The Best Calisthenics Exercises For Martial Arts

Strength and conditioning for martial arts is all too often overlooked. By making your body stronger and more athletic, not only are you able to train for longer periods of time. You also allow yourself to perform athletic moves and forms that you could no longer doing before. In addition to this, you also limit your risk of injury and become an all round fitter human. To summarise, there is really no downside to using calisthenic exercises for martial arts, whereas the positives are huge.

Whilst not all martial arts are the same. All martial arts are performed with the best form and technique when the practitioner has a better body. Imagine if you were in shape or 20kg overweight. It is quite obvious which version of yourself would be able to kick further, punch faster or jump higher.

In general most calisthenic exercises can be transferred from one martial art to another. For example, scissor kicks may be one of the most optimal workout for leg strength, therefore feature heavily in Taekwondo. With that being said, they are also very useful in a martial art such as Judo or Wing Chun. There is no real downside to having strong and conditioned legs in any form of martial art.

What Is Calisthenics?

Calisthenics is a fancy 4 syllable word for bodyweight exercises. That’s pretty much all there is to it. You don’t need any weights, bars or a treadmill. Calisthenics can be used in more or less any location provided you have enough room to jump, lie down and generally spread your limbs away from your body.

You are able to use equipment during calisthenics such as a stationary pull-up bar. This is because you are not lifting the bar, you are simply using it as a tool to move your own bodyweight up and down through your arms. You could also argue that using a jump rope is a calisthenic exercise since you are mostly just jumping up and down, whilst giving your upper body a bodyweight workout at the same time.

When training calisthenics, you may find that there is a specific set of exercises that work for you. For example, if you want explosive power rather than functional strength, it may be best to choose burpees over Turkish get ups. Over time you will most likely find which areas you would like to improve and find specific exercises that you need.

Do Calisthenic Exercises Really Work?

Yes. Whilst you may find a faster way to strengthen your body through lifting weights or taking supplements. Calisthenics clearly do work. There is an absolute boatload of evidence to be found all over the internet showing body transformations. This may not be your goal when training martial arts, however there is nothing wrong with getting in shape and a lot of benefits from doing these exercises.

The Best Calisthenic Exercises For Martial Arts

Burpees

Bureeps are one of the best calisthenic exercises for martial arts. This is because they offer so much in terms of both strength and conditioning. They are very cardio intense, as well as hard on your shoulders and core muscles. In addition to this, they offer a lot of development in terms of explosive strength and are very simple to do. Lastly, they only require a small amount of space and no equipment at all.

To perform a burpee you simply sprawl your legs backward into a push-up position. You then jump your legs forwards and try and land them underneath your shoulders. From here you jump straight up into the air and then repeat the process.

Helpful Hints

• Burpees are generally not for out of shape beginners. You need a lot of core strength to perform burpees well. So make sure you’re fit and conditioned before attempting them.

• Try not to bend your back too much as you sprawl your legs back (this can cause lower back injuries).

• Always warm up before doing burpees, they are a bit too intense for a warmup exercise.

Sit Up Crunches

Possibly the simplest calisthenic exercise on the list. Sit ups are not easy by any means, and really burn out your abs after you have done them for long enough. However, almost anyone can do sit ups and they are a great warm up exercise.

Sit ups are a simple exercise and require no explanation. However, you may want to incorporate twists or slow lowering of your body weight if you find they are too easy. These two additions can really help the conditioning of your body, as well as mind whilst you struggle to get through the set.

Helpful Hints

• Always try and keep your head in a straight line with your back. You do not want to pull your head inwards towards your core. This can put a lot of strain on your spine if performed incorrectly.

• Keep your back straight and not arched. This will cause a strain on your spine or lower back muscles. This exercise should be an abdominal workout.

• Try to keep your head and upper shoulders off the floor when you move backwards. Not only will this make the exercise harder on your muscles. It will also stop you using momentum to boost yourself from the floor unnaturally.

Dragon Flags

Popularised by Bruce Lee, the dragon flag is one of the toughest calisthenic exercises you can possibly think of. Dragon flags, like all other calisthenic exercises, are useful for literally every martial art you can train. However, they are probably best for a striking art such as taekwondo since your legs are going to get conditioned extremely well alongside your abdominal muscles.

Dragon flags are not suitable at all for beginners. This is an extremely effective exercise but takes a very conditioned body to perform. You must already be in good physical condition to do these successfully.

Helpful Hints

• Try your best not to use momentum. This will make the exercise seem easier if you do, but your muscles will not be working as hard.

• Beginners to the exercise can use their knees tucked into their chest. The further your feet get away from your chest, the harder the exercise will become.

• Never arch your lower back. If your back is arched then you are not strong enough to do this exercise yet. You can damage the muscles in your lower back if you put too much strain on them. Your back must be straight to perform a dragon flag.

Push Ups

Perhaps this is what comes to mind the moment you think of calisthenics. Push ups are pretty much a burpee for beginners. They can be done either explosively or slowly to condition certain muscle groups, but either way are both a strength and cardio workout. Despite looking very easy to complete, there is more to push up form than you would think. If you have a weaker upper body and cannot do push ups well, a good start is to planking for a few weeks until you become stronger.

Helpful Hints

• Do not arch your lower back. This will cause your abdominal muscles to not work as hard, therefore more pressure will be put on your spine instead of muscles.

• Never set your elbows too wide and flare them outwards. This will likely cause shoulder injuries.

• If your form is not perfect, make sure you master it before going fast. Many people will claim they can do 100 pushups, but cannot perform a single one correctly.

Dips

Dips are another mostly upper body exercise, the downside being you will need some specific equipment to do this drill. That is unless you can find somewhere which has parallel bars or something similar. Dips are useful for martial arts which mostly focus on the upper body and shoulders. Grappling martial arts would be ideal for dips. Want to do dips at home? These dip bars happen to be available at a great price.

Helpful Hints

• Never dip with an upright posture, this will damage your shoulder joints. Keep your head forwards as shown in the video.

• Don’t use momentum to get yourself back up. This will not help your muscles at all, the exercise will be easier, but the results of your training will be worse.

• Pull your shoulders together when dipping. This will decrease the pressure on your shoulder joints and put more strain on the muscles.

Pull Ups

Pull ups are almost a pure upper body exercise. They are ideal for someone who is heavily into standing judo throws such as the Osoto Gari. Pull ups will also be useful for anyone who throws a lot of punches in martial arts such as karate or wing chun. With pull ups, like many other calisthenic exercises, you can focus on whether you want explosive strength training (in which case you would train explosively). Or whether you want to train for endurance and conditioning (in which case you would train slowly, especially when lowering yourself downwards).

Helpful Hints

• Ideally, a pull up should be performed only with strength (not momentum). You will be able to do more pull ups with momentum, but of course this won’t be with you in the gym and won’t help you.

• Don’t let go on the way downwards (use strength to lower yourself instead). Falling will hurt your elbow and shoulder joints.

• Do not get stuck doing an upper body pull up only, do the full range of motion shown above in the video.

For more information on calisthenics exercises – check out this book.