific metabolic demands of combat sports.
Your strength has stalled. Because you've never followed a structured strength program with autoregulation and percentage- or RPE-based loading and progression designed for martial artists.
You're training like a bodybuilder, a powerlifter, or a CrossFitter. None of those systems were designed for martial arts. They're effective at driving the adaptations needed for those specific sports, but alone they won't make you any better on the mats or in the ring.
If you compete, you have no idea how to peak for a fight. No taper, no shift in emphasis. You just train hard until a week before and maybe try to relax a bit so that you're not coming into the fight exhausted. That strategy could use some improvement.
Most people who train martial arts train hard but without real direction. My system takes you from random gym workouts to a structured program built around your class schedule, whether that's two sessions a week or a full fight camp.
Assess & Build Your Base
Identify any movement restrictions you're dealing with, establish some strength baselines, and build the general physical foundation that every martial artist needs before specialising. This is where you fix the cracks in your armour.
Develop Strength & Power
Now that you have a foundation of movement capacity, build strength and explosive power on top of this with strength exercises that transfer to the mats and the ring, intelligent progression, and explosive movements that will make you hit harder and move faster. All programmed to fit around your training schedule.
Peak, or Keep Building
Taper down and sharpen yourself to maximum lethality. Shift your training emphasis, shed fatigue, and arrive on fight night feeling the fastest, most powerful, and best-conditioned you've ever been.
Use the long-term planning framework to cycle back through the phases with new targets, so you keep getting stronger and fitter year after year.
Build strength that shows up on the mats and in the ring.
Not pumping up the muscle like a bodybuilder or doing 1-rep maxes like a powerlifter. This guide covers strength standards specific to martial artists, the compound movements that deliver the best adaptations for combat, and how to program them using wave loading and block periodisation without destroying your recovery for skills sessions.
You get percentage- or RPE-based programs for every training frequency, from 1 class a week to 4 or more, so your strength work fits around your schedule however often you train.
Chapter 3 · Strength programs for 1–4+ classes a week
Conditioning that matches how sparring, rolling and fighting actually work.
Combat is nothing like jogging on a treadmill or doing burpees. Whether it's a hard round of sparring, a long roll or a fight, you're probing your opponent's defences until you see an opportunity, then exploding in short bursts of violent action followed by incomplete recovery. This guide breaks down all three of the body's energy systems and gives you conditioning methods that actually prepare you for what happens on the mats and in the ring.
No more pointless 5K runs, no more random HIIT circuits that exhaust you with no real purpose. Every session is matched to the metabolic demands of your sport.
Chapter 5 · Conditioning templates for every system
Make your strikes faster and your takedowns sharper.
Strength counts for very little in sparring or a fight if you can't express it quickly. The power chapter covers plyometrics, medicine ball training, and contrast training designed to convert raw strength into the speed and power you need for snappy strikes, explosive takedowns, agility, and fast transitions.
Includes power testing protocols so you can track whether your explosiveness is actually improving over time.
Chapter 4 · Power phase templates included
Stop guessing and follow a system.
The programming chapter is the real backbone of this guide. It covers block periodisation for martial artists, managing the interference effect between S&C and skills training, and seasonal planning. If you compete, it also covers fight camp structure and the final taper before fight night.
You'll understand how to plan your training within individual sessions, of course, but also across weeks, months and years. That's what turns hard training into progress you can actually see, year after year.
Chapter 6 · Full long-term planning framework
Movement & Injury Prevention
Self-assessments, corrective exercises, and warm-up protocols. Make yourself bulletproof, so you can keep turning up to class week after week.
Recovery, Nutrition & Weight Cutting
The most important things to get right in your recovery, how to autoregulate, fundamentals of sports nutrition, hydration and electrolytes. And if you compete, a thorough approach to weight cutting that minimises performance loss.
200+ Exercise Library
Full tutorials and explanations, coaching cues, and rationale for every single exercise used in the guide. Compound lifts, plyometrics, med ball throws, carries, mobility drills, cardio exercises, and more.
Ready-to-Use Program Templates
GPP, strength, power, and fight camp phases, each with variants for 1 to 4+ classes per week. Find the program that fits your week, follow the guidance, and start training.
Free coaching call if your numbers don't improve in 12 weeks
Every part of the guide exists to fix a specific problem. Whichever of these sounds most like you, there's a template for it, built around however many classes you train each week.
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"My lifting and my martial arts keep getting in each other's way."
Complete Written Guide (193 pages)
10 chapters covering strength, power, conditioning, programming, periodisation, balancing your lifting with your skill training, recovery, nutrition, weight cutting, and more.
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"I don't know how much lifting to do around my classes."
Strength Phase Templates (1–4 classes/week)
Percentage-based strength programs with wave loading progressions across 4-week blocks. Being stronger than your opponent gives you a big advantage.
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"I gas out halfway through hard sparring or a long roll."
Conditioning Workouts Library
Simple and effective conditioning workouts across all energy system categories. Check what type of conditioning you have scheduled for that day, choose one of the workouts in that category and drop it into that workout slot. Easy.
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"I'm getting stronger, but no more explosive."
Power Phase Templates (1–4 classes/week)
Training templates to build explosive power using plyometrics, jumps, medicine balls, and contrast training. Low-moderate volume and long rest between sets maximises power adaptations.
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"I want to get fitter all round, but I don't know where to start."
GPP Phase Templates (1–4 classes/week)
General physical preparedness (GPP) programs for building a broad fitness base, whether you're starting out, coming back from a break, or have a good couple of months before your next fight.
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"I've got a fight coming up and no plan for the final six weeks."
Fight Camp Templates (3–5 classes/week)
6-week fight camp programs that taper your training load as you approach fight night so that you show up sharp and fresh.
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"I don't know how to do half of these exercises."
200+ Exercise Library
Full descriptions, coaching cues, biomechanics, and rationale for every single exercise I mention in the guide.
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"I never know how heavy to go, or whether I'm doing enough of each thing."
Quick Reference Tools
RPE chart for calculating training loads, weekly dose framework to make sure you're hitting the right frequency of each training mode per week, and a conditioning cheat sheet covering all 8 formats at a glance.
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Free Lifetime Updates
Every future version of this guide is included with your purchase at no extra cost.
For comparison, a custom training program from me costs £130.00, and that's one program built around one schedule. This guide gives you multiple program templates for every phase of the year, at every training frequency from one class a week to four.
£39.99Test yourself with the strength standards and power tests in the guide, then run the templates for 12 weeks and test again. If your numbers haven't improved, send me your before and after results and I'll give you a free one-to-one coaching call to work out exactly what's holding you back.
| This Guide | Typical Approach | |
|---|---|---|
| Programming | Periodised by training phase and your class schedule | Random exercises, no clear progression |
| Template flexibility | Variants for 1-4+ classes per week | One-size-fits-all. Or just no plan at all. |
| S&C vs. skills balance | Structured so that the interference effect isn't an issue | Gym soreness ruins your technique sessions |
| Conditioning | Matched to combat sport-specific conditioning demands | 5K runs and random HIIT circuits |
| Power development | Plyos, medicine ball, contrast training | Turned into sloppy conditioning instead of pure power development |
| Recovery & weight management | Structured protocols with autoregulation | Wing it, and crash-cut weight at the last minute |
| Fight preparationIf you compete | 6-week camp with structured taper | Just train harder and hope for the best |
193 pages, plus 50+ program templates and 200+ exercises, with a version for every schedule from 1 class a week to 4. A complete physical preparation system for anyone who trains martial arts, from twice a week for the love of it, to a full fight camp.
Get Instant Access: £39.99Instant PDF download · Free lifetime updates
Free coaching call if your numbers don't improve in 12 weeks
Consider the alternative. Another 6 months of training without structure. Another few months of lifting that leaves you too sore to train properly, or another fight camp where you just go hard and hope you don't break down. Another season of strength work that goes nowhere because it was designed for a powerlifter or a bodybuilder rather than for a martial artist. The effort you're already putting in deserves a proper system behind it. This is that system.